Hololive: Reflection

Part Twenty-Seven: An Old Home

Artia shook her head and stumbled to her feet, looking around at the white expanse that greeted her. Dusting off her dress, she began walking in hopes of reuniting with her group.

"Yogiri?" she called out, "Are you there?"

No response. She began to worry, although her standard calm façade played off these emotions. After much traversing, she came across a small village. A village she remembered. The village she used to call home. Absolutely flabbergasted, she ran up to the small town, walking down the main street. She recognized everything, from the small schoolhouse to the udon shop she and her friends would always lounge around after magic training was over. She reminisced sadly as floods of memories came back to her, remembering the times the udon shop owner would yell at her for not buying anything from recalling the time she transformed from a wood mage to a frost mage. She eventually went off the beaten path and made her way towards the suburbs, where she found a small shack with a clothesline and wheelbarrow outside of it. Home.

"Artia! You're back!" a white-haired woman ran up to greet the frost mage, "Shouldn't you still be in school?"

"Mama...?" Artia stammered, at a loss for words, "That's impossible..."

"What do you mean, sweetie?" Artia's mother pondered, pulling away from the hug, "What's impossible?"

"Y-you and the rest of the villagers died in a fire, mama..." Artia managed to inform, "My magic went crazy, but then the man in a black coat gave me my sealing ribbons and took me to the dimension where Earth is..."

The two stared at each other in silence for a long amount of time. Contrasting Artia's worried and pained expression was her mother's unfading warm beam. This unsettled the white-haired frost mage, beginning to wonder if her mother was okay.

"Mama, are you alright...?" Artia questioned.

No. Nothing was alright. The village burst into flames. All the villagers screamed out in agony. And her mother's burnt corpse stared right through Artia's soul. Artia's face contorted, gazing fearfully at the charred woman before her.

"You're right, Artia," the corpse of the frost mage's mother said, "We're dead. And it's all because of you."

"Why didn't you save us..." another corpse asked, grabbing her ankle. She recognized it as a boy from her class.

"It's because she wasn't strong enough, Masao..." yet another corpse replied, putting her hand on the mage's shoulder. Artia looked over, realizing it was one of the girls she used to hang out at the udon shop with. She gasped.

"N-no, it's not my fault...!" Artia shook her head, tearing away from the corpse's embrace.

"You could have protected us, if you weren't weak," the boy said, unable to stand due to a missing leg likely lost in the fire, "But your ice magic wasn't enough. And we died because of it."

"No... no, that's not true!" Artia's voice began to shake.

"Sweetie, don't deny the things you know to be true," Artia's mother shook her head, an unsettling smile widening on her burnt face, "It was your fault, wasn't it, sweetie? Just admit it, you'll feel better."

"I..." Artia stammered in fear.

"This is nonsense," an odd figure shook his head and took out a small revolver from his massive dark cloak, "I know for a fact that these people wouldn't say such things."

He then turned to Artia, who was trembling uncontrollably upon hearing the words of these corpses.

"Look away now, if you'd like," he warned. Artia complied, and the sounds of gunshots, screaming, and the splattering of blood filled her ears.