Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
With a lurch of her blade, the Raiden Shogun had dealt him a lethal stroke to the chest, wherein he crumbled in defeat to the ground. In that very moment, stumbling in despair, came Shisui just in time to see their friend’s blood spilt in the courtyards of the Tenshukaku. His name was a dying scream that never left her lips, and as she staggered backwards into Kazuha, she watched his vision slip from his satin robes, clashing to the floor in a loud ‘ THUD ’ that rolled out painfully about the yards.
“No!”
“Shisui, no! Come with me! No, don’t!” Kazuha cried her name in anguish, lunging for her hands as she moved - but just as the tips of his fingers brushed against hers, she had torn herself from his arms, already falling away beyond his grasp.
Shisui leapt towards the God with a hysterical scream. Her cries rippled in Kazuha's ears like fractures in the howling wind. Their blades met, iron and steel, clanging so loudly that the ground beneath them began to quake. Kazuha leant forward before he even knew it, snatching their friend’s vision from the ground where he lay, and with a fleeting glance to his lover — he fled down the steps, where he hoped to escape Inazuma before he too, wound dead like them.
“You dare raise your blade to me?” The Raiden Shogun’s sneer struck like thunder. “You serve my will!”
“You killed my friend,” Shisui choked, parrying Baal's attack as she swiveled on her feet unsteadily, though wielding her naginata with expert skill that she hoped would be enough to save her. “Any oath I made to you has been forfeit the moment you used your power against the people! I will not be a slave to your tyrannical whims!” I will honor my friend’s last wish. I will end your reign, Baal, or I’ll die trying.
Baal’s eyes glistened like endless stars, a gradient of purple and violets and faint hues of pink. “You foolish, foolish girl —”
The Shogun’s blade nearly flayed Shisui’s torso as she hurdled herself out of the way, but the sharpened edges had caught the beads that hung from her robes, slicing through its threads and splitting them away in endless fragments that scattered about the ground. Shisui felt her heart leap and twist as her hands lifted in despair, reaching for the pieces she could never put back again. They had been her most precious possession, a ceremonial gift from her beloved on the day they united as one underneath the skies, swearing fealty to one another until their days came to an end.
Kazuha had woven his beads into her attire, with each kiss and whispered promise — Shisui’s heart had known before her mind, that Kaedehara Kazuha was the only man she would give herself wholly to.
Shisui pivoted on her feet, suppressing the memory of her heart with ease when her chest swelled in despair. She swung her blade in a wide arc to retaliate, intent on slaying, but the Raiden Shogun was no fool and countered with an electrifying assault that ruptured through Shisui’s body as if a live wire had been attached to each of her nerves. Sufficed to say, the hydro vision that was hidden beneath the strips of her robe flared to life, and did not help matters. Before she had hit the ground, convulsing and nearly sobbing with disdain, the God had won.
Her friend’s duel with Baal had been an execution from the moment she drew her sword — and perhaps he knew this, but he fought, still. Why? Because none would ever stand against Baal nor her oppressive rule. If one person did, perhaps that might incite a fight within the people — Shisui knew this, she understood — the people were in need of a Martyr… someone they could look upon when in need hope and a reason to fight.
But she never wanted that to be her friend. Not him. Not him. If that thought made her selfish, then so be it.
Even now, her eyes stung and her heart ached. She woke with the sound of their voices still ringing in her ears.
Shisui felt her heart branch out inside her in a thousand directions. She yearned for peace, for her love (wherever he might be) and her home — but another longed for vengeance, for retribution, for justice. It was not her way. It was not her way. It was not their way.
But they were gone now. Her friend was cold, and had returned to earth from whence they all came and would one day rejoin. And her Heart… where might he be? Did he seek her out the way she did him? Did he share her woes? Did the face of their friend plague his dreams as it did hers? “Kazuha.” She whispered his name beneath the dimming candlelight, a promise that seared its resolve on the edges of her lips, “We will be together again…”
But now she saw her true purpose, burned by a great cause. Eternity would weight upon her shoulders like silver and gold. She had once been beset in threads of silk and satin in reverence to the God that had killed her friend — with this, the truth of her nature had changed. Defiant and decaying. She was set on a wretched path —
“… but I cannot find you until I have killed the God who slew our friend. It is my destiny, and I will not change it. Not even for you.”
Thus, she knowingly began the descent to her ill-fated destiny.