She did not understand. She did not understand words, she did not understand people, and she did not understand herself or her past. She simply knew one thing and it was to kill, it may not be a word she understood but it was a word she knew what the purpose of the word was.
And she followed that word and its hidden order, and she would continue doing so as long as they told her. Or at least she did until someone found her, someone who never commanded her to kill and unknown to her someone who was happy as long as she was safe. When they first met they both stared into each other, one with sorrow and the other with a mask of calm.
She would kill him.
She did not know whose order it was, but they left her here and told her one thing before leaving, kill. So, she killed everyone here. They tried to resist but she killed them, it didn't matter who they were be they young or old. She simply fulfilled her purpose, even if it would mean sacrificing her life. Yes, that was all that mattered to her, to fulfill her purpose.
But her body was weak in his grasp, she couldn't move a single muscle besides her own eyes. As the defenseless boy held her, her mind realized that this boy was not a part of this colony. During her entire time here, she had not once seen him or anyone remotely similar to him.
What did that mean then? Did her orders extend to him?
It was then, that as her eyes slowly shut that she confirmed that no, it didn't.
He felt a rage overcome him, a feeling he hadn't felt in a long time during his stay here. Dealing with Violet could be frustrating at times, sure, but he never felt angry at her or at this new situation he was placed in, if anything, it was like a hidden blessing.
So, I could forget about Miyu.
No! He forcefully rejected those thoughts. No... anything but that. He would never replace her, purposefully forget about the one thing that mattered, and he never would want to. Even if the crushing guilt weighed him down, he would never do such a thing.
It was the least he could do as her brother for his failures.
He needed to focus on Violet, anymore of this and he might actually lose track of her.
Thinking back on the situation his rage resurfaced, he could recall the faces of the people who he just murdered as the stared lecherously at her. He was going to rectify that mistake; they were the first people that they meet in a long time after all, so maybe a breaking a few of their bones would do, a warning of what was to come if they continued.
But before he could do even that, one of them touched her, a touch filled with nothing but malicious thoughts.
At the sight, he did the only thing he thought reasonable.
He killed them, swiftly and without mercy. Giving them no time to consider what they've just done.
By then, he was willing to leave things at that, a few people didn't represent the majority. But he was a cautious man, and he was going to regard them with heavy skepticism. And if they done one more thing, he considered untoward, he would act before they even realized their mistake. He was giving them a chance to redeem themselves.
Besides, it looked like a storm was brewing soon. A rare sight on this little island as months had passed without a single storm, there was rain, sure, but it was incredibly light. Shirou just had a feeling that this one was going to be much worse that a little light rain.
Because of that he wanted to return back home soon and get out of the coming rain while they still could, but Violet didn't leave things there, she rushed off into the forest, following after the people as if she was a stalking her prey. He knew she was skilled, that much he could tell when he went out to secure more food. Skilled enough to wield a blade and skilled enough to take a life just as easily.
He didn't think much of it back then, he figured that she was an experienced hunter, or she learned from one.
Shirou wasn't going to question her; he had his secrets, and she must've had hers. Not like he could question her in the first place due to her lack of understanding of... of everything really.
But seeing the bloodshed she left behind as he followed after her made him realize something, she was a killer. Once he realized that everything slowly started to make sense. Why she couldn't talk, comprehend, or even think for herself. She was a child soldier, molded to be the perfect killer for whoever it was that needed her.
He gritted his teeth at that, whoever it was that did this to her, he swore that one day he would find them.
As he passed by more and more bodies, he idly noted how quickly each were killed and in what ways. They were all killed swiftly and struck in places that were lethal.
And that some carried weapons, firearms, something that a knife logically couldn't beat at all. He buried whatever doubts he had at the sight of the weapon and refocused his efforts on finding Violet.
He uncaringly stepped over one more dead body ignoring it completely as if it didn't even exist. He could swear that he was right behind her, he could even make the faintest hints of a gold-like hair behind the thick green of the forest they were in.
"Violet, wait!" He called out, hoping that calling for her would at the very least delay her and it surprisingly worked. huh, guess those constant lessons actually worked.
He could see her doll-like face and facade as she looked back at him. He was almost relieved that she actually stopped until she rushed off once again. He almost couldn't stop the frown that made its way onto his face, it hadn't even been a second.
But it looks like his chase was finally coming to an end as he could see, just pass all of the trees, a clear blue sky and a beach in the distance. He doubled his efforts at the sight, there wouldn't be anywhere else to go, it was a basically a dead end unless you were willing and stupid enough to swim out into the ocean.
The loud noise of a gunshot echoed throughout the island and then screaming. He knew that the masculine scream didn't belong to her, but the sound of a gunshot made his heartbeat rise violently at the possibilities of what could've happened.
"Damnit, Violet!" He roughly tore through a bush that barred his path and couldn't stop the frustration and worry that came out of his voice. Like a command she stopped, a blade inches away from a man's face, a man Shirou recognized as the leader by the way he carried and dressed himself.
And he saw the bodies nearby and the blood the drenched the sand. Just how quickly did she kill them?
The sound of flesh meeting flesh resounded in the silent beach, the knife that Violet previously held was now held by the man who tightly restrained her. Even despite her prowess, he was still a grown man and had her physically outmatched. The knife that was held at her neck made him stop and caused his eyes to narrow.
Shirou couldn't understand a word he said, but he quietly put his hands up in a silent sign surrender, but unknown to him, he was ready to trace a sword and launch it at him when the situation called for it.
"I don't know what you're trying to say." Shirou said calmly, hoping that his words made the man realize the language barrier between them and maybe diffuse the situation a little more before he made his act.
He seemed to speak a few more words in a frantic fashion, before making taking deep breaths and using more calm gestures as the man realized the situation and recomposed himself. "Don't make me do it." Was what he could faintly understand from his gestures and for the both of them, Shirou hoped he didn't do it.
The man's shoulders seemed to relax at his lack of aggressive actions, he even seemed relieved.
But Shirou wasn't willing to let him endanger Violet's life like that and let him get away with it as hypocritical as it sounded. A similar knife Violet wield appeared from thin air unknown to the man, and it shot just as quickly at him.
Blade met blade as it was sent flying and the force was enough to make him recoil and Shirou rushed at the man. The blade he traced disappeared as if it never existed and he grabbed the falling knife. He reinforced his body and the strength that it now had was enough to barely go toe to toe against a bodybuilder.
He took of sprinting surprising the man further as he tried to recover, but that wasn't enough. Shirou tackled the man and they both easily flew off of Violet, freeing her from his hold.
How the tables turned once again.
Shirou made sure to hold him down as best as he could, but despite his newfound strength he still was the size of a child. "Violet, his legs!"
Despite not being able to understand him, she could at least barely understand her name and the gestures he made. Looking at him as an example and how Shirou held him down, she was quick to follow and held onto the man's leg.
The man screamed in his unknown language, most likely telling him to release him but he refused. The knife was held dangerously close to his neck, close enough that it began to draw blood.
The man finally stopped struggling, realizing just how fruitless it was and how serious Shirou was about killing him, he looked to his comrades, former comrades, and stopped any movement he made. Now, they just silently stared at each other.
He let out a sigh, and it was now him who genuinely surrendered, unlike Shirou.
Seeing that, he let out a small smile, before knocking the man out.
He was the first to get off of him before Violet followed his example. This could've gone better; he noted as he looked at all the people Violet killed. Now that he wasn't in that situation, he could now realize just what was causing all of this shade on the beach and he looked up, up, and up. And what he saw was a ship beached on the shore.
He had to forcibly stop the feeling of happiness inside of him at the sight. Living by themselves wasn't bad perse, but a... change of scenery would be greatly appreciated. And just past the ship and in the far distance he could faintly see raging waves as they crashed into each other. Better shelter than a wooden house would be nice too.
He gave Violet her knife back and before he left, he made sure to express very clearly to not kill the now unconscious man. As much as he wanted to explore the ship now, he could do so later when the man was awake, maybe he could be their ticket out of this deserted island, if not, then he wouldn't mind staying here a couple more months with his charge.
It wasn't long before he returned with rope, and he was inwardly relieved that Violet hadn't killed the man and left him alone. At the sight of him she ran to him and quietly followed after him like a baby duck.
Any other day it might have made him chuckle, but he needed to divert his attention elsewhere and restrain the man. It would also be a good idea to make sure he didn't have any weapons on him or any other way to free himself from these binds.
After that, well, since he was still unconscious, he might as well think up of something questions to ask the man, no, scratch that. They both couldn't understand each other so that would be pointless.
Ah, this was leading to nowhere. Looking back at the bodies a new thought came to mind, maybe he should just burry them, it was better than thinking of what to do with the man and it would also be the right thing to do.
Left unsaid, he also didn't want to come back to the beach only to be greeted with the smell of dead corpses and likely half-eaten bodies from the local wildlife.
"Violet." The girl, Violet, looked at him and said nothing.
He tried again, "Violet" but the same result, or lack of, happened and she only stared at him with her blue eyes.
Shirou couldn't help but let out a sigh and leaned back in the wooden chair. At first, he was optimistic, the results of his teachings seemed to be bearing fruit and she was beginning to learn Japanese. Only, she wasn't, or at least not as fast as he hoped. Violet would still almost never speak and when she did it was more of a noise than a word that came out.
But at least she was beginning to at least recognize some of the words. Her name being one of them and whenever he said it, she would snap to attention and focus only on him. Though that meant she would also disregard everything in the process.
Food was another thing that she learned, and it was the one and only thing that she learned faster than her own name. whenever he said that she would immediately come over and patiently wait for him to most likely feed her. He sighed at that memory; he had been baffled when he found out that she had been completely disregarding food and water and would keep on going as if it wasn't important. How could she disregard those but remember to sleep?
It was safe to say that he had quickly rectified that and though she didn't exactly know how to use tableware, he was fine with feeding her for now while teaching her when he had the chance.
And... well, those were the only two words that she really came to understand much to his disappointment, but it was something he supposed.
And what was he doing right now? He was trying to teach her how to pronounce it while waiting for the man tied down nearby to wake up.
It took him longer than Shirou expected, he estimated that he could only be out for at thirty minutes to one hour top, but he's been unconscious for longer than he expected.
"What do you think we should do, Violet, should I just kick him?" He mused as the idea passed through his mind more than once, but as he expected Violet never verbally answered him. All he got was a slight tilt of the head as her blonde hair began falling on top of the violet flower that he gifted her.
Now that he noticed it, her hair was growing longer than it should be and it might get in the way of her vision soon if he didn't cut it, if he could call slicing off someone's hair with a sword a haircut. And the violet, the flower, was held possessively in her chest as if was a large toy.
Shirou wasn't sure why, but Violet gained an... obsession with the flower he supposed. She would often have these silent staring contests with it, and she would always be the loser which made sense. Whenever she got the chance, she would also bring it with her.
Maybe she was getting lonely? Being around the same old face that was his for months on end without seeing anything new would do that to someone he supposed.
"Ah, you're waking up." Shirou casually turned around to face the much older man and noticed how slowly his eyes seemed to open.
As expected once again, the man didn't understand him, but he did however seem to say some words.
"I know you have some questions, but I do too, and I want you to answer them, and I'll answer yours." Shirou continued either way, uncaring of the language barrier between them.
He let his head down and sighed at the man's confusion, he was really hoping that by some divine luck that he just somehow understood him and could give him a reply.
Well, there always another way and fortunately for him, there he had some spare paper and a crayon, unfortunately he was also saving those for Violet to help teach her.
So, he drew the most important question he had on his mind, it started with an island, some kids with sad faces, a boat with an arrow pointing to an island with cities, and them the same two kids but with happy faces and an adult next to them standing on said island. Staring at the atrocious thing in front of him, Shirou had to restrain himself from crumpling the paper and its horrendous drawing that only a child could draw and showed it to the man.
Now it was just up to him to understand this drawing.
It looked like he was studying it for a bit, and he hoped he was for both of their sakes, and occasionally nodded as he stared at it longer before speaking. Shirou suppressed his eyebrow from raising before the man gave a laugh and motioned his eyes at his hands.
So, he wanted to be freed in turn then? Shirou was honestly fine with that, and he was willing to do so since he was going to be their ticket out of this dreary place.
But he needed to set some rules, leaving the room he quickly found and went inside of his and Violet's bedroom to retrieve the knife that was hidden underneath her pillow. Why he let her keep it under her pillow he would never really know but spotting two dolls just outside of his vision, he took them as well.
They were a bit dirty from the lack of use but with a quick shake most of the dust that gathered on the dolls was already removed in a visible cloud of dust. When Shirou returned back to the living room, the man's eyes found itself on him and the dolls.
However, when his eyes settled on the knife, the gleam of hope vanished, didn't he want Shirou to free him, so what's with the look? The man's bubbling anxiousness shifted to confusion once he saw the two dolls that Shirou carried in his other hand.
Shirou noted that Violet was also watching them now and it was most likely due to the knife held in his hands. Or she just was because there was nothing else to do besides starring at her flower.
Shirou had to visible calm his nerves before performing what could have been the most embarrassing thing in his life. With two deft movements he pointed one doll at Violet to represent her and one at the tied man to represent him.
And Shirou proceeded to move the dolls with the most deadpan face he could muster, the doll that represented the man with its hands "tied" behind its back was now free and then attacked the Violet doll who had its back turned against the other doll.
Before being brutally stabbed in the face with such a force that the knife embedded itself into the wooden floor beneath.
Throughout that entire thing, Shirou kept his face as emotionless as ever and stared at the man. He looked almost amused or baffled at what was happening before Shirou watched him pale rapidly. Shirou could honestly understand why he looked so confused at first, really.
If a man who was associated with the person who killed your entire crew and then proceeded to kidnap you suddenly began playing with dolls right in front of you, Shirou would also look at the person like he was crazy. Just thinking about it sounded crazy.
Unfortunately for them both, he had to subject the both of them to that to get his point across. If he attacked Violet or even him, he would be dead before he could even explain himself.
The man furiously nodded as he sweated profusely. Good, Shirou didn't have to embarrass himself for nothing.
Just as easily as Shirou stabbed the doll, he just as easily removed it from its broken head and cut the rope that binded the man. He slowly stood up before feeling his wrists and before offering Shirou his hand.
He wanted a handshake even after that demonstration? Shirou narrowed his eyes before slowly shaking the man's hand, looking for any signs of deceit but found none.
"Dietfried" The man said, pointing at himself, "D-i-e-t-f-r-i-e-d." The man said once more, but slowly enough that Shirou could make out the words.
"Diefriedt" Shirou tried to repeat slowly, letting the strange words roll of his tongue, but judging by the way the man looked at him he had obviously failed.
"Shirou." He told him, not bothering on trying to pronounce the name again.
"Chi... row?" Shirou shrugged; it was close enough so he began marching to his room.
This "Diefriedt" guy followed after him and Violet began too as well as soon as he said her name. It was then that they, or more specifically Dietfried, would realize that he was packing everything up, or at least everything that Shirou considered important before marching back out of the room just as quickly and outside of the little cabin.
Dietfried was confused as to why he suddenly took all of their belongings with them, but it was when the form of a metal ship that peaked out from the tree lines that he realized what Shirou was trying to do.
He began talking even faster, not that it would do him again good before pointing at the ship and how obviously beached it was.
Shirou was well aware of that, but it wasn't going to stop him as he walked past him as Dietfried let out a long, tired sigh.
So that's how they got off. Shirou thought as Dietfried showed them the ladder that led up to the ships deck. Now how was he going to get all of this up here? He couldn't exactly climb with no arms, and he wasn't willing to use his magecraft so openly.
He kept in hidden from Violet and he'll keep it hidden from Dietfried as well, though they were admittedly for completely different reasons. He didn't want Violet involved with the dangerous path that a magus would walk, and showing her something that should be inhumanly possible happen right in front of her might spark that interest, why wouldn't it if he could just "make" a sword from thin air and just as easily shot it like a bullet?
Dietfried, well, it was the same reason why he and likely every magus for that matter kept magecraft a secret though they were done with different intentions.
He looked towards the man in question and Violet who was still quietly holding the potted plant to her chest and the large number of items he carried. It was safe to say he knew what to do as he swiftly turned and unceremoniously dropped everything, he carried right into the older man's arms much to his shock.
Now he didn't have to worry about the extra weight, and he could slowly bring the items up one by one if he had to.
"Violet, no, stop." Though a problem immediately came up and that was Violet trying to follow after him. He needed her to stay here and watch the man while he was gone, and he was going to climb back down later either way.
She could only silently tilt her head at him as if to question why.
"I'll be back soon; I'm just going to drop it off at the top before climbing down." He tried to convince her, but it failed when he realized that when he took one more step up the ladder, Violet did as well.
He stared at her with hard eyes and took one more step.
She mimicked him.
Seeing that she wasn't going to give up anytime soon, he gave up and would continue unloading whatever supplies he brought and then some as Violet stuck to him throughout the entire time. While he could've done this when the ship was ready to take off, he might as well have done it now to get it out of the way, so he didn't have to do it later.
It was then, that Shirou would learn that the ship was much larger than he expected. There were multiple floors, and, on those floors, there were multiple rooms and sometimes, just sometimes there were rooms within those rooms to make everything more complicated than it needed to be.
There was even a kitchen, a full blown, working kitchen that didn't involve Shirou having to make a fire outside and spit roast something. Unknown to the only two other people here, he was already glad about his decision, not only could he finally cook a proper meal for Violet, but they also had proper area to sleep in now instead of a slowly decaying house. It never really was a good idea to sleep in there, but he had maintained it just enough to extend its use just a little more.
Besides that, the ship had a large surplus of supplies, so much that he was actually worried that they might expire before he could even use them with how much there was. Of course, this large number of supplies weren't here to maintain just three people but a full crew. A crew that was now gone.
Well, those were problems for the future. Besides, the supplies should be properly refrigerated for the moment. Now came the boring part, the wait. Shirou was well aware of the fact that this ship wasn't going anywhere soon right now with how deeply wedged it was into the shore. Only time would be able to fix that problem but what if he gave it a little nudge here and there?
Shirou couldn't hope to move the entire ship in one go even with his magecraft, but if he could consistently apply some extra force every day, maybe dig around it just enough, it might just work.
It was farfetched, incredibly so, but he wasn't content with sitting around doing mostly nothing for the rest of the year. Really, there was no reason not to, it would benefit everyone here and they would get off of this island. Now that he thought about it, riding out into a storm wasn't even a good idea at all. It was terrible and the ship already looked beaten.
Maybe he could and repair it? Shirou did something like this before, repairing something, but not quite on as large of a scale as a whole ship. Well, he wasn't a natural anyways, the only reason he was even able to repair all those machineries back then was due to his magecraft. He would analyze it using what magecraft was available to him to identify the problem then fix things from there.
So, the same thing works on the ship. Admittedly, it was also much more advanced than what he had worked on before, but if he could trace Ig-Alima and Sul-Sagana then he should be able to do it.
Letting out a yawn, he noticed that it was finally dark out now. Maybe he should at least get some sleep first before doing anything. "Violet, let's get you to bed." The girl in question looked towards him with her usually blank face and followed after him just like she already was doing.
Honestly, she was really starting to remind him of a baby duck. She would almost always follow him around so wherever Shirou went Violet was bound to follow. It wasn't that much of a problem back then since he reasoned it was for her safety, but now he was really starting to see this becoming a bad habit in the future.
He honestly didn't know how he got into this situation this time.
Dietfried Bougainvillea was in the last possible battle he was likely ever going to enter after his fleet engaged another fleet with the way the battle was going. His fleet was losing both good men and ships in droves while the enemy fleet barely sustained any losses themselves. By all rights, he should've been a dead man just as everyone else, but he survived that encounter.
But when a storm suddenly emerged, taking not both his own fleet but the enemies to a watery grave, he should've been dead. Yet again, however, he survived as did his ship and everyone on it as they emerged unscathed besides a few nicks on the hull from the storm before being beached on an island.
Then finally, his encounter with the inhabitants of the island the two children, one being a female who showed little emotion and the other, a boy who was relieved at the sight of them. Before they of course killed all of his men and taking him hostage for some unknown reason.
He was a reasonable, if not slightly cruel man as people told him, so he could excuse the first incident as his men stepped too far out of line with their actions, though he would've liked to keep them alive before reprimanding them for days on end himself. But the girl, she was just as much of a killer as the boy.
She chased them down and killed them all, till there was no one but him left and she was going to kill him as well. His life flashed not once, not twice, but three times during this day before the boy stopped her.
And, well, here he was. Now trying to help his would be killers get out of this island, or at least that was what he assumed from the drawing the boy made.
He doubted that he could fulfil that request seeing as how his ship was beached, his men were dead, and he had no idea where this island was and in turn no idea where to go. Maybe if he saw some familiar landmarks, or maybe some familiar land then he might be able to do it.
Besides that, his ships were in a surprisingly functional condition, nothing important was damaged, he didn't have to worry about blowing up, and she would be able to traverse the seas just fine. The only real problem he could actually discern with his experience was that all of the armaments were either heavily damaged or outright broken.
Not that anyone would be able to use them.
But all he had to worry about now was unbeaching the large ship and hoping that they had enough fuel to get to civilization or at least find a friendly patrolling fleet.
It was a shame that all of those were nigh impossible. The ship was far too heavy for him to even consider moving, civilization could be half a world away, and the seas was both large and dangerous.
And then there was that storm in the distance, it was getting close and by his estimations it might reach this island and in turn them very soon. It didn't look like any small storm either.
Just why? Why couldn't things for once go right?
Posted on: November 9, 2022
I quite frankly don't know what to do this early on in the story, I don't remember if there was much of a story of Violet Evergarden's past, so I don't have much to work with but don't worry! I have an idea planned for what I want to do when we progress the story more, but you'll have to deal with this, uh, thing for now.
But why, am I updating this fanfiction over the others? Well I read another fanfic that goes by "Teaching Feeling" which is a crossover with Violet Evergarden and Halo (Yeah, Halo! Woo!) and it basically revived my love and motivation for Violet Evergarden and here I am.
Also, am I the only one who just really likes Angelica? 'Cause I'm seeing a depressing lack of Angelica and Shirou in my life. I mean, there's a lot of Shirou, but not enough Angelica.