With a little help from Kiki, we made our way inside to the living room, where we sat on adjacent sofas. Thanks to having most of my memories back, I didn't need much help navigating the pce other than having Kiki support me as I walked.
Of course, I only had most of my memories back, so Kiki was going to give me a recap of everything I don't remember.
“Hah… Where to even start?” she began with a sigh, trying to think of the best way to do this. “You said the st thing you remember was meeting Setsuna, right?”
“Right.” I nodded.
“Okay, I guess I'll start there. I can't exactly tell you what you and Setsuna talked about when you met, as I wasn't there, but you ended up never coming inside for lunch that day. About an hour ter, we were getting really worried for you, so I decided to go look. Right after I went out the back, that was when they showed up.” At the mention of “they” her mostly neutral expression turned to a scowl.
“Who showed up?”
“I'm sure we've already mentioned who they were a couple times, but I'll go in a little more depth here. The people who arrived at our door that day were from MAF Security Contracting, a sort of modern mercenary group based out of Japan. One the surface, they were a private group of bodyguards you could hire if you felt like you were in danger, but they doubled as one of the world's rgest crime organizations. When they were first starting out, that was when pur father was starting work at a university in his hometown as an assistant chef. Apparently less than a month ter, the current head chef dissapeared, and he had the position. Now fast forward a bit, and now a few guys from MAF are here to collect a debt from him that he never knew he had.”
“Wait. So you're saying that-”
“He didn't have the money to pay them, and you can see where that lead. Or at least that's the concusion I've come to after doing a bit of research into things.”
It seems like my background is a lot more… tragic than I thought it'd be. If my parents were killed by MAF, then it makes a lot more sense why I fought against them the extent that I put my own life in danger.
“So, I'm guessing when I got back and learned what happened I probably wanted revenge, and that's why I ended up dying fighting them?”
“Not exactly…” No? Then what did I do it all for… “That was probably part of it, but… We can get to that in a bit. First I'm going to tell you what else happened. I still hadn't left to look for you yet when I heard gunshots from the other side of the house. I happened to be next to the storage shed at the time so, doing the only thing I really could, I grabbed a sword and ran around to the front. I… I got lucky. There were three of them there, and they all had guns, so they could've easily killed me then and there, but the leader of the group was cocky, and had his own sword with him for some reason, and decided he wanted to duel me. He was good too. I would've lost if it wasn't for you showing back up with Setsuna. As soon as she saw us, she used her magic to kill them all. It's really all thanks to her that I'm still here today.” she stayed silent for a moment, allowing me a turn to speak.
“I'm grateful for that. If I felt so hurt from seeing the graves of our parents, I couldn't imagine how bad it'd be if you were with them…”
“Yeah…” her smile turned into a grimace at the thought. “On another note, though not really a better one, there's the topic of why you dissapeared with Setsuna. Again, I don't know all the details, but in short, her vilge was attacked, also by MAF, and she was out of mana and running from a few pursuers, which led her straight to you. Of course, you decided to help her, and that ended up as the first time you used your katana. You used the sword to save what remained of her vilge, but there were a lot of casualties, including her grandfather, the former chief of the Fire Tribe. That's about all that happened that day. After that, MAF decided to switch targets from the Kitsune to you, since the guy I was fighting happened to be the son of their founder, and they thought you killed him. After a while I went off to college, you dropped out of high school, and eventually that led to you fighting their founder a year ter, and you know how that ended. Any questions?”
“I do have a few, actually. Why was MAF targeting the Kitsune, and how did they even know about them?”
“We could never figure that out in the end. Setsuna thinks her grandfather might've known, but it's not like we can just ask him. As for how MAF knew about the Kitsune, we don't know that either, but it's probably safe to assume they learned about the Kitsune through one they found in this world, like Shimo for example.”
“Shimo? What about her?”
“Basically, she was with a couple others on this side of the Gates, and they ended up getting captured. MAF was trying to experiment on them to figure out how they can open the Gates, but the experiments were too dangerous, and before long Shimo was the only one left. Luckily, that's when you ended up saving her.”
“Oh… With all these people you say I've saved, and that revenge wasn't my goal through all that, I must've been a pretty selfless person back then.”
“You also saved Ina and the Lightning Tribe, just so you know. And don't worry, you're still just the same person you used to be.”
“How so?” I don't really feel like I'm the same person she's describing. I mean, I haven't really gone around saving a bunch of people I've never met before.
“Well, take the st month before you first arrived at the vilge. Didn't your party go around hunting as many Shadows as possible just because they were dangerous and normal weapons and magic don't affect them?”
“Well… yeah I guess-”
“And how about what happened at Lexica? Wasn't your job simply to escort a wagon carrying some weapons? You guys stayed to help in the defence anyway.”
“...True.”
“See? You're plenty selfless as you are, I don't want to hear anything else. I just got my siblings back, and I don't want to hear her talk down about herself. ‘You should take pride in everything you do’, as mom used to always say. You're a hero, Mira. Would you want to hear you savior, if you had one, trying to say they're a horrible person?”
“I guess not?”
“Exactly. Now, I'm not exactly sure if that's what you were implying, but I know you, and I know that whatever you were thinking would've led there eventually. Now, since we're through with what we came here for, you wanna see if we can get you used to walking again? Maybe get some training in after?”
I have no idea what brought on the whole lecture she just gave me, but I guess she does have a good point. Too much pride can be harmful, but the same can be said to the opposite, so I should be careful and find that bance.
I nodded, silently thanking her for the advice as well as agreeing to train once I was steady on my feet again. We spent a couple more hours together before heading back to join the others in the vilge.
Alpy376
