Lucid

Sumire had little to no recollection of the abusive tragedy that befell her approximately ten years ago when she submitted her unprecedented faith into her father's hands. The tragic downfall of her innocence struck her one hazy afternoon when she arrived home from school early when her mother decided to take the blow for her daughter to stop her husband's derogative insults. Shattered broken glass shards lined up the hardwood floors as she returned home from school. An eerie candle-lit flame ignited in the living room as she stood by and watched the pelvic thrusts of shadows surfacing against the walls. The panged cries of despair from her mother only made her mind numb, and uncertainty fueled her veins in hatred.

Only this time, after being freed from the tormented chains that shackled her, enmity arose in her heart. Sumire could control herself at this bone-chilling moment, for her nightmares were lucid in the present. Pent-up rage over her father's sexual perversion only fueled the fire for revenge. She leaned her crooked legs down to the hardwood floors and grasped the jagged edge of a glass shard in her desensitized hands. Blood seeped through Sumire's wounds that the sharpness of the weapon created. She entered the living room to cowl at her father's dangling tongue and widened stimulated eyes. He turned his crooked head like a wooden doll to seductively stare at his daughter with the hopes of dominating her.

"Sumire, darling..." His corrupted voice called in the distance as he constantly gasped for air from his sexual desires. "Join your mother and me. Make your mother happy. Make your father happy. Give in to your fears..."

Sumire charged towards her father and screamed at the top of her lungs with the glass shard in her hand. Nothing held her back from fulfilling her revenge as she committed to the blow that would change her life for good. She plunged the shard deep into her father's neck but found that her attack failed as she passed through him like a ghost.

Instead, Sumire's strike had torn a rift into time by slicing the air around her. Her body tumbled forward through a direct cut in the atmosphere. As she remained in her child form, she found herself skydiving at lightning speed towards Earth. Endless gusts of wind struck her body as her skydiving speed rapidly increased over time. She began falling towards what appeared like the exterior of a school campus. With the glass shard remaining in her possession, Sumire touched down in front of the main gate during a cloudy afternoon.

A lonely boy loitered in front of the school campus in front of her, facing a young platinum-haired humanoid girl pouring her heart out for him. What she discovered was the boy painstakingly yearning to acquire the gift of friendship and affection from anything, even if it was a minuscule amount from a single individual. Sumire sensed the desperation in the young boy's heart the more she watched him attempt to control his fidgeting. The young girl gestured her palm towards the boy to offer him a spot within his lacerated and addled heart, which would heal the wound over time.

But as time passed, Sumire found the girl to be more than just a regular humanoid. Angelic wings erupted from her back, engulfing her in a radiant and heavenly light. A halo appeared over her head as she magically floated several feet above into the air. Feathers delicately swarmed her golden aura to bathe the boy in a healing aura that would cure his afflicted heart. But no matter how beautiful the girl looked, the boy turned his eyes away and refused to accept the angel's existence. Sumire stepped forward, longing to push the boy in the right direction of accepting the heavenly light of his desired fate.

Yet she was shocked to know that the boy had no mind of his own. He latched onto the angel's white feathery wings and sliced them off with his blade-like arms. The angel's light dissipated and her feathers scattered like cremated ashes. They crumbled across the ground and blew against the gusts of cloudy winds to send them into dissolving pieces of nothingness. The boy dragged the angel to the pavement and seized her neck in a fatal grip.

Sumire recognized this lucid nightmare instantly. She surged onward with her glass shard to jab it into the juvenile boy to restrain him from butchering the angel in cold blood. However, as her toes slid through the wettened pavement, the boy shifted targets and lunged onto Sumire's defenseless body instead. As she collapsed to the terrain, her glass shard faded from her grip. The boy's blood-soaked veiny eyes throbbed in ruby and violet horror with a lifeless neutral expression. His pale skin began to increasingly swell as scarlet blood dripped from his eyes. Sumire's failed to stop the boy from strangling her throat as she desperately attempted to strike his arms.

You can't change me, you fool. Only death can save you now. Soon, you'll be joining me in the same way your father will in the depths of hell. You cannot consecrate your fate.

Submit.

Sumire gasped aloud as she opened her eyes, returning to the present. Her heart thrashed itself rapidly after being ruled by the horrendous cruelty of her lucid nightmares. Glazed sweat secreted from her damp forehead and moist back to soak her in the terror of her imaginative insight. She clamped down on her windpipe and noticed saliva clogged in her airway. She hacked and coughed as powerful as she could to clear herself from it and the feelings of her imaginary murder from her nightmare. Her queen-sized bed was drenched in sweat as she hobbled her toes towards the floorboards in her bedroom.

"Fucking hell..." Sumire murmured as she struggled immensely to catch her enfeebled breath. Her feathery long black hair plunged towards her elbows saturated in sweat. As she proceeded to catch her breath, she gripped onto her heart as she recollected about her lucid nightmare. "Just get out of my head..." She mouthed as she shivered in the sweat's bitterness. "I don't want you here anymore. Please just disappear..."

After grabbing her smartphone to check for the exact date, she found herself thinking about the events after yesterday's celebration. She caught herself lacking the necessary energy to remember its details after her lucid nightmare. It was Monday at seven in the morning. Lethargic vibes only made it more difficult for Sumire to exert enough strength to move a single inch off of her bed. She rose from her position and heard her bedframe squeaking from underneath her. She spotted several confidential documents highlighted and scattered across her nightstand, prompting her to examine them closely.

They were files and documents printed out regarding the confidential case of the Melody organization. The audio encryptions that Naoto decrypted were retraced using audio feedback technology built exclusively in Aries. Its secret decryption allowed for the decrypter to retrace the origin of where the recording was sent. Now she had one location for evidence in addition to the original transmission signal; she recognized that both locations were radically separate from one another.

Sumire arranged the documents back on her nightstand before seizing a white feathery towel in her arranged closet. She had to shuffle through the closet while wiping the eye mucus that shrouded her occasional view. The sunrise's dimly lit aurora also made it challenging for her slothful mood to move throughout the morning while it taxed her energy even further. Despite this, Sumire knew she had to start her day regardless of what mood she was feeling.

In addition to her towel, Sumire grabbed a black sports bra dangling on one of her hangers. She chose some fresh black gym sweats and a short grey zipper jacket to go along with her morning mood. She kneeled and grabbed a black barrel bag hanging beneath her extensive shoe collection and inventory. As she yawned, she marched outside her room's doorway and noticed Jinni ap and attentive as well, fumbling through a storage closet for cleaning supplies.

"Morning," Sumire mumbled, rubbing her eyes with her left hand.

Jinni succeeded in finding a calcium, lime, and rust remover from the closet before she exited the closet. "Oh, Buongiorno, Sumire!" She greeted with a fresh open smile on her face. Sumire found it quite odd how Jinni's energetic and bubbly personality never changed even in the lethargic morning times. It was exceptional for Jinni to drink coffee as well, meaning her personality was never affected by the energy-enhancing effects of caffeine. "Dreaming about pizzas, I see. You must have been so tired after working on the Melody case with Naoto the entire night."

"I didn't dream about pizzas," Sumire clarified, stepping into the bathroom doorway. Knowing full well about the content of her lucid nightmares, Sumire chose not to escalate the sanctified imagery any further. "I dreamt about the Melody case. They cover up their traces so well, but some of their coverups are amateurish. It might be a trap if we let it get through our heads."

"You and Naoto are going to search one of the addresses tomorrow, Giusto?" Jinni asked as she rotated the CLR cleanser's cap to check if the seal was opened from within. "Where is it again? Bellatraza Town in the Libra District? That is not so far away from here."

"Yeah," Sumire said as she wiped more eye mucus from underneath her eyelids. "You're in charge of calibrating Ryo's new nanosuit today and training its mechanics in our arena. I don't want him using that Melody tampered crap anymore until we get to the bottom of this. Tomorrow, we'll be splitting up to tackle both locations to find out the truth about this Melody organization. Hopefully, all goes well between Naoto and me."

"What a dream..." Jinni giggled as she began daydreaming of an unusual fiction between Sumire and Naoto. "He gets to spend his day today with the love of his life!"

"Not funny..." Sumire whined, shutting the bathroom door. Her sluggish eyes studied the granite tiles in the bathroom that Jinni recently cleaned. After brainstorming through Jinni's quip, she found it not worth her time and effort during the morning struggle. She hung her white towel on a darkened brass towel bar before dropping her change of clothes on a hanging platform. She undressed her sweat-drenched pajamas and stepped into the shower.

To assist in waking her up from her unsettling mood, Sumire powered through and soaked her entire bare body in refreshingly cold water. She could sense her airways and eyes being freed from her morning lethargy. But while she resided herself in the shower to cleanse herself with rose-scented shampoo, Sumire reflected upon her lucid nightmares to discover if either one of them foretold divination.

No matter how much she tried to expunge her father's memory from her mind, it would not pass. Even if she sought her utmost desires to forget about him, she noticed he would perpetually emerge in dreams and alter the course of her sleep schedule by reminding her of the pure traumatic mayhem of her past. Sunlight's constant work in cracking cases across Aries already took up enough space in her mind to make her dream of her employment position, but she still managed to return to square one regarding her observations of her father's perverse and sex-addicted personality. Such vileness originating from her father was enough for her to hurl in agony, as the memories of being violated returned once more.

"Stop it, Sumire..." She muttered to herself as she scrubbed her face with peppermint body wash. "Stop being a slave to the past. You can't change it. My fate lies with the present."

The adolescent boy that suffocated her in her lucid nightmare unnerved her mind as she remembered the second phase of her sweaty anguish. The boy's uncontrollable and rebellious nature reminded her of Ryo's transgressing point where he threw his life away under Sezan's control. The brutality of the angel's wings being grotesquely mutilated only added to Sezan's substantial dominion over her brother's soul. What captured her mind so much as the fact that she could only dream of pain despite having her brother's change of heart occurring recently. His newly acquired smile only breathed life into her void of a heart.

April's near-death experience was only a day before yesterday, Sumire thought. She was the complete opposite of that swine. She opened my brother's jaded eyes to indescribable dimensions as she rescued him twice. It only took her four days to open his heart, while it took me nine years. And now time's been reverted as if he had never met her because of her accident. What happens now in the next month? Who's going to save my brother?

"Maybe I'm the one who needs saving," Sumire whispered aloud. She pressed her head against the granite tile on the side of her shower lost in thought. "What have I done to help myself in those nine years? What the hell do I strive for? What the hell do I want?" She chuckled. "I spent nine years trying to save Ryo, but I'm the one who needed to be saved. No matter what happens... I just can't get my father out of my head. No matter how irrelevant he is, he just won't escape from my mind. Fucking hell..."

Sumire switched off the shower and wiped herself with her white towel. She plugged in her hairdryer and began blowing it on her wettened and damp hair for several minutes until finishing. After administering some toothpaste to her toothbrush, she gently brushed her teeth and speculated about her brother's fate.

Think, Sumire. I can't always support Ryo. He needs to find himself on his own at some point in time. But then again, I don't want him to fall. I don't want him to lose himself again where I could have saved him. But even I have my limits. If only there was a way to subdue the pain inside my heart. I still feel like I'm rocking back and forth attached to my father's strings.

Sumire finished brushing her teeth and used a white ribbon to tie her hair into its fluffy princess side ponytail. She dressed in her black sports apparel and wore her Yoshimura motorcycle glove. She remembered that she presented Ryo the other half of her pair, but he hadn't worn it ever since he had met April.

"April really is something," Sumire mumbled as she swept her hair bangs to the side to reveal her temples. She had assuredly awakened after her deep slumber. "I really am jealous. She can remove all those harmful memories just by being herself."

Sumire exited the bathroom, separated her sweaty clothes in the washing room next door, and retrieved the Melody documents from her nightstand. She led herself downstairs and saw Jinni and Dr. Zanner cleaning the rust from the kitchen sink.

"Morning, Doctor," Sumire addressed. "Any idea where Naoto is? I have to give him these documents for tomorrow's trip."

"I believe he's in the hangar, dear," Dr. Zanner guided, gesturing with his hand towards another hallway on the first floor. "You should take a break sometime. You ate so many pizzas yesterday and almost had an all-nighter with the Melody case. Try to work stress-free, Sumire."

"You know I'm trying," Sumire admitted. "But the case isn't exactly a walk in the park either. We have to be equipped and protected to search the premises tomorrow in Bellastraza."

"Then you'd best get those documents to Naoto and prepare," Dr. Zanner inquired. "Claude won't be here tomorrow, so it'll just be you and Naoto. Your brother will have to team up with my daughter to handle the other affairs. Nana can provide radio support to the boy, no doubt he'll need it."

"Yeah," Sumire agreed, aspiring the utmost flexible support for her brother. Ryo coupling up with someone as vile as Natia wasn't particularly a bold decision either, considering her unforgiving biases for the Japanese home country and race impacted them both. She pondered if her life without Natia would be deserving as well, as acknowledging her rivalry with her was significant as a part of defending Ryo. "I should get to the hangar. See you two soon."

Sumire followed the long hallway path to a grey-colored bulky door on the side of the garage for vehicles. After pushing a red button, the door slid up until fully primed. Sumire raced towards the center of the vehicle hangar, a brimming technological area filled with lethal or nonlethal weaponry, contrivances, drones, traps, nanosuits, and one of Sumire's top specialties; mechsuits.

Sumire found Naoto nonchalantly dozing off next to one of the mechsuit chambers that housed her primary Sunlight-branded police patrolling mech. She discreetly placed her foot underneath the wooden stool that Naoto was sleeping on and hauled her foot across to rouse him.

"Wake up!" Sumire yelled, alarming Naoto.

"Oh, shit-" Naoto flipped out, nearly springing from his stool until he realized that Sumire was in his wake. "Oh, Sumire! Hey, hey... how's it hanging?" He answered, inclining against one of the tables with police trap gadgets stored on top of it. He slouched against it and sent it rolling away in a failed attempt to appear attractive. "Wow, you look great today. Super cool." The delivery of his voice slowly cultivated higher as he became flustered under her custody.

"Thanks?" Sumire responded to his awkward speech patterns and pitch-shifting voice. "Here, take these documents and study them. We're heading out tomorrow to Bellastraza. I'm here to see if my mechsuit's all ready to go."

"Oh, thanks," Naoto responded after accepting the documents. "It should be good to go. I maintained it enough to keep it running well. Want to see?"

"Of course," Sumire said.

Naoto rose and advanced towards one of the docking chambers that had Sumire's mechsuit within. He securely pressed and held a blue button on the surface of it, revealing the chamber housing the suit. A metal slope moved beneath the mechsuit, allowing Sumire's mecha to slide onto the metal floors with ease for testing purposes.

A jet-black and orange metallic hulking mecha slid out from inside as pressurized steam came blowing out of the temperature checking mechanism for maintenance. The mechsuit's sleek combination of noir colors resembled Sumire's treasured Yoshimura motorcycle. In its current passive and deactivated state, the mechsuit resembled a defensive model with cerulean colors outlined and trimmed across its metal plates. Three metallic horns served as decor where the pilots were stationed near its head.

"There you are, Natsu," Sumire distinguished with a beaming grin. "You look shipshape, all right."

"Wonder why you call it Natsu in the first place," Naoto mentioned, activating the suit's piloting function. Vapor discharged from the top of where the head resided, allowing Sumire to spring inside for testing purposes. "You never really made it clear why."

"Because of Natsu Higuchi, the famous Japanese author back in the Meiji Period," Sumire explained as she ascended the suit's chassis to enter the pilot mechanism. "She was an enlightened writer who fought for herself to become a strong woman. I always looked up to her."

"Oh, I get it," Naoto admired. "Nice to have this beast be your reminder."

Sumire accessed Natsu's piloting seats. To take ample control over Natsu's aptitudes, Sumire had to lean on her stomach on all fours to reside herself correctly inside. There were automatic laser sensors inside the mechsuit's piloting chamber that picked up on Sumire as its user, pushing her inside and fastening her body safely and securely. The neural interface that controlled the nanosuit's abilities was also present in the mechsuits to give their controller freedom of movement.

These neural interfaces connected themselves onto Sumire's head via sensory receptors, which were specific clothing devices that were placed on her arms, legs, waist, chest, and head to decode her brain signals, memory functions, and eye coordination into precise movements.

"All right, the neural interface looks settled in," Naoto's filtered voice rang clear through the pilot seat's microphone. Sumire's body was considerably stingy as the neural interface clothing squeezed her during the calibration mode. The cerulean neon lighting within was something Sumire had to accustom to once more, along with Natsu's firepower and movement capabilities via contrasting buttons. "We're gonna start a quick test to relieve some of that pressure in your interface. Activating it right now."

Sumire's arms and legs propelled automatically from Naoto's control. As Natsu activated, the pilot area was supplied with more space for her to move freely without having uncomfortable restrictions on her clothing.

"Okay, not bad, not bad," Naoto continued. "Now let's test the ignition boosters. You know, this makes me wonder why your brother didn't find out about these things yet."

"He's not ready." Sumire's voice echoed in the pilot chamber. Two jet-black cylinders behind Natsu's back opened up to reveal two twin turbines that kindled themselves under Naoto's control. They were used to direct the pilot and implement speed in movement. Each nanosuit and mechsuit was equipped with an ignition booster power cell that enhances its speed capabilities.

Using the boosters allows the user to soar or hover in the air, jump greater distances, and maneuver around enemies at lightning-fast speeds. "Besides, he's so accustomed to that trashy nanosuit he admitted to using yesterday. I have no idea why Natia wants it so badly. It's been tampered with and he just doesn't give a shit." Sumire continued.

"Well, it is a new altered model. I guess you can understand why it's so strong. The neural interface technology on that suit is near-instant. You can move freely whenever you want," Naoto explained. "All right, ignition boosters look great. Mag boosters next. Activating now."

Sumire watched as her hands began moving on their own to reveal two lavender-colored cell-powered weapons on Natsu's mechanical claws. Mag boosters were also present in nanosuits, and they were fundamentally utilized to levitate targets and fire them back at foes.

"Looking good," Naoto continued. "You know, one of these days, your brother has to work alone. Kinda like tomorrow. He's gonna be stuck with Natia for the entire day. What a terrible idea, to be honest."

"I know..." Sumire whispered as she abruptly paused her neural link to Natsu's interface. Her perceptions were splitting apart as she recalled herself about Ryo's self-sufficiency throughout the nine years Sumire endeavored to fix him. She held high regard for her life that she had misused such time because April had transformed him in a matter of four simple days. Her subconscious enthusiasm was subsiding the more she believed her presence for her brother was utterly incompetent.

"Hey, Sumire! Are you okay? The interface started acting all super wonky all of a sudden!" Naoto called.

Sumire emerged from her apathetic trance, lost in thought about her future endeavors and goals. "Yeah, I'm fine..." She muttered. "I think Natsu's good to go. I'm going to get out now." Sumire activated the eject button as soon as she relaxed her neural link to Natsu, relieving and unequipping the sensory receptors from her body. She sprang out of Natsu's back and descended on her feet next to Naoto. "Don't worry about it." She stated while brushing her jet-black ponytail aside.

"Hey, don't say that," Naoto intervened, studying deep into her average and emotionless facial expression. He discerned Sumire's eyelids were drooping and her eyebrows were quivering. "I know something's up, you know. You're thinking about your brother again."

Sumire scoffed. "What gave that away?" She sarcastically remarked. "I'm just not feeling too well about him right now. Ever since April had that incident, I started thinking about what my role as a sister was. It took me nine years to have him open up, and I wasn't even the one who did it. April did. And now that she's in the hospital for another month or two, how am I supposed to provide that same level of care that she did? What does she do so differently than what a family member like me's supposed to do? I mean, I'm his sister."

"I'm sure he appreciates you as much as he appreciates April," Naoto explained, wanting to comfort her nerves. "Besides, now that he's with us, he's bound to open up. I mean, he already did ever since we had that meeting. He talked about that personal stuff when he was with that shady asshole. Jinni and I made sure to be there for him."

Sumire sighed. "Are you just doing this because of me?" She asked. "I don't want to make it like I'm forcing you or Jinni to do this. I care about him, but even now, I just feel useless."

"Don't think so hard about it, okay?" Naoto said, kneeling to see Sumire's pessimistic expression take full control over her usual optimistic thoughts. "Start by doing what you can do in the next few days. Besides, I think you're a great sister." He complimented, placing his hands on his hips in pride to convey his affection for Sumire in a quick manner.

"Better than Sophie?" Sumire questioned without reasoning.

Naoto's grimace almost mimicked Sumire's inert personality the moment Sumire cited that name. Naoto abandoned all of his supplies, his latex gloves, and his enthusiasm the moment Sumire spoke of her. "Yes," Naoto mumbled as he started pacing sluggishly to the living room.

"Wait, Naoto! I didn't mean to..." Sumire cut herself off the moment Naoto was out of view. She shamefully collapsed on his stool and slapped both of her hands on her temples in regret. She had just revealed something that impacted him to the same degree as her trauma. If her words had such strength and negative impact on Naoto, could her words only cause chaos for her brother?

Sumire upsettingly sighed as she stood up from her stool to retrieve the documents that Naoto left behind. Without another word, she entered the living room to apologize for her mistake.

But such mistakes, she believed, created by such useless individuals, should be offered little to no familial nourishment.

Get these memories out of my head. Vanquish my father's face and my miseries. Someone, please save me from this torment...