Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Sleep is a capricious thing. A state of rest, and yet a tiring journey through the subconscious. It is little wonder that immortal entities resist it so. Some cannot function without a few centuries of slumber, and some lie to rest every night just as mortals do. Few enjoy the experience.

Beelzebul never needed to sleep. Nor had Baal. They had been creatures of war and combat; only meditation was necessary. A moment to rest your sword or spear, to clear your mind, and eliminate distractions or lingering doubts. They had once taken shifts, a blade always ready. Should one of them need to rest, the other would guard, and that was safe enough.

Perhaps they had slept once or twice, in the lull of peacetime, with the smell of grass as their bedding and a blanket of sunshine. The world could fade away when Beezlebul lay her head down and felt her sister twist her hair into a braid. That touch, that security... that peace could lull anyone into a light slumber. Gentle scratches at her skin and scalp, a touch of warmth, and a delicate laugh when she stirred.

Then... the cataclysm...

Now it is only Beelzebul. It is Ei and Ei alone, and she at first had no reason to sleep. She spent centuries meditating, keeping her mind clear of erosion in the Plane of Euthymia for the sake of eternity. For the sake of the nation her sister so loved. When she emerged, there was a different challenge to overcome - a distance between her and her people. A deserving one. Atop all the diplomatic and bureaucratic changes, there were more personal challenges the archon faced to heal that rift. Sleep, like cooking or eating or meanderings or light novels, was an act humans participated in out of comfort and necessity. It was something Miko suggested. It was something Ei had forsaken after Makoto.

It was something she was taking up again.

"Such a shame Mizuki's out of town," Ei's familiar had crooned, a tease on her tongue as she watched her archon prepare the royal chambers. "She'd be perfect for the job."

"I do not fear nightmares," Ei had dismissed. Miko's tails had flicked, and her ears twitched. A languid hand trailed up Ei's arm as the kitsune watched. The great archon did not stir or tremble beneath ghostly touches, as she knew Miko wanted her to. It was not a cruel act, but another reminder of her frailty. Something Miko so loved to remind her of.

"It's not the fear I worry about," Yae mused softly, far kinder than her usual scorn. Her eyes tore into Ei's strength and left the pieces in her wake as the familiar turned and left Ei to rest, linens rustling softly in her wake.

The door slid shut, and the chambers of the great Shogun were plunged into silence. Not an uncomfortable one, but a space that Ei could not ignore.

But... it is true, even now: Ei does not fear nightmares.

Months spent wrestling with old dreams leave her more weary than fearful. Old battles and victories - older losses and regrets. These things are not to be feared, but to be learned from. And she has learned from every one of them.

Her conscience is clear - pristine even. Every act, every movement, and every past choice was made to the utmost of her ability at the time. She knows this. She has never pretended to be kind or good or benevolent; every action was borne of a perceived necessity for Inazuma, and every consequence is hers to shoulder. Just as they were once Makoto's to shoulder.

Her subconscious, however, processes such acts differently. This discrepancy between her awakened and slumbering states is... good, apparently.

How? She is not sure. But everyone seems to concur that this torment is a healthy one. It is a challenge, though, to see old friends and faces long since buried in her memories. It is a challenge to face her mistakes and shortcomings over and over again. But the electro archon has never backed down from a challenge. If this never-ending cycle of hauntings and decipherings means she can grow closer to her people and atone for the mistakes of the past, then she will do it for an eternity. She will learn every lesson her subconscious believes she has yet to internalize.

But dreams, as of late, have been even more fickle.

Makoto is there, as always. She sharpens her sword or braids her hair or does something Ei has seen her do millions of times. Often, Saiguu is at her side, tails swaying and teeth glinting into a tease. Sasayori, with his peaceful smile - that familiar grace in his pose as he meets Ei's eyes. Then Chiyo, her head in Ei's lap, lost in a nap and a kinder dream. This is a familiar ritual.

The aches do fade, and perhaps that is the purpose of these dreams. Ei can stop them, but letting them play out over and over seems to be something akin to weapon practice. Eventually, she will grow used to the pain: Is growing used to it. Emotional calluses of a sort.

She stops the scene before Makoto stands. She stops it before Sasayori bleeds out aside snake scales. She stops it with Chiyo smiling, a hand around each of her boys, and joy in the air. Her blade doesn't need to strike this down again. 

Ei leaves the scene but does not awaken. Lucid dreaming, they call it. Well, Miko calls it such. Ei first believed all archons were capable of it; what else would compel Barbatos to slumber for so long? Apparently, she was mistaken.

Dreams were usually an inescapable prison. One she happens to have the key to.

She attributes it to the many years of meditation; she knows her mind inside and out. Every crevice, memory, and thought has been turned over and studied beneath the lens of an archon. There is nothing she hides from herself, simply things she hesitates before delving into. It makes it all methodical, this dreaming state. Far more manageable than the alternative.

She revisits her Shogunate days, the names engraved in her mind from her mistakes. The deaths and the violence and the ease with which foreign powers wormed into her nation. She relives those days with the Traveler, looking over Inazuma and wills, for a moment, that Makoto see it too.

It's still here, she wants to say. She hasn't failed yet and will not fall now. She has stumbled and blundered, but she has not lost it all. The sun shines on Inazuma's capital all the same, and the orange dusk sky is not so different from how it was all those eons ago.

There is no memory to replace what Makoto would say, but it would be something paired with an affectionate sigh. There was still more to learn, more to do... There was an eternity before them, and if this new philosophy was to hold weight, then there would be an eternity of growth for both archon and country.

It does not atone for anything, but it does pave a better way forward, and was that not Makoto's way? Is that not what she would want?

The sun glows gold against a blood red sky, and the wind carries a new smell as it changes direction, pulling at Ei's hair. It smells like earth and rotting tree bark. It smells like oil and copper. It smells like old books and new leaves.

There is a tug at Ei's hand, a gentle pull towards a fog that is not hers. It is familiar and heavy, and everything she has left behind. She turns to the shadows of her castle... and she hesitates.

After their first contact, she has yet to have another meaningful conversation with her... son. It is the most suitable title for the puppet, yet it sits heavy in her mind. That dream had been a torrent of volatile emotion; settings and acts that had been beyond her control, but it had proven one thing:

He had suffered. 

The freedom she had granted had cursed another being she was responsible for. In her attempts to do right, she had sewn more seeds of pain. And she does not know how to remedy this.

She does not know how to tell Makoto she failed her twice.

Her boy does not sleep, it seems. Whatever connection has grown between them only works both ways if both slumber, or so she deduces. Any attempt to connect with him only lends access to his subconscious, and she cannot pretend she is entitled to such things.

That does not always stop her...

The call of the shadows is strange, like a tug on the hem of her clothes. It pulls but pushes her back. Stay away from me.

A familiar warning. She stands at the threshold of a mind that is not hers, the glinting sunlight fading behind her into a twilight of her making. The shadows tug again, this time at her hand. Look, it begs, please look at me. Please -

And it sounds like him.

Today, she strides into a newer memory. Sumeru's architecture is somewhat recognizable, but the living bookshelves and endless tomes of knowledge give it away. She does not pay his setting much mind.

He is surrounded by verdant life, his clothes a gentle hue of blues and grays. His hat keeps the sun out of his eyes as he lounges and flips through a textbook. The grand window bathes him in warmth. He is... mildly intrigued, a neutral expression and a calm demeanor say so. It's a rare sight, she thinks, to see him so... content.

Ei sits in the chair next to him and... watches. She knows he is in Sumeru, though why or how is still up for debate. It most certainly has to do with the recent Fatui incursion on Buer's hold, and the rumors of a god construct. Though the ex-harbringer doesn't seem to be a prisoner, so perhaps his involvement is more convoluted than it appears. Or perhaps Sumeru is just a forgiving nation.

In truth, she is indifferent to his political allegiances; she is enthralled more by his state. His eyes are bright, his skin is sanded smooth, and his joints fidget without any hint of delay or discomfort. There is a healthy tint to his cheeks to show sufficient blood flow, and his hair is a rich color - proper nutrition, then. In truth, he looks... well. Better. Eased.

"Anything interesting?" a voice chimes, and it's one Ei can't place until she sees the archon.

She has heard Buer's voice before... she thinks. But for some reason, the voice to the face feels off. There is a discrepancy she can not fathom, but it does not seem to bother the boy. The little god wanders up and sits across from the reader, her aura glowing like her earnest smile.

"Not really," the boy mutters, rolling his eyes and tossing the book aside: "How about you?"

It's a side of him Ei hasn't had time to observe. He's relaxed - engaged even. Buer giggles and rambles about her day, and he chimes in with questions or scathing remarks. There's a smile on his face, slight and just barely visible, but it curls at the corners of his lips and sparks something in his gaze.

Buer mentions something about an arrested academic, and the boy laughs. It's a sharp, vindictive thing, but there is mirth to it. An earnest level of amusement that has Buer smiling too. The conversation is more than civil, it is... friendly. They muse and joke, he rolls his eyes, and Buer's voice chimes like bells.

He is different. Ei knows this - sees it in everything he does. He lounges as if he owns the room, his feet thrown up on the coffee table. He sits, facing the door with his anemo vision on full display at his side. He is expressionless most of the time, breaking routine with a scoff or a smirk, but always returning to a safe neutral.

He is nothing like the boy she left behind, and in truth, she cannot find that child in the person he has become. It does not hurt her, but she is to blame for it. She wonders, as she so usually does, what he would've been like had he stayed with her. 

Logically, he'd be dead. She knows this. Logically, the gnosis would have destroyed him, and she would have watched - that was who she used to be. He would've been another sacrifice on the altar of her perceived eternity. A better question, though a far more unfair one, is who would he be had she created him now?

That question, however, could not be reasonably answered: One, she has no reason to create a puppet now and likely will never again. Two, it is illogical to judge one's past actions based on one's current character, as the two never coexisted.

That does not mean the question goes away; it simply lingers, like she does in a subconscious not her own.

At some point, Buer sees something. She glimpses it in the boy's eyes and follows it to Ei's figure. The archon's gazes meet, but nothing more. Electro meets Dendro, and the energy in the room quivers but does not shatter.

"Scaramouche, I hope you don't mind me prying, but when was the last time you slept?" Buer asks, her gaze set on Ei's form. There is a fierceness there, an unwavering sort of stance like the old trunk of a tree rooted years and years ago.

"I'm not sure," the boy shrugs, returning to his book. He is oblivious, then. "I don't need it."

Buer blinks and finally looks away, a smile on her face that is almost reminiscent of Miko's: "You may want to consider it, if you find the time. I find a good sleep can reveal the things our minds fail to reason with when we're awake."

"I don't want to reason," the boy rues, and the scene ends abruptly. The two vanish from sight, and the room twists into a long hallway for Ei to traverse alone.

It is like that in the boy's head. Unpredictable and uncontrolled, but she's learned to wander. Where one memory fades, another churns, and she climbs wooden-carved steps to a balcony overlooking what she must assume to be Sumeru city.

He sits there, perched on a balcony, watching the houses light up as the sun sets. It's a tranquil scene, but the set of his jaw is familiar. She stands next to him and watches as he clenches his vision. His knuckle strain, bones showing from beneath manufactured skin, as he stares at Celestia's blessing. He is torn, she deciphers. 

All Ei can do is gaze at the golden feather on the boy's belt, swaying in the gentle breeze.

A familiar scream echoes through the night, and the electro archon wonders if she's doomed to overstep every time. She should leave the boy to the safety of his mind, step away, and have these moments in person. There are things she'd like to say, things he needs to hear... and likely things she must listen to. 

The beading above the golden feather clinks against the balcony as the wind picks up, and it sounds like a lone wind chime.

She should leave him to his secrets and his pains... wait until he is ready... until she is ready - until they are ready. 

But she turns towards the tunnel behind them. The door is left open, and the hollowed-out branch leads to a downward spiraling staircase. The night seems even darker. She stares for a moment at the hall's entrance, grappling with familiar ethical quandaries.

She could awaken. She's had her rest. She's seen enough to satisfy her curiosity.

Another scream echoes from miles below them, and it twists something hideous inside her. She has always been a war god. Makoto was eternal. Ei was finality. No matter how she pretends they are the same, they will always be different. 

Where Makoto saw a future, Ei only ever saw an obstacle... and perhaps that is the crux of the matter. It is why she could never fill the electro archon's shoes, why she cannot step away... why she cannot leave.

She glances once more at the boy on the balcony, the ribbons on his hat swaying in the breeze as he frowns. Even now, he looks peaceful, the raging war of thoughts on his brow privy to him alone. There is where she leaves that newer memory - fresh yet unsteady, as healing always is.

Instead, she descends to lower levels of the boy's memories, the layers hidden in the old trunk's rings. Each step echoes against wood, then stone, then metal and iron. The smell of wood and earth gives way to steel and oil. Copper too. The darkness strips the memory of any warmth or detail, the edges of the scene muddled.

He is alone.

Braced against a steel table nailed into the floor, he shakes and strains to keep himself standing. His gentle hues of silk and cotton are gone, and all that remains is a dark pair of shorts and pounds of mutilated flesh. This is where she should turn back and give him what decency others stripped him of. This is where she should stop prying.

She does not, she drifts closer.

There are wires and tubes sprouting from his back like a pair of mutilated wings. Blood trickles from their meetings with flesh, swelling and burns a common place in this horror of ingenious creation. They pain him.

It is obvious that they pain him, but she notes it as more than an idiotic observation. Ei created that body. She knows exactly how much pain it is designed to take. She knows the signs of an impending system shutdown. She also knows the boy found ways to push those limits further, and those nerve thresholds higher... so yes, they pain him.

 The largest attachments run down his spine, starting from the base of his neck to just above his hips. The smaller wires mirror each other on each side: arms, legs, shoulder blades, ribs. They are plugged into him as if he is a battery, lines woven into his arteries and stitched against bone.

He is barely standing, suffering the aftershocks of something. But he is no longer bound as she had once seen him. The boy refuses to fall. He refuses to sway. He clenches the metal table as if his life depends on it and seethes out determined breaths. 

She knows it is useless. This isn't even his dream... it is a memory. It has already happened, and she cannot change it. 

Logically, she knows this.

She still places a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He is cold against her palm, like ice... or a corpse. His breaths slow, and his straining eases. He sighs out, weary with relief as the pain fades.

She knows she is not responsible for his reprieve. She knows the boy cannot sense her - she was not there for this. She was... never there. But she can watch the pain ebb. She can watch him relax, relief spilling over his features as he chuckles under his breath. She can watch him survive, and that is... something.

There is a hum in the air and a series of clicking, and the boy collapses, gripping the table again as one of the lines twitches and divine essence spills from the ports. She almost falls with him, but catches herself.

She cannot stop this. She cannot change this.

He does not scream. He does not even whimper. When it passes, he pulls himself up from his knees and braces once more. She has to walk around the table to see his expression.

Fury. Anger. Pain... and a hunger. He is clinging to more than the table, a desperate certainty in his eyes as he reins in his breathing. The fire in his gaze sparks in a way she understands - the boy is imagining victory. He is envisioning a future where all of the pain is worth it. Where any pain is worth it, as long as he is victorious.

In that way, she supposes, he has always been her son. Would always be, no matter what she had done. Still is, despite it all.

A voice trails in, starting muffled in the memory but growing crisp and clear as the figure draws closer. It is a scholar in Sumeru's Academia clothes. He projects a screen from his terminal, and the boy looks over to him with a dangerous sort of fury.

She's seen it before. Pain breeds irritation. The irritation of a god or a godly creation is not something to take lightly. She is not so quick to call the boy immature for his reaction; she can recognize him for what he is. The murder for what it will be.

" - great decrease in productivity. If you continue at this rate, there are considerable concerns that you are incapable of handling all of the divine knowledge capsules. We have to take a break and recalculate some things - wait until you are more fit."

The researcher detaches the tube from the base of the Balladeer's neck and does not realize the folly he's committed.

She does not flinch when it happens. She does not even blink. If she had, she would've missed it.

The human is on the floor, dead. The harbinger trembles where he stands, his foot stained with red from the caved-in skull at his feet. The boy backs away, unbothered by the gore clinging to his skin. With a vicious sort of self-destruction, he grabs a collection of small wires and clenches them into his fist. He heaves out of straining lungs for a moment, staring at an unseen horizon, then his lips curl into a snarl and he yanks.

Blood and metal spill atop the fresh corpse as the boy stumbles back to the table, grabbing and pulling and plucking himself free of his manufactured chains. They give with pops and clicks of screeching metal and gasping flesh.

"Insect," he rasps through a stumble, the wires balled in his fist. "Lowly... fucking... worm..."

She cannot intervene, would not know what to do if she could. She stares at the corpse and back at the boy. This is not the work of a spoiled young god. It is the work of a cornered one.

She can only bear witness to the blood spilling from his back and the madness in his eyes. The crimson ichor glimmering in the lights of the lab is an unnatural sheen. The cost of man-made divinity is incomprehensible. The cost of angering such a virulent subject is even higher. 

The mortal is dead, and the young god? Set on self-destruction. He reaches for another wire, and all she can do is watch. Her hands are helpless to intervene, not that they have ever been any good at soothing.

"Do mind the equipment." That is a familiar voice. Not from her memories but from his. She needs nothing else to mark her hatred of the Tsaritsa's harbinger, Dottore. Her boy's memories are enough.

Her son relents at the tone, his hand releasing the next set of wires burrowed in his skin. He does not face his demon, but Ei does. 

Dottore is a blur of colors and shapes at first, drifting behind the boy like a shade. His hands, however, are recalled in perfect detail. They trace the edge of the table and land on the subject's back. Gloved fingers outline ripped ports and smear scarlet on porcelain skin with a deceivingly gentle touch. 

"You've made quite the mess, Balladeer," Dottore hums, leaning into crystal-clear view. Hair like ice, teeth like a wolf, her boy stares straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the venomous breath in his ear. He holds the table, chest still heaving, and his knuckles a deathly pale as he ignores the touch.

"Nothing irreplaceable, luckily." The doctor pulls away, and she does not miss the fluttering of her boy's eyes. It is not relief, but it is close, hidden from Dottore's gaze and free of his presence.

The doctor admires the corpse, and Ei tries to swallow something sickening as she looks at the young false god. She cannot help him. She cannot save him. She should not know of this scene, but she cannot leave it. She stands across the table from the boy and watches him fight for dignity. She can only bear witness to how he pushes himself up, squares his shoulders, and huffs.

Her boy is a master at collecting himself. He's had too much practice.

"They should be wary before laying their hands on me, I'm not some little science project," he seethes.

"No," Dottore agrees, pushing the corpse over with his foot to get a better view of the butchery. When that is done, he looks over and grins wide and proud: "At least you're not their project."

Scaramouche sneers at that, reaching back over his shoulder and yanking out another wire.

"Ohh, now, now; let's not throw a tantrum."

"I'm sick of your games, Doctor. Summon me back when you find someone capable of doing this."

"It was user error, then?" the doctor hums, prodding at the corpse with his foot. "A shame: the academia liked this one. Oh well, I suppose we could - don't go anywhere."

The last part is a cold order, and the boy's flinch almost stirs Ei out of her slumber. The rage is pounding in her ears, as is the shame. This is not hers to see, this is not hers to see... but she will see it out regardless. 

Her boy stalls and undergoes a slew of emotions before his expression lands on peeved. His eye roll is both entirely earnest and far too well rehearsed.

"You want me to sit here while you find some new insect to do it!?" he challenges as he turns around slowly. "Unlike you, I am a singular entity and have better things to do with my time."

"I very much doubt that," Dottore chuckled, snapping his fingers to someone on the outside of the memory's periphery. "You - clean this up."

A faceless assistant tumbles towards the corpse and fades into the background - something her boy didn't care to remember.

Then the doctor approaches, and Ei matches. She stands behind the boy where Dottore faces him, a sickeningly kind smile beneath his mask. She cannot support in any meaningful way, but she can stare down this nightmare and imagine the day when she can do more than stare. She can place a hand on the boy's shoulder and wish he felt it.

"But, you have a point. We are short on time, and I am down a clone for the whole departing harbinger facade. Thus, I will personally expedite the process."

"How thoughtful," the boy doesn't even try to hide his disdain, but Dottore's smile does not waver. 

It is the sickest, foulest of grins Beelzebul has borne witness to. She has seen atrocities and creatures who have committed the most disgusting of crimes. She has seen beasts smiling over crimes so repulsive their apathy summoned more than righteous justice. She is no stranger to horrors or abuse... but if she ever finds this doctor, well...

This is a different sort of disgust. This is a familiar rage.

A single slash feels too quick for the anger in her chest. An anger she has to let go of. An anger she does not deserve to feel. An anger she cannot act on...

She watches the boy accept the hand on his other shoulder. She steps away as Dottore leans closer, hands tracing the marring of the boy's back as if it is a marvelous carving for him to admire. This is the boy's anger. His pain. This is what she left him to suffer, she cannot claim this as her just vengeance. It must be his. It will always only be his.

Logically, she knows this. Her teeth clench all the same when gloved fingers dig into an open wound, hooking it like a prize.

The boy squirms, hissing, but his response is muted. He threw a man to the ground and caved his skull in without a thought, but he does not push the doctor away. He cannot, she knows this.

He will swallow the pain. She will do the same with her rage.

"Backing out so soon, Sixth?" Dottore hums softly. "That's unlike you."

For once, her boy is silent, glaring up at his fellow harbinger as Dottore moves from tormenting an open wound to tracing the metal plating embedded in her boy's skin.

"There's a lot of work poured into this. A lot of time. A lot of pain. I know you, Balladeer..."

"You don't know anything -"

"I know you best," Dottore chuckles, leaning closer. His hand drifts. All Ei can do is watch as those fingers ghost her boy's skin, settling at the nape of his neck, right below the mark of a familiar sigil, and above a damning metal port.

There is a shudder down the boy's spine, hardly noticeable, but she sees it, and the wicked gleam of the doctor's grin means he has too. 

There is a naginata in Ei's hand, energy crackling with her as she follows the predator. It is a useless endeavor - a sign of her foolish emotional state. She cannot slay this foe, she cannot win this fight, but the handle of her weapon is a familiar comfort, and she can pretend for a moment that she stalks as the harbringer does.

She has killed many creatures in her life, but Dottore will be one of the few deaths she'll take some pleasure in. She should not have come down here. She should not be watching. This is not her memory to wander and yet...

She cannot leave him now.

"I know you," Dottore whispers, and it echoes in the room - it's deafening in the silence. A terrible condemnation that the boy cannot argue against. "You've dreamed of this for centuries. I know you, and you are not afraid of pain."

He finds a new wound to dig a gloved finger into, and Scaramouche grabs his arm, fighting against a cry as he keeps his eyes set on Dottore's mask. He quivers but does not fall, shudders but does not cry. Then... he clenches his jaw and stands, his glare even as if tempting the Doctor to go further. Dig further. Tear him apart if he so dares.

They stare at each other for too long, holding some conversation Ei cannot decipher. Her boy stands tall, and Dottore steps back, blood staining his gloves.

"That's more like it, archon," the doctor taunts. Her boy does not respond; he simply turns and rolls his neck and shoulders, offering the doctor his canvas. The lights of the labs seem to dim as the subject stands and allows the physician to reattach wires and ports. He stands and does nothing while Dottore works, silence ringing in the room as the doctor reshapes and re-docks all that the test subject once pulled free.

There is a different look in her boy's expression this time. It is not anger or even determination. It's a glassy sort of gaze; distant and fixated on a horizon no one else can see. It is not pained, it is not hopeful, it is just... neutral.

She does not know why she cradles the side of his face, but she does. Perhaps it is to stir the look in his eyes, to try and find that spark she knows he should have. It is a different kind of torment to watch the life leave the eyes of something still very much alive. She has seen it before, and she cannot bear to see it again.

The moment her fingers brush against his cheek, a tear slips down. She pulls away, and her boy blinks: anger. She can live with that emotion. He blinks furiously and wipes his face, cursing under his breath.

"Pain?" Dottore hums, pausing his work.

"No. Fucking dust - would it kill you to clean this place," Scaramouche snapped back. "I think I just got metal in my eye."

The doctor chuckles: "Sterilized lab spaces are ideal when working with organic creatures; luckily, we're not so constrained."

It's a dismissal and explanation all at once. Not a minute later, and the work is done, meaning most of her boy's ripping was superficial. The only evidence of his work was the blood smeared on his back and hands. 

"There," Dottore sounds pleased with himself as he turns the boy around. "Good as new."

"If I wanted to break something, it would be broken," is all Scaramouche scathes.

"Of course." It's an obvious appeasement, but no one argues.

That almost changes when Dottore grabs the boy's chin and forces their eyes to meet.

"Then, we're ready to begin. To a grand finale, puppet. It was a pleasure."

The rage in the archon is mirrored in the boy as he jerks away, hissing through clenched teeth: "When I ascend, I want you to know that every second you live is only because I'm choosing mercy."

"Quite foolish to threaten the one helping you ascend," Dottore chuckles, and he cannot see how Ei circles him: A coming judgement.

"We both know each other."

The doctor nods, a warmth in his twisted tone: "That's true. Better than most, I'd dare to say."

"I know you have some leash baked into all this," the boy gestures to the overlayed wires. "And we both know it'll ensure your escape. But I'll be a god. I will be free. So I recommend you steer clear of Sumeru after I claim what is mine."

"And here I thought we had a cordial working relationship."

Dottore's smile never moves, nor does her boy's sneer, the two staring for another long moment before the doctor slips on his akasha and the tension is softened.

"Well... thank you for the warning, Balladeer. I'll take it to heart," there's far too much glee in his tone as Dottore fiddles with projected keys and modeling prints.

The boy takes that as his sign to return to the table, rolling his neck and stretching his arms before bracing himself once again.

"You could always lie on the table," Dottore offers, tapping away.

The boy does not move: "I don't intend to lie atop any more of your tables."

"Shame, it would've been nice to reminisce."

Scaramouche scoffs, and there is a hidden expression he's safe to make with his back to the doctor. He winces.

They stay there for a moment, Dottore tapping away and her boy staring at a wall. Dottore hums twice, musing at whatever it is he finds in his code.

"Well, what a surprise: it was user error. What a gross inefficiency," the second harbringer scathes.

Ei can hardly see in the blur, but someone is dragging the body away. The boy doesn't even glance at it. He is used to this, beyond callused, he is apathetic. It should not bother her - if anything, it is her. She tightens the grip on her polearm.

Their minds overlap for a moment, and she looks over the shoulder of her boy, beyond his wings of wires and mesh. Down a dark hallway, atop a bench of stone, there's the same boy. Years younger and centuries kinder, he's smiling at a butterfly on his finger, holding perfectly still so as not to scare it off. 

For a moment, it seems like Scaramouche sees him too. It is not grief in his eyes, but it is something close.

Then Dottore activates a system, and the hallway vanishes, the old ghost with it. The boy is on the floor, fighting and fighting against a scream in his throat as he curls over his knees.

"They adjusted the system into a mere trickle; as if you are some paltry host," Dottore's voice pierces through the buzzing of the boy's mind, and Ei, for the millionth time, feels herself drifting with him.

Dottore is there too, as he so usually is, crouching and smiling.

"They always underestimate you," the doctor tutts. "And they always doubt my handiwork."

Not. Yours.

The words ring like a bell through Ei's mind, but they cannot fight through the boy's lips. He glares and gasps and tries to compose himself. He holds his head and grits out pained breaths as his eyes begin to water.

"I don't think these academics appreciate our initiative, Sixth. They think themselves ambitious, but compared to us... I dare say their enterprises are pathetic. Unwilling to take risks... afraid of the pain it takes to achieve their goals. No idea of real sacrifice."

Dottore's smile grows even wider as he leans closer: "A few years surrounded by creatures like them will make you miss my company."

A new screen pops up before the doctor, fresh green light warming the scene as the harbringer raises the levels of a few bars, labeled in a language Ei does not know. The buzzing grows louder, and the edges of the memory churn. Ei stands like a pillar, knuckles white on the handle of her weapon.

"You threaten to kill me once you ascend, good. I invite you to try, indulge my curiosities as you so often do. A god pinned to a corkboard... that won't be too out of the ordinary for us, will it?"

"Shut... up..." It's a fight to get out, but the boy spits it with a venomous spirit any creator should be proud of. It's gutting to Ei instead.

It only makes the doctor laugh, darker this time - angrier: "Make me, archon."

The harbinger raises the final level, and that seems to be some breaking point. The memory goes dark, but the air rings with something distant, something terrible. He's screaming, Ei realizes after too long. The scene is dark, but the scream is everywhere - is everything. She closes her eyes in the darkness and lets that sound consume her. 

It is pain. It is helplessness. It is anger and fear and despair twisted into a tearing sound, spilling from lungs she built with her own hands. She cannot stop it. The darkness pulls the edges of her clothing desperately, as if looking for something - anything to make it stop. She cannot grant it reprieve. Cannot fix it.

Cannot... quite bear it.

"Enough."

It is an order... and she hates that it is so well obeyed, the dream splitting open with the cracklings of thunder.

The screaming stops, the cut too crisp to be comforting. The silence gnaws at the archon's bones, and she lets out a long breath of regret and static. She opens her eyes and finds a world of fog. A sea of memories and garbled voices: Dottore's prideful croons and others' ramblings that she cannot decipher.

She takes a step forward and almost trips over her boy. Immediately, she is kneeling at his side, helpless but heavy all the same. She lays her blade beside him, both hands hovering over the limp form, she tries to pretend she does not see the tremors in her knuckles. He looks dead... feels dead. She brushes the hair out of his vacant look and feels the cold of his forehead - the unnatural paleness as his blood stops flowing. He is not breathing...  does not have to... but...

"Up." The water comes from somewhere unrecalled, though it's Dottore's voice that's so close. A bucketful lands on the boy's head, and he gasps to life, eyes sparking with an ancient energy. He tries to scramble up but cannot, arms giving out before he can lift himself more than a few inches.

"We're not done yet."

The words from afar pair with her boy's ragged whine, curling around himself as tears flood his gaze. She cannot help him. She cannot -

But she can feel him. Logic be damned she reaches out and feels the water lingering on his shoulders, the absolute frigid touch of his skin. She pulls him close.

She is not kind. She is not benevolent. She is not maternal or comforting. But... she remembers what it is to be held.

She pulls his head into her lap, as Makoto used to do. She pulls his wet hair away from his eyes and pretends she is enough to keep all further pain at bay. She puts a hand on his shoulder - something Makoto did to assure that she was watching - that Ei was safe. That no one would touch her while the great electro archon watched.

She pulls him closer and just... pretends. How pathetic.

Ei is crying. He is, too. He is trembling and shivering and biting his tongue, but he is sobbing. They are gentle, muted sounds, flinching with his continued pain and torment. Her tears seem so inconsequential in the midst of it all.

She runs a hand through his sopping hair, her gaze wandering the history of torture on his skin, and she does not miss how he melts. He turns into her leg, curling closer with a terrible kind of acceptance. He falls still again, lulled into a different kind of peace as his eyes flicker shut. He is small like this, not childlike but just... little.

"Up."

The same tone. Her boy braces himself, and she finds her heart is not made of steel, hands shielding him before the water can land. It does not matter. She cannot change it. She... she cannot, it has already happened. All of this has already happened, but he is scared, and he is swallowing it.

"Enough." It's quieter this time. A breath that in no way befits a creature of her standing. It is angry... and it is also a plea. A quiet beg. It is many things all at once, but it works.

She opens her eyes to her balcony, the wood beneath her a kind, warm thing underneath the noon sun. He is still here. Still butchered and tormented, but right where he lay before. She does not stir, will not. She has dragged this boy into her subconscious, and the moment he stirs is the moment he leaves.

The wires are gone, ugly gaping holes left in their wake. She watches the ichor congeal and the wounds scab, time moving much faster in memory. 

Well... she stirs a bit. She combs through his hair and pulls down a decorative flag that was in reach. It's a terrible makeshift blanket, but he is still damp and bare, and it seems she cannot dream up a reprieve of such kind for him. She cannot reason what part of him is with her, whether she has dragged a subconscious part, or a slumbering son, into her head. She also, simply, does not care.

What happened in that lab has already happened. She does not need this him... any him to live through it again. But he will. She knows this. He will over and over again as she lives her own torments. She cannot stop that. Now, though... he is... safe.

He is in her lap, eyes staring out to the deep sea with tears in his lashes. His shivering has eased in the warmth of the sun, and there is an expression on his face that is not content, but neither pained.

She watches his hair fall back in place with every stroke, feels his hair dry as his tears do. But the spell always breaks. He curls closer, clenching his jaw, and she knows what it means.

"You're not real." He accuses.

Perhaps he... did rest then. Perhaps they're here again - he is here, dreaming. She keeps sorting through his locks, gently unraveling his tangles and knots. She feels old scars there, and she cannot fathom what injuries or procedures made them... in part, she does not want to.

"You're not real..." It's a quieter breath - a despairing one.

She knows better than to disagree with him; all it will do is rile him up... wake him. Or worse, plunge him back into dreamscapes where she cannot follow. He'll shove himself away from this and back into what is familiar, and she... she cannot allow that.

"I am real enough," she compromises... and she hopes.

He acts like he's about to sit up, but he doesn't. Just turns himself over so he can rest and meet her eyes. Oh, there's so much to see in those eyes. They look at her as if she is the sun, and she wonders if this is what made Makoto go alone, all those years ago. If this is truly why she did not ask for Ei to be by her side.

It strips her bare, in a way. Guts her worse than an enemy's blade. Strangles her...

He looks away first, tears filling his gaze again. She is not offended when he buries his head into her long sleeve, piled beside him. It's endearing, almost reminiscent of someone else. Her chuckle, however, only angers him more.

"Why? Why can't you just..." he can't find the words, or doesn't wish to say them. She cannot blame him.

There is a shadow lingering around them that looks too much like Dottore. The wind still smells like copper. There is a fire on the horizon, then a blizzard, and then nothing at all except a distant call of thunder. There's blood leaking from his wounds again.

"You're not real." He's talking to himself now, trying to convince himself to break out of this tranquility. The floorboards cool, and she holds him tighter, fighting to find words. She is not good at this.

"Let yourself rest," is what she finds. It's what she begs.

"I am not -" it's angry as he tries to sit up. No, not anger. She's never been good at reading such things, but she knows whatever's in his tone is too painful to be anger. She leans forward to try and dissuade him.

"Wait, just... let yourself dream." It's a lie, a flimsy one, but it's all she can muster. There are lingering tears she has yet to spill.

He wants to argue; she can see it on his face. He, however, seems to have decided she isn't capable of being argued with. He turns back to the sea, and she can live with that, a shaking breath barely making it past her lips.

The wind carries his dreams to them; discordant, awful sounds from his time in this world. They linger in the air and summon a shudder or a hitched breath, but that is all. He remains safe in her arms, beneath the Inazuman sky, and slowly he fully relaxes, letting himself indulge. No matter who screams or cries, no matter what laugh rings through the air or which battle she's overhearing, he remains. It seems that brings him some peace, too.

She is not sure how he will react when he learns none of this is fantasy. If she knows him by now, it'll be with anger. Betrayal, rage... and regret. Regret at being weak before another enemy. Because that is what she is to him, right?

She leans back and watches the clouds, closing her eyes and making a childish wish.

Who knows how long they sit there? Long enough for someone to try and stir her awake. The sound of knocking is familiar, and usually her cue to leave her dreamy wanderings. She refuses to, a twisting in her gut at the thought of someone managing to awaken her before he stirs. She cannot leave him. Will not.

The knocking stops, and she takes a long breath, resuming her neat braid in the boy's short hair, There's not much to work with, but she is happy to braid and unbraid; a simple repetitive motion that allows her fingers to brush against him over and over again. How easy it would be to mistake his rest for a slumber within a dream. His eyes are closed, his breaths even and soft, and his expression serene... safe. She knows better. He spares a glimpse at her now and then, peering through his lashes to ensure she's still there, and she has no intention of going.

Even when the waking world knocks again. A thunderstorm rumbles on somewhere, and she refuses to acknowledge it. Let the Raiden Shogun take the reins if she was so concerned, Ei would not be moving. She would not let him fall into those dreams again while she could... do something.

But someone is persistent. A third knock.

She is still the archon. All of Inazuma is her responsibility, and if they are this desperate to wake her... 

She grinds her teeth and watches her boy breathe. Not like this. She can't leave him like this.

"Ei!" 

That's Miko. 

The scene is flickering. There is blood on Ei's fingers. Her boy's hair is wet again.

"Get him up. He's ready." Dottore.

Gloved hands rip him from her, and she cannot stop them. The wood beneath her turns to stone, and the sea snaps to a grand chamber, a large mechanical beast suspended on strings taking up the space: The false god, with its chest open and waiting for a beating heart.

But she has her sight set on the boy, fighting for consciousness as he is torn away. There is grief and acceptance in his eyes as he stares at her. He's already given up. He knows she can't stop this, he knows she won't. But as that doctor steps into view, she can't help but try.

She lunges and finds herself nearly smacking her head against Yae's.

The waking world is warm.

 She sits there for a moment with the lingerings of a chill running down her spine. There is a storm raging outside, and Yae is sitting on the edge of her bed, eyes wide. She cannot... she did...

His eyes are still there, in her periphery. Not angered, just... tired. 

"Ei..." It is a stern sort of question from Miko.

The great archon plunges her head into her hands as it all threatens to break. It all feels so heavy... it is all too heavy. Again. She has left him again. There's a scream echoing in her ears, and she knows it's his.

"Ei," Yae is gentler this time, reaching forward and placing a hand on her arm. "Are you alright, dear?"

She knows the answer. Miko can see it all over Ei's state - always sees it. She can hear it as thunder shakes the windows. It's a pleasantry the archon has no time for.

"You woke me," Ei breathes. It's an accusation but... there is no crime here. None she can explain.

"You've been asleep all day, I was begged to come and check on you. Why didn't you use the puppet if you wanted rest?"

The puppet. She means Raiden. Ei can only think of another.

The archon stands, stronger than she feels she is. She does not stumble: "I need to write a letter."

"A letter? Ei - what is going on?"

But the archon is already getting dressed, a mission burning in her eyes as a goal cements itself. She's always been good with goals. With results. She stops at the door and swears she sees him again, watching her. He's in his Sumeru blues again, that's all she can see. But she can imagine his frown...

"Ei." Yae's voice is commanding - she's concerned. "You need to pause."

"I cannot," her answer resounds. "I... can't."

━━ ◦: ✧⚡︎ ✧ :◦━━━━

She sees him three weeks later. She actually sees him. Not in dreamly wanderings or the corner of her eye. He barges in and then stares at her like he's waiting for her to vanish.

He may be.

"You!" It's an accusation she's prepared for in this chamber of marble and sumeru masonry.

"It seems... it was not just a dream." It's the confession she's been rehearsing. She's seen it all, knows it all, without his consent or want. She is here, and it is too late. She is here, and it has all already happened.

"You..." His voice weakens as he takes it all in. Kujo Sara draws closer to her archon's side until Ei gestures for space. They need it. He needs it.

"Hello, my son," she breathes. And it's a promise she has yet to keep. I will be here for what comes next.