Chapter Text
Makoto has gone to Khaenri'ah
Saiguu’s works echo in Ei’s head. The look in her eyes, like she knew something Ei didn’t. The same look she and Makoto got when conspiring against Ei in some silly scheme. But this time, accompanied by a heavy lingering gaze, like this would be the last time she saw her.
Then she smiled, accepting Ei’s promise to protect Inazume in her absence.
It matters not as Ei runs through the battlefield, desecration meeting her eyes instead of the sounds of battle. Smoke, blood, and grief linger in the air, Ei hopes she is not too late, the quiet after a battle settling the atmosphere like the cold of rigor.
Dread coiling within like a snake with fangs poised to strike knows she is.
Then Ei sees her. Makoto lies crumpled on the ground, her kimono stained red. A strangled sound shatters the air, like the cry of a wounded dying animal. Ei doesn’t even feel herself making it. She rushes to Makoto's side, crashing to her knees hard enough to bruise, her hands reaching out to stem the bleeding.
Her wound is terrible, it looks like she has been pierced through, Her ribs have been cracked open, sticking up and her viscera spilling out between them like the curling petals of a spider lily.
Makoto turns to her, Ei’s eyes lift to meet the same electrifying purple as her own. However, Ei’s blood turns to ice, she knows the fading light inside of them. How could she not, not when she had raged war and beheld the dying.
Makoto does not have long left.
Ei’s throat closes up, and she can not speak. Makoto smiles at her, the same one she would give when Ei lost her temper, or when she complained about the strangeness of humanity. Makoto reaches her hand out.
Her hand is covered in her own blood, probably from where she grasped at whatever pierced her. Ei does not care, grasping it and bringing it to her own cheek. When Ei brings Makoto home she will clean her hands, wash them with reverence, Ei would even delicately lick the blood from her fingers if it meant Makoto's hand would be free of the stain. She does not speak, Ei already knows what Makoto is trying to say.
“I’m sorry”. “I love you.” “My Ei.”
But another part claws at Ei. She doesn’t know what Makoto is thinking because how could she just leave while Ei was away?
Why did she do this knowing she could not fight?
That this would lead to her death?
That this would leave Ei all alone.
Makoto gives one last ragged breath, her broken chest rattling. The light in her eyes fades. There is no resistance where Ei holds her sister's hand to her cheek.
Part of Ei waits for Makoto to breathe again but only silence answers.
Ei sits there in shock, feeling nothing before everything shatters. Tears run down her cheeks, mixing with the blood. She pulls Makoto to her chest, her body still warm. All she can do is bury her nose into Makoto's kimono, her normal scent of cherry blossom mixed with blood and death.
Ei cries her name, repeating again and again but Makoto does not answer.
Her sobs choke her, and they come out as screams, Ei holds Makoto’s body closer, praying that this can not be. But it is, and Ei’s grief feels like glass and in that moment she wishes to become one with her twin. For her flesh to melt, and her bones to crumble, so that their ashes may mix and be entwined for eternity.
She can’t let go, and she tastes her own blood as something gives in her throat. In this moment all Ei can feel is the overwhelming sorrow and loss of her being.
What is she without her sister? how will Ei know what warmth is without Makoto by her side? How can she go on living without the one piece of her soul that mattered the most?
Ei is pressed deeply against the body, because that is what Makoto is now. How strange to think that this empty husk was once her sister, that one instant she was there and gone the next.They were supposed to be together for eternity. She should not be able to be gone in an instant.
What is the point of eternity when the one she was supposed to be with forever is suddenly gone?
Ei fractures and suddenly she is not attached to her body, she is an observer watching as her own form cradles her twin.
How can she survive without her for eternity?
Ei’s teeth cut into her lip, blood drips from her mouth, the pain feels like nothing compared to the emptiness.
In the end it is not Ei that lets go first.
Ei never will in anything she does, she will hold onto the memories far longer than she should, bringing nothing but pain.
Makoto’s body crumbles into pale violet petals. They drift through her fingers, some catch on her kimono, others are lost to the bloody ground beneath.
Makoto always leaves first, leaving Ei to grasp at what she’s lost.
When Ei returns to Inazuma, it is to the aftermath of the abyss carving its way throughout the land, leaving death and corruption in its wake. Many are lost, among them she learns quickly is Saiguu.
Saiguu who had not stopped Makoto from leaving.
Who had known what Makoto had planned.
Makoto, who had never been strong as Ei, but who loved her people and the world around them with a devotion Ei had never understood. Who had walked amongst mortals, listening and laughing with them. Learning from them.
Ei had always followed behind, in the shadows.
Watching. Waiting. Confused.
Mortals were fragile things, brief sparks of life that could not stand up to the might of the gods. But Makoto had loved them, cared so deeply for beings that would crumble quickly before the weight of time.
Makoto should have had eternity to spend amongst them, to walk those streets, to laugh with her people and ask about every meaningless detail of their lives Ei had never cared to notice. Now that eternity was left to Ei who could do nothing with it because she lacked the kind radiant light and softness Makoto’s very being had held.
Ei was balethunder, the roar of it echoing across the land before battle, the lightning that struck down their enemies turning them to nothing but ash.
Without Makoto’s light Ei feels as if the thunder will never clear and rain will drown Inazuma for eternity because she is gone.
Dead.
There are no bodies for her to bury. Makoto is petals lost to the wind and Saiguu’s is nowhere to be found.
Ei hopes they are together, wherever it is gods and yokai go after they have passed.
Because thinking of them alone for eternity like Ei is too much to bear.
As Ei returns to her chambers, alone on a throne that should have never been hers, all she can feel is the heaviness of grief.
It's too quiet.
Too empty.
Something inside Ei’s chest feels hollowed out. As though a blade has carved away part of her being leaving only splintered edges behind. Scathing with every breath and moment. Ei can’t help but breathe more deeply, cutting more sharply against them.
Perhaps the pain will draw her from her grief.
It does not, it only serves to deepen the hurt. Serves as a tool for Ei to more deeply wound herself.
Letting violet blood bleed into her chest cavity. That one day it will fill up and she will drown as it escapes from her being, strangling her throat as it crawls up and blinding her as it rips through her eyes.
This pain will follow her no matter where Ei goes or how she tries to lose it. Pain that comes from memories Ei can not erase and love she can not unfeel. This loss is never ending
Makoto’s ōgi-bira kanzashi rests in her hand, it digs into the flesh of her fingers. She turns it over, the pale violet flowers adoring it soft against her skin. Slowly she raises it to her own hair, it slots perfectly with her own hair piece.
Eternity had once meant forever together.
Now it only meant forever alone.