Tamiyo - Her own story

Tamiyo reaches for a scroll at her waist, one bound with an iron band. She slips the band free with a finger. The silken paper unfurls.

"Kyodai!" the emperor shouts.

The great kami beneath them flies to her side. The emperor holds her sword toward her companion and Kyodai breathes upon it. Shining white lines the blade; characters float in the air around her. Kyodai's power flows through the emperor.

Tamiyo's mouth begins to move.

Nashi, at last comprehending what is about to happen, turns away.

A flash of white light, the sound of a blade unsheathing, the whistle of a distant gale.

Tamiyo falls.

***

Peace lasts until they hear Nashi's mother calling for him.

Tamiyo's voice does not drift up from the pile of metal the emperor struck down, but from right among them. This wasn't the cold Phyrexian whisper but the warm, familiar tones of her old self.

"Nashi, I'm sorry."

Kaito shields Nashi with his body. Before them is a strange being: densely packed floating characters form a woman's silhouette. They glow and dim as if breathing. When they next hear Tamiyo's voice, a light at the center glows even brighter. Characters wink in and out of existence and change as he studies them. Towashi's projected neons can achieve all sorts of trickery, but this is something different. The way it's moving feels too intentional to be random, too imperfect to be artificial. The light glowing within reminds him more of a kami than any of Towashi's technical wonders.

"I understand you might be wary of me, but I mean you no harm," Tamiyo says.

"What are you?" Kaito asks.

"Not a ghost, that's for sure," Kaya calls—she's at the edge of the branch. "What do you want?"

The silhouette turns toward each of them, then nods. "I am what remains of Tamiyo—her story unending. You may think of me as her memory. Many years ago, she created me in anticipation of her death and sealed me away within a scroll until I was needed, bound with an iron ring." Tamiyo's memory—her story—pauses. "I had hoped I might never be."

***

MARCH OF THE MACHINE | EPISODE 3: MOTHER, SON, AND STORY