Work Text:
Mitsuru lifted the delicate porcelain cup, the steam brushing her face with the soft, floral aroma of a finely brewed tea. She sipped it slowly and glanced outside.
A city she hadn't seen in years passed like a blur through the tinted car window, fast enough that she couldn't quite make out what twenty years had done to Iwatodai. Even from this far away she could see Gekkoukan High School. Standing defiance, refusing to move from her view. Getting bigger the more they got closer to it.
The cup left her lips. She stared for a moment at her own reflection on the surface of the tea.
An almost forty year old woman stared back.
She looked away before she could study it further.
"Mitsuru."
The vehicle was large enough to seat ten people comfortably, yet only two of them occupied it. The chauffeur was sealed behind a privacy partition, letting the two women inside at their own discretion. The one seated across from her wore a black suit and held herself with a little too much stillness for a human. Her best security personal and most trusted aide.
"Your pulse is elevated," Aigis said.
"I know my own heart." She could also see the small rings spreading across the surface of the tea, and she wished she could blame it on a bumpy raid.
Her hands were trembling, it was a first, they had held steady through crises in her company, through decisions that shaped the livelihood of hundreds of thousands. Yet now she couldn’t keep them under control. Her reflection in the cup fractured and disappeared. Good. She didn't particularly want to look at it anyway. "How are the preparations?"
"Everything is in order." Normally Mitsuru would have been the one handling every logistical detail herself, down to the minute. But today she had delegated it to Aigis...whatever the consequences of that decision may be. "I have also charged to one hundred and twenty percent capacity, I am ready for anything."
“Good.” Mitsuru looked at her watch. Still early in the morning, not even five minutes since the last time she had checked the time. The closer they got to that date, the slower the time seemed to flow.
"Mitsuru."
"Yes?"
Aigis smiled. It was a remarkable thing, even now, after all these years working together, Aigis kept surprising her. That full, unguarded smile from a face of articulated metal, was warmer than any human face could hope to be.
"We are going to see him again."
…Mitsuru slowly nodded.
The exact details of how it happened are irrelevant. Persona users pulled from retirement. A disbanded group of thieves and some investigation team who apparently had nothing better to do on a Thursday. Beings that existed somewhere above the ceiling of human comprehension helping just because they could… and money — a considerable, almost offensive amount of Kirijo sponsored money.
But it didn’t matter the how. What mattered was that in less than twenty-four hours, Makoto Yuuki would come back to them. To her.
Mitsuru opened her phone to check the time again, and immediately two bad things happened. One. She realized that time had only jumped forward three minutes. Two. She saw her text messages.
They were still talking, not surprising, they had been for the past few days without stopping. All of the old S.E.E.S— Yukari, Junpei, Akihiko, Ken, Fuuka…she could even see Aigis typing right now. Images. Exclamations. Jokes between them…a small smile adorned her face. It looked more like a chatroom of a few students than thirty something year old adults.
But right now there was a message directed at her, Yukari was asking once again if it was real, if he indeed was coming back…So with a painful heart she wrote — He will come back in three days, I’ll arrange everything. Please don’t worry. Sent. Done.
A lie.
Not a large one, only a difference in two days, but a lie still, one she had kept feeding without fully understanding why, and which had been quietly eating through her ever since.
Mitsuru looked at Aigis, hoping for some chastisement of her action.
Yet Aigis remained still. They had done this song and dance before. “We agreed to keep it a secret.” We. Mitsuru knew it was entirely her own doing. "Also you did organize the operation. And fund it entirely, as the younger generation would say — you have dibs on him."
"…Would you still say that," Mitsuru asked quietly, "if I had kept it from you as well?"
Aigi's momentary twitch. Mitsuru could swear her pupils changed to red for an instant. “...this is this and that is that.” The android calmed herself. “Regardless. I don’t think anyone would really blame you, at the end of the day…Makoto was your boyfriend.”
…
Boyfriend. A single word had opened wounds on her heart that no matter how many times she stitched them, they never really closed. With age all her precious memories with him had grown thorns. Something that had once been warm and comforting had become a reminder of what she would never have again.
"Was." she said. The only word she could manage right now.
Aigis rolled her eyes. Mitsuru gathered herself.
"You know the details as well as I do. What we are meeting today is a sixteen-year-old boy. The exact same as he was when he died." Aigis gripped her black dress at the mention of his death. “A child who will wake up twenty years in the future, in a world that has kept moving without him."
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
"We are coming here to support him.” Mitsuru finally said. ”Whatever he needs, whatever he chooses to do, I’ll give it to him." She meant it without reservation, if he wanted to keep studying, she would make sure he entered whatever school he chose. If he wanted to disappear to a house by the sea and never think about any of this again, she would hand him the keys herself. She would spend every resource at her disposal to pay for her debt. "I'm not going to—" a faint warmth crossed her cheeks— "do anything beyond that."
"What if he chooses to be together with you?" Aigis said plainly.
…if she had walked up and punched Mitsuru in the stomach, it would have less effect than what those words did to her.
"…He will be sixteen," Mitsuru said after a while. The only defense she had left.
"Then we have two whole years to plan the wedding." The android said with complete sincerity. "It has become quite fashionable for accomplished women such as yourself to have younger partners. The term househusband has been gaining traction lately… and frankly, it might finally convince you to stop overworking every single day. I’m in your home more than you."
An image appeared in Mitsuru’s mind. Opening the door after a hard day at work. A man with blue hair smiling at her, kids running going to receive her…Aigis was there too for some reason. But like someone who had tasted paradise and had enough strength to reject it. She chose to close that door.
“I won’t.” Mitsuru looked at Aigis. Much to her surprise the android did not continue with a conversation they had been lopping around for a few days.
She looked at her watch. Time had not moved.
Tatsumi Port Island sat close enough to the sea that real cold rarely bothered to visit. Which made this particular morning difficult to explain by any ordinary measure. The temperature had dropped sharply overnight, and heavy clouds hung with what many feared was their first ever snow storm. So the students were quickly fleeing from the school’s main building on their way home.
Still, even shivering, more than a few paused to steal a glance at the older woman descending the front steps. A thick fur coat concealed most of her figure, but her face was striking enough to leave a handful of male students , and a few female ones, momentarily forgetting the cold entirely.
Mitsuru paid them no mind. Her attention was already on the black-clad android waiting near the curb, who was drawing her own quiet share of looks — the more observant students noticing with some unease, that when she spoke no white mist left her lips. Aigis was having a word with their driver. As Mitsuru approached, Aigis took out the luggage, and with a small nod to the driver the car got lost in the distance.
When she heard the familiar click of heels on pavement, Aigis turned. "How did it go?"
"Perfectly." Mitsuru stopped at her side. Now even more students were glancing at the duo . "The principal has agreed to close and clear the building by nightfall. No security or cleaning staff will be present tonight." She was grateful he'd conceded so quickly…though the years of substantial donations from the Kirijo company to the school's renovation fund had likely softened the conversation considerably. She disliked leveraging her influence on matters outside her company's scope, but today she had been fully prepared to exhaust every last thread of political capital she had.
As the crowd of students got thinner and thinner. They stood together on the sidewalk, taking in the sight of their old high school in silence.
"…It's fitting he will make his return here," Mitsuru said at last. "Same place it all started. Same place it ends."
Aigis didn't answer. Her expression was, as always, more a mask than a face, but after twenty years working together, Mitsuru had learned to read the differences in her synthetic expressions. Right now that quick movement of her pupils even though there was nothing to look at… She was probably watching a memory from her internal archives.
Mitsuru let her. Honestly, she was kinda doing the same.
After a while, Aigis came back to reality. "Temperatures are dropping further," she said, with the tone of someone reporting a fact that did not personally affect them. "I’ve taken care of the shelter for today, let us go."
Mitsuru pulled out her phone to check both the time and the schedule Aigis had sent over. The rest of today was accounted for, though Aigis didn’t specify where they would be staying over — but what caught her eye was tomorrow.
"…Aigis." She kept her voice perfectly level. "Why is tomorrow scheduled from morning to midnight with what appear to be entirely unrelated leisure activities."
"A date." Aigis said it with the most enthusiasm she could manage to fit in her artificial voice. From somewhere in her long black coat, she produced a small stack of pamphlets. Tourist guides. Some with a lot of heart on them. "You haven't had one in twenty years. Neither have I. And technically nor Makoto. So the three of us are going to have a wonderful time." A brief, thoughtful pause. "I'll even give you two some privacy for the romantic portions." Another pause. "Probably….. I'm not committing to that. Most likely not, actually."
Had they been anywhere other than a crowded school entrance, the rapier would have already been drawn and pointed at the blonde.
"We'll end the evening at Club Escapade," Aigis continued, holding up the relevant pamphlet. "I always wanted to take him there."
Mitsuru stared at her. "You want us to go to a nightclub." Aigis nodded. "Two women approaching forty. To a night club." Aigis nodded again. "With a sixteen-year-old boy in tow."
Aigis began to nod a third time…and then read Mitsuru's expression with enough accuracy to stop herself. She had fucked up somewhere in the conversation. "…Would it help to know that Makoto used to go there regularly, twenty years ago?"
"No, no it wouldn’t."
"Then disregard that statement entirely."
Mitsuru wanted to get mad, she really did, but she paid a little more attention to Aigi’s plan. Each entry had notes attached, must have forgotten to turn them off. She scrolled slowly.
Clothing store. He will require a full wardrobe. I have flagged several items he would like. Mitsuru will handle the fashion component. She reads the magazines even when she pretends she does not.
Mitsuru's expression didn't change. She kept reading.
Electronic store. He will need a phone so we can communicate anytime. The interface has changed considerably. I will explain to him how to use it…. I am still faster than any current model and can do a better job. This is a fact and not relevant but I want it noted.
She scrolled further.
This convenience store carries the same brand of snack he used to buy. I checked. I am not certain he still likes it. I cannot taste it to verify. I bought several anyway. I hope he likes it.
Doctor's appointment. The doctor has been briefed only on what is necessary and will not ask questions beyond the medical. Payment is already handled. Mitsuru does not need to worry about this one…She will worry about it anyway. I've accounted for this.
Mitsuru put her phone away.
She looked at Aigis. The android was doing the thing she always did when she suspected she had gone too far, eyes slightly downcast, head slightly tilted to the ground… and on Aigis looked uncomfortably close to a dog that had been told off and wasn't entirely sure why.
Twenty years of this. Twenty years, and it still worked on her.
"…I'm glad you're here with me, Aigis." The effect was immediate. She recovered so fast Mitsuru half wondered if the android had become a little too sly with age.
"Excuse me — ma'ams?"
Ma'am. Mitsuru processed that quietly before realizing who was speaking to her. They both turned to the voice.
A policeman…Mitsuru's quick mental calculations told her he wouldn't even have been in double digits when she attended this very high school. And also didn’t look too happy to be out in this weather.
"We received a report," he continued, glancing between them, "about a vehicle with tinted windows, and some…" His gaze drifted to Aigis for a moment. "…suspicius individuals watching the students."
"We are not suspicious," Aigis said immediately. "We are here to meet a sixteen-year-old boy. We love him very mu — mhm—"
The android continued speaking even with the gloved hand covering her mouth.
Mitsuru held the officer's gaze with the calm, unblinking composure that she had refined in all her years in the business world. "I’m the mother of one of the students. If you have any concerns, I'm happy to walk you to the principal's office right now."
A few seconds passed. Under Mitusur’s aura of authority, the officer's resolve dissolved quietly and without resistance. "N-no, that won't be necessary, I apologize for the trouble — please, don't let me keep you." He tipped his hat and retreated at a pace that was technically not running.
She was a little, tiny, small bit irritated that he had believed mother without a moment's hesitation.
"Let's go , Aigis."
"Mhm. Mhm." She kept chewing the glove.
"I present to you our accommodations for the night, Lady Mitsuru." Aigis extended both arms in a theatrical gesture that sat strangely against her neutral expression.
Mitsuru had expected something weird. The android had been almost grinning at her all the way here. And honestly halfway through the walk Mitsuru knew exactly where they were going. Of course she knew. She had lived here for three whole years almost two decades ago.
Their old dorm stood in front of them. It looked smaller than she remembered. Everything did.
Mitsuru’s eyes slowly moved from the building to the little brass plaque just beside the door. On it, rendered a little bit too cartoonly, was Aigis giving a thumbs up. And saying ‘Students welcome!’ in a speech bubble.
“......you own the building.”
"To be fair," Aigis said pleasantly, lifting a suitcase that weighed approximately what a small engine weighed and carrying it through the door as though it were empty, "you pay me very well."
A moment passed. Then, with a quiet exhale, the click of Mitsuru's heels followed the happy android.
Aigis opened the door for her. Mitsuru paused at the threshold, closing her eyes as if bracing herself for a punch…and then stepped inside.
She opened them up.
For an instant she saw it unchanged. Exactly as it had lived in her memory for twenty years. The furniture, the proportions, the particular quality of the light through those windows, the smell of the place —
Then her eyes adjusted, and the past was washed away, seeing what was actually in front of her.
The bones were the same. The staircase, the way the entrance opened into the lounge, she could even see the kitchen at the end. But the walls had been repainted. The furniture had been completely replaced. A big television was mounted on the wall, with a game console resting on the unit below it, cables slightly tangled. Magazines on the low table. A jacket left over the back of a chair. Someone's forgotten book was left face-down on an armrest.
It looked a little old by today’s standards, but more importantly,It looked used, lived in. All the new furniture had suffered the mark of countless persons on it.
"You've been renting it to students?" It was more an exclamation of surprise than a question.
"With time it broke down." Aigis began explaining as she set the luggage down and looked around with the familiarity of someone who had been here not too long ago. "Junpei was the one who proposed we purchase and make it operational again rather than let it be demolished…It’s in my name, but he is the one who comes here often to fix problems and talk with the students. They like him a lot.”
"I've cleared it for the week," she added. "I told them we were fumigating.”
Mitsuru didn't object. It seemed that Aigis was using all the resources at her disposal.
She moved further inside, her heels muffled where the carpet began, and tried to take it all in. Small pieces of memory surfaced and dissolved. It felt strange she realized, feeling like an invader in a place where you’ve spent so much time before.
“I expected you wanted things to be exactly the same.”
Aigis shook her head. “I find this arrangement better. Each generation changes it a little bit, until it becomes something new. Look.” Aigis pointed at the wall on the way to the stairs.
It was covered in photographs.
Dozens of them, going back years. Faces she didn't recognise, of students from after her time, some caught mid-laugh or squinting into the sun or making new poses to one up the generation from before. Some professionally made. Others were taken from a phone of one of the students... As her eyes travelled further back, the faces changed. The uniforms shifted. She spotted Junpei in several of them, looking progressively younger the further back she looked. Koromaru appeared in a few. Aigis made one or two appearances, giving a peace sign to the camera with complete seriousness.
And then, at the beginning of it all — herself. Twenty years younger, the serious expression of a kid that really wants to be considered a mature adult on her face. All of the S.E.E.S together. She had almost forgotten that photograph existed.
At the centre of it of course, their leader. The photograph had tainted his blue hair with the yellowish color of age, but the quiet smile on his face was the same as the ones in her memories.
"…This is what he saved." Aigis moved to stand beside her without a word, and for a moment they simply looked at it together. "All of these people. All of the memories they made here, none of it would exist if not for what he gave up." Aigis’s voice had gone very quiet. "I like to think this building is happy too. Knowing that so many people had lived the best years of their lives inside its wall.”
Aigis had catalogued Mitsuru’s expression throughout the year. She could read the president better than herself. Yet what face she was making now was new to her.
They stood there a little longer.
"He won't have changed," Mitsuru said finally. Something in her voice made the words sound less like an observation and more like a wound being pressed. She touched the photo. "He'll be exactly as he was here."
"Yes."
"I’ve grown old, Aigis."
"We have grown old." Aigis didn't look away from the wall. "But I still love him." She waited for a beat. "And so do you."
Mitsuru didn't answer.
She didn't need to. They both already knew.
Aigis was the first one to move away. “Let me show you your room. I’ve prepared a special surprise for this day.”
Mitsuru sipped her tea. She opened her eyes. The scene remained exactly as before. She closed them again, and gave herself a moment to hope that when she opened them a second time, she would be looking at something else.
"Aigis."
"Yes?"
With deliberate composure, she set the cup down beside her. "What am I looking at?"
"The bed." In all fairness, it was indeed a bed. Heart-shaped, with pink satin sheets, and rose petals distributed across its surface…but still a bed.
"And the two items on top of it?"
“A replica of our old school uniforms.” She waited. Mitsuru didn’t reply back. “I thought it would make Makoto more comfortable if we received him with them on." She waited again. “Ah, of course yours is a bigger than we used to because your weight has gone up considera-”
“Aigis.” Mitsuru's tone was so calm it was almost chilling. “You are going to leave this room. And the next time you enter you will tell me you have prepared rooms for us three.” Aigis raised her hand. “Separate rooms. For us three.” Aigis lowered her hand.
“...Acknowledge.”
The door closed.
Mitsuru stood in the silence that followed and did not move for a moment…she eyed what she couldn’t believe was the previous operation run.. Her face gained a little bit of blush. She was still… uncomfortable, with intimate things to say the least. And the years of focusing only on her work had only made the problem worse.
But looking at her watch completely wiped it all away. Time was moving faster. Night would arrive in just a few hours, and front there on…him.
Mitsuru wasn’t a kid anymore, she was mature enough to know her emotions.
And right now she was deeply scared.
Her attention was caught by a big mirror…which was pointed at the bed. She had an inkling of its purpose but she decided to ignore it. Still she stared at it. Slowly walking to it. Taking off her fur coat.
She looked at the woman in the mirror. Older than the girl in the photo, no matter how much people told her that the years hadn’t almost affected her.
There was a moment, she couldn't pinpoint when, where people had stopped saying you're so mature for your age and started saying you look so young for your age. She had never decided how to feel about that.
Her red locks were like a river flowing down. Still no grey hair, but they had lost a bit of the strong red fire they had in the past.
She got closer, it was true that her figure wasn’t as…athletic as before, she had to admit. With a gloved hand she touched her face, her eyes were a little bit more sunk, very small wrinkles had marked their territory already for the future…
Each morning, her makeup took a little bit more effort. Each morning, it worked a little less.
And he would still be the same. A boy with all his life ahead of him.
What if he asked to be with you. Aigis words from before came back to her head. Would he even recognize her? After so much has changed?
She eyed the uniforms on top of the bed.
….
….
The door opened several minutes later.
"Mitsuru, I've arranged the rooms, I'll take you to—"
Synthetic eyes processed the scene. The elegant, composed, quietly formidable Mitsuru Kirijo standing with her ass out, half dressed in a high school girl uniform, and fighting a seemingly losing battle in trying to coax a skirt to go up past her hips.
"…That's my fault," Aigis said. "I should have ordered it two sizes bigg—"
She had time to avoid only two of the five rapier thrusts.
Snow fell in small white crystals over a city that had grown quite a bit while she wasn't looking. Taller buildings cutting into the skyline. More lights than she remembered, or perhaps just brighter ones. From up here, it was almost beautiful enough to be distracting.
Almost.
Mitsuru tilted her glass and listened to the ice knock against itself. Whatever the students had hidden at the back of the fridge, they deserved their money back. It was not good liquor. Though it was doing the job regardless.
The rooftop door opened behind her. She didn't need to look. There were few sounds quite like several hundred kilograms of articulated metal moving gracefully through a doorframe.
"You've done something remarkable with this place, Aigis." And she meant it. What had once been bare concrete and exposed piping had become a small, carefully tended garden. Crops and large planters filled the space, still fighting stubbornly against this white climate.
"Taking care of plants helped me understand myself a little better, back then." The footsteps stopped. Aigis's face appeared at her side, bright blonde hair contrasting against the dark sky. "I thought the students might feel the same."
Mitsuru nodded slowly. A faint flush had settled across her cheekbones — the liquor, the cold, or both. White mist rose from her lips with every breath. Small crystals of snow caught in her red hair and dissolved before reaching her shoulders. She took another sip. It burned going down. She had heard alcohol made you braver. For now it only kept the cold away.
"You haven't eaten all day, Mitsuru."
"I don't have the stomach for food right now."
"Neither do I."
A quiet laugh escaped her. Maybe the alcohol was working after all.
"Less than two hours now," Aigis added.
"I know." Sometime in the late evening she had taken her watch off and left it on the bedside table. The hands had been moving too fast for her liking.
"Are you afraid?"
Mitsuru considered lying. Felt briefly ashamed that a grown woman like herself could be so frightened of meeting someone she actually loved. Then she looked at Aigis's face…nothing there but honest concern — so she let it go.
"Terribly," she admitted.
Aigis was quiet for a moment. "Is it your appearance? Because I can confirm, through purely objective data, that you are, as they say, still rocking it."
An unrefined laugh escaped Mitsuru before she could stop it. This was exactly why she never drank. It made every emotion too strong.
She shook her head slowly. "No….Well, not entirely." Another sip. The burn traveled all the way down, settling heavy in an empty stomach. "I've grown cold, Aigis. All these years running a company as big as mine…at some point you stop being able to call yourself a good person. I'm not sure the Mitsuru he knew would like what I have become."
For a moment she let herself imagine it. A different life where she had grown old with Makoto. To have someone to hold her when she was happy, and to lend his shoulder when life got hard… She thought about how bright that version of herself would be compared to the woman standing on this rooftop right now.
"Isn’t unfair?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Even here her body didn’t want to show weakness. "I know exactly who I'm about to meet tonight. I know I love him — I've been loving him for twenty years, for God's sake.” Part of her wished her younger self would have been so open with her love.” “But him?" She looked toward the dark outline of Gekkoukan in the distance, not a single light on, but every familiar feature was still perfectly clear to her. "He'll be meeting a stranger who insists she's his girlfriend."
Aigis was silent for a long moment.
Then she stepped forward, removed the glass from Mitsuru's hand, and delivered a single precise chop to the top of her head.
Then she stepped back.
Mitsuru stared at her.
"I do apologize. I was trying to do what Miss Yukari would do, but I was concerned that an actual slap from me would be too strong." Aigis set the glass down on the small table between the planters. "It was meant to be affectionate."
Meanwhile Mitsuru was still confused. Aigis tried to find her words.
"Mitsuru. I think we are more alike than you know. We both love Makoto. We have both chosen not to pursue another romantic relationship since his passing….and we are both afraid of seeing him again."
Mitsuru’s eyes went wide. "...You are afraid?" Her voice filled with doubt. She couldn’t even imagine it. The same Aigis had been practically jumping with joy these past weeks.
"Very much so." Aigis's gaze dropped. "...I was the one responsible for his protection. It was my one and only purpose, and I failed at it. He was the one who protected me in the end." She paused, looking at past memories that she had accessed one too many times. "I accepted his death. I thought that I had moved on…but right now, the thought of standing in front of him again fills me with shame. Part of me is certain he will hate me for it. For stealing his future."
Mitsuru opened her mouth, ready to deny it. Aigis continued before she could.
"And yet I can hardly think of anything I want more." She closed her eyes and touched the base of her throat, where a steady pulse had been sounding for several weeks now. "Because I believe that the moment we see him, all of these negative thoughts will simply…fall away. That my love is strong enough to win against all of them. “ She looked at Mitsuru. A too human smile on the android face. “And I believe the same thing will happen to you.”
The silence that followed was almost peaceful. Both human and machine stared at the snowing city. Each looking at the same scenery with two different sets of eyes. But both were haunted by the same thoughts.
Mitsuru exhaled, releasing with it something she had been keeping for these past weeks, she felt lighter.
"You know," she said quietly, "Aigis you have truly grown, sometimes I believe you are more mature than—."
"I have also calculated that, logistically speaking, you would have sufficient time to have at least ten children if you were to begin the process today. I would of course be glad to assist with the conc—"
"Aigis."
"I am rounding down to be conservative."
"...One phrase too many."
Mitsuru reached for her glass. But Aigis intercepted her hand smoothly and pressed a set of keys into her open palm instead.
"I need you to drive."
She stood in front of the school gates, close to the motorcycle, letting the engine give her a little bit of warmth. Though neither that nor her expensive fur coat did much for the job. The closer they got to the school the cold it got. Mitsuru suspected that the strange weather had something to do with what was about to happen...honestly she preferred it. It made her mind clearer.
Aigis reappeared from the shadows. "I've swept the perimeter. No signs of human activity in the vicinity."
Mitsuru nodded. She checked her phone out of habit, and found herself surprised by the small smile that came at seeing it not working. Of course it couldn't. The Dark Hour was almost here.
She looked toward the locked school gate and reached for her keys. "Let me op—"
The sound of a gun fairing. There was smoke…coming out of Aigis finger tips.
"…That works too."
They stepped through the gate. Snow had accumulated in the little stretch to the front of the building, deep enough that each step required effort, like the ground itself was asking them to slow down and reconsider.
“We don’t know in what state he’ll arrive. If he happened to experience memory lost or he doesn’t remember the-
“He will remember us.” Aigis stated. A certain fact for her.
Mitsuru could also see that Aigis was trembling too. And she doubted it was because of the cold.
They stood together. The school building in the shadows looked like a monster. Neither of the girls minded though, they had defeated bigger.
They waited. And waited. And then, in a single second…the Dark Hour took hold completely.
The night sky bled green. A disgusting yet very familiar sensation started to crawl back up through her chest. The stars warped. Space itself seemed to bend.
Mitsuru instantly went for her rapier. Her evoker close to her side ready for anything. But Aigis raised a single hand telling her to stop, and Mitsuru listened, it seems that the android could see things her human eyes couldn’t.
The green hue she had feared and still saw in her nightmares seemed to collapse on itself. Merging and revolving on top of the school as a vortex for a moment. And as soon as it began. Everything disappeared.
Darkness took the night once again for herself, eating mercilessly all the green from the sky. She could feel her phone vibrating in her pocket as it went back to life. She stood still for a moment. Wondering if something had happened.
A figure made its way out of the school building.
One step. That was all it took. She felt her heart deliver the strongest beat she had ever known, like the final blow that brings down a wall, something inside her simply broke.
Her rapier dropped to her side. She forgot she was holding it.
Another step.
He was smaller than she remembered. She could see the blue hair now, dusted white from the falling snow. He looked barely able to keep himself upright. But he kept moving forward. He always did.
Don't cry. She had decided this on the way here. Had decided it across these past weeks. She was nearly forty years old. She had made boardrooms full of powerful men forget how to speak. She had buried her friends, buried her father, buried her lover — and she had done all of it without —
Another step. Her vision blurred.
She blinked. It didn't help. It made it worse. Stop it. But her body seemed tired of listening to her. Tears broke free and fell down her cheeks, becoming small crystals where they met the snow below. Part of her wondered how terrible she must look.
Aigis passed her in a streak of gold and black, shedding her own tears freely, already calling his name as loudly as she could manage. Mitsuru couldn't hear it. She realized now that her heart was beating fast enough to swallow every sound around her.
Another step…or so the figure tried. Aigis threw herself at him, pressing her face into his chest and wrapping her arms around him without a single intention of letting him go.
And Mitsuru was grateful. So deeply, privately grateful, because it gave her one more moment to try to hold herself together.
She failed. Horribly.
He looked up. Blue eyes behind blue locks. Eyes she could have sworn were casting their own light against the darkness, because she couldn't see anything else, the same eyes that had plagued her dreams for years had managed to find her across the snow.
"...Mitsuru?" His voice. Low and tired, he seemed barely awake, barely conscious of what was happening. No matter how loudly her heart was beating, his voice reached her without any difficulty at all.
Aigis was right. Her problems melted. So did all her thoughts and feelings — dissolving into the single, overwhelming thing that had been living in her chest for twenty years. Her lip trembled.
"What's wrong with Aigis?"
A sound escaped her. She bit her lip hard to make it stop. But the sobbing continued, a truly pathetic attempt at composure. She had never decided how to greet him. Had never settled on what her first words should be. An apology. A declaration of love. Something that could condense twenty years of waiting into a single sentence.
In the end she crossed the distance between them, pressing her face into his neck and held him with everything she had.
"You're cold," she managed eventually. Barely a whisper.
Still now knowing what was happening, he returned her hug, his voice came soft and almost amused. "But you are so warm."
Around the three of them, the snow kept falling, quiet and indifferent, the way it always had.