CHAPTER 13: RECOGNITION
The look of pure gratitude and relief on Ren's face when she agreed was the first in a new collection of expressions Kyoko had yet to witness. The rare smiles and even rarer laughs were already a treat when she happened to run across them but, this? This was an expression that, for all of it's positivity and light, seemed to carry an ominous and heavy weight behind it. As much as the untold story behind it intrigued her, she could not help but feel apprehensive.
"It might be easier if I showed you instead," he suggested. "That is, if you are up to a small field trip."
"Where will we be going?"
"Physically? We'll be staying right here," he hinted cryptically. "But, I think it's time to level the playing field."
"So where—"
Ren promptly got up from his seat near the fountain and began to walk away. Stopping a few paces away, he turned back to look at her. She had not yet moved and her brows were drawn closely together in confusion.
"We've spent quite enough time in this place," he said, looking around him before his eyes rested on her again. "Would you like to see someone else's mind for a change?"
Kyoko's eyes widened in surprise and she nodded.
"Let's go then, shall we?" he smiled at her eager reply.
She all but jumped from her seat and began to follow closely behind him. He led her to a door of sturdy, polished mahogany that seemed to be arbitrarily placed in the middle of a tall hedge. Reaching down to turn the tarnished copper knob he motioned for her to enter ahead of him. Once they were both inside, they walked down a lengthy corridor with walls the color of a forest at dusk. Windows appeared at regular intervals, framed by sweeping drapes of rich, golden damask.
Through the windows, Kyoko could see a number of outdoor scenes from a variety of locations. One window showed the blustery conditions from the summit view of a mountain range, complete with grey and white peaks in the distance and snow blowing across the scene like dust clouds. Another had a white, sandy beach lined with palm trees stretching upward in lazy arcs while small birds picked at the sand for whatever treasures they could find. Her favorite was the view of a cove from a grassy cliff; tiny houses in reds, blues and greys peeked from behind the trees that surrounded the serene bay.
"Is this the hallway you use to enter your own mind?" she asked finally, realizing she probably already knew the answer, but wanted confirmation.
"It's one of them," he said nonchalantly.
"As in, you have more than one?" she asked in astonishment. "How is that even possible?"
"Remember when I explained that your personal entry should be yours alone for safety reasons?"
"Yes," she affirmed.
"This is constructed to function more like a guest entry. It allows me to control who is allowed to enter my mind and how much they can access," he elaborated. "The one we are using now is a bit more elaborate than what I typically use which is more utilitarian in function and looks."
"So, I get the VIP pass?" she asked with a lopsided smile.
"In a manner of speaking, yes," he nodded, lips curling in mild amusement.
When they reached the end of the hallway, both took a deep, anxious breath before Ren opened the door before them. Light streamed in from the other side, causing them to squint when they stepped through. While Kyoko looked around his mindscape in awe, he managed to spot his younger self lurking agitatedly off to one side, partially obscured by a tree. Raising a finger to his lips, Ren shook his head at the boy and pointed in the direction of his memory archives. The boy seemed to understand what he meant by the gesture and quickly left before their guest laid eyes on him.
"While I could probably stand here all day and gawk at this place, I believe you have something I need to see?" she prompted.
"Yes. It will be a bit of a walk but it shouldn't take too long," he said as he started walking off in one direction.
She followed him down paved city streets, surrounded by towering buildings that abruptly transitioned to a dirt road surrounded by dense forests on either side. They were silent during the walk, Kyoko content to take in the various sights in his mind as they went. The road then changed to gravel and back to paved once they approached a house she somewhat recognized. Ren's pace slowed and she nearly walked right past him when he stopped at the walkway leading to the front door.
"When I was younger, my parents had a vacation home in Keypointe and we would stay there each year, typically during the summer. Usually it was for a couple of months but, sometimes, we were only here for a few weeks, depending on my parents' schedules," Ren explained.
"This was your house? I remember it was a ways down the road from mine but I never knew anyone lived there," she recalled. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"It seemed irrelevant at the time."
"And now it's not?"
"You'll see," came his enigmatic reply.
Inside the house, they walked no further than the entryway. Kyoko reigned in her desire to poke around the rest of the place. She did, however, manage to get a glimpse of the living room and admired the well-coordinated furnishings within before her attention was redirected to the closet door before them. Ren fumbled around in his pocket before removing something and holding it up for her to see. It was the key they found in the dried pond in her mind.
"Notice anything wrong with this?" he asked innocently.
She looked at the key itself, her lips pursed tightly in thought and her brow wrinkled. Several seconds passed before she finally gave up and shook her head.
"It looks like the same key we found," she said with a shrug.
"That's because it is," he confirmed.
"Okay…" she remained puzzled, hoping this would eventually lead somewhere.
"This should not exist anywhere else but inside your mind and yet it's here. Whole and perfectly functional."
"Why?"
"Because of this door, apparently," he tilted his head, nodding it towards the door. "Watch."
To demonstrate, he first jiggled the knob to show that it was previously locked. Then, he pushed the key firmly into the lock on the doorknob and turned. The lock disengaged with a click and the knob turned, revealing the mostly empty closet. Kyoko looked curiously into the closet, careful to not to block the lighting from the hall that dimly illuminated the space. She watched Ren pull the single book from the shelf and slowly open it to show her the object contained in the compartment within.
"The key led me here and I found this," he offered the opened book to her.
She gasped and pulled the stone from its resting place. The shape looked similar to one she had recently seen. Holding it up in the light, she determined that it was, in fact, the very same stone.
"Th-this is iolite," she choked out.
"I never pegged you has someone with categorial knowledge of geology," he sounded oddly impressed.
"No," she shook her head once. "This stone is an exact replica of the one from my father's collection. I just saw it in my memories today."
"You willingly went looking for memories of your father?" he asked, astonished.
"I had an interesting conversation with my mother this morning." Interesting was an understatement, but she digressed. "She explained the true reason behind my father's exit from our lives."
"That must have been rather intense, I imagine," he said with a sympathetic grimace. "I apologize for making you go through so much in one day by bringing you here."
"It's fine," she promised flatly, one corner of her mouth pressed inward, dimpling her cheek. "Besides, this will probably be the last thing I get to do with you before they kick me out of here for not having an ability."
"What makes you say that?" his eyebrow arched high over one eye.
"Part of the story my mother shared with me included the results of my pre-ability assessment as a child. I was given a less than one percent chance of developing an ability," she recounted.
"That does not necessarily preclude you from having no ability at all," he frowned. "Just because the percentage is low, doesn't mean it's impossible. Just highly improbable."
"Be that as it may, it still means I have an overwhelmingly larger chance of not having an ability. Since I have come this far without having an Awakening, I'm fairly certain that I'm not in the minority," Kyoko lamented.
"Fortunately—or not, depending on how you look at it—that's not true at all," he countered. "You, Kyoko Mogami, definitely have an ability. I've seen it with my own eyes."
"Is this where you give me some horribly cliched compliment like 'your determination is what makes you special' or something along those lines?" she asked him, folding her arms with a cynical eye-roll.
"No, I'm completely serious," he deadpanned. "You have a legitimate ability."
"What is it then?" she waved an impatient hand for him to continue.
"Well, the difficult part is that I'm not entirely sure—" he trailed off.
She rolled her eyes again and gave him an irritated sigh.
"But, I believe it to be some sort of temporal manipulation," Ren finished.
"Temporal—," she repeated slowly, letting it mull around her brain until it clicked into place. "You mean I can alter time?!"
"I wouldn't be surprised if you could," he agreed. "The only thing I saw was you stopping time on the day we had our last appointment. It happened right before you fainted."
Kyoko stared at him, her jaw slack and eyes widening beyond the irises, "You actually saw me freeze time? How?"
"I don't know myself," he admitted. "By all reckoning, it should have affected me as well and I would have been none the wiser. But, all it did was slow me down somewhat."
She looked down at the stone she still held in her hand, then back up at Ren. A broad smile formed on her lips and her eyes crinkled happily.
"Then, we need to speed up this expedition and figure out why my things are showing up in your mind already!" she shouted ecstatically. "Let's get a move on so I can start learning how to properly use my ability."
"There is one more thing I need to show you first, but I want you to think carefully about whether or not you want to uncover your full ability at this juncture," he held up a hand, looking down at her with a slightly worried expression.
"Why wouldn't I?!" her smile disappeared.
"The ability to influence time has never been properly observed or documented before. Anyone who openly admitted being able to do so was never confirmed because Academy scientists could not reliably corroborate the existence of their ability. Similarly, those who were rumored among the public to have those abilities often went into hiding or defected to countries with less aggressive Academies, or none at all," Ren explained calmly.
"So, if the Academy finds out about me—" she trailed off.
"You'll be in a worse situation than the one in which you currently find yourself," he finished for her. "You are something they haven't seen before and they'll be extremely curious to learn more about you."
Kyoko fiddled with the stone she still held, running her fingers along the uneven edges and smoothing her thumb over the wide, flat surfaces. The seriousness in Ren's tone made it clear that this was not a decision to be made lightly or hastily. He definitely seemed to imply that she would be at the mercy of the Academy and, most likely, subjected to multiple, rigorous tests. That sounded like a situation she would rather avoid.
"That being said," he added. "I will fully support whatever you decide. My only condition was that you were first made aware of the possible repercussions."
"Thank you," she said earnestly. "Now, what else was it you wanted to show me?"
"I thought you might be wondering how I knew to come here and use the key," he suggested.
"You're right! I knew something about this didn't quite add up," she frowned. "How did you know?"
"I went about this in the reverse order of actual events, but I thought it might be easier to understand this way. We'll have to backtrack a bit to where we first entered, if you don't mind."
"Lead the way," she said, securing the stone in her pocket.
Chewing absently at her nails during the walk back, Kyoko pondered her current situation. She would be lying if she admitted to being anything other than delighted to find out she had an ability. The fact that it was almost mythical in its uniqueness made it even more difficult to ignore.
And then there was Ren. How exactly did he fit into everything? Sure, he showed that her key opened a door in his mind that held a stone from her childhood memories. But, that only served to raise more questions than it answered. Despite spending his summers in Keypointe, he made no indication that he remembered her and she definitely did not remember him. What was their connection other than being in the same place at some point in their lives? Kyoko decided to hold off on any more contemplating until she got the full story from Ren. It would be impossible to try completing the equation while variables were still missing.
When they arrived at his memory archives, she admired the tall windows on the cream-colored building and their surrounding shutters of moss green that matched the nearby foliage. Walking through the entrance just below the wrought iron balcony of the second floor, they entered the spacious library of his memories. The neatly catalogued books sitting primly on their shelves was an impressive sight and she found it fitting, based on what she had learned about him thus far.
"I can see why my archives were so much more interesting to you. This is almost boring by comparison," she teased good-naturedly.
"Telepaths are, typically, much more organized people, mentally," he offered in agreement. "Most of us tend to have very structured memory archives."
She hummed and continued to look around, following him as he made his way over to an older set of shelves. The majority of the books there appeared to have been neglected for quite some time, as evidenced by the layer of dust on them. However, a couple rows looked recently disturbed. The spines of the books had the outlines of hands and fingers where the dust had been cleared away.
"When I first noticed that I still had your key, I had a… bit of an argument with myself as to why it would be here in the first place," Ren said, almost stiffly. "It made no sense as I had no memory of any connection with you. Every summer I spent in Keypointe, I was usually alone except for the few activities I did with my parents. I came to my archives to prove that and looked up the memories from that summer ten years ago."
Kyoko nodded when he paused, encouraging him to continue. He pulled one of the partially dusty books from the shelf and held it out to her. Hesitantly, she reached out and took it from him, wondering why he was trusting her with his memories. Assuming he meant for her to actually open it, she braced her fingers against the cover, maneuvering her thumb between the pages to open it at a random spot. She inhaled sharply at what she saw. After flipping through a number of pages, she looked up at him with a mixture of shock and confusion.
Ren gestured to the other books like it on the shelves with a solemn nod, "All of these were exactly like that one. Completely blank inside."
"How?" she breathed, barely getting the word out.
"It would seem that I, too, am missing memories from that summer. Just the same as you are," he concluded.
Gently closing the book, she gave it back to him with shaking hands. He returned it to its designated shelf and turned to find her sitting on one of the nearby chairs. Selecting another seat, he silently sat down across from her. She ran her hands along the armrests on either side of her in an almost obsessive petting motion as if it would help organize her thoughts.
"So we're both victims of some sort of residual memory loss from the Keypointe Incident then, right? That has to be what it is," she fiercely pounded a fist into chair's soft upholstering. "That was the big event to happen that summer so it must be! We just have to find whoever's responsible and get our memories back."
Kyoko then laughed weakly at the absurdity of what she had said, her shoulders slumped as she sunk deeper into the chair. Ren stared at her blankly, wondering where to begin.
"Though, that still doesn't explain why you're the only one who can use a key that was created in my mind. What, exactly, is our connection, anyway?"
She noticed Ren's fingers idly drumming against each other as he sat, hunched over himself with his elbows on his knees. He looked worried about something. To be more accurate, he looked downright terrified of the words that were going to come out of his mouth. He stared, like he was lost, at nothing in particular and his lips pressed tightly against each other into an impossibly thin line. Pushing her hands down into the cushioning, she leaned forward and looked at him sternly.
"Okay, out with it already!" she demanded.
"Out with what?" he asked, breaking from his reverie.
"You look like you're about to explode from the sheer force of whatever you're about to say so, come on, let's have it!" Kyoko encouraged.
His fidgeting hands stopped in an instant and hung limply from the wrist. Lowering his eyes to focus somewhere on the floor, he finally spoke.
"Roughly ten years ago, I discovered I had telepathic abilities," he began, his voice suddenly hoarse. "Because it was a catastrophic Awakening, I don't remember all the details of how it happened. But I do know it happened during the summer… while I was in Keypointe."
Were anyone to listen closely enough, they would hear the sound in Kyoko's head as the rapidly turning gears contained within ground to a screeching halt.
"Y-you mean…" her voice failed her and the the remainder of the question went unasked, but he knew what she meant all the same.
"Yes, I'm responsible for the Keypointe Incident," he admitted quietly.
A number of things suddenly made a lot more sense; Ren's awkwardness the day they found out her memories were missing from that time period and his seemingly irrational choice to stop helping her and refusal to offer any explanation as to why. His Awakening caused the largest amount of collateral damage in history—though no loss of lives, thankfully—and people were still trying to find him. Now she understood why he was so sympathetic to her situation. It was the very same fate he was trying to avoid.
"What happened?" she asked, already knowledgeable of the incident itself, but curious to learn more about the other side of the story.
"As I said, I don't remember all of it," he repeated. "What I can remember starts almost like a dream where you're thrown in the middle of a scene with no context as to how you got there. I was walking home from somewhere and saw people waking up like they fell asleep right where they stood. There was this… noise in my head as if I could hear their confusion. All of them. It was the loudest thing I'd ever heard in my life."
Ren could recall the sensation distinctly, whether he wanted to or not. As he wandered confusedly through the town that day, the unbearable din in his own mind drove him nearly to the point of madness. He desperately clawed a finger into each ear, as deep as it would go, to try to block out the sound. It did nothing to quiet the horrendous noise. At some point, he must have started crying from way it throbbed painfully through his head. However, as he could barely hear his own shoes scraping against the ground, the shuddering sobs that came from his lips went unnoticed, save for the feeling of his chest heaving with each faltering breath.
"That sounds terrifying," she said, her voice shaking slightly.
"It was," he agreed. "By the time I got to my house I either figured out how to control it or the stress of being able to access everyone's thoughts at once caused my mind to shut down. My parents came home hours later to find me sitting in the same hallway where I showed you that closet. I had a better idea of what happened and what I had done by then."
"You had go through all of that alone?!" she gasped, her hand covered her mouth in a mix of shock and horror and her eyes began to burn with the promise of tears.
He nodded slowly. Once he reached his house, he stumbled up the front path in a daze, finally numbed to the cacophony in his own mind and completely ignorant of the half-dried tracks of tears on his cheeks. An unlit house greeted him when he opened the door and he remembered his parents had left town that morning. Part of him was relieved that they were not present to fall victim to what he had done but, the other part was distraught and needed the comfort that only his mother and father could provide. He only made it as far as the hallway leading from the front door before he slid to the ground, folding in on himself with intermittent whimpers and sniffles.
"My father had to go back home for an Assembly meeting and my mother went with him," Ren explained, his voice thick with emotion. "While I sat in that hallway, I decided that I didn't want my ability and vowed to never use it again. I was actually able to keep that promise for a few years."
"You sealed your own ability away? How did you manage that?" Kyoko asked in awe, blinking the sympathetic tears from her eyes.
"I honestly wish I could explain it," he confessed, running a hand through his hair. "Other than to say that I deliberately focused on never using it and kept it hidden. There were the few times I slipped but, I was mostly successful."
"Well, there's something to be said about sheer willpower, I guess," she said offhandedly, causing him let out a short, rueful chuckle.
"Anyway, we managed to leave town before they quarantined the area," he continued. "Since we were only part-time residents of the area, we managed to slip through the cracks when they mandated that everyone report to city hall for examination."
"But, how did you end up here of all places. After something like that, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near an Academy, much less working for one," Kyoko grimaced at the mere thought.
"That was actually at the suggestion of a family friend. He convinced me that I was better off hiding in plain sight. So, I changed my name, appearance and official identification documents and registered here to work under him as an Inquisitor."
"That's… impressively brilliant," she said, having taken a moment to truly consider the advantages of such a situation.
"And lucky," he added. "I don't know what I would have done if that opportunity was not offered to me. I wasn't exactly the most productive member of society at the time. What happened in Keypointe negatively affected me, to a large extent. I never really recovered from that."
Kyoko made a sympathetic noise, "It wasn't your fault. Not really. It's not like you could've controlled it in any way. That's just how Awakenings work."
"Believe me, you're not the first person to tell me that. I suppose I could never believe it. Not after witnessing the fallout of my own Awakening in person."
The resignation and remorse in his voice was palpable and her heart broke for him. Unfortunately, he was sitting too far from her to offer any sort of comfort. She wanted to take his hand, squeeze his shoulders, do something to let him know he wasn't suffering alone. He had entrusted her with a weapons-grade secret and all she could do was gape at him like a fish. It made her feel useless. She did not like that feeling.
"For what it's worth, I appreciate you sharing your secret with me. I get it now. Why you were so afraid of telling me the truth. To be honest, I feel a little guilty that I've forced your hand," she shifted nervously in her chair.
"Don't be," he assured her gently. "I had to tell you because this involves both of us now."
"So, you think our missing memories are as a result of your Awakening back then? I guess that would connect us in some way, but I feel like there's more to it than that."
"Your guess is as good as mine at this point." Ren shook his head somberly. "I can only give you my side of the story and hope we'll find out the rest when we recover your memories and ability."
"But you're waiting on me to decide when and how I want to do that," she reminded him pointedly.
"Precisely."
A long, exhausted breath left her, but she remained silent.
"I know it's a lot to absorb at once and you don't have to make the decision right this minute," he consoled. "If you'd like, you can ask me any questions you might have instead. In the interest of time, I gave you the abridged version of the story so, if there's any details you want to know or would find helpful, I'll gladly tell you."
By this point, Kyoko was full of nothing but questions as she watched him regard her patiently. This entire day was full of learning far more than she ever anticipated. She was so inundated with everything that had been explained to her, it surprised her that she could still form coherent sentences, much less ask a question that was meaningful in any way. Perhaps that would account for the fact that her errant thoughts fixated on to one random element of his story. Before she could stop herself, the question came out of her mouth.
"You said you changed your appearance when you came here," she began hesitantly. "What did you look like before?"
"Ah, well, that is easily answered I think," he looked oddly relieved, seemingly expecting a much tougher question.
"It is?" she asked, her head tilted to one side. Was he about to pull out a family photo album?
"I know you're still in here, you can come out now," Ren raised his voice to call on an unseen presence.
Kyoko looked around in confusion, trying to figure out who he was talking to. She assumed they were alone in his mindscape. The shuffling of feet prompted her to crane her neck around the back of the chair and look towards a doorway at the far end of the room. A boy, in his early teens, with a mop of shaggy, golden hair and green eyes walked timidly into the room. She stood to get a better look and properly greet him when his eyes met hers and opened wide. A sudden grin nearly split his face in half and he broke into a run, heading straight for her.
Bracing for the inevitable impact, she spared a quick glance at Ren out of the corner of her eye and saw him staring in disbelief at the entire scene. She grunted at the force of the boy's body colliding with hers. He was only a few inches taller than her, she noticed, as he wrapped his arms tightly about her waist. The sheer exuberance of his grin was nearly overwhelming once she witnessed it up close but she found she was unable to look away.
"Wh—" she was interrupted before she could even get the first word out.
When he finally spoke, his voice had the awkward tenor of a teen still in the throes of puberty, but it sounded awfully familiar.
"I'm Kuon Hizuri," he excitedly introduced himself. "And I can't believe I get to see you again after all these years, Kyoko. I really missed you!"
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THOUGHT EVERYTHING WOULD BE COVERED IN ONE CHAPTER, I'M SORRY: We still have a loooong way to go until all of this gets sorted out. There is a lot that needs to be covered (or uncovered, as the case may be). However, we're off to a decent start, right? Maybe? I can't believe I actually thought this would be a fairly short story when I started this. Boy, was I ten kinds of wrong on that.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for the reviews and encouragement. You all make me smile every time I read your input. Every single one of you is amazing and I'm so happy to have your support. See you all here again same time next week!
AUTHOR OUT!