#bc thesis

A mind and memories that she could trust.

Her mother, whose fight to become one of Japan's first female lawyers was one that Ran would only know through books, court records, and long-retired attorneys whose contacts had mysteriously appeared in her phone, even if they were more than happy to share their memories of facing Kisaki-bengoshi's wrath from across a courtroom.

Seventy years – seventy years – of her life.

Hands that could ever be clean again.

The war that she signed up to fight, the side that she'd chosen to fight for.

(Most people, Ran thinks, would be surprised to learn that her left arm didn't make the list. But this arm, gleaming metal plates and red star and all, this is hers now, as much as anything ever was.

Maybe it helps, the fact that falling from the train isn't a thing she remembers too clearly, for whatever reason – shock, blood loss, her brain cutting her a break for once when it got fried right after. Even listening to Shinichi's shakily delivered account of that day feels just that much foreign, matching details that she remembers in flashes of static and not much else.

It's better this way, she thinks, so her arm never makes the list, only the terrible things she'd done with it.