IN THE END.

KIARA (chapter 4)

Whether it was catching her phone when she was being a little bit clumsy or surviving the impact of a glowing ball of apparently explodey stuff, Kiara thanked her warrior instincts every day. Because, as great as it was to have immortality, death was a painful experience— and she didn't want to lose these memories just yet.

Since her inception as a phoenix in 1255, she'd had nineteen lives. Of those nineteen lives, ten of her most precious memories involved (one of) the face(s) of death herself— Mori Calliope. If she had any self-preservation instinct, it was because she needed to stay alive long enough to kiss those damn reaper lips one more time. So she counted her lucky stars that she and the others were still alive. A phoenix that fears death, she thought, how ironic.

Looking around the ruins of the Hololive office, she saw Ina at work mending her own bones, and she saw Calli and Ame walk away looking very focused. She decided that she would let them be— Kiara was still shaken, and she didn't want to risk saying something stupid. Plus, they were probably following a lead or something, and she didn't want to interrupt them— she knew herself better than anyone, and if there was one thing she was, it was bird-brained and distracting.

That left only one member: Gura.

"Hey," she said, walking up to Gura.

Gura pouted and kicked a stray rock. "Damn it."

"Damn what?" asked Kiara.

"If only I hadn't been late..." she said.

"Hey," said Kiara, "it's not your fault. You're so hard on yourself, you know?"

It was true— she often scolded herself for making mistakes, and while Kiara wasn't entirely impartial to that notion that Gura might have a couple loose screws, the truth was that Gura was really smart (if maybe a little crazy on occasion). After all, she had an entire nation to run— and you couldn't run a nation without being a little crazy. If Ame was the logistics gal, Gura was the big picture player— she came up with the idea, and she did the initial pitch.

"Besides," continued Kiara, "I don't think there was anything any of us could've done to stop... whatever that was."

Gura smiled. "Thanks."

"No problem."

Suddenly, she had a sudden jolt of memory—

The alarms blared, but she knew it was too late. She could see the missile clearly from where she was— headed straight for her town. The people scrambled about, trying to get to the designated shelter, but there was no way anyone would make it. In fact, at this distance, she could see the missile's matte, swamp-gray surface. Oh well, she thought. I should probably try to head closer to the missile, make my death quicker so that it won't be as painful. But for some reason, she stayed rooted to the same spot outside of her quaint house— couldn't move, even though the terror of death was not new to her. She closed her eyes and tried to drown out the noise, but she couldn't think. A familiar tune played in her head, but she couldn't remember where she'd heard it. Then the missile hit— dead center of the town— threw her body ten feet in the air— broke practically every bone in her body— though she'd braced for it, the screaming pain was unbearable— she flew— had a fleeting thought, Like a phoenix, a sense of childlike wonderment despite all the pain in her body— felt the crack of her skull as it hit the ground and splintered into her brain— and died, again. 

Kiara nearly crumpled— felt the terror, raw and unhinged as it had been. Felt the wonderment at flying through the air. Felt the last dregs of her very own life drain out of her as she hit the ground. And most of all, felt how close she'd come to doing that again. She felt suffocated, trapped by the nature of her own soul.

Yes, these fleeting bursts of memory were nothing new— it was simply part of the curse of the phoenix. These memories from her past lives came not only in sparse droplets like just then, but also in big waves. They were considerably more common in the early stages of life— she was only a toddler in this life when she'd remembered most of the life before this, the life of a working woman, an average life, really, filled with adolescent drama and office drama and love drama and a midlife crisis (or however much of a midlife crisis you can have when you've already lived 650 years beforehand) and living to a fair age of 62 before having a stroke in 2002,  then falling into a coma for a year until her death in 2003. She remembered how she'd immediately become what amounted to an old woman, and then realized she was sucking her own thumb.

She sat down on a piece of concrete. "You ok?" asked Gura, coming to her side. Kiara realized that she was hyperventilating.

Kiara attempted to hold in her tears. "Yeah," she said under her still-panting breath. "Yeah, I'll be alright." She'd had these bursts of memory before— nothing she couldn't handle. "New memory. From... World War I."

Gura's eyes widened with empathy. "Damn. Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," said Kiara. "Best not to bring up old emotions."

"Ok," said Gura.

Suddenly, she pressed her small frame into Kiara's body. A hug, she thought, almost not registering the gesture. She wrapped her arms around Gura, returning the gesture, before they both broke it off.

"Thanks," said Kiara.

"Just repaying the favor," said Gura, standing. "So, what now?"

Kiara thought on this for a little bit. "I think we should go find Calli and Ame."

"Ok," said Gura. "Let's go!" She started to break into a run. Kiara thought she had too much energy sometimes, but that was fine by her. It reminded her of a more innocent time, of a stuffed ragdoll chicken and the dirty but friendly market at center square.

She stood and followed Gura, taking the slow, measured steps of her 766 years, but more than anything, she envied Gura for the way that she could live so easily, so carefree. How is she over nine thousand years old? she thought. She smiled at that thought, and looked up into the sky. I'll figure my life out eventually, she thought. I always do, I suppose.

author's note: ya ik kiara's official bio says she was born b4 humans but i like this better idc, like the official bio is basically nonexistent otherwise so give me some artistic license ;w;