Ain't nobody messin' with Mama Muffin

Well shit

Asta left the small wooden part and reached the tiles. She suddenly stopped, dropped you, and you discovered you were in front of your motorcyle.

Following silent orders, you got on the vehicle and Asta went behind you. She was the one driving but if you sat behind you would fly away. Shinichiro, too far away, ran and placed himself right in front of the bycicle.

"If you don't move, I'll run you over.", warned your sister.

"I just want to talk to Andreas!", he implored. You could see he was desperate, troubled also, by something extern to the conversation.

Your mind went blank, and you acted on instinct. You turned around and looked at your sister in the eyes, "Do you trust me?", you asked in german. It wasn't you, it was the Cat taking over. He had confidence and more importantly, control over the situation. Inevitably, your sister nodded.

You volt-faced, and raised three fingers to Shinichiro, "Three questions, no more and do it quick."

Taken aback, or surprised by the fact his request had been accepted, he blurted out, as expected by you, the first question that came into his mind.

"Where were you all this time?", he inquired, losing his assurance since you were now in control.

You immediately answered, "During those two years I was away, in Germany with my family. It is only recently that I've arrived here.", and you put down one of the three fingers.

He had his second question prepared, for he promptly followed with, "What happened to you?"

"That's a vague question, honestly, a lot. Be more precise.", you said, lowering another finger.

"Your arm was very thin.", he stated. You hummed, "Yeah, had an accident, got hospitalized, didn't recover well because of external factors.", you explained.

Now that he had realized the waste of two opportunities with simple questions due to the pressure of time, you expected the last one to be more deep and difficult. As expected, he took his time to explain where he wanted to go.

Sano took a deep breath, to give himself courage and gain time to put his ideas in order, then started speaking, "Earlier I learned something....", he now dared to look straight into your eyes, you raised an eyebrow.

"Something about you, that you kept hidden. That you didn't want us to know.", he said, avoiding your gaze once again to look at his shoes. The other thing he was evading was what you were hiding. Your main guess was the amnesia, because what else could it be but the memory loss? Now there was the probablity that it was something else, considering your family had been away for most of your life, maybe the secret he was talking about was them. Anything else would be a pain in the ass because you wouldn't remember it.

You cut him short as to not lose too much time. For the one who had left, it was understandable if Shinichiro wasn't there for a short moment, anything less than five minutes, but any longer would be suspicious.

"Is it about my condition?", you asked, and saw Shinichiro pause, think about the word you used, then slowly agree, although not completely. He was still a bit uncertain about 'condition', but you were confident amnesia could be classified as a condition.

"Yes, your... condition. Why-", he inhaled and exhaled deeply, "why did you keep it a secret from us? Where we really not close or was there another reason involved? What your sister said, was it true?", you couldn't see his face, but his whole figure was showing fragility. He was opening up to you, fearing the answer, but he was resigned to have it. You felt your sister tense up a bit; none of you wanted to have Shinichiro against you, he was after all someone capable of paciyfying the others, something you might need in future moments.

"Well the reason you weren't told is that it wasn't the time yet. It had to be revealed at some point, if not I wouldn't even be here. The problem was, as you may have already guessed, I didn't know who were my friends. I have no idea how you know about it, but I can tell you that some people were contacted and informed. So at one point you were going to be told, but I've only arrived recently and you learned it before. Does that answer your question? ", you finished searching some kind of signs on Shinichiro's body language, but what you saw was quite curious; he was looking past you, and was extremely confused.

You checked with your sister behind you but there was nothing, so you asked him, "What is it?"

"We're not talking about the same thing.", he affirmed, after internally debating it for a few seconds.

You frowned, "But you agreed that I had a condition, and so far I am aware I have two. One of them being my quite un-healthy thinness. So what are you talking about?"

You sister whispered a reminder about the time running out, but you ignored it.

"Something else happened to you?", he questioned, determinated to this time stand on his ground and receive an answer.

His stubborness made you sigh, your internal Cat was irritated.

"Look, I don't have time, I'll count to three and we'll both say what we're thinking about, and then we'll leave.", you suggested, and since Shinichiro knew there would no point in protesting, he accepted.

"One", and Asta turned on the motor of the bike.

"Two", far away there was the faint sound of a few bikes coming.

"Three", you finished, immediately following with,"I forgot everything after 1993, I have amnesia."

At the same time, you heard Shinichiro speak, although not immediately, as if your brain couldn't believe what he had just heard. 

Your thinking capacities vanished, you stared at him blankly, completely taken aback. Your sister let out a curse,  and told Shinichiro that he could ask his sister if he had any question, that he should tell her he had their approval. She then drove right past him, while you couldn't do anything but stare at him. 

Asta turned right upon leaving the shrine's ground, leaving behind Sano and the approaching motorcycles with their deceived owners, who were most probably furious.

You couldn't think, you couldn' hear, you couldn't see, and therefore couldn't do anything. The sentence was stuk in your head but it wasn't inside yet. Something was blocking but you could only describe, not think. 

Your sister had to help you get out of the engine and drag you inside the house. Leaving the bike inside, she pushed you inside the leaving room, and forced you to sit down on one of the sofas.

"Hey, you're alright?", she checked, observing carefully for any signs of sickness.

"I can't think", you cried, staring at some point in the distance. You wanted to yell that it was all white inside your brain, like if it wanted you to go mad, and that not a single coherent thought could get out of there, nothing that could help you advance, or do something. But you couldn't yell, you couldn't do anything, it was a fucking white cage.

"Slap", you said, but you couldn't continue so you gestured it with your hand. 

She hesitantly tried one time, carefully, but you whined because it changed nothing. She sighed before hitting you way harder in the second attempt. It felt like a wave submerged your brain, and you could think again.

"Your past life you described in your notebooks."

That was what Shinichiro said, while staring at you like if you had hurt him deeply. You let out a whimper before hiding your face in your hands. Tears started flowing without control.