“Rikki, I heard the scream. You’re awake now?” Kaori said as she opened the door to his room. As she does so she sees Rikki shirtless and immediately turns her back to him while keeping a straight face.

“What… happened to my chest..?”

Rikki looked in the mirror, and saw a faded, yet deep scar almost spanning across his chest.

“Judging from my brief glimpse, it seems you were injured sometime in your life. And it seems like you weren’t a fit person.” Kaori said, maintaining her position.

“Gee thanks… but… the wound is… right where my heart would be.”

“How could I have survived this…?”

“Who knows? But if you were thinking catching people’s attention with a scar on your body would make you appear ‘cool’, then you are sorely mistaken.”

Oh crap, that might’ve given a clue that I don’t remember anything. It definitely seemed strange that I would freak out from a scar that had been on my body for awhile. 

“Anyways, it should be about time that you get yourself ready, don’t you think?” Kaori notioned to the clock.

Ah shit.

The next thing he knew, Rikki found himself apologizing for Tamaki for oversleeping. 

“I’m sorry! I’m Sorry!”

*Sigh* “For your information, we don’t have a whole lot of time on our hands. We two were planning on staying at this inn for a week before we would set off to a planned testing event in the city. After that, I was ordered to return immediately so that doesn’t give me much breathing room.”

“Oh, so that’s why you guys are staying here… A test? Just how studious are you guys?”

“Urgh.. C’mon! Let’s go!”

It was a bit of a mess. Rather than trying to help the two, Rikki constantly zoned off trying to find at least one clue to his life. At one point, Rikki found himself in front of a massive ship at a harbor. It appeared to be mostly vacant from outside.

“This is the ship we used to travel here. Unfortunately this was the only location I could think of where I would most likely lose my earrings. I’m sorry, but this may be a daunting task to search the entire thing.” Tamaki said.

“No matter. We should just investigate the top level, since that was where your room was originally after all.” Kaori pointed out.

The three stepped into the entrance into the interior. Rikki was instantly dumbfounded by the ship’s decked out interior. It was pretty much a luxury cruise ship, you couldn’t argue otherwise. For almost the entire trekk up to the top, he marveled at all of the accommodations. Just how rich was this girl?

Although 5 minutes into walking around in the ship, he can feel his stomach turning inside out. Rikki would rather not embarrass himself in front of two people in his age group.

Because the swaying of the ship made him a bit nauseous, Rikki offered to look around town for any signs of the earrings instead. Of course, he didn’t want to seem like he was bailing out completely. They agreed albeit reluctantly.

Out on the top floor, however, Tamaki and Kaori noticed two shadowy figures off in the distance. The conversation that they’re having can be heard a mile away.

“Kehaha! I honestly can’t believe they would leave a ship like this unguarded!”

“Woah! Brother! Check it out! They even have a jacuzzi inside of the swimming pool!”

“Hey, don’t touch that! We can’t leave any trace of DNA behind! I don’t trust hot water at all. Wait…”

One of the figures turned around and saw the two staring back.

“Oh crap, brother, keep your cool. We got guests.” the older one said as Tamaki stepped up.

“I think you may be mistaken gentlemen, you two are on my ship. You two are the guests here.”

One of the bandits stepped up and brought his hand out of his pocket.

“Hey let’s make a bet. Let’s flip a coin. Heads and you guys let us go. Tails and we’ll turn ourselves in.”

Tamaki put her finger on her lip and tilted her head.

“How interesting.”

“B..Brother?!”

The older bandit leaned in close to his sibling.

“...Listen, I rigged the coin so it always ends up heads anyways. Don’t worry bro, we’re in the home stretch. No matter what, we cannot lose in this bet. Do you agree to the terms lady?”

Tamaki paused before responding. She sighs and brings out her hand.
“...May I inspect the coin before playing it?”

“Of… Of course! Here.”

The bandit tossed the coin over as his brother was in a state of shock.

“Hey no need to worry. The method I used to rig it leaves no physical evidence. There ain’t no weight imbalance, no cuts, no color shift, nothing. There’s no way in hell she’s gonna find out.”

Tamaki closes her eyes. She doesn't even look at the coin at all. In fact, as she opens her eyes, she instantly tosses it over to the bandit and quickly gives the okay.

“All good, play your coin!”

The bandit grinned.

“Good, let’s do it!”

The coin spun into the air by the flick of his thumb. At that moment, there was no one wondering what the outcome would be. As the coin reached its maximum height, Tamaki said a sentence that would haunt the two bandits.

“Hey… it’s going to land heads no matter what, isn’t it?”

Rather than excitedly looking at the coin, the two stared straight into the girl’s eyes, wondering how she knew it. The coin drops to the floor of the ship. It continues to spin, until eventually falling on its side, heads up.

“Was.. that a bluff just now?”

“Hm. Who knows?”

The older bandit shifted his weight, trying to keep his cool.

“Either way, that doesn’t matter. The coin shows itself. Heads up. You lots gotta let us through.”

“I could do that… but that would leave a bad taste in my mouth leaving criminal scum off like that.”

“...So you won’t let us go after all eh?”

The two instantly sprints straight to the exit to which Tamaki responds with her assistant’s name.

“On it, chief.” says Kaori as she gives chase.

“Hahaha! Looks like we’ll escape after all, Brother open the door!”

“Huh? Wait, the door is… stuck?!”

“What?!”

“Look brother, it's open just slightly, I can see the inside, yet it won’t move an inch.”
“Move! It’s a door you pull, not push, idiot!”

The bandit pulls with all of his might, but it doesn’t budge.

“What’s… going on?!”

They look back before seeing Kaori’s death stare. That was the last thing they saw before blacking out.

*Sigh* “These guys didn’t have my earrings on them after all. What a waste of valuable time.”

“Plus the rest of the top floor didn’t have them either. They may not be on this ship after all. Looks like you misjudged your calculations.”

“My calculations are always right! It’s just I’m spending my cognitive resources to study for next week!”

“Sure you are.”

---

 

“Hey, bro wake up.”

“Urrgh, big bro… are we gonna die? I don’t wanna die.”

“Relax, you worry too much, we’re not going to die.”

“Oh right, what should we do with these guys?

“I guess we can just hand them in.”

“...Please… Can you spare us? Our family is struggling to survive. Without us, our grandparents would have no roof over our heads.”

“Good grief. People like you I do not understand at all. Why did you run the risk of trying to ransack a luxury cruise ship? Why do that? What was going on in your thought process that would make you jump to that conclusion?” Tamaki said with one hand on her hip.

“To be frank, our parents passed a long time ago. My brother and I have been working at home since then. A few months ago, our house that we had grown up in somehow had gone up in flames. Our entire work was inside that house and all of our equipment got destroyed in the process. We couldn’t cover the costs of damage so we had to abandon it entirely. Eventually we went into poverty. With nowhere to go, I had a sudden urge to pickpocket just to provide food for my brother and my grandparents. Then, it evolved to this.”

“I didn’t expect that. Is that so… A mysterious fire that just so happened to destroy your entire equipment set so much so that you couldn’t recover from?”

“I know it may not be believable but please, trust us.”

“...Fine. I do trust you two.”

Their eyes both lit up.

“There is something special about this city, Fallway, that is different from any other place around the continent. The rate of reported theft is 3 times the national average. It does not seem like much but, it does considering every single one of these cases remain unsolved, their items forever lost.”

This was new information, even to the bandits.

“But I’m still turning you two in anyways.”

---

 

Eventually Rikki found himself alone standing at the edge of a cliffside. He slumped on the guardrails and let his mind rest.

“This place is really high up, isn’t it?”

Rikki watches the horizon above the sea. The star shimmering behind the orange lit clouds was the celestial object that keeps the world warm. A boy was playing with a rather large beach ball off by the side creating background noise with his laughs. Stars and beach balls. At least Rikki still had basic knowledge of the world around him. He sighed and put his chin where his hands were resting on the guardrail.

“Who am I really? What was I initially supposed to be doing here?”

He’ll quite possibly never know the answer. What would a person even do in this situation? The sound of the boy wasn’t helping with the situation. Although when he took a glance at him, the boy was coming toward the edge of the cliff.

“Hey… that's a little too close…” Rikki said not necessarily directing the thought to the boy.

Then Rikki noticed the beach ball had slipped from his fingers. The boy, following the ball, ran straight for it.

“Hey… HEY!”

The ball had plundered. No possible way the boy would lack the common sense to follow after it, but Rikki not knowing himself, found himself in between the boy and the edge of the cliff. Perhaps the boy was going to follow after the ball. Because when Rikki pushed him to safety, he found his foot to have less room than he had imagined. He slipped. And he fell straight down. This was not an exciting life to say the least.

Until he felt the feeling of a circular object on his back. Rikki was floating! Or rather he was lying down on the ball the boy had mistakenly lost. The ball… was frozen in midair.

“Well… this kid is too young to remember this later in the future.”

Rikki looked up and saw Kaori standing on top of the edge. She was exactly where he was just standing a second ago. 

“On the other hand, explaining this to a person will be a lot of work.”

Rikki didn’t want to look down. Tamaki suddenly appears with a rope on hand.

“Rikki! Grab this rope!” Tamaki ties a rope around the guard rail and drops the other end by the side of the cliff.

“Don’t worry, it may appear flimsy but it’s actually sturdy. Straight from our ship! It won’t snap, I promise!”

Rikki stared at the rope, it really didn’t seem brand new. It was fraying everywhere.

“You have 2 more seconds before the ball drops again.” Kaori said.

Whether it was the truth or not, when he heard that, Rikki quickly jumped for the rope and grabbed it. He couldn’t tell whether or not it was two seconds, but the ball did indeed become affected by gravity once again. Inch by inch, he climbed up the rope. Like Tamaki said, it was sturdy.

“Don’t worry little child. I can get you a new ball, exactly like the one you had. In fact, I can get you any amount you wish!” Rikki hears Tamaki say to the child as he pulls himself over the rail.

He was already occupied with the fact that he can’t remember himself, and now it seems he left in the dark on another thing. These two are like the ones from yesterday. And now finally, Rikki gets to ask.

“Who are you people?”

Tamaki and Kaori looked at each other. Without any words exchanged, they agreed to share their story.

“Rikki… are you aware of the existence of the abilities?” Tamaki asked in a quiet tone.

He thought back of the spectacle back in the city. There was no mistake. Rikki hadn’t hallucinated the event yesterday. This would mean he knows that he didn’t know about certain things in the world.

“Are you telling me that supernatural powers actually exist and pretty much everyone except those with them don’t know about them?”

“All correct, Rikki. Well then, do you know what my ability allows me to do?” she says with a grin on her face. Tamaki leans down and picks up a rock that was near her foot. She gives it a good look and closes her eyes. 

“You see this rock right here? In 7 seconds, it will land onto a sidewalk and a bicycle will crush it with its wheel, causing it to get split into 3 different pieces.”

“Huh, how could you—”

Tamaki tosses it behind her into the streets. A boy was riding a bicycle incredibly fast. Unknowingly, he ran over the same rock. It was crushed, and what was left of it was 3 different pieces.

Rikki didn’t know what to say. He was speechless for a multitude of reasons. 

“Mhm~ my ability allows me to know exactly the physical properties, position, and state of an object 10 seconds into the future. It’s like the Universe is a 3-dimensional grid. Although, I would need to touch it first and from that initial contact, 10 seconds into the future is all I get. Plus the general surroundings of it is out of reach for me.”

Kaori sighed. 

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re giving information to devise a strategy or if you’re just showing off.”

Rikki looks over to her, curious as to how she made that ball float. In response,  Kaori takes out another coin and tosses it up. The coin rises and then suddenly freezes in midair, floating as if someone had taken a picture of it.

“What I am able to do is completely stop time for a specific object. As long as it’s within a range of 2 meters and if I concentrate on it, it will pause for 5 seconds. You really should have seen yesterday. Tamaki tripped on a curve, but I quickly used my stasis on her bag and used it to leverage herself up. Then she awkwardly stood there holding her bag in a weird way as she waited for the effect to wear off.”

“C—Cut that out!”

And so I don’t have one...

There was one question he wanted to know the answer to.

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why tell me about everything you have told me about your abilities? You know I have the power to just report you two to the higher ups. Then scientists would keep you guys as lab rats doing tests on your bodies against your will.”

“That’s that thing. They have been doing tests.” Tamaki said with a straight face.

“Wait really? How are you out in public like this?”

“Not on me idiot. I mean they have been doing tests on those that show up with abilities ever since they first emerged a long time ago.”

“What? How long have they been around?! Who was the first one that gained an ability?! Why isn’t this publicly available information?! How many others are there?!” The calm persona Rikki tried to maintain let off.

“Hey, easy on the questions. Act more properly. There is only so much I can answer.”

Rikki has been hesitant about asking this, but he has decided to bring it up now.

“Ok. First question. Is it possible to have an ability that completely wipes away the memories of someone of a particular event?”

“Why yes. In fact, I would be surprised if there hadn’t been one yet.”

“And, is it possible that when used on someone, their memories of their past life completely disappear?”

“Well, I don’t know the answer to that question unfortunately. There’s still not much information on the nature of these things. The whole ordeal is extremely unpredictable.” Tamaki said as she let her eyes gaze off at the horizon.

“Really?”

“Getting one in the first place is one of the major unsolved problems for humanity. Those with no ability and those with one share no biological difference. They bend the laws of known physics with how they distort the space around us. Energy seemingly produced out of thin air. A person using their ability changes the environment around them. No matter what, with all of the efforts of modern science, the absolute cause of this change cannot be traced from an origin point. That’s part of the reason why I’m aiming to pass that test. To be granted the opportunity to uncover the underlying secrets behind them.”

Rikki was speechless on the whole ordeal of the world.

“Hold on Rikki… do you not remember who you are?”

“...”

“All this time… you never said anything?” Tamaki said with a concerned look on her face. 

“I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

Looking back on it, Rikki thought he should have said something from the start. He had nothing to his name currently. Rikki was not the only one in the dark, all of humanity was as well. 

“What kind of reason is that?! Isn’t this kind of important?!” Tamaki yelled as her face was pressed up in front of him.

Rikki stayed silent. It was enough time for Tamaki to calm down.

“Tell us everything that you know so far.”

As he did, the two listened without question.

“The way you were describing that girl seems like you find her attractive.” Tamaki commented.

“Unfortunately I don’t have much to compare her to currently.”

“Nice remark. Anyway, how interesting. Perhaps that man may be responsible for your loss of memories. It seems like he has the ability to take people’s memories of a brief period. Though, I don’t understand why it specifically affected you in such a way that it completely sapped you from your memories.”

“Is there a societal system of people with abilities or something? That man said that they needed the girl for something.” Rikki remembered the man saying there were seven of them. Whatever that could mean.

“Yes. There exists a secret organization founded based around the existence of abilities. That organization is ca—” Tamaki clasped the palm of her hand to her mouth as soon as she was about to finish her sentence.

“Tamaki, we should be hurrying off soon. As your valet, I don’t want you to be late for your study session.” Kaori reminded?

As a response, Tamaki patted down her uniform, “Ah… that’s correct. Thank you Kaori for reminding me.”

There hiding something, Rikki thought. It seems there is indeed an organization made up of these types of people.

“But let me just say something. Just because a person has an ability, doesn’t mean that they are affiliated with anything. Take me for example. I don’t know any other details about that organization. It’s very likely that the girl and the ones who captured her have nothing to do with them. More importantly, there are far more pressing matters, like your lack of memories.” Tamaki continued.

Now that he thought about it, who exactly are Tamaki and Kaori, the two girls that were standing in front of him? They told him all of this, but they haven’t once said anything about themselves at all. How and why do they have abilities?

“But you know… for someone with a fresh restart on life, those are certainly two nice goals to strive for.” Tamaki said with a sly grin.

Before Rikki opened his mouth to demand more answers, something strange occurred. That was then they saw the haze of smoke surrounding the inn.