//Just feels hopping all over this. It...doesn’t read as cohesively as I’d hoped? But it gave me a chance to iron out a little about Kaida’s life before she fully lost her sanity and her powers became too much.
Read-more’d for length, and a few touchy subjects; including cultural platonic erasure, unhealthy escapism, death, and grief. @nikimura for reference. OUR POOR BABIES IN THIS AU OKAY. ;____________;
Hisui ya gin no shokki abiru hodo no budoushu
Mune hirake odoru onna tobikau kinka
Her voice rang clear and steady as the words flowed from her, headphones blocking out the world around her. Her Shining Emperor, her twin flame, her other half, watched her carefully, knowing how fragile she was after Drifting. She was doing it more and more, and it worried Ni, especially when she did it for days, and the toll was beginning to show on her body. Though the love they had wasn’t what their people wished it to be, they still loved each other very much. And he saw the way the visions were beginning to tear his Black Goddess apart. How the pressures of fighting a losing war were fraying the edges of her already fragile grip on sanity.
Kanbashii ran no hana wo matoi hohoemu mona riza no kao sae
Midarana yokubou ni kegasare chijoku to kutsuu ni yugandeiru
Namida wa itsuka hoho wo tsutatte chi wo hai kawa to natta
Yoi ga samete gareki no naka tsukamu guuzou
He watched her rise from her seat on the balcony’s floor and begin to move to what he knew was the rhythm of the song, the words still flowing from her lips. He knew the song well; it was one of their favorites, and she sang it so well. He just wished it didn’t fit. He wished it was just pretty words, but it wasn’t.
It was a favorite because it fit their lives.
Because they had been forced to throw their childhoods away. Because they were watching their people fall. Because little by little, they lost hope and still moved forward.
Because the line of Amano, the blood of Shiromegami no Kyouko, ended with Kaida.
Garasu no machi ni hibiku tsuitou no pavaanu
Saidan ni yokotau no wa hakuba no yuushi
She finished the song and her dancing, tears on her face, as it began to rain. Even as the drops began to weigh her too-long white hair down, Ni walked over and tugged her off the balcony and into their apartment, guiding her to the couch so she could sit. Several moments passed as the brunet set to brushing her hair out and setting it back into a braid before she finally spoke.
“We’re going to lose.” Her voice was quiet, and shook, and held a quality to it he’d never heard from her before.
“I know, Kaida.”
“We’re going to lose, and the line ends with me. All because...because we can’t...We’re supposed to, but we can’t.”
Raimei wo ukete kogetsuitemo tenmaku wo yaburitsuki susunde
Mamoru beki mono no sono tame ni wakai inochi wo chiriotoshita
Namida wa itsuka hoho wo tsutatte chi wo hai kawa to natta
Oh. So that was what was tearing at her edges this time. Setting things to the side, Ni wrapped his arms around Kaida, pulling her tight to him.
“I know.”
“Why can’t we?! We’re Black Goddess and Shining Emperor! We’re of age! We did everything right, and yet...” Ni hugged her tighter as the shadows around them began to writhe and react to Kaida’s frustration and sorrow. “A-are we broken, Ni? We have to be broken. O-or I am...”
It broke his heart every time she said that.
“We just weren’t meant to be like this. You know that. You’ve told me that many times. We are not broken; our paths were broken for us.” Kaida’s eyes watered before she buried her face in him and began to cry.
Sugite wa modoranu kaze yo aganau koto sae dekinai
Hisui ya gin no shokki abiru hodo no budoushu
Mune hadake odoru onna tobikau kinka
Two weeks later, she was out of tears. She hid her face in Mana’s shoulder, her own shoulders shaking, but she was out of tears. And she was terrified her people would see her eyes, would see the darkening of her sclera that had begun since Ni had fallen to a pack of the White Bitch’s monsters. Mana kept her arms tight around her cousin, around her Black Goddess, and wondered if the helpless, cold feeling running through her was how Lady Hwang-og had felt whenever she couldn’t console her half-sister.
It didn’t help that Mana knew she was going to finally lose her cousin. There was no way Kaida would be able to hold off the Amano Curse any longer. Especially not Drifting as she did to escape the pain.
Garasu no machi ni hibiku tsuitou no pavaanu
Saidan ni yokotau no wa hakuba no yuushi
Kaida Amano, the last Black Goddess of the ‘Sidhe’, smiled as she darted through the visions of Other Times and Places, her sleeping body left behind for a time with the shadows wrapped tightly around her to guard.
