you blink through the illusion, readjusting your vision before it's now the warm eyes of your long-gone father looking back at you. you're oblivious to the fact that yukari is now sobbing happily, desperately hugging an illusion, her father, as the end descends upon her too. just outside of your private karaoke room, the food junpei got for everyone now lays scattered across the floor. the boy is on his knees in disbelief, softly clutching an illusion's hand, the cute red-headed girl he never found the courage to speak to over the summer.

your brother is frozen, just as still as you ( fitting, isn't it? ) but you don't - or more like can't - think to reach out to him. all other existence is gone to you. denied. it is just you, the silence, and the same dead eyes staring right back at you. then she speaks.

' i see now. an interesting choice... but i guess this is to be expected from one of the wild cards. ’ her mouth never moves. her eyes never leave your own. her voice is all encompassing - it's terrifying and incredible. it's crushing and freeing - the thought of dying is suddenly elating to you! she continues but this time she speaks with not just her own voice but a multitude of them - the clearest two sound the most eerily familiar to you and it feels...wrong that you can't place either one. ' even after all you have forgotten...the wish to see him again cannot be erased, yes? hmm. i will allow it. ' she's gone after her declaration and there in her place, sits a little blue-eyed boy innocently smiling up at you.

❛ hey there. ’ he pats the free space on the booth next to him before excitedly picking up a song book from the crowded table, looking forward to you helping him satiate his infinite curiosity. you don't know him ( right? ) but strangely obey anyway, as it feels right to. you sit there with him, answering each and every one of his questions. you remain in peaceful bliss as the moon descends to wash anything and everything away. // the idea of what it would the fall look like if ryoji's offer is accepted came to me suddenly. and so i sent this, because i like pain ( and directing at other people uwu ). it's up to you if you want to answer it as an ask or enjoy it for what it is.

XXII ███   THE DAY HAD BEEN LIKE any other. wake up too tired, wash her face do a little makeup, make a small breakfast & a lunch for her & her brother while she's at it( leftovers dressed up just enough to make it seem different. nothing too wild. boring even. mundane. that's how life was right now. ordinary. yet her mind scratches, itches. it hurts. something hurts. her head, no her heart ? ), go to school with her eyes on the train & music in her ears, attend class, have lunch, go to club it's student counci--- no it's gymnastics ? why can't she remember ? the world becomes static & then it's clear she's taking a moment before leaving school--wait no that's right--go to club, on the way to get yukari spy on senpai pretending you're not like all the other fangirls, go hang out with yo-- you ? you ? you ? WHO IS SPEAKING FOR YOU ?

the day had been like any other. wake up, wash her face & apply a little make up ! just a bit of pink on the lip, a splash of peach on the cheeks, & a little mascara ! a smile before she would go downstairs, making some breakfast for her & her brother. lunch out of the leftovers from the night before. off to school & lucky is she to get a seat on the train, lost in the music her headphones play. a boring day just like any other. wake up, wash face, make food, go to school. the headphones do not play anything. you can only hear yukari's off beat singing in karaoke. karaoke ?

her vision swirls as her head spikes in pain, hands digging into her hair as she does everything not to scream the moment she's assaulted. what is trying to surface ? breathless as she tries to look around & stand up--- but she can't. suddenly she's sitting flat & lifeless, back against the sofa in the karaoke room, head tilted to the side & her eyes empty. devoid of life. stupid stupid girl. selfish selfish girl. dooming an entire world just for a boy ? ＂no--- no i didn't--- i--＂ who are you talking to ? ＂i don't know ! i can't even talk right now !＂ && suddenly she's playing the tamborine in beat to the song yukari's singing to. junpei is gone, off to get the food they've ordered & her brother is dead next to her !

the instrument clatters to the ground as she jumps up backing into the table that shutters & shakes, the bolts at it's feet keep it grounded but she she's hardly so; nearly falling backward on it. yukari keeps singing as if nothing's wrong & junpei has entered to announce the food is here. but minato, her brother that boy that shares her soul in a mirrored reflection, is dead. pale skin, blue lips, jaw slack, eyes flat. ＂what the fuck ?! does no one see this ?＂ she pushes from the table & shakes her brother screaming his name, demanding him wake up. his head lists side to side in the motion before twitching uncontrollably a horror that once more sends her backwards--- yet instead of falling into the table she simply..... falls. down, down, down, down into the darkness a pitch black nothing eating at her. the lack of light blotting her vision outside of that of her brother's corpse floating above her, joined soon by yukari's own her cheeks stained with tears from embracing her father as if she's not seen him in such a long time, of chidori her hands bloodied & her face twisted in pain. of her mother, her face gone as she doesn't remember it & her father, face gone in a matched pair.

❝ yeesh, someone's in'a mood. ❞ not that he was going to blame her for it. things were complicated. both of them had very complicated lives in areas that the other technically wasn't allowed to step in or interfere. it was a conflict of interest at best. at worst..... it would skew balance and have eyes looking in directions they should otherwise be avoiding.

❝ s' good thing i wasn' askin' for help. ❞ no. this was more of his decision to look up close and gauge his investment. akari- cosmos, had every reason to be avoidant but when it came to matters that involved the dead- that was more of his territory than hers.

they were two being that existed on opposite sides of the boundary. hanekoma takes a cigarette out from the pack he kept in his breast pocket and fished for his lighter in the back; flicking it a few times till the flame caught before really starting to smoke. he was respectful enough to keep some distance between her and the doorway.

       ❛  Why do humans so relentlessly pursue the light, with all of its destruction?  ❜

                                          “  Where have you been all this time? I --  “ 

The fire senshi could feel her heart sink deep down into the pit of her stomach. Everyone had seemed like they were giving up on her, everything had expected and assumed the demise of the very person now standing in front of her. The visions weren’t her going crazy. She knew better. She knew to follow her sights, she knew that there had been no way that she was as gone as the others made it seem like. They had all given up. They gave up on her. She could never have given up on her. She knew that she couldn’t have been gone. It felt like the weight of the entire situation had been shoved onto her shoulders, forcing her down to her knees while she refused to look away. If she looked away, she would be gone all over again. 

After a moment’s silence and hearing her speak, Mars slowly rises back up, the world felt so shaky around her and all she wanted to do was fall over again. But she wouldn’t. She was stronger than this. Despite tears streaming down her cheeks from such a sight. She was pregnant. There was something ---- something there. Why didn’t she keep in contact? Why hide away from the people who cherished and adored her most? Her fists grasp tightly from the first encounter. It felt like a war even getting to this point. But for now, she needed to fight off her current thoughts. She needed to fight off the hurt, the strong emotions trying to ring through. Now wasn’t the time for that. Now couldn’t be the time for that. 

It was safe enough for her to change back. No more was she going to be the guardian -- but simply Rei. Maybe that’d make this process easier? Maybe if she stopped thinking like a soldier and more like ----  her expression said all that she needed to know. How was anyone supposed to realistically remain calm in this situation? Slowly approaching, she stopped once she was a few feet away from her to grant both of them enough space to process everything going on. 

                                                “  Just what were you thinking?!  “

There she was, there was Rei again. 

MCGRIDDLES ARE DISGUSTING!!!!

they’re too sweet and have that grainy texture that leaves a film on my teeth and i hate that feeling!!! and plus mixing salty and sweet like that if you get them with sausage or bacon?? NOPE.

but you know who would respect mcgriddles?

MAMORU!

akira:

Send “🖊” and I will draw your muse {Selectively accepting}

@cosmama

‘ LIKE YOU? ‘ Is unspoken on his tongue. He is not in love with her like he has been in love once before; nor on the cusp of the beginnings of another . He loves her as he loves the sky for being a constant companion.

 As he loves the spirits in the grass; in in the air - the taste of salt by the sea gathering fish and fresh produce for a place his broken tongue almost croaks in his heart as home. He loves her as a man loves light; he loves her for reminding him of the brightness of his own, though he would vehemently deny it having been snuffed out by war; tragedy and death. 

How he never really had ever been a child, not truly, from cholera striking his parents to the slavers picking up with three women who decided his life was worth something of value to keep living for. 

How he stood in myriad glades of crosses he made for each murderer, for Kasumi, Akane, and Sakura-san. Only a day and in that instant he had wanted nothing more than to protect the lives of three women who had not been able to choose their lives but wanted him to live, spare this child, spare this child – until he was no longer a child. 

Until he was a thing of nightmares, of legends; unbearable prowess in might in the sword that none could withstand; leaving the mountains of Kyoto with a ‘simpleton’s mind’ of purity that gave him no other option but to pursue a path of idealism that would end in tears. 

Giving his future for all; until small happinesses could be lit up for other’s futures; a fourteen year old speaking that if his sword could carve a path to the new era where children smiled without fear and people could attain happiness in it; he would wield the sword. 

Thus, he became a shadow with a heart concealing its brilliant, nigh snuffed light as the blood cloyed to his tongue; as the bodies fell like shucked wheat and the war blazed until the very city of Kyoto once burned alive, like a writhing, thrashing thing.

How he found love in the form of sorrowful black eyes and a well-earned vengeance turning to forgiveness, how his life both created happiness for the era now, and stole from two lives that created the cross upon his cheek.  Rampant, red, seething, sad. Her life and love lain buried in the indention of the second line; her fiance? 

The first; both by his blade in a stroke of bitter, bitter fate. Sometimes the salty taste of blood stings in his nightmares; the myriad skulls beneath his sandals haunting him each crunch as he walks in horrors.

 Kenshin’s principles during their brief life together ten years past make him wonder how long the world will test him; how many pursuers will face him only to be defeated until one may yet claim life.  

How this existence atoning and not guaranteed an answer will not necessarily lead him to penance; but he walks it anyway. He continues to give, and give, and give, and observe, and guard, and protect the world he carved into creation with even compatriots that feared him. 

But sometimes Cosmos comes in a dream; perhaps she is merely the moon itself; Mother Earth, hymns and various names sung from ancient times, the universe in a body; the ache of humanity and the sting of divinity. Perhaps she is love; perhaps she too is judgment. But in her eyes so bright with stars for pupils; he sees nothing but what many would easily recognize as love.

Kenshin is not so adept at recognizing remote kindness aimed at himself, and thus he smiles, that seamless; slightly kind smile tinged with indelible sadness. Subconsciously in her presence his light manifests to her by the spread of her hands; the smile on her mouth, the whispered, look at it Kenshin, look and feel and know that your light remains and it endures. 

❝ You love indiscriminately. I have no right to tell you ‘do not love me’, for you will do so nonetheless. It’s merely who you are, what you are, is it not? For this world and whatever else exists that we both seem to love .

It must be painful, to bear the weight of such feelings. I wonder if anyone considers that when you come to them in their dreams, or in their life in forms perhaps I’ve already met you. Perhaps in every form I’ve ever been. But it would be too easy to tell me, and I am only a man. The world doesn’t seem to know that, though, it’s silly isn’t it?  ❞

 For a legend of men such as he, he is but a strand of stardust; a cusp of bright morning to her unfathomable moonlit expanse. It does him no shame to be humble, he never liked pride anyway.

 From the broken little child named Shinta, burying countless corpses with his hands in a field; to the fifteen year old Hitokiri Battōsai (KENSHINKENSHINKENSHIN ) felling countless men to pave the future his people lived in now while his own was sacrificed, as were many others. 

To the rurouni, Kenshin, ( it had always been Kenshin always ) that continued the principles he promised in Otsu Village with his wife; to protect the lives before him one by one and observe the country without killing another soul again once the war was done. 

Protecting the people without recompense; surveying the country he helped create with his own eyes and finding aching need and corruption in equal measures both, requiring his soothing and protective hands; broken heart throbbing with love and equal measures instrinic desire to continue to offering protectionfor the people he had always fought for. 

❝ I cannot complain, and yet I admit, I am tired of being feared or one to be in awe of. I will be feared all my life; and hated all my days, or revered as the ‘strongest’ and all of it will make this heart grow fatigued. I will not ask for pity, for there is none to find nor deserved. 

But I will find an answer to atone for my crimes, as much as I will protect an era not yet completed. I will continue to offer this ‘light’ you say shines so brightly in my stained soul.

 I will give this life of battles until it no longer breathes. In that, whether I find atonement or further retribution, I will endure. And..I will go on, I think. Yes, I will. ❞ 

He does not bother with third person; she knows his masks. Merely the speech of ten years past, that he had lost rights to having.

Kenshin’s gentle eye meets hers; an unwitting savior of the people in the form of a flawed man, but who but she knew better the flaws of man and their triumphs and bitter victories? Their losses? Her hand encompasses his almost unrecognizable in its callouses and Kenshin smiles tiredly.

 His fingers intermingle with hers, unworthy hands, sinner’s hands, hero’s hands…and squeeze briefly in a gesture so rare few would ever find it save whatever his future held. 

❝ I will not dream of blood tonight. Nor her, it seems, will I? Thanks to you, once more. Even if we are only here for a little while in this bright place; this place where I did not think we could share similar beliefs granted my lowly self...