Chapter Text
Baal walked into Tenshukaku, sparing barely a glance to the guards watching over the complex. She was never the best at recognizing the emotions of others, but even she could feel the anxiety in the air. News of the day's events, of the intruder, of the escape, had reached the ears of nearly every person in the palace, and worries abounded. But Tenshukaku was her home, and she would not let anyone make her feel worse that she already was here.
She reached her quarters, a room far more sparsely decorated than her regalia would lead others to expect, not that many ever entered. Since she had built the complex, she could count on one hand the number of people allowed into her sanctum, and half of them were long dead.
It is with the knowledge of this safety and privacy, that Baal loosens her grip on her emotions, and allows herself to feel.
Her body moves before her mind catches up, and with a scream, Grasscutter finds its way into the wall above her bed.
How dare that insolent little mistake! How dare they get in the way! Don’t they know what will happen because of this!
Baal may have been paying the revolt little mind, but she knew Sangonomiya’s rebellion would take this news and run with it. They would use this news to spur the troops, to gather new recruits to their cause, to use the proof that the shogun was not infallible to gain some hope in their losing fight. If the Bakufu was truly unlucky, then the blond-haired anomaly would join their ranks, and take their fighting force from a minor annoyance to a major threat to the archon’s power.
Baal knew what happened when an archon’s power is threatened.
A lucky hit, a dying wish, power she was unprepared for rushing through her body.
Baal’s body collapsed to the floor, her long purple hair knocked out of its braid as she attempted to shake the unwelcome memories from her head, but they would not stop.
Baal returned to Inazuma, holding her mentor’s body in one hand and her mentor’s weapon in another. She climbed Mount Yougou, to the Great Sakura Tree, her face dry, having run out of tears on the trek back home from Khaenri’ah.
She expected to meet the Kitsune at the summit. She knew little about the Lady Saiguu. Baal’s position as right hand in battle and Kitsune’s position as close friend and confidante rarely intertwined. Nonetheless, Baal hoped to find someone who would mourn with her, who would see her as a person, rather than a ruler, and who would help her find her footing as the new Electro archon.
She found none of those things.
Instead, she found a different kitsune standing at the base of the tree, staring at Baal in shock and despair.
They buried Baal’s mentor near where Kitsune Saiguu disappeared, like she would have wanted.
They did not talk that night
Talk about the future, between the two new leaders of their island nation, could come later.
That night, they simply cried.
That night, Baal wept, for all the losses of the past, and all the losses the coming strife was sure to inflict.