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Yae has always had a good memory.
She remembers the sunshine and the gently falling sakura petals when her lover left to go to war, like the universe itself was mocking her. Sakuras, for optimism. She remembers putting a delicate blossom into Sara’s hair, kissing her five times for good luck, watching her retreating back with a maelstrom of sadness and fear churning in her heart, but clinging to the hope that Sara will return. She remembers the click-clack of Sara’s boots walking down the stone path, and how every day for months after she would come running every time she heard a woman with high heels, praying to every god in existence that somehow, somehow it would be Sara. She remembers Sara’s voice ringing out clearly in the crisp autumn air that she loved so much, promising to be back in five days while Yae promised to wait as long as she needed to. She remembers never saying goodbye. Saying goodbye means accepting that Sara may die.
Predictably, five days pass. Then another five. And another, and another, and another, and another, five times five times five until five days turns into five weeks and five weeks turns into five months. All communications and borders between Yashiori Island and the rest of Inazuma have been cut, and all she has to go on are the rumours spreading about this evil creature and how it must be contained in Yashiori forever because somehow no one can defeat it. They say it moves like smoke, trickles like water, disappears into dust whenever it is attacked only to come back and stab the soldiers through their hearts. And every day, she faithfully ignores the rumours, praying and believing that Sara, her Sara, so steadfast and unwavering, will be the one to find a way to kill this thing. Yae waits.
A year after the start of this whole thing, the news comes in that the beast has finally been vanquished. The details on how exactly this was accomplished are hazy. Possibly because no member of the Fifth Battalion— Sara’s Fifth Battalion —returned from the encounter. Nevertheless, the demon is confirmed to be dead, the brave soldiers of the Fifth are hailed as heroes, and the country bursts into cheer. And still, Yae waits at the shrine, because the bodies of the Fifth Battalion are yet to be found. No body means that Sara may not be dead, and she did promise to wait for as long as it took.
Five weeks later, the bodies of the Fifth Battalion—minus Sara —are found. Yae keeps waiting.
Five years pass, and the story of the beast and the Fifth Battalion has turned into a children’s story to regale toddlers with. Yae approves of this, of cherishing the memory of their lost soldiers, but with every day that goes by she gets more anxious that Sara will never come back. Still, she waits, and reminisces on simpler times. Of five more minutes lying in bed with her lover. Of five arrows, loosed one after another after another in a burst of superhuman speed. Of five drops of oil, meticulously rubbed into her tengu mask to keep it shining and strong. Of five kisses fluttering over her lips, cheeks, nose; of five blinks of those violet eyes, dancing with lightning, slow and deliberate and heady with tender affection. Another five years pass. Yae decides to wait until the day that marks five decades since her lover went to war before she goes out to look for Sara herself.
Five decades after Kujou Sara leaves to go to war against the void entity that has been terrorising Yashiori Island, Yae finds a tengu.
This tengu lives in a cave on one of the Yashiori Island beaches, a hermit, perpetually alone. This tengu has no memory of her birth, her family, or even her name. This tengu has long, tangled purple hair and her only clothing is a set of tattered Shogunate robes in the style from fifty years ago—along with a scarlet mask. This tengu’s cave glows with the violet aura of a Vision shattered into dust, leaving glowing purple particles etched into the rock ceiling.
Yae walks up to her, heart seemingly pounding at five million beats a second—and for a moment, just a moment, violet lightning sparks to life again.
“Yae,” she whispers through cracked lips. “Yae, I waited for you. I’m sorry.”
And just like that, the spark is gone, leaving only a confused stranger behind, who cocks her head and asks, “…I’m sorry, do I know you?”
Desperately searching those dulled, cloudy eyes for the tiniest spark to fan into a flame, Yae’s heart shatters into pieces on the ground. But Not-Sara is still looking at her like that, with big, confused eyes, and Yae picks the shattered pieces off the ground and hides them behind her back. She wills her voice not to crack before saying, “My name is Yae.”
The stranger perks up, and Yae feels hope spill like lava from a crevice in her chest, nearly frozen over with fifty years of waiting. “Yae? You mean, this Yae?” She gingerly pulls a sheet of paper, yellowed from sea air and time, from a makeshift shelf in the rock face and presents it to Yae proudly. The paper is covered in the fine, elemental dust with traces of Sara’s vision in it , and reads:
This is the stupidest plan that I’ve ever thought of, but it is the only one that has even a slim chance of working. My entire battalion has died. The people are growing desperate. This is the only way. I'm going to draw it into this cave, and I'm going to let it have me. This monster has the power to overtake visions and their users? Then let it. This will be my final stand. My final test of will. I’m going down, and it’s coming with me.
If anyone finds this, please contact Lady Yae of the Grand Narukami Shrine, and give her this note. Tell her that whatever happens, I am sorry for breaking my promise. I’m sorry to have kept her waiting yet again.
And to my dear Yae, on the slim chance that you find this:
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Goodbye.
Signed,
Kujou Sara, 5th Battalion
Yae doesn’t realise that she’s crying until the stranger moves, just like Sara would, and pulls her down to sit on the stone floor of the cave, awkwardly letting her cry into those tattered robes that smell like blood and sea salt but still like home. And as she lets five decades of tears flow into this girl’s shoulder, the latter mumbles, “I don’t know who this Sara person is, or what she has to do with me, but…um…she sounds like she was very important to you.”
“She was.” Strangely, it doesn’t hurt as much as Yae thought it would, in those nights when the bed was so cold and so big without the warmth of Sara to fill it. She supposes that she subconsciously came to terms with Sara’s death years ago.
“…Would you like to talk about her?”
An idea springs into Yae’s mind. She reaches out, and gently brushes the dust from the tengu’s wings, just like how she would have with Sara, and the stranger living in her lover’s body does not shy away. She tucks Not-Sara’s hair behind her ears and gently wipes her face and hands free of the purple dust that sticks to her, like the shattered Vision is trying its best to come back together. And in place of a yes, she introduces herself again.
“Hello there. My name is Yae, and yours was Sara.”
The stranger’s dull eyes fly open, suddenly fixed on Yae’s, and she takes a sharp inhale before repeating her name, in a soft, mystified voice. “…Sara.”
“Yes, your name was Sara, and you loved me. Do you still?”
“…whoever Sara was, I do not share her memories.”
Despite the circumstances, Yae smiles. “I know.”
Swallowing hard, the stranger continues again. “But…I feel a deep connection to you, even though I don’t remember who you are. I think…she must have loved you very much. …I think I must have loved you very much.”
And Yae’s smile grows even softer as she lays her head on this Sara’s shoulder. “Would you like to hear about who you were before?”
Yae has always had a good memory.
They spend decades together, going over every little detail, Sara listening with rapt attention as Yae tells stories of everything they did together, everything that happened while Sara was gone, all the mortal friends they used to love and everything in between. She tells Sara about her obsession with the number five, of how she came to be adopted into the Kujou family, of her speed and agility as the tengu general of Inazuma. But as Sara hears more and more, she chooses to remember not the blood and rain and thundering drums of war. She remembers the sunshine and the gently falling sakura petals of the Grand Narukami Shrine. She remembers hands gingerly combing through her feathers, autumn leaves and sweet kisses, five more minutes in bed in winter and firework parties in the summer. And when Yae first tells her stories, she doesn’t start with “you were a great general”, but with “you were a caring lover.”
Kujou Sara is dead. Kujou Sara, as she was originally, has beaten her wings and flown off into the world of shadows along with the demon she vanquished, never to be seen again.
And this version of Sara will never be the same as she was, nor will Yae ever force her to be. This Sara is meeker, more innocent, and not so afraid to love. This Sara likes sweets. This Sara has been drained of devotion to the Shogun, and sharp discipline no longer runs in her veins-
-but the little tengu child, the tender lover, the brave and strong woman willing to put her life on the line for what she believes in remains.
There is no promise that something like this won’t happen again. Nothing is ever truly eternal, after all, not even two beings with divine blood coursing through their veins. This moment may be fleeting, forgotten at some point; they may be ripped apart again and again but they will claw their way back together. Together, they will take everything that the world throws at them, hand in hand, and they will figure it out. After all, one advantage of being eternally young is that they have eons of time left to make new memories together.
And Yae has always had a good memory.