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“I used to think that you hated me,” Olympia says one evening, her head resting in Shura’s lap.
This does not surprise Shura, although it isn’t true. “I’ve never hated you, Olympia.”
Resented her, perhaps. Found her innocent naïveté galling, her idealism almost unbearably foolish, if not outright cruel.
Envied her in some ways... yes, unquestionably.
“But it is easier to love you now that we understand each other.” She combs through Olympia’s soft white hair, the only color it will ever be now. She wonders, idly, if she ever would have seen it turn a brilliant, vibrant blue if… if things had been different.
Olympia does not respond.
Shura understands Olympia well enough to know she has never been the obedient, emotionless doll than most of Tenguu Island believed her to be. In fact, she has always known that. Shura knows all about facades, and walls, and building obstacles of stone around your heart to keep it from breaking. But Olympia's silence now is not like it was before. Before, she retreated out of fear and confusion. Now Olympia does not retreat so much as she has simply refused to go out into the world again, to give anything more to this place that has taken everything from her. Now, Olympia has lost all hope for the future.
And Shura understands.
Unlike everyone else, Shura does not want or expect Olympia to feel better, to change her mind and go out into the world and look for a new soulmate in case she was wrong about Riku, assuming Riku and Sakyo are really gone forever.
In fact, Shura would be furious with her if she ever did.
Riku was not her son (she will never have a son, or a daughter) but she cannot imagine having loved him any more if he were her own flesh and blood. And Sakyo, well… it does not even need to be said. The loss of them should mean something. This world should be torn asunder for the lack of them both.
Perhaps it is strange, then, that she does not look on Olympia as a daughter. Or perhaps it isn’t strange at all, for Olympia is of the White, beloved in the eyes of Amaterasu and Hiruko-sama, born into light and love, while Shura has had to fight for every scrap of love and honor she’s ever earned, raising herself up despite every disadvantage and cruelty heaped upon her practically from the moment of her birth. It is only one of many ways that Olympia has always felt… foreign to her.
Now she combs through Olympia’s long white hair with the patient dedication of a lover, and contemplates the deaths that have made them both who they are.
“Thank you for protecting me,” Olympia says, unexpectedly. “I’m sure the others are angry at me for not choosing another mate.” She shudders underneath Shura’s hands, as though the very thought revolts her.
“Of course, dear one. You may rest assured that no one will force you to do so as long as I am here.”
It isn’t what Sakyo would have wanted, but in his absence Shura has grown quite genuinely fond of the girl. And, truthfully, she cares more about protecting Olympia from further violence than she does fulfilling Sakyo’s ambitions. Especially since she doesn’t really believe that the perfect cure which he sought exists. The gods are too cruel, too capricious to give something without taking something else away.
(What happened to Ayame still haunts her each and every day.)
If Sakyo and Riku ever return, she will ask their forgiveness. To Sakyo, for giving up on his life’s work. To Riku, for this traitorous desire that she feels for his bride.
At first she is careful to keep her touches within the boundaries of what most would find appropriate. But Olympia is a maiden of the White, after all. If she did not welcome Shura’s touches, if she found them unclean, then surely Shura would feel the force of Batsu firsthand at long last.
And wouldn’t that be an appropriate end for one such as I?
Every time she touches Olympia, Shura knows it might be the last time. But she has already experienced haku, already experienced what it is to have one’s own flesh corrode and turn against her, bit by agonizing bit. Perhaps this is even the end that she craves, a moment of poetic symmetry in such a cruel, empty, meaningless world.
But every time Olympia shivers against her, every time she holds Shura’s hand to her breast tightly, every time she whispers, “Thank you,” and Shura's transgression goes unpunished.
Shura does not believe in hope. But solace, yes… one must take solace when one can, however twisted and strange it might seem to others. There are many things she has done that she is ashamed of—and just as many that she refuses to regret.
This is one such thing.