Monday, June 19th, 1978, 1845
Vermilion City Citadel
Kiriel struggled to quell her racing thoughts as she departed the garden, still reeling from Mare’s sudden shift from the demure young man she’d grown used to after years of subservience without a peep of protest.
Insolent whelp. It’s no matter. I don’t need him regardless. Sula will pull through like she always does. Fuchsia be damned if they think I’ll step down from a mere hiccup like this.
Kiriel’s shoes clacked loudly on the oaken floors as she stormed towards the room she maintained when visiting Kuon. She had a few moments before he would expect her for dinner, and she meant to make the most of it.
It wouldn’t do to show weakness. Not now, not ever. She had to compose herself lest she make it worse.
Her rapid pace delivered her quickly into the room, and she threw herself onto the gaudy mattress in an inelegant pile of silken cloth and simmering frustration. Finding a pillow, she screamed as loudly as she could, trusting the thick wooden doors to deafen the keening remnants of sound escaping the downy padding.
After screaming herself hoarse for a long moment, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself and take stock of the situation.
Mare is upset, yes, but not unreasonable. He has never been unreasonable. Perhaps I’ve shown my hand too strongly, but that doesn’t mean he’s a lost cause. If I handle myself well, Mare will see reason. He has to. He just needs to smile and laugh for once in his Arceus-damned life.
Kiriel pictured her dour son’s face lighting up with laughter. Something she had hardly seen in recent years.
Yes, that’s how it will go. A few kind words over dinner, some flattering of his ego, and Mare will come running like he always does. Everything is fine. Everything will be fine.
Kiriel started as a familiar presence not her own enveloped her mind like a sheathe of cool water being poured over a hot coal. The voice speaking directly into her psyche was delicate and lilting like a spring breeze.
Don’t delude yourself, Kiriel. Your son is too smart for that and you’re too stubborn to see it.
She grimaced; even after years of psychic conversation, the practice still brought on a splitting headache.
No, I’m confident my plan will work.
IT WON’T. You must tell him the truth. Have you forgotten all you’ve gone through to get here? Have you forgotten the horrors? The agonized cries that used to haunt your nightmares such that you couldn’t sleep without my assistance?
I haven’t forgotten. I will never forget. Everything I do is to avoid a repeat of the past.
Not everything, yet you’re too blind to see it. Let me show you what you’re fighting for; why you need to stow your misplaced pride and once more do what is needed for the sake of your family. Nay, for all of Fuchsia. For all of Kanto, for that’s what hangs in the balance. Brace yourself, my dear, for this will not be pleasant.
No, I don’t need—
Kiriel’s limbs jerked as her mind’s control was ripped away and forced through a path filled with a series of flickering images.
Memories. Preserved more perfectly than humans had any right to experience.
Kiriel could do nothing but watch in agonizing silence as they played against her will, the images filling up her entire consciousness.
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May 15th, 1950. Morning.
Kiriel knows the date well, for it was the last day she could say her hands were truly clean.
She watches as a young woman, barely more than a child, weaves her way through a series of blows meant to maim, but not kill. Her.
Kiriel can’t help but feel regret at the spark of life present in her eyes she has long since lost.
Behind her, on a raised dais, sits an imposing man in his forties. Her father. His stoic face gives away little, but she knows he is proud. Proud that he has raised warriors that will care for his clan long after his last breath slips from his lips. Arceus, how she misses him.
The graceful dance ends, and the young warriors stand panting in the misty morning. Soft clapping rings out across the courtyard, and they turn and watch as a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair of raven black makes her way towards them. Her mother? Yes, of course it was. Naomi.
Kiriel had forgotten how gentle her mother’s eyes were. Had she herself ever been like that? There was no way to know.
The woman closes in, and she’s holding a pitcher of refreshing water, which she happily shares with her tired children, and they giggle their gratitude. Kiriel can’t help but lament she never shared such a tender moment with her own children.
The touching scene is interrupted as one of their staff hurries over. He unfurls a scroll, hesitantly passing the document over to her father, Marius, who frowns. Deep lines, growing deeper by the moment, erupt on his impassive face.
“Our allies in Hoenn have been attacked. They call for our aid, and aid them we will,” he declares, even as a heavy tear rolls down his cheek. Tears?
Her father, crying? He was supposed to love war. Had she ever noticed that? Kiriel looks towards her younger self, recoiling as she sees the anticipation gleaming in her dark eyes.
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The image shifts, and she is thrust into a busy tent filled with strange, sweaty men, the smell of musk and leather and excitement all bundled together into the intoxicating aroma of war.
She watches as her younger self stands at attention, attired in gleaming lamellar armor she must have spent hours polishing. Her pokemon stand by her side.
Kuro, her oldest companion, sitting diligently as the rest of the men begin to form ranks at their commander’s call.
Eva, her foxlike friend, and the propagator of this cursed vision, curled demurely around her ankle.
And around her neck, a golden snake no longer than her arm, all too happy to soak up the ambient heat in the room.
Chaos reigns for another few moments before the large canvas tent fills with rows of silent young men and women, sweating nervously as their commander studies them with a critical eye.
He has dark hair and looks like her. Aizen. Her eldest brother, and her commanding officer.
He stalks around, his demeanor that of a predator surrounded by prey, and she suppresses a grin as she hears gulps whenever he closes on his next target.
Until he approaches her.
His sharp eyes soften, and he leans in. “It’ll all be okay, little Kiri. As long as I’m here, no one can hurt you.”
She smiles, both now and in that moment, for she was so proud of Aizen. Her gleaming role model, her knight in shining armor that could chase all the shadows away.
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The image shifts once more. This time, it is dark, and sheets of water stream down from an angry sky, bellowing at the insignificant humans interrupting its slumber.
Bright lines of fire disturb the night, and her stomach turns as she hears the agonized cries of drowning men squirming in the muddy water like wriggling maggots.
“To me!” a voice cries. Aizen. Men that had lost all hope begin moving en masse towards their leader, who refuses to falter despite wading through steaming pools of viscera.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Kiriel watches as she is surrounded by enemy troops clambering for blood. My blood.
She inwardly cheers as she watches Kuro rip out an enemy’s throat, even as she thrusts her own blade deep into the guts of another man not long for this world. One by one, her enemies fall to her unparalleled skill in delivering death.
She sprints towards her brother, hope filling her eyes that still carry the sparkle of life. Closing in, she sees the men rallying around her brother in a pile of dead and dying.
She trips. No. Falling heavily to the ground in the marshy land filled with holes.
Not a moment too soon. All sound fades as a massive sheet of ice encompasses huge swathes of land. Cold. So cold.
It’s all she can do to keep her teeth from chattering as the enemy forces sweep through the area, shattering the life-like figurines dotting the battlefield one by one. She prays to a god she no longer believes in.
She waits.
Through the night, and then another day. Until she’s sure there is no one left.
For hours, she searches through the bodies until she finds what she is searching for. Aizen. His handsome face is torn nearly in two; his tongue, grossly swollen and blackened with frostbite, hangs from a mouth that gapes open far too wide.
His eyes, gone. Ragged, bloody holes stare back at her. Picked clean by the ravenous hordes of Wingull enjoying the feast.
That was all she could find, the rest of him lost among the piles of bodies.
She weeps, for who can she look to, now?
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Months pass in an instant, and she is sitting in a field office. My office. It is immaculate, and the only sound she can hear is Eva’s comforting purrs.
“Captain Seiichi. News from the front.”
“Come in,” she replies, not even taking her eyes off the map before her.
“Ma’am,” the soldier says with a bow. “For you.” He hands her a heavy sheathe of papers sealed with the Seiichi crest.
“Thank you. You may go.”
Without a word, he departs, leaving her to her thoughts. She stares at the document, afraid of what it might contain. Don’t open it.
Kiriel watches herself with growing horror as she unseals the document. A long moment passes as she reads it.
Even though it’s been decades, she still remembers what it says, word for word.
Captain Seiichi,
It is with great sorrow in my heart that I write this letter. We have succeeded in pushing the Johtans back in northern Hoenn, but not without great loss. I regret to inform you that Akiro has fallen valiantly in service of his country. I am told he did your clan great honor in his passing. You should be proud.
-Kuon Kumire
Calmly, she folds up the document, carefully pressing it into neat lines, before tucking it into her robes. There is only one small imperfection; a single tear mars the otherwise unblemished paper.
Happy birthday to me. She has just turned thirteen, yet she has no tears left to shed.
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She’s back in Kanto, now. On the western front, south of the Silver Mountains. She is riding Kuro, surveying the masses of troops under her command.
They’re fresh. Brave. Young men from Fuchsia just a few years older than her, ready to die for misplaced beliefs of honor and chivalry.
They look to her for guidance, to carry them through the pillars of fire and spires of ice they know are waiting just a few kilometers west. Just as she looked to Aizen.
How did it come to this?
Her attention is drawn to a man frantically waving to her from bestride a tired looking Rapidash, its flanks heaving in exhaustion.
His breath comes in rapid gasps and his pupils are dilated such that she can hardly see the whites of his eyes.
“Shhh,” she says gently. “Breathe. What news?”
“They’re gone, Commander. I’m so sorry; there was nothing we could do.”
No.
Her brow crinkles in confusion. Their troops were all here. “Who is gone?”
No.
“They hit Fuchsia directly. With fire; it was as if the heavens themselves rained down upon us. I’m surprised you can’t see the smoke from here.”
No.
“Say it directly. Who is gone?”
“Your parents; Marius and Naomi Seiichi. The entire Seiichi compound has been turned to ash. There was nothing we could do.”
This time, not a single tear dotted the ground, for it would soon be watered with something better.
Blood.
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Kiriel watches in horror as an entire region is erased from the map by a single pokemon.
Golden wings, alight with flames hotter than anything humans could produce drown the earth in its shadow, sparing no man, woman, or child.
This isn’t our world.
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Years have passed, now. She is fifteen; a woman grown. Gone are the eyes that sparkled with youthful dreams.
In their place are cold orbs of ice; blacker than the dark energy wafting up in twisting, angry tendrils from the field before her.
Graves.
Tiny, white pieces of wood, with the remnants of whatever pokéballs they could find dot the land as far as the eye can see.
And this is just for Fuchsia.
Kiriel turns away without a glance, leaving crowds of sobbing women and children behind.
She doesn’t have time for tears, now. Not now, not ever.
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More years pass. These are good ones. Filled with hope, and rebuilding, and preparation.
Despondent wives learn to love again, and sons grow into gallant men ready to live up to the legacies their father’s left behind.
Legacy.
What legacy is left of dying in a frigid ditch?
If only they knew.
If only they knew.
Yet she can do nothing but foster their excitement for fear any negligence would leave them vulnerable.
Alas, nothing can last forever.
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The images begin to blur; whatever force is drawing them from her mind is fading quickly, yet she perseveres, needing desperately to see what else lies in wait despite already knowing.
War. Yet again, despite her best efforts.
This time, with their closest neighbors.
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It was quick. Rather than years, this war was measured in mere months.
She watches impassively as a massive winged dragon eliminates town after town in beams of crackling light. The screams are snuffed out before they could ever be uttered.
Never again.
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She’s in a dark room. Aromatic smoke hangs heavy in the air. She’s kneeling, deferring as always to the clan elders. Those that are left.
“Rise, Kiriel. We have a new task for you,” her grandfather says, telling her about her next assignment.
A husband, of all things. One skilled in the rearing of rare pokemon. An asset to the Seiichi family, and one more tie to bind the two warring regions just a little tighter.
And, if she’s fortunate, a means to grow their ever-dwindling clan.
“I live to serve,” she says, but she doubts she can ever learn to love.
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He has kind eyes. They’re warm, and that scares her. Apparently, he was deemed too valuable to serve in combat.
He’s never killed.
He has never seen death up close.
Yet, maybe it’s what she needs to thaw her heart.
As she walks down the aisle with him, she thinks it just might work.
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Kiriel thought that war was difficult, yet she doubted many of her trainers had ever borne a child.
The pain was worth it.
She smiles down at her newborn child, yet no tears fall.
Her husband embraces her warmly, his love true and unabashed.
She still feels nothing but smiles all the same.
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Another year passes, and she’s in a meeting.
Not a war meeting, but an actual meeting.
One meant for peacetime and for building things—nothing she excels at. Rather, she feels guilty by sullying its pure intentions by her very presence.
Old men are negotiating about something or other—Seiichi old men, who lie and scheme for minute benefits.
It’s all she can do to stay awake, until her neighbor leans over and whispers, “Us soldiers don’t belong here, do we? How can we play at peace when all we’ve done is strip the lives from those more deserving.”
She looks at him with wide eyes. Finally.
Someone who understands.
She smiles, feeling something for the first time in years.
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“Love you, dearest,” she lies as she departs her home—where her husband and daughter wave goodbye with smiling eyes.
She knows where she’s going; she knows it well.
This isn’t the first time, after all.
Through darkened streets she discretely meets the only person to make her feel something.
“I see you,” he says, and she cries for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.
She stands naked, tears streaming down her face as she falls into bed with her lover, their bodies slick with passion.
She laughs, and cries, and talks about life with excitement and vigor in such a way that makes her feel alive again.
Her lips are loose; nothing is off limits, and she bares her soul and more, talking long after the sun has set.
She is happy. She doesn't deserve to be happy, yet she is happy despite her many sins.
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She blinks her eyes awake, searching the bed for the man who makes her feel whole.
Gone.
Only to find that the meeting she didn’t care about suddenly wasn’t going their way anymore, and her man was nowhere to be found.
Gone.
There must be a traitor in the clan, they say. But none suspect her, for how could she ever let them down?
Gone.
Cloying shame chokes her, and acrid bitterness replaces the burgeoning sprouts of life just beginning to claw their way through the frozen shard of ice she calls a heart.
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A son. A beautiful, healthy boy. His eyes are hers, yet not.
They’re certainly not her husbands.
However, they brim with unbridled joy.
Yet, she cannot bear to look at him, for all she sees is loss.
Betrayal. Guilt. Shame.
Shame, most of all; dyed in failure.
Her failure.
They swirl around in her with no place to go, festering like a wound left to rot in the dark.
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She watches as her darling boy cries over the corpse of a pokemon, its body too weak to hold up to the rigors of training.
Beside him, his sister wears a confused look.
It’s only natural that not all make it, yet he doesn’t seem to understand.
He clutches the body to his tiny chest, wracked with sobs that won't abate.
Soft.
Too soft to survive in an uncaring world.
It was then that Kiriel knew what her role was.
If he was soft, then all that was required was to forge him into something hard.
That, she could do, even if she could hardly stand to look at him.
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Kiriel lay in a pool of sweat, her breath rasping and shallow.
Do you see now, Kiri? Do you see what you must do? Hardness isn’t enough. Pretending you can do this alone isn’t enough.
Eva’s voice was gentler now, and it soothed her aching mind.
I can’t do it. I can’t tell him.
You CAN. You need to; else he may very well follow through on his threat to sabotage all you’ve worked for. If nothing else, you have succeeded in hardening the boy.
Warm tears trickled down her face. She wiped them off, making her way over to a mirror in an attempt to make herself presentable for the waiting dinner party. She was a mess; the slight bit of makeup she usually wore ran in dark streams down her puffy eyes and red face.
Kiriel couldn’t help but smile at the sight, but it was a twisted smile.
“Miss Seiichi? Everyone is here and waiting for you. Are you alright?”
“Coming,” she called, steeling herself in every way she knew how.
Thank you, dearest Eva.