"Mahoraga."
Watching the Shikigami crawl out of my shadow ahead of me, I can only admire how cool he looks. Very swanky. Very tall too, makes me feel like a midget and I've met like three people taller than me in this life.
Okay maybe not three, but it hasn't been many that's for sure. Mahoraga is like nine foot tall or something though and his thigh is about as thick as my waist. Not my chest though! Muscles go brrr!
Shaking the dumb away, I regard my Shikigami properly; for Nagiko still appears busy and I've finished laughing about Nue so naturally I have moved to the next item on my 'list of shit I wanna think about/do when I can'. It is a list only slightly behind my 'list of shit I gotta do/think about 'cuz I spent two weeks chilling after the millennia early equivalent to the end of World War Two'.
My lists have long headers apparently.
Anyway, Mahoraga.
My understanding is that his Technique allows him to adapt to any and all phenomena, both in order to gain resistance and eventual immunities, but also offensive adaptations to better best his opponent.
I don't even need to pretend to think about how strong the Technique can be; the Taming Ritual showed me well enough how absurd this fucker is.
The only real 'weakness' of the Technique is that the adaptation process takes time. Multiple spins of the wheel are required to gain a proper resistance and then even more for immunity. This weakness is largely mitigated by the fact that Mahoraga does not seem to be limited to how many 'phenomena' he can adapt to with one turn of the wheel.
There might be an upper limit to it, but it hardly matters. The important part is that with one turn of the wheel, Mahoraga both heals completely, gets more resistant to whatever hit him and—and this is the important part—he also gets closer to being able to hurt his opponent, all at the same time.
It's really absurd. I have mixed feelings about the fact that he seems to have lost all of the adaptations he gained during the Taming Ritual. On one hand, he was nearly as strong as Sukuna or I; enough that for a moment in that fight I actually doubted myself.
My lips stretch into a grin at the memory of it. That moment where I asked myself if I would lose.
I sigh the distraction away and return to my thoughts, saying them out loud so that I'm less liable to be pulled on a tangent by a random stray thought.
"The process of your adaptation is fairly straightforward, I remember that it wasn't consistent or linear, so it's a countdown after taking damage that gets shortened as subsequent damage is received. Though, I think that's more a matter of the number of attacks that land on you, rather than the quality of the attacks that land on you; else your wheel would have ben spinning like crazy at the end. Unless the damage necessary to motivate the wheel scales relative to your own ability to withstand it?"
With my pointer finger pushing my lower lip into upper, I absently summon forth Escape Rabbit to serve as a beanbag as I fall backwards into a fluffy seat.
"Regardless of the intricacies of the 'process', I find myself much more interested in the 'outcome'. There are a lot of ways I can imagine 'adaptation' functioning. It could be a purely biological thing, like that one monster... what was it called? Doomsomething? Whatever, doesn't matter. The point is that the changes could be a physical thing, changes in density, tensile strength, flexibility, shatter patterns, joint formations, internal systems," I wave a hand circularly in the air, "That kind of thing. You don't really have a biology though—I figured magic could probably disregard that fact, but the point remains that this isn't how it works for you, end product-wise."
"I also had the thought that it was something like an adaptive armour. Maybe a shell around your skin that learns from what touches it and grows off of that. Maybe more like an adaptive Soul that uses your body as eyes to see how to improve and then forces those improvements through the flesh." I pause in thought for a moment before turning a lopsided grin to Mahoraga. "None of this theory really matters of course, but don't you think it's interesting? I do. Your Technique's methodology is so out-there to me, I doubt I'd have come up with it without every other idea of mine falling through beforehand."
It really is interesting, for more than just the obvious reasons. I've said it enough times already, but Jujutsu is a world of imagination. So it might seem obvious to say this, but every one of my Techniques exists as they do only because I could imagine them existing.
That is important, because I never imagined an illusion of Cursed Energy. When I thought 'illusion' as I made Trickster Fox, she was right to say that my mind went to visual and auditory, and now Kon has opened my eyes to how limited that was.
That's not to say that I never would have figured as much out by myself, but it is a little bit difficult to push every Technique to its limits when one has so many of them available.
Regardless, the importance here is that with Kon having her own Soul, her Technique is no longer limited by my own imagination. Now we have both of our imaginations available to push it farther.
Not just Kon now either. Generous Deer and Nue and of course, Mahoraga.
I don't know if Generous Deer is going to have much impact in this sense, since his Technique isn't really the versatile type and his Soul isn't much of a creative thinker or hungry for advancement.
But Nue? His Soul being created from the fraction of a fraction of a Divine Spark; I think he's liable to show me something I wouldn't—or couldn't—have come up with by myself.
Back to the point though, the end-point of Mahoraga's Technique is so interesting to me because it isn't how I would have imagined it working. That makes it a new perspective, and I do so Love widening my horizons. Gaining perspective has a way of qualitatively improving every single aspect of a Sorcerer.
It's exciting~.
"For you," I continue, "It seems that the 'outcome' of your adaptations is stored in an 'information state' rather than biological or spiritual. It's more conceptual than that, which is cool. Your Technique learns, it stores 'information', it 'defines' concepts and uses that knowledge to ignore the concepts in question. The distinction in all of this is a small thing really, but it is only because your Technique works how it does that I was able to birth Nue's Soul, taking the 'information' your Technique recorded and twisting it into life. Probably helped by the nature of the information. 'Spark of Divinity', 'Spark of Life'. The connections there were enough to make the process easy, to say nothing of the connection between Nue and lightning."
I'm pretty sure that the wheel at his back is a physical manifestation of his Technique too; since I recall how it felt like I was pulling the information from the wheel rather than the Shikigami as a whole. So, the body records information, the wheel studies and stores it and then presents what it has learned back to the body.
Jujutsu Sorcery really does love its cycles, I think with a fond huff.
"Back to the point of your weakness; that being the time needed to adapt... I do wonder about that."
My grin widens a tad as I casually flick a hand up at Mahoraga, causing an incredibly thin wall of shadow to grow out of the floor and speed forward like a wave, cutting a vertical line through my Shikigami from shoulder down to his left foot.
The flesh parts, spewing red blood instead of inky Curse, and Mahoraga falls to the ground in two pieces.
My smile doesn't waver as I simply stare down at my fallen Shikigami, waiting. Waiting... Wai—
Ka-a-a-a—
My grin grows at the sound, like a rusted gear creaking back into motion after long disuse
—chink
Mahoraga is restored, my hand flicks up again and I don't even cut halfway through. Not too surprising so far. Cutting isn't my specialty in the first place, else I know it would have taken more turns of the wheel to gain this degree of resistance.
Mahoraga dissolves into black ink and my hands move before me as if holding an old pirate ship's wheel.
"Mahoraga."
The Shikigami returns at my intonation and once more do I flick a shadow at him, only this time, Mahoraga matches my grin as I only cut halfway through.
"Hehehehe," I begin to giggle, and though my laughter does not grow loud, I am no less delighted with amusement at this development, "Hahahaha~! You're soooo~ fuuuucked~ hahaha~!"
He won't know what hit him~. I can just imagine the face he'll make~, oh I'm getting giddy just thinking about it!
My beanbag of rabbits collapses into ink as I fall back onto the grass, arms splayed wide as I stare up at the sky with a grin.
"I'm gonna fuck. Him. Up, Amaterasu. It's gonna be hilarious and I'm really gonna cry if he doesn't pull a trick of his own to match this. I believe in him, but... This fuckin' Mahoraga fellow is absurd." I finish my words with a laugh, because how else is one supposed to react to Mahoraga's Technique.
Mine's still better though. I did win, after all.
...Adapting to anything is still absurd though.
A thought strikes.
Was Masakado related in any way to my mother? I mean, probably a little, what with nobility being nobility. But their Techniques both have a familiar sort of absurdity to them. Cheaters, both of 'em.
Huffing the thought away with an amused breath, I regard Mahoraga once more and think out-loud to fill the quiet.
"What exactly do I need you to adapt to? 'Slice,' 'pierce,' probably, though the two are close enough I'm not sure how the distinction will be made, if at all. 'Blunt,' because obviously. 'Cursed Energy' too if at all possible. I'm fairly sure Masakado's immunity was the result of a lifetime of effort, so I'm not sure how far I can get you to go on that front in the time we have. What else..."
I hum as I think. Sukuna isn't like me, he doesn't use variety, he simply masters what he has to an absurd degree. I'm not going to pretend that my mastery over any single facet of my Technique is even close to his, but that kind of just makes Mahoraga a perfect counter to him, no?
What else does he even do? He cuts and cleaves and punches... I guess I can try and get Mahoraga immune to the sure-hit effect of a Domain? Should help with that Domain Amplification that he figured out too. And with the Open Domain that I figured out, I can even be confident that the adaptations will focus more on resisting the sure-hit effect rather than just circumventing it entirely like Hollow Wicker Basket does by focusing on the Barrier of the Domain itself.
Hmmm... Should work.
So why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?
A helpless grin grows on my face as I stare at the sky.
"You had better surprise me, Sukuna. My best friend wouldn't fall behind after all."
///
Kiyohara no Nagiko
///
As she watches Kōfū no Fēng's back disappear with the soft clack of her door sliding shut, Nagiko allows herself a moment of weakness. Her breath leaves her in a sigh as she slumps against the kyōsoku—a free standing armrest—at her side, resting an elbow on its cushioned top and her cheek in palm.
The prior conversation has been enlightening, she will not deny. Nor will she deny the usefulness of their talk, as her clan and her newly subordinate clans are now set to properly get to work in her new duties.
Fortunately, the transition is an easy one. All of the men and women who previously served her father within the Fēng and Ōmaeda clans have killed themselves to follow his service into Yomi, leaving behind detailed instructions for their successors to take over their duties.
So not only does she not have to worry about loyalty, but she also doesn't have to worry about her subordinates not knowing how to do their jobs.
Still, it would be a lie to say that her heart is really in it.
Nagiko is just glad that her apparent servants all seem so self-sustainable, because she is truly struggling to care.
It is only for love of her father that she has even bothered with this much. If not for that, she thinks she might have forsaken her name and simply become a wanderer. Perhaps she would have simply killed herself instead; brought an end to her shame.
But to do either would be to dishonour her father, and she will not stoop so low.
Another sigh leaves her as she stands and exits her office. She eyes the stars in the darkening sky only briefly before facing forward as she walks to her room. A servant passes her by as she walks, bowing deeper than she is used to. Nagiko doesn't look at them, but she notes the difference still. Yet another reminder of her father's passing.
Her room, like her office, is a floor above the ground and upon entering, Nagiko ignores her futon and moves directly to her balcony instead.
A steaming cup of tea sits on a low table, beside a greater pot of tea and a jug of saké, carried in by the servant she just passed to be ready for her and whichever she desires to consume.
Upon seating against the balcony atop a generous cushion, Nagiko pours saké into the cup of tea until the liquid threatens to breech the confines of its container. With one hand hovering over the near-overflowing cup, Nagiko wills her Cursed Energy into a delicate dance that has the liquid stirring without ever spilling over, not even as it rises above the rim.
Only once it is mixed and appropriately cooled does Nagiko pick up her cup and take a sip.
It tastes vile.
A greater sip follows the first and then another again before she lays the cup back down and moves to instead fill a different, empty cup with saké alone. Perhaps if she drinks enough of it the melancholy will fade.
An undignified snort leaves her alongside a brief burst of amusement as she recalls mocking Ashiya for drinking so heavily at some point. She can't even remember what he was grieving at the time. Perhaps she never bothered learned what it was at all.
"I will have to avoid him." Nagiko whispers the words to herself, her breath rippling the saké held before her lips before another sip is stolen. "He will not survive otherwise."
She has long held the desire to kill Ashiya Dōman. Were she to hear him mock not only her father's passing but also her own tarnishment, she does not think that her restraint will remain secure.
Perhaps that is all the more reason to see him after all.
The morbid thought doesn't last long in her mind, not much does these days. Thoughts flow freely and leave with the same ease.
Nagiko has no will to hold her thoughts in place anymore. She just doesn't care.
She's been sleeping a lot. The lethargy helps her forget to think—as does the saké. Any measure of peace is welcome.
However, as she brings her cup to back her lips to enjoy another sip, Nagiko sees a shadow opposite her ripple.
A wealth of emotion fills Nagiko with such suddenness that she almost gasps. As it is, the sight only causes her to shiver and her drink to spill as her arm shakes and puts it down with too much force.
Fear and relief mix with affection and dread and terror and hope and yearning and loathing and a dozen more she cannot even name before they disappear into the incomprehensible swirl within her gut.
Her body jerks, muscles tensing and freezing and moving as if to pull her in three different directions at once.
She wants—
She wants...
...She doesn't know what she wants, and she has no time to decide before a shock of coal-black hair emerges from the swirling darkness and she must choose.
Nagiko closes her eyes before the sight of him can fully register.
She doesn't want to see him, yet she longs for him in the same breath.
"Yo! Nagi—Holy fuck! What happened to you? Should I see the other guy or what?"
Nagiko doesn't flinch from the voice, but her self-control only extends so far and she turns her head away and regrets it immediately.
A part of her welcomes his greeting with fondness, enjoying how his character remains unchanged. Always so flippant; a testament to his strength, to his worth as a man—for it takes a strong man indeed to live a life so entirely lacking in propriety.
Yet a greater part of herself feels only a deep well of shame. She hates herself for it. Hates feeling this way, but she cannot even lie and pretend that she feels falsely. How could she, when her stomach feels as if it is falling, when her chest thumps with a heartbeat far too rapid for the moment, when her hands clench on clammy palms and hide in the folds of her kimono lest her feelings be seen.
Most of all, she hates that he came. She is glad that he did, the swell of comfort that his mere presence brings is enough to lift some of the weight off of her shoulders. His arrival brings her the first honest piece of happiness she has felt since her disfigurement.
Yet she hates his arrival still, for she does not want him to see her as she is now.
She has never actually tried to seduce anyone before him, and yet in doing so, she knows that she found herself seduced instead. But she put effort into appealing to him, something she has never done before.
She wants him to remember her like that. For the one man that she tried to be beautiful for, she doesn't want that image of herself to be ruined as her flesh has been. It is silly and irrational, but she just...
She couldn't bear to see him look at her with disgust as well.
She just...
Not him.
"Nagiko?" He speaks again, a faint tremor of concern entering his voice. She hears three soft footfalls and then feels his hand against her cheek. Soft, gentle, cool to the touch. He does not pull at her with any force but still she allows her head to be tilted at his motion. His voice is as soft as a whisper when he asks again, "Nagiko?"
She stubbornly remains still, for she has no words to say and even less desire to look at him.
"I apologise," the whisper sounds almost frail to her, as if scared that she might shatter against his words. She thinks she hates him for that, even if the consideration fills her with so much warmth she almost cries anew. "I shouldn't have said that. I don't know exactly what has you upset, but just tell me what you need and I will help, okay? Nagiko, please."
Nagiko doesn't know what to say, but she doesn't want to say nothing either. She feels so childish acting like this, yet thinking that is not enough to change anything.
"Is it not obvious?" Nagiko thinks she would have spat the words out were they spoken to anyone else. Instead, her words are barely a whisper, wracked by a tremor that has her burning with somehow an even greater shame.
"Nagiko..." His voice is nearly as soft as hers, and she can hear an echo of a smile in his words mixed in with the concern. The voice of a man trying to lighten a room out of concern. "You know I can be an idiot sometimes, what is obvious to you might not be to me. We have already spoken of your father, and Tayū-chan is well, so I really don't know. I'm sorry that I wasn't here, but I am now and I can help if you but allow me to."
Nagiko almost punches him. Narauko's words summon forth a violent flash of anger within her, deep enough that she almost opens her eyes to glare at him and let him know her contempt.
But she cannot.
It is easy to hate. So, so easy and there is a comfort to it.
So what will be left of her if she should open her eyes?
Without seeing him, it is so easy for her to hear his words and take them as pity. It is so easy to hate that pity, to rage against the notion that she must be treated like a child who will break if her ruin is exposed.
Her emotions tell her to hate him for his words. To push him away and despise him as she has with every pair of eyes that has seen her lately and looked at her like a broken bird.
But her mind reminds her that this is Narauko.
"Nagiko," his soft, whispered voice returns, and Nagiko feels a pricking against her eyelids at the sound of it that she refuses to acknowledge. "Tell me what is wrong."
How could he even ask that? How can he pretend that the answer is not obvious? As if every pair of eyes that has lain upon her has not mocked or pitied her ruin on first sight?
The simmering well of hate within her gut sinks a fraction deeper, suffusing her with the weight of her Curse. Her answer, when it comes, does so like the whisper of wind, words spoken within a sigh.
"I'm ruined."
Admitting it aloud somehow hurts even more. She tries to turn away from him, but his hand on her cheek remains firm, if gently so.
"How?"
One word. Such an innocent question, and yet hearing it sends a spike of something ugly deep within the pit of hate in her gut, forcing her emotions to bubble forth and erupt without control, leaving her slapping his hand away from her before she can stop herself.
"How?!" She isn't proud of how her voice raises or the near shrill tone she takes, but anger has a way of blinding one from even the deepest of shame. "How could you ask me 'how'!?! It is obvious to all but you!! Look at me! I have been ruined! My body made into a mockery!"
A harsh exhale leaves her breathless as her anger fades as quickly as it came, leaving her to do naught but slump against her balcony, away from Narauko. She just feels tired.
"Nagiko." She turns away from the voice, petulant in a way that she detests to act.
Narauko does not reach for her again. Instead, she hears him shuffle closer to the balcony and the soft pat of his head thunking against the balcony's wood ahead of her in a mirror of her own seating.
"Why won't you look at me?" He asks the question as if he already knows the answer. It terrifies her that he might. "Do you know the moment that I really accepted succumbing to your seductions?"
The non-sequitur throws Nagiko through enough of a loop to forget her feelings for just a moment, and she tilts her head in question.
"It was when you told Ashiya that he should kill himself." She can hear the slight grin in his voice, even if she struggles to fit the image of his words with his character.
"Not our spar?" She asks, perhaps a little indignantly. Just a little bit.
Narauko chuckles, causing her to frown. "Nah, strength is an avenue to friendship, not romance."
When he doesn't keep talking, a short silence stretches, as if he is waiting for her to continue the conversation. A part of her wonders if this is his way of distracting her from her thoughts, by getting her to participate in conversation.
She decides to humour him, if only because she cannot be bothered not to.
"Why?" She asks, taking the conversation back two steps.
"Because you didn't hesitate to say something so outrageous." His answer is swift, having clearly been waiting for prompting. "It's such a horrible thing to say, and yet you did not hesitate. And not because you were speaking out of anger or any emotional impetus or even because you were joking. You just had a thought and spoke it without a care for how your words would be taken. You do that a lot, you know? It's very selfish. You are a true Sorcerer, and I think there is something beautifully honest about that, you know?"
He pauses as if waiting for a response that she does not give him.
"Why are you hesitating now?" Narauko asks, and though his voice is gentle, the words feel sharp in her mind. "For good or for ill, the Nagiko I know wouldn't hesitate to be honest. Why won't you look at me?"
A helpless sort of frustration wells up within her, for what is she to say?
If she opens her eyes then she will be forced to see Truth, no matter what she wants, and then what?
She knows what she will likely see in him, and she does want that. By kami does she want it.
But...
But what if she is wrong? What if she looks at him and he finds her appalling? What if she finds him pitying?
Nagiko doesn't think she could bear it. She's too scared to even risk it. Everyone who has seen her since this injury has felt the same about it. Would he really be an exception in this?
Even if he feels none of that, Nagiko still finds herself terrified of seeing him looking at her unchanged. She doesn't even know why; the feeling is entirely irrational, she just—
A realisation hits her that has her swelling emotions plateau into a sad sort of acceptance.
She's just scared.
Everything in her life has changed so suddenly. She doesn't want him to have changed as well. She wants to preserve at least one memory of before her flesh was so thoroughly broken.
"Please," Nagiko hears the pitiful whisper before she realises that it is her own.
"Nagiko," Narauko repeats, voice gentle but firm. "Look at me."
She doesn't want to, but she doesn't want to deny him either. Indecision freezes her for a long moment before Narauko speaks again, his voice a touch amused but still gentle and firm.
"I will pull your eyelids apart you know?"
Despite herself, a half-amused breath leaves her at the threat. She is grateful for it though, because with that she can tell herself that she has no choice.
Hesitantly, Nagiko's eyelids flicker open, only to near immediately clench back shut as she glimpses Narauko's gentle smile and feels near blinded by the sight as her breath catches in her throat.
"H-how?" She still hates the waver in her voice, but shock overcomes that, even if she knows she shouldn't have expected anything less. "How can you still think me beautiful?"
"Because you are."
Such a simple answer. She wishes she could just accept the words as they are, but she cannot.
"I am not. Not anymore."
Opposite to her, Narauko does not hesitate at all in his response.
"Says who?"
"Everyone!" Nagiko catches herself before she can yell anything else, shrinking back in on herself from where her exclamation left her arms spread wide. Her voice is much softer as she speaks again, "Everyone does."
"Hmmmm?" Narauko hums like he is humouring her. "Is this about the scars?"
You only notice that now? Nagiko finds herself thinking incredulously, her eyes opening again despite herself as the sheer stupidity of Narauko's words shock her into staring.
It is only because of this shock that Nagiko sees him. She sees him with one hand held up to his hairline by the points of his fingers and she sees his intention.
Before she can even think about it, Nagiko is throwing herself forward with a yell of, "Narauko!"
Her hands grab his forearm and wrenches it away from him as her wide eyes stare at the idiot that was just about to rip his own skin off.
Her Eyes tell her his plan as if reading his mind. He was going to peel a line of skin from his flesh from the top of his face all the way down to his feet and he was going to intentionally heal it wrong.
He was going to scar himself as she has been scarred, and the idiot didn't even hesitate to do so!
"What?" Narauko asks, sounding honestly confused before a mischievous grin lights up his face. "Isn't there that saying, misery loves company?"
"What is wrong with you!" Nagiko yells at his face instead of answering that stupid question, and he has the temerity to just shrug.
"There is more to beauty than just what we can see with our eyes. You're acting like I'm going to set you aside and abandon you just because of a bit of scarring, it's a little bit insulting you know? Do you really think me so shallow, or my feelings so mercurial that your beauty would ever diminish to my eyes?"
"That's not a reason!" Nagiko yells back, frustrated that he just won't understand. "Scars made by improper use of Reverse Cursed Technique can't just be fixed! You would have had that scar forever! Permanently!"
"So?"
Nagiko's argument dies on her lips alongside her anger. All she can do is look into his eyes and understand...
He really doesn't care.
It's not like he doesn't understand. She can see it in his eyes, but instead of seeing her disfigurement and simply deeming her hideous, he seems to separate her appearance into its own category. Acknowledging her disfigurement as a diminishment of 'conventional beauty', all the while seeing her as even more beautiful than before.
He knows that she has become ugly, yet he still thinks that she is beautiful.
It makes no sense.
He knows that scarring himself like that would have made the world see him differently. Worse.
Yet still he felt no hesitation. He would have scarred himself and simply continued to live life with no less happiness than he does now.
It makes no sense.
"Why do you still love me?" Nagiko asks, her voice quiet as she stares at the incomprehensible man before her.
"Because you are beautiful."
Such a simple answer once more. She finds herself a touch envious at how easily he can live.
"You really mean that." It isn't a question, but Narauko answers anyway.
"Of course. If you really can't believe me, then how about a proof?" Nagiko tilts her head as he closes the distance separating them and takes a hold of her hands, holding them in the small gap between them. "Let's get married."
Nagiko's eyes blow wide at his words, a breathless reply leaving her in a stupor.
"What?"
"It's what you wanted, right? What did you call me, an 'attractive prospect'? I was reticent back then, but not so much anymore. See if you can till doubt my affection when bound in matrimony~."
Staring at Narauko's foolish grin, Nagiko can only wonder if this is a dream. But looking at him, she knows that it is not. That he truly means it.
Unable and unwanting to keep to herself any longer, Nagiko hurls herself into Narauko's arms, wrapping him in a tight embrace as long withheld tears spill forth from her eyes.
She feels his strong arms wrap around her back in turn, and in hat moment, she feels that she can pretend the world is so far away; that there is just her and him and nothing else.
Like a damn burst, all of the emotions she had been pushing away burst forth as she finally feels safe in his arms. All that anger, the shame and self-loathing; like grime on stone it is all washed away by a wave of relief, leaving her in choked sobs and pathetic mewling.
All the while, Narauko merely rubs soothing circles against her back and whispers words of comfort in her ear.
She doesn't know how long exactly she cries on his shoulder, but by the time her tears run dry, Nagiko finds herself stupefied by how she doesn't feel ashamed.
No matter how she tells herself how pathetic of a showing she has made of herself, she feels no shame, and as she pulls back enough to look Narauko in the eye and meet his gentle smile, she knows that it is because he is the one who bore witness that she feels no shame.
She feels only comfort. Safety. And—and it is both surprising and amusing to her in equal measure how easy it is to admit this;
Love.
A smile grows on her own face as she hovers closer, and uncaring of the tears staining her face, his lips move to meet her own in a single gentle, chaste kiss.
"It's good to cry." Narauko whispers to her, smiling oh so gently. She can see his own joy at her returning smile. "Feel better?"
Nagiko huffs a fond, amused breath before falling forwards and dropping her head against his chest.
She doesn't really know how to answer that question. The sheer complexity of emotion she had been feeling leaves her unable to truly express how much his presence has saved her.
So instead, she answers with something else entirely. A simple truth that fills her with a joy she never knew she could feel just by admitting it.
"I love you, Narauko."
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
I have no idea if this chapter is good or dogshit. Genuinely, no fucking clue. I do not understand the emotions Nagiko has been suffering, I cannot empathise with her and so I have no fucking clue if I have portrayed her properly or done her a disservice.
I genuinely feel so bad for her, like I'm dismissing her feelings or smth just cuz I don't understand them well enough to feel like I'm honestly expressing them through my writing. I feel like she deserves to be read as she is and idk if I can write that or not.
So yeah, idk. I think I did alright, but again, idk. I'm probably just being retarded again, but idk. At least she's getting a happy ending.
Tho, I really wanted her to try and push narauko away by saying "I know I am difficult to get along with, I am... prickly." So that Narauko could hit her with the "Show me your thorns and I will show you hands willing to bleed." But I couldn't fit it in, sadge.
Edit: I just tried to read through the chapter but I legitimately cringed away and couldn't do it. What the fuck is wrong with my brain?