𝚒𝚗𝚋𝚘𝚡 — 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚗𝚒𝚊.

[sacral]

EVEN WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS

Comments

[sacral]

[ Its cutting hits nothing but give. ]

I'm alright. Awake, because I slept too long and spilt too much into the sea.

And yourself?

[hallowedly]

...unrelatedly impatient and seemingly ill mannered. I apologise.

I expect you've seen him. I also expect you'd have been... vocal if you had seen the other. It didn't occur to me that he would allow them to be apart.

[sacral]

It may be that the will of our host is at least equal to his, when it comes to this. [ In power and petulance both... ] But you're talking about Shirou Kamui.

I met him, yes. Not for very long.

[hallowedly]

You enjoy this part, don't you? Where I tease and taunt every word out of your mouth.

Truly, Lady Sumeragi's grandson.

[sacral]

So I've been told.

If you also met him, I imagine he had even less to say.

[hallowedly]

What business is he of mine, anymore?

I expect Subaru-kun's corporate loyalties are more complicated.

[sacral]

Of yours? Someone I know. Or someone who knows me, I suppose.

Your expectation is right. I met him in the sea, but he freed himself from me before we reached the next layer.

[ Likely for the best... and yet. ]

[hallowedly]

...Subaru-kun, be patient with him.

[sacral]

You must have been.

There's nothing to blame him for.

[hallowedly]

Now, you don't witness an apocalypse stirred by one boy's choice and truly believe that.

[sacral]

Then it's likely more that...

I don't have the right to blame him for anything.

[hallowedly]

..."but I do." Is that what's missing?

[sacral]

I told you how I felt about the world's future.

[hallowedly]

The studied venal indifference of a man with nothing to lose.

That was then.

This is now, in an arena where the thirteenth head of the Sumeragi has been working tirelessly to support every passing stranger.

[sacral]

In this "now", you've already marked the difference for me.

For him, there may be something still left there.

[hallowedly]

I suppose this means you'll want him in custody.

[sacral]

If he agrees to that.

I did betray him.

[hallowedly]

Even princes of death need a court.

You're shy. It's sweet.

[sacral]

My kekkai still numbers me in his.

I'll have to unlearn it.

[hallowedly]

I'm — ...whatever we call my state. ( Laughter ripples through the Murmur, scant. ) I'm afraid that leaves you squarely in his custody, though defection is always a noble cause.

[sacral]

[ The connection's ambience hitches, reels, releases. ]

It came to that once. A defection here might complicate what balance we're afforded.

[hallowedly]

( And then the —




— rupture. )

Chief Sumeragi, you certainly like to bury the lede. Now, won't you please elaborate?

[sacral]

There was a time... after you. Do you really want to hear what happened?

[hallowedly]

( A beat of


r e v u lsion

tidal fear



exhilaration —


and he is known to himself again. Static. Controlled. )


You must know this changes everything. Carry on.

[sacral]

[ Of course Kamui lies at the crux of the situation, torrential souled with an eking balance, the gravity on which black and white circle with eternally bared jaws. To cross, to side, to lose, to gain, metamorphosed by fate and fortune's spinning wheel. ]

In the moment my sister's spell activated, I was unseated from the Dragons of Heaven. [ He knew. He must have. ] So, I left them.

I thought that would be the end of it. But... it wasn't.

The Kamui, the other one, approached me.