It was the day she knew when she finally cried.
Her mother stood at the door, looking out, helplessly, as if there could be a way to fix the hole in her daughter's heart that had become untouchable.
She wishes that Akko would just smile and forget, seal a promise to something if only to live without the hopeless crawling in her chest.
Her mother looks back at her and wishes that she with her shared pain, knew just what to say to take the ache back and seal it away in some locked up broom closet and never deal with it again.
She walks closer to see the tear stained face of her daughter and tugs her closer, hearing the dull beat of her heart, and urges her silently to live on as if there wasn't a war that claimed many young lives and as if there wasn't an ache consistently within every beat of their hearts.
Her mother catches the soft drip of breath like blood slowly seeping from wounds spread thickly across their own battlefields.
"Akko, I'm sorry." It's the first words that come to mind amid the pain, and she wishes for better ones.
"I-It's fine." It's a lie that Akko's mother as long since catched.
"Live for me?" It's breathless, broken, and all she can see is her pain mirrored in her daughter as if suddenly nothing could stop it from rushing forth from the wound.
"Mom," It's utterance spells hopelessness and nearly some form of regret.
She feels the burn in her veins and wishes that their lives weren't etched into the stones of words and the fragility of another's life.
"I wish that they weren't out fighting for us." It's almost a calling for the pain of a onesided war, of destruction on their doorsteps.
She feels the tears fall one by one and just wishes that her daughter would have loved the boy next door, who while kind, was simply too weak to go to war.
Her mother wishes that it could have been the silly girl in her daughter's class who mixed up potions for fun and who wasn't trained enough and was well guarded enough to never have to see the battlefield.
She feels the near still of her daughter's heart and cries finally letting each tear spring loose and wishes that her husband was still alive, wishes that her daughter's love couldn't have died before meeting her, and yet knows the futility of dealing with her daughter's loss.
Her mother catches sight of the burnt on words on her daughter's wrist and witnesses their color, so festered up, and knows that no one could give those words back to her, wishes they could.
Akko leans against her as if for support as a part of both of their futures is burned away for the first time ever.