14. but me you have forgotten
number 14 for the sappho challenge, ft. miyaio and timeloops in the endless war ending. literally no one is surprised, given that timeloops are my favorite thing ever and desu 2 is so good at supplying them. it’s ambiguous as to whether or not everyone remembers resetting the timeline after the tri arc, so i went w/the idea that they start to remember as the loops accumulate. it’s reasonably popular fanon that hibiki remembers most of the sep arc timeloops, so i went off of that, along w/some references to kingmaker and my unnecessarily convoluted hcs abt the whole stars/asterisms as actual beings + their relationship to the akashic record.
---
"but me you have forgotten"
0Io swears, at the last, dizzy moment, that Miyako is looking up at her. Too late, she wonders if either of them will remember any of this.
1
"My name is Houtsuin Miyako, acting chief of JP's," she announces. This time, Io does not immediately wonder where Yamato has gone.
2
"You have promise as a tactician," Miyako remarks. "You're certain you were really always a civilian?" She says it in a tone that could almost sound fond, and Io tries not to deny herself the possibility, for once, that someone could ever like her back.
"I think so," is Io's response. "I'm just doing what I have to do, for all of us." Miyako nods; her mouth is a sliver of a smile.
3
"I'm not really that brave," Io insists, hands raised nonconfrontationally, like she doesn't really want Miyako closer. Miyako's eyes narrow.
"False modesty will get you nowhere, Nitta-san." She steps forward--not enough that she's in Io's personal space, but almost, almost. "If you need validation, let me tell you--I like you when you're bold."
4
Io wonders if she's hopelessly fickle, if her romantic instinct is to fall head over heels for the nearest person who helps her stave off the apocalypse (again). She makes herself look at Hibiki, really look at him, and he's still comforting and secure and warm--but he doesn't make her hot, she realizes, mortified by the thought. Sleeping under a tarp at a refugee camp, Io pictures herself pulling Miyako down to her, instigating a kiss on the vague memory of Miyako saying that she likes it when Io is bold. She can't quite recall when Miyako told her that, but the words are so easy to hear in her voice.
5
They all start to remember, by now--at Fumi's behest, Nicaea 2.5 now has a changelog, going back to their original fight with the Triangulum.
"Are you used to remembering?" Io asks Hibiki quietly. His glance slides to the side, nonchalant, but she can see that his brow is furrowed.
"I wouldn't say I'm used to it, but it happened before. With the Septentriones, that is."
"Do you think Saiduq and Miyako-san remembered it all from the beginning, then?" It makes her uneasy, to think of meeting and re-meeting Miyako over and over again, when Miyako has already known her all along. Hibiki smiles--the one where he looks for all the world like he knows something you don't know yet, something you'll like when you figure it out for yourself.
"Probably."
6
Io takes Miyako's gloved hand in her own, willing the feel of the fabric on her palm, of each individual finger laced between her own, to stay with her.
7
"I will remember," Miyako assures her, perfectly rational. "Believe me, I remember quite well how long it takes you, each time around, to call me by my name."
8
"Miyako," Io blurts, nearly tripping in her haste over a pipeline exposed by the torn asphalt of the street.
"How forward," is Miyako's remark, punctuated by a smile that could keep Io fighting forever.
9
Intensely aware of Miyako's gaze on her bare thighs, Io wills herself not to bite her lower lip out of sheer embarrassment.
"Why persist in wearing your school uniform?" Miyako asks suddenly. "Surely by now, you would think to bring a more suitable change of clothing."
"I, um... It slips my mind, usually, even though I know every time that I won't even finish the school day." This is an excuse, Io knows. "My home is always gone, by the time I get a chance to go back for anything." She does not go back for her parents anymore, not when the thought of seeing them at the start of the next loop is half of what keeps her going through the one she's already in. Miyako's awkward arm around her shoulder is the other half of her motivation.
"It wouldn't be any trouble for me to procure you something more sensible, provided you don't mind wearing clothes with a JP's logo." Io looks at Miyako's flashy coat pinned to her shoulders, the svelte dress uniform, and smiles at the notion of Miyako telling her to dress practically.
10
They want her to channel Lugh again, and Io finds herself surprised it's taken this long. This has nothing to do with the Dragon Stream, though--they need only a medium, to pierce this invader's defenses with something not entirely human, nor entirely divine.
"Logic tells me that you're more suited to act as a medium than I am," Miyako says, just as Io closes her eyes to try and picture the magic circle in her mind. For this, she no longer needs Yamato's summoning stage. "Sentiment tells me otherwise."
"It's natural to worry, I think," Io reassures her. "That's what friends do." Miyako takes Io's hand in her own and presses a kiss to it. For once, she does not meet Io's eyes head-on.
"My irrational fretting comes from something more than just a sense of platonic camaraderie."
11
"Don't," Io gasps, even as her free hand punches the commands into her phone to summon a demon with healing skills, infuriatingly steady. She feels lightheaded, but far too in command of herself when Miyako is bleeding out in her arms.
"The needs of the many," is Miyako's firm, ragged insistence. Her voice is waterlogged with blood. Io does not cry--she only aches.
15
Miyako looks a thousand years younger and a thousand years older all at once, Io thinks.
"You could have died," she says, voice alarmingly tremulous. "I'm such a hypocrite." Io isn't the type to throw Miyako's words back in her face, particularly when she can believe, now, that she is worth more alive. It pains her to know that Miyako still doesn't feel the same way about herself.
"I'll be here for you as long as you need me." Given their situation, it's one promise Io is certain she can keep.
19
"I, um. I love you." Miyako rolls over rather abruptly, eliciting a pained squeak from the metal cot frame.
"What's brought this on?" she asks, sounding less businesslike than perhaps she wants to.
"I don't think I've ever confessed to you properly," Io soldiers on, trying to imagine herself working up from notes in Miyako's shoe locker to a full letter, a date, a relationship that lets them grow older together. "I keep thinking about what I want to say, only everything ends up sounding so silly." The generator buzzes ubiquitously behind her every word, rushing in as soon as she's done speaking to chew on Miyako's silence.
"This is perfect," Miyako says at last. "This is more than enough."
23
These invaders have been here long enough that Io really does feel like they're at war. A war of attrition, against a veritable fleet of stars that Miyako and Saiduq insinuate are not even a proper asterism, but instead a group of renegades hurtling themselves at Heaven's Throne.
"Maybe this means we're almost done?" Io ventures. "If there aren't any legitimate successors left, maybe invaders will stop coming for the throne." Miyako smiles wanly and shakes her head.
"This is nothing more than an invitation for the riffraff of the cosmos to grab at control of the Akashic Record. Then again, perhaps I'm not one to talk, given my own status."
"You're not like them," insists Io.
"Really? If I were a proper Triangulum and I could sit Heaven's Throne, would you let me?" Miyako asks the question, and it hovers somewhere between a challenge and a plea for reassurance. Io thinks of something Hibiki told her once, who knows how many times ago. A world that only he remembered, where Saiduq took Heaven's Throne and stayed there, putting everyone else in a surreptitious little pocket dimension where not even Canopus could touch them. I missed him, Hibiki had told her simply. She wonders if that world spins on, undisturbed, if she and Miyako ever met there,
"I would miss you a lot," Io admits, "But I think you would make a good, fair Administrator."
??
"It's my birthday," Io says suddenly. The loops seldom go on this long. She realizes that she is technically a high school graduate, too.
"Happy birthday," Miyako tells her. "I'm afraid I've never celebrated such an occasion before--will this do?" She cups Io's face in her hands and kisses her with a slowness that reminds them both of having all the time in the universe, and yet never enough of it.
???
Io releases her grip, but Miyako twists and catches Io's hand instead.
"Not yet," Miyako tells her, as the two of them float in the space between one timeline and the next. Io knows, if nothing else, she will remember the feel of Miyako's bare hand in hers.