Everything was faded, like an old photo… but I could just barely make out a few faces. Wait… I knew those faces…
Mother…
Father…
Arkham…
Kalina…
Mary…
Luken…
Me…
I remember this day. It was my ninth birthday. When ‘mother’ and ‘father’ told me that they were actually the closest of friends with my actual parents, Arkham and Kalina. Mary was only about seven then, but I could easily tell it was her that I saw in the memory. I reached out and noticed I was see through, a ghost in the world of the past.
I was reliving my memory of that day…
The day that I became more than human…
This was the day I met Rykira.
I watched as the little version of myself walked around the room, hugging everybody she crossed paths with. It was funny to see just how bad I was at stealing icing from my cake from the far side of the table. Kalina or the woman I came to call ‘Momma’ always caught me…
“You have to wait just as we do, Ikira. Patience is a virtue.”
The little me would only pout and get her hair ruffled by her father or one of the ladies. Arkham never touched me… Even then he was a little ‘off’.
I watched as the miniature version of myself ran around the house, I followed her, walking beside her or running just behind her and sometimes through walls. I remember doing that, running through a hall and turning a sharp corner at the end, only to get my sash that I always wore caught on something and then go tumbling. I never cried, even when I went head first into a wall…
This continued for quite some time, just me running with her. It reminded me how much I loved to run in those days, just to feel the wind in my face. I haven’t gone for a good run in quite awhile… I think I’ll do that when I wake up…
‘Mini-me’ ran around another corner and caught the sash around her ankle, sending her tumbling. I instinctively reached out to catch her, only to her go right through my hands. She stood up and kept running while I stayed where I was and watched her run off. I forgot this was only a dream… but then why did I feel cloth in my hand…
I looked down and saw my beloved sash in my left hand, the purple clashed with the red dipped tips. It was weird but that was why I liked it so much. I finally realized I was holding it and took the chance to wrap it around the upper part of my arm before I set off down memory lane and explored the house on my own.
My room, done in lavender at the time, was rather messy and had stuffed animals everywhere. I was still so little back then, but my addiction to stuffed toys was there even then… Mother and Father’s room, done in earth tones, was no where near as big as I remember it, probably because I was bigger… I walked into Father’s computer room, admiring the desktop her had and comparing it to mine. Stone aged thing it was…
Then I felt a flame prick at my cheek. I walked to where I felt the little me would at this time and saw I was right. My younger self was unwrapping presents. The memory brought a few laughs, especially when an old friend of mine, Mark, gave me a gag-gift that consisted of a spring snake and a sign that said ‘happy birthday’ wrapped around it’s neck. When it jumped out my face was priceless and even now I jumped slightly, I never did like it when things popped out at me like that… Once Mark quit laughing though he gave me a different gift and ended up on the ground in a hug from me. He gave me a little stuffed cheetah that I would have now had I not left most of my things at the house when I went to live with Luken after the ‘candle incident’, as it came to be known. The next gift was from Luken, it was also the last. I watched as the little me opened it and went wide eyed. Luken was sitting back and smiling gently. I still had what he gave me, though I could no longer wear it. It was a choker made of white diamond, with a black diamond five-petal flower in the middle. In the very center of that flower however, was a red, or black as some called it, opal. I immediately put it on and latched around Luke’s legs.
After that however, everybody kind-of just scattered; they had eaten the cake when I was in the computer room and plundering through Father’s things in there. I knew this memory was far from over however.
I watched as the young child I once was walked past the candle that changed my life. She stopped and walked over to it, something about the flame captured us both. She reached out to it, as did I. When she touched it however, the flame engulfed her, while leaving me to watch. I watched as Luken walked over to her and tapped the red opal on her choker as she had blacked out on the ground. The red left it and the white opal I now know replaced it. That opal had contained Rykira’s soul to be transferred to me. I saw a grin cover his lips and I felt myself pulled into the flames…
Once I woke on the other side I saw that the younger version of me was lying on the ground, out cold. The ground was black glass and the tapping of metal heels alerted me to a coming presence. I turned and saw Rykira walk out of the flames, clad in her red armor and her wings hidden; the flames around us seemed to be far dimmer then the ones I saw when she merged with me.
She ignored me and walked over to my smaller form. She gently shook her shoulder to wake her and when their eyes connected, my smaller version froze. They were white, solid white, not even the small fraction of color I could see when she merged with me was present.
“Hello Ikira.”
“…Hi.”
Rykira chuckled at the meek voice that came from me then. She knew I was scared so she picked me up and stood me on my own two feet before brushing me off, brushing off the invisible dust and straightening the clothing. My miniature just watched her, amazed as she seemed to glide in her movements, completely inhuman.
“It’s alright little one. My name’s Rykira. It’s nice to meet you.”
She held out her hand and the smaller me hesitantly took it. Rykira shook her hand lightly and shifted so she could hold it and stand.
“You’re a very special girl. You know that? And I don’t mean just special by when your parents say, I mean that in a greater way.”
“What? Then how as I special…?”
I smiled lightly as I watched Rykira explain to her how she was so different from the others. It was amazing how well I took it back then.
“So, I can become an angel?”
Rykira laughed lightly and knealed down to her level.
“Yes. You can become a very special type of angel. You will become what I am. I’m not exactly the kind of angel you are probably thinking of. You know, all glowy and white with a hallow and a harp, that sort of thing. I am a fighting angel, and 2000 years ago I fought in a war along side a great demon that you have probably heard stories about.”
“Wow! Really!? Who?”
Rykira smiled and answered her…
“The Dark Knight, Sparda.”
I watched my little face light up, that had always been my favorite ‘fairy tale’…
“So, you wanna’?”
“Yes!”
I frowned slightly. I knew what was coming next…
“Alright. Then you have to promise me something. You won’t scream.”
“Why would I scream Rykira?”
I saw her face fall slightly, she knew this was going to painful. She explained that to her and my younger half spoke of something that I had heard Arkham say when I was much younger…
“Alright. After all, ‘you only gain something by giving something in return’.”
Rykira smiled slightly and walked backward a few paces. She seemed to glow and her wings lifted from the skin of her back. Their flames out-shined anything in the area, dimming the other flames even more. I watched her shift forms. She showed a form then that I didn’t see when I merged with her, but the length of her claws told me she had entered this form…
She had gone into her hellion form.
It was hard to describe with words, she looked far more deadly, yet just as beautiful, just as graceful… But I found my self wanting to look away as she had become something more suited to a nightmare. Her markings, fangs, claws, and armor had all shifted. There was nothing quite like it that I could use to compare it to, and there weren’t the right words to describe it…
She lunged for my smaller half, fangs bared and I felt my self pulled out of the dream…
--
I bolted upright. I was sweating, my face was burning, yet I was cold, as if all warmth I had was left in that same ring of fire…
“mmm… Ikira? What’s wrong?”
I looked over to my right and saw a very sleepy Vergil. His hair was tousled and he was shirtless, leaning on his left arm for support and using the right to balance himself on it. That dream was way to real to be ordinary, memory or not. I went to sit up properly and pulled my legs toward me to sit Indian-style. I stopped when I flexed my arm however. I looked at it and saw that the sash was still there…
“Ikira.”
I turned my head toward Vergil and noticed he was now fully awake and partially glaring at me.
“Sorry. It was just a dream about my past…”
“There’s more to it then that Ikira. I can see right through your lies…”
“Ok, so I had a flashback of the day I met Rykira. No big.”
“Wrong. Very big. The way you shot up tells me that.”
“Vergil. Drop it.”
He gave me a look that said he wasn’t through arguing with me but when he noticed something that look changed. He rolled over and pulled his half of the blankets back up to his shoulders.
“Just hurry and get back to sleep. I’ll finish this conversation in the morning.”
I smiled slightly at this and crawled out from under the blankets. I walked over to the bathroom, which was in his direct line of sight thanks to how he was laying, and flicked on the light. I heard a grown and then turned to see him roll over quickly and pull the covers over his head. I laughed lightly and walked in, closing the door behind me. I splashed my face with water and watched the drops roll down my face, but I stopped at my eyes…
They were blood red. No.
Wait…
They were hellion red…
I looked down to my arm and saw the sash wasn’t there…
I imagined it…
--
I watched her running…
She was just as graceful running as she was flying.
Each movement was perfect.
She fought an invisible opponent while she ran.
Free running and shadow boxing… Only Ikira could pull that off and make it look good.
She had said she was running to remember though…
To remember what?
“Head’s up Verg’!!”
I looked up just in time to catch her as she made a dive for me from about thirty yards up. The impact of her body against mine was enough to send me sliding across the kitchen floor. When we stopped, she was laying against my chest breathing hard from her little routine outside. I too was breathing a bit hard from the impact.
“What are you? A dive bomber?”
She looked up at me and faked a slap across my face, pressing my other cheek against the tile floor. Her smile was enough to make me over look it however. She was still catching her breath when I lifted her up off me and sat up myself.
“By the way… You said you were running to remember… to remember what?”
Her eyes dimmed slightly; I hit a nerve.
“I was running to remember what it was like to have the wind against my face. To remember what it was like to have the feeling that you can go on forever. To have the feeling that I can fly without wings. Just like I was when I was kid. I would run like that. I was fighting to remember what it was like to be one with Rykira. To have her flames coursing through my veins. That was my way of remembering. I had to get it out or it would have eaten me alive…”
So that is what she was doing…
Bringing Remembrance to the past that she had lived ten years ago…
