Chapter 8: Betrayal

Guntz promised that as soon as the World Reunification Day celebration was over he would return the way he came, correcting everyone he had talked to about the rumor. They hurried off since the nearest post they could use to send a message to Sheena was in Izoold.

The Irving twins were still half-stunned at the revelation that one of their own trusted members sought the deaths of the Castagniers, though Geo pointed out that he could easily be a fostered one since they didn't know of any family he had in Mizuho. Marille herself said nothing. She was too busy trying to figure out why someone who rescued her eight years earlier would then turn around and betray them.

They had to stop early for the night even though Izoold was just ahead. The boys felt it was too dangerous to travel at night, and without the wolves to protect them, they needed a defensible place to camp. The best one they could find was a spot nestled into the side of a hill.

"We'll leave as soon as it's morning. It's always possible Roxy and Duchess will be back by then." But Leo sounded doubtful. "If not, they'll probably follow us to Izoold."

His brother sifted through their packs for something to make for dinner. "We'll be getting there a day early, but the celebration is supposed to go on for almost a week. It's too bad there aren't more people going yet or else we could have grouped together. I think most are traveling by sea since it's a safer route."

Their friend continued her silent contemplation, poking a stick into the crackling flames of their cooking fire. Ever since that first memory she'd gotten the evening before, there had been a tickling sensation of something familiar that she couldn't quite place. The occasional flashes she saw were still indistinct, which was the primary reason she hadn't shared them.

Her brooding made the meal an uncomfortable affair. The twins tried to lighten the mood but it didn't work.

"I'll take first watch," Geo volunteered after a few minutes of silence once dinner was over. "You two hit the sack and I'll wake Marille around midnight."

She pulled out the traveling blanket and laid down, but sleep was as far as from her as the closest star overhead. Twice in the next hour Geo stood and brandished his sword, frightening off curious monsters. This area had few that weren't nervous around fire, and seeing an armed human made them eager to be about their own business. Marille had to admit that traveling with the boys was a lot easier than perching in a tree all night, half-asleep.

But at this rate she still wouldn't get any rest. A disappointed grunt attracted Geo's attention and he turned to look at her.

"Why am I not surprised? If you're going to be awake anyway, why don't you just come over and talk?"

Keeping the blanket tightly wrapped around herself, the blonde girl went over to sit beside him and watched as he placed more logs on the glowing coals. He finally leaned back, resting the blade of his sword softly against his shoulder and casting her an expectant look.

"So. Ready to face the beast?"

"I've been ready, but I just don't seem able to see anything clearly. It's so familiar...all of it! But it's like the key is missing. Nothing makes any sense all chopped up and far away. Why can't I see it the way I could with the first memory?"

"Stop trying so hard," the dark-haired boy advised. "Chances are you're just making things worse. You've always been that way, you know, and now it's working against you."

Confusion crinkled her face. "I've always been what way?"

"Can I say you're stubborn without insulting you?" he asked with a cocky grin. "You get it into your head that such-and-such is the only thing to do and you don't consider any other way."

Marille straightened her back. "This from a kid who refused to learn to hold a sword in his left hand."

He stiffened at the jab. "Not all of us can be ambidextrous. And I didn't refuse."

"Yeah, that's right..." She snapped her fingers. "You knocked yourself out with the training sword and whined so much that your father decided not to pressure you into trying again."

"I never whined."

"You mean 'Daddy, Daddy! Don't make me do it anymore!' doesn't sound like whining to you?" the girl mimicked in a high-pitched voice.

"I didn't say that."

"Did."

"Didn't."

"Did."

The silliness of the argument got to them and they could hardly contain the snorts, but they managed to keep it down. The last thing they wanted to do was wake Leo since he had the hardest shift of the night. Wiping the trace of a laughter-tear from his eye, Geo smirked at Marille.

"It's not as if you were a princess yourself. You were the gawkiest goose in the gaggle back then! Your mom had your hair done up in dinky braids that looked like yellow twigs and you were always tripping over your feet so that all your skirts were torn at the bottom. And that dumb toy you had all the time! Whenever we came visiting, me and Leo would find some creative place to hide it and you'd get so mad—"

He stopped short as Marille seized his arm, eyes wide but not seeing him.

"The toy—it all started with that toy!" she gasped.

%*%

Marille played with her stuffed Tenebie at the edge of the forest. Lake Sinoa was nearby but all the monsters in the area were friendly. She was halfway through building a little temple for it out of sticks and stones when she heard a noise close by. Curious, she ran over to investigate, hoping it would be one of her father's monsters.

The moment she approached the bushes, however, large hands shot out and grabbed her! She dropped Tenebie and tried to scream, but the man had anticipated that and covered her mouth. He took off running deeper into the woods, carrying her beneath his arm.

She struggled so much that they didn't get far. He set her down and put his face so close to hers that she could hardly breathe, then he hissed, "Knock it off!"

That's all it took to set her screaming wildly and trying to get away again. This he hadn't expected, so he hurriedly gagged her but not soon enough. Someone heard and called out in alarm. A couple other voices joined the first and the man fled.

A few minutes later a sphinx came charging at them. Marille cried out, "Luster!" but the man threw her forward into its path and the monster had to rear back to avoid trampling her. While it was off-balance, the stranger attacked with a furious barrage of powerful sword artes that brought it down, not even giving it a chance to defend itself. Before Marille could do more than say its name sadly and reach out to smooth the bloodied fur of its paw, she was yanked roughly to her feet.

Marille and her captor went straight west toward the mountains, but then backtracked and jumped in a small river to water down their scent and traveled upstream. Every time a large bird swung low overhead, her kidnapper ducked under cover and kept a tight grip on her. Any sounds of ground pursuit were far away and grew more distant as the day wore on.

Yet despite this terrifying misadventure, Marille was confident. She knew her father and his monsters would find her soon. Every minute she kept expecting one of them to burst out of the thick underbrush and rescue her…but by evening she was both disheartened and limp with fatigue.

Darkness kept them from continuing. He carried her up into a tree and tied her securely to a wide limb. As the near-full moon rose she finally got a good look at him. He looked like a Mizuho scout carrying a thin blade in a sheath on his back, the way he moved being deliberate and fluid. He was tall and dark blonde, but the stern look on his face made her freeze every time he glanced her way. For some reason she had the impression that long ago his face might have been very kind-looking, but the wide scar along his neck that stretched up across his left cheek gave him a terrible appearance to a seven-year-old girl.

"What do you want?" she squeaked out.

"You wouldn't understand," was the only answer he gave, and he refused to say another word.

He fed her cold rations and she managed to choke them down simply because his gray eyes were fixed on her. The more he stared, the more she felt he was planning to hurt her.

Something strange started to happen the following day. While he dragged her along, backtracking every now and then to head a different direction—sometimes toward the mountains, sometimes away—she started to feel almost faint, but not in body. Occasionally her eyes would swim, everything went blurry, and she would blank out only to discover that she'd been walking mechanically for a long time.

It grew even stranger the next day when her eyes blurred, because sometimes things started glimmering slightly, especially trees and the man and her own skin. The faintness started to fade a little by the fourth day, but the random incidents grew more frequent and she began to feel nearby creatures with a sixth sense in an indescribable way. There was something insubstantial pulling at her insides but she couldn't tug back.

By the fifth day, at least once an hour every living thing in sight transformed into millions of dancing sparkles. There were less in the air, water and earth, but there were still plenty of them. It was so disorienting that she kept stumbling.

During all this time, the monsters flying above appeared to be heading farther and farther away, and there hadn't been the sounds of land-bound monsters tracking them since the third day. Marille got the feeling they had been traveling in circles not far from Luin, but she had no idea why.

As they made their way across another stream (or maybe the same one?), the world once again dissolved into a flurry of tiny lights and, unable to see where she was going, Marille tripped into the water. It was so sudden that the man lost his grip on her arm. That would have been nice except that she couldn't see enough to try an escape, and all she was able to do was flounder to keep her head above the water.

Her sight returned a little and the girl managed to regain her sense of direction enough to reach shallower water. But the moment she dragged herself out, she found the Mizuho ninja standing there.

"I'll teach you to run away!"

His face was so angry that she was afraid he would kill her. In that moment she suddenly felt the nearness of several monsters and screamed, "Help me!"

A bear around a bend in the stream had come down for a drink, but the moment it heard her voice it lunged toward them. Nearby, a family of young chimeras darted through the bushes with a cacophony of yowls. The bear roared at her kidnapper and swiped with one huge paw. There was the scrape of metal and a glint of steel, then the beast lay dead at their feet. But before he was prepared, four little chimeras leaped directly at him, their wings fluttering madly as they attacked.

Marille threw out her hand and tried to warn the creatures, but no sound passed her lips. Even so, almost in response to her voiceless cry they scattered and reformed to attack. Yet it was no match for the Demonic Circle that enveloped them with a ferocious energy and left none standing.

At the sight of their mangled bodies, the girl hid her face, but her captor would have none of it. He cruelly pulled her along by her wrist, though before they had gone far, a harpy came flying down toward them shrieking. Almost at the same time, a pair of black wolves leaped out of the brush and bared their fangs.

The man threw her on the ground and handled his sword expertly. Within a minute the three monsters were dead and all he had to show for it was a nick on his shoulder where the harpy grazed him with its claws.

He stopped, studying Marille critically with his storm-gray eyes. "Those weak little things are not the ones he tamed. Something else is stirring them up…"

Without warning he gripped her chin, the hand glowing as he used some kind of spell. A cold shudder crept down her spine and she tried to cry out, but her voice hadn't returned. An instant later the ninja let go with a snort of disgust.

"Blank!" His eyes narrowed into slits as he came to a realization. "As obscure as his mind. So that's what it is…a demon daughter. I thought you were human like your mother, but now I see you are only that creature's spawn with a human form."

He stood, looking at the sun which was beginning to touch the horizon. Coming to a decision, the blonde man waded into the water until he was soaked then came back, dragging her a short distance. Using a tree as an anchor, he tied her to its trunk and drew his sword.

Sure this was the end, Marille's eyes welled up with terrified tears. But then he held the weapon up to his own shoulder, making a quick movement that tore the fabric and sliced into the skin. The girl stared at him as though he was insane, completely taken aback by this turn of events.

"Maybe I can't see your mind, but it's easy enough to affect it. I need more time and your memories of this are a liability."

His hand glowed again as he touched her face. She felt something intangible settling over her mind as the memories faded along with the last vestiges of sunset.

%*%

The Castagnier girl blinked in confusion. She was lying on the ground wrapped in her blanket and overhead the first golden fingers of dawn were reaching into the sky.

"So that's why it all felt so familiar," she whispered to herself as she sat up.

"Hey, you're finally awake!" Leo cried from his spot near the smoldering embers of the fire. "Bro, she's up!"

The boys rushed over to her, Geo appearing relieved. "You really scared me. Your eyes glazed over and I couldn't get out of your grip for ten minutes. Then suddenly you collapsed and wouldn't wake up no matter what I did."

Marille looked at them, her expression troubled. "It was Genji all along. He's the one behind everything. Not just the rumor and the attack on Mom... He's the one who kidnapped me eight years ago. We've got to send a message to your mother right away."

Marille has gained the title Recovered Amnesiac
I remember everything now! Wait...where are my keys?

A/N: It was obvious Genji did it from the moment Marille saw his uniform, wasn't it? His ability is called the "Munin arte" which I named after one of Odin's pet ravens and means Memory. I figured it fits the game to keep up with the Nordic themes.