All You Need is Me

A Normal Day

"Haaa..."

A soft, barely audible sigh escaped from her lips, the girl cautiously turning her eyes over to the side. Peering further along the once crowded area, now laid empty and barren –devoid of life– her expression softened slightly, taking a moment to relax her tensed shoulders.

"Mmm, that's about it then," she gently muttered, sheathing the sharp blade she held in her hand back into its scabbard, which was attached firmly behind her rear. As the hilt of the blade clicked into place, she let the slight wariness of her eyelids take over, closing her eyes as she began to contemplate on what to do next.

She didn't notice the sound of a blade unsheathing from behind her back, nor the footsteps that loudly echoed along with it.

But what she did notice was the loud bang of something colliding with another, her head snapping behind her as she witnessed a figure being flung to the side, crashing somewhere far from where her eyes could not see.

The cause of such a collision was nothing but a giant paw-like leg, shooting out from a rift that seemed almost translucent in the air it floated so freely about, before disappearing like it was never there to begin with.

Before the girl could have a moment to register what she just saw, however, she felt her shoulders –especially her back– suddenly burdened with the weight of someone else.

Their arms wrapped around her neck, pulling her closer as she could even make out their overly excited breathing next to her ear.

She turned, noting the wide unabashed smile on the person's face as they began to speak.

"Mei! We'll get the strength of a hundred warriors with Mei around!"

Their voice was cheerful, overly joyous at that. Somehow, that eagerness felt so right for them, is what she thought.

She immediately scoffed at their words though, an abashed expression taking over her face as she gave the girl a confused frown.

"A hundred? I'm no ultra-woman..." She found her mouth uttering, a sentiment that seemed to only spurred the girl further along their infectious optimism.

"I mean that if Mei's around me, I can feel my power increase one-hundred fold!"

Once more, their words were nothing short of ridiculous, a statement that made hardly any sense to her. Yet the way they said it, their lips curled into a cheeky wide grin as they held their thumb up to her made it all the more impossible to reject nor doubt any of it.

Instead, she could only let out a chuckle, that brief expression of utter confusion and bafflement fading away, replaced only with a smile that felt oh so right to give them.

"That's really something that Kiana would say."

Aaaah...it's Kiana...

The name struck her mind like a hammer, her heart beating ever so faster at the simple mention of it, coming from her own voice of all things.

Kiana, a name that she somehow couldn't recall until the moment she said it.

Kiana, such a fitting name for the woman that was holding onto her so tightly, so warmly and filled with unending joy and happiness just to be around her again.

Kiana, the very sound of it made her heart skip a beat.

Kiana.

I remember now...I always remembered...

How long she had yearned for the chance to say it, how much longer had she continued to yearn for it even after she had spoken it.

A name that felt so dear and close to her beating heart, one that made her mind fade away into nothingness, the image of the smiling woman being the only thing she could see.