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“I’ll buy some time.”
Sweat breaks bones in the control room, matching the tension of green witchy hues crossing tantalizing faces. A bated breath consumes the team; a darker overcast upon dark rooms and skies. Yamagishi releases a frustrated huff, “Arisato-kun is heading towards Moonlight Bridge.”
Takeba shoots upright, striding to the door with invigorated purpose. She mutters gripes and “that damned idiot,” and a “going to get himself killed,” and one more “thinks he can take on the world,” before glancing towards her frozen teammates. Mitsuru notes the archer’s eyes lingering on her when she scans the team’s faces. The whole ordeal feels like minutes on her life, but she only hears the seconds ticking in quick intervals.
“Why are you all standing around? Let’s go!”
Hoping the heavy iron in her chest leaves, Mitsuru unlodges a determined breath (and ignores how it doesn’t), nods her head, and barks away controlled orders: “Iori, Sananda, follow Takeba and gear up,” Her words match her quick pace to the door, “I’ll ride to Arisato immediately and expect your backup shortly,” She hears them shuffle behind her.
Fuuka breaks the shuffling with a “Please exercise caution, Kirijo-senpai.”
Mitsuru is already out the door before she hears her. She’s not exactly sure what is louder to her: her slamming boots, her sheathing of her rapier, her tight clicks of carbon fiber latches, her jingling keys, her drumming blood. No, she thinks with a glove gripped between her teeth, my heart.
Her pounds against distance rewards her with the sight of her motorcycle. Mitsuru snaps on her glove with slick finesse and hurls herself over the petroleum beast. A twist of a key (and she feels her heart mimic it as the seconds pass) ignites lights and smoky roars. It feels like a bullet underneath her. Mitsuru utters a quick prayer (not to any God — her success is purely her struggle and blood) and twists her wrists.
Arisato.
She feels his name like an almighty thunder — stronger than the growling heat beneath her or the exhaust's purr. Mitsuru narrows her eyes as the garage pulls upwards, and without a second thought, rubber burns behind her.
The Dark Hour’s mystical nature creates a stagnant, dreaded air. The wind has abandoned its post, the critters have paused their songs, and the bustle of people has been trapped in coffins of ignorant effacement. Mitsuru leans into her bike more, swerving between stopped cars and coffins — maybe even trying to outride the static of death itself. Her knuckles whiten as the clock digs into her tires. Takeba was right — that damned fool! Mitsuru wasn’t comfortably close to him, but what she lacked in intimacy, she made up for in observation. Arisato’s self-effacement was only in polite modesty, and Mitsuru admitted he would’ve had her fooled for prideful sins.
A quick left turn. Three minutes until Moonglight Bridge. Mitsuru feels the violent drum of her heart, a tortured call for speed and safety. His safety.
She hasn’t talked about it with him during their tea time or Tartarus splits, but Mitsuru notes a few angles of Arisato’s inorganic shape. It shifts on her reads of him, sometimes. It’s what troubles and mesmerizes her about Arisato — how completely unreadable he is. Mitsuru wants his head and hands broken into puzzle pieces just to see if she can put them back together.
She feels the picture would be loose, concerning farrago of colors. Mitsuru chuckles to herself, perhaps it’s his most notable one: his apathy.
The road widens to welcome the towering structure of Moonlight Bridge and its figures. Mitsuru eases on her pedal (and feels the tension leave her hands like knots unwinding, like Atlas letting the world fall) to come closer. She sizes Arisato up: a handful of bloody scratches, mildly tattered pants, and yellow-greened sweat reflecting across his tight face. Her composure slips.
“There’s a line between courage and suicide,” she says, taking her helmet off. Arisato turns to greet her, pursing his lips. Opal gems seem distant, pensive — she knows that hard look. It's her look. She forces her lips into a line. sighing, “Good work on the shadow, but that was an unnecessary risk you took.”
He gazes off into the distance before facing her. Arisato shrugs, “The situation called for it.”
She raised her brow at the succinct curtness. Mitsuru stared at him — he stared right back. But there was no courageous or brave or heroic glint to his eyes, rather, there wasn’t anything at all.
And that’s what scared her the most.
“You can fill me in on the way back,” Mitsuru nudges towards the back of her bike. A transmission from Yamigishi breaks through, breaking their attentions from eachother.
“Kirijo-senpai! Arisato-kun! I’m glad you two have united,”
“We’re good, Yamigishi, thank you.”
“The team is waiting for you back at the dorm, I’ve already requested that the others regroup in the control room,” Fuuka’s static audio echoes around in their heads. “Please take care of each other.”
Yamagishi breaks out while Arisato situates himself beside her. Despite the stakes lowering, his hands snaking around her waist make her blood thicken with solid iron. Mitsuru revs the engine and blames her sweat on the petroleum heat over a hammering heart. She clears her throat, hoping the onerous metal spits out with it.
It doesn’t, but she continues nonetheless: “What happened?” (she means what are you thinking? What hurts? I’m sorry leadership kills you. It kills me, too)
“Takaya helped me defeat the shadow,” he pauses, and it's just the steady track of tires on asphalt for a prolonged moment. Mitsuru opens her mouth, he beats her to it, “I wouldn’t have won if he weren’t there.”
It weighs like a noose.
Mitsuru keeps her eyes on the road, tight on turns and speeding past omnipresent cycles of death. His hands burn against her in decaying faith — like something hurt him into different shapes.
Like God broke him asunder.
Mitsuru softens her voice, “We’ll be ready for him, Arisato. Your power…” she faults. “The frugality of our powers is what makes our mission so tantamount—almost unbelievable, at times.” Dryly, she laughs before an earnest tone overtakes her. “Your power is defined by your blood and courage, Arisato. Too much of either and you’ll choke under this pressure.”
Mitsuru can’t read his silence.
“Senpai, can I ask you something?”
She bites her lip. For once in her life, Mitsuru has no preparation for a question. Only discouraging answers and hard truths. “About?”
“You.”
Her intestines seem to bunch up, the pebbles on the road rock her mind harder than before, and her bated shallow breaths strangle her lungs. It feels like Yakushima’s sandy tension, enticing deft frogs to cram into her throat.
Arisato’s cool voice wavers a tad, “You…” her bike begins to slow as they approach the dorm’s garage. “Do you find your title heavy?”
Mitsuru’s bike comes to a crisp stop. The purr of ethanol occupies their silence, Mitsuru removing her helmet as the garage door creeps upward. Through chewed cheeks, she remarks: “Every day, Arisato.” She glances at him as he removes himself from her bike, and for the first time in history, she reads him. He examines her with the criticality she examines him with — like sequences upon sequences wrapped into a long equation; that is their multilayered spots of duty. He adjusts his ribbon.
“Me too,” Arisato moves his hand, trepidatiously, away from his ribbon. It stays by his torso for a pregnant pause before a brave agreement is called upon. He extends his hand — top palm mildly calloused and stitch-like creases reminding her of how easily pulled apart they really — with total earnesty. Mitsuru’s stare burns holes through his hand.
Firmly, her palms meet his. “I… wouldn’t be opposed to sharing some of the burden,” Mitsuru chews on her tongue, “Of our titles, and such.” Swiftly following that, Mitsuru narrows her gaze at him, gripping his hand a smudge tighter, “Two in harmony surpass one in perfection—” His eyes (clear enough for her to see herself in, clear enough for her to swim in, never clear enough to read consistently) beckon her on, “—that is my family’s motto.”
Arisato pulls on a stoic mask, wraps his fingers around her hand, and nods. “I have your back, Kirijo-senpai.”
“Come what may, we greet it together.” For once, the tension in her ribs dissipates. Mitsuru muses that it was secreted through their handshake, unsure what exactly that prospect entails for her. She swiftly sweeps herself off her bike, sterning her voice at her kouhai: “But, sincerely, wait for backup next time. We can’t afford to lose you.”
He nods his head, sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, and pauses his words with parted lips and tongue on a sharp front incisor. He walks her to the garage with invisible strings on their fingers, the heavy weight of responsibility louder than rolling rubber. “Thank you, senpai. I—” he clears his throat, “—I won’t let you down.”
Mitsuru hums in satisfaction, observing his stride to the garage door (did his back always look that defined in that shirt?) before glancing at her bike’s console control. The green hue ends with one uneventful second, city sounds regaining their night-time tenure after their routine rest. Her console’s reflection frowns at her, abashed at her thoughts still hoarding his face.
“Senpai,” he breaks, waiting at the door for her. “Are you coming?” (read: Are you coming with me?)
Mitsuru holds his gaze, and he challenges it back. It hides behind copper and opal, and she’s not quite sure why it makes heat gather to her back just yet, but the possibility salivates at their contact. The possibility of the impossible. Arisato stands aside from the door when she approaches, shifting to accommodate her space.
It comes with hardy resolve. Arisato softens his features, “I got your back,” he says, cheeks turned mildly upwards (and she notes his perfect eyebrows, the loose waves in his hair, the averted eyes) for her.
With teeth indentations on her lips, Mitsuru opens the door.