Six years

"You are sad, so take this and don't be sad anymore!"

Leo froze. 

Staring wide-eyed at the small girl, he reached out and took the balloon's string. 

"Thank you…?" 

Leo's eyebrows raised on his face before his entire head angled up as he looked at the rubber animal dancing on the passing gusts of wind. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

Not giving the young man any time to rest or think, the mother of the kid rushed over. 

The woman leaned down and rested her hands on the girl's shoulders, giving her a quick check with a hint of worry on her face before looking up and nodding her head in apology. 

"I'm sorry, for some reason, she loves nothing more but to approach innocent bystanders…" 

The troubled look on the mother's face said it was all about the troubles she found herself or her kid in due to her child's naive yet outgoing personality. 

"Ah, please, there's no need for this," Leo hurriedly put on an equally troubled look on his face while hastily analyzing the situation from beyond his social mask. 

'Should I use her, or try to do everything on my own?'

The look in Leo's eyes changed, steeled a bit. 

"Also," Leo raised his face while taking half a step back, just to escape the pair's personal space. "I'm sorry to trouble out of nowhere, like that," Leo lowered his head back while putting on an even more awkward mask of an expression, "but could you maybe point me out to the nearest hospital?" 

The woman's eyes froze only to widen a mere moment later. 

"Hospital?" She repeated before blinking her eyes and collecting her thoughts, quickly raising up and reaching out to her pocket. "Do you want me to call an…"

"Ah, anything but that!" Leo slightly raised his voice while taking another step back and shaking his head. "I seem to have some sort of memory loss, so I'm not even sure if I have insurance of any kind…"

Shaking his head, Leo took another step back. 

"I wouldn't want to incur some great debt, so just pointing me out will be more than enough," Leo said while adding a slightly conflicted smile. "I feel fine and all, but…" the young man helplessly looked around, "I have no idea how I've got here or what I'm supposed to be doing here."

Leo raised his hand and scratched the side of his head. 

"I figured, the hospital is where should I go to get myself checked out."

The look on the woman's face gradually changed as Leo fed her his harmless bullshit. 

"I see," she mused before taking a moment to think while she rubbed her chin. "In that case, you should head down this street," she pointed out before her face froze again. "Actually, come with me, I will give you a ride…"

"Oh, no, there is no way!" Leo quickly and vehemently refused, raising his hands and shaking them along with his head. "I do not need urgent help and even without all my memories, I'm aware just how precious of a time it is for a woman to spend with her young daughter."

Leo beamed a bright, mature smile at the woman, a smile that only a man in his fifties awaiting the news of his grandchildren should be able to make. 

"I…" The relatively young, kind-looking mother looked down at her daughter, only for a small, warm smile to flourish in her mouth. "I see. In that case, you should head down this road," the woman pointed her hand down a street Leo knew every inch of… but couldn't recognize at all at the same time. "Once you reach the big roundabout, you need to keep going straight and then take a first turn left. The hospital will be at the end of the street."

There was something else to a human trying to offer a slight help to a stranger. A certain warmth that continued to reinforce Leo's determination over the countless harsh battles he fought. It made all the blood he spilled and lost a worthy offering on the altar of world peace. Especially for someone like Leo, bound to lose all of the relationships he cultivated the moment his mission in any given world came to an end, it was an extremely precious source of motivation and even validation. 

But right now, the warmth of this random mother's smile reminded the young man of something else. 

'That's right, everyone…'

It's been over two hundred years worth of bloody crusades across six different worlds and lifetimes since Leo last saw his family. 

For all intents and purposes, he had no right to still keep any memory of them. And yet, whenever his body would revert back to its youthful form during the summoning, all of those memories would refresh, once again etching themselves as an endless source of grief and loneliness into Leo's remade soul. 

Now, though, rather than grieving, Leo could hardly keep his excitement in check. 

"Thanks, I hope you will have a great, leisurely day," Leo finally shook his head and came back to reality, even if only a second or two passed in the real world since he fell into the ditch of his memories. He also realized, by now, that he was still holding on to the woman's daughter's balloon!

"Oh right, here, and thanks to you too," Leo put on a relaxed smile as he squatted down and passed the toy back to the girl. "It really cheered me up, all thanks to you." 

The girl beamed a bright, massive smile that spanned nearly from one of her ears to the other, only to then raise her head and give her mother a smug, satisfied look. 

"And before I forget," Leo rose back up on his knees and looked at the girl's mother before scratching the side of his head again. "Would you mind telling me the current date, just in case?"

The woman raised her eyebrows, slightly taken aback by the request, only for her lips to meltdown in an amused smile. 

"Sure, it is the tenth of September…" she started, only to see Leo nodding his head as relief painted all over his face, "two thousand, ninety-four."

Leo's smile froze on his lips. 

'Doesn't that mean…' he gulped his saliva down, struggling to take the news with a straight face, 'it's been six years?'

"Is everything alright?" the woman asked, her face twisting in a look of concern as she read the shock Leo failed to hide. 

"Ah," the young man's head jumped as if the question somehow took him by surprise. Then, he followed with a slightly, only slightly, troubled smile. "It seems that I've forgotten a bit more than I thought."

//Extremely important Author's Note://

I do not trust myself to stay clear of politics if the story were to take place on earth. That's why, while everything that's not specifically mentioned or hinted at is the same as on Earth, the story does not take place on the Earth that we know. It's just a similarly modern world, roughly set into 2010-2020, before the pandemic pushed the first domino that started the chain of events that left us in the current world. 

In other words, it's not a commentary on stuff like pandemic, war here, conflict there, or any of the currently ongoing societal debates/conflicts. The problems the world of this story is going to face are exclusively crafted for this story and for the story's sake, not for some underhanded commentary or an attempt to push my views onto anyone.

To sum it up, the world of the story is as close to being the earth as it can while excluding all the real problems of today. For that purpose, I will keep the dating of the story shifted by 70-80 years ahead, but by no means does it mean the story takes place in our future or is a concept of how earth's future in eighty years could look like.