by E. C. Myers
“I’d hardly call Feldspar defenseless,” Coco said.
“You know what I mean. We should take them to a big city, with lots of Huntsmen.”
“You mean the capital?” Velvet asked.
“From here, it’s about as far north to Vacuo as it is to go west to the shore,” Fox sent.
“But what effect would a mood bomb have on a population that size? I don’t know, Fox,” Yatsuhashi said.
“What do you want, Gus?” Velvet asked softly. “It’s time to speak up for yourself.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gus said.
“It does. It has to.” Velvet knelt in front of him. “If you want to survive in the west, or anywhere in Remnant these days, you have to stick up for yourself.”
Slate held up a hand to silence Bertilak and Carmine, who seemed to be arguing as much with each other now as with the rest of them.
“So what is it?” Velvet asked. “Where do you want to go, Gus?”
“With an ability like yours, you could be a Huntsman one day,” Fox said. “All you need is some training. We could take you to a combat school in the city. I bet Headmaster Theodore would recommend you.”
“The boy doesn’t want a life like that,” Carmine said. “Look where it left his grandfather.” She flung a hand in Edward’s direction. He looked oblivious to everything that was happening around him.
“That had nothing to do with being a Huntsman,” Yatsu said. “Memory is fragile, easy to lose, especially in old age.”
Gus drew his shoulders in even more, practically curling into a fetal position.
“Being a Huntsman can be just as dangerous as living alone in the wilderness, especially if you don’t have the instincts,” Coco said.
“Now you’re seeing some sense,” Bertilak said.
Coco’s glasses flashed as she turned to stare the larger Huntsman down. “But Gus does need training, and Edward needs help. They won’t get either of those living in the middle of nowhere.”
“We’ll try the city of Vacuo first. If no one there can help your grandfather, I bet the hospitals in Atlas could,” Velvet said. “And if you wanted to, they also have schools that can teach you to control your Semblance and better manage Edward’s. Would you like that?” she said to Gus.
“We’re responsible for the Caspians,” Bertilak said, “and we’re taking them where Edward asked us to take them—to the western shore. You four trainees stay here and defend Feldspar if you want, but we’re out.”
“That’s a death sentence,” Coco said. “You can’t drop them off and leave them undefended.”
“We’re being paid to get them there. Once we do, the job is done.” Bertilak laughed.
“This is just about money?” Coco shook her purse and her Gatling gun appeared.
What are you doing, Coco? Velvet thought.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you, I think you’re a terrible Huntsman,” Coco said. “A disgrace to our profession.”
“You don’t have what it takes to be a Huntress,” Bertilak said.
“Nope. We’re not doing this. Let’s go, kid.” Carmine stood and grabbed Gus’s arm. He held tightly on to Velvet’s hand.
“Hey!” Velvet said. She felt the fury build in her. It may have been magnified by Edward’s unchecked ability, but it was all hers, and she was ready to own it. “Back off, lady. Gus hasn’t said what he wants yet.”
Gus muttered something under his breath. Velvet heard him.
Fox heard him, too, because he responded telepathically, “There we go, then.” But everyone needed to hear it, in Gus’s own voice.
“Louder,” Velvet said.
Gus repeated himself, only marginally louder. The whole room fell quiet.
“One more time, Gus,” Velvet said. “Speak loud and clear. This is your choice.”
Gus looked up, a fierce expression on his tear-streaked face. “I don’t want to split up!”
“Edward is paying for our services, and until he tells us otherwise, we’re following his order.” Bertilak grabbed Edward’s arm.
“Get your hands off him,” Coco said.
“Let me make this perfectly clear.” Bertilak drew his mace and extended its chain. Spikes popped out of the steel ball at the end of it. The handle also seemed to have a pistol grip. The black metal was scratched and cracked, and there were specks of rust—Velvet hoped they were rust—on the spikes. “The old man will not be going with you, no matter what it takes.”
“Bertilak,” Carmine said.
The air was practically boiling in the room, and it was getting hard to breathe. It was hard to see, with a hazy shimmer making everything all wavy, like none of them were real, this was all a mirage. But it was getting very real.
Yatsu drew his sword. Fox brought his arms up into a fighting stance. Coco idly swung her handbag.
“Guys,” Velvet said. “Put your weapons away.” Even as she said it, she pulled her camera box around to her front, thinking about what weapon would end this most quickly, without anyone having to get hurt. She had to defuse the situation. Give the mood bomb time to wear off. Let everyone cool down and come back to their senses.
There was a tense standoff, no one willing to make the first move. And then they heard a shout outside. A scream. More screams. Running. Gunfire.
“Too late,” Slate said. She leaned on the table with her arms locked, looking utterly exhausted and resigned. “The Grimm are here.”
At eight years old, Yatsuhashi unlocked his Semblance when he accidentally made his dad forget that he’d already given him his allowance and got another three Lien.
It had taken him a while to figure out how his Semblance worked, and whenever he told his parents and grandfather what it was, they immediately forgot about it. For years, it was a way for him to get out of trouble when he did something wrong, or to get an extra serving of dessert.
At first, Yatsuhashi had excused this mischief as “experimenting” and it seemed mostly harmless. Over time, he learned that it was easiest to get someone to forget something they didn’t care much about. A fleeting thought or a stray remark, made without much intent. But if an idea was more firmly fixed in a person’s long-term memory, he could only make them lose it for a short period of time.
Then one day it had gone from funny to scary. Yatsuhashi’s mother had recently given birth to his little sister, Hiyoko, and he was jealous of all the attention the baby was getting. One morning, his sleep-deprived, stressed-out mother had told him to go clean his room, one of his least favorite chores. So he decided to make her forget about it so he could go play instead. All it took was a little mental nudge, get her to think about something else, like the baby. That shouldn’t be too hard.
His mother lifted her coffee to her lips and then paused, blinking. Then she put the cup down without taking a sip. She glanced at Yatsuhashi with a glazed expression.
“Good morning, Yatsu. What was I saying?”
Yatsuhashi grinned. “Good morning! You told me to ‘run along and play.’ ”
She frowned. “I thought there was something else …” Then the fog passed. “Run along and play, then.” She smiled.
Yatsuhashi pulled on his shoes and was about to go outside, when Hiyoko started crying. He slid open the door, but he waited when his mother came out to the living room, looking confused.
“That sounds just like a baby,” she said.
Yatsuhashi froze. “It’s Hiyoko,” he said.
“Hiyoko? Do the neighbors have a new baby? I must have forgotten.”
“It’s Hiyoko,” Yatsuhashi repeated.
“That’s such a pretty name.”
Yatsuhashi was sweating now. “Your baby, Hiyoko. My sister.”
His mother laughed. “That’s a good one.”
All the while, Hiyoko kept crying.
“I do wish she’d stop crying,” his mother said. “Where are her parents?”
Yatsuhashi hurried into the nursery and picked up the red-faced girl. He cradled her
against his chest, supporting her fragile neck, the way his parents had shown him. He’d only held her once, but he simply hadn’t been interested in more contact than that. It was bad enough that everyone else had been catering to her needs every moment of every day.
He was surprisingly touched at how she snuggled into his shoulder and how she had calmed down when he picked her up. She only did that for his mother and grandfather—and really made his dad work to soothe her—jiggling her up and down, rocking her, singing, until he or the baby or both of them was worn out.
She was so light and warm and she smelled nice.
Yatsuhashi went into the living room, where his mother was reading a book, something she hadn’t been able to do since she had come home from the hospital. Yatsuhashi had been annoyed that she didn’t have the time or energy to play with him anymore, but he’d missed the fact that she didn’t have any time for herself, either, including a moment to drink her morning coffee while paging through a book.
“Who’s this?” his mother asked.
“Hiyoko,” Yatsuhashi said, looking for even a slight glimmer of recognition. Nothing. Yatsu knew almost nothing about caring for a baby, but his grandfather and father were out fishing, so it all came down to Yatsuhashi.
“When did you start babysitting?” his mother asked. “That’s so sweet of you.”
“Just now, but I should have started a long time ago,” Yatsuhashi said.
Little Hiyoko wasn’t content resting in Yatsuhashi’s arms for long. When she started snuffling again, he checked her diaper—thankfully clean—and then got her a bottle of milk. He asked his mother to show him how to feed her.
“I haven’t done this since you were a baby,” she told Yatsuhashi, “but it feels like only yesterday.” He took over for her while she went to go get a shower. Then he played with Hiyoko for a little while, which mostly involved tickling her and making funny faces. When his mother came back, she still didn’t remember her daughter. Yatsuhashi was starting to get worried, but either she would remember or his dad would come home, and he could try to explain what had happened … maybe this time they would remember what he told them about his Semblance.
Yatsuhashi ended up spending the whole day with Hiyoko. When she wouldn’t go to sleep, he cradled her on his chest and she dropped right off, and so did he.
His mother woke him as she took the sleeping baby from his arms. It was dark outside.
“Thank goodness you were here, Yatsu,” she whispered. “I don’t know what happened. It was like I forgot about Hiyoko …” She was distraught.
“It was my fault,” Yatsuhashi said.
She gave him a puzzled look. When she had placed Hiyoko back in her crib, she found Yatsuhashi in the kitchen. He had been so busy with his sister, he hadn’t even eaten all day. He grabbed a slice of cake, and his mother didn’t question it.
He told her about his Semblance, what he had done. She was quiet when he finished, and there was a frightened look in her eyes that haunted him to this day.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier?” she said.
“I have. You never remember it when I stop talking. So I stopped trying.”
She shook her head. “This explains a lot. We all noticed we were getting more forgetful, but we didn’t know why.
“This is an incredible discovery, Yatsu. You have an amazing ability.” She took a deep breath and looked at him warily. “But you know you have to stop using it on us.”
Yatsuhashi realized he was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you forget about Hiyoko.”
She pulled him close, and her arms around him made him feel better. He stopped crying. He rested his head on her shoulder.
“Shhh. I know, sweetie. But you did the right thing to keep her safe. Thank you,” she said.
When his father and grandfather came home, Yatsuhashi went through the story again, with his mother’s help. This time, the news stuck in their memories.
His father cradled Hiyoko with a dark expression, half anger, half fear. “Even if you thought you weren’t causing any harm, you shouldn’t have been doing that to us, Yatsuhashi! What were you thinking?”
Yatsu lowered his eyes and remained silent.
“You have to respect the minds of others,” his mother said. “When you affect people like that, you take away more than memories. You take away their right to make their own choices.”
Yatsu’s grandfather nodded. “All we are is what we remember. If you erase the wrong memory, you erase our identity.”
“You are not to use this ability again, do you understand me?” his father said.
His grandfather held up a hand. “Not until you have learned to control it. With the proper training, you can find a way to use your Semblance for good.”
Yatsu’s dad turned away, bouncing Hiyoko in his arms. “It’s dangerous,” he muttered.
“This is still our Yatsu. He’s a good boy. And now that he’s told us about his Semblance, we can help him learn to use it appropriately,” his mother said.
Just before bed, Yatsuhashi checked in on Hiyoko. He watched her sleeping peacefully on her back, arms and legs sprawled everywhere, mouth open. She wasn’t really that bad. He might even be starting to love her.
On his way to his room, he heard his parents talking quietly to each other. His grandfather caught him sitting on the floor in the hallway, arms crossed over his knees.
“I’m a monster,” Yatsu whispered.
“Only if you choose to be. The person you become will be defined by all the choices you make along the way, good and bad.” His grandfather put a hand on his head. “It’ll be all right, Yatsu. You don’t have to deal with this on your own anymore. We’re here for you.”
Monsters. Everywhere.
Yatsuhashi felt a knot in his stomach at the sight of the Feldspar townspeople fleeing from Grimm. He had only seen some of these Grimm species as drawings on Professor Port’s walls, but there was no mistaking the black, red, and white markings on the demons—or their base hatred for people as they stalked among the tents and homes.
For the moment, Bertilak and Carmine were no longer interested in fighting Team CFVY—now that there was a clear, common danger.
“We’ll take Edward and Gus out of here to the north while your team evacuates Feldspar,” Carmine said to Coco.
“North?” Fox asked.
“The Grimm aren’t attacking on that side because of the wall,” Carmine said.
Coco hefted her Gatling gun. “You heard Gus. He doesn’t want to split up, and now isn’t the time to settle this. Grimm are already here, and emotions are gonna run high whether Edward is here or not.”
Yatsuhashi drew Fulcrum and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. This was no time for talk. They needed to get out there to fight and defend and evacuate.
“Together, we can fight our way through on the western border of the settlement,” Velvet said. “If we hurry before the Grimm head us off.”
“We stick with your original plan,” Coco said. “Head west, fast, try to get out of the desert. Once we’re out, we can move faster on firm ground and stay ahead of the Grimm. If Gus wants to try combat school, it’ll be safer to loop around and reenter the desert farther north. We can even deliver the Caspians to the city for you, since we’ll be heading back to Shade ourselves.”
“You’ll like the city of Vacuo,” Fox told Gus. “It’s rougher than Vale, but there are few more welcoming places in Remnant, or livelier. Anyone who makes it through the desert to the city has already proven they belong there.”
Yatsuhashi wished Shade Academy were more like the city Fox described. It felt like every day at the school was a test to see how good you were, to prove that you deserved to be training to be a Huntsman. Survival was more important than teamwork, and it was more competitive than Beacon Academy—even within your own team—placing CFVY at a unique disadvantage. Although they had quickly risen in the ranks and earned the respect of their pee
rs, that admiration only lasted until their next mission. If the combat schools in Vacuo were anything like that, he honestly wondered if Gus would thank them for getting him there.
“I agree with Coco. If you two won’t come with us, then we’ll come with you—make sure you get the Caspians where they want to go,” Slate said. “It’s the only way the tribe can make it with this many Grimm attracted to the area.”
Carmine considered and then nodded. “Seems sensible.”
“Fine,” Bertilak said. “You win.”
“Hold on,” Yatsuhashi said. “Gus. You understand what we’re saying? We’re going to take you someplace safe for now, where we can talk more about what you and your grandfather want to do. You don’t have to deal with this on your own anymore.”
Velvet smiled up at her partner.
Gus looked surprised. His eyes were suddenly wet.
Yatsuhashi knew what it meant for a kid to hear something like that and realize they didn’t have to carry a heavy burden alone.
Gus wiped his tears away with his arm.
“I trust you,” Gus said. “Let’s stick together.”
Yatsuhashi might have been imagining it, but with that finally settled, he felt lighter, more positive—which didn’t match up with the Grimm horde advancing through town. Or maybe he was just looking forward to dealing with a problem he could more easily solve. But the moment was short-lived.
“Great. You don’t want anyone else to get hurt, and this is how to save as many of them as possible,” Coco said.
“You know, Theodore won’t thank you for bringing more Grimm to his city,” Slate said. “Or an old man who attracts them.”
“I think the headmaster will be fascinated by Edward, and understand why we brought him. And there are more than enough Huntsmen in the city and at the Academy to defend Vacuo.”
“Isn’t that what you thought about Beacon?” Bertilak said.
The anger flared up in Yatsuhashi faster than he could swallow it. He threw a punch at Bertilak, but the Huntsman saw the blow coming and leaned away so his fist only scored a glancing hit.
