Chapter Text
There wasn’t a single instance in Aiko’s mind to hesitate, to stay professional and calm.
Let the people behind her be outraged and furious, or her reputation to be dragged through the mud for this. All of them were risks that she was willing to take right now at a handful of words from the one who had all but smashed through the meeting room door.
“Minami-sama! Sonoda-sama! Your children!”
The next words had been what chilled Aiko Minami to the core.
“Your home’s been attacked!”
Which was why she was feeling like this, feeling like this nightmare was in slow motion as she surged to her feet from her chair. Her cup tipping over from her wings rustling from her back and flaring out in her panic.
Her daughter was at home. She had left her there with a werewolf guard and her own body guard’s child as well, because… she didn’t want to expose her to too much of the political world that she would already be forced into.
Meaning…
Kotori was in danger.
Water was spilled everywhere, but Aiko didn’t get a chance to see it as she saw light and one of the rarest abilities she had from being a sun-angel, kicked in.
The ground melted beneath her feet, swirling bright light masking the ground and making it look like a orange shimmering pool. Before…
Aiko plunged into it without warning.
Teleportation was unique to mages, so normally angels without magic didn’t have it, but in a time of great agonizing need… Matter could and would warp around a sun angel producing a teleporting effect of moving massive distances with just lifting a finger.
That didn’t mean Aiko didn’t fall when her feet hit solid ground, particularly the sidewalk leading up to her home, one separate from her family’s manor in order to give her child as much of a childhood without the pressure as she could.
There was orange and green light flashing in the windows, light from magic aura’s colliding and someone was screaming. It was an adult, a full grown person screaming in agony over the sounds of crackling and popping of flame magic mixing with electric crackling of what she knew to be her four year old’s magic.
But… it was hard to focus on it when she could see through the open doorway and the shattered glass. Namely… a small, child outlined in the light of the magic, their blue hair was streaked with blood and their eyes were glowing a neon wild blue, but they had a hold of the adult’s arm who was screaming and obviously trying to throw the child off.
Who had to be Umi, the oldest of the three children that were stuck in the house.
Where was Kotori?!
She was just four years old, barely out of her toddlerhood and still learning how to use magic or fly on her little wings and do more than produce sparks for fireworks for her friends!
Aiko scrambled to her feet, rushing toward the door, but something caught her arm and yanked her back, someone had grabbed her, “let me go!”
“You’re not a werewolf! You can’t fight them Aiko!” The other person shouted over the chaos, “if they knocked Hibaba out there’s no way you can do anything!”
“I can! I’m a-”
“Sunangel’s aren’t gods! Mother or not you have to wait-” they didn’t get a chance to finish before Umi was thrown off and the child flew off into somewhere further off in the house.
“NO!” Aiko instantly knew what was going to happen before it did. After all, that was her daughter’s voice.
Instinctively she tackled the person next to her, “get down!”
Not even before she had finished half of the sentence did all of the glass from the windows shatter and explode outward into jagged missiles as a shockwave with the force of a bomb exploded outward from inside the house.
The walls and roof flashed gold, remnants of magic even now years ago protecting their little house and home, but it couldn’t protect the glass, or the people and objects inside.
“Kotori!” Aiko used her wings to rapidly get to her feet and the sun-angel went sprinting toward the house as she saw the shadow of someone running past the door from inside the house, “Get away from her!”
Her daughter was on the ground but stubbornly refusing to move away, as behind her, unconscious was the last of the three children.
“You little bitch!” the adult was screaming at the hybrid four year old and grabbed her by ther arm, lifting her up into the air..
“Lemme go! No lift me!” Kotori howled, kicking at him, the small rather frail hybrid struggling to escape his grasp, which was when Aiko caught the gint of a metal blade.
Kotori!
“Let her go!” Aiko screamed while racing toward them, “she’s just a child!”
Something help her, she wasn’t going to be able to save her daughter.
With supernatural speed even for a werewolf, blue flashed across Aiko’s vision, bathed in green from the light of Kotori’s magic. Before the speeding bullet of a creature collided straight into the adult’s neck with a snarling bone-chilling sound Aiko never wanted to hear again.
“Umi no!”
Blood sprayed through the air, splattering over the walls as the creature’s momentum jerked it’s teeth free from the adult’s throat mere miliseconds before gold light enveloped Kotori’s fingers and it flashed outward.
Everything froze.
Held in place by magic she had never seen come from her daughter before, Aiko could only look.
As the blood faded, disapating into golden lights as some unseen person or energy cleaned it all, wiping it from the scene and thereby protecting the three children.
All before…
Kotori collapsed, the child swaying for a brief moment before her legs gave out and Aiko strained to reach, desperate to reach her one and only child and protect her, but she was held still by the magic.
She didn’t need to be worried.
Someone quickly caught the little girl before she hit the floor, traces of the golden lights coming off of their clothes and body. “Rest, princess,” they told the little girl tucked safely in their arms as she spit up a bit of blood from the uncontrolled magic.
A lump grew in Aiko’s throat.
Ash-blonde messy hair, freckles, golden eyes, broad shoulders…
Shakir.
Aiko narrowly caught herself on her hands and knees as suddenly the magic holding her let go.
She was dreaming, she was seeing things. She, she, she had to have something going on with her, like maybe the shock was too much and she was hallucinating, seeing something to make her cope with what was going on.
She sat back on her heels with her head down, staring at the floor in shock.
It wasn’t possible for her to be seeing him! He was gone! So why was the world so cruel?!
Aiko felt tears welling in her eyes and when a pair of feet in simple sandals and an offered hand came into her vision, she couldn’t help but refuse. “You’re… you’re dead,” she choked out through the tears beginning to fall down her cheeks, “you’re dead!”
“I know,” Shakir’s voice hit her ears along with cloth rustling before suddenly he was in her vision.
All six feet of the man she had loved so much and had ripped away from her, kneeling like he used to, with Kotori cradled close to his chest. Their one and only child held close, cradled like she was the most important thing to him besides Aiko.
The position was so familiar that it hurt .
How many times had Aiko seen him sit on the floor pulling funny faces at their new baby? How many times had she seen him walking around with Kotori’s tiny body nestled in the crook of his arm while he cleaned with his other arm? Just how many times had she seen him holding Kotori upside down when she was two and playfully stomp around like a crazy monster? Or how many times she’d find him asleep on the couch with the toddler asleep on his chest and stomach?
What about the day he died. Cradling their crying daughter close in a whirlwind of gold, giving himself up to protect her and Aiko, to protect their family?
How many times had she wanted him to be there during the rest of their daughter’s life as she grew up? Like when she spoke her first word in greek, which was ‘father,’ like she felt connected to him when using magic?
And when their little girl had finally stretched out her wings with her and took her first flight?
Or the times Kotori’s golden eyes glowed with her smile that had dimples that perfectly matched his? And when her personality really began to grow and shine?
Or when Kotori’s friend had been upset about missing the fireworks show and out of nowhere, Kotori had made green sparks appear above her hands. Green, the same color as Shakir’s magic on a normal day and not when he was saving someone.
Kotori was his daughter through and through, and every day for the past two and a half years, she had been reminded of him through her in the things she did, her love for peace, her appearance, and when she smiled, she looked just like him.
“How?” Aiko eventually managed, through her throat was tight and she couldn’t look him in the eye, unable to bear looking him in the eye when she missed him so much even now.
“Kotori,” Shakir brushed Kotori’s bangs out of her face, “she used my magic to bring me here.”
“That’s impossible,” Aiko murmured and watched the scrapes and blood on her baby’s face fade and disappear completely. “Magic can’t bring back the dead.”
“Magic is life, Aiko. She found some of my stores,” Shakir chuckled, “she broke my urn with a shockwave and used my signature to make a manafesation of me to protect her.” His voice grew more sad, hushed and somber, “I can’t come back, honey… I’m sorry,” he whispered to her and Aiko swallowed hard before she pushed on, feeling her wings rustle restlessly at her back and tears pressing at her eyes.
“What’s keeping you here?”
“Also Kotori,” Shakir said and Aiko could hear his smile, “she’s beautiful, like you.”
“She looks just like you,” Aiko refuted quietly and looked at her daughter, “she looks more like you the more she gets older…. I miss you,” the words fell unintentionally from her lips, but she didn’t bother taking them back. Not when they both knew it was the truth.
“I do too,” Shakir admitted, “I wish we were never separated, but… I don’t regret protecting you both. Kotori… Kotori’s very special, Aiko, more than you’ll ever know…”
“I’ve noticed,” Aiko admitted and brought her hand up to run it through her little girl’s silky hair, “I don’t want to put her through becoming a liaison…”
“She will be okay,” Shakir promised her and Aiko felt her hand get warmer when he clasped his around hers, “just be patient with her, okay…? She’s got a hard road ahead of her, all three of them do really.”
At the mention of all three, Aiko couldn’t help but glance over at the other two. Honoka, who was unconscious, and Umi who was still frozen in the air pushing off from the adult’s chest, eyes wide like dinner plates at what they had done.
Poor girl…
If only she had gotten here faster…
“Hey,” Shakir nudged her hand with his, “there’s only so much you could’ve done Aiko… you’re an angel and it’s okay that you can’t always physically protect Kotori…” when Aiko refused to speak or respond, she heard him sigh. “Technically I’m not supposed to tell people what’s going to happen, but I’ll make this exception because it’s about our baby, kay?”
Aiko nodded and swallowed hard at the reminded that he was always watching over both of them.
“Kotori will have a protector so you don’t have to be,” he told her gently. “Umi may be cursed now, but she’ll be with her every step of the way for her life time and beyond, so honey…” fingers brushed Aiko’s cheek and she shut her eyes with a heaving breath, “don’t cry…”