“Do you need anything before we begin?” Kaede asked, no methods of attack to be found in her words. She was not a deceptive general nor cutthroat raider, and there was no ambush set up along this road of a scene for me to walk into unprepared.

The afternoon sun continued to shine through the open window. The rain had long been banished by Mother Nature, who now permitted the warm sun rays to illuminate this quiet room. Their glow settled on Kaede’s back, gifting her usual chestnut brown hair the glint of polished bronze.

“I keep a copy of the script over there.” She remarked just after, her arm gesturing towards a small pile of papers atop a surprisingly unblemished bench. There was no trap here either, the snare loose and untied.

Her tone was enticingly accommodating yet puzzlingly cautious. Those eyes of her’s played no game of trickery, usually milky hazel; they were now cast black in the shadows laid by the outside sun both above and falling.

“There’s water on the table by the window, too, if you need it.” Her offers continued, her head swivelling in the direction of a small and unembellished table off to the side of the window. An open box of plastic water bottles rested on its top; a lone half-emptied bottle had been removed and waited next to it.

She held an energy within her, every subtle twirl, and wave, and indication was abundant with grace. An exuberant rallying of decorum highlighted in picture-perfect detail by framing sunshine so focused I could see dust particles floating between them.

“I also have some chewing gum, if that interests you? Or would a costume help you get into character more?” She offered once again, a kindness oddly given to one who is looking to prove themselves before her. Yet she provided it regardless, the fourth of her commandments, not a rule but a gift instead.

She wanted me to succeed, to showcase my abilities as an actress, to prove I could stand as her equal on that stage.

These offers were her boon towards that desired outcome; no need for doubting glances or disdainful admissions of judgement. If she had an ego, she did not put it to use in sabotaging me. Her performance was already enough to put me to shame if she so wished for it.

Kaede never needed intrigue; she wants me at my best because she wants to see my best.

And it is only my best that can see a petition answered; and a dream maintained.

“Thank you, I’m ready to begin when you are,” I replied, letting her lead the way.

She began her reply with a nod, regal and endorsing, “Good, in that case, I will begi-” Her words came to an abrupt stop, and she furrowed her brow, spending a brief moment on an internal debate I wasn’t privy to, “No, I want you to begin the scene.”

“Hmm?” I questioned. The interpretation of her words could refer to two things, both of which were unexpected, “Should I perform as Jinko?”

The opening lines of Act 2 are attributed to Jinko. If Kaede wanted me to start this scene, I’d either have to speak her lines or flat-out skip them. Unless her intention is that I perform the roles of both characters in the same manner as she had just demonstrated, but that would be a tall task for anyone who isn’t her.

“You’ll remain as Eighty-Three. Simply start with her first line. We’ll continue onwards as normal after you begin. Anything else to ask?” She replied without a second spent on deliberation, as if the plan was established from before I had even entered this room.

At least that put to rest my concerns about having to imitate her ability of a dual performance. Though, starting the scene myself removes a crutch I would otherwise have been able to rely on…

Creation.

Without her lead, I will have to forge the scene. I’ll be the one to layer its foundations, set up its backstory, design the characters, shift the clouds, spread its ashes, plant the weeds, initiate its rain, and paint the blood.

We reside on separate planes of existence. Her’s is divinity atop summits of erudition, she holds every position and more; her experience nullifies all challenge, her talent defies competition, and her ability paves all obstacles.

And what do I have? A five-week crash course on acting, and an appearance that instils jealousy, justifies lust, and inspires awe. I suppose I also have the remnants of work mode, where two is now one, along with the years spent at the Ha:Yami Club that is somewhat usable, but is that enough?

“No, I have everything I need,” I replied, and Kaede responded with a nod and a gesture to go ahead and start whenever I was ready. “We can begin,” I affirmed.

To create a scene, I must become the architect and the builder. The blueprint of this world of acting lies on a crooked table before me. This scene is not a unique construction. I am merely pencilling over the tracing paper that covers my memory of her work.

Nevertheless, this second reality is not so easily made a duplicate, yet an emptied stage is the first step.

I have just seen it in action, how the flooring turned into the mouldy carpet of an abandoned arcade building; it’s the changing of this room into a scene, and now all I must do is replicate it.

The varnished pale wood flooring went first, but with Kaede’s prior scene as the example, it rushed to morph into that same carpet. I wouldn’t let it happen; I rewound and replayed that first scene Kaede, and I shared, her overpowering acting that suffocated my lines and threatened what minuscule talent I had.

Slowly, my experiences won over the prior scene. The mouldy carpet shimmered and was replaced with the rough tarmac and cracked pavement of a Japanese backstreet long forgotten in this twenty-second century so focused on the future that it forgets that tomorrow is always worse off if not prepared for today.

The lighting was next, not blocked by a curtain street of silent observers pretending to be buildings, but instead lit up by the sun’s glare through the open window. Still, even that was incorrect, a missive from reality reminding me that this scene remained tethered to it.

So the cord was cut. The sun was choked by the encroaching pollution of this fictional world, and the ash-red sky became its rearguard while its vanguard transformed into mustard gas yellow clouds that blanketed its vestige like leprosy.

With the light gone, a new form of illumination was necessary, and a rusting streetlamp took its place. Its dim white bulb shook in the tumultuous wind, flicking on and off. The sovereign purple petals of the flowers scattered throughout this room of actuality faded and changed into dust and debris that were ripped from their resting places and given wings atop sordid air currents that coursed through any open areas not protected by the surrounding aged homes.

The background was finished, now all that is left is the creation of a pair of sisters.

An explosive shockwave rang out from one of the underground refab manufactories that sat beyond the horizon. Jinko was the first, her brown hair bleeding into scarlet red, and her pale clean skin losing its lustre and turning scarred, wounded, and dirted.

A concussive boom followed soon after, its coming the signal of further expansion deeper down into the crust of the Earth. The rain began to pour, Jinko’s hair rapidly becoming overwhelmed with its wetness, an improv shower that did nothing to wash away the spilling blood that continued to pour out from the cuts and gashes across her damaged body.

Her eyes were piercing red, spotlights of neon in the darkness. They outshone even the smokestack of silver that rose into the sky behind her. The waste gases of TI-pO explosive powder within it glittered with microscopic metal shards capable of turning the throat of anyone unfortunate enough to inhale it into a pincushion.

Jinko’s hand came up and grasped the large tear on her left arm in a poor man's attempt at stemming the blood loss. Her form was rough and cold, and she had not spoken, but I knew her voice had a feared edge like a prized blade.

Kaede was gone.

I was next.

Eighty-Three looked the exact same as Jinko. This was now reality, yet a duplicate was so easily made.

Except there were differences. Eighty-Three was older, four years to be precise, while Jinko remained at the same age of sixteen as she was when she disappeared. Still, it was red eyes to red eyes and red hair to red hair, copies of one another down to the DNA, yet not even that would make them the same.

There was a contrast between them; it didn’t lie within appearances but actions, expressions, relations, loves and fears- memories and experiences.

They are what makes a person an individual. And Eighty-Three’s memories are exactly the reason why she is not, nor can ever be Jinko.

And will always be Eighty-Three.

Experiences that are unique to her, a clone who is loved only for who she represents. An idea of a person that she can never match up to because that very idea never existed in the first place. Nostalgia and tinted glasses to the past changed it into something unattainable. All while she lived within a planned bubble of a life, her father so afraid she might vanish that he held her close and cultivated her interactions to his specifications, his hollow love erased any hardship and so she never developed past the expectations he shackled her with. So used to love that she cannot comprehend the resenting gazes of those who know what she is, and always will be.

A token of grief.

It's the fairytale baking of a cupcake, the base set, the scene made, the mix prepared, the characters ready, and now all it needs is a sprinkle of love.

And a morsel of fear.

“J-Jinko…?”

I dragged the name out, spoken with a tone of shock, confusion, and, most importantly, love.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The scene had begun.

“How… How do you know my name?” Jinko shot back with a harsh edge to her words; doubt rippled throughout her skin like the methodical tide of waves on a beach as it comes and goes.

The rain suddenly changed. Her words became the refinement to my background. The improvisation of this weather I formed into existence was comparable to a leaky pipe when placed before Kaede’s creation.

This was her storm. A true downfall of water. It held not just the aesthetics of rain but its properties. Heat swapped out for cold, dryness replaced with wetness, and stains made runny as clotted blood and hardened mud mixed in with the pouring water and fell as paint drops into the twisting streams below that flowed over clogged drains and cracked potholes.

I could feel it on my skin, this red curly hair of mine growing damp and heavy with each passing second. Her appearance suffered the same as mine, becoming bogged down with the weight and cold of the rain. Her skin regained some of its lustre as the filth was washed away, and her complexion found a trace of radiance in the water’s reflection of the streetlamp’s white flickering glow.

Once again, she had proved her point. Where's the need for special effects when the illusion of creation lies in the palm of her hands?

“Why- Why do you look like me?” She continued with a pained and betrayed tone that seeped in through the broken crack of her voice. This follow-up question asked in between the shocked pause of Eighty-Three’s demeanour.

“Jinko…” I called her name with a tenderness, speaking it in the same manner as someone in the midst of a chance get-together with the best friend they haven’t seen since childhood, all that built up longing and love catching itself on a riverbank composed of a single word-

Her name.

And its utterance collapses the riverbank, all bound up and tangled as it flows unburdened.

“I thought you had died?” She finished the sentence, Eighty-Three’s mind at last catching up with the awe of the situation as tears pricked her eyes and chased after the riverbank in its flow.

Jinko took a step back. Her anger cooled in a moment, the reaction of Eighty-Three, of this clone who so blatantly steals her appearance caused the stumble. An unpredicted showcasing of… relief? How something that’s stolen her identity could suddenly display relief upon seeing her was unfathomable to her, it almost made her second guess the cocktail of biting emotions stirring within her.

But it all fell away and drifted apart in the next moment. Jinko’s eyes hardened once more, Eighty-Three still remained a thief, an unknowable anomaly of a clone that bared her face as if it were her, and all the possible sources of Eighty-Three’s creation bought her nothing but dread.

“Stop asking me questions!” She cried out, the thousand of her own questions racing around inside her head, turning the original edge of her voice cracked and dull. “Answer me, please! Why do you look like me? Who are you?”

Eighty-Three’s body language took on a slight tremble. Her sister's fearful tone forced the reality of this all into her face, unignorable as she realised that the language of love shared solely between a pair of sisters was foreign-born in these streets the two of them resided on.

But perhaps that was simply because her sister didn’t recognise her, or maybe it was the suddenness of it all? Eighty-Three was trying her hardest to justify Jinko’s reaction. There had to be some excuse or reasoning behind it; they were family, after all. Once Jinko realised that, all would fit neatly into place.

Because why wouldn’t it?

“I’m Eighty-Three…” My tone was pitched upwards, high and piercing, laced in such a way that you had no idea which direction it would go.

Unless you were Eighty-Three, then the direction was obvious from the beginning. Compassion was the destination, a hand of love and longing reached out towards Jinko. Her lips made no moment, but Eighty-Three rejoiced at the return of her sister: thank you for coming back now, at the time I needed you most when my family had dwindled to one, and I was living with loneliness. You chose the one time I needed you most to bless me with your presence.

“I’m your sister.”

“That can’t be? It doesn’t make sense?” Jinko asked aloud to no one but herself. Eighty-Three's statement was pure contradiction. The timings didn’t match up, and Jinko knew her father would never have an affair.

Her train of thought cut abruptly. It was a pointless internal discussion. Jinko had already figured out the answer at her first glance toward Eighty-Three. But for a brief moment, she doubted even her eyes and instead listened to the words of a clone.

What a stupid mistake. A clone had almost tricked her with her own voice.

This could never be her sister. It was a replacement at best.

“Where is my dad?” Jinko demanded, a part of her rising in anger at his actions. That he would make something to take her place; it made her ask herself the question of why she was so easily replaceable. And that brought the fear back in: How could I be so easily replaced?

Eighty-Three’s head hung low and there was a fidget to her attitude. She looked as if her mind was scattered all around her, a million pieces thrown about without consideration; it was almost like this day had lasted a week, and she was running on the flumes of shaken adrenaline.

“Where.” Jinko demanded once more, her tone far more forceful and violent after witnessing this pitiful display of human emotions from a clone copied from her body.

“He’s gone,” Eighty-Three meekly replied. A stall occurred in both of them as Eighty-Three admitted what she wished wasn’t true, and Jinko processed the statement, “He's missing. I don’t know where he is.” She continued, rekindling a small spark of hope within Jinko as she thought the worst had happened.

“When?” Jinko asked, though her question was closer to an order, but the previous violence and force had begun to fade.

“Two days ago.”

Fear remained alight within her. The possibilities of everything that could have happened and the potential of what still could happen continued to linger, and the sight of Eighty-Three in front of her only exacerbated this.

“Has he moved?”

Anger, too, kept its hooks latched within her skin. Heated and bubbling, it cried out with accusations condemning his actions in creating this hollow falsehood of an individual, interrogating him on why he so quickly discarded his own daughter for an illusion.

“Huh?” Eighty-Three startled at the confusing follow-up question, and so Jinko clarified herself, “House, has he moved house or is it still the same house?”

Love wasn’t absent either. This was her father, the man who had raised her, cherished her, and tended to her. It was not easy to turn love into hate, and even with the result of his actions before her, Jinko held out hope for an explanation to wash these sins of his away.

“Oh? No- we haven’t moved.”

But other than that trio of emotions, the rest were gradually replaced with something else.

“Then we’re going home.” Jinko stated, her batted form rushing past Eighty-Three, yet as she passed, her hand shot out and grabbed Eighty-Three’s arm, earning a bewildered gasp from her as she was tugged along behind Jinko.

And that something was.

“Wait- what, please, I can walk!”

Determination.

“Then walk.”

A motivation to find their father. The only thing this pair of sisters could agree that they shared. This common ground task that sets up the foundation of Act 2 and forms the bond between the two.

“Seina,” Kaede began, her appearance rapidly returning along with the rest of reality as the scene faded and the canvas emptied, “You managed to act. Well done.” She smiled quickly and easily.

A scene has concluded, and we have returned.

“Thank you.”

“But-” She continued, her thoughts still racing to piece together the final traces of evidence for what she was about to reveal, “Your display of Eighty-Three’s love… it was different to what I assumed.”

“Can you offer any advice?” I quired, wondering which part of my performance was misaligned with her expectations.

“No, I won’t.” She stated, causing me to involuntarily tense up at the odd choice of words, “It wasn’t an inferior display, only different to my own. I’m still trying to work out why I think that, but it's a struggle.”

A pause settled between us, a gap of silence as Kaede took a moment to think about our differences in performance. Her hands barely moved while her eyes held themselves rigid, staring at the floor before my feet.

“Ah,” She at last spoke as realisation dawned on her, “It felt nostalgic, strange.” She let the silence linger as she basked in the familiar emotion, then she shook it all away and continued, “Pointless to think about it any longer. You’ve proven yourself. Not perfect, but with this, you won’t hold me back, so thank you.”

I gave a nod to her thanks before going back and bringing up the start of this whole situation, “And what about my question?”

“Emiko’s the one helping you?” She asked, her eyes peering into mine with a curious glint.

“Yes, and Hatsuko.”

“Hatsuko? I’ve heard a lot, but I haven’t met her.” She briskly commented, though her train of thought quickly moved away from Hatsuko, “So you’ve surpassed Emiko, and now you will be the one teaching her?”

“No,” I shook my head, “Emiko knows more than me, but she’s having issues converting theory into practice. Her acting is…”

“Stiff, unnatural, superficial, yes, I’m aware. She reads lines as if the script is a book. There is no acting. If her part wasn’t as small as it is, I would have raised a complaint the day the Director handed out the roles.” Kaede explained after cutting me off, listing Emiko’s flaws as if they were items on a menu, easily decipherable.

“Then how can I help her get better at acting?”

“Stop her from acting.” She answered without a second wasted.

I glanced at her confusedly, not voicing my bewilderment but certainly questioning her advice with my stare.

“If Emiko is unable to be Yuki, then have her be herself.” Kaede said, providing the explanation to my stare, “It is fortunate her scenes are with you, as all you have to do is perform as Eighty-Three while she remains herself. Pull her out of character. She won’t forget her lines as she wrote most of the script, but the emotional shock from your actions will cover up her acting flaws, it will add a layer of realism to it.”

She took another few seconds to think on the matter, her eyes studying me to gauge my reaction to her proposal. It was hard to tell what she figured out from me, but truthfully I could see her plan succeeding.

“I doubt it would work if Emiko were playing another character, but it fits neatly with Yuki. Upon seeing Eighty-Three, Yuki is instantly unnerved, the scene begins with her open-mouthed and in shock, continuing that by targeting Emiko directly will add to Yuki’s display and bring the audience in line with the scene. Try calling her by name during your next practice, whisper it so only she will hear, and I’m sure you can think of other things to dislodge her and shift her focus from acting to feeling.”

She concluded with little else to add, her words pulled from her experiences, all the trials she’s faced down tallied up and handed over with a neat bow. Emiko was read, broken, and evaluated as easily as any character in a script, her weaknesses placed in the centre position, then immediately rectified as if Kaede were reading from the manual.

“Thank you, I can help her with this.”

“I know, but test it first. A blunder on the first night would help no one.”

I hummed my agreement with a slight nod just after. Kaede then asked me if I wished to do another scene. I declined, much to her disappointment, but the sun was beginning to slip below the skyline, and I couldn’t yet devote the night to the play, no matter how much I wanted to.

After all, there was another performance to showcase during these weekend nights.

Even if I would have preferred to stay in this fictitious temple complex of a room, I no longer had any need to. My prayer was given, the offering accepted, and an answer delivered.

For my sister to act, she cannot be drawn into this overwhelming world of acting but instead pushed into a scene that resides in her reality.

To perform as Yuki, she must not perform at all.

A petition heard; an oracle received; and a dream realised.