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When we cross into Alice's realm – and just now it feels more like Alice's realm than it does the SE.RA.PH's Arena – I remind myself that I have to keep hold of who I am. It's not like I've got much to forget in the first place, and the most important thing, my name, is written right there on my own hand. Hakuno Kishinami. Not like I could lose that, right? So as long as I have that, I'll be fine. Caster and her disappearing magic won't be able to touch me. I step through the barrier and there's the fizzle in my mind that means Archer's appeared behind me, and... here we are.
It's pink. It is so pink here. It's like Care-alot. Is that topiary or cotton candy?
Wait, what am I doing here?
Who's that guy coming up behind me? What a sexy guy, why's he staring at me, am I supposed to be doing something?
“Master,” he says, haloed in pink. I squint to focus. “Look at your hand.”
I raise my right hand to eye-level. There's writing on it. Huh. That's strange. Hold on, I'll read it, I just need to –
What the – ? This place. It's pink! Why is it pink? Shouldn't I be somewhere else, I don't think I'm supposed to be inside this enormous cupcake, but maybe –
“Master.” A man's voice cuts into my thoughts. I turn. Whoa, who's this guy? What a sexy guy. Does he know me? “Look at your hand,” he says, leaning forward and staring intently into my face.
I raise my hand to eye-level, and everything looks fine, except for some reason I wrote on it, and I turn to say so, you know, everything's cool, but I finally get a good look around me and holy shit when did the world turn completely pink? This isn't like sunset-on-the-Alps pink, this is Barbie-Corvette pink, except for the bushes, the bushes are like yellow and lavender and aqua, and the whole vista just begs for gumdrops and lollipop-trees, and I pivot, wondering if I'm about to see a phalanx of Gummi Bears marching up to take me prisoner, and wait, there's a man here (what a sexy guy) in a long bloodred sleeves plus long skirt thing – sort of like a cape, but around his hips? – butt-cape, that works – and he's staring at me and for some reason he's pissed, and I back up and my shoulders slam this glass wall thing, and the guy's lips are moving and he's sort of leaning forward, crouched down, very intent with his fingers making grasping motions and now he's pointing at me – my legs? – oh, my hand, did I take something of yours, wait, what's this on my hand? Hakuno? Kishinami?
“Right.” The man's voice breaks through my thoughts. “Say it again. That's your name. Keep saying it and let's go.”
Hakunokishinami. Why do you want me to repeat it? Are we doing something?
Hey, watch the shoving! Is that any way to treat your – your – your...?
Wait, do I know you? Yeah, I know you. We're...
Shit, we're not together are we, you are way too old for me, plus you look like something out of a video game – what? Hakuno Kishinami. There, I said it! Hakuno Kishinami! HAKUNO KISHINAMI!
Clarity illuminates the tangle of my thoughts – that's right, Grail War, I'm following Alice, and she's going to try to erase my existence by making me forget everything, but that's not going to happen because I'm going to keep walking forward. There she is, she and that Doppleganger servant, and I'm just going to keep following her – and dodging those lasers she's blasting back at me – no problem, it's just like dodgeball – Archer just took that one for me, go him – just keep following Alice and don't let her erase you just keep focusing and nothing bad can happen there's nothing to worry about I'm doing fine and – and –
What the hell? Where did that red guy leap out from, oh damn –
I fwump into this guy's back because for some reason he just darted in front of me like a dog after a frisbee and I'm about to apologize and he's spinning me around (he might be kind of good looking, but I don't have enough time to really see) and saying, “Read your hand for me, keep running and read your damn hand,” and I try to tell him you don't read hands, you read books, unless you're deaf, then you do read hands (are you deaf?) but he keeps pushing me into a run and telling me to read my hand to him and I hold up my hand to say see there's nothing there and, whoa, there's writing on my hand where did that come from – it says HAKUNO KISHINAMI what the hell is a Hakuno Kishinami –
Another blast! and the guy leaps in front of me to intercept whatever the little girl in black had launched at me. She's – she's doing something bad, I remember that much. And I need to keep running and keep close to the guy in red. I can handle that, let's keep running – another blast as Red Guy zooms back in front of me, butt-cape flapping my face, and then he drops behind me as we hit a long stretch of glass-paned corridor and the girls pull ahead. But not before sending another blast back, which Red Guy lunges forward to block.
“Why don't you just run in front of me?” I shout.
“Read your hand,” he snaps.
What's so important about my hand?
Wait a minute, who wrote on it, I hate hands with writing on them, it always looks so messy and what does Hakuno Kishinami even mean – ?
Oh shit, that's right, I have to run, or else – something – (horrible? horrible, I guess) – will happen. But – but what does any of this mean?
“Are you Hashuno Kikinami?” I ask.
“Look alive, Master.” And he shoulder-slams me into a glass wall, which seems uncalled-for until I notice the beam of white energy that zaps through where I'd been a moment before.
“Is Hashnu Kikmi a food?” I ask as he plants his hands under my shoulders and propels me at a run down the hall.
“At this rate,” he says, “she'll probably be worse off than that.”
“Sorry,” I say as he hoists me up and swivels me out of the line of fire. “I wouldn't ask, normally, it's just I really want to know what a Hunky Cashew is – "
“Good,” he says, swinging me behind him and blocking a beam of light on this sword that comes out of nowhere. “Keep focusing on that.”
The weird thing is that I don't even know how I know the words HAKUNO KISHINAMI, they just appeared fully-formed in my head even though I'm sure I've never heard them before – I bet I couldn't even spell them right – but I keep thundering down this hallway, the pink world thundering past me, and ahead are two small figures, twin girls in these frilly lolita outfits, and I'm chasing them? I guess maybe I'm their babysitter, or something? Why did I take them to this pink place? I don't ever let kids leave the house when I'm babysitting, it's a violation of trust, because the parents depend on you to –
Wait a minute - I just realized – this place is pink! Why is it pink? Did a glittery nuke go just off or – ?
Somebody grabs me and sweeps me up and around, hoisting me right off the ground, and I'm being held aloft by my arms and I'm facing this guy, what a beautiful man, but why is he so angry?
“Are you trying to disappear completely?” he asks.
“Can I do that?”
Man stares at me a moment, jaw working like he's grinding his teeth, then he plunks me down. “I know you have a pen in your right jacket pocket. Give it to me.”
How'd he know that? I pass it over.
Man glances up the corridor as if checking the area, though I don't know why – this whole place is so benign and pink that I can't imagine what he'd be worried about. Then he uncaps the pen, grabs my hand, turns it palm-down and starts writing.
“Hey, don't – "
I try to pull away but he keeps a firm grip, so I just relax, whatever. He started at the top of my wrist and now he's working his way down in a very tight, even hand. That takes patience. There's some bigger writing on the center of my hand and he interrupts his neat rows to circle the big writing several times, underline it twice, then add several five-pointed stars.
“Do you have a highlighter?” he asks. I use my left hand to fumble around in my pockets, but no highlighter. He continues on.
I pull my left hand back out and – When did I get a tattoo? There's this swirly red design on the back of my left hand. Who did this? I wouldn't have gotten this. Did somebody drug and tattoo me? Am I like some animal that's been tagged and re-released into the wild? Maybe it comes off. As I'm scrubbing the back of my left hand against my leg, Man has come right up to my knuckles. Pausing only long enough to add what I think is a hyphen, he flips my hand over and starts writing on the other side, starting at the heel. It tickles. He's been holding my hand for a long time. What's with that outfit? Are we... at a con? Is he giving me his autograph? Why's it so long? Is he giving me directions to his hotel room? Um, pervert? Where's security? Was it always pink in here?
He turns my hand to continue one sentence down the inside of my pinky, then drops my hand and caps the pen, straightening with a smug grimace. “All right, Master. Read your hand, all the way through.”
I look up at him blankly. What's your problem, you're the one who wrote all over me, why don't you read it all? But I look down and start reading. It's all about how I'm in this digital space that looks like a school and I have no memories and there's a fight going on and – and – right right RIGHT I'm Hakuno Kishinami and I'm in the HOLY GRAIL WAR battling for the Holy Grail that isn't the Holy Grail and that's ARCHER and he's helping me and I can't let him down and I don't want to die so we have to keep chasing Alice because I'm FIGHTING A LITTLE GIRL TO THE DEATH and I have to keep remembering who I am and YES.
I give Archer a big smile. “I'm good now, let's go!” He gives an exasperated sigh of relief. So off we go, back into a run, and soon enough we must be catching up because the white lasers start blasting back at me again.
It's normal for us to get back from the Arena ridiculously early in the morning, and sometimes it's about all I can do to shamble into the safety of my private room and crawl into the Kotomine-issued sleeping bag that is the only bed I've had for the past three weeks. But today, what with all the Alice craziness in the Arena, my thoughts are still doing silly little loops when we get back to the room. It's not until I'm in the tiny bathroom off the side (if I make it through this week, will someone please reward me with a larger bathroom?), leaning against the sink with my jacket on the floor and my hair every which-way, that my brain really settles back down. It's cool. I've got all my memories – well, three weeks worth of memories. No more forgetting who I am in the Arena. Have accomplished at least that much.
I run the faucet, about to dab my sweaty face, when I notice my right hand, the one Archer all but henna'd up to get my brain back on track. It'd been a good idea. He'd still had to keep shouting at me to read my hand, but reading phrases like if you do not follow the little girls you will die and you have gotten by so far but you will still screw everything up if you do not follow the little girls had helped me keep my focus. I need to remember to thank Archer for –
Wait a minute. What does that say, right there over my heart line?
What the hell?
I don't charge in a fury back into the main room, but I certainly walk with purpose. Archer's leaning back on his Vesuvius of Desks but isn't asleep yet. He looks confused at my entrance, then more bemused, then – I don't know, musing? “Master?”
“Why did you write this?” I walk over, palm out like a crossing guard. I point at the offending line, trusting he can read it in the half light.
Archer looks at me but doesn't answer.
“Since you're so hell-bent on me reading my hand,” I say, “I'll read it. It says: You are not a very experienced magus so you trust everything I say and will do anything I tell you.”
Archer inclines his head, as if to say, You read that very nicely. Gold star.
“Archer! That isn't true.”
“So you've been holding out on me,” Archer says. “You're an expert hacker with a body count in the four digits. The truth's out. I figured there had to be a reason you didn't trust me.”
I sigh. “No – I do trust you but – not unthinkingly.” I point at my hand again, like it's a billboard or something. “This makes it sound like I'd jump off a cliff if you told me to.”
“You wouldn't even consider it?”
“Of course not,” I say, and then my brain catches up. Well, it's true that Archer has always seemed to have my best interests at heart, so if he did tell me to jump off a cliff, he'd probably have some solid reasoning behind it. And, yeah, I can see how essential it was that he have the Alice-bamboozled me listen to him unthinkingly because I wasn't in any shape to be making decisions. But still, he shouldn't have implied that I don't do any thinking of my own because I do, I've spent hours memorizing enemy program data and researching everything from the Cagafuego to Piers Plowman, so I think I can take more than a little credit for our succ –
Hey, wait a minute, what's that part say – ?
“What about this part?” I say, lifting my hand back up to his face.
Archer studies my palm with some surprise, as if he didn't think there was anything else I'd object to. He gives me a frown like I'm crazy. “It says that you don't need to worry because I won't let anything hurt you.”
When he says it out loud, it sounds a lot nobler than it looked on my hand. My indignation is already flagging.
“Unless you're angry that I protect you?” Archer says. “I suppose I could let you take a few hits to toughen you up, though you probably wouldn't survive it.”
Okay, that brought just enough indignation back. “So letting me get plugged with a poison arrow last week was to toughen me up?”
Archer frowns again, like he's about to argue something – or at least say something a little closer to the soul than usual – then he sighs philosophically, folds his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. “You shouldn't dwell in the past, Master.”
I drop the indignation again. Don't miss it either, because it's been a long horrible day and by now the strongest thing I feel is gratitude that it's over. “I only have two and half weeks of memory. I'm not giving that up, even if it means I do remember some shortcomings.”
He opens his eyes, looks at me. Expression distant but with no mockery. “Forgive me for failing you last week. I won't let it happen again.”
Sincere – sincerely apologetic – Archer is way too much to handle. “It's fine,” I say quickly. “I know you won't – it's cool, really. I mean, I did learn from it, right? Anyway, I'll be back in a bit, g'night.” I'm halfway to the bathroom door already. When I have my hand on the knob, I glance back down at the writing all over my skin, then look back. My Servant has his eyes closed.
“Hey, Archer?”
He looks over.
“Thanks for what you did back in the Arena. It would have been easy to just let me disappear, right?” I release a smile. It's a pretty good one. “I just hope none of the cliffs get much higher than that.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Eventually you will have to learn how to take a fall, Master.”
“That was your chance to say something nice back.”
He smiles. “I'm afraid you'll just have to settle for me catching you.”
“Well.” I pull the door open. “If that's all I have to look forward to, don't screw it up.” And on that, I pass through and close the door. It takes fifteen minutes to get the ink off my hand, and even then the words remain, faint but still readable.