Heart of a Child

Sometimes innocence is stolen right in front of our eyes. Other times, it's hidden in the shadow of dark memories, but even what the mind forgets, the heart of a child remembers.

A brief fanfiction of the anime Shinsekai Yori, focusing on Saki's sister

…

A/N: This was written as a response to a prompt indirectly given to me by Bhoie Aviles. By that I mean, he asked EHMforJESUS to write a story with the title "Heart of a Child", and then EHM told me about it, so I decided to write it. And took it in a completely opposite direction than Bhoie was probably expecting, and for that, I apologize.

Anyway, this story is written as a sort of prequel to the anime Shinsekai Yori. As such, it does spoil a couple things from the show. Of course, considering how many twists the show has before the end, I'm not spoiling anything too major. Still, I highly recommend going to watch Shinseaki Yori as it's one of the best anime I've ever seen. However, I did try to write this in such a way that someone unfamiliar with the show could follow along. So enjoy, and this will probably be the last time I'm given a prompt like this because of where my mind takes ideas.

…

Saki couldn't sleep.

It wasn't like she wasn't tired, even as she paced through her room trying to calm herself down, she kept yawning, as if her body was telling her that she needed to just go to bed.

But there was something that seemed to tell her she needed to be awake, that there was something she needed to be ready for. It would be simple enough to just dismiss that as a figment of her imagination, that she was just jumpy because she was tired, but even if she told herself that, Saki's heart wouldn't believe it.

Saki sat down on her bed and yawned. She looked out at the stars that filled the sky, even seeing some of the reflections off the river that wasn't too far from her house, though the water was moving too much to make out anything beyond a couple flashes of light from this far away. But as she looked, she saw something moving, much closer. She walked closer to the window, and saw what almost kind of appeared to be a small child, someone about her size who seemed to be sneaking closer to their house. She caught another glint of light out of the corner of her eye and saw something else moving in the shadows, but couldn't make out its size or shape. She then heard the sound of something coming not far from her window, but she couldn't see it.

Something was wrong.

She slowly walked to the door of her room, getting ready to open it when she heard the footsteps. She froze as much as possible, trying to keep her breath as silent as she could. The strange feeling within her that kept her awake told her that she shouldn't know about this; that she should just be sleeping and ignoring anything she heard. Not knowing anything was safest; not questioning was the easiest. If anyone found out, then there'd be problems.

But if no one found out…

As quietly as possible, she leaned her ear against the door, hoping to get an idea of what was going on outside. She heard the footsteps and they sounded like they were coming from the stairs. Except they stopped, and she heard what almost seemed like a voice inside her head telling her to go to sleep. But even as the voice said that, she wanted to know more.

Was this her sister Sakura going down stairs?

Maybe Sakura couldn't sleep either?

Saki's hand rested on the door knob for a second, thinking that she should open it and find out. After all, her sister wasn't anyone to fear. But before she opened the door, she a knock at the front door of their house.

Stay back

That time the voice in her head seemed to be louder, but it was all just her imagination, right?

Saki continued pressing her ear against the door of her room, hoping to hear what was going on. She heard the front door open, a couple heavier footsteps as some people entered the house. She could hear her parent's voices as well, though it was too muffled to make out any of the words that were being said. Even so, it almost sounded like her mom was crying.

She couldn't just stay up in her room not being able to see anything, so trying to be as quiet as possible, she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

"I'm sorry, but the Educational Committee has come to the conclusion that there are no other options."

The educational committee, what were they doing here?

Saki crouched at the top of the stairs, behind a wall so she couldn't be seen, but she was still able to see a little bit of the living room where she saw her parents, and three other people. "It's for the good of the village, isn't it?" her dad said, though Saki could tell he was holding back a few tears.

"Indeed," one of the other strangers said.

"Sakura, please come with us," the other one said, holding out his hand, and Saki could see Sakura walk to where Saki could see her.

"Where are we going?" Sakura asked, much more cold and distant than Saki was used to hearing.

"Just follow us and you'll see," the man said, seeming to be a bit nervous as he took a couple steps back from Sakura.

"I see," Sakura said. Sakura then looked right up to where Saki was kneeling and Saki heard the voice in her head again, this time louder. Don't follow us.

Saki wondered if all those thoughts were really Sakura all along. She knew about the powers her sister had developed, that all kids did, and how they could move things with their mind, make pictures in sand, and do all kinds of things, even being able to put the pieces of a shattered vase back together.

But she hadn't heard of someone being able to communicate like that, to put thought into someone else's mind. Saki didn't have any other explanation for what that was though, before she'd been able to dismiss it, think it was just her conscious or her imagination, but somehow Sakura was talking to her through her mind. Saki wondered if she might be able to do that too one day.

The stranger started to lead Sakura out of the house, and then Saki wondered where they were going. She started to get up, wanting to follow them, but she remembered what Sakura told her about staying back, so she sat back down. Saki noticed her mother starting to cry, her dad walking over to her and hugging her. "Don't worry, everything will be all right," Saki her heard dad say which only made her mom cry more.

What was happening to Sakura?

Saki stumbled as she walked back to her room. As she looked to the window, she wondered if she could somehow catch up to Sakura, figure out what was going on, but she was afraid, feeling like that wouldn't be right. Still, she slowly walked to her window, and could see the figures moving like they were before, but this time farther away from the house, but not missing that glint of light that made her worry. Saki looked back to the door of her bedroom, wondering if her parents would notice if she snuck out the window, found out what happened and then came back.

Putting her hand on the glass of the window, she took a deep sigh, and felt her body shake. She could still feel Sakura's presence in the back of her mind, but it was hazy, like any words that could be there were being muffled. This made Saki know even more that she had to do something. She fiddled with the lock on the window, opening it up, and climbing out onto the roof of the first floor of their house.

She then stumbled down it, not sure how she'd get down from the roof, but she saw the tree nearby, about a foot away, so she jumped to it, grabbing into the trunk as best she could and sliding down slowly enough that she didn't hurt herself.

Looking back up at the house, Saki knew there wasn't any way to go back now, she couldn't get back to her window easily, and coming in the front door would alert her parents, so she had to find Sakura and convince Sakura to use her powers to get them both back safely, but she didn't know where her sister was.

Saki started walking up to the road near their house, but then started to hear something, what seemed like a very loud animal's food steps. Taking a couple steps back, Saki looked around for what it was, and then she saw something moving near the river, something small, and the same small flash of light as before was moving with it, shining in the pale moonlight. Saki started running closer to see what it was, trying to be as quiet as she could, but then the thing seemed to notice her, and started to approach her.

This caused Saki to stumble back, and then the thing came closer enough so she could see what it was, a monster rat. It was about as tall as she was, it's greyish brown skin grossing her out. It held a spear in its hand and started to point it toward her, which she recognized as what must have been causing the glint of light from before. Saki wondered if she should start running from it, she'd heard about how dangerous it was for a child to be around them. There was no way of telling when one of those beasts would attack. She started backing away from it, hoping that it would lose interest and go do something else.

Much to her relief, the monster rat then ran off, further down the road. Although, the way it was walking, Saki was wondering if that might be where Sakura was. She thought about trying to chase the monster rat, but stay far enough back that it wouldn't notice her, but she then remembered how much stronger the monster rat's sense of smell was so that wouldn't work. For a second, she considered maybe she could talk to it, since she knew some of them spoke a little bit of English, but knew that she couldn't trust a beast like that, not when she didn't have powers yet.

As Saki wondered what she should do, she saw what appeared to be a fireball race across the field only a few hundred meters away from her. Making fire was one of the things Sakura had been taught to do with her powers, so that might be her. Of course, it could be any number of other things, but still, thinking that it might be her, Saki started to run in that direction, not even thinking about the fact that the monster rat had also run in that same direction.

Once Saki got closer, the field around her was on fire, but in the middle of the fire was Sakura standing there. "Sakura!" Saki yelled.

"You really should have listened to me," Sakura said, though couldn't help but letting out a small smile.

"What happened?" Saki asked, not knowing why Sakura would do something like this.

"Look around," Sakura said, "see for yourself." Sakura motioned to the fire around them, and Saki saw it, over a dozen bodies. Some of them were of monster rats, the fire still consuming them. But among the monster rats, were the members of the educational committee who had come from her.

That was impossible. "How did…"

Sakura then started to walk away from Saki, the fire moving out of her way as she did so.

"There are things in this world that a heart of a child can't understand. Things that the world wants to hide, because they are afraid," Sakura started to explain.

"What things…where are you going?"

"Away. You should too, go back home, forget all of this. Forget me."

"Forget you, but aren't you coming back with me?" Saki asked, which caused Sakura to turn back to her.

"I can't. The town doesn't want me, they tried to kill me," Sakura took a deep breath at that. "I'm different than they hoped, so well, they needed to get rid of me. My powers aren't like the others, I can see things that haven't happened yet, hear things that they want to keep secret, and their control didn't work." Sakura started to shake her head.

"I don't understand…" Saki started to say.

Sakura then started to walk toward Saki placing her hand on Saki's forehead. "You will, one day. But you may forget a lot before then, but remember those close to you, those who live in the heart that they can't touch."

Saki couldn't understand any of this. What was Sakura talking about, what didn't she understand, what couldn't they touch, and who were they?"

"Remember Saki. The heart of a child is a powerful thing, able to hold onto bonds formed that would otherwise disappear from memory."

Saki wanted to ask more, but before she could, some type of create started running at them. Sakura threw Saki back with her powers, keeping her safe, but Sakura couldn't do anything to save herself. The large black beast tore its claws through Sakura's chest, her blood splashing along the flames that covered the ground.

Sakura fell to the ground, and Saki couldn't do anything but just stand there frozen.

Saki knew her sister was hurt though.

Saki knew she shouldn't just be laying there like that.

Saki got up, starting to stumble over to where the monster and her sister was, but before she could get there, her shoulder was grabbed by someone. She turned to see who it was and it was an older lady who appeared to be wearing the robes of the ethics committee. "Sakura," Saki started to say, hoping that this person could help.

"It'll be okay," she said reassured. "Let's get you back home now."

…

A/N: This is why you don't give me story ideas. Still, I hope you enjoyed this, whether or not you've seen Shinsekai before. But on the plus side, I think this is the second anime fandom on Wattpad I've been the first person to write a story for!