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“Don’t go. Please.”
She does not beg, because Ei is a war-borne general, and generals do not beg.
Makoto only smiles in answer, a movement Ei is not sure her own face can make. How bizarre: to be a twin, and yet your own face can do things you can’t, a distorted mirror reflection of the self.
“I’ll be alright. You’ve taught me all I know! I’m pretty sure I can yield a polearm for a single fight.”
Ei’s eyes wander to Musou Isshin, edge dull and gathering dust in its stand, before she looks at Makoto again.
“One of us is the one going in battles, and it’s not you.” A hand, familiar and uncallused, touches her face, feather light. Ei pins it in place, as if she can, with the same movement, pin Makoto. She can’t go. “Khaenri’ah is dangerous. I’ve heard the rumors. Please. Let me go. What is another fight in your name?”
She’ll chain Makoto to the altar of holiness if it means Ei gets to fight for her sister. Ei’s duty was to protect Makoto, keep her nails clean of blood, and letting Makoto go to Khaenri’ah is not what her mission says. Makoto was to stay quiet, put, and let Ei fight her battles.
“I’m the archon. Celestia wants me.” Was it a bitter tone to her voice that Ei detects? A pause, and Makoto grins, girlish and innocent. “Hey, there’s still a bit of time before I have to go. Kiss me.”
And because Ei is a dutiful sister, she does: kisses Makoto softly, gently, because she supposes this is what she needs before a battle - something to return home to, a memory imprinted in her lips to burn whilst she fights.
But it is not what Makoto wants; her free hand tugs at Ei’s hair, pulls her closer, rests against the small of Ei’s back. Her mouth deepens the kiss, not as chaste, not as sisterly. No, she doesn’t want Ei-the-sister. She wants Ei-the-lover, and Ei, faithful general she is, obeys the silent order, fingers working on the knots that hold her armor together with ease: that’s her armor, a spare set Makoto stole. At least she knows something about war.
Makoto’s hand slides from her face, lowers itself until it finds the edge of fabric, tugs it down impatiently, and Ei chuckles.
“Give me a moment.” Ei says, when they separate. Makoto huffs, hands fighting with the sash of Ei’s clothes. “If Khaenri’ah can wait, so can you.”
“But I can’t.”
Ei will only detect the despair in Makoto’s voice later, much later, while she meditates. Right now, though, there’s another chuckle coming from her mouth as she kisses Makoto, dipping her down, freeing her from clothes, leaving the expanse of familiar milky skin bare. Her hands roam Makoto’s body, mouth trailing a moment after.
Their clothes will be suitable bedding, in the absence of a proper bed. Makoto deserves to be only in soft places, unbothered by the harshness of life.
When she wakes up - hours later, skin dotted with Makoto’s bites, covered with her own clothes in an act of love and care -, Ei, at first, forgets what she was supposed to have done: it’s when her eyes rest upon the stand and don’t find Musou Isshin that everything rushes back, and Ei, in a hurry, put on her clothes, uncaring for property, uncaring if it’s put on correctly, and flew to Khaenri’ah as fast as she could.
Destruction greeted her like an old friend, but in that moment, it was not what she wanted to see. Her eyes looked for her living mirror, hoping to find her stupid, reckless sister whole and well, somber with the other archons.
She does not find that. Instead, she finds Makoto, hand in a terrible wound in her middle, golden blood staining her stolen armor, not a gush, but a trickle: most of her blood was already soaking in the ruined soil of what once had been Khaenri’ah.
“You stupid girl.” Ei says, falling to her knees, crawling to hold her sister, fingers already in her mind. She won’t let all of her sister die; a little part of her will always be with Ei.
Makoto does not have the breath to answer; instead, she just smiles.