She Asked For Your Gentle Mind
by baradhiblue
A girl is a gun.
This was the first thing Grigio was ever taught, and it had over thousands of years been a reliable constant, a keystone piece of dogma to fall back on when the pursuit of kindness showed her its backhand once more. Her brothers can afford to wear the faces of kindness, even if they were as much killers as her, because they know the risk enough to distrust it. But Grigio knows what she has done, what she has wrought in the misguided, wide-eyed kindness of a child who has never known it.
A girl is a monster, because of course she has to be.
There is no peace without sacrifice.
That is something Grigio had to learn through the worst of all pains. She hadn’t known peace except as a lofty dream, so how could she have known at all? Every night, it comes back to her. The sight, the sound, the smell, even the taste - It’s a memory as visceral as the action of breathing.
It had been no one’s fault but her own. The naive belief of a child soldier that there had been any manner of justice to what she had been made to do. Bianca had known what awaited her and embraced it, but Grigio’s heart was so foolish then. All she’d earned from all her love of that girl was the knowledge that she was a tool, a poisoned razor blade in an offering of aid, for the worst type of scum in the universe.
The Bosco Tribe and the Forests of Dontak were the ultimate fire-branded casualties of the first love of a heart undeserving.
All sacrifice, no peace, because there is no easy way out of fate.
Nothing lasts forever.
It is a bittersweet truth, a cold comfort. The truth is said to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable, after all, and Grigio was unlucky enough to let herself become comfortable.
Alhara was a beautiful, kind place, but she and her kin were too stained in blood to be allowed to have a warm, clean life. When Rosso shakes her awake and tells her to gather her things to leave - they’ve been tracked, Blu had heard while monitoring communication frequencies - all she can do is cry, because she cannot afford to scream.
Nothing lasts forever. A life of killing did not. Neither did a life of idyllic peace. It’s a cycle of give and take that pushes and pulls with no consideration for its prisoners.
Nothing lasts forever, but does the cycle ever end?
It has to. Nothing is immune to time.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
It’s maybe childish to still believe so after so much horror and strife, but hope is awfully hard to kill. Her brothers might dismiss the hearsay of the absolute cleansing Light of Hope shining upon the worthy in Challenger’s Peak, but Grigio needs it so badly. The Sun should shine for everyone, shouldn’t it? It needs to shine on her, to take away the guilt, the fear, the dread.
Absolute power. She could make it all stop.
But that hope, that will is not what the Light seeks.
Those who wish for power are those who least deserve it, and that includes those who wish for it simply for their own peace of mind, for absolution from their crimes, she learns. Her frantic hopes are selfish, terrified, unsure, greedy - unworthy.
The Light took root in her brothers, but for each great Light there is a Shadow, and Grigio fell overcast, twisted by her ambition, her desperation.
A monster. Always a monster.
Why would she ever be anything but a monster?
Nothing is sacred. Absolutely nothing. Not kindness, not comfort, not love.
This, Grigio knows when they come face to face again with the spider who raised them and the reality of her crimes, past, present and no longer future. This woman made her into a killer, made her into a monster. She knew what she was doing when she sent the three of them to Dontak, when Grigio’s heart was first branded with abject fear and repulsion for herself.
Nothing is sacred, not even a surrogate mother, as Grigio first kills of her own brutish volition.
The bond between her and her brothers first feels its undue strain. She is their limiter, she realises.
Doubt. What an awful thing to taint a family with.
Only the good die young.
Once, Grigio believed whatever Hell on Earth she was condemned to spend eternity walking, she’d walk it beside Rosso and Blu.
What a terrible joke.
She should’ve known, from the moment she was turned into a monster where they became Light, that her heart was different from theirs. That where they held steady and never let her feel the end of their love, she had only rage and jealousy and despair.
Love had broken her. It never grew back quite the same.
But now she is alone.
Only the good die young, and Grigio has never been good enough.
Everything has its time.
Grigio made her resolutions, made her calculations.
Just 1,300 years, and she will gladly walk towards her end, like Bianca did.
1,300 years of walking this Earth alone, of planting the seeds of murder-suicide for a sacrifice that should’ve been hers instead of theirs.
It truly is an enchanting world, that which she has found, but it will not survive her. She is a killer to the end. There is no love so great under the stars that can make her change.
Everything has its time. Including her.
There are stranger things between Heaven and Earth than our minds can begin to fathom.
That is a new one, one Grigio learnt with someone she was briefly friends with for one flicker of her time and a lifetime of his.
Long she has wandered preparing her final salve, and many she has met, but now, now that the time is nigh and her spirit is ready for its last goodbyes, the entire world has come upon her head.
Rosso and Blu live once more, for one lousy definition of living, but those brothers aren’t hers. They can’t be. They will never be. Not even if their faces are identical and their voices so familiar.
They’re soft. They’re stupid. They’re just regular people.
But how can they bring forth her long gone kin’s power of Light like she never could?
She can’t accept it.
She has to end this farce.
But this world grows stranger and stranger.
They’re not alone.
They too have a sister. An echo of something that might’ve once been Grigio’s naive good nature.
Who is she? What is she?
Stranger and stranger cannot begin to describe the fascinated horror of meeting who you could’ve been, if only the world was kinder.
This is where the words of wisdom she’s collected for years and years begin to fail her thoroughly.
Asahi. Asahi who is kind and gentle. Asahi who is warm and happy. Asahi who is and isn’t real, because she can’t be.
Asahi who loves Grigio, or Saki Mitsurugi, even through all the harm she makes no attempt at hiding.
Despite all the dissociation Grigio has imposed upon herself from her own emotions, she cannot help but love Asahi so deeply that it disrupts all her self-defences.
This world along with everything and everyone on it has a rapidly approaching set expiration date and Grigio will simultaneously be the bomb and the one who presses the killswitch. It is terrifying, absolutely so.
A monster cannot help but kill all she loves. There is no escaping this curse cast upon her when she was just a foolish child. The stain of blood will follow her until her very end.
The time of the end has come, and Grigio has had to make peace with the misuse of her brothers’ faces and powers if only so that Asahi can be safe.
Maybe they really are Rosso and Blu, in some strange way. In the same way Asahi is human but also not, the same way she is Grigio’s lost innocence given form.
When they refuse to flee and let her explode along with Leugocyte, that is where doubt disappears, where she can no longer deny the truth that she couldn’t accept.
She doesn’t let them die for her this time.
Fading in Asahi’s warm embrace is a gentle end she had never imagined she would have.
She becomes stardust like her brothers did long ago, a mist of Light that sticks to Asahi’s skin to never again leave.
Redeemed, for once and for all.
When she and Asahi’s combined spirit blooms into Ultrawoman Grigio, it is then that Grigio - both of her - understands the shape of her fate.
It was all about forgiving herself, was it not?
Tangled deep within their souls, Saki Mitsurugi and Asahi Minato - Grigio and the Makoto Crystal - become a living testament to the labour of loving oneself.
A girl is two and one, and forever she will be.
LukAhim edit
by goseiipink
wake up and scream your instincts
by cyberlife8592
“Henshin!”
“Going my way! Kamen Rider! Je-Je-Je-Jeanne!”
“Just believe in myself! Kamen Rider! Ah! Aguilera!"
Hana is the first to throw a punch, this time around.
The seasons spinning and dancing around the Earth have taught her this; there never truly is retirement as a Kamen Rider. Semi-retirement, sure. But every now and then, when the monsters of the new kids on the block bleed over to their seniors, what is a Kamen Rider to do but pick up their helmet again?
What is a Kamen Rider to do, but use their power to save civilians again?
The monsters here are different from the Jyamato Hana fought last, but all mooks have the same tactics. Were the skies to look down below, she can bet that currently, she and Sakura are surrounded by them in a perfect circle.
Well, spare for the one crumbling away by the force of her own hand.
“We have to break out of here,” she hears Sakura say.
“Love!” Lovekov helpfully adds.
Of course, the group currently surrounding the duo aren’t the only monsters there. Others chase fleeing innocents — to that, Hana is sure the offending miscreants will face Sakura’s fury. Or hers, if she gets to them first.
“Right,” Hana says, “Let’s go.”
“Yeah!”
Sakura’s exclamation is quick to turn into a battle cry, and Lovekov’s cries are a conch to serve as a warning as she runs away from Hana’s general direction. Nevertheless, that still leaves one hundred and eighty degrees of monsters for Hana to deal with, and so, she reaches forward.
Needles form into kunai once again, and with that, Hana springs forth.
Her kunai spin with a flick of her wrist, allowing her to switch her grip midway. Perfect, all set for the next act; a deft swing of her hand, and the sharp blades cleanly cut through her first attacker like butter.
“You’re not very strong, are you?” she asks.
Sakura, from the other side, replies, “They’re going down fast!”
“All the better for us.”
Ah, and there’s two, attempting to jump her from behind. Hana doesn’t even need to look for this one — she thrusts her hands straight backwards, driving the kunai deep into the chests of the foul fiends. With an equally forceful pull, she counts; the two thumps to the ground come not even a second later.
And there’s her break! She bursts through the small gap in between the monsters, making a quick heel turn to size up the forces now that she’s outside. From here, they look much smaller, more curled in on themselves — is it the loss of morale, or the loss in numbers?
But that’ll have to wait for now. Hana sharply turns her head, scanning through the now-desolate area for others who may have failed to evacuate. Nothing near the pillars of the bridge on this side, but if she’s to look over these monsters and onto Sakura’s end of the battlefield-
There’s one!
A young lady — schoolgirl, judging by the dirtied uniform — crouches in the nearby ditch, hands coated in mud. She’s lucky that Sakura’s dealing with any attackers that may spot her, but what if some let slip?
Silly Hana, she thinks, It’s Sakura. Sakura never lets even one monster out.
But regardless, it is still a Kamen Rider’s duty to evacuate civilians if available; they’re the only ones who can and still stay standing. And if Sakura is preoccupied… then that leaves Hana to be the one for the job, does it not?
Aguilera’s suit allows for fast footwork and even faster wings. She opts for the former, zipping around. Upon landing in the ditch herself, she ducks down, staring down this poor girl.
The path of a Kamen Rider — and the powers that come with it, especially — is that of a lonely one. There are few who can relate to the struggles one has; what normal woman would look at her hands, and float in nightmares of those very hands bringing humanity to its destruction? What normal woman walks tightropes every day of her life, keeping her worries close to her chest, for no one else will ever truly understand?
Perhaps, this is why she and Sakura blossom together. Even as Gifu’s fiancée, Hana had been fated to never be anything even close to normal; the Vistamp calling itself Queen Bee had made sure of it. As a Kamen Rider, Sakura had been her mirror image, in that way. Even back then, they only had each other, even at opposite ends of the blade.
And now? Hana may have friends, family even, but in terms of true understanding, Sakura is still the only one she has.
But now, staring at this girl, Hana can remind herself again of what she chose to be. While the powers of a Kamen Rider could bring about apocalypses, they are perhaps one of the few qualified to redress the cries of the world, when hurt is done to it. And for its sake — and because no one else can — it is up to Hana to use her abilities for the sake of good.
Sakura had taught her that, hadn’t she?
Big, dark-brown eyes stare back at her, at last. Hana blinks — ah, the girl’s still here. Why? Why hasn’t she taken her chances to escape yet?
Upon one look, it is obvious. The poor thing trembles, shrinking in on herself as she presses herself closer to the ground. Perhaps, for her, it’s safer to stay here. Even an attempt to escape could prove fatal. And if she dared land herself in a fight… Hana shudders to even think of it.
But that must be what a Kamen Rider is here to do, too. To do what a normal person could never even dream of doing.
Then, for that, Hana will wait no longer.
The name of Kamen Rider bestows strength on her as she lifts the girl up, up, and out of the ditch, before gently setting her on the ground. Then, hand in hand, she pulls them both upward, before giving a light pat on the shoulder.
“Get out of here,” she says, “I’ll cover you.”
The girl only gives a mere nod, before running off.
“Thank you,” is carried by the wind regardless.
Now, it is only Hana and Sakura that face off against evil once more. Hana’s left her girlfriend alone for too long; about time she comes back, she’s sure she’ll hear Sakura say.
Kaboom!
Something — she’s not sure what — crashes onto Hana’s back as force pushes her forward. Her poor back has no time to complain, for heat continues to lap up at her. And with the sound of tin in her ears, it would be just about perfect to let the earth swallow her whole.
No! Not yet! The city still isn’t safe… and where’s Sakura?!
“Ow…” she hears, right beside her.
Orange pokes out from behind Hana’s body, followed by blue as a familiar arm rises. And, if the plush snake behind them both, worriedly fretting over them, has any other indicators of who it may be…
“Sakura?” she asks.
“Yeah?”
A hitched breath follows immediately after Sakura’s reply. This is not good — how much will Hana have to bandage, when this battle is finally over? Where does it currently bloom red, underneath layers of blue and orange?
Wait, no. That can be answered pretty quickly.
She asks, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Sakura replies, “This hurts, though- ow, ow, ow-”
Slowly, carefully, Hana rolls over, and the sky becomes ground. As scents of blood, concrete, and gunpowder blend together into one of the foulest perfumes Hana has ever had the displeasure to smell, she looks over at the remaining monsters.
There’s way too many. When did they get reinforcements? Nevertheless, they should be able to hold these off, but with how Sakura’s faring-
“You fools!” she hears.
As this foreign voice booms through the air, the tracks underneath her thoughts dissolve entirely.
“You two are now cornered!” it says, “What can your mere, powerless selves do?”
For starters, Hana needs a plan. If she can break her way out of this circle, yet again, she could easily buzz through the lot with a few rounds in the air. But there’s not much room between her and the underside of this bridge. Even worse, the blue of the sky is being held hostage from her eyes, for the black of these monsters drowns it out.
Time pounds at her temple. This is not good. And yet, the sound of a boot thumps against the concrete anyway.
Sakura shakes as she rises from the ground, but her hands are strong fists regardless. Lovekov, too, stands firm, crawling over to Sakura’s side. Both of their faces are hidden — either by protective armour or the fact that their backs currently face Hana — but what expression Sakura has under the mask is as clear as day.
Of course. Hana should have known. It’s only her fault she didn’t really expect this, she thinks, as she too pushes herself off the ground.
Steady does it. The ground is supportive as she rises. And, as she makes her way over to flank Sakura’s other side, it continues to do so with no complaint.
It’s only right for her to stand here. And with a turn of her head, the front of Jeanne’s helmet is visible once more.
“Powerless? That’s where you’re wrong! Because together, Hana and I…”
Orange meets white as Sakura grasps onto Hana’s hand tight. Then, she lifts them both in the air, joined hands hovering to Hana’s right. As for what Sakura might say, now that everything’s set?
It’s obvious, isn’t it? If Sakura’s here, and Hana is here, and the world hasn’t declared the two of them dead yet, then when will they ever lose?
“We’re invincible!” they both yell, in sync.
Hana is the one to let go of Sakura’s hand, with the latter immediately reaching for her own waist. Out comes a Vistamp, inscribed with a shoebill. As Sakura stamps it down onto her driver, Hana reaches out once more.
“Hashibiroko! Restyle!”
The kunai return to her hands the moment Sakura pushes the driver down to her left.
“Love!”
Lovekov floats into the air, dissolving into purple mist. The mist twirls, straight line spinning into a circle until Sakura’s trusty scythe falls into her hands.
“Re-Buddy Up! Ah~! Hashibiroko! Da-da-da-dan~!”
And with that, there is only one thing left to do.
Aguilera, for the first time today, takes flight. And now, as Hana hovers just under the bridge, she takes count of the beasts she must handle. All but the inner circle will fall; Sakura can handle the rest.
Much like a hawk catching its prey, she swoops down. One, two, three — Hana takes lap after lap in midair, kunai cutting and stabbing through anyone who dares stand in her way. It’s satisfying, seeing them all fall. And with every monster that dissolves into the air, Hana’s heart lightens further; it’s only a matter of time before the two can go home.
With one last stab of the kunai, she lands, barely skidding across the concrete. The dust clouding over her vision doesn’t help matters, but what she does catch is a powerful swing from Sakura, cutting down the last one she had left to do.
She stands up, once again, before striding next to Sakura again. Sakura, in the meantime, pulls out her signature Vistamp; shoebills find themselves replaced with cobras once more.
Enraged, the last monster runs towards the duo.
The next part is, as Hana expects, in tandem; both of them pull up their stamps back upright, before pushing them back to hang to the side. Lovekov disassembles herself from her scythe form, instead coiling around Sakura’s foot as she jumps into the air.
“Cobra Stamping Smash!”
“Queen Bee Stamping Break!”
Hana, in the meantime, stays put. If the monster wishes to attack her, so be it. She traces a semicircle with her foot, reds and yellows flourishing around it, before looking up at Sakura.
Sakura leaves a blue arc behind with her foot rising above her head. The blue entices Hana, daring her to stare at it forever — were she not involved in this fight, with her own tasks to do, she might have indulged in this show. But, right now, isn’t the monster almost here?
Very well. She’ll start her countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Hana takes a deep breath before pivoting her leg, kicking the other one into the air with a battle cry. Right as she does so, Sakura swings her leg down from the air, whirling down with her own shout.
Blue and red meet once again straight at the monster’s chest.
Sakura lands right next to Hana shortly after, Lovekov reforming by her side. Hana can only smile as Lovekov waves around her arms in excitement; surely, even demons must feel the rush of adrenaline from a finisher.
The smile immediately wavers, replaced with a flinch as the fallen monster explodes. However, it seems Lovekov’s cheer is unhurt.
“Love, love! Invincible!”
Miraculously, the bridge is left unhurt; the biggest damages only seem to be with the loud sound and the heat that once again surrounds the duo. At least they’re still in their suits, Hana muses; best they stay in these until the smoke dies down, lest they too burn.
Her retirement, no matter how short it may be, starts again today. Quite frankly, dinner is in order; she’s sure Sakura’s worked herself up an appetite, and Hana can feel the first complaints of her own stomach start to file in.
That, probably, won’t be interrupted; it’s likely that she won’t see monsters again for a while, and so, won’t need to transform again for a while. But it seems, for today, she and Sakura have done the Kamen Rider’s duty of using power for good once more.
Hana is only human; at the thought, she can only turn her head to her girlfriend. A soft smile pulls itself up at her lips at the sight of the radiant Jeanne, as well as her ponytail lightly fluttering in the breeze.
The sun continues to warm the Earth, and the world has been righted once more.
synthesize her
by riotinbloom
“Hikaru’s still in Hawaii.”
Tomoya barely gives the door room to click open before making that quip — barely letting Misuzu’s footsteps thud into the air before it.
How Tomoya knows who’s come to visit without so much as a turn towards the door, Misuzu will never know. But this does not concern her right now; Mana lies still — doll-like, even — on a table near the entryway, and there goes Misuzu’s wishes of talking to her.
Misuzu thus asserts, “I know that! I’m not here for him. I'm here for you, and Mana.”
She all but slams down the box she’d carefully taken to assort. Delicate confections await inside — beady eyed birds that may chirp and fly away at a moment’s notice, flowers with gradients only achievable by years of practice, plump fruits comparable to the real thing. Misuzu wonders when Mana will be able to sink her teeth into all these delights.
She’s certainly had a while to think about how it could go: perhaps, her eyes could gleam about as bright as Ultraman, and her smile could be sweeter than all the wagashi around. Or perhaps she’d furrow her brows, before spouting an idea that’s too intergalactic for Misuzu’s mind. What a wonderful challenge that would be!
She places a hand on Tomoya’s desk, leaning onto it; she wonders when she can finally call Mana’s smile hers.
“How's everything been on your end? I knew you'd be working hard this late, so I decided to drop by,” she says.
“I,” and Tomoya sighs deeply, sinking into his chair, “Am in the middle of figuring out which parts of her program translates to each ability of hers, and how it does. It took me a while to figure out the language itself in the first place, but I understand now.”
“Eh?! That’s awesome! Does that mean you can put in anything you want?”
“I should be able to.”
Anything. Anything. Being on the fast track for the Nobel Prize. Travelling the world to watch fire dance in front of one’s eyes, or capturing a beauty right beside in a still image. Labouring light by song. Confections made of foresight and skilled hands that helped save the world. Saving the world.
…The ability to dream? To call someone Mana’s one and only?
A light flashes in her mind, just as the rumbling of thunder echoes through the laboratory. No matter — it only fuels the spark Misuzu needs to grab Tomoya’s shoulders. She’s quick to shake him vehemently, and he’s quick to let out a noise of discontentment.
She exclaims, “That’s great! Then, you can put feelings in!”
Tomoya’s brows furrow in a dubious frown.
“...Feelings?” he asks.
“Yeah!” she says, nodding cartoonishly, “Like, feeling happy when the weather’s perfect, wanting to cry when she watches a really sad movie, being able to love… love her friends, love her job, fall in love.”
“Fall in love? Even with all the tissues she’ll need for that?” he scoffs.
Another nod from Misuzu slowly follows.
“...I was thinking, she should be allowed to feel that, too.”
What use would the so-called side of justice have as the “good guys,” if Mana were to be a tool in their midst? It wouldn’t make them much different from Chibull. To offer justice to Mana would be to offer the luxury of the first streak of rainbow-hued light after a rainstorm, or to offer the aroma of a homecooked meal to look forward to. Small freedoms, here and there, interwoven into a fulfilling life. That ought to be something Mana can look forward to while she’s asleep.
Misuzu, on the other hand, decisively claps her hands in front of her face, bowing slightly to Tomoya.
“I’ll help you out any way I can! Please, Tomoya? Please?”
Thunder grumbling above rules the noise level in the room for a moment — no, two. When Tomoya sighs and turns back to his work, however, it’s heavy, and Misuzu has won.
“Whenever she gets heartache,” he mutters, “I'll be sure to send her thanks to you.”
Misuzu can’t help but crack open a radiant grin at the newfound clacking of Tomoya’s keyboard. To Tomoya first, of course, but the currently deactivated deserve it as much as the living. Thus, Misuzu offers some of her sunshine to Mana immediately after.
Hopefully, when Mana finally wakes up, she can bask in Misuzu’s smile, too.
Resurfacing the Will
by Eurekazer0
Contrary to what her grades in school implied, Yuasa Keiko drowned in thoughts.
Sometimes she thought about how the first thing she saw and felt after snapping out of that brainwashing were her hands gripping Izumi’s neck.
It rarely had a chokehold on her mind, but…
Biofeedback. Your will to fight… will change you into the ultimate weapon.
Right as she nearly drifted off to sleep, it took up space better suited for precious memories. Come on, could she not indulge in how pretty Izumi was when she smiled in a way that wasn’t just putting up a front to hide her wariness? That alone made Keiko’s day ten times better, so how dare the past push it all away?
Keiko grabbed a pillow and tossed it across the room. It bounced off the wall and flopped onto the ground. In the dead silence of her room, the otherwise pathetic flop felt cathartic.
Yet that guy’s voice went against her own will and squatted in her brain anyway.
Okay, fine. As much as she itched to resort to force, Keiko knew how to play the long game of patience. That’s how she and Izumi even- no wait, that’s only half true, but the point still stood. The long game was something she was willing to play (until she wasn’t).
That best 2 of 3 was still up in the air. She entertained the idea of finishing it now that they were probably more evenly matched, but she was starting to like it remaining unfinished.
The fight only started when all she wanted was to avenge Reiko’s death at the hands of the girl who came back to haunt her, and then picked up again when she-
Biofeedback. Your will to fight will change you into the ultimate weapon.
That can’t count. It was her hands that nearly snapped Izumi’s neck off that day, but it was never her will. And even back then when she wanted nothing more than to protect her friends and the city they lived in, the person she thought was a killer wasn’t one at all.
Like Reiko, she was kind and got caught up in something too large for a teenager to deal with.
An Izumi in her mind looking down at the still water, a smile dissolving into a distant gaze as she said something Keiko couldn’t quite hear.
They’d be on the legendary pier again, tearing each other apart with fists and knives until either of them fell into a watery grave. The Ice Doll that haunted her from a few months ago would be where Keiko thought she was once more, and..
Maybe they should start a fight from scratch where the only stakes were bragging rights instead. Not a half bad idea, but if Izumi said no she’d back off about it. Wouldn’t be nearly as fun if she wasn’t into it after all.
Keiko got out of bed and walked over to the washroom and turned on the tap to splash cold water on her face. She then went back to her room, picked up the pillow by the wall, and hugged it as she laid back in bed.
Damn it, that voice still kept looping over and over! The absolute audacity of it all only strengthened her will to punch it straight where it hurt most.
It shouldn’t only have been up to Izumi to take care of that alone. She should’ve been there alongside her, overpowering that guy with the power forced upon them. Then, as the fire and explosions destroyed any physical remnants of the building, she and Izumi would walk back out into the world with heads held high.
Prom night would’ve still been ruined, Saori would’ve still been hospitalized, but it would’ve felt just a slight bit more hopeful. More than anything though, the best version of events would’ve been where she, and by extension the SSG, were able to take care of that prom-wrecker biofeedback soldier so no one was hurt.
Swimming through what ifs really wasn’t going to change what did happen though.
Like every other time she had nearly fallen into near death experiences recently, Izumi caught her.
It wasn’t lost on Keiko that she’d done as much as she could, but she felt and knew she hadn’t done anywhere near what Izumi deserved in life. As much as she wanted to, Keiko couldn't erase the pain from the past three years of Izumi’s life no matter how hard she fought to make it so.
That’s that. She had to accept it. Didn’t she already learn this lesson when Reiko died? Drowning in the past like the icy hands that murdered her wouldn’t bring her warmth back.
Now Izumi and her were 18 and alive. The least she could do was try getting out of the water before it went from nourishing to killing.
As far as they all knew, that guy’s dead. The voice looping in her mind was his final will.
Yet even after repeating all that, the thoughts were never put to rest. Still, Keiko kept fighting on like she always had, even if a frustratingly long stalemate seemed more likely than a clear win.
None of them exactly pretend nothing happened, but it was easier to eagerly run back into a normal life. The past sank into the water like Izumi’s old pocket watch, and now there’s the present to replace it.
With that, the voice quieted down enough for her to drift off into a sleep full of more resurfaced thoughts.