“Well hello there, my little sparrows. Nice weather we’re having.”

Sachen crawled to the wall. “You are-”

“Yes, miss me? It’s the ‘daughter’ of the dead witch.”

“Azukunika!” Neha said, she curled herself next to Sachen. “Why are you here?”

Azukunika snickered. She lurched her face upon Sachen and growled when seeing her necklace. She yanked the jewelry, and she then ripped the chain in half. No mercy. It left Sachen in complete surprise.

“This necklace is a disgrace, a symbol of vile monstrosity,” Azukunika said. “You should have never gotten this.”

Sachen grabbed the woman’s arms, and tried to pry open her hands. “Give that back! Give it!” But her effort quickly fell flat, for the woman’s grip was too strong. Azukunika soon pushed the girl aside. The latter remained standing. “What do you mean ‘vile monstrosity’? You are talking bad! Usheniko would never-”

The woman zipped the girl’s lips. She leaned back her head and looked towards the sky, before returning her gaze to the girls. Such a gesture from her, Sachen trembled from the bottom of her feet to her head—she knew little of what the person was going to say.

“You are such fools, little girls. First of all, do you think you can get away with the madness that you have caused from your little plan?” Azukunika pointed her fingers towards the school, where the battalion began to suppress the students. With the assistance of the teachers, the soldiers shoved back the students inside the school, and punishment would soon come to them. Most of the high school kids fought back, only for the soldiers to arrest them, a futile endeavor. “Look at that! It was thanks to you two stealing the documents from the shed, that the battalion had to deal with the rage of the students!”

“What? How do you know?” Neha asked. She grew pale.

The woman twitched her eyebrows. “I was watching the whole time. Days before the plan, you two met at the school grounds, and ran through the cemetery and arrived at the northern gate. I took my precious time to see what you two were up to in your shenanigans—and surprise, you were able to slip by.”

“So the one in the forest, that was you!”

“Indeed. You lack quite an awareness, and you should have known sooner. I would have given you the chance to catch me, but that wouldn’t be fun. I just want to witness everything. After all, I am a loyal servant to the High Order, so I have to know what’s up!” She cackled, and she coughed over and over until her throat dried. She felt a thrill within her. “Oh my goodness! I am doing a good job am I, my Lord?! I have done my deeds for the sake of your righteousness and power! Good thing you approve of the raid from before, and it only managed to teach them a bit of a lesson! But now, the second raid might be cancelled, the heavens won’t like this one bit.”

Right when she caught her breath, the woman swung around and leapt as high as she could. She held her smile but she didn’t laugh as of yet. Just the sight of her further annoyed Sachen—how could this person make a fool of herself at a time like this? What the girls did, Sachen took it seriously, she had expectations and goals, yet the woman came out of nowhere to ruin the moment. Not once could she fathom this. “She’s crashing it,” Sachen muttered. She rolled her sleeves, clenched her fists, and in turn, she punched Azukunika with whatever strength she had available. Her punches only flapped the woman’s robes, but Sachen persisted. She wanted to sock the woman in the face—if only she were tall enough to do so.

“You can punch me if you want to, it won’t hurt,” Azukunika said, poking Neha’s head. “And you little girl, I think it’s best for you to stay put! Don’t be crying anymore, because something good will happen to you soon enough. I had a nice long chat with your mother long ago, although she rambled a lot of irrelevant things. Too bad my presence caused her to be more, how do I say it... deranged.” She inked a grin.

“What do you mean my mommy?” Neha walked up to the woman, and she fiddled her tiny fingers. “Please tell me, I am worried about her. Do you know what they’ll do to her later? I have to know.”

Azukunika shook her head and closed her eyes. Neha stepped back. The woman’s body smelled of peppermint, strong and thin. Seeming to notice something odd, Neha retreated to her friend’s side; she snuggled her face upon her Sachen’s arm without a word. The latter didn’t have a clue, but probably Neha recalled a bad memory.

“You don’t need to know,” Azukunika uttered. “All you need to worry about is your own education, like a good student.” She then glanced back at the school. “Huh, the situation over there has been cleared up fast. I guess the students got tired of fighting, and decided to give up. So much for protesting. They’re going to be in re-education classes anyways, and you girls will not be spared. You will learn everything that is good about the Leader, you will conform to his beliefs, and you will spite whoever opposes him! How fantastic!”

“Shut up!” Sachen was about to launch another barrage of punches again, but Neha tugged her friend’s uniform. In an instant she pulled her away. Sachen’s face reddened more than blood. She was now shaking. “We are trying to tell the truth! The Leader is a cold-hearted man, and he is trying to wipe us out for his evilness! There’s no doubt about that!”

“Yeah yeah, tell that to the teacher. So what are you going to do, cry?” The person scoffed. She chucked the emerald necklace to the ground, and stomped on it a couple of times. Sachen then retrieved the item and tried to attach it around her neck—but the chain was already broken.

The lady glared at them again. She clicked her teeth. “Do me a favor, and can you say my name again? Just so I can hear you clearly?”

“What?”

“My name.”

Sachen tilted her head. “Azukunika-”

The woman struck herself with laughter once more. “Oh my goodness! The way you say it, it’s so hilarious, like you are a doll or something! Hahaha, that name is an abomination, a curse upon my soul!” She leaned herself closer to the girls, and perked her lips and wiggled her eyebrows. “Tell me ladies, do I look like Azukunika? Do I really look like Usheniko, the one that people say it’s my mother?”

It was then Sachen scowled and gazed attentively at the woman’s face. Something dark lingered on her cheeks and eyes. The point where the person’s pupils turned dim, the girl choked—she clutched the emerald. For many times she shook her head, and she couldn’t get herself around this. Perhaps this woman was asking a trick question? Maybe she was tormenting the girls more and more until they would surrender? Up to this point, Sachen, along with Neha, had always known that Azukunika was an offspring of Usheniko. There seemed to be nothing to refute that. Even if they shared different characters and appearances, a parent would always come to recognize his or her kids as part of them. Usheniko would never throw away her daughter—but from the start, Azukunika was the one that threw the kind woman away to her demise.

Sachen reassured herself that the woman might be messing around with them. But the silence and unmoving lips of the individual showed otherwise. Already this was weird.

All the sudden, the woman shrieked to herself, as though she had taken this moment as a joke. She shrugged and slumped her back against the wall, and kicking her heels upon the ground, her lips rumbled. She glanced at the school. Haze overwhelmed her eyes. It set the girls a couple of steps back.

“Azukunika is not yours truly. The person who swore vengeance upon Usheniko’s family, it is undeniably me. None other than I am my own person, my name is something I’ll cherish—Naransaya. The real Azukunika... is still in prison, sentenced for life.”

Sachen dropped the jewelry. Her knees quivered. “No. It cannot be true.”

“Then what can you take as the truth, little one? Do you want me to repeat myself again?”

“No... it can’t be true...”

Sachen thought she had heard a lie. For this woman to be somebody else, it seemed unbelievable, perhaps a farce. But it soon cross Sachen’s mind—and she screeched. She huddled close to Neha and pressed her hands against her chest. The whole time the girls endured the torment of the woman, nothing came in line that she was not after all, a person they once believed she was her. A second pondering of this, Sachen wondered what was the real Azukunika up to, dwindling in her jail cell and possibly doing nothing? She began to worry. “So Azukunika is never here...” And as much as the girl wanted to deny such revelation from Naransaya, the consideration would do more harm than good. There was no use to escaping from the truth. She yearned to know what was behind the curtains the whole time—and now she was in it.

Sachen pinched her face so hard that it could bleed, and something twisted in her chest. Neha was unable to mend the pain, for she was too, shocked to speak.

“You dog, you devil, you bottom feeder, you scoundrel of the north!” Sachen rattled both her hands. “How can you lie to us like that?! Dang it, I should have known earlier! You are the worst person ever! Get out of our way!”

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Naransaya rolled her tongue. “Hahaha! What’s the matter? Is the truth too much for you?”

Neha hyperventilated. She tumbled to the ground. “Please don’t hurt us, please don’t hurt us, please!” She shielded her face as to not get in harm’s way.

“Too late, too bad. Ah, it feels good to see you girls scared out of your minds! So do you want to know more about my vengeance? I bet I have to satisfy your curiosity, isn’t that right? If Usheniko were here, then she would come to save you. But she’s sleeping with the bugs right now!”

Lost on how to fight Naransaya, the girls held each other’s hands and walked a couple of inches away from her. With shaky legs and sweaty hands, they returned to the street. Simultaneously on the school grounds, the soldiers of the battalion taunted the fat officer countless times, taking it to the point where they started to kick him like a donkey. The fat man wailed; they then stowed him away to the front gates, hauling him to the southern district. Right after that, Naransaya strode to their sides and grimaced. Her presence was ever so terrifying.

Naransaya hugged herself and nestled her cheeks against her shoulders. She burst into giggles, at again in delight.

“Do you want to know more? Come on, answer me you little runts! I am dying to tell you! Hurry hurry, give me something! You said yes? Okay!”

Sachen leaned over to her friend. “This woman is crazy.”

“Y-yeah.”

“Wonderful!” Naransaya jumped. “Well then, let me tell you a story, a story that your little hearts and brains wouldn’t even take without falling apart, but you’ll understand anyway. Do you know that treacherous, poor leader that we had two years ago? From the start, the likes of the reactionaries were suspicious to Ozughen’s administration. Thus, an abbot named Yebuka sent my father to spy on the Ganshipe family...”

“Yebuka?” Sachen inquired. “He did bad things back then? I should have stopped him earlier.”

Naransaya shuffled her steps to the school gates and stared at the front door. The door hung ajar, and the wooden frame contained black dots and splinters, still intact from the outrage of the student body. She brought her gaze down and muttered words with her voice breaking. She turned back to the girls.

“I begged my father not to go because of the dangers, but he swayed me off. The last time I saw him, he showed me a big smile. Thus, he went off to the house of the fiends. It was rather lavish, with every room having decorations and items pertaining to the work of the devil; plus, the house was so big that it took one-fourth of the northern district! My father blended in quite easily. He got himself acquainted with many members, most importantly the patriarch and his wife, all of them wore that disgusting emerald. He aimed to expose them to the light by trying to find evidence that they were using black magic to worsen the conditions of the village. But a month had passed since the start of the mission.”

“W-what happened?” Neha grooved her nails on her palms.

Naransaya grabbed her robe tightly. The haze in her eyes darkened, leaving nothing but a faint glimmer. “Those bastards killed him, the one I loved dearly. They manifested their vile monstrosity. They made him drunk, to which he confessed everything about his plan. In a rage, they stabbed him, choked him alive, burned his skin, shot him in the head, and tarred and feathered his body. He died in the most excruciating form of agony... goddammit!” Naransaya trampled on the cobblestone, scratching her heel and sole. “Yebuka was outraged, and when he told the news to me, I was so pissed! He let me join his side, and for a while, I had something to fight for. Damn, damn, damn!”

Neha pursed her lips. Her heart softened for a bit. “I’m so sorry to hear that. If I can call the dove, then there must be something-”

“No apology could bring back my father.” Tears developed. Naransaya snapped her fingers and spit saliva at the grass. She almost booted the girl in the face. “You don’t know what it feels like to lose a loved one, don’t you?”

“Hey! Neha does know!” Sachen said. “What gives you the right to say that?”

“You don’t know at all, so shut up. Back to the point. Days after he died, I couldn’t bear it, and without him, I had nothing to look forward to. But thanks to Yebuka and his group, I was able to get back on my feet. Yet the grief remains.”

Neha covered her face. She too, had tears. “I’m really sorry.” Sachen patted her shoulders.

“At the same time,” Naransaya continued, “we acquired weapons and armor from night raids of the armory. With the revolution starting, we also set up camp in the forest, and we made continuous ambushes and sabotages against the High Order. Little casualties. A collective strength we accrued. We obtained victory after victory—but it was one gloomy night, where Yebuka almost had his life taken.” She brushed her hair aside, and walked closer and closer to the duo. The girls were frozen. “To hope that they could win the conflict, Ozughen called Usheniko’s daughter, the real Azukunika. He assigned her to assassinate Yebuka under the full moon. That way, they could destabilize the rebels and crush them. Thus, when we were sleeping, Azukunika sneaked into Yebuka’s hideout. She stabbed him just two times—and the ones who were awake caught sight of her. She ran away, able to escape from our grasp. What cowardice that wench showed. If I had stayed up the whole hour, I would have strangled her.”

Getting dizzy from the woman’s account, Neha collapsed on her knees. Sachen grabbed ahold of her. Towards Naransaya the girl scowled, she admonished the woman for saying such horrible things—but the woman held no qualms.

“You monster,” Sachen remarked, glowering at her.

“Say what you want, but it won’t change anything. In fact, now you should know how much I had to suffer to get to this point. Do you understand now, little sparrows? Look at me. Look at what I had to bear, the humiliation and disgust that I once carried when I acted as a pretender to that sinner, Usheniko. Your stupid friend thought she could get off the hook. Her daughter, let alone her bloodline, were the carriers of disaster, yet she didn’t even acknowledge a bit of it. In the end, I had to be the one to bring her to justice.”

Naransaya became quiet. As seconds flew by, she resumed again her uncontrollable laughter, her face wrinkled from her tears. From the reveal of the past, everything clicked and fit in the girls’ minds, and now they bore the burden of knowing too much of the facts. They imagined the horrors and bloodshed of the revolution, the fate of the family, the aftermath, and so forth—and they garnered nothing but guilt. Without reluctance they pitied Naransaya, for her to live through those times, those terrible ones. How could a young adult like her survive and fight back, even when her father died long ago? How did she trudge through the bloodshed, something which the girls found it as a serving reminder to their recent struggles? It could be that Naransaya, being a grownup, contained in herself a unstoppable willpower, enough to power her on. That willpower was more mighty than the duo combined. Sachen, when thinking of this, had at once a desire to acquire such strength, she wanted to fight further for her and her friend’s sake. But little they had they could not push anymore.

The colors of the clouds and sun decayed. A flock of crows flew to the school roof, they stared at the girls and cawed. Naransaya stepped up to Sachen, and she again snatched her necklace and chucked them to the school grounds.

“Take that damn thing off your hands. Innocent blood had been spilled by that emerald,” Naransaya said, walking by them. Before she left, she spoke one more remark, this time towards Neha. “Soon girl, will your time come. Let the gods help you in your endeavors.”

Then Naransaya departed from the eastern district. By now, the lady filled Sachen with torment, and it made her empty. In this hour there was nothing left. The riot, the battalion, all dissipated—the chance of victory, that too was gone. The girl viewed a row of buildings besides her, soon whimpering. Her hope dwindled in the horizon, and there occurred to her a terrible defeat. The things Sachen had not known before, she would remember this as long as she lived, cradling and suffering from the inconceivable side of the truth.

Neha, who reclaimed the necklace and gave it to Sachen, hugged her friend. Their heartbeats waned.

“Sachen.”

“Yeah?”

“It’ll be better if we go home.”

Sachen nodded. “Our plan went down the drain, because our classmates and the others were unable to stop the bad guys. But it’s our fault for starting this.”

“At least we tried our best.”

“No... we should have tried harder.” Sachen extended her arms, and Neha picked her up. Having nothing to say, the pair left the area. It was only time when their misfortunes would persist to make them languish.