I
Shatter
Hit the target when you fire.
Let your defence be of iron.
Advance in perfect order.
No matter what befalls one, advance.
This, is the Nishizumi way.
The way of an unstoppable legend.
Kuromorimine's doctrine.
Yet it is flawed in its core.
Even the untouchable legends who wield it are imperfect.
It showed.
Nishizumi Shiho, the current mistress of the Nishizumi style and the head of Kuromorimine, has tripped on top of a flight of stairs and had a big fall after a superficial mishap.
The coma that she was under after hitting her head hard several times on the steps, shocked the sensha-do community.
Especially Kuromorimine.
Most especially her daughters.
Miho was the one who stayed by her side the most. Maho had to take their mother's place in Kuromorimine's helm for the time being. Even then, Miho had to get up and move. It was in the Nishizumi way to stomp away emotion, for Shiho has stated that it gets in the way of battle.
After all, their battle against Pravda was coming up next month, so it was necessary to train. Even without Shiho's presence.
. . .
My eyelids, feel heavy. Yet my entire body is filled with life the moment my consciousness fills in.
I open my eyes. I was laying down on a cold floor staring at a bland, unfamiliar ceiling, so I sat myself up. A long, empty hallway, with a closed door at the end. I stood up, and I looked behind me.
A wall, with the words 'There is only advancing' written in black, uniform text.
Those are my words that I teach my students. I suppose I shall move forth to the only path given to me.
As I approach, the echoing of my shoes on the floor would be accompanied by faint shouting, likely behind the door. An angry woman's voice.
Why, why does this voice, sound faintly familiar?
When I open the door, I would be met with the sight of an untidy bedroom. In the middle of the room, a blonde woman with glasses stood screaming with rage. Her shouts made me wince.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR ENROLLMENT, YOU LITTLE SHIT!? YOU WERE THIS CLOSE, TO GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL!"
This mother, I assume, was directing her wrath at a brunette girl in her late-teens. She sat at the side of the bed, hands clutched over her mouth while her entire upper body was hunched forward. The tears that dripped from her eyes, sparkled in the sunlight coming in through the only window in the bedroom.
She reeked of regret.
Why, why is my heart clenching? I don't know, I don't know who they are, why does this feel painfully familiar?
"YOU'RE ALWAYS PLAYING VIDEO GAMES! ALL DAY! ALL FUCKING NIGHT! YOU BARELY PASSED THE FIRST HALF OF SENIOR HIGH, AND NOW YOU DON'T MAKE IT TO YOUR FINAL YEAR! YOU'RE A FUCKING DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY!"
The mother stomped off right towards me. She, she moved through me. She didn't even seem fazed at all, slamming shut the open door behind her. Sobbing and sniffling erupted from the daughter, as she curled up into a ball on her bed.
None of them noticed my presence. I walked over in front of the large mirror on the wall opposite the bed.
My reflection was that of the girl. But I, I? No, she looked, older. She had a fatter body too. What is going on?
When I turned back around, the light coming from the window softened as a sharp, shrill ringing filled my ears. My lips pursed as I covered my ears with my hands, my eyes adjusting to the dim lighting.
The ringing instantly died down after a slamming noise. The brunette teen has just woken up with a fist on the nightstand alarm clock. I can see her eyes were bleary with dried tears. She sobbed quietly as she sat up on the bed, placing both her palms all over her face.
Her breath shook as she stood up, walking over to her bedroom's doorway. When she opened it, a white light from behind it blinded me for a moment. When my eyes adjusted again, I tried following her.
The door slammed shut by itself behind me. When I looked around, I was, in a large kitchen? The heavy aroma of grease hit my nose in a hard wave, making me reflexively exhale through my nose. Yet when I inhaled again, the smell felt, nostalgic?
Why does everything in this dream feel like, a lost part of myself? Why, when I don't even know anything about where I'm in?
A man in a gray outfit rushed through me. I looked over, and I saw more of these workers. Rushing to make and serve greasy fast food. Fries, burgers, chicken.
I noticed the brunette girl among the cooks, stuffing fries inside their containers on the fry counter.
My vision started to spin. It was noisy here, my forehead is having a subtle stinging pain pricking on it. The smell wasn't helping. Everything was a messy blur.
Everything began to darken. The noise ringing in my ears started to die down into muffled music outside, wherever I am right now. My headache just got worse, my stomach started to feel full all of a sudden.
I looked around. It was a bathroom, and judging by the dim lighting and the aforementioned music, this was a nightclub. I felt revulsed by the thought, yet a nagging regret made me shiver in fear.
On the large mirror lining the entire wall, the brunette was in front of it washing her face. She bought thick-framed black glasses, it seemed.
I looked at my own reflection. I still looked like my old self. Brown hair, black glasses, a weighty body.
. . . What?
What was this?
Why was there this strong feeling that this person in the mirror, was me? Why do I feel like something is missing from me? Why? What was this twisted dream trying to tell me?
I held back tears that threatened to form in my eyes, looking back to my younger. No, this girl, just in time to see her exit the bathroom. I tried to call out her name, yet I didn't know what it was.
When I tried to follow her, I was met by the sight of blinding lights zipping all over a large, dimly-lit hall. I shielded my eyes, and when I squinted, I could barely make out the familiar short brown hair of this girl disappear behind another door across the club hall. She was followed by a man nearly a foot taller than her.
"HEY!" I shouted. I don't care if anybody noticed me as I stomped towards that room.
My feet broke into a full-on run across the floor. My bloated belly didn't help. A swift glance downwards showed no bulge on my stomach. My forehead still had this bearable, yet throbbing pain on it.
Something is wrong with this.
Yet there was a part of me that asked myself why I cared. Why did I care? Why am I abandoning my manners? Just for a girl that I don't know but have some sort of relation to?
I slammed open the door that the brunette disappeared behind into, only to be met by a wall of white light. A shut my eyes to let them adjust again, and I heard the door behind me gently close by itself.
The quiet, muffled sounds of a city filled my ears, my eyes squinting open when I heard the sounds of agonized wailing pierce through the gentle ambience.
There was the brunette, sitting on a pristine white bed. Weeping. Her entire face behind her palms, was drenched in tears.
The fullness of my stomach, it felt strange. It felt full, yet simultaneously completely hollow. Like a hollow, thin-walled ball. It felt wrong.
I was in a hospital room. I had two daughters. So why-
. . . It hit me.
She- I had a stillbirth.
Shards of a shattered memory, piecing together.
It was, it all started to make sense.
A wave of throbbing regret hit me, weakly bringing up my hand to my quivering lips. My eyesight started to blur.
My feet shook for each step I took. I should've been beside myself in a quick moment, yet it felt like eternity passed. That woman- mother. Mom.
In my vision blurred by my own tears, I could barely see Mom smile sweetly at me. But when I blinked, all I could see was myself on the bed. My past self, wailing in agony and remorse.
I lost it.
When I bent down and tried to wrap my arms around my younger self to comfort her, they went through. I lost my balance, tipping over the edge of the ward bed.
The pristine light of the hospital ward completely disappeared when I landed face first into what felt like mud. My face hurt hard as my eyes were closed out of reflex, a sheet of falling water suddenly slamming down on my back and drenching me all over.
My face was sore and sticky all over as I frantically clawed on the ground around myself, my arms shaking in weakness as I looked up. A graveyard in heavy rain. In front of me, were two gravestones. Standing beside me was my past self, holding an umbrella over herself.
Her face was an emotionless mask.
I clawed my way through the dirt, dragging my knees along as I desperately made my way to the gravestones. My vision was impeded by sheets of rainwater getting into my eyes. My movement was also hindered by the soreness of my hands and my seemingly bloated stomach.
The first gravestone had the name Abraham G. Walters. Dad. Through the rain, mud and tears clouding up my eyelashes, the faint silhouette of a man flashed before my eyes. He, he died when I was just three. These were the words of my mother that echoed in my mind over the noise of the pouring storm.
I made my way to the other.
Amanda Gray J. Walters.
Mom.
I sobbed, my wailing echoing amongst the rain drops as I kneel my head down, my forehead touching the cold, wet mud over my mother's grave.
'Despite disappointment in life, I moved on.' These were my mother's words etched in the stone.
Through my tears, I could see visions of a younger time. Mom looked so youthful, so kind. The sweetness of her smile made my heart clench, my weeping breaths laboring as I wheezed. The more she grew older in the faint vision in my eyes, the more her face wrinkled, her expression twisting with rage. Frustration. Disappointment.
I miss Mom.
I miss her.
Why didn't I miss Mom back then?
Why didn't I try to help myself!?
Why did I leave myself for dead!?
I got up to my feet as fast as I could muster, my feet unsteady on the mud. My eyes were clouded, they felt puffy. My entire chest, my face, my stomach, my hands burned with pain. Yet I weakly looked to my past self.
She was already walking off.
No! NO!
I lost my balance the moment I made the first step of my run, making me land on my sore belly. It hurt like ass. My knees and hands felt like they were burning.
I was staggering when I got back up. The rain soaking onto me made me shiver violently from its freezing cold. My teeth chattered audibly as I ran blinded by rain and tears, chasing the faint, fading silhouette of my past through the heavy storm.
My feet became more steady, I realized the uncertain mud shifted into solid concrete. I closed my eyes tightly shut while I ran, an attempt to blink away the water from my eyes. It was nearly useless.
Though one thing I know is that the graveyard has now instantly shifted into a city. Everything was a blur as I practically ran blinded by my tears and the pouring rain. I could barely see the lone figure of the past me waiting at the sidewalk far ahead, umbrella up against the sheets of falling water.
I don't know what motivated me to run after myself, even despite the throbbing pain pulsing all over the front of my body. Was it rage? Anguish? Remorse? Agony? I, I don't know, yet my feet still unsteadily run along the sidewalk.
The faint green light ahead turns red. My past started to walk on the crossing when all the cars had driven off.
"JUST STOP!" I shouted, my throat hoarse from crying. It was futile, she didn't hear me. She was nearly in the middle of the road when I made it to the end of the crossing where she came from.
I screamed at the top of my lungs as I dashed on the crossing. I swiped my hand at her shoulder. My hand went through. My foot tripped against my other. I felt my eyes widen. My breath hitched. My heart halted.
My water-filled vision suddenly blacked out at the corners as I felt weightless. Everything seemed to spin. My head felt woozy, my entire body felt weak and numb. My hearing was a blur.
And then I bounced multiple times on the ground like a ragdoll. Yet I didn't feel anything. I stopped rolling after a while.
And then everything hurt. My entire body, encompassed in echoing waves of pulsing, pricking pain.
Everything was cold. I was drenched in rain all over.
Dull, incomprehensible shouting filled what remained of my hearing. My breathing was labored, yet I barely managed to raise an arm and plant my burning palm on the asphalt.
My support arm buckled violently when I sat my upper body up agonizingly slow. My entire body screamed in protest, I wheezed violently.
I blinked away the water that filled my eyesight.
Red.
Red everywhere, in front of me.
A mangled corpse beside me, was the center of it all.
Bones broken and twisted in the wrong ways.
My vision was completely blurred again by my own tears and the rain. I blinked hard, my eyelids twitching in pain.
Clothes torn off, the majority of the body covered in massive bleeding bruises and torn-off skin.
My past self's body.
My corpse.
Off to the distance, a truck was halted in the middle of the road. A gigantic dent marred its front.
I breathed shakily as I blinked again. A coughing fit hit me, yet I could barely hear myself. My lungs burned.
A man was by my corpse, desperation in his face as he looked up and shouted at onlookers. His tears mixed with the pouring rain.
My eyelids faltered, the darkness at the corners of my eyes was swiftly growing. My body is failing me. I coughed hard, my throat and chest throbbed, they burned. Red spit flew out my mouth, landing on the top of my shirt.
Even if my eyelids weren't closed, my vision became wrapped all in abysmal black.
Everything was fading. The arm where I supported myself buckled, making me fall back flat on the wet asphalt.
The pain enveloping my entire body was, was fading. . .?
I couldn't feel myself.
No.
No. . .
No.
No, no! No, NO, NO!
I'M NOT LEAVING MYSELF TO DIE!
It felt like I got kicked on my back by the hind legs of a horse, my eyes shot wide open. I was left breathless, yet I felt no pain. I felt, I felt alive.
A fresh wave of air filled my lungs when I gasped deeply through my mouth. The force that kicked me off the wet pavement had sent me flying up weightless.
My tears were gone.
Everything was so vivid, so clear!
I was falling up. Time was stopped, the infinite of the raindrops halted in the air like glittering diamonds to be plucked off. The skyscrapers and buildings of the city around me were shattering into titanic chunks of glass with loud cracks and shattering filling my hearing all over.
Yet my ears didn't ring. They didn't bleed in pain, nor have I gone deaf.
Every sound was so crisp and sharp!
Gravity was nonexistent, my sense of up and down has disappeared. I spin rapidly without control, and anything to leverage myself were out of reach and was shattering away, fading from reality.
Yet I didn't feel dizzy. I don't feel sick form all the motion.
I was still drenched in rainwater, yet I didn't shiver from the cold.
Everything simultaneously felt both numb, and clear.
I was simultaneously torn apart and completely whole.
. . . Why does this feel familiar. . .?
I saw something hurtling towards me in this glass-filled void. It got nearer really fast, and I saw it was a, a Boko plush?
When it was within my grasp, I swung my arm. The moment I got a firm hand grasped on it. . .
Everything became white.
My entire body felt light.
I was completely dry.
Is this. . .? Is this, what heaven is like. . .?
. . . Gravity was returning. But instead of falling hard, it felt like I just landed after making a small hop off the floor. I can't even see the floor. . .
I blinked.
This room, this tatami room. The advancing tank mural on my left wasn't there, but in its stead was one of archers launching a rain of arrows.
"Shiho, I am so proud of you!"
I snapped my head to look at the middle of the room. What I saw made my eyes tear up. My heart felt heavy, yet also light.
Nishizumi Ayako. Mother.
I looked a lot like her, the difference was that her brown hair had an orange hue to it.
She was embracing my past self tight in her arms, a wide, sweet smile on her face. Then, Mother would part herself from the past me, who was smiling just as brilliantly.
"You graduated in Kuromorimine's ways, so from here on out, you will be helping the family with the school and the senshado team." Mother would hug my past self again, patting her daughter on the back. "Do the Nishizumi family proud, okay dear?"
There was no stoicism in her voice, her expression was so gentle, so loving. It was just, so warm. I miss her.
"Yes, Mother!" Past me would energetically reply as she patted Mother's back in their embrace, a proud expression on her face.
My vision blurred once again with tears. When I brought an arm up and wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my suit, the scene changed soundlessly.
It was my bedroom again. My past mom was shouting at me. My past, past self was weeping on the bed.
But time has stopped. Everything was grayed out. All I could hear was a disembodied ticking clock, echoing softly in my head. I walked over to the mirror opposite my bed.
My reflection was of myself, as Nishizumi Shiho.
I blinked.
"Hit your target when you fire!"
I spun around to look where I was. A massive garage. Full of the German tanks I've been so used to seeing.
"Let your defence be of iron!"
I was on a stage, in front of a huge audience of students. Mother's voice loudly rang out beside me, so I turned to look.
"Advance in perfect order!"
Behind a podium she stood, her expression stern and unwavering. Off to her other side was my younger self, fidgeting subtly.
"No matter what befalls us, we advance! This is the Nishizumi way, and this is what we will teach all of you students present here, from here on out!"
My eyes were blurred again by tears, so I wiped them with my sleeve as I sniffled. The scene has instantly shifted back into that fast food kitchen. McDonald's, my memory tells me. In the fry counter, my other past self stood frozen in the middle of stuffing fries into their paper containers.
Time was as still as death. Color did not exist. Only the smell of clean steel reached my nose. All I could hear was that soft ticking clock and my own shaking breaths.
I blinked.
I was on the middle of a red carpet, a gentle breeze fluttering my long hair. All around me, was a cathedral, all the chairs filled with guests clapping and cheering. Among them in the front seats, Mother smiled wide and sweet. I looked behind myself, where the attention was. . .
A man in the middle of kissing a black-haired beauty under a tall arch of leaves and flowers. The sunlight coming through the massive stained glass of the back wall, cast a colorful, ethereal soft glow on the couple.
This, this was my marriage to Tsuneo!
I was so happy that day! And yet, why do I also feel so, distant. . .?
His gentle, smiling face was the only vision I could see through my forming tears. Why. . .? Why?
I wiped my puffy eyes, and I was met with the frozen scene of that room from the nightclub. A single bed in the middle, with sex toys on the shelves lining the walls. The door was blocked by that man, James, if I recall correctly. His face was creepily just a blurred smudge of brown and black.
My past self was in the middle of undressing beside the bed.
What the fuck was I thinking, drowning my sorrows in a shitty nightclub!?
I closed my eyes as I slapped myself hard on the face for that mistake. It stung.
I opened my eyes, and I winced at the sound of a shrill crying. My past self lying on a bed breathing hard after a labor. Tsuneo sat close by, holding her hand tight.
"It's a girl!" The nurse that handled my baby exclaimed, gently and slowly bringing over the child to my younger self's trembling, waiting hands with expert precision.
I blinked away my tears, only to be brought back to the other delivery room, where my weeping other past self sat alone and frozen in stopped time on the bed. The tears dripping from her eyes and face glistened in the rays of sunlight coming in through the lone window of the ward.
My breathing, the fluctuating beat of my heart, and that ticking clock was all I could hear.
I blinked twice, and now I stood in front of Mother's raised coffin. My past self wept quietly, alone at the end of one of the long benches in the cathedral. This was the same cathedral in which I got married to my husband.
I look around, and all around me was a multitude of guests, all dressed in black. Ministry of Education, Senshado Federation, Kuromorimine students, friends and acquaintances of the Nishizumi family. Off to the opposite side of the bench where the other, younger me sat, Tsuneo accompanied a much younger Miho and Maho.
My heart clenched, my eyes shut tight as I squeezed out some tears threatening to spill again. I shakily inhaled, exhaling a series of sobs as I clamped a hand over my lips.
My vision was still blurred when I opened my eyes, so I wiped my sore eyes with my sleeve. The sight I saw was breathtaking, and yet shattered my heart further.
In stopped time, the heavy, zero-visibility rain were like infinite diamonds glistening even in the darkness that the black storm clouds cast. Like fireflies in the night.
And yet, my past parents were buried in an open cemetery. Nobody arrived. Even I was late, by a week. . .
The me of my past life and my shattered family were broken nobodies, forgotten across the sands of time.
The me of my current life had a loving family, born to a name as old as generations and revered across centuries.
I shut my eyes tight, sobbing shakily as I got on the floor and curled up into a ball.
I screamed.
I don't know for how long.
All I knew was that I screamed.
Until my throat was hoarse and all I could do was wheeze hard.
My face was a mess. My eyes were blinded by tears, bleary and sore from all the rubbing I did. My cheeks were caked in tears both dry and wet. Saliva dribbled down my lips.
"I hate you."
Miho.
No matter how weak I felt, I scrambled to get up on my knees and look.
My vision was blurred, but I can see Miho standing right in front of me in an empty black void. My daughter towered over me.
I tried to speak. I could only wheeze weakly before my throat broke down into a violent coughing fit.
"I hate you!"
I tried to call out to her, but all I let out was a dying croak. My spit dripped profusely from my mouth. My eyes widened when I heard Miho's feet stomp away.
She opened a door from nowhere, a blinding light from behind it forcing me to shut my eyes. No matter how much I staggered, I got up to my feet and took weak steps towards the open door when my eyes adjusted.
My daughter's silhouette in the light was slowly becoming smaller in the distance.
No. No! NO! NO!
Just as when I was about to step my foot on the pure white floor outside the door. . .
The door teleported ahead.
I could hear glass shattering behind me.
I looked back.
White cracks filled the black void behind me. A hall. My heart was suddenly pounding hard and fast. Everything in me told me to RUN.
I looked back forward and ran forth, even when my legs and knees quivered.
"Mother, you plan to disown Miho just because she can't follow the Nishizumi way? Why?"
Maho's voice echoed over the shattering and cracking glass behind me. The door teleported further out of reach.
"You're too cold, Shiho. You take senshado too seriously."
Tsuneo's voice chided me as I exhaled harder, the door now even further away. Oh God, it's Black Ops Cold War all over again.
"Shiho. Is this what I taught you? You're not doing the Nishizumi way right."
I stopped.
My foot tripped against the back of my other foot.
I landed hard on the floor.
The glass cracked beneath me.
By the time I clawed my hands forward in front me, the glass beneath my legs would shatter and fall away.
I tried grasping forward, but whatever I grabbed would turn into sharp shrapnel that would leave my hands bleeding.
I can only scream as I fall down into a white abyss of blinding light.