Climbing Memories

"So what will it be, Haru Shinzou? Since you asked for it, how do you want to die?" Her eyes glittered with a cold presence of shine. Her eyes were cold, lifeless, and overall terrifying. She didn't appear this harsh when we first met, so what changed?

"..." I couldn't stop my body from shaking from her overwhelming presence. I hadn't felt this before when I was dead, but since I'm alive, it makes sense as to how I'm feeling the pressure. I didn't think that she would appear so suddenly. I don't even have anything to protect myself...!

"Is there something wrong, Haru? If you don't decide, then I will. It took a long time managing to obtain a human form and getting here, so it will be respectful for you to hurry up and decide." Human form? Nevermind that, she's getting irritated and impatient, so it's best if I just answer already.

"...I respect you for wanting to fulfill my wish, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to postpone it." She lowered her scythe and looked at me with incredulous eyes.

"What?! You want me to postpone it?! What happened to wishing for death from me?! Are you telling me that you don't want to die anymore?!" I could feel the pressure rising in that single moment.

"...No, it's not that I don't want to die anymore," I raised my arm to scratch the back of my head. "It's that I can't die as of right now. I need to do something important before I call in the towel. If anything, you can use this extra time to--"

Right then and there, I felt as though I lost a part of myself. From the soft feeling that I had felt my hair... had disappeared so suddenly.

"What...?" It felt as though time was slowing down. The sight of blood clouded my vision, making me turn my head to see what caused the sudden bleeding.

My right arm had been cut off.

"ACKAAAAAAAGAHHH!" The pain was unbearable. I bent on a knee and continued screaming. Tears started to pour from my eyes and saliva started to come from my mouth. My head started to ache, and I couldn't feel my legs.

"I don't have time to listen to your reason, Haru. Make this easy for me as much as I would like to make this easy for you." I couldn't respond, my throat started to hurt from the screaming, and I couldn't just run.

"I told you that I will fulfill my promise. And for that to happen, you have to die." As I looked up to see her raising her scythe above my head, I could see the coldness in her eyes. She had gotten used to this because she was a grim reaper.

But for someone who was used to killing, why did her mouth curve downwards?

"KIKKERIKII~!" The voice of someone familiar had come from above, having us both look up to see a familiar orange clothed woman jumping down towards us with a sword in hand. Clicking her tongue, Calli-san had jumped backwards before the ground erupted beneath us as the person landed on the ground. As I landed on my back, I could see the same beautiful orange hair brighten ahead of me.

"Long time no see, Haru~! As much as you want to hide and do whatever you want, I'll always be on this planet to find you~!" She chirped happily.

"Stupid Bird, what are you doing here? You better have another reason other than wanting to stop me." Calli-san sneered as a welcoming greeting.

"Well, you already know what I'm here for~! Because someone had to leave without telling me anything, I had to arrive late. We both know that I'm stubborn, so why don't you call it a day? We COULD have some alone time together~!" While they continued to talk, I turned around to see Amelia-chan on the nearest wall and breathing a bit slow. It could be because of the cold mist and Calli-san's presence. We both need to get out of here if we're going to survive.

"Enough talk, Stupid Bird. If you came here to stop me, then, you're going to have to do so with a fight because I'm not letting this chance slip by." As Kiara-chan turned to me with a smile, that had soon turned upside down as she noticed the obvious situation on me. Her eyes had turned a bit lifeless before closing them and sighing. Turning around, she had touched a small emblem on her waist that had turned into a shield.

"Alright, Calli, let's just get this over with so I can heal Haru's wounds." Spinning her scythe around, Calli-san prepared herself.

"You might've caught me off guard last time, but I'm letting you get the chance to get close to my face."

"Oops, well, there goes that idea." Kiara didn't sound as her chirpy self anymore. She sounds more mature all of a sudden.

"Uhn..." Hearing her faint voice, I turned to Amelia-chan to see that her face was getting a bit pale. I'm going to need to let Kiara-chan handle this on her own; as if I was able to fight and help her...

"Come on, Amelia-chan, I-I need you to help me walk. ." Lifting her arm up over my shoulder with my only available arm. As I continued to feel more pain, I tightened my hand around her arm and walked forward. If we're going to get out of here, we're going to have to go around this mess...

"H-Hea...t..." I heard her voice again, but I couldn't figure out what she was muttering. But even if I didn't hear her, the faint glow that appeared from her new pouch on her left leg didn't pass my eye. As she used her left hand to reach into her pouch, she pulled out a red crystal that began to brighten more and more.

"What?" As I felt heat began to wrap around my body, I felt warmer than normal. Whatever she used to gather up this heat, it was surely helping.

"Stop... walking." Even when I heard her, I didn't stop. I couldn't help but continue to walk forward away from the fight that had started. But, suddenly, I was shoved on the ground and laid under Amelia-chan. As she laid over me, she had the red crystal in hand, she moved it to my right side and-

"Urghhh!" I couldn't scream anymore, but I did let out grunts of pain as I felt heat being pushed into my arm stub. This had continued for a few seconds before I felt my conscious slip slowly.

As my eyes opened slowly, I felt my body moving a bit slowly. Raising my head a bit, I could see a flashlight pointing forward in front of me, showing me a familiar sight of a dark tunnel.

                                                           -Holonatural-

"You're up, right? Come on, I can't keep carrying you forever..." As I noticed that Amelia-chan had my arm around her shoulder, my eyes blinked before moving my arm off of her.

"Amelia-chan, thank you..." I wasn't able to feel pain in my right side, so I guess I'm okay for now. But what am I going to say to my dad about this? He'll freak out about this...!

"Don't mention it. If anything, I should apologize for acting so slow. If I had reacted a bit more quicker, then you would've had your arm intact. The only thing we should focus on now is getting to Sakura."

"..." My father is one problem, but with only one arm, there are multiple things that I can't do anymore. I wouldn't blame Amelia-chan for my stupidity. If I had read the atmosphere, then, nothing would've happened to me. Why exactly...

"Thinking about your arm, huh?" It was more than obvious because I was staring at the stub that was once my arm.

"Yeah..." I felt her hand pat my back softly.

"It'll be okay. I'm sure there's technology that can help you get a robot arm! Just think about it! A robot arm that can transform into a gun, sword, or even a hammer!" I chuckled a bit. Odd, even for me.

"Yeah, I don't think that's possible in this day and age."

"Hey, it's worth trying to ask, right?"

"And who do you think is going to pay for something as advanced as that?"

"...Your dad?" I hummed.

"Well, maybe. I can't even think what his expression is going to be like when he sees me like this. You can stop patting me now." She moved her arm away from me.

"We're here, luckily. I almost thought we were screwed back there. We're going to have to thank Kiara for saving our rears." I hummed in agreement. She's back to her usual self, I think. Just moments before Calli-san came, we were arguing about a stupid decision that I don't remember doing.

Is this really okay with me to brush this off?

"We're here at the ladder now, so start climbing! You go first!" I hadn't noticed that we arrived at the ladder. I must've been in my thoughts for some time. Grabbing the bar with my only hand, I pushed myself up to climb.

"...Sorry." I spoke out loud as I climbed up again.

"Hm?" Her "hm?" sounded almost innocent.

"About earlier. You know, before we met Calli-san? I didn't expect you to get... so angry at me."

"It's fine, seriously. You don't have to be sorry about me screaming." Before I climbed up again, I felt this tug in my heart that bothered me. It caused me to tighten the metal bar.

"Still... if I hadn't caused you to be angry at me, then, we would've recognized something strange happening. Especially for you, who might know a thing or two about--ah!" Before I could continue, I felt a slap on my rear, causing me to look down to see a smirking Amelia-chan.

"Look at you blush~! Stop worrying about it! I told you that it's fine, so seriously, stop thinking about it!" I sighed before going back to climbing again.

"You know, you remind me of a person I met before." I scoffed before looking down again.

"Me, a suicidal idiot? Yeah, right." I started to climb again.

"Oh shut up and listen! So, long ago, I met this guy that used to always apologize for everything he did. It was quite funny and annoying at the same time." She laughed.

"Yeah, so apologizing is annoying to you? I'm guessing at the end of this story, the guy decided to not be your friend." I felt another slap on my rear but continued climbing.

"Anyway, things like addressing me without suffixes and all that caused him to immediately apologize to me. I kept telling him it was alright to address me without using suffixes, but I eventually gave up. Pulling his cheeks and ears weren't really helping either. Soon, time had passed and eventually, we ended up... you know, meeting up with another more and more."

"So, what? You two were a thing? I don't think I need to hear about your love life." I had gotten another slap on the rear.

"Can you just let me finish already? It's embarrassing as it is..."

"Fine. Go on ahead."

"It ended up with him knowing about my... detective work, and it led to him wanting to help out. I told him constantly that it wasn't worth it, but he ended ignoring all of my warnings. He wasn't the sharpest tool, but he did know some things. Everything was going well with cases that weren't a problem... until we had gotten one that happened to be very serious. I wanted him to not get involved in this mess, but he eventually came with me and decided on doing something rash..." I might've not been able to see it, but I could tell she was unhappy.

"Sorry." That was all I could come up with. I wasn't that good on cheering others up, but I at least wanted to try to be with her.

"It was my fault, so it doesn't matter. When we meet again, I'll be scolding him a million times over." I heard a sniffle from her. For someone like her, I didn't expect her to have this kind of story. She looked so giddy all the time that you just ignore the part where she's also human.

"Sorry, again." I felt another slap.

"...How old are you, Haru?" She asked with weird curiosity.

"16. Why?" She only chuckled for a response.

"No reason."