Propaganda: All of season 2 is basically their prolonged divorce arc. Bohman implies Lightning talks about Ai constantly and was watching him even before the Hanoi attacked. Ai takes Lightning's betrayal so deliciously personally. They're literally narrative foils, man, down to being darkness and light. How is this so obscure | Is this a rare ship? Anyway, I really love their dynamic. They both are fearful of having no hope with humanity, but act diffrently towards it.... Ai tries his best to appease humanity and be liked by it at first, and then turns into a more lightning sort of "they're going to kill me anyway" view, a lot of the characters pointing out he's becoming more and more like lightning.... Either way, I like the annoying person x oresama dynamic they have
Pairing 2: Teardropshipping (Aoi Zaizen /Aqua)
Propaganda: The most unconventional aibou
Now, let’s keep things civil. This is a silly poll where we can share why we love our overlooked ships. There’s no need to be nasty to prove your point. Bashers will have their data taken apart.
my piece for the @ygorarepairs mini-bang! This is for @wayfinderrinku ‘s teardropshipping fic! I had a ton of fun making this for them! It’s always great showing these girls some love! :D
link to the fic here! Please check it out!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54618556
Day 2: Rain, Hurt/Comfort (Started as the first one, ended up being both)
Pairing: Aoi/Miyu/Aqua
Description: Aoi and Aqua help Miyu cope with her fear of thunder.
Word Count: 515
Shutting the door behind them, Aoi heaved a sigh of relief. She and Miyu, with the newly revived Aqua in Miyu’s duel disk, had somehow managed to beat the storm just before it started, taking shelter in their dorm room. Thunder rumbled from outside, making Miyu flinch and squeal in alarm.
“Miyu?” Aqua’s response was immediate: turning to her origin and taking her finger in her tiny hands. “Are you okay?”
Aoi rested her hands on her girlfriend’s shoulders. “Do you want your noise-cancelling headphones?”
Trembling, Miyu took Aoi’s hands and nodded. “Y-yes, please.”
Aoi instantly went to their bedroom, spotting the headphones in their usual spot on the dresser. She headed back to the living room. Miyu was on the couch, her legs pulled into her chest as Aqua stroked her trembling hands. Aoi slid in beside her and placed the headphones on. Miyu’s trembling slowed. Shifting closer, she pressed her cheek against Aoi’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Aoi,” her voice was small.
Aoi nodded, knowing Miyu couldn’t hear her: the only sound she could hear now was the soothing music Aoi had put on for her in the headphones.
“Is she okay?” Aqua asked, turning to Aoi.
She nodded. “She is now.”
Aoi wrapped an arm around Miyu’s shoulder as her gaze shifted to the window. Rain was pouring now. It thumped against the glass and slid down the window in small drops as the occasional bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. Miyu's eyes remained closed, relaxing little by little as she leaned on Aoi.
“Is it the loud noise of the thunder causing her this distress?” Aqua’s voice was small as she held Miyu’s finger.
“The sight of lightning or thunder reminds her of the Lost Incident,” Aoi explained in a low voice.
“O-oh… So… this helps her? Wearing headphones and closing her eyes?”
Aoi nodded.
Aqua brushed her cheek against the back of Miyu’s hand, wrapping her arms around more of her Origin’s fingers.
“I still sense so much distress within her. May I… use my powers to ease her mind?”
Aoi blinked. “Your powers can do that?”
Aqua nodded, meeting Aoi’s gaze with tiny pink eyes. “I can have a slight influence on human emotions if I focus hard enough. I promise I won’t do anything more than relax her.”
“Okay…”
It sounded a bit strange but Aoi saw no reason to distrust the Ignis she’d once fought alongside. Aoi slid her hand onto Aqua’s head. The Water Ignis leaned further into the touch, as she suddenly emitted a small light blue glow: her powers beginning to take effect. The glow swirled like water from Aqua’s body and up Miyu’s arm.
The last of the tension in Miyu’s body washed away with a sigh and she fully leaned into Aoi, her breaths now deep and steady. Aqua pressed her face against Miyu’s finger, as though giving her a kiss. Then released her origin’s finger. Aoi smiled.
“Well…” Aoi stroked the top of Aqua’s head, as though petting a cat. “Whatever you did, it worked.”
Nervously, with soulful, brown eyes which were cautiously bright, Aoi raised her hand and in a quiet voice accompanying this motion, she said, “I’ll do it.”
The argument and baleful chatter ceased all but immediately as all eyes – furious – turned her way but Aoi was unerring. She straightened her back and took heart. Took conviction.
“I volunteer.” Aoi piped up, gravely. “I volunteer to do it.”
“No, you can’t.” one of her crewmates – Hosoda – insisted, his voice sharp and grating. “What about your brother? He would be devastated, let someone-"
“He’ll understand.” Aoi cut in. “It’s one of us or all of us. He will understand. Tell him… I wanted to be an angel. A blue angel. A saviour. He’ll understand.”
Her words were divisive to say the least. Piercing into the minds of her fellow crewmates like incisor teeth into their flesh. She was, admittedly, the one with the most skill with the task at hand. When it came to technology, Aoi wasn’t a born prodigy but she was scrappy. She worked hard, earned her keep and outshone most of the natural talents. She could do these repairs in her sleep and in half the time and oxygen that anyone else on board the rocket ship could.
It also just so happened that Aoi was also the one with the most to lose back on Planet Earth. Worst of all, she was right. One of them could die or all of them could die. The simple trolley problem but this time, the one at the helm was the one who wanted to be tied to the railway tracks.
There was a crackle over the intercom. The staticky noise filled them all with heavy, knotting dread until greetings were made and then all-consuming whomp of guilt in the bottom of their stomachs increased as words rang through, true and clear.
Ground control.
Ground control to Major Zaizen, no less. The permission was granted. They all understood the gravity of the situation. Miss Zaizen most of all as the others slowly, reluctantly accepted the vow that she had made. She would save them at the cost of her own life.
Farewell, Major Zaizen. May your brother’s love be with you.
The decision was made.
She put on her helmet. She strapped an oxygen tank to her back and she looked out onto the final frontier. Her final frontier.
The Planet Earth was blue. Her favourite colour, she mused bittersweet as the enormity of her home planet was just a small dot in the far, far away distance of the galaxy. Aoi stood on the threshold of the quarantined capsule. It was a reinforced glass sphere with a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of all the skies in the Milky Way. It was beautiful and yet, looking unto the stars, these dying balls of gases, they didn’t look like they had the time cycle before. Or even as they had when she once stood on the soil and grass of Planet Earth.
These stars… They looked so peculiar in hues of blue and silver as Aoi blinked away tears. It really was true. When you were about to die, all your life flashed before your eyes. Staring out and into the vastness of space with her duty so heavy on her shoulders, Aoi felt so peculiar in general as she was made to recall her life so far.
She remembered the faces of her parents, freshly married. She had been so nervous around her step-father but once she warmed up to him, she was a bonafide Daddy’s girl, making her Mummy proud by getting along with the new members of the family.
She remembered the kind face of her brother whom she had just met and all the times they read her favourite book together. Aoi had been a voracious reader and she loved fantasy books above all. Blue Angel was her favourite. She remembered telling the kids in her kindergarten class that one day she was going to be an angel. None of them ever believed her. But look what she was doing now. Tada. Dreams really do come true, even if it is in a twisted way.
Regardless, Aoi’s childhood was something she reflected on with more nostalgia than not. It had been so, so sweet but far too short. Her parents’ lives were taken too soon by an accident and the Zaizen children were forced out of all they had known. Afterwards, her brother, Akira, became like a father to her all the same as he was an older step-brother to her. He shepherded her from place to place, keeping her safe, keeping meals on the table.
She remembered her childhood friend who was with her all the way until high school. Well, on and off all the way through high school. There had been some pretty serious spats in elementary school but it was an entirely different war when they were tweens. Middle school was a battleground for anyone. Least of all for a pair like they were. A quiet nerd and a bombastic airhead. Regardless, Miyu was many of her first. First friend. First kiss. First break-up even though they were never really dating. First make-up and Aoi missed her dearly. She wished they’d had a better goodbye than just fading from each other after graduation.
She remembered university and grad school, too. All the training she had undergone to be in this position at all. Aoi had put her mind and body through the utmost, absolute worst. It had been gruelling but it had been worth it. She was privy to sights and emotions that only a select few - the astronauts, the cosmonauts, the explorers of the stars - could ever know and that helped her.
It distanced itself from her as Aoi found herself in the present once more. Knowing what she must do.
All her life, every second, every minute, every hour: it all culminated like this.
In space.
In becoming a star.
The papers had wanted to know whose designer brands she had worn to fundraising galas and if she would sign these souvenirs… just in case she didn’t make it. Even if she had made it. She was still a woman and she was still an astronaut, a legend in the making and it consoled Aoi to know that what waited her soul, the memory and idea of her, was a medal. She hoped that Akira would cherish it in her place.
There had been highs and there had been lows and now there was this.
Something which was both. And neither. Caught between extremes, just like her fate which was in her own hands.
The quarantine period was over. Hosoda and the others were fine with letting Aoi disembark and unto her doom. It was the most agonising and quiet fifteen minutes of Aoi’s life but when she disembarked, the roar of serenity in her ears, the droning of her blood, was unfathomable. She knew what she had to do. She could do it with her eyes closed, she could do it in her sleep, and she absolutely could do it as the very last thing she ever did.
And it really would be the last thing she did.
Aoi made the external repairs with all the mindfulness of a professional. Not a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face but a sigh of contentment did escape her lips when she finished. With plenty of time to spare, she noticed when she checked the gauge on her oxygen tank.
“Hosoda,” she said into her intercom, “I’ve finished. You’ve got a couple minutes tops to make your getaway and go back home.”
There was a moment and Aoi felt her stomach drop. The pause was a few seconds long but filled with static until a clear cut voice came through on the line.
“Roger.” Hosoda replied. “And Zaizen?”
“Yes?” Aoi said, worried this was wasting time but she could tear the tears in her captain’s voice.
“My wife will thank you. You’ve really made the grade. We all thank you. Good night, Blue Angel.” Hosoda said and Aoi began to cry.
She let go of the capsule.
It was an easy decision, Aoi made as she let go of the side of the rocket and then undid the belt that kept her tethered. She relaxed as she allowed the sensation of floating overtake all her senses. The sphere may have given her so much more vision than what she could make out through her helmet but the stars around her were still beautiful, still peculiar but even better was the sight of her comrade’s survival.
The rocket took off. The boosters sputtered and there was just enough distance that Aoi could comfortably observe that she wasn’t in the danger zone despite how smoke plumed around this little piece of the vacuum of space.
It was either burn to death or freeze to death. Caught between two extremes didn’t suit a watery girl like Aoi but if since she had her choice, she wanted to go peacefully into the cold, dark abyss of space.
Aoi watched as the rocket’s boosters, now fully functional again because of her sacrifice, lit up like fireworks. For a second, watching those flames and those sparks, the embers that scattered, the tears that Aoi cried her happy tears. However, such joy dissipated even quicker than the fanfare that allowed the drifting, tin can that was once a tomb became a spaceship again.
She smiled, bittersweet, as she listened into conversations she had been purposefully excluded from. They applauded her. They thanked her. Until the range was cut and it was so, so cold. So lonely. Their gratitude was just gratitude. Nothing that Aoi could hold onto, not physically, as she allowed her eyes to close.
As she allowed herself to sleep.
There was no use delaying it. No use fighting it. She just had to bide her time until the cold took her and until her oxygen tank was empty.
She drifted. She floated.
She drifted and she floated for what felt like aeons. For lightyears, even.
Until her lips were blue, until her fingertips were blue.
Aoi was helpless as these feelings turned to literal frost inside of her. She was helpless but she didn’t mind it. It wasn’t the worst thing. There had been times as a child when she had starved, this was no worse than that. This was even softer. She accepted her grisly end. Forever lost but at least she was asleep.
Sleeping. Until she bumped into something.
“Huh?” Aoi managed to eek out some sort of noise from her mouth.
For so long, there had been nothing and to be reminded of something, Aoi felt muddled. It wasn’t hard, like a rock, nor was it soft like flesh. It was more… buoyant than that, she bounced slightly off this structure and she knew she had to get a look. She had to know more.
It was her sick and last, dying curiosity.
Aoi struggled for a moment before she finally batted ice off her stiff eyelashes as she tried to open her eyes, too. There was something strange. She had been in this fugue state of hypothermia for so long that to feel anything else was jarring. Discordant. Aoi moved her head just slightly and she could feel the ice and tear rip her suit as she tried to do so. That would only hasten her death, surely, but she saw the most peculiar thing.
The oddest thing: an octopus.
An octopus in the shape of a neuron like the ones she had in her very brain as her grey matter turned blue.
“I’m so sorry, child of the planet Earth.”
The octopus spoke and had a soothing voice. Feminine, she sounded, the tones of her voice accompanied by the trickling of water, like a gentle delta welcome to play in during summer.
Aoi couldn’t believe her eyes. It was only logical to believe that there was life in outer space but she hadn’t expected intelligent life. She thought of germs and plants, not… an angelic octopi.
The octopus-like alien dipped her head low, Aoi felt the bubble of her halo, like two pigtails, bump against her and her tentacles - six of them - coiled around Aoi’s body in an embrace. She nuzzled against the sphere of Aoi’s helmet and there was such pity to the glow of her one, big pink eye in the middle of her head. It reminded Aoi of the cherry blossom moon when it was at crescent.
“Don’t be… sorry…” Aoi continued to eek out. “I chose this.” Her breathing was haggard. It was hard to breathe. She must be - no, she had to be - out of oxygen by this point. Her vision was blurring but it just turned to hazy pinks and cyans, the entirety of the alien whose embrace she had found herself in. Aoi smiled. She couldn’t believe it but she was smiling as she, in turn, assuaged the anxiety of the alien. “I chose this. I wanted to be… among the angels and now… I am.”
That only appeared to break the alien’s heart. She held onto Aoi tighter and Aoi tried her very best to reciprocate. It was difficult. It was stiff but she managed to bend her arm upwards so she could try to caress the side of the alien’s face. Regardless, she was comfortable in the embrace and the surrender.
“Well…” the alien murmured. “You are safe now. You are amongst higher beings, human.”
“Thank you.” Aoi said and she closed her eyes again, feeling depleted and exhausted by all she had to muster just for a few words or to keep her eyes open.
She was so tired. She was so sleepy. Aoi wasn’t sure if this was a delusion, her sanity fraying at the edge as she teetered between life and death before she finally succumbed or if this really was an encounter of the third time. Though, she did feel safe with this alien.
She may very well wake up afterwards.
She may not.
All Aoi knew for certain was that she had done it. She had achieved her dream of being an astronaut, of being a blue angel, to have swam and to have flown in the heavens. Now, she was in the hands - no, she was in the arms, no, the limbs, no, to be more anatomically correct, the tentacles - an actual alien.
Aoi awoke with a start, a cry catching in her throat. She gripped the blanket tightly, tiny tears clinging to the corner of her eyes.
“Aoi? Is everything alright?” Aqua’s voice sounded softly in the dark, the screen of Aoi’s duel disk glowing from the table beside her.
“Just, just a bad dream,” she said, rolling onto her side and pulling the blanket tight around herself. “Again.”
There was a soft sound like rippling water and Aoi felt something alight gently on her shoulder. She tilted her head slightly to see Aqua sitting on her shoulder.
“It was about Miyu wasn’t it?”
She opened her mouth to ask how Aqua knew but stopped, of course she would know, she could practically read minds.
“I know you said wanted to thank me, to see me again, but I keep thinking about all the ways it could go wrong. What if she ends up mad at me, or doesn’t want to be my friend again, what if she ends up hating me? I want to see Miyu-chan again, but I’m scared.”
Aqua leaned over and gently stroked her hair, tiny hand moving in a smoothing motion. “I promise Aoi, Miyu wants to see you again too. I promise it’ll be alright.”
Aoi closed her eyes, listening to Aqua’s reassuring voice as she drifted off to sleep.
‘I know she’ll like you Aoi. After all, I like you.’
