Chapter Text
This is the history that remains.
Time has coalesced together to form this one moment, which will be lost as soon as the next minute passes, and the next after that. Time waits for no one. Akane Kurashiki has not stepped foot on a beach since she was a little girl. That time has long since slipped through her fingers.
She stands here now, taking in her surroundings. Washed-up seaweed. Rust. Salt-stained concrete. Pitch. The water is beautiful, though Akane is not particularly fond of it. It’s not the same ocean she’s used to.
Time passes slower here, somehow. This weather. Mineral oil. The smell of fish. Seafoam. A breeze that chills her to the bone. Years on the moon have made her feel out of touch, like something alien. Foreign. Out of place. The gravity is just ever so slightly different than what she’s gotten used to, and like a slightly crooked painting, it throws the whole room off once you notice it.
She has read several accounts from astronauts long-gone, mostly to pass the time. Oddly enough, most of them expressed the same twin sentiments, in their own ways: Stagnation among the stars. Relief to return home.
Akane Kurashiki is not an alien, an astronaut, or an anthropologist. Who stood here before her is not an avenue she is in the business of exploring. She was just a girl when she came here last, and now, the world would call her just a woman; one lone individual silently watching the waves crash onto the shore.
There is no relief to speak of. Her existence is constant, no matter where she goes. A town once stood here, and now that town is no more. The only words that come to mind are catastrophe and failure. Earth is just a childhood bedroom where she must now crouch beneath the doorframe to fit inside.
This is just one history, upon a countless number of histories. There are timelines where she knows what to do, timelines where she doesn’t, and timelines where she’s just barely scraping by. No one, least of all herself, wants to be the one to fix the world, a place that has proved itself incapable of being fixed.
Neither her past or future selves prepared her present self for the reality that has unfolded in front of her. She is but one rare exception in a sea of rare exceptions. For all she knows, the moment she steps into the water, she will return to the same pile of ash that she once was.
There will be no one to scoop her up in their palms, this time. After all, Aoi Kurashiki is dead.
They say that the human brain typically can only carry about a century’s worth of memory. It’s essentially an imaginary statistic, since the existing control group for that kind of research was small in the first place, but as always, Akane is inclined to believe in the unlikely or impossible.
It is rules like those that need to exist in order for her to remain an exception to them.
She unzips the back of her dress and carefully steps out of her shoes. The ocean is red– red like the sky, red like the imaginary color of transmission feedback, red like the blood in her veins, shared with a brother that no longer exists. She shivers, not because of the chill in the air, but because she knows she is afraid to do this alone.
She doesn’t remember how to swim.
It is her only hope. It has to be enough.
.✦ ──
A shrill, piercing sound rings overhead. The whole room smells strongly of smoke. It’s hot, too hot. Her eyes snap open; A suspicious brownish stain on the ceiling above comes into focus, telling her nothing useful about her current surroundings. To her right is a window left agape, with pinkish-orange curtains blowing in the breeze. In the distance, a raspy voice yells no small amount of profanities–
Panic floods Akane’s senses. A headache threatens to build at her temples. Instinctually, she rubs the sleep from her eyes and immediately kicks off the covers of her futon. Was she sleeping? She must’ve been. Cicadas noisily chirp outside, the first sign of summer. It’s June, then. Of course it is. It’s always been June. Something about that feels off, though. June… What’s today, again? She can’t recall as quickly as she’d like to.
In mere moments, Aoi is there, as he always is when she needs him, hastily sliding her bedroom door open and stomping across the room. He comes into focus, looming just above her bed.
He looks sweaty, stuffed in that school uniform in the middle of a heatwave; Right, that’s what’s happening, she remembers. That’s why she felt so warm. She looks away from him, remembering to look at the calendar just above her bedframe. The year is 2018. That makes sense. That should make sense.
“Akane, wake up.”
“Aoi? What’s wrong?” The voice coming out of her mouth feels like it does not belong to her, at first. She clears her throat, still feeling a little hazy with exhaustion. She can’t really see his face from this angle.
Aoi sighs with his whole chest, bracing his hands on his knees for support. “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I thought you might’ve started a fire in here by trying to light some incense again.”
Is that something she tried to do, once? Akane’s been afraid of fire for as long as she can remember. She shakes her head, and tries her best to offer a solution. “Maybe the batteries just need to be replaced. It’s kind of like a death cry.”
Aoi’s head cranes up to look at her. His expression feels… off, somehow. He makes a confused, breathless noise. “What?”
“A death cry,” Akane repeats. “You know, like rabbits do? Other animals, too. Sometimes, when one is really badly hurt, it’ll make a sharp noise–”
“No, I know that, yeah. What does that have to do with the…” Aoi’s hand makes an upward gesture, like he’s forgotten the word for the alarm. His fingers are rough from work, even at his age. They’ve always been like that, haven’t they?
“The smoke detector’s batteries are dying, so it’s warning us. Like a death cry.” Akane nods, sure of herself. That sounds smart. She likes sounding smart. She sits up, stretching out her arms and legs as far as they can go.
Aoi hums, seemingly beginning to understand what she meant. He stuffs his hands far into his pockets, like he always does when he’s nervous or embarrassed, though she’s not sure why he feels the need to do it now. “Ah. Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks.”
He turns around and begins to stride out of the room, tossing his head back over his shoulder when he’s ready to speak again. “You’ve got school in an hour. Start getting ready, alright? If you want me to walk you, we’re gonna need to leave early. Same as always.”
“Because of your job,” Akane muses, just as the thought pops into her head, though she doesn’t mean to. It just slips out.
Aoi nods, politely sliding the door behind him so she can get dressed in private. Tone indecipherable, he replies, “Yeah. ‘Cause of my job.”
Something inside of her chest still stabs at her when he leaves the room, even though she’s a big girl now. The weight of it feels immense, somehow, like her knees might buckle when she starts rummaging through the top drawer for her socks.
She puts her cardigan on backwards the first time, but after some trial and error, she manages to make her way out of her room.
She catches a glimpse of Aoi in the kitchen, pushing one of their chairs next to the counter, gingerly setting his foot on the middle of the seat. He returns her gaze and waves her off, looking back up at the small device affixed to the ceiling. “Nothing to see here, kid,” He jokes, trying to sound gruff. He’s bad at it.
Akane giggles, feeling relieved by his sense of humor. She wonders if he can tell that she’s feeling anxious; He only ever cracks jokes like that when he’s trying to get her to smile. She pushes the bathroom door open, feeling brave, now.
It’s a heavier door than all of the others in their house: It swings shut with a click, loud enough to echo around the small space. When she was little, she used to insist that Aoi wait outside the door for her to finish, just in case there was something scary waiting for her behind the shower curtain. It’s been a long time since then. He’s taller now, and she’s catching up, but it still feels like…
Suddenly, Akane’s vision blurs. On the sink moments prior was a translucent purple comb with a glittery finish, one that Aoi got her as a gift, but when she reaches down to grab it, it’s gone.
Then, she wonders: How many hours did he work just to buy me that?
She was doing a good job at ignoring it before, but her head really hurts.
It would be a wise idea to ask Aoi if they have any medicine. He might even let her skip out on school. She could explain the situation to Jumpy the day after. Surely he’d understand. He always does. But then Aoi would have to miss work to take care of her, wouldn’t he? He might not like that. Would that be so bad, though? Maybe they could spend time together, play some board games. There’s a stack of bills she’s not allowed to look at on the counter, but could they put them on hold for a little while? Just a day or two is fine. It would be nice if he could read to her again, is all. She doesn’t know why he stopped in the first place.
The ugly truth is that it’s probably her fault, somehow. She can’t come face to face with it. The world behind her eyelids is too dark.
Akane shivers. It wasn’t that cold in here before, was it?
When her eyes open, everything about her surroundings has changed. Sweat runs down her neck and into the confines of her cardigan. It’s too tight. Her shirt feels like it’s choking her. She’s pretty sure she didn’t have shoes on a moment ago. The pit of dread in her stomach deepens. She knows something is wrong. She squeezes her eyes shut again, afraid to see what’s changed while she wasn’t looking.
Her feet back up a few steps. Her hands reach the wall behind her. Cold metal. Something’s digging into her palm. A handle? So it’s a door, much heavier than the one at home. Desperate, she tries to turn it, and from behind her, there’s a beeping sound, as if to say, Not yet. Her knees finally buckle, and she falls to the floor with a thud.
“Akane!” Aoi exclaims, concern etched into each syllable of her name. She’s so glad he’s still here. She summons up the courage to look at him. He hasn’t changed out of his school uniform, but his hair is messier than before.
He reaches his hand out to her. She takes it.
It sounds like someone’s just turned the tap on. A voice in her head helpfully supplies, This is the shower room, like that means anything. She still doesn’t know where she is. She looks to Aoi for comfort, for guidance, for anything. He just looks scared. Tired. Young. Her grip slips clumsily onto his wrist instead, and she feels something rigid, separate from his body and uniform entirely. It’s a bracelet.
The realization of where she is finally begins to dawn upon her, but still, she croaks, “I have school in an hour. I’ve decided I want to see Jumpy today after all.”
Then, there are arms wrapped around her shoulders, like they’d been there all along. “I’m right here,” says Junpei, words muffled into her hair, spoken like a solemn promise. He’s so warm. It’s too much. She’s burning.
Akane thrashes in his grip. This is not where she’s supposed to be. None of this is right.
In the corner of her vision, she sees Aoi, feigning nonchalance at her pitiful display of hysterics. He isn’t wearing his school uniform anymore. His fists are clenched at his sides. From this angle, that scarf of his looks just like a noose.
Actually,
Aoi is holding a photograph in his right hand, and the expression on his face is deeply unfamiliar. Sometimes he plays his role so well that it unsettles her. Doesn’t he know that what happened isn’t his fault?
Now he’s glaring down at her from the top of the staircase because she made a bad joke.
No wait, he’s–
Aoi is holding a gun to her head, and she’s the only one that can feel his hands shaking. He never liked this part of the plan, from what she can remember. She doesn’t like it much, either.
He shoves the revolver harder against her temple, and she wonders if it’ll bruise.
She wonders if he’ll ever forgive himself, even if it doesn’t.
“Where will you go?” Aoi asks, both hands on the wheel of an SUV. She’s in the passenger’s seat, looking at him through the hair blowing in her face. The engine roars to life as his foot presses down on the pedal; Windows rolled down, clear skies overhead, a cloud of dust behind them. “If your mission fails, I mean. You still haven’t told me.”
“I guess I just don’t know yet,” Akane lies. You can’t come with me, she means to say. I won’t drag you down for the rest of my life, I swear it. You have to live for yourself this time. I’m sorry.
Aoi barks out a laugh, punctuating the end of his sentence with a loud smack of his lips. Smells like spearmint; The only type of gum he’s ever willing to chew. “Bullshit. You know everything.”
But he doesn’t press the issue.
He doesn’t ask.
–
Aoi Kurashiki dies in a way that could only be deemed as a sign of the times. A number in a statistic. Collateral damage. Quiet and unremarkable, like a street lamp going out in the middle of the day. One moment he's there, and then the next, he's not. No one notices.
But she knows.
── ✦.
Akane’s head bobs out of the water, and she gasps for air like she’s never breathed it before. Saltwater stings at her eyes, mixed with angry, bitter tears.
Of all the ways she has died before, of all the phantom pains of knives searing into her back and fire scorching her small body, she has never, ever drowned. The incinerator always got to her first. And yet, not even the threat of drowning is dangerous enough to take her to any other timeline. It’s just not enough.
The wail of agony that claws its way out of her throat is unbecoming, but ultimately futile. The band of the slingshot is selective, and she has been deemed an unworthy bullet. She’s a grown woman now, old enough to survive on her own. Yet, she does not want to live in a world without her brother. It hardly matters; Time will not yield to that wish. There is only so much she can do.
Zero is a number fated to never, ever rewind or escalate on its own– a number trapped in time, the eternal setback or the promise of something more, if only you’re willing to push the boundaries of what’s real and what’s not. She chose it as a namesake for a reason. But it’s not hers anymore, is it? It was stolen, reused, made to mock her after she gave it away to someone else in another history. In this history.
Right now, while she’s trying to take the easy way out, Sigma is doing exactly what she told him to do. She has to remind herself of what’s important. There is no time to lose her resolve this far into the plan. Control. It’s all up to her what happens next.
Akane chokes and sputters as she swims her way back to shore. She knows that when she resurfaces, it will be on her own. This is not the miracle she was looking for.
And yet, she has to move forward.
There has never been another choice.