On her last day in Belleview, she is given three gifts:
From the woman who would one day be her grandmother, she gets a coat. Sturdy leather, satin lining, enough pockets for an entire convenience store. Or an armory.
From the man who would one day be her grandfather, she gets a a key. It is small and easily loops on a chain. The lock it is for has not been made yet.
From the woman who set her on this path–forwards and backwards and against the flow of time–she gets a promise. Doctor Kaiza’s door will always be open to her.
—
Victor has two younger sisters.
Had.
Victor had two younger sisters, and he will never forgive himself for not taking care of Leanne when she was around.
When he was a child–a toddler, really–his mother gave birth to Leanne. Even before that, during the pregnancy, he was happy about it. He was looking forward to a younger sister. Or so his mother recounts.
There’s a picture of the three of them–his mother tired but happy, Victor absolutely enamored, Leanne red-faced and alive in his small arms–all three of them on the bed.
In less than a year, he doesn’t know why, Leanne was sent to live with his grandparents.
He forgot about her when Faye was born another two years later.
Leanne came back, after their grandparents passed away, but by then he was eleven and no longer enamored by younger sisters.
Another ten years later, she disappeared again. This time, never to return.
—
Tetsuki knows she’ll die doing this job, only because she’s so goddamned good at it that she’ll never stop until death makes her.
If her aunt–great great great many more times great aunt–is a mountain or a glacier, immutable and immortal, then Tetsuki is an explosion, the strike of lightning, a supernova.
All of her energy used in a brief, blinding lifetime rather than stretched out for all eternity.
That sounds better than being lost to time, slipping through fingers, through memories, transient.
Saving lives, fighting crime, that’s all Tetsuki wants–Anachron isn’t suited to be a vigilante.
~
A/N: hrmph…
Post Word Count: 353, Running Word Count: 3967
JackSGreyson Says 