He remembered her words from earlier, when he had tried to jog her memory with a reckless kiss.
You said if I kissed you, your twenty-third past self would remember…
She had tested him, lips brushing against his for the briefest moment, but nothing had happened. No spark of memory, no recognition, no sudden flash of the past. Just silence.
Maybe it was because we met too early, Ryder thought, frustrated. Earlier than we were supposed to in the timeline.
"But don't think I'm going to trust you just like that," Scarlet had added sharply, her eyes cold, her tone guarded. "Not because of some nonsense about the future."
Ryder muttered under his breath, dragging a hand through his hair. "Women are too complicated to understand their basic desires…"
Scarlet froze.
She spun around so fast her cloak snapped in the wind, crimson hair whipping behind her. "What was that?"
"Nothing!" Ryder said quickly, raising his hands in immediate surrender, his voice cracking with panic. "Nothing at all!"
But Scarlet had already quickened her pace, stomping away from him as if he carried a disease.
"Hey, wait up! Scarlet, listen to me!" Ryder called, jogging to catch her.
"Stop chasing me!" she demanded, her voice breathless as she tried to outrun him.
"Then stop running," Ryder countered, his tone irritatingly calm as he closed the distance with ease.
Scarlet groaned, throwing her head back. "Ugh, what is it now?"
Ryder stopped dramatically, planting his feet and lifting his chin as though about to unveil a great revelation. He drew in a deep, theatrical breath.
"Scarlet… I know all the necessary chores."
Scarlet blinked. "…Huh?"
"I can cook!" Ryder declared proudly, eyes gleaming with confidence. "I can clean, sweep, polish, anything you want. I can even give you a bath!"
Scarlet's jaw dropped. "What—"
"Yes!" Ryder pressed on, completely serious. "I'll wash your hair with the finest soap, dry it with the softest towel, even dress you if you need me to. I'll fold your clothes neatly, shine your boots until they sparkle, and—listen carefully—if it comes down to it, I'll brush your teeth for you!"
He clasped his hands together, his face radiant, almost glowing with conviction. To him, it was the most reasonable, irresistible, and honorable proposal ever conceived.
"So please, Scarlet. Join me. Let's defeat all the Kaiju together!"
The words hung in the air.
Scarlet's face slowly shifted from shock to horror, then to pure, uncontrollable fury. Her cheeks burned so red they nearly matched her name.
"Never! No way! Not a chance!" she yelled, her voice cracking like thunder across the open fields.
First, he had stolen a kiss without permission. Now, he was shamelessly offering himself as her—what? Servant? Personal butler? Toothbrush-holder? Scarlet grabbed her head with both hands, as though trying to physically stop her brain from melting.
"What is going on in that thick skull of yours, Ryder? Do you even hear yourself right now?!"
Ryder tilted his head, studying her with genuine confusion. After a long pause, he asked with total seriousness, "Hm… are you sure you aren't a man?"
The world went silent.
Scarlet's body stiffened, her hands trembling at her sides. Her pupils shrank, fury igniting into a blinding inferno.
Then—
"I. AM. A. WOMAN!" she roared, her voice booming like a magical explosion, rattling the fields, sending birds scattering into the sky.
Ryder blinked, unfazed by the intensity. He scratched his cheek thoughtfully and gave her a slow, deliberate nod. "…If you say so."
Scarlet's mouth dropped open. "Wha—"
"RYYYDERRR!" she screamed, her rage cracking the very air, echoing for miles like the wrath of a goddess.
Ryder leaned back slightly, bracing against the sheer volume of her fury. But instead of fear, his lips curled into a grin.
"See?" he muttered to himself. "That kind of passion means we're already getting along better."
Scarlet launched a rock at his head.
Ryder sidestepped casually, the stone whistling past him. "Great aim!" he said cheerfully, as if she were practicing archery.
"You—!" Scarlet's voice broke into frustrated shrieks. She stomped her foot, fists clenched, torn between running away and strangling him with her bare hands.
Unbothered, Ryder stretched his arms over his head and sighed contentedly. "Yep. We're going to make a great team."
Scarlet let out one final, wordless scream, throwing her hands to the sky as if begging the heavens themselves for mercy.
"Hey wait!" Ryder lunged after her, voice raw with panic, but his boot caught on a jutting root and he went down hard. His temple kissed a rock with a sickening crack; stars burst behind his eyes and the world tilted. For a blink he felt nothing but weight and wind and the sudden absence of breath, then darkness claimed him.
Scarlet skidded to a stop and spun around. "Ryder!" she snapped, half-panicked, half-annoyed. She crouched and prodded his cheek with a slender finger. "Hey, what's wrong?"
A groan tugged from him. His eyelids fluttered; he blinked against the sunlight and tried to push himself up. Only then did Scarlet notice—two figures hovered at the edge of the clearing, translucent as morning mist but sharp in outline. The nearer one wore Ryder's face, older and marked with scars; the other wore her own—taller, regal, and somehow threaded with a nightmare grandeur. Their presence hummed with power.
"Hm." Future Scarlet's voice was like metal struck in a cave: hollow, echoing, impossibly distant. "It is impressive for a human body to be able to reach and draw out that level of power."
Ryder's mouth worked. He squinted at the ghostly pair. "I— I'm impressed, future Scarlet," he managed, voice thin and reverent in spite of the blood at his temple.
"Who are you?" he asked, eyes darting to the Ryder who wasn't Ryder.
"The KAIJU Lord Scarlet," the apparition answered, and for a second the name fell over the clearing like snow cold and absolute.
Ryder's heart thudded. "Wait, wait I'm not here to fight. I'm here to make a deal," Future Scarlet said, stepping forward with a strange, practiced diplomacy that did not belong to the Scarlet he knew. "Let us join forces, Ryder the Grim Reaper. Let us form an alliance and exterminate the Kaiju."
Ryder tried to sit up all the way. "You mean… together? You're offering" He choked on the words. "You can help me more than you can imagine, Mr. Reaper of KAIJU."
The two phantoms looked at each other, and for a heartbeat Scarlet felt the world split down a thousand threads. Future Ryder older, harder, with the same crooked grin tilted his head.
"Are you awake now?" Future Ryder asked, voice smoother than memory. It tugged a laugh out of Ryder despite the pain.
"Oh I thought you ran away by now," the phantom Ryder added with an insolent shrug.
Ryder tried to stand, swaying. "Well… I thought of doing that, but I can't leave the man who saved my life like that." He glanced at Scarlet, teeth flashing in a lopsided grin. "Besides, I fell unconscious. My body hasn't yet fully accepted or adapted to the Aura Slaying Art for fighting use."
Scarlet's fingers curled into the grass. He sounded small, vulnerable. A dull knot of worry loosened in her chest, and then curiosity nudged its way forward. "What do you think, Scarlet?" Ryder asked in a voice that suddenly expected judgement.
She shifted, turning away as if to hide her thoughts. The two future versions drifted closer, their outlines humming with aura. In that moment scarlet-cloak and future-empire overlapped, and Scarlet's breath hitched.
Scarlet's POV: A human who knew about my true form nothing like this had ever happened before. When I had examined his body as he lay there, I had felt it: a current, a living pulse. His blood moved like a stream of charged light. He did not need to shroud himself in borrowed aura; his body generated it, then spilled it out in gentle waves. It was not control yet, but potential vast, raw, and dangerous.
I could not tell how only that it existed. His potential was dangerously high. The thought arced through me, sharpened into something bright and hungry. I wanted to test it. I wanted to see him tear through Kaiju hide with that light, to see him grow, to see blood and bone yield. Kill, kill, kill the word tasted different on my tongue when imagined as necessity, the kind that carved futures.
"Ern," Ryder murmured, and the awkward noise cut through my head like an anchor.
"Shh," he said abruptly, hand rising. His gaze snapped to the treeline. A low, distant rumble answered him a sound like thunder born from something much larger. "A Kaiju is approaching."
Scarlet followed his line of sight. Dust puffs rose far off, like smoke from a column of ants. People villagers? refugees? moved along the road toward the capital, small against the plain. The path they took skirted the broken copse where the Kaiju had been sighted earlier. Scarlet's chest tightened.