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"Nobu, I love you, but where are we going?"
Okita looks across the speedboat at her dear girlfriend, presses her hands firmly together, and hopes that if she channels all the frustration she's feeling into her eyes she can maybe, just maybe, sharpen her glare enough for it count as a sword and scorch the grin off of Nobunaga's face with the resulting beam. (That or vomit blood all over the deck. The itch in her throat feels more like mostly-metaphorical bile than blood, but…)
It's not even mid-morning and already she's been dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn, force-fed a breakfast of dubiously-obtained pancakes, and bundled onto a small boat headed who knows where, all without so much as a word of explanation from Nobunaga. Given that the Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven regularly sleeps in till noon and talks a steady mile-a-minute, this uncharacteristic behavior has Okita starting to worry that she's been replaced by an Alter.
Nobunaga spreads her legs. Leans back against the railing. Stretches her smug grin even wider across her face, the effect only just ruined by the wind and spray of the boat's passage through the soft waves twisting her cap clean off, precipitating a flailed lunge-and-snatch that lands her nearly in Okita's lap. Nobunaga folds her legs neatly under herself as if she meant to do this all along and smiles winsomely up at Okita.
"Babe. Dear. My one and only blue-cloaked menace. I have prepared for us a truly excellent day!" She flourishes a hand, producing a dented sakura mochi that she tears in half, one chunk tossed casually into her mouth and the other held up to Okita on a flat palm in mock-solemn offering.
Okita can't decide whether to kiss her or slap her. She compromises on grabbing the half mochi from Nobunaga's palm with her mouth, taking care to nip at Nobunaga's fingers along the way, and speaks as gruffly as she can manage around the mouthful of rice gluten.
"If you don't start explaining now I'm going to maroon you one of those ice floes and sail this thing home myself." She's still angry, but she can feel the corners of her lips tugging up in a smile.
"Do you think they'd listen to you after you treated their original like that?" Nobunaga laughs, gesturing with a toss of her head at the silver Nobbu steering the boat from the stern.
"Ugh." Okita sighs good-naturedly. "Fine. You win." She rolls her eyes. "Now talk!"
"I love you too." Nobunaga takes one of Okita's hands between her own, idlying caressing the sword callusses on her palm. "We're going to make a day of it at that crazy new theme park Skadi set up at the pole. Brunch at the grill, fast-passes for the coasters, two tickets to the spa, an hour in the hot spring and primo seating for the fireworks — courtesy yours truly — on beach once it gets dark; the works!"
It's a shockingly considerate plan given how the day started, packed full of wonders they'd talked about while reviewing Chaldea's records of the modern world with what Okita thought was only idle longing and offering plenty of chances for a casual break if her constitution does get the better of her. She recognizes everything on Nobunaga's list from the advertising Skadi and her minions have been blanketing Chaldea with lately, but the last item is concerningly unfamiliar.
"…what do you mean 'fireworks courtesy of yours truly'? Are we in for some sort of anti-air Three-Line Formation display?"
"No no no; it's nothing like that." Nobunaga waves Okita's concern off like so much matchlock smoke. She leans in and whispers, putting a hand to her mouth to shield their conversation from the Nobbu at the helm. "Y'see, I got Chacha to work together with the mecha-Nobbus and mass-produce some really wicked shells—"
The light strikes them first, a spot on horizon past the bow briefly glowing brighter than the Sun. Squinting against the glare, Okita makes out a prismatic riot of who-knows-what tracing corkscrew paths away from the cloud of dark smoke rushing up to cover the dimming ball of light. She sees Nobunaga stand in her peripheral vision, jaw working silently before she turns away from the fireball to face her.
"Okita, I—"
The rest of Nobunaga's sentence is lost as the shockwave hits.