28. The Onion Tears

As the girl speaks, Hikari feels sick. The baby in her hood is crying, crying for her sake, but in another world that wasn't the case. In another life, she was floated through glass, hair yanked and watching her brother's friends be centimeters away from death. In another life, this little baby didn't care until it was almost too late. If this girl was telling the truth. if she was. She feels a heavy helplessness in her stomach the more the girl speaks, comparable to carrying a bowling ball half your weight. She can't form tears or even make sounds as the girl drops the boat at a new shore, like rowing across an ocean is nothing. She can't even panic because where would she even go? Even if the girl is lying, what can she do?

The girl smiles, as though she is saying nothing special. "You told me my abilities were beautiful, Rion-sama. When you found me, offspring of a time master, contemplating suicide at the edge of a bridge. You looked at me and talked me down. You told me you could change this and I believe you. I'll always believe you."

Is this what blind loyalty feels like? This girl came from another time to... to what? To teach her, to train her? What?

Hikari's body sags suddenly into the wood of the boat. The girl tosses her two knives. "Start running. Don't drop them."

It goes against every bit of knife safety that she knows, but Hikari feels her own helplessness, and goes to obey.

The girl watches her dash through the sand and turns on the creatures of black and grey rising from the sea. She is not prepared, and anyone with eyes can see it. The contract is not complete.

Clearly, the dark creatures don't care. They lunge for her.

The children camp near the mountain that night. All of them are curled around or near each other for warmth, except Taichi. He's leaned against Sora's shoulder, Koromon in his lap.

His stomach turns. He shouldn't have picked first watch. The fire crackles gently, as if scolding him.

His sister's face, contorted in pain, then peaceful in sleep, washes into the forefront of his mind. He shuts his eyes, guilt stabbing his stomach. Why did he keep failing? Why did this have to happen?

It was easy to believe everything would be all right when everyone was watching. Now it was so much harder. Koromon had no idea why Hikari was important to him, only that she was and no clue how to help. The others weren't much better.

And listening to that… future version of his sister, seeing her so old and… changed. He swallowed bile at the memory of it. Rion, she had called herself. Only a spirit, fading by the moment. That meant the future was changing. That could mean, maybe… somehow, they would be all right, wouldn't it? In his head, it certainly sounded great.

Takeru sits up suddenly, his little slime on his head. He starts walking. Taichi hisses to him, figuring maybe he just wants to water a bush. Takeru doesn't respond. If anything, he runs. He nudges Sora awake, then gets up to go after him.

Granted, Taichi doesn't have a sneaky bone in his body, but Takeru doesn't seem to notice. He keeps walking into the trees until a trio of black, swirling gears began to circle his head. More appear slowly, turning towards each child one by one as they approached.

A little red monster smiles and hops from a tree, glowing with power.

A/N: 9/3/2019... yeesh it's been a while. And it's gonna stay that way. The initial idea for this fic was much more simple than it turned out becoming and I tried to do too much. So I'm gonna stop it here and not try to write it out of its corner, and leave it as is. For everyone who supported this for so long, please support me in the future and in future endeavors. Perhaps I'll revisit this idea for another day. But for now, let's let this end as is. Thank you for everything. Until the next story.