Scarlet

I wake up feeling a lot better in the morning before putting on a sports bra and changing out my tank top and shorts for regular pants and a shirt, along with whatever else I need just to move around my suite. Then I quickly head over to the living room of my suite where I make a quick breakfast while listening to the TV.

“Breaking news! The Guardians Research Team has broken up!” a reporter declares on the TV, making me pause for a moment as I make scrambled eggs. “As of last night, the Guardians Research Team, which has always been the leading figure on any and all Guardian and System related research, has been broken up after the Teams head researcher retired last night to live in the countryside!”

I blink in surprise at that before shaking my head and focusing on my food again.

“The remaining researchers have all gone their separate ways or retired as well, leading us to believe…” the TV continues droning on, the reporter making up some ridiculous theories as to why this has happened. But in all honesty, I’m pretty sure I know why.

It was probably White’s doing. She probably threatened them into breaking up, since the Class Vs in the team are too powerful for her to just erase the memories of. And Class Vs in the famous team are too high profile for her to erase all the memories and details about in the entire world.

Or at least, that’s what I heard before. That it’s a lot easier for her to erase details about herself from others’ memories than details about others.

“It was her doing,” Tar suddenly appears in my living room, startling me for a moment before I return to making my food again. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go ahead,” I state, not taking my focus away from the food.

Not really sure why I’m making my own meal right now when it would be a lot more efficient to just go to the cafeteria.

Guess I’m just not in the mood to deal with people right now?

Probably that.

“Last night, you sounded pretty mad at your mother,” I glance at him for a moment at his use of the term mother before focusing on my food again.

“Was I?” I ask with a frown.

Tar floats around me and returns my frown as he answers, “Yes. You didn’t notice? Because you seemed to get really angry about the prophecies and what she did, only to suddenly turn apathetic over it…”

Oh. That.

“You remember how I mentioned that I’m bad when it comes to identifying and expressing emotions?” I ask out loud, still focusing some of my attention on my scrambled eggs. And after I see Tar nod his head out of the corner of my eye, I continue, “Well, some emotions are even harder for me to identify and express than others, with the absolute hardest emotion being anger. So a lot of the time I supposedly feel angry, I completely fail to identify the emotion and instead feel uncomfortable. Then I just kind of blank out and my ‘anger’ turns into apathy instead. Or at least, that’s how I’d best describe it. It’s a little hard…”

“I understand,” Tar says while floating over to my head, only for me to duck out of the way.

“No sitting on me, remember?” I comment, not stopping in my food preparation.

The tanuki floats in front of me with a sad look on his face, but I ignore it. So he continues talking, “You don’t understand the emotion you’re feeling, so when that happens, you just default to apathy instead. That would also explain a bit as to why you’re so accepting of whatever situation you’re in all the time…”

I nod my head at that.

It’s easier to just deal with the situation and then move on rather than try to figure out how I feel about it and complain after I do. Especially since I’ll probably have dealt with the situation by the time I figure out how I feel about it. Most of the time. A lot of the time.

Okay, some of the time.

But I’m getting better at all this! You should’ve seen me a few years ago. It was much worse then.

“Hmm,” Tar hums while eyeing my shoulder like he wants to sit there.

No.

I eventually finish my food with the tanuki watching me the whole time before going to the table and eating it. Then immediately realizing that it really wasn’t enough before I go to the fridge and grab a bunch of fruits to eat instead.

After returning to the couch, I grab the remote for the TV and set it to play some music instead of the news. And then I glance at the clock, finding that I still have another two or so hours before the tournament begins.

It only takes me about twenty minutes to get to the pod dock hall from here, so I have plenty of time.

“Plenty of time for what?” Tar asks while floating over and landing on the back of the couch.

To ask you what you talked about with White.

He freezes for a moment before relaxing and muttering, “Oh. That.”

I know there are things you aren’t allowed to tell me. Things both you and White aren’t allowed to tell me. But at least tell me what you are allowed to tell me. Please?

Tar doesn’t say anything for a few seconds before eventually answering, “Okay.”

I smile at that.

Thank you.

“I’ll warn you though. There isn’t much that I can say,” Tar says, not affecting me in the slightest since I’d kind of expected that. “Here we go then. As you can suspect by now, a prophecy was made by someone. But what you probably haven’t realized by now is the severity of this prophecy. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything about the prophecy itself. Just that it was entirely centered around you, and it was made right after you were born.”

I grimace at the mention of prophecies again. Those things are really annoying. The number of times humanity has done something just because of a prophecy since the start of the Demonic Assaults – more often than not ones Purple made – are too great to remember off the top of my head. And they always led to worse living conditions for orphans, for lower Tiered citizens, and just worse life in general judging by the history books. But living conditions weren’t what the prophecies were meant for.

They were meant to keep humanity alive.

And they succeeded.

“I feel like you’re probably underestimating the severity of this prophecy in question, but I can’t emphasize how important it is without leaking out too much…” Tar mutters, making me narrow my eyes slightly at his sneaking that part in there for me. “Oh, and one other thing I can mention freely.”

I tilt my head at that while snacking on some strawberries, my incredibly long hair that really needs a haircut falling over my shoulder in the process. Too bad the hair grows at like three or four times the speed it grew before I awakened. Probably something to do with my regeneration.

“Even if your mother is terrible, you have a grandfather on your father’s side, and he was absolutely against everything your parents planned. Against you coming here, against them abandoning you, against everything,” Tar says, almost shocking me into dropping a strawberry onto my shirt. “In fact, if he knew it was going to happen, he would’ve stopped it no questions asked. The man truly cares about you a lot. And for good reason, too. Although I can’t state the exact reasons. So you do have a family member that cares about you absolutely.”

I stare at the tanuki for several long seconds, not saying a word in response.

“Scarlet? You okay?” he eventually asks, making me numbly nod my head as I resume snacking on the strawberries.

I have a grandfather… who actually cares about me?

Wonder what he’s like…