**I do not own Voltron: Legendary Defender!
By nightfall, the Arusian village had been completely restored to its former state and the paladins and Allura returned to the Castle. Coran gave them an official report on Mari's condition: there was no tissue or spinal damage, thank the ancients, but she had a concussion, several cracked ribs, a small fracture in her skull, and a gash on the back of her head. They were lucky the cliff hadn't been any higher and that there weren't any rocks at the bottom; the damage would've been much more life threatening otherwise. Still, it would take some time for Mari to fully heal. She'd be in her pod for at least the whole night, giving the team plenty of time to crack the mystery behind the Arusian's memory orb.
"Ah! This is a Putaverunt Crystal!" Coran smiled slightly as he examined the item. "I haven't seen one of these in ages."
"Putaver-what now?" Lance frowned in confusion.
"Putaverunt. It a memory holder," Coran explained. "My grandfather told me stories about how Alteans used to mine these on Vitrum. The data our scientists collected from these gems was eventually used to create the A.I. memory units we have here on the Castle."
"But why build those when they already had the crystals?" Pidge wondered.
"These crystals have magical properties so they tend to be…fickle items. For whatever reason, they work the best on those who are currently weak of heart and mind. And the method of memory extraction tends to be much, much more painful as a person's thoughts are being copied and forcefully ripped out of their heads. The systems we have now are much safer and much less painful, plus they can extract memories from anyone without any harsh side effects."
"Harsh side effects?" Shiro repeated, worry lacing his features.
"There have been numerous cases of complete memory loss after using one of these crystals. There have also been rare instances where the user went completely brain dead…" Coran's voice trailed off as he noticed Shiro blanch, and he quickly added, "N-Not to worry though! Mari's scans showed that her brain activity was completely healthy and normal."
"I guess magic still doesn't beat the wonders of technology," Pidge nodded matter-of-factly, smiling slightly to herself as she pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose.
"So, what are we gonna do with it?" Hunk wondered, staring nervously at the crystal in Coran's hand. "We're not really going to try to look at Mari's memories are we?"
Shiro looked at the Yellow Paladin in mild surprise. "Who said anything about doing that?"
"I suggested that we give it a try," Allura spoke up. "I believe it will provide us insight on whatever's been bothering Mari as of lately. However, since she is your sister, I suppose asking for your permission first is neces—"
"Do it," Shiro interrupted and the princess seemed slightly taken aback. "Do whatever you can to access those memories."
"Alrighty then!" Coran complied. "I should be able to hook the crystal up to one of our own units and transfer the memories over. Give me a varga or so and I'll have it done."
As soon as Coran disappeared through of the bridge doors, Keith gave Shiro a look of uncertainty. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked their leader.
"Yeah, Mari's not gonna like it when she finds out what we did," Lance pointed out. "She's gonna be super ticked."
"She can be mad all she wants," Shiro said, his expression set in determination. "It's not like I haven't dealt with an angry Mari before. But she's given us no choice: she won't share anything with us and this is our only way to figure out what's wrong. I just hope we'll be able to help her with what we find."
A varga had passed since Coran first began to transfer the memories collected in the Putaverunt Crystal. In that time, Shiro had showered and changed into his regular attire and although he knew he must be hungry, he couldn't bring himself to eat anything. He was too anxious, fretting over Mari's status in the healing pod and dreading what sort of secrets they'd find in her memories. He found himself pacing up and down the halls of the Castle, waiting for Coran to call the team together.
As he passed the observation deck, he paused in the doorway to see Keith standing in front of the window, arms crossed over his chest. It wasn't unusual for Shiro to find the teen alone, but he had known Keith long enough to know when something was bothering him.
"Is everything okay?" he called out, making his presence known, and Keith immediately stiffened in surprise. When he realized that it was only Shiro, he visibly relaxed and averted his gaze back to the window.
"I'm fine," he shrugged half-heartedly as the older man came to stand beside him. "Just…worried, I guess."
"Same here," Shiro admitted, and there was a moment of silence between them before Keith finally caved.
"Shiro, I…I am so sorry," he said, his voice soft and his tone regretful. "About Mari, I—"
"It's not your fault, Keith."
"But it is!" he insisted. "I could've tried harder to stop her but I didn't. And then I just left her alone like that. Mari could have died and it would've been all my fault!"
"Don't talk like that," Shiro gently urged. "You aren't to blame at all. Mari chose to climb down herself. And you didn't abandon her, you were getting a rope to help her, right?"
"I didn't tell her what I was doing though. She probably thought I was just giving up on her," Keith muttered. "I could've done more, like gone down instead of her. I should've just called you over. She wouldn't have gotten hurt if I had just…done something differently."
Keith stared at the ground guilty, dejectedly, not wanting to meet Shiro's gaze. The Black Paladin sighed and placed a comforting hand on the teen's shoulder.
"Don't beat yourself up about it, Keith," Shiro said, his tone gentle and forgiving. "This wasn't any of your fault. And I promise you, not a single person on this ship blames you for what happened. But what's done is done, and what's important is that everything is going to be okay. We have to put this incident behind us so that we can move forward, all right?"
"I guess…" Keith mumbled and Shiro tried his best to smile reassuringly.
"If you're feeling that badly about it, you can still apologize to Mari if you want," he suggested. "I'm sure she'll forgive you. In fact, I don't think she'll hold you accountable for what happened either."
Keith grimaced at the thought, but deep down he knew Shiro was right—he usually always was. Feeling a bit better than before, he finally met the older man's gaze and gave him a small but grateful smile. "Thanks, Shiro."
Suddenly, Coran's voice spoke over the Castle's comms, putting an end to their little talk as he announced, "Everyone, if you'd be so kind to meet me on the bridge, I've finished transferring Mariko's memories."
After everyone had gathered on the bridge, Coran led the group to a dark and relatively empty room of the Castle. There were no windows at all, the only light coming from the dimly glowing blue veins along the sides of the walls and the sparkling memories that floated listlessly inside a large cylindrical tube in the center of the room.
"Alrighty then," Coran said, beginning to type in a set of commands on the control panel in front of the memory container. "Before we get started, I have a few explanations on how this is going to work. First, Putaverunt Crystals tend to extract the strongest memories first, and since Mari wasn't holding it for an extended period of time, it is unlikely that it completely collected all of them."
"So that crystal only took pieces of her memory," Pidge clarified, her eyes zeroing in on the the glowing orbs inside the container. "Starting with the ones that stand out the most to her."
"Right you are, Number Six," Coran nodded matter-of-factly. "So we can expect a few cut-offs, snippets, and time skips. All right, second, I've set this unit to play the extracted memories in order from oldest to newest, so we don't get confused."
"We're not gonna be watching, like, her whole life story, are we?" Lance asked, not even bothering to hide the dread in his voice.
"And is there gonna be some creepy holographic version of her watching us the whole time?" Hunk pitched in nervously.
"Oh no, no, no," Coran chuckled. "Viewing all her memories would take far too long and the crystal was much too small to hold that much information. See? The memories that it collected from Mari aren't even enough to form a core in the containment unit, let alone produce an A.I. of her. Now then, is everyone ready?"
Not really, Shiro thought grimly to himself, but it was too late to turn back now. He had to do this for Mari's sake, for the sake of their relationship as brother and sister. Taking a steadying breath, he nodded to Coran and the viewing started. The memory particles glowed brighter and the room grew darker as a projected image flickered against the far wall.
"Cool! This is just like the movies! I wish we had popcorn or something," Lance whispered fairly loudly before Pidge elbowed him in the ribs to be quiet.
Finally, the image came into focus, revealing a boy and a girl sitting on tatami mats, a slew of children's books surrounding them. The girl appeared to be very young, remnants of baby chub rounding out her face. Her hair was just long enough to be tied into two short pigtails and her dark eyes were large and curious as she flipped through the book in her hands. The boy was several years older than her, a preteen at least, but despite his scrawny build and shaggy hair, he was immediately recognizable as the young Takashi Shirogane.
"Awww!" Hunk crooned. "You two were so cute!"
"Was this your home on Earth, Shiro?" Allura asked curiously, taking note of the Japanese styled room the memory took place in.
"It was our grandfather's house," Shiro explained, smiling slightly to himself as a rather nostalgic feeling came over him. "Our parents were often busy with work so Mari and I stayed over at his place a lot during the day. He practically raised us."
As Takashi pulled Mari onto his lap and began reading another book with her, an elderly man with an uncanny resemblance to Shiro entered the room. He held a video camera in his hands and he knelt down next to the children as he began recording.
"It's Mariko-chan's birthday today and she got all of these cool books as a present from ojiisan," the old man grinned into the camera before facing it towards the kids. "Mariko, how old are you today?"
Mari looked up at him and beamed. "I'm three!" she cooed, holding up three fingers.
"No, you're four now, silly," Takashi chuckled and he held up four fingers to her. "See? Four."
"Four," she repeated, putting up her pinky finger as well.
"Do you like the books ojiisan gave you?" he asked.
"Yeah! Thank you!" she exclaimed and their grandfather smiled.
"It was my pleasure," he said. "So which ones are your favorites so far?"
"I like—I like these ones!" she said, holding up three books about outer space.
"Oh, so you like the space books, huh?" their grandfather noted and Mari nodded vigorously.
"The stars and planets are pretty," she said, showing off several pages in her books that contained colorful pictures of various celestial objects.
"Do you want be an astronaut when you get older?" he inquired of her.
"Y-Yeah! I wanna go to the Garrison and go into space and meet aliens and stuff!"
"The Galaxy Garrison, huh?"
"She wants to study there when she gets older," Takashi grinned. "Dad told her about it not too long ago and she's been babbling on about it and space ever since."
"Me and Takashi are gonna go to the Garrison together!" Mari beamed excitedly and their grandfather raised an eyebrow at Takashi.
"I-I still haven't decided whether I want to check it out or not," the boy admitted. "Mari's just gotten me a bit interested in it, that's all."
"Well, you both still have plenty of time to decide. There's no need to rush things," their grandfather chuckled. "Now, who's up for some birthday egg rolls?"
Mari and Takashi's eyes lit up in excitement, both of them squealing, "ME!" before scrambling to their feet and disappearing into another room.
"What are birthday egg rolls?" Hunk asked, his interest peaked at the mention of food.
"Our grandfather always made egg rolls for special occasions," Shiro said, smiling at the memory. "His dad had taught him and then he taught our dad and us how to make them. It's kinda become a family tradition. We'd put in shredded lettuce and some sort of fish or meat…They were always really good."
Before Shiro could dwell more on how much he missed the food from his childhood, the scene suddenly shifted and an older Mari was shown standing next to the front door of their parent's house, her hair tied into low pigtails once more. A baseball cap with the Garrison symbol on it sat snuggly on her head and she bounced up and down on her heels excitedly, tightly clutching the straps of the backpack she wore. A small black kitten was at her feet, playfully batting at her shoelaces.
"Now that is our house," Shiro explained to no one in particular. "And that beauty is our cat, Kage."
Around the corner from where Mari was standing, the voices of several chatting women could be heard from the living room.
"…You must be so proud of Takashi," one woman said, Shiro recognizing her voice as belonging their old neighbor, Miss Yada. "He's such a sweet and talented boy."
"And he's turning out to be just as handsome as his father," another one added and they all laughed.
"So, what does Takashi have in mind for a career?" a second inquired.
"He's already enrolled in the Galaxy Garrison's Space Exploration Program," another woman explained, and Shiro's heart clenched at the sound of his mother's voice. God, it had been so long since he'd talked to her, seen her. "He aced the admissions test and they're already holding a spot for him."
"You aced the entrance exam?" Lance hissed, gaping at Shiro in disbelief. "How?!"
"There's this thing called 'studying', Lance," Pidge rolled her eyes at him. "Maybe you should try it sometime."
"It's not that big of a deal," Shiro shrugged, slightly embarrassed. "Mari and Keith passed the exam with flying colors."
"There's no way Mullet over here got a better score than me," Lance glared at Keith who simply glowered back.
"Guys, shush!" Hunk whispered. "The scene's still going!"
"…he's so excited to start there, he's taking summer classes so he'll graduate high school by the time he's sixteen," Mrs. Shirogane continued.
"And what about Mariko? What does she want to do when she gets older?" Voice Two asked.
Mrs. Shirogane chuckled. "She's adopted her brother's dream it seems."
"She wants to enroll in the Garrison too?" Voice One said, almost incredulously.
"Well, I guess we can't all have original thoughts," Miss Yada said, causing the other women to giggle in agreement.
Mari's excited bounce came to a halt and her smile vanished from her face. Suddenly the ring of a timer went off and Mrs. Shirogane said, "Oh, that'll be the tea. Pardon me ladies, I'll be right back."
Several footsteps later and the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing, the remaining three woman began to chat in hushed voices, still unaware of the little girl listening to their "private" conversation.
"Do you really think someone like Mariko could get into the Garrison?" Voice One asked.
"Not a chance," Miss Yada scoffed. "She has to pass that difficult entrance test for one. And if she did somehow miraculously pass it, I bet she'd be kicked out in less than a month."
"Oh, that's right!" Voice Two agreed. "With that temperamental and hostile nature of hers, I'm sure she'd get into one too many fights."
"The other day she pulled my poor cat's tail after it scratched her," Voice One said. "If she can't get along with animals how does she expect to get along with humans? I don't know how her poor parents stand her, she's such a beastly child."
"She's so troublesome," Miss Yada sighed in agreement. "Goodness, I hope she doesn't hinder Takashi in his studies."
Mari's entire body was quivering now, her head bent low as tears began to pool in the corners of her eyes. Seeming to sense her distress, Kage stopped his playing to paw at her heel, mewing softly in concern.
"Your mom was friends with some really terrible ladies," Hunk said, watching sadly as the little girl slumped against the wall and curled up into a ball, cradling Kage in her arms. "They're being so mean to her."
"Why did your mom even let them into the house?" Pidge asked, looking to Shiro expectantly, but it was like he hadn't heard a single thing that any of them had said. He was just staring at the ongoing scene on the wall, a look of pure mortification on his face.
"Shiro?" Keith said hesitantly, placing one hand on the Black Paladin's shoulder.
"They're our neighbors. I-I didn't even know," Shiro whispered finally, his voice wavering slightly. "I didn't know they were saying such awful things about her. And—And my mother, she…she just let them all say it! Mari, why…Why didn't she tell me?"
Suddenly, a fourteen year old Takashi appeared, scrambling to put on his jacket while he hurried down the stairs. Mari immediately brushed the tears out of her eyes, an action that went unnoticed by him, and she looked up at him solemnly.
"You're late," she huffed. She set Kage on the ground and stood up, placing both hands on her hips as Takashi winced.
"Sorry, sorry," he apologized, grinning sheepishly. "My alarm didn't go off for some reason."
"Excuses, excuses," Mari rolled her eyes and Takashi chuckled lightly.
"Well, someone's full of sass this morning," he said, flicking her baseball cap playfully. His smile disappeared though as he noticed her dour expression. "Hey, your eyes are all watery," he said, his tone gentle and worried. "Are you okay?"
"I've just been yawning a lot," Mari shrugged, and the way she so casually lied to him made Shiro's heart break. "It's cuz I've been sooooo bored waiting for you to get your butt out of bed."
And as Takashi laughed, Mari just forced a smile, hiding what she had heard, keeping all that pain to herself. Shiro's blood began to boil as he watched the rest of the scene unfold with them heading out to visit the observatory. He was mad at Mari, mad that she had been hiding such horrible things from him for years. She had told him about everything else going on in her life, why hadn't she told him about this? It was infuriating, knowing that she had chosen to burden herself like this at such a young age. But more than he was mad at her, he was mad at himself. He had been a carefree and ignorant teenager at the time, riding high on life and dreaming of his future at the Garrison. He hadn't even noticed what was going on with his little sister, all this horrible verbal abuse she was suffering under. He should've paid closer attention, pressed Mari more on what was bothering her.
The image on the wall shifted once more before refocusing, the memories seeming to have skipped over the actual trip to the observatory as it was now the evening. Takashi and Mari were walking home now, making their way through the breezy neighborhood towards their house.
"Do you want me to carry that for you?" Takashi asked, pointing to the gift shop bag she now possessed. The translucent plastic revealed that it was full of new books and a t-shirt, and it seemed much too heavy for the six year old to continue carrying.
"No!" Mari insisted though, waving his hand away. "It's my stuff, I can carry it."
"You spent all your birthday and Christmas money on that stuff despite my offering to pay for half of it," Takashi sighed. "The least I could do is carry it for you."
"No!" she continued to deny him. "You already took me today and that's enough. I-I don't wanna be a bother to you anymore."
"What are you talking about?" Takashi chuckled. "You're my cute little sister, you could never be a bother to me."
When Mari didn't answer, Takashi's smile immediately faded. He gently brought her to a halt and knelt down in front of her, his eyes widening in surprise as he noticed her tearing up. "Mariko, what's wrong?" he asked gently. "Was is something I said? I'm sorry, please don't cry."
"I-I-It wasn't you," Mari sniffled. "It was—Ah! No, not my hat!"
A sudden strong gust of wind had blown it right off her head, sending it tumbling down the sidewalk. Shoving her bag into Takashi's arms, Mari tore after it, ignoring her brother's shouts to stop and wait for him.
"So she was trying to tell you," Pidge murmured thoughtfully to herself, but Shiro just stared at the projection in confusion, his heart racing as they watched Mari's hat land in the street.
"What…What is this? I don't remember this happening," he realized grimly and everyone looked at him in alarm. "Why can't I recall this happening?"
"What do you mean?" Allura inquired just as Mari ran out into the street to retrieve her hat. She didn't even notice the car that was barreling straight for her, and Shiro's breath hitched as Takashi desperately yelled for her to move. There was an awful screech as the driver slammed onto his breaks, but it was too late. Mari didn't even have enough time to register what was going on when her brother roughly shoved her out of the way and was hit by the vehicle instead of her.
**Author's note: So 1) Pidge is now Number Six in this fanfic cuz Mari's here and she's taller than Pidge but shorter than Keith so...yeah. Coran orders them by height. 2) So sorry for how late I'm uploading this. My day has just been kinda crummy and busy and stressful, and I didn't have time to post until now. 3) That thing about special egg rolls was something that I pulled from my own life. My Japanese grandmother always makes these STELLAR egg rolls during holidays and stuff, and she's taught me, my mom, aunt, and sisters how to make them. The Shirogane egg rolls could also lead into a potential bonding moment between Hunk and Mari (since there's still so little interaction between them) so that's kinda why I wanted to add that bit.
Translations:
ojiisan=grandfather
kage=shadow