Chapter 2: Him

As Ciel watched her memories float by, she didn't feel sad. Perhaps it was because those memories were too far gone, or maybe one day she'd woken up and thought of them only as a dream. But facing her memories head-on, she realized that they didn't affect her as much as she thought they would.

Suddenly, Ciel watched as everything paused, then rewound. The girl was once again at the castle of Butler Hei, stuck under the body of the man she'd killed. But this time, she didn't move. She was frozen in fear, and by the time she'd come back to her senses, Butler Hei stood over his dead Master's body.

She'd returned?

Ciel could see the thoughts running through the girl's -- her -- mind.

Seeing the knife sticking out from his Master's back, the butler simply took the girl's hand and led her through the halls down a staircase.

Under the castle was a dungeon.

He led the girl into a cell, empty, save for a blanket, locked her up, and then left her to die. The girl covered herself with the blanket and slept on the cold, stone floor.

And that was how her days passed. Until the day she met him, that is.

He had messed up black hair and soulless black eyes that would make one tremble upon seeing them. But she knew those eyes. Those were the eyes she wore when locked in her father's basement in the place of her mother, and those were the eyes she knew she was staring right back at him with.

He was surprised when she stood up. Walking towards him, she stopped in front of him, with nothing to separate them but some iron bars. There was a flash of relatability in his eyes. It took a mere moment for him to accept that she and he were the same.

He was the one to speak first.

"You killed my father."

"Your father would've killed me."

He went silent. She took his silence as a form of acknowledgment.

"Why did you come down here?" she asked.

The boy stayed silent. The men in the dungeon usually would only respond when he asked them questions, never asking him anything themselves. But to him, it didn't seem strange that the first one who'd ever asked him something ended up being a girl covered in dried bloody clothing no older than himself.

She continued to stare at him, waiting for his response.

"I'm here to free you," he said, then paused, "and thank you."

Now it was the girl's turn to be dumbstruck.

"What are you thanking me for?"

He struggled for a moment before replying.

"My father....he was not a good man. Thank you for doing what I couldn't."

She nodded.

As the boy stepped to the side, she noticed the white-haired man who had been standing in the dark walk out. Stepping forward, the butler unlocked the cell door she was kept in and led her away.

She was given a room and food. They didn't make her cook anymore, so she spent her time roaming the castle.

This time she'd told the butler of her mother's whereabouts; however, when the mechanic was investigated, while human experiments were found and he was convicted, her mother was gone from the scene. Two weeks later she was officially pronounced dead.

They hadn't found her body, so the girl set up a stone under a tree near the castle and wrote "loving mother" on it. She had no memory of her mother's name.

The days continued to pass and the girl spent them aimlessly walking through the palace. Eventually she came upon a room with its door open. Walking in, she found the boy who'd let her out of the dungeon working with pieces of machinery.

Before she left, he spotted her.

"What are you working on?" she'd asked.

"Puzzles."

The girl thought back to her last life.

While her father was a monster, she'd still learned basic machinery from him. After showing the boy that she too could build things, they began to spend all day immersing themselves in the world of machinery and creation.

He was hailed a mathematical genius by her and he called her the mechanics behind the process. Soon, they developed a silent understanding of one another. She'd make puzzles, and he'd break them. And with time, their walls began to break too.

Like this, three years went by.

One spring afternoon, as the two of them lay on a grassy field, the girl worked up the courage to ask the boy a question:

"Brother, if I were to become evil one day, what would you do?"

The boy, not lifting his eyes from the new puzzle she'd handed him that morning, responded immediately.

"Well, I'd follow you and bring you back."

"And what if the good side was really the evil ones."

The boy finally looked at her.

"Then I suppose they could call me evil too."

The girl laughed and on the same evening that the boy cracked the puzzle, the girl broke the news that she was going to join the military.

"Why?" he'd asked. His eyebrows scrunched together as he looked at her.

The girl pulled her silver hair, now longer, into a ponytail, "I can't just freeload off of you forever. I should go to the military and earn some merit." Then she smiled, "Maybe I'll even have my own castle when I return."

The boy sighed, a hollow acceptance, and they spent the rest of the night eating and telling stories. And soon enough came the time for the girl's departure.

Pulling what appeared to be a solid block of metal out of her bag, she passed it to the boy.

"This is my hardest puzzle yet," she smiled, "I made it just for you."

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The boy took the puzzle into his hands. He looked back at her, and in his eyes Ciel could see he was fighting to say something. In the end, he didn't succeed, and she left. Little did they know, their next meeting would be their last.

-----

The girl was quick to rise up the military ranks. While she used to spend a lot of time in the lab, she'd also have mandatory physical training with the butler every night. Now that she'd steeled herself to gain merit, she was basically unstoppable.

"Officer," a man said.

Ciel could see the joy dancing in his eyes; however, the girl, now older, was oblivious.

She looked up from the documents on her table.

"Speak," she said.

"Chief has placed you in charge of mission 674."

The man handed her some documents, quickly disappearing behind her office door. Looking through the pages, the girl's face contorted.

"These fuckers."

It was a suicide mission.

She'd risen too fast.

There was nothing the girl could do about an assignment. Either she took the chance to succeed and came back with glory, or she was put to death by her superiors. The choice had been made for her.

Gathering her team, she set off.

The place she was assigned to was now nothing more than ruins. In the past, the building had stood tall, and even when undergoing enemy forces multiple times it remained standing. However one day the building mysteriously fell. Since then, the ruins had been an open battleground.

Because of the high chance of there being bombs that hadn't yet gone off inside, entering the building was practically suicidal, but since the king wanted documents, the army was happy to oblige, sending anyone deemed a threat to die. And she just so happened to make it to the top of that list.

"Team Leader, there's been no bombs found so far," one of her men said.

"Alright. Keep cautious and don't let your guard down," she replied. She couldn't help the sense of danger scratching at her.

They came to a staircase and filed down, swords secured to their waists. Entering a laboratory, some of her team members let out gasps at the sight; however, the girl didn't appear surprised. She'd long grown desensitized.

Human upon human floated in tubes placed in rows along the lab. The tubes were filled with greenish-blue liquid, with cords sticking out of each person's arms and legs. Though they looked human, something about them didn't feel quite right.

"Find the documents," the girl said, ignoring her wide-eyed team members.

They turned toward her.

"Team Leader," a younger girl with blonde hair was the first to speak up, "did you know about this?"

She couldn't believe that someone could be completely calm when coming across a scene like this unless they knew about it before. Her colleagues grimaced at the thought.

Her team leader flashed her a smile.

"Do I need to repeat myself? Grab the documents."

Of course she'd known. Her father was an official, after all. He'd performed experiment after experiment on her until she'd died.

Her team snapped out of their daze, going around the room to check for the documents. But the girl who'd accused her couldn't help being suspicious. As she grabbed a document, she'd kept her eyes on her team leader.

But she'd stepped on a bomb.

She felt the blast before she saw it. The scorch of her blonde hair, the surprise on the face of her leader.

She was on fire but she didn't feel alive.

Ciel watched her past self fly through a wall, enveloped in flames. She watched the sense of defeat fall over the girl's face. Her plan to take down the organization from the inside failed.

She'd never trusted the people in power. Every time she tried to, they'd failed her. But she trusted that boy. That's why she'd given him that puzzle. She'd never expected to return alive.

But as long as someone succeeded at taking them down her and her mother would be avenged.

She landed in a pile of rubble farther down in the building than the laboratory had been. All she could feel was the burn of her skin.

As the familiar scent of burning skin and silence overtook her, the voice of a woman became her salvation.

"So you're a victim too." It wasn't a question but a statement. The girl tried to respond, but the scorching pain in her throat stopped her.

"Hmm, but you're different," the voice paused, "Ah, so your mother sacrificed herself. This must be your second life."

A different voice spoke, this time a man.

"We all are also victims," he said, "Now we've become resentful souls, but since you've already died once we can give you power. All you have to do is avenge us."

The first voice pitched it, "If you'd like to."

The girl didn't speak, but they knew she agreed.

"Everyone," the male voice yelled, "you know what to do."

Suddenly the girl felt something crushing her. This wasn't the weight of one or two people, this time it was millions. All of their memories went through her. The desperation they felt during the experiments, the trust they'd lost in the crown, everything fell before her.

Slowly, she was lifted from the ground, rising to her feet. Her face, previously smooth and fair, was now a rough tan from the blast. The souls hadn't managed to completely fix her skin either; she was covered in patches as though she was a doll that had been stitched together. While she'd come back from the dead, she'd still been disfigured in the process. But it didn't matter. Beauty had nothing to do with revenge.

Ciel watched as the girl walked to the base. She now held the power to kill hundreds with a single swing of her sword. Quickly she tore through base after base. She left the lower ranks alone, only going after those who knew of the crown's torment, and in three years, all that was left was the crown itself.

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