"What's up with you?" Kotoko muttered in annoyance as I carefully squirted icing into the cookies that had come right out of the oven.

"With me?"

"You're all...I dunno, serious," she complained disdainfully, playing with the ends of her long mauve ponytails.
"It's like you've completely changed overnight. You remind me a lot of that Kamakura guy now."

"Oh? Then I suppose I have yet to adapt those glaring crimson orbs and that long mass of hair."

"Very funny," she pouted. "Even the Servant's acting weird. Did the two of you have a break up?"

"I'm um...not sure what you mean by that, but again, you've got the wrong idea. Me and him were never dating in the first place, so..."

"I call bs!" She insisted. She said a lot of other things after that but I didn't hear them. I was thinking about something of more importance, hence was able to block out her voice completely.

It's very hard to function normally once your memories have been lost. Even if someone else narrates your life to you to make you remember orally, it won't be the same because of those little experiences which play the most role into carving your personality.

One tazer to the head made me lose myself.

Maybe another tazer to the head would help me find me?

Like a small electric switch. Like how Toko swapped between personalities. It probably wouldn't work so perfectly out for me, but I need to restore myself.

"I want sprinkles on top of this," she said, breaking me out of my train of thoughts.
"They're in the attic, so go get them."

"Sprinkles in the attic...?"

"Yeah. Problem?" She demanded, arms on her hips.

"None. I'll be back soon."

I obediently climbed the stairs up to the attic.
I creaked open the door sheepishly. Like your textbook attic, it was a disorganised, begrimmed room with cardboard boxes and odd pieces of furnishings scattered around.

I sighed. It would be a nightmare to find a tiny bottle of sprinkles here.

I had just barely turned my back to the door, when it shut itself with a soft clink.
I shook the door in its frame dejectedly after realising it was now locked.

"Shit-!" I cursed, ramming my shoulder against the door after taking a few steps back.

"HELLO?! CAN ANYBODY HEAR-!"

"Do quit your hollering," a familiar raspy voice sounded, from the back of the dimly lit attic; which nearly made me jump out of my skin in shock.

"Kamakura?!" I started, turning myself around.
"What are you doing here? We've been locked in..."

"It'll open if I just pick at the lock," he said lazily. He was perched upon a huge wooden dresser, occupying his usual posture of one leg bent and the other hanging free.

"Then why don't you open it?"
I enquired in a softer voice.

"Because I was expecting you. I can't tell which talent it is, but I have...premonitions."

"Why would you go out of your way to fulfill a premonition?"

"Of course it wasn't just for that. The only way I could confer and exchange information with you in utter confidentiality would be if we met by accident."

"O-Okay then...if we talk, then you'll get us out of here, right?"

I took a seat on top of a short cabinet.

"Yes," he said.
"The only reason why I even bothered to strike a conversation is with you...is because I identify with you. This is from one successful test subject..."
His telescopic unyielding eyes bored into mine.

"To a failed one."

"What?"

"If your experiment had been fortunate, I would've probably not existed. The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History would have taken place eight years ago. I'm pleased it failed. Grateful, even."

"I-"
My mind was completely blank. I could not decipher a word of his claims.
"I don't understand, I'm afraid. I don't understand whatever the hell you're talking about."

"Of course..." He murmured; his orbs seemed to zoom in and out of focus, like he was measuring my thoughts.

"The tazer of a friend...affects memories of the past...I think I get the gist of it now..."

"Ignorant lady," he says all of a sudden, snapping out of his analysis trance.
"You are truly deplorable. You haven't even tried to retrieve the events you obliterated...to find out what happened to your own self..."

"If I had time for that stuff, I would!" I said indignantly. "It's not like I have anyone who'll tell me about my past! I don't even have any tools for research or-!"

"Quiet," he commanded. Instantly I felt silent, the Ultimate Talent was somebody I wouldn't want to mess with.

"Well then..sit tight and listen. Make sure your attention doesn't waver...and listen hard and well.

"For I-"
He leaned back into the wall, folding his arms across his lean, formally clothed chest.
"For I...shall tell you."

"When you were younger, 8 years younger, your parents offered you up for the Talent Instillment Programme because you were born Talentless."

"That's impossible-!" Kamakura's incredible words made me interrupt him-

"Be quiet. Unless you wish to remain half-informed and ignorant. I am not obliged to tell you anything, but you're Enoshima's...sister, so..."

"I'm sorry. Please continue."

"The Talent Instillment Programme would have made you just like me. It was a premature, underdeveloped idea which led to its obvious downfall.

"The man inside my body before me, the Talentless person that I was was a man called Hajime Hinata."

His slurring voice lingered a little at the name, as if they had a web of memories connected to them.

"As Hajime, I did relentless research to find out if there had been someone like me, someone originally Talentless to have signed up for the Programme. I guess Hinata was a little unsettled by the fact that the only person who did do it failed, and went missing a few months later.

"You," he directed at me, "you were the one who went missing."

"Can I...say something?"

Silence. I just hoped it ran as a yes.

"You're saying this Programme...it failed, right? But the story doesn't add up because I do have a Talent! It's an Ultimate Talent and it has been recognised and recorded by the Government!"

"If that's true, there's only one viable explanation."

"And that being..?"

"You were born Talentless, but you acquired your Talent through natural means. You worked hard to get there. Not like me. You didn't take a shortcut."

The woman turned her head back at the voice. Y/N's head peeped out from behind the door sheepishly.

"May I come in?"

She nodded her head silently.
She was working on her laptop, its blue-white light being the only source of illumination in the dark room.

"Mom...if you're angry, I swear I didn't mean to. Junko kept saying awfully wicked things to me, like-"

"I know," Mrs Enoshima said, stroking her head.
"You were also very upset about Neko, right? I understand."

The kid's eyes lit up in happiness. Here she had been dreading that the only person she cared for in the entire world would fade away and disappear, just like the rest of her family.

"Mom..when are we going to run away? I'm tired of waiting..."

"It'll be soon. Let your surgery be completed so that you aren't weak when we escape. No one will ever know where we escaped to. I'll start a new job somewhere and we'll live in a cottage, just you and me."

"I can't wait! Oh mom, to be with you forever!"

"I can hardly wait as well. And oh, can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

"Take these coupons and place them inside the pouch on the door, please," she said, handing Y/N a few pieces of blue paper.
"So that the milkman can leave milk for us in the morning."

"Okay!"
Y/N walked outside happily, almost having an excited little spring in her step.

A few more years...months, even, before she could have her dear mother all to herself, with no Junko, no Mukuro, no dad...

Opening the door open a crack, she stepped outside the house in the dark, cold and star-less night and placed the milk coupons inside the pouch as instructed.

A minute of lull...before a lifetime of...disaster...

The house burst into flames. The door was completely blown off as Y/N was sent flying backwards, her breath along with frenzied horror mangled inside her throat like a poisonous pill-

The horrifying bright fire shattered the windows as more beams and bricks and concrete collapsed...

"Oh mother, to be with you forever, I can hardly wait!"

"I anticipate this day eagerly as well..."

"No..." The haunting memories of their last conversation made the maggots inside her head ache so much-

"NO! NO!"
Her voice split into a thousand fractals of excruciating pain, tears obscured the terrifying surge of fire and burning wood before her-

"MOM!"

The tree she had crashed into with the impact of the detonation, that tree and the trees all around shuddered with the scorching heat and wind from the enormous fire.

It hurt...it bled, her arms were burnt and her knees bled away...

On top of the half-decayed roof...it was only a tiny silhouette, but not tiny enough to not make out who the person was...

Junko's pigtails blew in and out of her face, distorted with maniacal pity. Her deranged smile reached from ear to ear, arms akimbo, holding a stuffed monochrome bear across her chest like a silver shield.
The hem of her red skirt seemed like the hem of Death's robe itself, blowing freezing dread into her sister's shattered soul.

Death's accomplice, a short, dark haired, nimble-looking soldier was crouched by her side, both their eyes glowing a steely, blood-curdling sapphire.

Y/N's heart did not let her bear courage anymore. Adrenaline pumped inside of her veins, but chose the flight instinct instantly.
She stole one last, heart-breaking glance at the abode of her childhood; turned her heel towards the forest surrounding the fire, and fled for miles.

But she had reached civilization.
That...was a good thing.
She had arrived in some kind of market place. The early morning dew made her already fatigued body shiver harder. Dressed only in a white jumper and a pair of red shorts which were more or less; entirely scorched, she collapsed against a brick wall and slid all the way down to the ground.

She was sitting slumped up on the wall behind her, when-
A black garbage bag was lying right next to her.

It moved.

It was only a small stirring at first, then it started moving around roughly and gasped for air.
It was tearing at the tough plastic, desperate to breathe.

Unsure, she slowly edged towards the garbage bag and placed her hand on it. Sensing movement, the thing inside it went still immediately.
Then firmly penetrating her finger in, she tore open the bag.

Her heart almost leapt out of her chest with what she saw was inside it. A small boy, a few years older than her. He was covered from head to toe in bruise marks, and he was so on edge he was still trembling when she found him.

His face was red from terror and he had long dirty locks of brown hair, which seemed to be fading under a growth of white ones.

"Ha...ah...hah..." He took in deep quivering breaths of the winter air.
"Thank...you..."

Y/N took a step back in astonishment. They both took a good, stupified look at each other for a whole minute.

"Why are you burnt?"
"Why are you in a garbage bag?"

The both enquired at the same time. Amused, the boy smiled a little bit.

"I'll go first then. I was kidnapped. But later I was released all tied up inside a trashbag so I wouldn't know the kidnapper's face. I was about to die for the lack of oxygen!"

He tittered a little. But needless to say, Y/N was far from cracking a smile back.

"So...what about you? Did you get into some kind of an accident?"

"Uh-" Y/N's voice was hoarse from running and silently weeping all night. She wiped off her face and shook her head.
"N-No...it's nothing. I'm sorry you got kidnapped. I'll...be on my way now."

She hastily turned to leave, but-

"Please! Wait!"

Y/N turned back slowly at the appealing protest.

"Would you grab a bite with me before you leave?"