Artificial Memory (DISCONT'D BUT WILL UPLOAD UNEDITED CHAPTERS)

Chapter 3: The Genderqueer Tumblr Shitposter In My Head Is Actually Useful

He cried out in pain, spots of his own blood mingling with the blood of our enemies, but he continued to struggle. Another grabbed his open wing as more struggled to capture him.

Just before they would've knocked him down and probably killed him, there was the sound of a blade tearing through flesh and bone crunching. A wave of blood sprayed down on the ground at my feet, scaring the absolute shit out of me and making me remember a mortifying anime plot. That anime being Corpse Party.

It's certainly not a fun party.

I gasped, struggling to my knees, and turned to glance at our saviour. Unfortunately, it wasn't my mother.

However, it was a pretty good-looking guy, so this was actually a win-win situation.

A young man in his early twenties with wavy, jet-black hair and a single, pale green eye was oddly untouched by any blood. A black leather eyepatch covered his left eye, and he was holding a blood-red Kisarigama while standing in front of the fallen bodies. He wore a dark red trench coat over his white t-shirt, black pants, black and green adidas sneakers, and red bandanna.

Memory scrambled to my side, gasping in effort as our enemies fled the scene, and shook my shoulder. Call me weird, but he was pretty cute when he was worried.

"Are you okay?"

He panted.

I slowly stared up at him, dragging myself out of my admiration, then nodded.

I grabbed Memory and used him to get to my feet, then I glanced at the strange young man. He nodded silently to me for a brief moment before slowly glancing at Memory.

Both of them stared at each other, eyes glittering in recognition. The young man took a few steps back, eyeing Memory fearfully. However, Memory blinked, recovering from his initial surprise, and grasped his wounded shoulder before smiling and calling,

"Oh yeah, thanks for that! We would've been dead if you hadn't come!"

Apparently, he wasn't familiar with the stranger. This surprised me, because the initial look in his eyes had said otherwise.

The man in the red coat shook his head in bewilderment before taking a few more steps forward and murmuring something. His eyes were growing shiny, as if he was about to cry, and his Kisarigama seemed to disappear into his right sleeve, which was weird, but not the weirdest thing I'd seen all day. Arnold-wannabe was.

However, it was at that moment that I knew this man was definitely tied to Memory.

"What?"

Memory asked him.

"Hitashi....you're back! You're..."

The young guy murmured with a smile, tears of joy running from his eye. I stiffened, hurriedly gesturing for the man to stop speaking.

Well, I was certainly lacking in my reflex time, because when I glanced at Memory, he was stumbling backward while hunched forward, hands clutching either side of his head.

I really need to learn to handle situations like these quicker.

He let out a cry of pain, then collapsed to his knees and fell down, hovering on the edge of consciousness.

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I was paralyzed in pain.

As I lay on the ground, my thoughts were replaced by an unbelievably realistic flashback of the stranger and I as children...me as a tiny kid and him as a slightly older one at a playground, laughing.