CHAPTER 4 – RECOLLECTION
Part 1: How It All Began
Kuro felt the air turn heavy and oppressive. The towering, harrowing creature possessed an unfathomable, dreadful presence that somehow managed to feel holy.
At the base of the colossal entity, standing upon a glowing platform, were two small figures. The mysterious wandering man faced away from the entity, his eyes closed in mild irritation. Kuro, on the other hand, stared directly upward at the contorted silhouette.
The creature's central eye revealed an enormous, cross-shaped golden pupil, ancient and lidless. A crown of smaller orbiting eyes surrounded it, drifting lazily like planets circling a sun.
Below it, barely visible in the dark shadow, Kuro stared upward, his face painted with regret.
A liquid metallic taste surged up his throat and filled his mouth. Blood streamed from his eyes, nose, and ears, sending crimson tears down his cheeks.
'MNEMOSCOPUS: THE THOUSAND-EYED WITNESS.'
Those words rattled inside his skull, accompanied by the creature's sacred, terrifying visage.
"[Never dare gaze directly upon godhood… ]"
The entity intoned, its voice carrying a weight that had existed long before the concept of a warning.
"[Unless you seek suffering.]"
Its focus remained entirely on the young man who had dared to meet its gaze.
"[I have been curious about you ever since you fell into Makai. My gaze has always lingered upon you.]"
The creature lamented, its many eyes expanding and contracting to the slow rhythm of its speech.
"[Never in my elongated existence have I come across a being such as yourself.]"
The pressure of its gaze bore down heavily. "[I know much about you. More than you know yourself. However, I want to see more...]"
One of its orbiting eyes drifted closer, peering intently down at Kuro. The cross-shaped pupil of its central eye dilated as the golden iris flared with light.
"[Let me have a glimpse. And taste your story.]"
A tear in space and time opened slowly before peeling apart all at once. Within the rift, a massive crimson eye appeared, revealing a pupil that existed neither inside nor outside the realm, occupying both states simultaneously.
The lid of the spatial rift closed around Kuroshiraga Arufa.
Kuro had vanished into the void.
***
Two Years Before the Hamatsu Incident | 04.28 am
Ordinary residential buildings lay quietly that early morning, their concrete edges softened by overcast light. It was the ordinary architecture of an ordinary day in an otherwise ordinary city.
Inside one of the rooms,of the one of the houses— a young man with striking dual-toned silver and black hair stirred lazily beneath his blankets.
'We all have a different definition of living.
Experiences create who we are, good or bad, loud or quiet. Each one stacks on the last, shaping who we later become.'
In the darkness of the room, three quiet beeps sounded, followed by silence, and then three more.
'Looking back, I feel nothing.'
The digital display read 04:30. The young man was already awake, his piercing gaze resting indifferently on the vibrating device.
He lay on his side as the dim light from the window caught the strange markings etched into his torso. Notes and papers covered the desk beside his bed and stretched across the surrounding walls.
'...For I have nothing to look back to.
...Most humans fail to realize that the pain from their experiences is not a leaderboard. Different wounds hurt in different ways. Comparison heals no one.'
Sitting up, he stepped off the bed and switched off the alarm.
The markings on his torso and arm had been present for as long as he could remember, which, given his condition, meant very little.
He dressed around them every morning, thought about them every morning, and arrived at zero conclusions every morning.
He unhurriedly freshened up, pulled on his school uniform, and quickly ate a small bowl of instant ramen before leaving his empty residence.
'These were the words I apparently left myself.
Sigh… I long for growth. However, it is a concept I am incapable of attaining...
Growth is a scar that remains after the wound has closed. If the scar disappears every morning, the body forgets it was ever hurt, learning nothing.
For some reason, for the past eleven years, my memories of each previous day always seemed to get blocked. Today marked the eleventh year.'
He walked to school at an unhurried pace. Damp pavement stretched ahead as people passed by, heading toward their destinations.
A few pedestrians stared at the young man, noting his striking silver hair and blank expression, but quickly found other things to occupy their focus.
'It felt as though a wall was built at the end of each day, leaving an eternal feeling of reaching a dead end.'
The street carried the organized chaos of an ordinary morning, filled with overlapping voices, footsteps on the pavement, and the faint scent of breakfast. Kuro moved through the crowd without participating in it.
He continued down an empty stretch of road, lost in thought, when a sudden crash shattered the quiet, sending a plume of dust sweeping across the pavement.
…
A commotion had erupted in the middle of the street. Standing in the center of the clearing was a man with dark hair bound in a long braid, his glasses sitting slightly askew. He wore a crisp white linen shirt with long sleeves folded up to his elbows.
In his right hand, he wielded a broadsword with a hilt as white as bleached bone. Its blade was transparent, forged from glowing pale-yellow plasma that discharged small bolts of crackling electricity. He carried the energy of someone who resolved problems loudly on sight, already halfway through executing his technique.
Arcing low to the ground, electricity crackled along his fingers as he activated his ability with practiced ease.
"INTERMEDIATE ARTS ; Ignition: Electroperforative Discharge."
He moved with the speed of thunder, his blade swinging like a bolt of lightning.
The plasma edge connected with a cylindrical Doxamorph covered in open mouths and white teeth. Each mouth housed a singular eye, while a massive, tooth-filled maw capped the zenith of the creature's contorted body. The attack severed the beast in two.
The man straightened up, adjusted his glasses, and turned to look at Kuro.
Beside him, a tall, sharp-faced woman who seemed to constantly keep a tally of things turned to him with a satisfied expression.
"Yes! With that, we have met our hundredth quota. Good job, Sir Raiden Iskall!"
"It is only natural," Raiden replied eloquently.
"Hell yeah!" she added, grinning smugly.
Raiden focused his gaze on the bystander. "Young man over there, it is odd. Are you not running? Are you not afraid?"
He expected a frantic answer and prepared himself to be mildly annoyed if the boy denied it.
"..."
"What was there to be afraid of?" Kuro asked indifferently.
"Oh?" Raiden studied him closely. Having spent a large part of his career reading rooms, he was suddenly facing a situation that made no sense.
"I did not see anything worth running from," Kuro added.
Raiden stared, and Kuro met his gaze.
'Or maybe,' Kuro thought, the realization slipping past his calm expression without leaving a trace, 'There was something I simply could not see.'
Kuro watched the pair for a moment, then turned and walked away without lingering.
From across the street, the woman watched him leave, her arms crossed as she held a clipboard to her chest.
"What a strange kid," she said, her tone growing somber.
"Yeah..."
"Wanna go get something to eat, sir? I am starving."
"Ha... Yeah, sure."
***
Kuro kept on following the path he always took, although it wasn't out of memory, but his instincts that led the way…
After a while he began to approach the large crossroads ahead. He slowed his pace to look onward for incoming traffic, though at that moment, he was already drowning within his own thoughts.
'If only I could get rid of this curse and value what I have seen and what I've experienced,' Kuro thought as he continued down the path. 'For some reason, I still knew my age, my name, and my basic routines.'
He walked the return route home, instinct guiding him along familiar roads. On the crossing ahead, a mother walked alongside a small child.
The girl moved at an unhurried pace, her head swiveling with enthusiasm as she pointed at everything in sight.
"Mommy, look over there!" the child exclaimed in that loud, carrying voice unique to children who had not yet learned that pointing was impolite.
Kuro noticed the glance. He had been 'noticed' many times before, so he paid little mind to the gesture. And continued burying himself within his own thoughts.
'I might be missing something here. Maybe I need some sort of trigger?'
He turned the idea over in his head, considering and discarding the thought.
'No, it could not be that simple. Perhaps I was failing to see the bigger picture. I could not keep living like this. Maybe I should do some research. If I found a solution in the past, I might have left myself notes or clues.'
He paused mentally.
This was not normal. The pattern felt too deliberate for ordinary amnesia. Also...
"Mommy, why does his hair look like that? Doesn't he go to school? But he has a school uniform on... what school allows cool hairstyles?" the child asked with intense curiosity.
The dark-haired mother glanced toward the silver-haired figure disappearing down the street before looking down at her daughter. "Everyone is unique, including yourself."
The child processed the statement with solemn weight. "So we should all respect others for their differences?"
Kuro had not moved out of earshot yet. "If only everyone thought that way," he murmured quietly to himself.
A confrontation had already begun by the time Kuro noticed the commotion ahead.
An elderly man in robes, holding a wooden walking stick with the dignity of one who had lived a long life, had been bumped into by a figure wearing large headphones.
The younger, tall man's hostility was of one convinced he was in the right regardless of the evidence before him.
"My apologies, young man. Pardon me," the old man offered politely.
"Use your eyes! You fucking gaijin... Argh… " the young man muttered, squaring his shoulders and raising a fist to strike.
Kuro stepped into the situation without consciously choosing to, acting on almost on pure instinct. "Calm yourself," he said.
'Heavens, I never knew I would see someone so immature,' Kuro thought to himself.
The headphone-wearing figure rounded on him instantly. "Get lost, kid! This does not concern you!"
'It is strange, Kuro pondered. It feels like I am saving him instead of the old man. And this dude's reaction is far too aggressive'
"Who the hell is this kid?" the aggressor muttered, visibly thrown by Kuro's complete lack of fear.
The old man had seen enough. He straightened his back, his eyes sharpening beneath his aged brow as he reached down to collect his spilled groceries.
A group of bystanders shuffled nervously at the edge of the scene.
"Ayame?" a mother called out from behind as her daughter let go of her hand to run toward the commotion.
The little girl crouched on the pavement, clutching a small, round plushy to her chest with absolute care. Nearby, the old man's groceries rolled across the concrete.
Ayame immediately began gathering the scattered items, working with the focused seriousness of a child given an important duty. "The old man needs help picking these up. Here you go."
She handed him the plastic bag, now filled with the gathered groceries.
"Bless you, child," the old man said, retrieving his belongings before turning his attention to Kuro. "Thank you, young man. You should get that hand checked out, too."
Kuro looked down at his hand, bruised from blocking the aggressive man's fist. "Will do."
'It stung a little though.'
As Ayame ran back to her mother, she suddenly stopped, realizing something was missing.
"My Fukitsu plushy zipper!" She declared, her tone carrying the weight of a national crisis.
She turned on her heel, scanning the pavement with intense focus. "Maybe this way! I might have dropped it somewhere around here."
"Mom, hold on and wait there! That might be my plushy!" She called out, sprinting toward a small object resting near the curb.
A low, roaring thunder rattled the street, a sound that did not belong on a pedestrian avenue. Kuro turned, a cold sweat breaking across his skin.
An enormous truck moved far too fast down the narrow road. Directly in its path stood the small girl, her recovered plushy raised triumphantly above her head.
"I found it! Yay!"
The bright headlights illuminated the street as the truck's heavy tires screeched against the pavement. Ayame's mother realized the danger a single second before it occurred, her eyes widening in sheer terror.
"AYAME!" She screamed, sprinting toward her daughter.
Kuro was already in motion. He did not stop to think. He drove his foot into the pavement, closing the distance between himself and the child in a fraction of a second.
Sweeping his arm around her waist, he threw her gently and swiftly toward her mother, clearing her from the vehicle's path just as the massive front grille filled his field of vision.
Kuro remained airborne for a moment. Sliding across the damp concrete after stepping awkwardly on the loose zipper, he glanced directly into the approaching truck's cab.
'It was empty?!'
No one sat behind the steering wheel. The vehicle moved with mechanical precision, guided by an unnatural momentum.
Never mind that. At least she is safe.
Time seemed to slow down under the glare of the blinding headlights. Shadowy silhouettes stretched long across the street amidst the blur of motion.
At the exact moment the truck was about to collide with Kuro, the vehicle shifted violently to its right in a fraction of a second. It altered its course directly toward the spot where Ayame was landing.
The heavy truck barreled forward with terrifying speed, slamming directly into the child.
The sheer impact reduced her small body to a mangled pulp of bone and flesh, spraying crimson across the pavement. And some onto his unknowing face.
What is happening... Kuro thought, landing hard on the side of the road as chaotic horror filled his mind.
The truck sped past him, the bold lettering printed along its side panel momentarily catching the light: NEVER MISS MY TARGET, set over the graphic of a bug spray can.
Ayame's mother fell to her knees, her voice tearing through the quiet street in an agonizing shriek.
"AYAMEEEE!!"
Kuro lay flat on his back, staring up at the gray sky as the full weight of the scene caught up with him.
—End of Chapter—