[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/200924/11473930583c59542421158dfb4ae213.png[/img][/center][center][h2][b]Lost Days #1[/b][/h2][/center]
[center][b]Contested Region, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, The Past[/b][/center]

I awoke, sweating, on a nearly floor level bed among many. The soft sighs of dozens of young girls soft breathing, let me know that somewhere in the dark of this stone chamber there was life and that I was no longer dreaming. Then, a hand clasped my shoulder. 

I cried out, and what felt like a firm hand moved over my mouth and reduced the cry to muffled complaint. A voice whispered in my ear, "It's me, Lo."

I relaxed, lowering my left elbow which had been positioned to deliver a blow to Mingmeis abdomen. As she slowly pulled her hand away from my mouth, I whispered, [color=d9094b]"Crap, you scared me Ming. Why are you even up right now?"[/color]

"Well..." Mingmei said, with a tone of mischief in her voice that always put butterflies in my stomach regardless of the contents of what she was about to say, "I was thinking that, because we'll be going out for our first assignment tomorrow, that we could take a look at that locked door in the eastern wing."

[color=d9094b]"The eastern?"[/color] I said, then with even more disbelief because of how clear my mother and father had been on the dangers of even looking upon the artifacts that lay within the room, I almost yelled, [color=d9094b]"Are you craz-"[/color] And her hand was over my mouth again.

"Quietly." she said, with obvious reproach. 

When she pulled her hand back, I said, [color=d9094b]"Let's move this to the hall..."[/color]

She convinced me with her silver tongue, as always, despite my efforts to resist. We found our way to the hall not through the temple barracks normal byways, but by a secret path only accessible by touching three of the stones on a wall in the common room. It was a fairly well kept secret, in fact I'd only discovered that it existed when I had, in an effort to learn how to kiss boys, snuck the head of a statue of Yi Sun-sin that normally rested near the Temple Quarters into the rafters of the common room. Somewhere in the middle of my painfully awkward attempts to figure out what, exactly, was too much tongue, I had seen two Lotus ninja enter, at first with nothing, then leave with what appeared to be the unconscious body of Chan Ho. He was later drowned for treason.

We could see that same statue through the thin sliding panel slits that served as eyeholes to presumably, keep an eye out on fellow Lotus members. A few guards, carrying crescent mooned halberd called a Ji in my native tongue, walked by, their jade armor making gentle twinkling noises like a wind chime as the crossed the cold stone floor. I closed the slit, which to the credit of whoever had built these tunnels, was absolutely soundless.

Mingmei giggled, "Taking a look at your old boyfriend?"

If the space we were narrowly sidling our way through were any larger, I would have cuffed her. Given the limits of the space, I merely turned a bright red and said a pretty unconvincing [color=d9094b]"That never happened."[/color] And nudged her with my shoulder. It was a miracle her barely suppressed laughter didn't awaken our ancestors when we passed the burial chambers and onwards to the eastern wing.

We emerged in the morose eastern hallway, lit by green glowing crystals. Ancient banners and tapestries from long dead dynasties covered the walls from end to end. They depicted events in which The Thousandfold Lotus had taken part. There was one which I had learned the most of the real history, the true history, the history which only those who were a Petal of the Lotus would ever know. The Tianmen Massacre.

The tapestry depicted various tanks in a style that was very similar to landscapes of the five dynasties period. If you looked closely, you could see one man standing in front of those tanks. If you looked even closer and this almost required a magnifying glass, you could see the symbol of the lotus on the back of his head, made in the whorls of his hair. In the background was a golden pagoda, representing all of Buddhism. There was a small carriage, likely representing a car (some artstyles were developed in a time before they could properly represent a car, and I think the artist agreed), and in it was the Panchen Lama, depicted as a bald headed boy solemnly meditating despite the Lotus guard holding spears to his neck.

He lived here, of course. I'd met him during my initial trials into The Lotus. He seemed to be happy but I always had this sense that he felt like this wasn't where he belonged. Which, given he'd been kidnapped and forced into the Chinese equivalent of the Illuminati, I couldn't blame him for. As an aside, 9/11 was obviously an inside job, you're welcome.

Mingmei called to me, "Stop appreciating the art, we have to get this door open before another patrol passes." She was standing in front of wood and iron door. This didn't look any different than most doors, except for the large, outdated, skeleton key style plate lock that kept it closed. In Mingmeis fingers was the key which she spun with some flourish.

[color=d9094b]"Well."[/color] I said, [color=d9094b]"Open sesame!"[/color]

She slid the key into the lock and turned it with a faint click. As the door ground open, my heart felt like it dropped into my stomach. There was absolutely no light inside. From the darkness we could hear a faint humming noise, like a cable wire vibrating. I found myself leaning against Mei for support. She shoved me off, and said, "Come on! Let's see what the elders are hiding in here..."

As we entered, various green crystals lit up and we nearly lost our breathe as the light revealed a space much larger than what we thought would be on the other side. It was at least ten stories tall, impressive given its underground nature, and in the center of the room was a statue nearly as large as the room. It looked to be Lü Bu, long tassels falling behind him in majestic resplendence. He seemed to be holding the ceiling of the room from falling and given the lack of greek style pillars in the room, was likely actually doing so. There were nooks, to our left and right, and pedestals within those nooks, holding artifacts of various kinds. The cable wire noise became stronger and guided us to a particular nook in the room, becoming almost the mental equivalent of chewing on aluminum foil.

[color=d9094b]"Maybe we...shouldn't..."[/color] I said, but it was already too late. Mingmei didn't seem to be feeling the effects and was moving along like nothing had happened.

Memory is a concept I've never really had to tackle. I know intellectually that people forget, that some memories are crystallized in amber and others fade away like the midday fog. So I remember seeing Muramasa and Masamunes blades like an image burnt into my retinas. The blade that cuts and the blade that mends. One of the katanas had a black blade and the other white and they were positioned so that while one faced towards the sky, the other aimed towards the earth. Yin and yang. The noise had stopped and our hands reached to grip the weapons. I reached towards Murasamas blade, Meiming reached towards Masamunes.

I awoke in my bed, some hours later. Meiming of course greeted me and when I asked what had happened last night, she couldn't remember. But, I did remember. I remembered my hand gripping the handle of that black blade and feeling a presence. It had began to speak to me, before...before...

It wasn't that I forgot, or at least that's what I tell myself. It's more, my mind avoided the subject, slipping and sliding past it like oil on water. I could remember that an altercation had happened, had occurred, but it would be some moments later before the details would really ferment in my mind. You don't know how disturbing it is, to know you remember something but be unable to access the thought. Or maybe you do, and you just haven't realized the horror of it yet. As I dressed in my black assassins gi and I managed to collect the details required to form a clear memory, I wondered if it had all been a dream. Or, looking at a thin, faint scar on my left palm, a nightmare.