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Chapter 18: Memory Recovery
Sunday, June 15th, 2005
The ground flies up of its own free will to slam into my face. I so did not just fall. I'm drowning in my own sweat. The air space ten feet around me is going to smell absolutely disgusting until I next get a shower. Apparently, sweating is good when you're training. Only, Genkai won't let me get a drink. So, I'm shriveling up into a freaking raisin. That's probably been her plan all along.
"Get up, Katrina. It's only been 15 minutes."
"There's no way in the world that it's only been 15 minutes."
"Well, it has. It is now…7:45. You started at 7:25. Oh, my mistake, 20 minutes." I don't move. "Suck it up."
"Kon?" I ask. "Who the hell is Kon?"
"That's your name. Katrina Misuki Kon. Or maybe it was Minami. Just get up. You're never going to get better if you don't push yourself. You can't give up and hope to be perfectly trained. You're just a little sweaty and tired."
(In pool of perspiration and dying of exhaustion, in case anyone cares.) I don't move. I don't care anymore. Sooner or later, she'll give up.
Or maybe I don't know her as well as I thought.
She shocks me by screaming, right in my ear, "Katrina! You want some more kimono camp?"
I tiredly push myself up. "Why do you have to keep holding that over my head?" I ask, rubbing my left ear. "I'm just tired…"
"You'll just have to deal with that! Why, I'm 76 and moving ten times more agilely than you, you big dim oaf!"
I'm too tired to fight back. I just stand up again and face her, waiting for her to throw another shuriken. At least I'm getting a little bit better.
"Katrina?" Genkai asks. "Before we start again, I just want to say that your body has done this all before. Just let your body do it and stop overanalyzing it. If you don't question yourself, your body should be able to do it on it's own. Why do you think I started you out with shuriken and not with something easier like peanuts, say?"
"Because you don't want to waste your peanuts? Is that rhetorical?"
"No! Because your body can remember this! Katrina, it's been about…two months or so since we really practiced this. Your body knows what to do. You're trying all these fancy little dives to get out of the way and it's not working. Without that kimono for protection, you probably would be dead now. So, try it that way."
"But I don't know what you—" She throws one at me without warning, and I gasp and just get out of the way.
"NO! You just got lucky there with that flailing ballerina thing you won't let go of! Let your body do it! Focus and yet don't focus."
"HOW CAN I FOCUS IF I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO FOCUS?" I yell. She answers by throwing another blade. I stare at it coming towards me, and I don't fall on the ground this time. I just shimmy to the side, and it flies past with about 3 inches between it and me.
"That was it. That's how I taught you. See how easy that was?"
"Yeah. Wow. Am I done?"
To answer my question, she throws another shuriken, and I do it wrong. Another, I do it wrong. Another, I do it wrong. Another, I get it right. Another, I get it wrong. Another, I get it wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Right. Right. Right! Wrong. Wrong. Right. Right. Ah, there we go. The trick is simply not to question my body's actions and my body actually does seem to know what to do. This is actually pretty easy! I start seeing the shuriken in slow motion, estimating the speed and velocity…
Before I know it, Genkai blows a whistle hanging on a cord around her neck. "Okay, time to start doing laps around the gym!"
"I can't run in this!" I gesture to the kimono.
"I didn't say you had to run." She says, with a peculiar glint in her eye. She's trying to tell me something.
Oh. I get it now.
Fire, fire, fire in my hands…NO! STOP! A bubble to surround me…no fire in my hands, cancel that…a bubble to make me move…
I feel a nice breeze rattling around my body, and I see only a blue world around me on all sides. PERFECT! I'm standing on the bottom of my sphere…ready to roll…haha…
Then, it pops. Blue sparkles fall all around me, and I stare in shock. But I was sustaining it perfectly! What happened?
Then, Genkai slaps me on the arm from behind. I whirl around. She glares at me. What'd I do?
"Perhaps I should have been more specific. I meant hopping. I already said, we're not doing spirit power for a long time. So, don't do it. If I ever catch you doing it, you're going to be in incredible trouble."
"Why?"
"Because you aren't trained and it's dangerous when you're not trained. I don't care how pretty it looks. Never do it again. Also, Melita says it could be dangerous to your brain."
"Okay, okay…wait. Did you say hop?"
"Indeed. Get started."
"You must be kidding. Even you're not that cruel."
"MOVE IT!" She blows her whistle so hard it gives me a headache.
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"All right, the 2 hours are up! Not a bad job at the end there, Katrina. Interesting use of your…body drag. I didn't know it was possible to push oneself by the arms for 15 laps…"
I restrain my rude comment as her hands glow just slightly yellow.
"So, I'll see you here at seven thirty tomorrow. And don't come with anyone. They're just distractions. Don't eat breakfast, either. You're going to have to deal with low food supply, it builds character."
""WE'RE IN THE ARMY NOW, OH, WE'RE IN THE ARMY NOW!" I belt out.
She punches me in the stomach, and I recoil.
"I can't believe you don't remember what I used to make you do. And…don't let anyone take you up here, either. You have to get up here using purely your brawn. Remember, no bubbles."
"But I can't get up here by myself without using a bubble…"
"This is the physical part of the training. When I start teaching you about your spirit power, then you can start using it to get around. But for now, find a way to get up here by yourself. And Katrina, believe me, we will know if you start using your spirit power. We can sense it a mile away because you have so damn much of it."
"Yeah, yeah…"
"Well? Why are you still here? Move on! Get down to your room! You're going to need sleep, since apparently two months away from this training made you weak. Go. And don't be late to the next meeting. I mean it. Well, GO!" She actually kicks me to make me stand up.
I begin to hop as fast as I can towards the door, almost tripping over a treadmill. I try to rid my mind of the image of that mile-wide vein sticking out of her forehead. The door swings open to admit me through, and without looking back, I turn left and begin to tumble down the stairs. At least I'm falling in a very dignified way. And the entire thing is downhill, too.
It's probable that I'll break my neck, but I won't have to do any work for it.
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I stretch an aching arm up to the doorknob, and open it with a fair amount of pain. I crawl over to the bed and drag myself up into the bed with my arms alone. Oh, curse this kimono with its 18 different purposes. I'm sure there's more that they haven't told me about yet.
I'm bruised all over the place and I have lots of little scabs dotting my arms where the shuriken successfully penetrated the robes to touch my skin. I hurt all over. Even I'm not sure why I'm not dead yet, after falling at least twenty times. I think I'm going to cry. This has been a terrible day. I discover that I have an amazing power to make fire, and now I can't even use it. They're going to force me to work hard when I could just do things the easy way. This sounds suspiciously like they're trying to teach me something.
Carefully inching my body up like a worm, I shiver and work my way under the covers. I'm so hungry…I'm so hungry…one piece of toast is not enough at all…well, maybe they'll wake me up when it's lunchtime…
Just when I'm on the brink of sleep, I hear voices outside the door. Either that, or several of multiple personalities are getting into a war. I open one ear to the noises. It sounds like they're coming up the hall.
"Don't tell her. You know what those memories did to her!" It seems to be Kurama.
"She only gave Yukina a slight scratch. Not enough to draw blood, even. I really think that she has some sort of self-control as the demon…"
"No. She was totally lost. If we hadn't restrained her… No. Don't tell her, Keiko, I'm warning you. If Melita hadn't erased her memories, she'd have done a whole lot more damage."
"But what if she wakes up? What if Enma actually revives her? Seriously, how are you going to keep the two away from each other? Katrina is going to find out if she wakes—"
"She's not going to wake up. There's no way she can be brought out of that state. Why are you obsessing over this? There's nothing we can do for her. If we play it right, Katrina will never even know about her."
Keiko huffs. "Well, don't blame me if—"
"You know, we're right outside her door. Keep quiet about her, I mean it. The signs mean nothing. Go on, give her the food."
The door creaks open and I try desperately to pretend I'm asleep.
Keiko enters. I stare at her with eyelids lowered to slits. She looks like she hasn't bathed in weeks. Such dirty hair. You know, do they even have showers up in the sky? Maybe I'll have to bathe in the rain, and some poor pedestrian down on earth is going to get hit with some really toxic water.
She walks in with a bowl of soup on a tray, looking pretty pissed off. She hands it to me, with one word: "Eat." She sits on the edge of my bed and stares at me.
I gobble down the soup as fast as I can with aching arms and useless legs. I refuse to acknowledge her for about ten seconds. If I say something, a question about what they were talking about might slip out. When I get my tongue under control, I finally speak.
"So when are you giving me back my mattress?" I ask.
Keiko blinks, then she seems to realize. She gives me a flat look with eyes that seem to be closed to what I have to say, like when one is in a nursing home full of senile old people like Genkai. "Oh yes. You think I stole your mattress?"
"I know you stole my mattress."
She sighs, and continues staring. "Katrina, I seriously don't know what you're talking about. Why don't you just call it quits with that whole accusation?"
"Because it's true! I distinctly remember sleeping in another bed before I woke up here."
She nods. "That might be a shadow of a memory. Katrina, I might as well tell you this right now. Things are going to start coming back to you, vaguely, slowly. Melita's memory suppression isn't perfect. If you see something that reminds you of a certain event, depending on what it is, you'll probably remember at least part of it. I think you're remembering your own mattress and you're…really attached to it or something. Do you know what another purpose of the kimono is?"
At this, I scream a bloodcurdling string of gibberish, right in her face, ending with, "Do you guys have lives? Or do you just sit around all day thinking up more ways to chain me where I stand?"
She huffs. "I'll ignore that. It's to prevent you from walking places you shouldn't be going."
Realization hits me. This was the true reason why Genkai didn't want me to use Spirit Power. It would give me mobility.
"I think it's useless, and the whole memory suppression thing seems wasted on you. I have no idea why Melita insisted on it. Some sort of accident…but anyway…"
"How am I supposed to live without memories?"
"How are we supposed to live with you useless like this? I don't know!" She yells, and seems like she's going to hit me, but contents herself with ripping away the tray out of my hands, causing the empty bowl to shoot off onto the floor and shatter into a million pieces. She utters a curse and flies out the door in a rage, probably getting someone else to clean it up.
Why…why did she just freak out on me?
But never mind that. Somehow, I have to outwit the kimono and find the key to the door with all the memories. Kurama and Keiko must have been talking about waking my memories up, but Kurama didn't think it was a good idea. So, if I find he key to unlock that door myself…I'm home free.
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Author's Note: So, now we have a plotline. "RECOVER THE MEMORIES!" I realized that was the kind of problem with chapters up to this point. And there's Melita, too…I sort of added her in last-minute to make a plot, you know?