❧ —I want to defend you.

“We wouldn’t get along…”

“Pass me the salt.” 

He takes it from her and silently sprinkles his food with it, trying her patience by hesitating to answer. Her question didn’t warrant a quick answer, it really didn’t warrant one at all.

“Do you know how close the next fast food restaurant is, Gomon-san? It isn’t nearby. We are on the top of a mountain, surrounded only by onsen, might I remind you.” His voice took an authoritative tone he would use with a student. He didn’t often interact with Gomon in person, or alone. Generally they conversed through memos and sat at the same table at council meetings. He regarded her in a complex way. He too had once been a young member of the council but even as a child he never saw himself as one. 

“With all due respects, sensei, I’ll submitted a rather thorough and detailed report on the fight against Beloved.”

“Well do excuse me for trying to have a proper conversation with you. I would remind you that, as I have thoroughly read your report, Akame-san’s location was uncommented on, there was only documentation on his injuries. 

If only it were that she could find it that easy to trust in the council again.

“Sensei, you want assurance that Akame will not cause further damage on Seimei’s behalf, no? Rest assured, he will never be able to access his full fighting power again.”

Ritsu went through the line in the nearly empty cafeteria picking up the pieces of his meal. He walked his school unaided- also a matter of pride. He didn’t want his weakness to be visible, and he knew the school like the back of his hand. His new hesitance and increased touching of his surroundings gave him away, however. And of course everyone already knew. Every time he passed someone they were whispering about what Seimei did to him. Gomon might know how that felt. 

She is slightly uncomfortable with the direction of the students’ looks. It is to her advantage that her face is rather unknown; Moonless operates within the shadows, choosing to reveal their identities mostly as a bargaining chip during negotiations. She makes associations with the Septimal Moons (note: they aren’t friends, to speak), as well as a few choice others whom she knows are valuable assets, but there is nobody besides Tokino whom she can call a friend. The less confirmed rumors there are of her appearance, the safer. 

She notices immediately that she no longer subconsciously adds “Seimei” to the list, and for that she is glad.

He’s asked himself this question countless times since he first arrived here…was taken to here, and though with each iteration its desperateness has diminished, no answers were supplied to him. Or at least, no answers from the one person he needed to ask most. It’s definitely been more than a month of this, playing on the razor’s edge, and he has not so even felt a twinge of his bond to beckon him back where he belonged since. Where he thought he belonged?

Tokino’s hand stayed from striking him again at the sound of Mikado’s voice calling out to them, reverberating subtly off of the wood paneling of the hallway that connected the kitchen to the rest of the apartment.

Nisei clutched at his upper arm where Tokino had battered his fist against only a few moments before, deeply bruising the flesh underneath his clothing. The vast majority of such marks were inflicted with such parameters in mind now that they were soon preparing to allow guests to visit again– though no such reservations were had in the first few weeks of his stay, one of the few visible remnants of his initial “breaking in” period was a splotchy, sallow bruise that spread from the corner of his jaw to the edge of his neck: a gift for talking back, when Nisei still thought that he wouldn’t be staying in this apartment for much longer. Gradually more violent repercussions from the other, usually composed Fighter kept him from repeating those sorts of verbal resistances any more. There were better ways to waste his energy.

The newest painful addition that Nisei was currently (and futilely) trying to staunch under a firm grip bloomed away from scrutiny and was earned for a mistake in cleaning the floor, which he was kneeling on now. The usually bright color of his eyes was shadowed and shallow now that all of his theatrics and customary insurrections had worn themselves out through this one, prolonged experience of stress and doubt and frequent consequence. There was no longer any pretense involved with how he and Tokino regarded each other. 

A sullen, serious hatred churned in his silent gaze, aimed up at the side of the other man’s face, and this look persisted even as Tokino twisted his head to look back at him. Tokino made no move to leave the kitchen himself, which was a cue for Nisei to leave in his stead. Usually Tokino attended to Mikado directly, but they were trying out their new acquisition in a variety of new menial roles– that, and Tokino seemed the slightest bit flustered and disturbed when interrupted in the middle of his any number of cruelties towards Nisei, especially when Mikado did it, since she did not usually share his opinion that this degree or frequency of force was necessary. Maybe he didn’t expect just how easy and normal it was to get lost in his violence against the other, even after this span of time. It was so second nature now to backhand him or hit him for any fault because everything about the Nisei was so easy to hate, and there was not a doubt in his mind that the younger man deserved the entirety of his harsh treatment– even when he had long stopped fighting back.

Nisei got up from his place on the tiled floor as Tokino went to sit down on one of the stools, and dropped the sponge he had been holding onto the kitchen counter, leaving the room and Tokino behind as he walked into the hallway. 

Mikado’s bedroom door was at the end of the hall, lacquered white and slightly ajar. Without knocking, he shouldered the door the rest of the way evenly before standing near the foot of the girl’s bed as she waited by her floor-length mirror ahead, watching him from the reflection. His expression contained only a faint remnant of his prior anger, there remained mostly just his new layer of subtle haggardness that he bore whenever he had just had a recent confrontation with her Fighter. Though, she stood unaffected and dignified, small hands finishing with her buttons. 

He averted his eyes from hers. 

No fear, no uncertainty. Her Fighter’s constant, hovering presence and hypervigilance of every action that Nisei makes insures that she is forever secure from the hands of this man. She no longer has to recall the pain of his nails digging into her thighs. 

She is safe.

(A sickening voice tells her she’ll never be safe, but it is quiet and easy to swallow. She trusts her Fighter’s ability to keep the dog tamed, muzzled.)

“A choker with a heart-shaped charm is on the vanity,” she begins coolly. She runs her comb through the fibers of her wig- motions that are gentle, practiced. Mikado sees the Fighter turn to look at the direction she indicates and she notes through the mirror’s reflection the fading bruises that stand out from paleness of his skin. Yellow, to match his eyes.

She wonders why Seimei has completely abandoned his Fighter.

It is not that she’s unaware of how completely apathetic he can be to the suffering of others- but Sacrifice’s purpose is to share their partner’s pain. She cannot forgive such a violation to what she considers a sacred aspect of the bond between Fighter and Sacrifice. Seimei’s betrayal is absolutely loathsome to have witnessed, she thinks- a thought that is followed by a surge of affection for Tokino. She is glad, so very glad that a man as kind as him has her protection. She notes idly to herself that perhaps part of her indignation towards Nisei’s mistreatment at Seimei’s hands was in part due to the possibility that she herself could have easily acted in the same way to her other half, had she not decided to place her absolute trust in him. 

At any case, Mikado has assumed that Seimei would have called for Nisei eventually. Having two Fighters is exponentially more useful than carrying around just one- although Seimei may have realized that if he had, Moonless would have just followed Nisei straight to Seimei’s location.

The corner of her mouth turns down in a small indication of displeasure, even as Nisei returns with the aforementioned accessory in hand. His figure seems so very small now- hutched slightly over and withdrawn, with the gauntness lining the hollows of his cheeks and shadows underneath his eyes. He seems to be desperately clinging onto one last hope, one that both know will most likely never occur; she feels as if he is the barest bones of what he used to be.

A Fighter without a Sacrifice is truly a pathetic sight to behold.

Good, she thinks, and that word is followed by a vicious surge of gladness. This is a reconditioning- no other word exists to describe the training that they are performing. She would let her Fighter gorge himself with his fill of revenge and she would take whatever left and reshape it to her own ends.

To the victor go the spoils, Nisei had breathed once, brushing a lock of hair out of her face.

She agrees.

Her mind immediately jumps to assume that this woman is the other Agatsuma’s relative, someone who had married into that bloodline- Agatsuma Soubi’s sister-in-law, or some other annoying relation. A quick second later does she recall that the woman described herself to be older than Minami-sensei-

“Are you by any chance Agatsuma Soubi’s mother?”

The small puzzles click in place- everyone at the Septimal Moons at least heard the rumors about Minami’s fascination with the blank Fighter, if only for his resemblance with his dead mother. Akio’s slightly withdrawn face (oh- too familiar to Soubi’s to be unrelated by blood) at the mention of Minami, the age difference-

She hesitates. Two more questions balance precariously on the tip of her tongue, but she swallows them out of tact, instead turning to a familiar phrase.

“Who are you?”

She’s also rather intrigued by the secrets that the woman’s words imply.