Work Text:
“What’s wrong, Nacchan?”
Here’s the thing about Hikari Natsumi, as Yuriko knows her.
She doesn’t break easily. She is a woman who has known nothing but pain, her entire life.
Orphaned, left alone.
Her World invaded.
Her friends murdered, violently, before her eyes.
Her previous lovers, one dead and twisted.
(Yuriko hates Axesuke with a burning passion. She remembers Decade, quietly mentioning his “Yuusuke”. That man, he said, was a hero. He sacrifice himself. Sacrifice always sounds nice until you see the aftermath, however.
Decade, and DiEnd, and that other Stronger.
And Natsumi, of course.)
(Maybe even Yuriko herself, when she thinks of how it hurt to kill that shattered man who used to be her Shigeru. Her partner, her lover, her…
Hers.)
Natsumi shakes her head, arms wrapped around herself. She doesn’t like touch, when she’s hurting. Yuriko doesn’t ask why, but it’s a curious thing.
“It’s nothing,” Natsumi says. “Bad dream.”
You have those every other night , Yuriko thinks. She doesn’t say it, however. Pushing might break her, and she loves Natsumi.
The woman has become a comfort to her.
She tries not to lean too much. After all, Natsumi has lost two lovers already. A woman she still wakes, crying for. A man who is their greatest enemy.
“You sure?” Yuriko asks. They live in a city now. It was a huge accomplishment to fully overtake a city.
It also means finally talking Natsumi into acquiring a house.
(She doesn’t talk about the downstairs renovations. There’s no way Natsumi will ever be able to take Axesuke alive, after all.)
And a real bed, not that Yuriko cares. But it’s large, easy for Natsumi to find comfort, and pull away when it just hurts too much to imagine.
Natsumi nods, slowly wrapping herself in their blanket, shaking.
“…nothing new,” she says. “Just… sometimes I dream about things I know I didn’t see.”
Yuriko nods.
“I figured you had something,” she says. “You managed to describe Shigeru before I even told you he existed.”
“He was so scared,” Natsumi says. “So alone… the first time Yuusuke killed someone was the person who killed his sister. He never told me it was a middle school girl with a chainsaw.”
“I can’t decide the most horrible part of that sentence,” Yuriko snarks. Natsumi nods.
“I know,” she says. “I’ve seen so many horrible things. Did you know the Grongi that helped run our largest outpost had a child who helped run that fighting ring? I didn’t.”
She pulls her knees up against her. Yuriko wishes she could reach out.
(Shigeru got like this, near the end. Exhausted and worn out and confused, but, even then, he was less forthcoming than Natsumi is now.)
“I see how Chinatsu died,” Natsumi says. “Sometimes separate from my body. I see her terror…”
“It’s not real—”
Natsumi turns and meets her gaze.
“But it is,” she says. “I have a— had a… well, okay, she… her host is how I got Gaim, so… well. She’s a sister. A soul twin. Same name and face. Same life, except I didn’t have a grandfather to take me in. She sees the future. And I… this is the World of Negatives. I see the past… and I can never change it.”
“Okay then, it is real,” Yuriko says. She’s seen far crazier things. Easier to just accept it. “But it’s not your fault.”
She scoots closer, and Natsumi flinches. Yuriko sighs.
Axesuke really did a number on her, didn’t he? And she still wants to save him.
Yuriko admires the resolve, but it’s not fair.
Not to Natsumi herself.
“Are you sure?” Natsumi asks. “This is supposed to be my World? Why can’t I even save the people I love?”
Yuriko sighs.
“I don’t know, Nacchan,” she says. “I don’t know. But I know you keep trying. Not many people can manage that. You know I killed Shigeru with my own two hands.”
“I know you cried, after,” Natsumi says. “I know… I know too much, Yuriko.”
At that, she finally moves to wrap her arms around Yuriko, and Yuriko gladly holds her. This isn’t uncommon, except that Natsumi finally explained.
She wonders what Natsumi saw tonight, to cause this.
This is more than usual, after all.
“You deserve to live, Yuriko,” Natsumi says.
…oh.
“And you deserve to be happy, Nacchan,” Yuriko replies.
They are more than their tragedies, together.