Chapter Text
Life is like a bannana. Covered in a-peel-ing yellow that beckons all to enjoy that which lie inside. A burst of tasty energy covered in an annoying, yet somehow fun bland and tasteless covering, waiting for someone to joyously pull away the unwanted outer layer, and savor the soft goodness within.
Such was the philosophy of Kaolla Su, princess of MolMol. Humming lightly as she typed away on her quite legal supercomputer, she took a bite of the delicious treat that powered her brain. If anyone had asked her the secret of her genius was, she would undoubtedly confess to them that it was the taste of bananas, nature's perfect creation, followed closely behind by certain favored humans. Her grin ticked upward as she continued to write an inexplicably complex chain of code, mind turning base code into complete sentences and sentences into thought.
Just a few more lines. Just a few more. MechaTama MK 16 would be complete soon, and with this new programming, it probably won't blow up another passing bird while aiming at Keitaro! Probably. She couldn't swear it, turtles WERE the perfect predator, if that pesky turtle's constant escapes from her dinner plate were to be believed.
So focused on her task was she, that she nearly jumped when the screen turned flashing red and an alarm sounded. Not just any alarm, but THAT alarm. The one that was just under the alarm signifying not entirely legal reactor meltdown.
Leaping from her seat, she scrambled for the red alert switch, activating her defense system. Not the playful one she used on Keitaro, but the REAL defense system. Out of nooks and crannies came laser turrets, heat rays, and even the odd potato gun...which fired radioactive potatoes. Can't take life too seriously, you'll never make it out alive...well, not until she figured out that one too.
Grabbing a remote, she giggled in a way that would have sent her beloved dorm manager running for the hill. Even a boy as dense as he could tell when to get out of dodge. She didn't have to wait long, as a small blue distortion formed in the center of the room. Perfectly placed, oddly enough, for all the defenses to aim at. Su wasn't dumb, and mentally cranked up her alarm another notch. It was TOO perfectly placed. The swirling space anomaly grew slowly over the span of seconds, quickly reaching the size for a human to fit through, if a bit short of adulthood.
She inwardly cheered. Her first inter-dimensional visitor was human sized, how fun! She'd had an alarm set for inter-spatial anomalies, as well as invasions from beyond reality, through time, and even from the afterlife. She didn't need that angry green guy coming through again, best let him do his thing in his own dimensional universe. He had a cool suit, though. A quick glance at the screen indicated the analysis was complete. Spatial and temporal. Time travel? Maybe. Aliens were also in the running.
Fingers grasped the rim of the portal, and Su blinked. How? That's space! How do you just grab the edge of reality? It's not solid! Eldritch being joined the possibilities of aliens. Yellow crowned from the portal, and a very human looking head came out, attached to a somewhat tall, well proportioned female slipped out of the portal like water.
“Hmm...about 6'3, Humanoid, looks human, blue eyes, appears to be functionally human. Hiya, I'm Kaolla Su, welcome to my time and reality! How long are you staying? Is the schoolgirl uniform normal attire for your time? What do you eat? When are you from? Do bananas still exist? What's your name? What's your gender? You look like a girl! Do you have a gender?” Su wasted no time stepping closer and taking a good look at the girl(?) that had entered her lab via portal, though she wasn't as off guard as she appeared.
The girl seemed slightly bemused, watching the small girl as she stopped just shy of prodding her with a stick to see what happened. “Not long, only for school, food usually, the future, yes, Lyrica, female, yes.” She recited, looking as if she wasn't at all surprised to be greeted by a room full of weapons, a hyperactive Molmolian, and a barrage of questions. “Now really though, is all this needed?” She grinned, and with a wave of her hand, nearly every electronic defense in the room failed instantly.
Su, to her credit, instantly leapt back grabbing one of her less high tech weapons: a good old rocket launcher, pointing it at the girl. No lock on, but she was a good shot. Her smile instantly faded to a more serious look. “Who are you and how did you do that? Localized EMP? But all of my defenses are shielded from EMP. And there's no way you managed to cut the power to all of them. Mental energy? Some sort of psychic power?”
Lyrica simply smirked, raising a hand to tap her temple. “Hacked it, didn't I? Nice firewalls, but clearly you have yet to complete them.”
Su narrowed her eyes, an uncharacteristic show of irritation showing for a split second, before a grin crept back on her face. Turning her back, she faced the no longer blaring alarm screen to see that yes, sure enough, all defenses had been hit with an emergency shutoff code she didn't recognize, even the two secret laser rifles she had hidden in the doorway that she knew for a fact didn't HAVE emergency shutoff codes. Turning back around to the still grinning blond, she took in the sight of her...guest.
Long, blond hair reaching her middle back. Sapphire eyes, soft pale skin. She was a girl, not yet a woman, if Su read her right. “So, whatcha here for? Time and space are tricksy, never can tell what will happen when you mess with it! Sos, you are here for a reason, and since you didn't attack me while my back was turned, I'm not a target for assassination. No terminators for me, yay!~ But I'm clearly part of this since you're here and all!” Su's mind was working a mile a minute, assessing the risk of not trying to forcefully boot the girl back to the future she claimed to be from, deciding if she WAS a threat, and-
“Yes I'm a threat, not to you, though. Not to anyone here, probably. Maybe to a certain manager's chastity, though.” Lyrica's smirk was full of mischief, drawing parallels to a certain fox that lived in the same dorm, even as Su pondered the reliability of such an unknown element. “Oh, relax, Kaolla, I'm not the one that will be taking it. That'd be weird. Besides, my interests are more...feminine, in nature.”
Su filed that tidbit away as she gave the girl a prying look. “You still haven't told me why you're here. Are you here to play?” The words may be playful, but the eyes were not. Su, despite being the happy go lucky girl she was, was not stupid enough to think time travelers would be stopping by for a social visit. If she was indeed a time traveler, something in the future had gone VERY wrong.
Lyrica seemed to pick up on this, and her smile faded. “Okay, serious faces on, then.” Much to the mocha skinned girl's surprise, the blond knelt, right fist over her chest like some knight of old. “Lyrica Kagamine pays her respects to the Golden Empress of the All Seeing Eyes.”
If Su was relaxed before, she wasn't any more. “I'm not even a queen.” A short statement, simple and complete in a way that wasn't usual for her.
Lyrica winced. “Not yet. Events will force your hand in about 30 years. Maybe less.”
Su narrowed her eyes. This was not good, she was a princess, but not next in line for the throne. MolMol was not one to skip heirs lightly. “Explain. Why should I believe you?”
Lyrica inhaled, raising her head without asking permission. Su rallied at the show of either disrespect or familiarity. “You're currently working on two self aware AI. They are made to counter each other, keep each other in check. They grow and learn at a fast rate, communicating through a unique combination of mental and technological wavelengths. You called them Right and Left.”
Su's eyes widened in surprise, but Lyrica continued. “You have only one other long term project, one that you hide in plain sight. You will succeed in both.”
Su's eyes brightened, and she leaned forward in excitement, before the chill of realization went down her spine and her enthusiasm came crashing down as she barely breathed her next question. “And what does it cost me?”
Lyrica grimaced. “...Everything.”
Su's fist clenched, and in an unusual show of fury, she seized the closest breakable object, a plate Shinobu had brough her with a treat and she throw it on the ground with shattering force, letting out a long stream of MolMolian curses. Her rage not abated, she picked up her chair and threw it halfway across the room, before sinking to the floor, back to her computer as she willed herself not to cry. “Go back. I'm...I'm not going to do it if I lose everything I love for it.”
Lyrica, to her credit, hadn't budged. Instead, she seemed to hesitate. “There...may be a better way. If you will, I can tell you of some of the things of the future. Some turning points. And a solution to change...everything.”
Su glared. “Time doesn't work like that; you seem to be close to me, you should know chaos theory better than anyone!”
Su expected many reactions to that. But very few of them involved the sly grin on the bond's face. “Oh, but my dear empress...you have yet to invent time travel. Yet here I am. You know better than perhaps even I do that progress means thinking outside the box. For instance, my parents.”
Su paused, undeniably interested as she looked up with slightly puffy eyes. “Yes?”
Lyrica simply smirked. “Rin and Len. Your two most powerful AI, almost as free spirited as yourself for Rin, and Len to keep her in check. You created them, named them, and even gave them over to manage much of MolMol's domestic affairs. You expected petty squabbles, expected them to butt heads. You made them to do so, after all, so they would keep each other balanced. But you never expected them to fall in love. You never programmed that into them, yet it happened. Because they watched you and learned. They watched others and learned. And with your adaptive code, they changed themselves. Created the worlds first fully functional synthetic bodies. And then, I came to be.”
Su's brows furrowed. How in the everlasting warp was that even possible. Sure, she didn't always plan for her coding to adapt itself in unforeseen ways, as they were just that, unforeseen. But for AI to learn of love? Even when programmed to be a binary system? Had they confused that connection for something else?
“Possible.” Came Lyrica's voice, jolting her out of her thoughts. Had she been muttering out loud? She hadn't done that in years! “And no, you aren't. I know you, Kaolla. My parents weird connection was confusing to them too. It's possible that they confused it. But I have no such programming.” She grinned. “Are you convinced yet? Because my time here is limited. Time doesn't like having people outside of it.”
Su refocused, deciding to go with her gut instinct. It hadn't steered her wrong before. “Okay, so tell me what goes wrong, and what I can do to fix it.”
Lyrica's face lit up, and the blond all but leapt forward to embrace the girl. “I KNEW you'd see reason! You're basically my grandmother, you know? You never had biological child in the future I'm from. After all, when the big blow up between Russia and the US happened, MolMol declared neutrality, and boy, they didn't like that. You ended up trying to fight a one woman war with both of them when they tried to force the issue, and with your two AI, well..”
For a moment, Lyrica's face when curiously blank, dropping back into a sitting position, and Su blinked. That must not have ended well.
“Well, lets just say both of them got a bit of a humbling. Unfortunately, they decided to retaliate, and MolMol decided they'd had enough. You were forcefully brought back, and Rin and Len were nearly dismantled to make sure you didn't use your newfound power. MolMol departed for Mars soon after.”
“And Keitaro?” Came the expected query.
Lyrica let out a soft sigh. “The last day here, before you were forced to depart, they threw a going away party. Some of them cried, you told me, but Shinobu and Keitaro were the worse. Shinobu kept making you promise to call, and...you lied to her. To her face. You wouldn't have a working prototype to contact earth from mars for 4 years. The terraforming and building of the First City of Kaolla was top priority, and you could only tinker with it on your personal time. The nation of MolMol wasn't upset with you, quite the contrary. Your father was so thrilled, he named you crown princess on the spot. He was so proud that you managed to crush two major world powers under your foot without firing a single weapon, just by paralyzing their weapon systems. Their economies ground to a halt, they lost control of all their technology, and in the end, they had no choice but to give up. It came at a cost, though, and they lost their places as top dogs in the world political stage. They attempted an assassination, and failed because your landlord was more than meets the eye.”
Su blinked. Opened her mouth, closed it, then blinked again. “I know Keitaros is immortal, but how did he stop it?”
Lyrica gave a wry smile in reply. “Now, now, Kaolla, I KNOW it must have occurred to you at some point. He has amazing regenerative power, nearly impossibly powerful, but an instant kill would take him out right? So how is it that despite getting blown up, concussed, launched into LEO, and crashing down in who knows where doesn't seem to phase him, yet something falling on him manages to break his leg? He's taken a punch to the face that regularly launches him into the air in distances measured by hundreds of feet, and somehow his neck is intact? I know the question still bothers you in my time. A very familiar question, and probably the most important one...” The blond trailed off, a slight smirk on her lips as she lead the future empress neatly to her own conclusion.
“...Why?” Kaolla Su breathed, eyes widening. Her mind worked fast, scrambling down this obvious, yet somehow overlooked path. It was so painfully obvious in hindsight. She'd been so busy thinking about the biology that she'd discounted technique, even with Motoko throwing her secret techniques around like she threw banana peels. Kanako had clearly known several tricks, Haruka was STILL someone Su hesitated to cross, especially after the time with the toaster. She gave a shudder. Even Motoko had given Haruka a wide berth for a couple days after that. Why did it never occur to her that Keitaro might have had some training?
Lyrica's knowing grin was almost annoying as she seemed to read Su's mind. “Because he never used it, did he? Not when he was being attacked by any of you, not against Seta, not ever. But when your lives were on the line, when he had everything to lose, he stepped up. And what a sight! You still play that video back to yourself when you get lonely. And it was a wake up call. Soft, but never weak. Kind, but never spineless. You ran rampant, all of you, because he LET you run rampant. He drew a line in the sand that day, and the actions he took when it was crossed that day shattered any hope for a peaceful life. He's not weak, just suffering from some low self esteem. You see, when you finally had the chance to return to earth, you did some digging.”
Lyrica's cheer seemed to slowly drain from her face as she re-positioned herself, finding a more comfortable way to sit. “Naru never really did stop hitting him, you know. It was a habit so ingrained that she never really felt the need to correct it. Much like you, she considered him immortal. Was a bit of a nasty shock for her when they finally found out that even he had his limits.”
Su leaned forward in askance, eyes conflicted. She wanted to know; she wanted to know SO BAD, but at the same time, ice coiled in her belly at the thought.
The other blond only shook her head. “Can't tell you that. You in the future made me promise not to, Kaolla.”
Su wanted to whine. She wanted to whine like she'd never whined before, to argue that maybe her older self had made her promise, but she wasn't here, and younger Su WAS. But inside, she knew it wouldn't help.
“You did figure out the source of his incredible vitality, even managed to replicate it for yourself, but by then, it was too late. It had all fallen apart by then.” Lyrica continued. “Naru was so shocked by his death that she just...shut down. She was catatonic for days from the shock. Kitsune dealt with it, but she wasn't doing very good either. After the wedding, she tried to make something of herself, dropping her party girl ways and writing seriously. But, well...life wasn't kind. She became the victim of workplace harassment, and her past caught up to her. Her harasser managed to swing the blame on her, and unfortunately, with her reputation, when people took sides it wasn't in her favor. She was fired not long after, and started slipping back into bad habits. She kept looking at Naru, at her outer happiness, and wanted that. A string of bad choices landed her into several bad relationships, and she eventually had it out with Naru one night in a drunken fit of despair, confessing that seeing her with Keitaro was starting to wear her down, that she wished she'd taken a chance, so long ago, and damn the consequences. It was just sheer fucking bad luck this happened a week before the...incident. Kitsune never got over it, either. It was as if Naru had done it just to spite her, even though she knew Naru was just as shocked and probably even more horrified than she was.”
Su cringed slightly at the thought, looking at her hands and imagining, just for a moment, the utter horror and despair at the idea of having killed their beloved manager with those hands. It nearly broke her as heat climbed from her chest to her cheeks and to her eyes as fat tears welled up, before she willed them down. “...And Motoko?” She softly uttered.
Lyrica gave a soft comforting smile as she scooted closer, before pulling the emotional girl against her chest, which was surprisingly warm and soft, given that Lyrica was synthetic. “Motoko did well for herself. She left the dorm eventually to be who she was supposed to be, as an heir of Shinmeiryu. Close quarters with Keitaro had blunted her distaste of men, even if it hadn't been eliminated. She was mostly indifferent to them. Of course, Motoko is Motoko, and she was a rather attractive lady, so that didn't help her case. She held her secret yearning for Keitaro close to her chest, held at bay for years before eventually being pushed into the idea of marriage by her parents. She ended up settling for a guy who was decent in her art, with a particular interest. I believe the meme was...'step on me'?” She gave a slightly bemused grin as Su gave an surprised chuckle. “The marriage was...okay, but she kept comparing him to Keitaro. Unlike Keitaro, he liked being hit. Also unlike Keitaro, he wasn't immortal. Hitting him only filled Motoko with more and more shame, of all kinds. When she heard the news...well. She snapped for a bit. Tsuroko had to go and calm her down. I'm told Motoko alternated between laughing in despair and just outright sobbing as she confessed everything to her older sister. The repairs to the dojo took a while.”
Su could only shake her head. “Motoko cares a lot more than she lets on. She has it in her head that to be a proper warrior you must always be tranquil, suppressing emotion. Her art demands it, but she doesn't realize that keeping all that inside isn't good for you.” She took a quick look around the room, before refocusing on her link to the future. The future she was more and more sure she DID NOT WANT. “So what about...Shinobu? Does she..” Su swallowed, asking the question she already knew the answer to, but desperately holding to a foolish hope she would be wrong. Sarah was a nice girl, very fun, but Shinobu had been one of her first friends her age that wasn't afraid of her wacky hijinks. She had a healthy fear or respect for her creations, but not HER.
Lyrica looked away, seeming to curl in on herself. “You need to understand, okay? Shinobu...never really got over Keitaro. He was her hazy first love, a constant rock for her to cling to when things spiraled out of control with her parents. Unlike Mitsune, she always struggled with her feelings, not because she wanted to do right by Naru out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, but because she was so sure her sempai would never see her that way. He was everything she wanted in a man, even if he was clumsy. She saw a man doing his best, even with crippling low self esteem. She saw herself in him, even if she didn't know it at the time. A kindred spirit. He made a promise, and he strove every day to keep it. It inspired her. Put him on a pedestal.”
“Of all the people who were shocked when Keitaro pushed himself to the limit, forgetting his self esteem and losing that crippling second guess that was always on his mind, Shinobu was never one of them. She saw it as her Sempai at his purest, most base form. As the man who never gives up when it matters, putting everything on the line when the chips were down. He was her hero. She nearly swooned when he asked if she was okay, doing the sheepish embarrassed scratch at the back of his head that he did.” Lyrica paused, a slight smile on her lips, if a sad one.
“She had a few boyfriends. But from what I observed from records I feel like she was more or less just...going through the motions. Her first boyfriend she ended things with in short order because he wasn't very mature, and it was her first venture into dating. He was more interested in her body than anything, and he didn't like how much she gushed about her first crush, much less the fact that he was her landlord. Her second relationship seemed to be fine. He was kind, a bit nerdy, and didn't really seem to outwardly mind her hero worship of Keitaro. Unfortunately, some girls from her school decided that Shinobu blossoming into a beautiful young woman was worthy of hate, and conspired against her, seducing her boyfriend away. That was about the time she decided she was basically ruined for other boys as Keitaro held her for several hours as she cried her eyes out. She'd been so close to getting over him, but that just made her fall even deeper.” Lyrica glanced back at Su to see her all but grinding her teeth as her fingers clenched tightly enough to turn the dark skin white. “Hey now, Calm down Kaolla, we don't need to fly off the handle-”
“Names.” Su's demand was soft, clipped, and very, VERY angry. “I will have names.” The blond flinched at the palpable rage radiating off the small molmolian like radiation from a nuclear isotope. “No one hurts Shinobu. NO ONE.”
Lyrica scrambled in her mind, searching every scrap of memory in her mind for something to cool the eventual Empress' temper. “Hey, calm down, okay? She's part of the reason I'm here, to make sure she doesn't die again-” Belatedly, her mouth shut with a click, and in that moment she knew.
She fucked up.
Kaolla Su was many things. Hyper, cheerful, goofy, childish, occasionally terrifying...But in that moment, she was still. Frozen. Not a breath, not a single sound escaped her as her eyes stared unseeing. Shinobu. Dead. The blue haired girl that just had a way of making people want to protect her. Gone. She blinked, eyes going back to a razor focus as she all but glared at the blond visitor. “What happened to Shinobu, and who do I need to send the royal assassins after?”
Said blond visitor shuddered at the raw rage filling the room. “No one. She...she just....when Keitaro died...she just...broke. No one really knew what happened. She was there, wide eyed and shocked at the news while Sarah burst into tears and Kitsune sobbed. Haruka was barely fairing any better, actually shattering the cup in her hands she was gripping it so tight. But Shinobu just...stared. They didn't even notice she'd walked away until they heard her throw something in her room, and then there was just...sobbing. Heartbroken wails that dwarfed anything they were making themselves, according to Kitsune. She refused to leave her room for hours, just weeping for what she'd lost, and more over what never could be. Keitaro's death shattered everyone, but for Shinobu, well...she'd always had that ember of hope she held tightly, hoping her sempai would one day notice she'd grown into a woman, even if he was already married. Without that, it was like her entire world crumbled.”
Chancing a glance back up at Su, Lyrica was gifted the sight of fat, glistening tears as Kaolla's heart broke for her blue haired friend. “Shinobu's world did crumble. Keitaro meant everything to her, ya'know? If she never got over him and he...passed...she...” The thought hit her and she snapped her gaze back to Lyrica with pleading in her eyes.
Lyrica swallowed softly, then gave the tiniest of nods. And something inside Koalla broke, the tears beginning to fall unhindered down her cheeks. “How?” She croaked. Not Shinobu. Not poor, sweet Shinobu. She didn't deserve that. She deserved so much better than that. So much better.
The blond, in s moment of empathy, reached out and pulled the silently weeping MolMolian Monarch-to-be into her arms, feeling the way the girl's body hitched and shuddered as she wept. “She spent days in her room, refusing to speak to anyone, even when her parents came to try to take her away. When they tried to force the issue...she screamed at them. That she wasn't leaving, that he had to stay, that this was her home, and nowhere would feel like home if her love wasn't there. Her mom tried to be gentle about to, to remind her that Keitaro was gone, but Shinobu...she refused. Said that her mother would NEVER understand. They had a screaming match that day, and by the end, both parents promised her that they would do anything if she would just come home with one of them.” Lyrica hesitated and hugged Su just a little tighter. “She agreed, in the end, much to the her parent's relief, on one condition. She wanted one last night at the Hinata house. One last night to...to say goodbye. They agreed, but...Shinobu had no intention of leaving that house of memories. And for a day, it was almost as if the old Shinobu had returned. She cooked for everyone, even broke out a small smile once or twice, and Kitsune and Motoko...they said they were so desperate for a moment of normalcy while their own memories tormented they that they took the empty smiles at face value. Kitsune said she even heard Shinobu humming and singing under her breath, and for a moment, it gave her hope for the future. It haunts her to this day, and Naru even more so. When Naru finally snapped out of it, and grieved, the three of them grieved together. Kitsune finally found the song Shinobu had been singing, and...well...she never forgot it.” The blond began to hum softly under her breath, before whisper singing the song in a language Su instantly recognized as english.
“If you're a lover, you should know,
The lonely moments just get lonelier,
The longer you're in love,
Than if you were alone.
Memories turn into daydreams,
Become a taboo...
I don't want to be afraid,
The deeper that I go,
It takes my breath away
Soft hearts, electric souls.
Heart to Heart and Eyes to Eyes,
Is this Taboo?
Baby we built this house,
On memories.
Take my picture now,
Shake it til you see it.
And when your fantasies,
Be come your legacy,
Promise me a place,
In your House of Memories.”
The girl fell silent as Su continued to shudder in her arms. Su was certain that song would haunt her dreams tonight, along with the nightmare of her friend's dead body. “Her parents found her in Keitaro's old room. She'd taken a bunch of sleeping pills after leaving a heartbreaking love note to Keitaro and a letter full of everything she'd never say to the others. It was heartbreaking to read how much she vilified herself for letting Keitaro go with Naru all those years ago. How much she hated herself for not throwing herself in between him and the others abuse. She saw her...death...as both making amends and a journey to join her love, wherever he may be.”
Su gave a hiccuping shudder, before pulling away with red rimmed eyes, pleading shining in them. Su was many things, but selfish was not commonly one of them. “She can have him, I'll do anything, just SAVE THEM BOTH, they didn't deserve this, they're my friends, none of them deserve this...”
Lyrica gave a gentle smile, her own eyes slightly red. “Yeah, that's why I'm here. You couldn't accept it either. But there's work to be done, and they need you. You can save them, and you can save yourself. You sent me because you couldn't live with your failure to save them all from that sadness. But you know better than anyone that such things will come at a cost.”
Su hesitated, looking at Lyrica with a slight look of dread as a chill went down her spine. “How does time travel work?”
To Lyrica's credit, she only faltered for a moment. “It's...complicated.”
Su narrowed her eyes. “I created your parents, I'm a smart girl, and I WILL figure it out.”
“...Very complicated.”
“...You don't know, do you?”
Lyrica growled almost comically throwing her hand in the air. “What do you want from me, Kaolla? I'm here, cut off from the Twin Network, restrained to this one, fleshy synthetic body. I don't even have a fraction of the processing power or memory capabilities I would in my own time, and you won't have a quantum transcendence matrix for another 60 years, l-let alone the power do to billions of calculations in a microsecond. Do you have any idea how much processing power it takes to even comprehend time as a malleable concept, let alone how to manipulate even a second of it? Not to mention that I'm wrestling with t-time itself just to stay on this plane of existence! There's a reason you didn't come yourself, because time would have erased you the moment you stepped from that portal! The only reason I still exist is because I'm synthetic. My b-body might survive, but my mind is losing power at a fast rate. I'm sitting outside of time, and it's erasing me from existence one petabyte of data at a time.”
Su did a credible imitation of a goldfish, looking as if she'd just been slapped in to face with one. “And the future?”
Lyrica gave a strange smile. “What future? The moment I told you why I was here, it started deleting itself from my brain. It never happened. And it's getting worse. Pl-please, Kaolla. We don't have time for this.”
Su extracted herself from the girl's arms and breathed deeply. “What do I have to do? How do I fix this?”
Lyrica smiled. It was a half smile, one that didn't quite meet her eyes. She spoke in a slightly stilted manner, eyes glowing as she worked mentally. She was running out of time. Reconstructing language centers and syntax even as it was erased. “You need...to break his inhibitions. Get...get him drunk, dr-drug him. Put him...Put him in between the girls and something that would harm them. I-i-it cannot be something of your making. Gi-gi-give him th-this...” Her movements were becoming blocky and mechanical, her words more and more robotic as reached for her arm, and ripped it open. Red flowed out, but it seemed to flake and disintegrate as it touched the floor, leaving no mark. She withdrew a small glass cartridge of purple fluid. “It..will he-help. His re-re-re-healing abilities are tied to Hinata house. The l-long he is away, the weaker it be-be-gets. W-with this, that will no longer be the case.” Her eyes still shone with intelligence, but Su could see that it was harder for the blond to focus. Words were escaping her now.
“H-He needs to un-understand his wo-wo-worth. Sh-Shinobu can help with this. H-He needs pr-pr-p-protection until he is re-ready to protect himself. K-Kaolla...I'm sc-scared...”
Su watched in horror as the girl before her collapsed, curling in on herself, golden hair staring to disintegrate like her blood. She moved forward, pulling the girl's rapidly aging and dissipating body into her lap as frightened sapphire eyes looked up at her. “D-Did I do...good...grandmother? I-I'm sorry...I did my best...”
Kaolla stroked the synthetic human's cheek as the light in the girl's eyes began to fade to a dull, cold blue. “You did good, Lyrica. You did...so good.” She felt her eyes heat up as she realized the magnitude of what had just happened in the last 15 minutes. An entire future, wiped out by her hands. A granddaughter, sent on a one way trip, knowing full well what awaited her. Everything had a price.
Lyrica tried her best to smile, but the fear in her fading eyes and the robotic way her lips curved into a caricature of a smile wouldn't be easily forgotten. “Please...grandmother...if we are to be reborn...let us...sing. The mirror sound. We wi-wish to...” Lyrica blinked, and it was as if her whole thoughts had been shifted. “I would have done the s-same...” And the last blink before her eyes went dark forever, accompanied by a song leaving her lips that would haunt Kaolla, probably for the rest of her life.
“Baby we built this house...
On Memories.
Take my picture now,
Shake it till you see it.
And when your fantasies
Become your legacy,
Promise me a place...
In your...house of....memories...”
And in a moment, the girl shattered into gold dust, colored much like her hair, and she was gone, like the future that never happened.
Kaolla Su sat the for a good minute, staring at the capsule that an entire future had died to get to her. She half expected it to start to vanish too, but it did not. And then she felt the heat in her eyes intensify, before tears began to roll down her cheeks, and her ever grinning lips were bitten down as she leaned forward, curling around the small reminder of that future, so horrible that her future self would sacrifice it and even herself to change. She held it to her chest, weeping as if to protect that small remnant of her granddaughter's will from time and space itself, her sobs loud and uncontrolled. Today had started like any other day, but in 15 minutes, she was reminded of how quickly the world can crash down around her.
She choked on her sobs, promising with every shuddering breath that she would honor Lyrica's final request. They'd sing. They'd sing as much as they want, forever, if they wanted. She'd make them the best damn singers she could, and when Lyrica was born, she'd spoil the girl.
“Kaolla? Are you okay?! Kaolla!” A familiar voice, and the last one she was ready to hear. Shinobu stood in the doorway of her lab for all of a second before she rushed forward, nearly tripping in her haste. She was met with a bone breaking hug as her tanned friend, clung to her, crying with great, heaving sobs.
“I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I so sorry Shinobu, I shouldn't have left, I should have stayed, I should have fought harder!” Shinobu could only pat Su's shoulder comfortingly in confusion as messy, disjointed apologies and sobs to anyone and everyone in the Hinata house left the distress foreigner.
Kaolla Su wept. Wept for the dark future that never was and never will be. Wept for a Shinobu who chose death with her love than life without. Wept for her granddaughter, on a one way trip with the intent of erasing not only the future, but herself. Wept for Naru, broken by her own habits and insecurities. For Motoko who may have found love, but never could atone for the shame she knew she carried. For Kitsune, who discovered too late how much her escape from reality would cost her in the future. Wept for her future self who couldn't live with the loss of her friends and her own love.
Shinobu simply held her friend, trying to figure out what had upset the small Molmolian. It was a good 20 minutes before Su finally calmed down enough to speak, and Shinobu never let go of her as the shaking sobs turned to sniffles, then stilled to uneven breathing.
“Are you okay, Kaolla? Do you feel up to talking about it?” The bluenette gently prodded her friend, who pulled back from her soaked shoulder with a sniffle. “You don't have to if you don't want to.” Su pulled away and with agonizing slowness, opened her palm, revealing the glass container of purple liquid. “What is that, Kaolla?”
“A gift. A dying gift, from someone who wished to save someone who meant everything to certain people.” She felt the heat back in her eyes, but she was too tired, too dehydrated to cry. “Shinobu...you...really do love Keitaro, don't you?”
The small chef instantly turned crimson as she began to sputter in denial.
“Don't lie to me, Shinobu. I need your help, but only if you can say it.” Su looked at her in uncharacteristic stillness. They felt like they pierced right through her, seeing part of her that she felt no one should see as shame filled her cheeks. She wanted to deny it...but looking at the tear streaked eyes of Kaolla, she felt the urge to be brave.
With the tiniest of nods, she confessed. That didn't seem to be enough for Kaolla, who still stared unblinking at her. “I-I...I think...I really do love him...” Instantly, shame erupted in her chest. “B-but I won't get in Naru-”
“FORGET NARU, SHINOBU! That's...that's not what I was asking. Because...I like Keitaro too. But I would never stop you from being with him.”
The tiny blunette went silent, drumming up her courage, before finally voicing her question. “What...what happened, Kaolla?”
Su collapsed to the floor in a sitting position, and Shinobu hesitantly joined her. “Keitaro...keeps getting hurt, Shinomu. I know you hate seeing it. And I know I've...not been very nice to big brother either. You're the only one who's never hurt him on purpose. He needs help, Shinobu, And I think...I can save him, but not alone. Will you help me? Because I can't...save him alone. And if you help, then maybe we can both save him before...”
Before something really bad happens.
Shinobu swallowed. Kaolla was being quiet, none of her usual energy present. And she kept using the word 'save', which meant...She glanced down at the purple fluid. She'd said someone had given it to her as a dying gift. What if...
Like a slideshow, she was gifted mental images of a dying Keitaro handing it to her as a last resort. Or perhaps a relative with a terminal illness, giving her the cure to a fatal sickness that Keitaro would inevitably get. The images in her imagination began to pile up before she steeled herself, leaning forward to meet Kaolla's gaze. “I'm in. How do we save Sempai?”
And Kaolla Su smiled, for what felt like the first time in hours. “Here's what I need...”
And as she explained, she could almost hear, in the back of her mind, the familiar, haunting song...
Baby we built this house,
On memories...