| Akasaka Kisaka |
Mistral
North-Wind of the Crimson Hill
North-Wind of the Crimson Hill
Kisaka used to see illusions every time she woke up from a deep slumber, witnessing a girl whose color became jumbled in time, seeing an ashen time piece which fell endlessly and broken, passing a static noise from a condensed place. But, the ending of the illusions were always same. No matter what the beginning or what she witnessed inside the illusion realm. It always ended with…
her death.
Row, row, row your boat
She sat silently inside one of the buzzing cars which filled the city. Her eyes were hollow while watching the scenery went by from the back seat, watching the unfamiliar part of the city where the line between day and night blurred, the city of prosperity, Éclos, her ‘home’. Home… a place to come back to, a place where you belong to.
Unconsciously, she gripped her katana and wakizashi which rested on her lap.
Gently down the stream,
“You look distracted, Miss Mistral.” The driver asked her with head still fixed to the road. Kisaka averted her gaze from the window and looked forward, to the driver direction. When she answered, her tone held no emotion.
“Am I?”
“Is it because of the mission?”
“No, it’s….not about that.”
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
She glanced back toward the passing scenery. It wasn’t because of the previous mission three days ago. The mission itself was an easy one, ‘cleaning’ a small settlement of resistance-group which inhabited with thirty children or so. Her mind automatically gave her the vivid image of a few kids that fought her back while the other chose to run. The bravery screams and fears from the children. And after that, it followed by the putrid smell of iron, of splattering crimson liquid, and the sound of bodies hitting the pavement. She shook her head. Remembering the completed mission wasn’t good. When it completed, the mission was supposed to be forgotten. That was the rule. The rule they taught her ever since she was a little kid.
Life is but a dream.
“The truth is…” She murmured softly.
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
“…what actually bothered me is just…” She closed her crimson eyes and leaned to the window.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but….
Her voice came out no higher than a whisper. “…a dream.”
“Then…” The driver turned his head to the back and making his ‘face’ visible to her. “Why are you still coated in blood?”
“Huh?” Kisaka blinked and realized that her seifuku was drenched in blood. The blood was dripping to the seat and pooling on her feet. “What the-“
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
Then everything made sense to her. The passing view of city which she can’t distinguish between day and night, the buzzing feeling it gave, the blood on her clothes, and more importantly the driver, the driver that had no face.
“I see…It’s-” She took a deep breath, trying to clear her thought which became jumbled. Her next sentence came out flatly “I just need to end it, right?”
The faceless driver didn’t answer her. He kept silent even after she took out her wakizashi from its sheath.
“Good morning, Mistral.” Said Kisaka, and the blade went through her hearts.
Existence is but an illusion.
She blinked. The scenery of training ground greeted her from her standing position on the corner of the field. The breeze which caressed her long hair felt unnaturally real. But she just stood there, unmoving while watching the training ground.
The training ground of Éclos city.
“I’m back, huh.” She sighed and gazed upward to the flying screen which showed the news. Her eyes focused on the corner of the screen where it showed the time.
03.00 P.M. It read.
Something whizzed pass above her. “SOOOOORRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY.”
It was a soldier shooting high in to the air and vanishing from sight. Shaking her head at the strange antic of the soldier, she went back to her previous activity before the illusion bothered her. Meditation. Because she needed that. She needed that to kept her mind intact, to avoid her own destruction. Meditation. She then closed her crimson eyes and sat on the ground, clearing her head from any thought or sound. Trying to blinding her mind from the surrounding. Just right before she fall to the oblivion, a familiar scene resurfaced, a forgotten memory from the past.
“You know, if you keep this up, you’ll break.”
“I know. But the truth is…I-”
And the tranquility of the meditation greeted her.