(earlier)
The fires had still been burning throughout the city when the three Phantomhive servants felt the shockwave that sprang from the nearby Tower Bridge. The noise was incredible, and it was joined by a blinding flash of lights, and the sound of an inhuman scream, that felt, to Finny, "like when you're dreaming and it's such a good dream—there's a little bird hopping on the ledge outside your window, and he wants to be your friend… and you reach out and pick him up and let him eat out of your hand—and then you wake up and remember… that he's dead… because of you." Bard felt it as "that moment when you realize you've really messed up now… your companions are dead, and it was your fault, because you took the wrong call, and now there's only blood and bodies around you…" and Mei-Rin, that it was like the worst job she'd had to pull off... "She was such a sweet child, she had never done a thing wrong in her life… but her father'd made enemies, oh yes he had, and so he had to be taught a lesson… It was only after she was dead that I realized I'd have rather suffered the worst that could've been done to me, or even died meself, than have done what I did… but it was too late." It wasn't only they that were affected, everyone around them in the city stopped running, looting, or whatever they had been doing to curl up on the ground, and it was only minutes later that the weeping abated.
"What… what happened?" Finny asked, eyes red-rimmed from smoke and tears, the pins fallen from his hair. Mei-Rin had dirt on her face and a tear in her skirt, and she reached into her sleeve to pull out her glasses which she began polishing furiously.
"I dunno," Bard said, "but whatever it is," he paused, "...I think it's bad." A moment later, as they staggered to their feet along with whoever else had been nearby, he continued, "where'd the young master go?"
"Didn't he go to see the queen?" Mei-Rin asked.
"He was going to stop whatever was going on," Finny added.
"Did it work?" Bard said. They looked around, but no one appeared.
"Well then," Bard continued, grimly, "Whatever happened came from over there, so we better go check it out."
"Yes, sir!" Finny and Mei-Rin said, straightening to attention and saluting. They they all ran through the city toward the bridge. It was fallen, with a gaping hole in its middle, and there was the palpable smell of what seemed like…
"Burnt feathers," Mei-Rin exclaimed. They were scattered around, singed, blackened, but still, in places, an unearthly glowing white. There was nothing else on the bridge except for the body of Ash, the queen's bodyguard, dead and lying twisted on the ground with the expression of purest horror on his face. Though all three had seen their share of bodies, something about this seemed of particular import, and each one felt the same creeping, hollow feeling down their spine.
"I can't… even look at it," Finny admitted a minute later, standing at the edge of the bridge rail and leaning over, his hands in fists over his eyes.
"It's horrible," Mei-Rin said, "Horrible, like someone walked over me grave!"
Bard swallowed thickly. "Yeah," he said.
They all left after that. Whatever had happened was finished, and neither Ciel not Sebastian were there. They seemed to have vanished without a trace.
It was days later that the three made it back to the Phantomhive estate.
"I thought Pluto burnt it down!" Finny exclaimed, as they crested the hill to find the manor looking just as it always had. There was no sound as they walked up the drive, and when they peeked in the door, they found the whole place exactly as they had left it, pristine and empty.
"I was sure of it," Mei-Rin muttered, wringing her hands. "I saw the flames, yes I did."
"Whether it burnt or not," Bard said at last, "the important thing is, what happened to Sebastian and the young master? I would've thought they'd be back by now."
"Ho ho ho," a soft chuckle came from the hall beside them, and they all jumped.
"Tanaka!" Mei-Rin screeched. "Have you been here this whole time?"
But Tanaka only smiled vaguely at them and chuckled again.
"Well, he's no use right now," Bard sighed. So, without anything else to do, they drifted back to their ordinary tasks, as much as they could without the master or Sebastian. And it was almost a week after that when Sebastian came back in the door like a black shadow in the early hours of morning, and after startling them all awake, said, in a short, clipped voice, that the young master had suffered greatly during the fire and was being taken care of in the hospital, from which he was being discharged this very day.
"Is he all right, then?" Finny asked.
Sebastian paused. "That is what I came here to warn you about," he said. "As far as the doctors can tell, he seems to have lost his memory of the past year, and they warn that giving any indication of the fact might harm the young lord and hinder his recovery. So for that reason, I am charging you to keep up the pretense. Whatever it takes, you are not to let the young master know that anything is amiss. Do you understand? Are you able to carry this out?"
"Yes, sir!" they replied, saluting. Of course they would do anything to protect the young master, even if it meant striking the past year from history altogether.
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...end of part two...
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