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Akane reflected. And the face staring back at her from the polished mirror was no ghost. She was alive. Her hands were solid as she gripped the sink on either side, her skin cool. No fading, no burning, no death. Those haunted memories of being brought to ashes would not come to pass. Junpei had done it. She was alive. For the first time, the breath in her lungs didn't have an expiration date. And she breathed. Rivers of air ran through her body as she took it all in. The damp, musty air of her hideout's restroom. She could feel its very texture, the hints of moisture and sterilizer. And taking it all in, basking in that simple action of breathing, her mind cleared of its machinations. The schemes and plans and ideas she had accumulated all filtered out, and she was left with her emotions. Shock overcame her as the self-built dams of her mind were blown apart by the waves of feelings. The relief, the happiness, the excitement, the anxiety, the terror, the guilt, and the love. It all came over her at once. And she cried. Oh, she was sobbing. And with the viscerality of the heart overwhelming her, Akane reflected.
Some victims should never have been hurt. Those flowers that are trampled by uncaring boots. The angels who bathe the Earth in blessings and warmth. A giddy smile on a child's face, broken, ripped, and replaced. A bunny rabbit bleeding in its hutch. Its caretaker who bears the weight of their failure, meeting their own haunted fate. Siblings playing in the yard, minds yet to be scarred. These are the innocent. The ones who only had love to give and everything to lose. The singsong hum of a morning walk. The bright eyed children on Christmas day. The ones who still have it in them to ask you to stop hurting them, all due to the simple reason that it’s painful. The little sparks of hope and wonder that only the devil would snuff out.
Akane raised her face to look into the mirror. And reflected in the glass, a little girl looked back. Her eyes were glistening with tears, great rushing streams cascading down her small face. There was a pleading in them to God, to Jumpy, to Aoi, to herself. She was trembling and choking on her own sobbing. There was a primal terror in her, typically reserved for those already gone. ‘I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die!’ echoed in her mind. She was just a little girl. She wanted her big brother. She wanted to go home. She wanted to live. What of her ordinary school life? Living at the orphanage, being bullied by her peers. It sounded like divine paradise in contrast to the fiery hell she found herself in. She wanted to play with Jumpy on the hills overlooking town, and tease Aoi for wearing his silly emo eyeliner. She just wanted to be a normal kid. She was the bright summer day overcast by a terrible eclipse.
Some victims had it coming. The ones with a smile showing too many teeth, with no hint of raised cheeks. The masks of theater fame worn since birth and no thought given to those with no worth. Those hanged for their crimes against the village. The type to wipe you from the Earth and calmly carry out cruelty. A soul eternally tortured in Hell’s deepest pit. The initial spark of an arson. Intentional, methodical, terrible, indiscriminate. And they'll say to your face that's how nature works, that it's supposed to be this way. You never have to face the terrible person you’ve become if fate itself gives you justification. They'll gaslight the fading faculties of your mind as you die in the fire they lit.
Akane held her eyes closed, trying to regain her composure. And upon opening them, she saw a new face in the glass. Zero looked back at her. Her mask was cold, uncaring. She stared indifferently, ever calculating, ever scripted. It was as though the mask served not only a practical purpose, but an emblematic one as well. It would filter out unnecessary sensations. Attachments or quandaries that would take away from who she needs to be. This pain, this trauma, it was necessary. It was part of the plan. There's no room for a warm gesture. No face to smile. She was the machiavellian mastermind. The morphogenetic marionettist. She was the judge, jury, and executioner of sins untold. She would hurt everyone she came across without the slightest change in body language. She wasn’t a person. She was simply Zero.
Some victims do it to themselves, for one reason or another. The type to goad others into aggression. The lone wolf who distances themselves from others and hides their heart. The sacrificial lamb to save the village. The snake coiled around its prey even as a coyote neared by. These are all different circumstances, and yet they all follow the same trend. Be it a moment of passion or a calculated gambit, their death is their doing. They all meet the same end. They hold the key they used to lock the door of their own fate. And there's few eyes darkened in such a way as those belonging to the gray soul of someone doing whatever it takes.
Akane met her eyes in the mirror once again. And there she saw an old woman looking back. Her smile reached her eyes, though they weren’t kindly like that of a human. Lit up as they were, they were more reminiscent of a machine. She was trained, practiced, and pathological. This was the face of a woman who had discarded any semblance of genuinity she had left to give. All that remained was necessity and manipulation. She was a quantum computer trained on eons of information. And she knew exactly how to tip the dominos so that they may collapse into a beautiful work of art. A kidnapping here to put a timeline into motion, a detonation there to bring it to a close. And through it all, she was withered. A corpse of an angel, ripped free of its luster. The shepherd of humanity's future. The tender to the crops of time, and the fire that scorches them to dust.
Some victims are those of circumstance. Those in the wrong place at the wrong time. How do you tell someone it simply had to be this way? That the seeds of fate were sowed before they were even born. That they need to be hurt, or else the universe would fall under paradox. One can’t accept that leaving their house at just the right time led to being hospitalized from a car accident. What do you say to someone who died in a fire at a diner they just happened to go to that day? Or the unlucky college student who met a serial killer at the club. It's not fair or easy. There’s no order to the chaos of fate’s deadly touch. They’re simply victims because that’s how time flowed. They'll question their chances, the percentile happenstance of their misery. "This only happens to people on the news!" they’ll cry. Just the whimpers of a broken soul desperately clinging to a reason they might have lost. Incapable of accepting their story is forever etched into the makings of history.
Akane mustered up her strength, and looked into the mirror. And finally, June looked back. Her face was radiant with excitement, her index finger held up like a light bulb. She was full to the brim with knowledge she'd collected, and she just had to tell everyone. She was an encyclopedia, a cornucopia of interests and studies that she’d occupied her time with since childhood. Not only that, but she was itching to help others, that kindly concerned look always adorning her cheeks. She was happy to step up and do her part to benefit the group. She had come into herself, fully realized. She was the weird friend, the girl next door, the childhood sweetheart. She loved to poke fun at others but always be there for them. She was a panther on the prowl for knowledge, and happy to trade some of her own. She was just… happy! She wanted to bring a smile to the faces of those in the room with her. To be the warm firelight on a dark, cold winter day. And she was in love. Butterflies swarmed her stomach at just the thought of being with Jumpy. A rosy blush spread across her cute face and she was content. She would be the kind and quirky college student she wished she could be more often. And she would yearn to be with the boy who gave her her first friend. She was the shooting star blinking beautifully in front of her own outstretched, wishful hand.
Akane reflected. And the face staring back at her from the polished mirror was her own. Her tears had subsided, her head emptied out of its emotional episode. She found herself slumped against the bathroom sink, barely able to hold herself after scrabbling up off of the floor. Evidently, she had collapsed in on herself, unable to bear the weight of who she was. Even now, she felt herself trembling. With deep, ragged breaths, she gave her reflection her full attention. And what she saw was a mess. Her face was smeared with tears and mucus, not to mention her hair being entirely frayed. What was once a gentle wave of dark brown curtains framing her face was now a tattered and ripped mat. She had torn her lips with her teeth, leaving her mouth bloodied. She was… a broken mess. When the book is closed, one often has a hard time returning it to the shelf. And when you've spent your life chasing a goal, it's normal to feel empty upon completing it. She was alive, successfully saved by Junpei in the past and, consequently, herself in the present. And now that it was said and done, she couldn’t help but ask why she did any of it. That little girl she saved was gone. Akane herself had destroyed her. What purpose was there in protecting a life that was going to kill itself anyways? What was she going to do now that the smoke had cleared? What do you do when you survive past your divinely ordained expiration date? Sure, deep down she knew she was being irrational. She understood that now more than ever was her opportunity to express the gentleness, fascination, and academics that she had kept on a tight leash throughout her adolescence. And yet, that all meant nothing to her mind, consumed as it was by the nonary game for 9 years. And it did nothing to erase the cruelty and ferocity she had exhibited throughout her life. Was any of her sweet, charming personality real? Or another tactic of the manipulative Zero? Zero was supposed to be the farce, the mask she put on to accomplish things necessary for her plan. The cloak over her genuine, awkward, ‘Queen of random knowledge’ self. But wasn’t that just a facade, to navigate social situations more easily?
Akane stood there, her face reflected in the too clean mirror. Her lungs were full of the bleak air of her hideout’s restroom. She no longer had to sculpt facets of her personality under the pretense of a greater purpose. Left to her own devices, she was allowed to be her genuine self. The world was hers to experience, fully alive and present within it. And that very revelation is what plagued her. For in this moment a question panged the agonized caches of her mind. One that inhibited her ability to relish in the life that she had saved. Her reflection flickered, in flashes quicker than the blink of an eye. A little girl. Zero. An old woman. June.
Who was she?