Interlude: Where Her Story Begins – The Limbless Doll's Road to Salvation
25 of worldscrown, 998 A.N.E.
Her eyes opened. Well, only her left one…
In the hot pile of scrap preparing to be thrown into the sea 17000 m under the flying of Ganymede, a crippled girl awakened. She appeared dirty and bruised, her ragged clothes were barely above the level of a torchon. Both her arms and legs were missing, the remaining parts only wrapped in blood dirtied bandages. Her right eye too, was hidden behind an eyepatch of soft tissue.
That was a doll used and abused to the point of finishing exactly where used goods belonged – the trash bin.
Yet, the doll didn't resent the world. She didn't care about it enough to get angry, in fact, she didn't even care enough about her last owners to get angry at them either. If anything, she was grateful – pain was a sign that she was still alive and if she was, it must mean that the most important person for her must be too. She just had to somehow leave this place and go talking to her. She must go and protect her, and for that purpose…
"Nya…"
The doll heard footsteps on the garbage. Someone was approaching her and she knew exactly who it was.
"Oh-ho? My, that's sad. That's truly sad. Is that how people treat their slaves nowadays?"
Looking down on the doll's face was a tall woman with long white hair, sky blue eyes and tanned skin spoke with a tired voice. Her pupils suddenly took the form of concentric circles while her smile grew abnormally wide.
"Girl, who might you be? No, WHAT might you be?"
The doll rolled her eye to think. Since she called upon the demon, she had to play her cards really well. Finally, she seemed to reach a conclusion and answered.
"I am a doll. My name is Shogo." she mechanically answered.
The woman's eyes suddenly became normal again. As her smile left her face again, she couldn't help but sigh. "My, is that so? Very well, we will go with that for now…"
Crouching down, the woman seemed to think about what to do. Shogo wasn't sure of what her reaction would be – on random occasions, she would decide to kill her rather than save her. There was no way to know until she asked that question, "So? Do you wish me to save you? I happen to be writing this memoir about regeneration and I might finish it by next week or so. Maybe, I can give you back your arms and legs at that moment?"
Shogo slowly shook her head, "A doll doesn't need to be healed."
"You did call me here, though. Why else if you didn't wish to be saved?"
"I just said a random name my genitoress would often mention."
"... Have we met before, girl?"
"We haven't."
Nya got up. For someone who was about to die, this girl was strangely calm, yet, it wasn't the real problem about her.
"I guess it's not important," Nya said, closing her eyes. "Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nya, I am a back-alley doctor, nice to meet you, Shogo the doll."
"A back-alley doctor?"
"Well, as long as you continue pretending to be a simple doll, I will play along, but don't go doing something unnecessary, okay?"
A wide smile drew itself on the woman's face again. Her voice became something of a melange between threat and recommendation.
That woman was the first enemy, the first obstacle toward her quest. If Shogo had read any story in her life, she would have found such a challenge ridiculously unfair, but she wasn't feeling afraid in the slightest.
After all, she already beat her in the past…