章 1: Amelia's Time
As she sits languidly in her office chair, Amelia Watson listens to a song on the radio, eyes closed and hands relaxed on the arms of her chair.
The song is the song of her mind, a mixture of unknown tunes, mashed together, slowly degrading at every pass. A perfect amalgamation of Amelia Watson's life and memories.
She who passes through time with ease and dirties it with her antics, she who had scrambled the great puzzle of the world for her own desires, is given the punishment of an endless sense of loss, forever wandering in the sea of her fading memories.
Amelia Watson, the one who can see the beginning and the end of everyone and everything, cannot see her own beginning or end.
She listens as the tune starts to change, its melodic dance becoming rougher, it stings Amelia's ears, causing her head to jerk about.
Amelia's mind begins to show her memories, they flash in her mind like a static-filled television, she can't recognise these scenes in her mind, the voices of the people whose faces are hidden by the static are completely inaudible, and the locations that start to tear and rip are completely foreign, she feels so lost in her mind and it's breaking her, slowly.
The song continues, now becoming a low, echoing growl that scratches the walls of Amelia's mind. She grits her teeth and grips the arms of her chair, her body writhing in pain as the song forcefully pushed more unknown memories to appear.
Now they were places she does recognise, however, the time in which she is placed in is one she has yet to traverse.
How?
How could she remember a time that she has yet to happen?
She may be able to travel through time itself, but she is still bound by its laws, she must experience the present for it to become her past. Yet these forced images show her a time she has yet to see.
Just then the door slams open and a gleeful shark girl comes bursting into the room looking for her.
"Ame come on, we're about to..." She notices the detective's face is as pale as a sheet of paper and immediately rushes to Amelia's side, shaking her as she fires her questions. "Ame? What's wrong? Ame?!"
"Gura." Amelia turns to her friend, eyes full of panic. "Gura, when did we meet?"
"What?" Gura asks, confused.
Ame grabs her shoulders tightly, making the little girl flinch. "Gura, when did we meet?"
"Huh? It was after we were all accepted into Hololive," Gura answers.
"Then why..." the detective whispers. "Why do I have memories of you before Hololive?"
"Ame?" Gura's eyes widen, the little shark tries to hold her friend but is interrupted when the detective starts to scream in pain. "Watson?!"
With her mind broken, Amelia begins to deteriorate in front of Gura, she grips tightly onto the shark's arms, her nails digging into her skin.
Gura flinches from the pain, but bears it as she calls for the others, she then tries to calm the detective down by whispering some sweet words and stroking her head but nothing works.
The rest of the English Hololive branch then arrive at the scene and they manage to pry Amelia away from Gura. But the time traveller then grips her own head as she curls into a ball, shaking uncontrollably and chanting to herself:
"Who am I... Who am I... Who am I?"
After a couple of minutes, the detective faints and the girls take her downstairs where they lay her across the couch of their home with Gura providing her with a pillow by laying the detective's head on her little lap.
With Amelia fast asleep, the other girls decide to discuss the situation they are in. The members of Hololive Council all ponder what could have caused their friend to break down, wondering if the detective is currently under some sort of hypnosis. Meanwhile, the members of Amelia's group, Myth, all gather around their sleeping friend, their faces painted with distress.
Gazing at them from a short distance, is Ouro Kronii, a member of the Council and the warden of time.
She notices that Myth all have the same expression and questions them about the sleeping detective.
"Does she know?" she asks the Myth girls.
"What?" the phoenix, Takanashi Kiara asks. "What are you on about Kronii?"
"You know very well, what I am talking about." Kronii scowls, her eyes thinning as she stares down the Myth members. "Does she know?"
The Myth girls all turn away.
The Council members are now interested in the conversation, it isn't every day Kronii speaks with such authority. In Hololive which they're all a part of, the Myth members are their superiors, yet right now, they are cowering in front of the time warden.
"Ok, have you known?" Kronii inquires with a softer tone.
"We have," Calli answers.
Kronii sighs in despair. "And you thought that keeping this from her is a good idea why?"
"We were told not to," Calli says, her voice getting smaller.
Kronii's eyes momentarily widen before she lets out a disgruntled sigh. She then paces around the room grumbling to herself before turning back to the girls.
She continues to interrogate the girls asking them if they were ordered by a girl that Kronii only refers to as 'her' and the Myth girls all just nod.
"Oh my god, that idiot," Kronii says in annoyance. "I warned her but she never listened!"
The back and forth continues, eventually, Kronii tells her superiors to tell the detective everything they know, but the Myth girls refuse since they are still under an oath to 'her' to never speak about their knowledge to Amelia.
However, Kronii isn't going to have that, she stomps over to the Myth girls and glares down at them. Through a seething voice, she tells them to reveal everything to the detective or face the consequence of causing their friend to suffer forever due to her unknown memories.
"This isn't something you can just ignore, the more you run the more she breaks. Only by telling her can you end all this," the warden says to the girls. "What's more important? A dead, crazy woman's words, or the life of your friend?"
Kronii leaves the room and Council follows after her confused. Meanwhile, the Myth girls begin to ponder the warden's words.
------------------------------------------
A few hours pass and the detective fortunately wakes up from her collapsed state. Her eyes tears open and she sits up while clutching her head.
"Ugh, what happened?" she asks in a daze. She then looks around the room and notices she has left her office. "How did I get here?"
A couple of seconds later, Gura and the rest of the EN girls enter the room and Gura immediately darts over to Watson, kneeling in front of her, grasping her hand tightly with a relieved expression on her face.
"You're awake!" she chimes. "I was so worried."
The detective looks at her with a raised brow. "Worried? Why?"
Gura is stunned, she then turns to the others who are just as lost as she is. The shark then turns back to the detective and looks down at the floor as she forces an explanation out of her mouth.
"Um... well, you see..." Gura stutters relentlessly, she tries to find the right words, but none are coming to her.
Then in her time of crisis, she feels a gentle hand clasp her shoulder. She looks up to the side and sees the gentle face of the reaper smiling at Amelia.
"You were just having a nightmare Ame," Calli lies.
"Oh was I?" Amelia asks, trying to rack her mind for some answers.
"Yep, why don't you go have a shower and cool off," Calli suggests, hoping that the detective would bite.
"A shower?" The detective then sniffs herself. "Do I smell that bad?"
"I can smell the chemicals on you." Calli then waves her hand in front of her face while pinching her nose. "Definitely get a shower."
Amelia then turns to Gura. "Gura, do you smell the chemicals?"
Gura jolts at the question but nods. "Ye-yeah, you're really stinky."
Seeing as two of her genmates say that she stinks, Amelia now thinks she's nose blind, she does spend a lot of time with her chemicals, so maybe she doesn't notice anymore.
But of course, these were all lies and Amelia doesn't know that.
The detective takes Calli's advice and leaves the living room to take a shower. Though as she leaves the others, she notices that everyone is wearing these forced smiles as if to say they're definitely hiding something from her.
Once in the clear, Calli sighs heavily, she tires from lying to her friends, but she can't risk Amelia having another breakdown if they opt to tell her the truth.
Kronii though, voices her opinion on the matter, calling it a foolish decision. Because to her, hiding only pushes the problem back, not solve it and she thinks Amelia is better off facing her nightmares rather than running from them.
Calli's lips stay shut, she knows Kronii is right but is it worth Amelia's mind shattering over?
After a nice shower, Amelia returns to her office and is surprised to see the place so tidied up, last time she was there, her papers were still spilling over her desk.
"Did Kiara come in clean up?" She admires the cleanliness of her room, being wowed at how organised it now looks.
She plops her towel onto her desk and walks over to a tall cupboard where she then takes a new set of clothes to change into.
Afterwards, she then heads over to a smaller cupboard where a wooden box is sitting on the top. She opens the box, revealing the number of syringes and vials of blue liquid within. She then takes one of the vials and shakes it a bit before grabbing a syringe and plunging the needles through the aluminium cover. Amelia empties the vial of its contents and walks over to her desk, she sits on her chair before placing the syringe in front of her.
The detective then rolls up her sleeve and flicks her wrist a couple of times, before fishing out to some cotton balls and alcohol she just so happen to have in one of the drawers of her desk. She wipes her wrist with an alcohol-filled cotton ball, before taking her syringe and slowly inserting the needle into her fair white skin. Once the syringe is in, she then pushes down on the plunger at the top.
Her homemade concoction, which she dubs the "Watson's Concoction," swims through her veins. This relaxant is one of the ways Amelia relaxes, because with this concoction in her system, her dreams become very vivid and sweet to experience.
Amelia leans back on her chair and closes her ocean-blue eyes. Slowly, she drifts into the recesses of her mind and she eventually finds herself looking at yet another blurry scene, with two shadows playing on what looks like a field of green grass.
Her vision slowly draws closer to the silhouettes and slowly Amelia could make out the shape of a young girl. Then the detective began to hear her voice, the little girl was giggling, enjoying her life to the fullest. Amelia draws closer and the little girl notices her, before sticking her hand out as if to tell Amelia to take it.
"Amelia, let's play!" the little girl says and it immediately snaps Amelia out of her dream.
The detective's eyes shot wide open and she shoots forward on her seat with sweat dripping down her face.
"What was that?" she asks.
"Looks like not even your drugs can help you."
Amelia looks up and sees Kronii leaning against the frame of her doorway.
"Kronii," she calls. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to help and to tell you the truth," Kronii responds, walking over to the detective's desk with a steeled gaze. "I think it's time Ame. For you to know who you really are."
------------------------------------------
It's been a weird day for Amelia, her memory is fuzzy about what happened before she woke up in the living room and no one wants to talk to her about it. Now she's being dragged by Kronii somewhere after telling her that she's ready to know who she is.
Underneath the orange sky, Amelia follows the silent time Warden as she paces in front of the detective to an unknown location.
Amelia tries to initiate some conversation by asking where they are heading, but Kronii doesn't speak a word. Amelia tries to ponder what the secrecy is all about, and it's not just Kronii either, even her own genmates are hiding something.
"We're here," Kronii says, her first words since they left on their outing.
Amelia turns her head to the side and sees where Kronii has taken her. With many stone tablets erecting from the ground, people kneeling and praying, some having flowers in their hands.
"A cemetery?" Amelia then turns to Kronii. "Why are we here?"
"You'll see." Kronii enters the cemetery and Amelia follows suit.
They pass by dozens of gravestones, before stopping at one in the middle of the cemetery.
"Here." Kronii steps aside and motions for Amelia to read the gravestone.
Amelia does as she's told and walks in front of the gravestone. She reads the name and her eyes widen upon finishing.
On the gravestone, is her name, Amelia Watson.
"This... this isn't right. How can I be dead?" The detective questions, she turns to Kronii and repeats herself. "How can I be dead?"
Kronii doesn't say a word at first, but then she tells her friend a tale of a woman who existed in many different eras. A woman who had no regard for the laws of nature and polluted the time stream with her antics, and died not knowing where she truly belonged.
"Amelia Watson was a woman who had nowhere to return to, and when she died, she concocted a plan to anchor her existence in one era... a true origin as she called it." Kronii turns to the detective. "You are that origin, you are her dying wish."
The detective was at a loss for words, is she not Amelia Watson? Is she not the time-travelling detective and a member of Hololive Myth? If she's not any of that, then who is she?
Turning to Kronii, the detective asks her who she is, but Kronii could only look away in pain.
"Ame, you're... you're..." the warden pauses, she looks away and closes her eyes for a few moments before returning to Amelia. "You were a homeless girl on the street she picked up and filled with her own memories. You are... essentially just her container, someone who merely inherited her life."
The detective's grip loosens and she slowly falls to her knees, her mind begins to draw blanks, and she stares at the ground completely stunned.
"I'm... not Amelia Watson?"
The two returned to their home and the detective just walks to her office not once hearing the greetings of her friends from the living room. When Kronii shows up behind her, the others knew exactly what happened, the Myth girls rush over to Kronii each of them glaring holes into her as they questioned the warden.
"What did you do?" growled Calli, her skin starting to tear away, exposing her skull underneath.
"I showed her the truth," Kronii answers, staring down the others without a hint of fear in her eyes. "You can't keep hiding it forever."
"We weren't planning on hiding it forever," Calli shot back.
"Then how long were you planning then?" Kronii questioned. "Were you going to wait till she was old and decayed? When she's lying on her deathbed, waiting for her fire to go out? When were you planning on telling her?"
Myth doesn't answer, but their gazes waver, showing hints that Kronii is indeed correct in some aspects.
"This is the problem with those who don't understand time, you can't grasp how dangerous it is for someone to not know who they are. If a person cannot trace their origins, they'll lose their minds as they are constantly wandering in an empty vacuum, never knowing whether they are themselves or someone else, and it's worse for her since she has false memories, which means she'll constantly be haunted by them. Do you have any idea how painful that is?"
Myth can't answer back, they just hang their heads in shame and walk away from Kronii.
The night arrives and the air has yet to let go of its sombre mood, the detective has yet to come down since her arrival and usually to be the first down for dinner, her room continues to be locked throughout the evening.
Concerned, Gura walks up to her door with a plate of pasta on hand and knocks on it, she asks if the detective would like some food, but she is met with total silence. Knowing that she probably won't get an answer, Gura places the plate on the floor and tells the detective that her food is there if she needs it before returning downstairs.
Inside the office, the detective is sitting on her chair, hugging her knees and burying her face in between them. Her mind played those false memories over and over again and each time they played, her heart broke a little.
"It's all just lies, all of it. My friends, my family... myself, all of it, are lies."
The night ends with nothing but heavy hearts and regret.
------------------------------------------
Days pass and the detective's state has not changed, she continues to stay in her office letting dust settle on her like a forgotten piece of furniture.
In her mind, she concluded there was no reason for her to live a life that isn't hers to begin with. She questions whether her decisions are truly her own, or whether they are planned by Amelia Watson.
Is she truly thinking for herself, or because Amelia Watson would've thought the same way?
The Myth girls try to get her to leave her office by talking with her through her door, but their words just fall on deaf ears.
Growing concerned as the seconds come and go, the Myth girls start to wonder if they should tell the detective everything, in hopes that it could clear her mind. But they are told by Kronii that it would become a futile attempt, they've dragged the problem on for too long and the truth broke the detective, any explanation would just be a waste of breath.
Her seniors ignore her though, they blame Kronii for the detective's state. But, they can't disagree with her either, so once again they gathered in the living room, with heavy hearts and guilt-filled minds.
"I say we just tell her," Kiara proposes.
"But Kronii said it won't work since Ame now knows she isn't Ame," Gura replies.
"You really gonna believe Kronii now? She just hurt Ame, even though she said, her finding out the truth would help her. I don't wanna listen to anything she says," Kiara argues.
"Kiara, Kronii is the warden of time, she literally knows the effects of time travelling, its risks and the consequences of messing with a timeline. She knows what she's doing," the gentle-voiced, Ninomae Ina'nis counters.
"So why is Ame currently depressed huh?" Kiara questions.
"Because we dragged it out for too long!" Ina shouts, surprising her genmates.
The priestess of the Ancient Ones is never one to raise her voice, so to see her easily blow up is telling of the situation's effect on them.
"Well... what are we suppose to do now?" Kiara asks, somewhat shaken from Ina's outburst.
"That's what we're trying to figure out Kiara!" Calli roars, further frightening Kiara. "We fucked up by not telling her and these are the consequences. We never should have made that promise!"
Everyone stays silent at the end, their heads hang in guilt as they all agree with Calli's words. They have made a mistake and now they are paying for it.
While the four members of Myth are all bickering and consolidating with one another, around the corner, hidden behind a wall, the detective leaned back, listening in on her genmates.
She has left her office at the request of Kronii, who has told her that it will do her good to listen to her friends.
Kronii knows she's in pain, something that the detective does not deserve but even she is not so heartless to let her bear it for all eternity, nor is she heartless enough to let her seniors suffer due to a foolish woman's request.
"They are trying you know. It's not their fault, they made a promise with her," Kronii says to the detective.
"What was the promise?" the detective asks.
"To hide the truth," Kronii answers.
The detective doesn't say a word, she returns to her office and sits back down on her chair, leaning back on it before closing her eyes and sighing.
She looks around the dark, messy room, seeing how she has completely let it go after she had an entire mental outburst before finally locking herself inside. Her papers are scattered everywhere, empty knocked-over bottles of booze and water, plates of unfinished food and her used syringes were just lying on her floor.
"God it looks like a drug den," the detective notes in her mind.
Her eyes then wander to her desk, then to a picture of her and Myth, the first picture they took as a group. Back then they were all smiling as bright as the sun, yet now they're all trapped in a gloomy world where the light feels so distant.
A knock then comes from her door, but she ignores it, much like she has been doing for a while now, but the person on the other side still speaks up.
"Ame? You're in there right?"
It's Gura, the little shark girl has been visiting her every day to give her food and check up on her from the other side. She's been telling her about how their days have been going and how everyone has been missing her. However, all of the shark's words are just met with silence, but she never once stopped talking to the detective.
"Are you still seeing Amelia's memories? They must be quite the mess huh? Ame, would you mind listening to a story for a bit?"
Again, nothing comes out from the detective's end.
"I'll take the silence as a yes then."
Gura sits down on the floor and leans back onto the detective's door. She then closes her eyes and smiles a little.
"You know when I first met Amelia, I was instantly drawn to her, she was smart, pretty and tough. I love her a lot and would greet her whenever she returned from cases. I remember begging her to bring me on some, but they weren't always safe, so instead she brought back lots of souvenirs.
She was the kindest girl I've ever met, so when she died, I was really sad. I was so depressed that I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't go out of my room and I wouldn't talk to anyone. But then one day, Calli and Kiara convinced me to join Hololive and there I met a girl who looked just like Amelia. Her blonde hair, her blue eyes and even her booba, it was all just like Amelia when she was younger."
The shark's words continue to be met with silence from the detective. But she doesn't stop, she starts to tell the detective about the times they have spent with one another. The silly days they have wasted with one another, the games they have played together as a group and the everlasting memories which they have burned in their hearts.
For the shark, the days she spent with the detective are just as precious as the days once spent with Amelia Watson.
"Ame, I just want you to know... for us, you're not a time capsule... to us, you're you, you're Amelia Watson, our friend... so please, come out. We miss you."
The detective then hears Gura's footsteps fade into the distance, leaving her once again in silence.
While on her own, the detective closes her eyes and lets Gura's words echo through her mind, the feeling of being accepted despite being a lie rattles her, she feels like she should be in misery but the shark's words bring comfort instead.
And so she asks herself...
"Is it truly ok for me to be Amelia Watson?"
She opens her eyes and looks at her reflection on her window. She ponders and ponders, debating with herself endlessly, her desires and logic colliding like a hammer to a blade, shaping and forming different thoughts that drive the detective mad.
She once again holds her head and tries to push the thoughts back, but she's painfully aware even she can't keep doing what she's doing.
The detective looks around her room, imagining the times she and the others messed around in there, she remembers their happy faces and the joy she felt.
For her, all of that was true, and while the others knew she is a lie, they still smiled, laughed and cried with her, something Amelia Watson could never have controlled.
"You'll always be Amelia Watson..." The detective echoed.
Those words, though cliche to listen to, did give her a sense of self. It didn't make her feel better per se, but it did make her heart that much lighter.
She gets off her chair and walks to her door, she reaches for the doorknob but stops just short to think about what she is doing. Out there is a world she can no longer look at the same way, is she prepared to return?
No, she isn't, but she doesn't want to let it take control of her forever, she's too stubborn for that.
"Come on you... you've been through worse, you can do this," Ame tells herself before forcefully moving her hand and turning the knob.
She leaves her office for the second time and heads downstairs where she can still hear her genmates talking amongst themselves about what to do about their friend.
Ame clears her throat, catching their attention and making them freeze. They then awkwardly stare at one another for a bit before the Myth girls all start to rush to her side, clamouring at her as they asked if she was alright.
"Ame how are you feeling?" Kiara asks in a sweet, but forced tone.
"Do you need food or water?" Ina asks in concern, her eyes soft as can be, watering a little.
"How about we go out for food instead? There's a new pizza place I saw earlier," Calli invited, pointing outside with her thumb.
"Ame?" Gura clings to her shirt tightly and gazes up at the girl, tears threatening to fall.
Ame looks at all her friends, her tired eyes taking in their expressions one after another. Her heart tightens, she has made these girls go through a lot as well and yet she calls herself their friend.
"I'm sorry everyone," she breathily says. "I must've caused you a lot of trouble huh?"
Myth quickly grabs her and locks her in a tight group hug, crying, they shake their heads and tell her she hasn't done anything wrong before they start to apologise for keeping her identity a secret.
"We're so sorry Ame, we should've told you," Kiara cries. "We were just so scared."
"We already lost one of our friends... we didn't want to lose another one," Ina follows her voice breaking in between her sobs.
"But we should've been honest. We should've told you and helped you through it," Calli then says, her arms tightening around the detective.
"We love you Ame! We really really love you!" Gura bawls, burying her head into Ame's side like a child to her mother.
Ame watches as her friends slowly turn into crying messes and she can't help but also join in not long after, letting all her pent-up pain and suffering burst through like a raging river to a dam. Her tears rush down her face and her voice bellows through the walls of their home alongside theirs.
All of her memories surge through her mind like lightning, every painful, joyful and sorrowful thought plays like a movie.
Is it hers or someone else's? It doesn't matter, right now, all that matters to Amelia Watson is that she is with the people she loves, the people she calls family, the people who have always stood by her side for all time.
This is all that matters.
------------------------------------------
The crying subsides and the group all sit close to each other, Gura and Ina hold Amelia's hands in theirs as they all share a tired smile.
"You feeling a lot better Ame?" Gura asks.
"I could ask the same to you lot," Amelia counters, earning a giggle from the others. "Hey, could I ask a favour from you guys?"
"Sure whatever you want," Ina says.
Amelia pauses, she drops her gaze to her feet and takes a deep breath before asking her favour. "Could you... could you tell me more about her? About Amelia?"
The others look at her with wide eyes before turning to one another.
"What do you want to know about her?" Calli asks, somewhat still taken aback by the detective.
"I just want to know what she was like, from how Gura described her time with her, Amelia sounded important to all of you," the detective answers. "I know I can't be her, but if I'm going to move forward with her memories, I might as well know everything about her."
The Myth girls share another glance with each other before they all smile and nod at Amelia.
"Well," Calli starts, "where do we begin?"
On the roof of the building Kronii is staring at the sky with a blank expression, her figure doesn't move an inch as the breeze kisses her skin.
"So, this is how it ends huh?" she voices in an amusing manner.
The door to the roof then opens behind her and out came her genmates alongside the solo debutant IRyS.
"I'm guessing I'm gonna get questioned huh?" She asks with her back to them.
They all nod but also give an audible queue to make sure they get their point across to Kronii.
"Time is linear, no matter where or when Amelia Watson headed, there was no way she could run from time's effects on the mortal body. So when she realised that she was getting old, but had no origin, no beginning, she became desperate and went looking for when she was born, hoping to find answers. But, even after all that searching, she found nothing.
So, instead of looking for her own origin, she decided to make one. She took a young homeless girl off the streets and filled her with memories of her past. Gave the young girl her name and my watch, then left her. Though it seems as though Amelia's memories were repressed for a long time, which explains why our Ame didn't recognise them."
Kronii laments on that final thought, she remembers her involvement in transferring memories over from one person to another, something she knows has dire consequences on the mind. However, when her mind flashes the sight of Amelia Watson's anguished face, she remembers how weak she was in heart and did the woman's bidding in the end.
In her head, Kronii apologises to not only Ame, but also her seniors for taking a moral high ground when it was her hands that had crafted the pain inside the detective's mind. Yet, those words of regret may never leave the warden's lips, as her pride will not allow her to.
She knows that for all eternity, her sins will crawl on her back and the burden of her crime will plague her mind. However, despite all of that, she also knows she can seek comfort in one thing...
That Amelia Watson, the time travelling detective of Hololive Myth, will now be able to live on, without her nightmares and for Kronii, that was enough.
End~
— 終わり — レビューを書く
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット