aiko's otter den

we fair folk - Ril can’t help but have other memories, memories that belong to no one. Memories that will inevitably, hurt Suzu. But she can’t let them go.

---

Her name is Ril.

There’s another name there within seconds. Mel. It’s like a cartoon horse cry, she thinks, like a cartoon horse with a friend worthy of him bearing on his back and yet it’s not because something is not the same. Something is not right.

Regardless, that’s not her name at all, not even a replacement name. She just knows it and loves it because it was given to her by— Someone.

Suzuko.

Suzuko is everything for her. To her. Everything she needs and wants and could handle remotely.

She doesn’t remember other voices, other things.

Not now.

Then, Ril takes her blade and goes into battle.

And battle feels good.

---

Convincing Suzuko of the joy of battle is, needless to say, difficult. It’s not that Suzu is foolish by any means, or stupid. But she’s a peace-loving girl in her outset, her outside, afraid of conflict more than addressing situations. Riru understands this. After all, she is made from this girl, from her memories. Suzu is everything.

At least, at first.

All the hesitation. All the pain. There is a piece of her that considers it just so trivial.

Ril is good, she pushes that part of herself down under a single heeled shoe.

(Before, she could have only worn heels once. Only for him. Only for E-)

Now she dances like a dream. Now she fights… when Suzu lets her.

“It’s from one chain to the next, hm?”

The feminine voice resounded in her head and it hurt, hurt down at the base of her neck and she had no idea why. She had never heard it before and yet it sounded like she had heard it only yesterday.

That was most certainly impossible.

For the moment, however, Suzuko and her memories were important. She simply had to focus on them to the best of her ability.

In the silence of Suzuko’s bedroom, and her angry, helpless rejection, that is very difficult.

---

“Chise.”

The word calls through the air whenever Suzuko walks home from school. Or when she’s nearby trees, or in places where memories tingle and when battles begin. The word tastes like autumn wind when she hears it, and she muses it to herself when no one is listening.

It’s… more often than she wants to admit, to be honest. But with Suzuko only sometimes talking to her, and other times not talking at all, she has to do something. If she can’t help her, she has to think about other things, or she’ll go mad.

Still. She doesn’t like this.

“Chise.” The voice is different now, rough and welcoming and guilty.

(Ril knows what guilt is, she is filled with Suzuko’s guilt and someone else’s anguish.)

She still ignores it. Something is happening. Again.

---

Chinatsu is a strange girl.

There are so many things going on in her heart, so many messy, complicated things.

That is familiar almost, if confusing. It is too many contradictions and thoughts. It feels like a life once lived.

“It’s your fault,” she hears her scream. “You’re the one who did this!”

Suzuko quavers and shakes in her spot. She’s refused to battle for so long. But her memories are so necessary to her. They aren’t what makes up her existence, like for Ril herself, but they matter so much to her that she’s willing to go past her fears to keep them.

“You had something like that once.”

Ril turns to meet green eys, and is then struck by lightning. But the green eyes meet hers again, steady and knowing and hers.

But that’s impossible.

---

Ril dreams of Hatori Chise.

Ril dreams of being Hatori Chise.

Not everything. Not why she’s here and Ril. Not why she’s breathing Suzu’s name and able to wield a sword. Not why she’s a LRIG.

Not why she’s so certain she’s Hatori Chise at all.

Isn’t she Suzu’s memories of Chinatsu? Isn’t she just a LRIG?

“Chise~”

Ril grits her teeth and waits for the voice to be silent.

---

Ril is relatively certain Chise is dead.

Or she’s in despair and floated around. Perhaps Suzu’s happy memories mixed with Chise’s sad memories and so they came together in Ril, and the memories are nothing more than the green strands in the bangs in her hair.

Or maybe Chise did something that she can’t recall and she was an LRIG at one point. But then how…

If only there was someone she could ask.

But there’s no one. Nanashi finds her funny, they’re fighting every other selector. Their only hope is Mel. And she—

She is pushing Chinatsu further over some unseen edge. It’s not even on purpose, she’s sure, but it’s so easy. Even Ril considers it, a stern, careful sort of shove on Suzu to just do something. Her hesitation is also

At least Suzu isn’t this alone.

This aching in her chest is familiar too. She can’t stand it.

She is stronger than this pain. She has to be.

Not alone, you’re not.

Ril ignores this.

---

“Chise~”

The masked woman sings her other name. It’s so quiet so the humans can’t hear. And that’s fine. What matters is that the LRIG can hear and understand and care.

“Chise~” Carnival repeats in a merry little way.

“Elias,” Ril says. Her voice is quiet by comparison. She smiles and she doesn’t know why.

I treasure him, Chise says.

I have to destroy her, Ril says.

These two can be one in the same but the ache in her chest, raw like Suzuko’s tears, doesn’t want there to be.

“Ril!” Suzu calls.

Chise doesn’t look away. Ril does. She bears her blade and lunges into battle.

If she cries, only Carnival notices. Her smile grows wide. Wide and beautiful, so beautiful.

“This is all real,” Carnival tells her. “All you have to do is lose.”

Ril scowls. That’s true. It’s all true. But she can’t do it. Not to destroy Suzu. She can’t sacrifice one person for her own sake. She knows this, Elias knows this and she doesn’t care.

“It’s not going to end here,” Carnival tells her. “It’s not just going to end. You can’t let it.”

And Carnival is right. But Suzuko can, surely. She has to be able to end it here and now.

(They’re wrong, again.)