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Kujou Sara's footsteps echo on the hallways of the Tenshushaku as she makes her way in. The silence that fills the room doesn't make her any more at ease, but she's not so sure she would like it if there were whispers. Sara is well aware of what has been said about the resistance, about the army that she so dedicatedly leads— she does not need a reminder.
It's not an ideal situation, no. Sangonomiya now had a hold of the traveler and there was no way of predicting what could come next. If this so-called traveler really had tamed Stormterror and defeated Osias, what was left for Inazuma— for the Shogun? She shakes her head. Her Excellency cannot meet her like this, for she had always seen right through Sara. She stops, breathes, straightens her spine. It is not time for her to fail.
She goes back on her way.
Today, just like the other days, just like it has been for she cannot begin to conceive, the Raiden Shogun awaits Sara in her private chambers. Perhaps not the most adequate place for a general to give a report, but she’s not any general, as she likes to remind herself. No one would ever dare question the place Kujou Sara occupies on the Shogun’s search for eternity.
When she opens the chamber’s door, Sara reaches the conclusion that she would be happy if this was her eternity.
The Almighty Raiden Shogun stares at the window with her hair down. The endless blowing wind breezes through her purple strands, lighter when they meet her ankles. She does not turn, although Sara notices the slight movement of her shoulders.
“Your Excellency,” Sara says, voice firm.
Only then her Shogun turns and graces her with her look. Sara almost trembles at the sight of her— Baal , she would whisper to herself at night, laid in her bed with no one to hear. She would let herself say it and taste it on her tongue for as long as she could before going to sleep. It felt so foreign on her mind, referring to Nakurami Ogosho with such an intimate name. Still, she could never help much.
Baal looks at her, purple eyes bland on her face, and waits.
"The resistance has gotten a hold of the traveler. She faced our men to prove her strength and loyalty to them." A pause. "I am not sure, your Excellency, if there is anything in our power that can be done. Sangonomiya has also returned to the front lines."
Sara pinches her wrist behind her back as she waits for a response. Baal looks at the floor, eyebrows raised, and Sara notices she is bare feet.
"About time she did that. It was starting to get pathetic.", Baal says, but her voice is still monotonous. Sara swallows.
Another pause, then. She considers as Baal walks across the room, robes reaching her ankles, swaying at every step.
She says: "Shogun-sama, are you not afraid of what this could mean? This so infamous traveler, on their side?"
Sometimes, Sara looked at the sky in faith, and then back to the only person she dared lay her faith in. She hoped that the Almighty Shogun, the God of Eternity, would strike a lightning upon the resistance and end it for good— lay everyone at her feet, at her will, not because they deserved it in any instance, but because Sara starved for some emotion on her Shogun's eyes.
Some days, she didn't even recognize her own thoughts. It embarrassed her to be so desperate for it, but she could never help herself. At the end, Sara was sure she would ran lengths for the wills of her Raiden Shogun, even if she could not ever know what they would end up being.
Baal looks at her, a faint spark in her eyes, and then it's gone— isn't it twisted, Sara thinks, to try and burn the world down for a single moment of content?
"They do not have faith in me, Kujou Sara." She declares, just like that. Her eyes are focused on Sara as she recites every word. "I don't blame them. Still, I feel for the Resistance. They don't know what they're meddling into."
She blinks, brings her shoulders down, and moves her head. Sara tries to understand, as she has done for the last year and half, all the others before and all others to come. But when Baal turns her eyes to her, again, she cannot process what it means.
Baal takes a step forward, and then another one, and another. She pauses right in front of Sara.
She really shouldn't do this with other generals.
"They didn't dare hurt you, did they?"
Sara frails, startles, almost chokes at those words. No— she's the best general the Shogunate has seen in a long time. Her loss would not be taken lightly and that's the only reason—
You're just a piece of her plan.
She stares at Baal for what it feels illegal to do so. Her voice is so tired. Sara would not dare to die so easily.
"No, Your Excellency. We got out before things could escalate."
Baal turns, hair almost touching Sara's arm as she walks— Sara is almost disappointed.
The room is quiet. She wishes she could hear thunderstorms outside, raging through the Tenshushaku. She wishes she could feel Divine Punishment. She wishes—
Baal sits on her bed, hair sprawled around her. She looks at Sara and Sara's reminded of all the nights on her eternity that looked like this. All the times she walked this hallways to this exact same chamber and faced the exact same Raiden Shogun, hoping for more, betraying her own wish to eternity. Now, she cannot begin to decipher the way Baal holds herself now. The way her shoulders move lightly, her hands sat on her thighs in a different way. Her eyes, a shift— what else could hide in her Shogun's eyes, what else was there that Sara did not know?
"General, would you have some time to braid my hair?"
It had always been a yes.
Now, she nods, words failing her, stuck on her throat. It seems as time slows as she crosses the room to Baal's bed. She sits almost uncomfortably, muscles stiff as Baal turns her back to her, moving her hair out of her shoulder.
Sara breathes. Her hands reach to get all the hair to her back even though Baal has already done that. She runs her trembling fingers through the God of Eternity's hair and has to force herself to maintain distance. She is so close. She combs the hair with her shaky hands and sees the symbol on Baal's neck— Sara's hands are on her hair and she feels as if she might fall. This should not take long. She's a general— she cannot get affected by these things.
Still—
Her trembling fingers brush Baal's shoulders. The apology dies on her throat as the Raiden Shogun's hands cover her own. Her voice is always so cold when she speaks— who could guess her touch could be so warm?
Sara does not dare move.
If Baal notices her shaky fingers, she does not comment.
"I am very tired, Sara", it's what comes out of her Excellency's mouth. Barely a whisper as her shoulders fall slightly.
She doesn't move her hand, and Sara waits just a little more until she replies, softly, "I know."
Her fingers move just a little bit. For a moment, their hands sit intertwined in an awkward way that's just too comfortable for Sara's own good. When Baal removes her hand and retracts to her own legs, Sara feels could.
Baal is silent before her, now. Sara breathes, and wishes, and braids, until there is no more hair and no more air for Sara to breathe on to, and she exhales sharply. Baal must've heard that.
Her hands rest just a little closer to Baal's back than they should. She turns and perhaps nothing in the world could've prepared her for the melancholy on the Raiden Shogun's face when she looks at Sara over her eyelids. Was it not what you wanted , Sara thinks, to see pure emotion on her eyes?
In another reality, Sara would lean in and touch their foreheads and wish to absorb everything that sat in the way of her Shogun's happiness. In a perfect world, she would undo the carefully threaded braid and run her fingers through Baal's hair delicately. But nothing happens as it should. Baal dismisses her for she has done much for the day and she returns to her own quarters. She mouths her Shogun's name and holds her own hand and, when she sleeps, she dreams of Baal's empty eyes.