Chapter Text
“Oh… this again…” The sight was all too familiar, if she truly was seeing it and wasn’t adrift below the surface of consciousness. Before her, played an all-too-familiar series of events, stuttering and erratically charging, just like those questionably edited videos she found herself watching when a convenient amount of cheer was needed. A violin recital, excitedly explaining to her father her most recent scholastic achievement, hours consumed by daydreams, the times she cooked with her father… Just as some less distant memories jerkily materialized in her vision, they dissolved into static before fading, revealing the drab wall, occluded by the blanket over her face. Erin continued to lie in her bed, still floating aimlessly in her thoughts. She had survived the academy, and managed to cement herself in the upper echelon of her year, but for what? Her vision started to become cloudy again until she was again, plucked from her thoughts. “...I repeat, we will arrive at [naval installment] in 15 minutes,” the PA slurred, as the light returned to Erin’s field of view.
The afternoon sun was disorientating as Erin looked out from the vessel. Taking a moment to adjust her uniform, she stepped down the gangplank and onto the dock. Her steps melted into a steady cadence as she walked through security, and through a number of doors. After looking down to check that she still had both her bags, she saw a woman in a white uniform with her black hair in a ponytail waiting in the atrium of the main building.
“Officer Nichols, Lady Yamato Awaits,” she stiffly offered,
“I will show you to your quarters for the time being, first.”
Erin exhaled under her breath.
“At once then,” she replied.
The realization that the plain, unassuming letter she received after graduation was not a figment of post graduation relief, dawned on her. Erin followed the woman out the door and across the naval installment.
As she walked, Erin contemplated what had transpired over the past number of weeks and how she had gotten to where she was. From the day she decided she would serve as her father did, several were an uphill battle. Many nights after school brought with them feelings of paranoia, that she had forgotten an answer, or that she didn’t perform to the extent of her abilities. All of her training at the academy had led to this moment; countless exams and exercises, and inordinate amounts of time in which she threw herself into her work, often at the cost of a growing list of things she deemed unimportant. All of this had come to a head when she received a letter that bore the seal of the academy: she had passed in the top of her class and was now an officer. The days that followed blurred together; Erin found herself thumbing over the letter in a haze of disbelief, until she received another letter. This one was unassuming compared to the one sent by the academy, but its contents evoked the opposite feeling. As Erin thumbed over the words, instead of the relief that her graduation letter brought, she was suddenly hit by an unseen force, nearly damning in comparison. While she steadied herself on the counter, her mind accelerated into a myriad of reasons why the sakuran flagship herself had selected her. She lived in a fog from that day onwards, and wasn’t sure if it had gotten worse.
“...Officer? ...Ms. Nichols? Hello?” Oh. She was walking, led by a uniformed lady. Now as she looked at her, the way she was trying to get her attention would not have been described as anything other than doggedly, if the ears that framed her face had anything to say about it. “Your room.” her escort’s words again brought her out of her thoughts.
“Thank you, Miss..?”
Erin trailed off as she tried to remember if her guide introduced herself.
“I am Takao, Officer Nichols.”
“Thank you, Takao,” Erin replied.
Takao gave her a short nod,
“I will return in an hour.”
And with that, she walked back down the hall and disappeared around a corner. After putting her duffle bag and backpack on the desk, Erin walked around and examined the room. Despite being on the smaller side, the room was decently arranged; the bed was pushed against the left wall next to the window and the desk was pushed against the opposite wall beside a wardrobe. Behind her, there was a door that revealed a bathroom. After hanging up her hat and her coat, Erin Washed her face and started to unpack her backpack. Once she connected her laptop to the internet, she retrieved her phone from her backpack, set a timer, and fell backwards onto the bed. A message from her father lights up the screen. “Have you arrived? What is the base like?” Her father’s texts tended to be shorter, but their intent often exceeded their words. “Just over an hour ago. I’ve only walked through the main office building. Mostly unpacked now.” Erin turned the phone’s screen off and placed it on the end table. She glanced at the single picture on top of it before staring at the ceiling.
Whether it was listening to her prattle off about something she learned on the way back from kindergarten, or convincing her to take a break from violin, her father did so much for her. Even when his work kept her father from being with her, Erin knew she was still at the forefront of his thoughts. No matter how tired he was when he returned from work, he made time to ask her about her day. Even as he struggled to pay attention, he did not let any part of what she was saying go unheard. From the first tale of his service to his unconditional support, It was because of her father that Erin was now lying in a bed across the sea killing time before an audience with the head of the Sakuran navy, and he would probably call her to ask how it went. Picking up the silver locket around her neck, her thoughts wander off as she runs her thumb over the wave-like engraving on its surface. Her father had given her the locket the day she graduated from the academy. This time, out of all the things he said on her graduation (in addition to the tears of elation), the words that rose to the top of the swirling mass burned unrelentingly compared to the memory’s soft glow.
“No matter where you are, you’ll always be in our thoughts… Your mother would be so proud of you, of how far you’ve come and how you’ve persisted.”
“As if. She didn’t then, so why would she now?” The “Y” accompanying her father’s “E” in the locket’s engraving mocks her; feeding the embers that appeared in her mind. Erin sighs as her train of thought is derailed and careens towards disaster. “Not now,” she seethes internally, “I will not be the reason this audience goes up in flames.” Erin throttles her breathing and waits for her heart to follow. Being incensed over an absent parent can wait until she goes to bed, where it can stew, burn, and combust, and everyone will be none the wiser in the morning. As her train of thought is gingerly righted onto the tracks, Erin feels the miasma leave her thoughts.
Just as she opens her eyes, the timer from before goes off. Erin reluctantly stands up and trudges to the bathroom. After washing her face, she pulls the slacks from another dress uniform out of the wardrobe. Donning her coat again, Erin adjusts her hat; an action that has nearly become second nature as she examines her reflection one last time. Erin exits the room to find Takao quietly waiting outside.
“I’ve only been here for half a minute,”
Takao responds to the unspoken question,
“Are you ready, Officer Nichols?”
“As much as I can be,” Erin reluctantly answers.
Erin made note of the naval installment’s inhabitants as she left the officer’s dorms; many of them looked out of place, but she knew that all of them were likely more qualified than their compatriots. They were kansen, physical manifestations of ships' will, brought about by means that were as mythical as they were scientific. As her seemingly mismatched surroundings melted into the background, she noticed the architecture had abruptly shifted before her, concrete giving way to lacquered wood. Takao slid open the door ahead of them and Erin entered; an expansive balcony with wooden beams that supported an arched roof rising from the floor. Takao trailed behind her. Before them, an otherworldly scene; it was as if the Hyakki Yako had ended at an imperial court.
“Lady Yamato, I have returned with Officer Nichols as requested,”
Takao reported. With that, the crowd parted, revealing whose court the parade had ended in.
It appears I’m so nervous, that I’ve taken all of this in stride. As I walked the courtesans’ gazes fell upon me like rain, every step leaving me increasingly saturated; what little of them I could comprehend out of the corner of my eyes appeared to be out of curiosity than the alternative. I continued to follow my canine guide through the crowd, keeping my focus on the back of her head; the sea of faces filling the corners of my vision. I could feel her presence before I could see her. “How fitting,” I thought. The crowd seemed to fall away as we got closer to the front, revealing the source of the pressure. Takao had reached the front of the crowd, and descended on one knee, just over a meter short of someone who emanated regality. As I looked up, I saw two others just like her; one that embodied the silvery glow of moonlight and one reminiscent of a storm’s inky depths standing back from her. The three were made more imposing by the tall ears that added to the head of height they had over everyone and the mass of tails that expanded their silhouettes. The first silently cleared her throat as Takao and myself stood before her. It was then that I lost all comprehension of time; there was no before or after, I could only see what was in front of me.
“I have done as you requested,”
Takao spoke with a calm, level voice.
“Yes,” Yamato replied. “With that, you are relieved for today.”
“Thank you, Lady Yamato,”
Takao bowed before walking towards the doors.
“That will be all,”
Yamato announced, looking up to address the crowd. With that, the courtesans filtered off the balcony, leaving me in front of Yamato, who turned to look at the two behind her.
“We’ll see ourselves out, nee-chama~ ,” the stormy one began, “Shinano?”
At that, the silvery one stood straighter, as if returning to her body, before drowsily following her counterpart towards the entrance.
I looked up at Yamato. Even though my heart felt like a caged beast trying to escape my chest, I stood straight and tried to maintain eye contact with the goddess that stood before me. My eyes started to falter, in an effort to maintain a facade of attention, they locked on to everything but her eyes: her mouth, just over her left shoulder, …the mole under her right eye? As I looked at her face, I felt the unsteadiness in my body lessening. Was it because of Yamato’s presence? Or was I finally starting to make it after so long? Her ears drooped almost imperceptibly as she looked me in the eyes. The corners of her mouth seemed to be in unrest, trying in vain to find a position to rest in. There was something else about her that caught my attention; was it her twinge of uncertainty or was it something else, something familiar, even? Before I could pursue that thought, she spoke,
“Officer Nichols, you probably know by now that there is more to this summons.”
I tensed in response. Of course there was a catch for something like this to have happened.
“This posting could still be yours, should you choose to accept it,” Yamato continued, “you were selected as a candidate for this post because you met or exceeded the criteria we thought would be needed to best fulfill this role, but there was something else.”
At that point, I knew something was definitely afoot, the tension in the air was more than palpable and the pit of my stomach certainly felt like it was.
“Since the manifestation of Kansen, one factor has been paramount in the officer
selection process for posts relating to them,”
Yamato started to explain. Other than her seemingly reading my thoughts, it seemed that the longer she talked, the more nervous she seemed to be; as if she was putting off saying something.
“Any officer could serve alongside Kansen, but there is something that separates the ones that go beyond that. If an officer induces any amount of resonance in the cubes that are the very essence of a KanSen, the link between officer and KanSen will be much stronger than when there is none; the difference is like that of someone reading notes on a page compared to someone who treats their instrument as an extension of their mind.”
I decided to bite the bullet and finally ask the question that had weight on my mind since the day the letter came.
“Your excellency, how does this relate to why I was selected?”
“Officer Nichols, you were able to induce a resonance stronger than any other candidate in your year. The only other way to induce a resonance of that magnitude is to have a KanSen interact with the cube.“
“But I’m not a kansen?” I interjected.
“Kansen can influence each other, and by extension, the cubes as well. Because wisdom cubes are the very essence of a kansen, even a fraction of one can be more potent than the best human.”
Yamato paused before continuing,
“…As such, there are others like you, being neither one or the other, who can resonate so strongly with the cubes.”
The gears in my head started to turn. What did she mean by “one or the other?” What about me was like the others she spoke of? I gave myself a moment to wrap my mind around her words, but my mind fell short.
“Your excellency, both my parents were human last I checked,“
I offered, hoping I had kept up with her explanation.
“My only connection to your kind is that my father served with kansen before the war ended,” I added.
At those words, Yamato’s expression shifted for just a moment.
“Your father was stationed here for his last assignment.”
I paused for a split second. Out of all the scenarios I explored before this meeting, this wasn’t one of them.
“What was he like?”
I asked out of curiosity.
“There was an unflappable calmness around him. He was resolute and ensured that all did to the best of their abilities. He took his post seriously, but there was no coldness or distance from him. He cared immensely for the wellbeing of those around him, and everyone knew they could entrust themselves to him.”
“It sounds like your excellency was very close to him,” I responded.
She spoke up again, but this time, her voice seemed to carry a note of wistfulness.
“I was. There was a time when there was no one closer.”
“How so, your excellency?”
Yamato’s expression flickered again, dwelling ever so slightly longer on one of sadness. Reaching into her robes, Yamato slowly produced a locket and held it out to me.
I tried to examine the locket as it spun lazily on its chain. The first thing I noticed was how the light bounced off of the ridges on its surface. As I looked closer, I saw that the ridges had a curve to them… as if they were waves. “There’s no way,” I thought. On its next trip around, I focused on the locket’s back, my eyes widening in bewilderment as they caught the two initials on the back:
E & Y
Yamato returned the locket to her robes before she lifted her eyes to meet mine.
“Near the end of the war, we thought we could enjoy the peace that would follow. But the sirens returned and tried to wage a final last-ditch effort so I decided to spare him from the dangers he would face. It wouldn’t have been worth it for both of us to be in harm’s way… we both had someone who would have been waiting for our safe return. When he left, I promised I would find him when it was over, but he was nowhere to be found.”
She paused, before addressing me again. As she spoke, her eyes glittered with long restrained tears.
“I’m sorry, Kasumi.”
I froze. Up to this point, I was just nervous about having an audience with the leader of the Sakuran Navy, but her knowledge of something between only my father and I was jarring.
“How do you know that name?”
I rigidly inquired, my voice barely concealing the unsteadiness within. Yamato took a shaky breath before she spoke again.
“To forget my own daughter’s name would be unforgivable.”
At those words, something deep within me broke through the walls confining it; like waves pounding against a wall until it inevitably shatters. Everything made sense, and yet it didn’t; how did I not recognize the face accompanying my father in the picture frame? How did the other locket make it into the hands of the Sakuran navy’s leader? Her story felt familiar, but why? It was irrational; why had those words touched the deepest corners of my mind? Molten lead filled my chest as her words played fresh in my mind. I could feel the slightest sway in my body, as if the storm of my emotions had stirred up the water around me. My mind was at its limit. To say that I was on edge at the beginning of this meeting was an understatement; I did not know what would be involved in an audience with a foreign dignitary, especially one concerning your future position. To be suddenly met with the knowledge that you were now face to face with your mother, who had been absent for your entire life, was nothing short of a mental stun grenade. I felt my heartbeat quicken, filling my mind with a rising roar. Tears waited at the edges of my eyes as the savage and euphoric rhythm of mania filled my thoughts; the feeling of the biggest punchline and most viscous insult. The woman I had grown to hate was finally standing before me! For so long, I had wanted nothing to do with her, yet here she was! As my heartbeat stabilized, words bubbled up to the surface in a shaky voice.
“For twenty years…” I began.
I was furious. Irrationally so; my mind still hadn’t caught up with how I was feeling. But as my mind got closer to my heart, my words rose, gaining a fiery momentum as I connected the pieces strewn about my head.
“For twenty years, you were gone and thought that you would be fine to just say sorry?”
Yamato looked like the wind had left her sails.
“Do you know what it is like to be the odd one out when it was time to go home? Do you know how it felt to see everyone around you with something you could only dream of?” Do you know how many times the mask stayed on when I came home? Do you know how many times I waited for someone to pester me even though I said I was fine? Do you know how I felt when I knew dad was too tired to listen to me? Do you know how many times I threw myself into my schoolwork when there was nobody to turn to?”
The burning weight behind my words died; leaving the embers in its wake.
”I made it this far, knowing that you played no part in all of it.”
As soon as those words left me, the song in my mind faded, replaced by the lapping of the waves from beyond the railing. I stood in silence as the pounding in my chest started to fall away, I started to re-examine my surroundings. I was then enveloped by a crushing feeling; I braced my knees as my heart grew louder again. I was in an audience with the leader of the Sakuran navy… And not only did I allow myself to erupt in a display of mental instability, I had also slapped away the generous hand that could erase my years of work in an instant. This wasn’t the first time I had resorted to this; whether it was throwing myself into something or bottling it up, I ran.