The campfire burned at the center of the camp, not fiercely, but warmly. So warmly that as sparks drifted upward, Ringo saw Sai drawing. He was not drawing a mission report, but a face. The face on the paper was not yet complete, but its outline had taken shape—not Sai's outline, but someone else's.
Ringo did not walk over. He merely sat on the other side of the fire and watched through the flames. The fire made the lines on the paper tremble. It was not the wind; Sai's hand was shaking. His hand was not shaking from cold, but because he was drawing someone he no longer remembered. Not remembering was not the same as forgetting. It meant being erased. Root's training erased a person's memories like an eraser rubbing away a pencil sketch, until only faint indentations remained. Those indentations were not memories, but habits. The habit of drawing that face, the habit of pinning every fragment of memory to paper whenever it surfaced. Pinning it to paper was not a mission. It was self-rescue. Self-rescue was not escape. It was proof—proof that he was not a tool, proof that he had once had an older brother.
"How many times have you drawn that face?"
Ringo's voice came from across the fire. It was not an interrogation, but confirmation. Confirmation that Sai did not need to answer, confirmation that Sai was merely waiting for someone to notice what he was drawing. Sai did not look up. The tip of his brush paused over the left eye on the paper. It was not hesitation, but correction. Correcting a detail Root had erased—whether his brother's left eye had been a little larger than his own. He did not remember, but his brush always stopped when it reached the left eye.