So they say,
You'll be OK,
But words are not enough.
Nobody remembered me,
The words were not enough.
- Spirit Will Collide by Devin Townsend
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The energy flies into the world, diving through time and through space. Shoring up cracks where they were, repairing things and changing so many things.
In a hospital bed, in the past, a woman who was to die recovers. Doctors call it a miracle, a last-minute treatment that completely negated her illness. Tendou Kimiko doesn't die there.
She grows strong. Stronger than before, alive in a way no one can really understand – the long-running illness she had finally defeated. Her family thank the kami and make extra offerings that year but they're directing their thanks in the wrong direction.
Kimiko swears, for ten years she swears that at the foot of her hospital bed, away from her family, she sees a girl. A girl with red hair and blue eyes and a kindness to her eyes that makes her seem almost like a guardian angel. She sometimes thinks at the time she heard a voice, a voice that said. "Love my family well. I leave so you live."
The times she remembers the figure are in waking dreams, daydreams or when she has just awoken and is between sleep and reality.
The morning has dawned like any other, and Kimiko is busy preparing breakfast for her gaggle of children.
Well, she thinks, perhaps not necessarily like any other. Soun had been… frisky this morning. He'd slept poorly; some dream keeping him from properly sleeping. He'd looked haunted, and she smiles as she remembers him peppering her face and lips with whiskery kisses until the two of them had made love.
They don't often do so in the mornings – their children are a little too grown up now to not know what they've been doing, but they were both up so early. She blushes and shakes her head. Even twenty years into marriage, Soun can still make her feel like that schoolgirl he'd asked out all those years ago.
She'd asked why he'd been so playful in a morning, and with the brightest smile he could manage he'd said that he'd dreamed that he'd lost her, all those years ago, and that he'd become a husk of a man. "It had felt so real." He'd said before he'd kissed her again and they went for another round.
Kimiko ponders this. Her own dreams had been troubled. She remembers a black nothingness and watching her family from above as it had disintegrated. She remembers seeing them all suffer, but not being able to do anything about it.
She remembers… In the dream, a young black-haired boy… Or was it a red-haired girl, like the one she remembers from the hospital?
She shakes her head and returns to the task at hand, readying breakfast.
Of course, Kasumi's up first, yawning but already dressed for the day in her smart clothes. She sets her laptop bag down near the genkan and moves to the kitchen, pulling on an apron and then, uncharacteristically, takes her mother in a gentle embrace, squeezing her close. "Good morning, Mother." She says softly, before stepping back and starting to help with the miso soup.
"Good morning Kasumi." Kimiko smiles at her eldest. "That was an unusual good morning for you."
"I had bad dreams." Kasumi says, focusing on the soup. "I dreamed you'd died when you got ill. It wasn't very nice."
Kimiko looks concerned. "I had a similar dream. I know it's not been long since the time of year it happened, but…"
Kasumi smiles. "That must be it. But I'm glad it wasn't true." She looks up as there's an outraged yell and a thump from upstairs. "Ah, Nabiki and Akane must be awake."
Kimiko sighs as Akane stomps down the stairs in her pyjamas. Her hair's dripping and she is about to launch into a rant about Nabiki's prank before she stops. "M-mom." She says, her voice sounding shocked a moment. Then she's there, arms about Kimiko. Thankfully she'd managed to put the knife down.
Kimiko hugs onto her youngest daughter, who sniffles a few times. "S-sorry Mom, I had this… But it felt so real…"
Kimiko hugs her daughter back. "Well, I'm here dear. Though could you squeeze me a little less hard. I'm not made of iron like your father."
Akane steps back, blushing slightly and twirling her short hair in her fingers. "Sorry. I just…"
Nabiki's next down, dishevelled as she always is in the morning pre-coffee. She too stops at the entrance to the kitchen, but controls herself well enough to not rush into the already crowded room. "Mom." She says, a note of wonder in her voice. Her head shakes. "Knew it was a dream."
Kimiko looks around at her family. "…Did everyone have bad dreams last night where I was gone?" She asks faintly.
Looking around at the nods, Kimiko feels a little faint. "I see. I wonder what brought it on? I'm here, anyway. Perhaps it's something in the spirit of the house out of balance. I'll see if I can get some incense later, or…" She pauses. Kasumi's looking expectantly out the door with the half-coverings partly draped on Nabiki's head. "Kasumi?"
Kasumi's mouth purses. "I… don't know. I was expecting someone to come through complaining about the noise."
Akane blinks and looks out. "…Me too. A boy. Wait, no, a girl."
Nabiki smirks. "Of course it's a girl for you." She teases and Akane shrugs.
"Can't help being the way I am, onee-chan. But no, it's a girl I'm expecting…"
"A girl with red hair?" Kimiko asks. They turn to her. The silence stretches.
Then the moment passes as something goes ding in the room and they return to normal, the weirdness forgotten as they scramble to do their morning rituals. Soun and Akane spar, Kasumi helps Kimiko with breakfast and Nabiki stares blankly from the engawa until she's finished her first coffee.
The only one who seems to remember the weird moment is Kimiko and it gives her pause as she cleans up after breakfast. "What… was that?" She wonders. "Why did they expect to see that girl? And why don't they remember how weird it was?"
She wonders if No-chan had had the same dream. The girl had looked a little like her friend. A pity she was away at a conference else she'd have asked.
Shaking her head, she makes her way to the dojo once her children have left the house to watch her husband prepare for the day's teaching.
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Ranko finds herself on the doorstep of The Bakery (she'd been told the place's name and given the stress on the words, capital letters seemed the best way to describe it), standing next to a girl maybe a year or two older than her with skin so pale as to be practically translucent and dark, purplish veins across that skin. She has hair in a brownish red colour, and sharp fangs when she grins.
She grins a lot. Not always nicely, not always in a happy way.
She's wearing a purple hoodie, black denim shorts with purple tights underneath them and purple canvas shoes, and in her arms is an eldritch horror that Ranko couldn't put a name to. It's adorably evil-looking though.
"I'm Rachel, this is-" The girl makes a two-minute long noise like a dial-up modem. Reality shivers around her. "….But most people can't say it so I call him Bob." She puts the creature on her head, and he curls up to resemble a bucket hat with a big eye on the front. Rachel grins at Ranko easily, folding her arms. Her fingernails, Ranko notices, are purple crystal talons.
The tiny pink goddess Berry steps out with a backpack in hand. "Here you go, Ranko." She says, handing it over. "There's a Fuurinkan High uniform and gym clothes in there and the pyjamas your mother gave you. All your books are here." She hands her a book bag. "And a bentou made by me." She hands the last item to Ranko. The box has her name's kanji on it, though only her given name. It also has a stylised chibi-Berry (despite that the girl already looks like one) design on it.
"The uniforms aren't new, I had to bring them here when someone had thrown them out, so they're a touch threadbare I'm afraid, but they'll do. I'd probably say not to hang around too much except to confirm."
Ranko looks herself down. She's still in the 'China' overalls. Then she looks at the streets. "It… doesn't look any different." She says softly. Rachel gives a strange, sad smile.
"Trust me, it won't until you meet people you used to know." The auburn-haired girl says, sharp teeth in her grin, sharpness in the expression, like bitterness as well as insouciance. "That's when it'll hit you. Don't think the world'll change hugely just because you don't exist anymore." Ranko feels a pang in her heart when Rachel puts it so bluntly. "We're all just little cogs in little wheels in bigger cogs that drive the world, kiddo." Rachel ruffles her hair. "Anyway, off you pop."
Berry smiles sadly at Ranko. Tears stand in those ancient pink eyes. "I'm sorry." She says. "I am so sorry. I wish I could have not granted this wish, but I had to. You're going to find this hard. I hope you do well."
She hugs Ranko around her midsection, reaching upwards given her tiny stature and for a moment, a single, wonderful moment Ranko feels entirely, completely safe and warm. Enveloped in a pink and fluffy bubble of reality as something akin to a concept turns its attention to her and simply surrounds her.
The pink-haired goddess steps back and the warmth disappears. "Goodbye, Ranko. Best of luck to you." She smiles and the two girls turn.
Ranko bows, but when she looks up, the Bakery is gone, leaving an empty storefront. She'd have thought it a dream if it weren't for the backpack in one hand, the bentou and book bag in the other. She stares at the items and finds a bench nearby, intending to look through the backpack, but catches sight of a clock. She needs to hurry from… wherever it is she is if she's going to get to Fuurinkan high on time, especially if she's to change into the uniform en route.
She starts walking quickly, hoping she'll get to see Akane or Ryouga or someone she knows.
If nothing else someone to recognise her.
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Changing in the nearby train station bathroom, Ranko looks at herself. Dishevelled. She sighs, wishing for her makeup kit. At least the backpack had a hairbrush in it and she quickly teases her curls into something resembling order.
She takes a deep breath and tries something. She sets the tap to hot water and splashes her face.
Nothing happens.
She does it again and still nothing happens. She smiles. That, at least, is gone. Like a weight from her chest, a demon from her back. Her face falls as she remembers that it was part of the price, and she is only now starting to consider that she may have made a bad decision.
She smooths down the uniform and takes a breath. It's slightly patched, though the job is so good that she can barely tell. More concerning is Kasumi's mark on the label. Then again, Berry had said that they couldn't just create the uniform here so perhaps it was one that Kasumi had thrown out. The PE uniform is the same, lightly patched in that expert way Kasumi manages, but still old.
She'd looked at herself while changing and hoped no one would question the bruises. The ones from the bridge are still rather nasty, and there are still ones from Akane's mallet, though they're fading a little.
Ranko sighs and summons up her courage. Nothing seemed too different yet, but Rachel had had a point – no one person has such an impact on the world, even herself with the chaos surrounding her.
She steps out and back onto the streets. Then a familiar figure looms in the distance and passes her and Ranko's heart clenches. Kasumi.
The eldest Tendou isn't in her house dress and apron, though. She's in a very flattering shirt dress with a collar and belt around the midriff, a small jacket over that. Her hair was still the same side-tail, only a black ribbon tying it and not a white one. Her face is less worried and more carefree, and she has a satchel over one shoulder as she walks.
She looks like she's heading to a class or a job.
Kasumi had walked past her and given little more than the cordial nod she gives everyone. There's no recognition in her eyes.
There's no recognition in her eyes.
Ranko feels faint and her stomach churns. She turns and looks at Kasumi who has stopped and is looking at a stall. She watches as Kasumi accidentally drops one of the oranges that she was looking at, and it rolls to Ranko's feet. Numbly she reaches down and picks it up, walking over.
"U-um… Excuse m-me…"
Kasumi's face lights up a second and Ranko's heart constricts in hope before she sees the absolute lack of recognition again in the eldest Tendou sister's eyes as she takes the orange from Ranko.
"Thank you, miss." Kasumi says warmly, as warmly as she does for a total stranger. Ranko nods, a sick, horrible feeling in her gut.
"Y-you're welcome T-Tendou-san…" Ranko manages and she steps backwards, then bows and turns around, walking quickly in the direction of Fuurinkan high. Her breath hitches and she feels dizzy as she walks.
Back at the stall, Kasumi blinks. Did she know the girl? She's in the same uniform her sisters wear, but otherwise Kasumi would have remembered the red hair if nothing else, given how distinctive it is.
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Ranko moves quickly along the familiar path to Fuurinkan high, passing the road to the Tendou Dojo as she does. She's tempted to linger by and see if there's any changes, but the way her heart hurts from meeting Kasumi makes her reconsider.
She slows down. They're all going to be there. Everyone she knows.
Can she handle it?
Lost in thought, she absently moves to the side to let a girl on a bike past and then blinks. Nabiki's retreating form zooms ahead and Ranko giggles to herself. At least that hadn't changed.
Another form runs past her, almost clipping her.
"Sorry!" Yells Akane as she goes and Ranko's heart quickens a moment. She sees the short hair, but there's something in Akane's bearing, something different.
Hurrying to catch up, Ranko stops and stares at the ranks of about fifteen boys lining the gates.
Akane doesn't stop, she ploughs into them like a cannonball, but there's something different about the fights. Something seems… off about how it's going. Ranko walks ahead, used to the maelstrom of flying bodies, and she's in the middle of it all before she realises. No one's going into a crater or being hurt too badly. In fact…
She helps one to his feet and he bows before returning to the fray, a little wobbly. In fact… it looks like a spar. Akane doesn't have her old expression of anger and hate, but a grin. An almost… cocky grin as she demolishes fifteen boys at once.
Sure, they're all ending up in groaning piles, but they aren't injured or in craters and they're all commiserating with one another.
"Kami, does she have to hit so hard?"
"You told her you could take it, Ueda."
"Yeah, well I didn't expect an elbow to the solar plexus…"
Ranko realises it's weird as well because by this point the horde should have stopped. Except hadn't she stopped it? Or they'd stopped because of her old self at least.
She walks on by as Akane calls out an apology for the display until a figure steps in front of her and she looks up into the face of Kunou Tatewaki.
"What a beauteous flower to hath descended 'pon our fair school!" He intones at her, approaching. Ranko quails under his gaze.
"A-ah…" She's not had to deal with him since she changed, and she'd hoped that she wouldn't have to.
She hears a slam and a final groan behind her and turns to see Akane standing amidst the pile of groaning boys on the floor, dusting her hands off.
"Sorry guys, looks like I win today's spar. Again." Akane says, that grin still on her face. It's a friendly, open sort of smile. The kind that Ranko's old self would have made, and the boys groan in response. "Same time tomorrow?" Groan. "Alright then. Honestly guys, you need to practice more. I'd not beat you all so handily if you tried harder."
"Beauteous Tigress, the fair Tendou Akane, will you go out with me?"
"No." Akane says, brushing her hair out her eyes. "Stop asking me, senpai. No means no, and you know I don't go for boys."
Kunou turns back to Ranko, who steps back. He grabs for her hands. "How about you, fiery haired beauty?"
"…Um…"
"Come now, your beauty is as the rising sun, silk hiding steel for you move like an artiste of the martial variety! Pray honour this man with a date!"
"Ah…" Ranko struggles to keep her hands out of his. "Please leave me alone."
She's interrupted by the sound of Kunou slamming into the wall nearby and sliding down it.
"Senpai, she doesn't want your attentions. She's obviously new, please leave her alone!" Akane's voice cuts through the haze. Kunou lands at the bottom in a dazed sprawl wall and Akane turns to her. "Hey, you ok?"
Ranko looks up at her saviour, right into a pair of extremely familiar brown eyes. Ba-thump goes her heart.
It's not the similarities she notes, it's the tiny differences she can see now she's up close. The lack of certain tightness in the eyes. A more carefree expression than she'd ever seen Akane have. She stands steadier, straighter. She looks comfortable, not angry. Slightly amused, not raging about boys. She's got short hair still, even though that had been Ranko's fault in the first place.
"I… um." Her face is suddenly flaming as Akane smiles at her. There's a slight blush on the short-haired girl's cheeks as she takes in the red-haired girl. She brightens as she doesn't recognise her.
The look makes Ranko shiver, something crawling across her spine.
"Oh you're new! Hey, let me show you in!"
Ranko's aware of a hand taking hers and she follows on meekly as Akane leads her into the school. "Honestly, that boy really doesn't know when to back off!" The short-haired girl grumbles, and Ranko is surprised not to hear simmering hateful rage but a long-suffering annoyance. The difference would be slight to anyone else, but to someone who knows Akane as well as she does it's clear. "Really, I wish they'd suspend him or something, it's one thing to accost me once a day, and thank the heavens we talked him down to that, but to accost new students? Ugh!"
They stop in one of the halls and Akane finally lets go of her hand. Ranko blushes and looks away. "Th-thank you, Tendou-san." She says, embarrassed.
"Don't worry about it. Creeps like Kunou-senpai seem to be a dime a dozen here." Akane smiles. "I'm Tendou Akane, how about you?"
Ranko looks into the eyes and now she's not so caught up in the mortifying presence of Kunou Tatewaki the full import of what's happened slams into her. Akane's not looking at her like her fiancée-turned-sister, not like the person who had spoken with her so deeply only last night. Not the girl who she'd held in her arms and cried with.
No recognition. Ranko's eyes tear up and she sniffles, but swallows it down. She schools her expression, pushing all of the horror she's feeling down. She can't inconvenience someone who doesn't know her. Dabbing her eyes with a tissue to try not to mess her makeup, she looks at the floor. "…Ranko." She says. She hasn't a name here, after all. No family name at that. Who knows if her father and mother are even alive, or if there's someone else in her place? "S-sorry."
Akane looks curious. "There a family name to go with that, Ranko-san?" She asks, that friendly smile still on her face.
There's so much different.
"J-just Ranko." The redhead replies, still looking at the floor. "I-I need to… Register, I s-s-suppose…"
"I'll show you where the office is!" Akane smiles brightly at her and motions. "Come on, let's get you there before the bell."
Ranko falls into step beside the girl who doesn't recognise her, her heart sinking deep into her chest. She tries to see this as a positive – she has a chance for a completely fresh start with Akane, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe they can be friends this time, right from day one.
She realises almost immediately she'd be lying to herself if she did. Her world, the world she existed in, the world she had a place, is gone.
It wouldn't be the same, could never be the same. Her Akane, her family, her world is gone, changed beyond recognition and yet the same in all the minor details.
What have I done?