The bracelet that leads to the future

Chapter 6: The promise maker

Chapter 6: The promise maker 

 It was clear to him what he needed to do.

He was standing over the opened box. He had arrayed all the content he had already taken out of it in a row on the floor.

The picture he was holding in his hands was like an ancient artifact, a mirror into the past. He held it carefully as if it could turn to dust any second.

Yusaku slowly examined everything about it. The bright colors and broad lines. The happy smiles on the people's faces. The little sun in the right-hand corner. He didn't really think, he just took it all in.

Yusaku felt like he knew this object, like it was all too familiar, but his mind was completely blank when he thought about what it was. This was something from his past, clearly. The past he had lost and couldn't regain.

He had sworn to destroy the knights of Hanoi because of what they did to him and because of what they were doing in LINK VRAINS, but he also always gave another reason, to regain the years he had lost.

The knights of Hanoi had been like a barrier between him and his past, like a wall he could not cross and now they are gone.

The familiarity he felt while carefully examining every aspect of the picture made him forget that he couldn't think clearly. Now he could go ahead and reclaim his past and everything would be fine again.

First: He needed to forget about the knights of Hanoi.

Second: He needed to reconnect with his past.

Third: He would go forward into a new future.

Yusaku had his plan laid out in front of him. He when over every step in his head.

He had already destroyed the knights of Hanoi, so step one was done. Now he needed to forget them and everything that happened. Like restarting a system to a state were it still functioned.

Step two would be straight forward, it would be like fixing a corrupted piece of data, the memories laid open to him now he simply needed to reinsert them into his mind and everything would be like it used to be.

The third step would then be ready for him and his new life would start.

Those were his three steps to get out of the situation. Three logical and computable steps he only needed to process.

Yusaku closed his eyes and tried to focus. There was no barrier between him and his past anymore. He tried to go back. He would restore everything back to a state where the system still worked.

He tried to let go of everything that haunted him and thought back to the memories buried deepest in his mind.

The first memories he thought of were his early fights against the Hanoi. The first few times Yusaku went into the network with Kusanagi as back up, giving Knight positions and other intelligence as he dashed form rooftop to rooftop.

But he needed to go further.

He remembers meeting Kusanagi for the first time. He pictured the time he had saved him from the knights of Hanoi and them discovering the secret of the Cyberse Deck together.

No, that was all still part of his fight against the Hanoi. There was something before that. There had to be.

Then he saw the memory of him holding his deck in a dark room after having just woken up from a terrible nightmare. He was still out of breath and shaking. Yusaku couldn't remember when this memory took place or even where he was during it. All he saw was the dark room, himself and the deck.