Duex

We sneaked past the guards. They were somewhat sleepy, presumably from the flowers that grew nearby. Kari picked one of them and put in in her hair. "We'll have to do this the hard way," she muttered.
"Hard way?"
"Put all the guards to sleep before they realize these two dimwits are sleeping," Kari said. "Come on, pick one and let's make them sleep already."
I reluctantly picked a flower and put it in my hair as well. The flowers looked pretty, but like the oleander, can be deadly. We turned around. "Are you sure about this?" I asked.
"Daphne, do you want to get caught and eaten?" Kari countered. I shook my head. The prospect of having to knock guards out with the scent of a flower didn't seem a good idea, but the prospect of being eaten as food scared me even more. "Then let's do this!"
We sneaked around the guard camp, getting as close to them as we could without them noticing. Within less than ten minutes, they were all lying on the ground, sleeping. I gasped. "The flower's scent is that potent!?"
"Yeah," Kari replied. "We should go now, unless we want to keep them asleep in the deep."
"Nah, I think we'd better go to your home village now."
We stepped past the gate and into the forest. For the first time since I can remember (which was a day or so ago, probably), I took a good look at my surroundings. The forest was covered in the same flowers that we wore in our hair... and that was a LOT of them. There was no life in the forest other than those flowers, the trees, and me and Kira. "Beautiful, isn't it?" Kari asked suddenly.
"Yes," I answered, awe-struck.
"The only wildlife we'll find here are sleepworms, they're what's making these flowers grow," Kari said. "And they create a lot of sleeping gas, which explains why the scent of these beautiful blue flowers puts people to sleep."
"What about slimes?"
"Those are monsters, not wildlife," Kari chuckled.
We walked deeper into the woods, the only sounds I could hear were us breathing. It sounded scary, since we both wore gas masks. There was an old cobblestone road, stained with blood. "What on--"
"Murder," Kari said quickly, holding her left arm out. Appearing with sparkles, there suddenly was a sword! "Stay close, and don't run, okay?"
"Right!" I exclaimed. We slowly walked towards the blood until we found a body of a little girl lying on the road. Kari quickly placed a finger on the neck. "She's still alive, but barely."
"We should take her to a hospital!" I said.
"No time! By then she'll bleed to death!" Kari said. "Hold my sword, please." She gave the sword to me, and I touched it. Suddenly, a bright light enveloped me. It felt scary.
"WHO DARES HOLD THE PSIBLADE OF NUEN?" a voice boomed.
"Just answer truthfully," Kari said, putting on a pair of white rubber gloves.
"U-um, m-my name is D-Daphne van der Rieu, a-according to a d-dream I had... I suffer f-from amnesia, so I am n-not certain," I stammered.
"YOU LIE!" the voice boomed. "YOUR FATE IS SEALED!"
"Calm down," another, a more feminine, voice replied. "She speaks the truth, her Guardian told us."
"You have a Guardian?" Kari exclaimed loudly, suddenly looking at me.
"Apparently," I answered. "Look, what about--"
"Oh, sorry," Kari said. "Medical Ninjutsu: Healing Hands Jutsu!" A green glow surrounded her hands as she put it on the girl's body.
"YOU HAVE A GUARDIAN, HUMAN?" the first voice boomed.
"Stop exploding," the gentle voice said.
"HUMANS DO NOT HAVE GUARDIANS! IT IS AGAINST THE LAWS OF NATURE TO HAVE GUARDIANS!" the booming voice boomed as the glow left Kari's hands.
"She'll be okay, we just need a gas mask though," she said. "She won't be able to breathe any oxygen without one. Luckily, I've got another one." She rummaged in her bag and found another gas mask, and carefully put it over the girl's face. She then took the flower from her hair and threw it aside. With my free hand I did the same. Kari took the gloves off and threw them in a nearby dustbin that I hadn't even noticed.
"Here you go," I said, giving her the sword.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS, KARI YAKUMO AMATERASU?" the first voice boomed. "ESCORTING A HUMAN WITH A GUARDIAN? PREPOSTEROUS!"
"Hey, I can do with my own life what I want," Kari said. "Daphne's a friend, and I'll protect her if I must."
"Very well," the gentle voice said. "We shall chat with her Guardian and find out what's for what."
The light faded from the sword. "Think you can carry her?" Kari asked. I shook my head. "Then we make camp here."

After setting up camp, a force field surrounded it. The gas masks were no longer needed, but I felt I had to wear it as long as possible. The flowers were disintegrated by the force field. Kari started to cook some food she had with her. I looked around again. The trees were taller than I could see, so it was safe to assume that those trees were taller than any other tree I could have seen before I lost my memory.
"H-hello?"
I looked up. The little girl was sitting up, possibly looking bewildered. "Hey," I said softly. She looked at me and screamed.
"Quiet, girl!" Kari shouted. The girl stopped screaming. I looked at Kari, who was pointing a knife at the girl.
"Hey, she's just a child!" I shouted back.
"I don't care, she's just cannon fodder," Kari said. "She won't last long regardless of whether or not she's wearing a gas mask. If she moves too much, she dies from blood loss. The Healing Hands Jutsu I used couldn't fully heal the wound."
"So what, you're just going to let her die?" I shouted. "I may have amnesia, but I can't stand people who would let little girls like her die!"
Kari looked at her feet. "Sorry," she said softly. "It's just... my twin sister died in the same way that she almost did."
"You had a twin sister?" I asked, in shock.
"Her name was Nahona Sasame," Kari continued. "We used to do everything together, but when she turned six we went to this forest."
"What?!" I exclaimed.
"At the time, there was no forest here, no flowers, just a clear cobblestone road," Kari said. "We went three meters away from the safety of our village... then we suddenly felt weak. I saw one of those flowers... the same kind we knocked the guards out with. We didn't have gas masks back then, our parents didn't allow us to wear those at all. To them, we were... basically, expendable. Nahona was severely allergic to the flower's sweet scent, I realized, when she started coughing up blood. I wrapped a scarf around my face, held my breath, and tried that same jutsu I had used on the little girl, but to no avail. She lost consciousness, I stopped holding my breath... as she bled to death in front of me, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was back home. Nahona's body was never found, however."
"How many years ago was this?" I asked.
"I turn nineteen in three months," Kari said. "So this was twelve years ago." For what seemed like hours, there was silence. Then Kari suddenly asked, "Shall we eat? We can probably remove our gas masks now."
The little girl coughed. "What is it?" I asked, walking to her.
"I... I cannot walk," she said. Only then did I notice her legs were tied up with a metal chain, and a large lock.
"Someone left you here to die?!" I muttered. "There's no way I can get that off... or... is there?"
When Kari and I left, she gave me a hairpin for my hair. I never used the hairpin, but I had an idea. I took the pin and started to pick the lock. It was, strangely enough, rather easy to do. The lock opened. I removed the chains from her legs, and threw them on the ground.
"You can pick locks?!" Kari exclaimed, her gas mask now hanging from her neck as before.
"Apparently," I said, slightly surprised. "It was easy, to be honest..."
"Like riding a bike?"
"Huh?"
"There's a saying," Kari said. "Riding a bike... it's impossible to forget. Your subconscious must still remember how to pick locks, so I take it you must have been a thief before you got amnesia."
"WHAT?!" I shouted. The idea that I was a thief repulsed me.
"Don't worry, the benefit of being an amnesiac is that you can have a new beginning!" Kari exclaimed, smiling.
I removed my gas mask, letting it hang from my neck as well. I helped the little girl remove hers, then helped her to the table that somehow fitted in my backpack. "Thank you," she said.
"Right, so I'm Kari Amaterasu," Kari said.
"My name appears to be Daphne van der Rieu," I said.
"Um... I... I'm Rosie," the girl stammered. "R-Rosie Valeria."
We started to eat our meal. It was rather tasty. After that, I helped Rosie to bed, then I put my gas mask on again and lay outside the tent, closing my eyes...