Like Molten Silver
Author's Notes: Written for the LJ Community 31 Days, for the theme: "At the edge of the deep green sea". Spoilers for Volume 16 of the manga. I love these two, although I guess they'll never be a real pairing, but what they had, at least, was canon.
He calls out now, repeating her name, Reina, Reina.
She could hear him flailing in the green water, demanding her to take him with her, to let him die with her. She only smiles, and shakes her head.
"You can't do this! You can't—"
She stands at the edge of the ship that was her father's last creation, and she refuses to look at him; instead, her eyes are riveted in the tangled mess of wires and jagged blocks of silver and gold inside the ship, a remnant of their last battle. The silver band that connects her to him quivers as he tries to reason with her, and her eyes finally shift their focus, but still not to him.
She looks at the ship's core, its central orb glowing crimson as she heard its metallic countdown: twenty seconds until launch.
She tells herself again, as the fear starts creeping in, that they have to destroy the ship's core before it launches, or else it would kill thousands of human lives, wipe out the entire Southern continent. She will be destroyed, yes, along with the ship, but she does not mind this—no, she does not, she screams in her head savagely—she regrets so many things she had done in the past, but she does not regret this.
"I'll be with you!"
She explains, patiently, that it is not his time to die yet, that he still has a life to go back to, battles to fight, and friends to save. They can still destroy the ship's core without him being there with her, for the silver band still connected them both. There is no need for them to be together, at this last moment—the bond they had, like the band that runs around her wrist and his, was merely like molten silver, unstable and formless; but the one he had with his friends—that was etched in gold.
The quivering of the silver band stops, and she manages a smile, finally. She clenches her left hand into a fist, gathering all her strength, and she could feel him do the same.
For a split second, they are one.
Their combined strength travels toward the core, and she closes her eyes, waiting for the explosion that would soon consume her.
She suddenly sees two children; a little girl with dark brown hair, scowling at a boy with green hair and a grin full of mischief. A tall man with hair exactly the same color as the little girl's takes the children into his arms, and he smiled at her, the grin on his face exactly like the one on the little boy's lips.
Her eyes flutter open then, and she realizes that all that she was seeing was an image she conjured for herself, of what could have been but could not be, not anymore. That was not real.
What was real was that she stands at the edge of the deep green sea, alone and yet not alone, doomed and yet redeemed, all at the same time. She looks down at him, finally, and begins to weep.
Father. I'm coming now.
Goodbye, Musica.