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Disclaimer: The song belongs to Melissa Etheridge, and anything related to Angel Sanctuary is merely borrowed from Kaori Yuki.

Similar Features

I wonder, sometimes, if you even know what I look like.

Of course, you know the color of my hair, and my eyes, and my skin. You know that I'm thin, and shorter than you. You know how many ear piercings I have, and which earrings I wear in them. You could describe me very accurately, I'm sure, to a stranger if you had to.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I know what you see when you look at me: I know exactly what your eyes tell you is standing in front of you. Your eyes know what I look like… but, I wonder, does your mind? When you look at me, do you see me, Setsuna Mudo, or do you see someone else, someone I resemble in more than a passing fashion?

When you look at me, does your mind see Setsuna, or Alexiel?

Ever since I found out the reason we had become friends, the reason that you had stood by me all these years, I've begun to question everything. I've begun to wonder why you used to stop your friends from beating me up as badly as they might have, why you gave me these earrings to protect me from Alexiel's battle-rage. I've begun to wonder why, when the entire school was calling me an incestuous monster, you told me that I was alright. Was it really me you were saving, Kira, or were you just protecting the woman I used to be, the one who would never let herself grow weak enough to need you? Were your words of comfort meant for me, or were they just all the things that you wanted to say to her, spoken centuries too late?

I wonder sometimes.

You have no idea how hard it is to have people look at me, and smile like God himself has just come down from Heaven and promised to smite their enemies. No one seems to be able to see any further than my face, my wings, and my powers. They've been waiting for Alexiel to come back for so long that they're ready to believe in anyone, as long as they can hold Nanatsusaya and act the part convincingly. I need someone to keep me out of that, to stop me from sharing in their belief that I can do anything, just because I've inherited Alexiel's soul: I need someone who will accept me for who I am, and until now, that's one of the many roles that you have filled in my life.

You have no idea how much it hurts me to wonder whether I can still count on you for that.

Who was this woman, that she inspired such devotion in everyone? Is it because she was powerful? Was it her beauty? Or was there something else about her, some quality that you would have to have met her to understand? Why would you, in particular, have spent so much time following her from one tragedy to another, at the expense of even restful oblivion? Is it because she was the only person who was ever able to keep her sanity around you, or was there something more to it than that?

It seems almost certain that you love her, at least as deeply as I love Sara.

It scares me, sometimes, just how deeply you and Kurai must love her, to have gone through so much just to search for her soul, though the person who possessed it wouldn't remember anything about you, or about who it had once belonged to. I suppose your love was too strong to be silenced by the sight of her crystallized corpse: you had to search, even though you knew that what you were looking for didn't exist, at least not in the form you desired. I wonder, Kira… if killing me could bring Alexiel back, exactly as you remember her, would you do it?

I want, more than anything, to believe that you would say 'No'. I want to be sure, like I was before I knew anything about angels and demons, that our friendship is rock-solid, and that you'll always be there for me, no matter what happens. If you told me that, I believe I really could face anything. But I'll never know, because I'll never have the courage to ask you. I'm scared of the answer: like everyone else, I rely on my delusions. I count on them to make me believe that you're on my side, in the same way that everyone else, you included, is willing to believe that I am really the Goddess they've been waiting for all this time. If I was completely certain, even for a moment, that you had never sincerely cared about Setsuna Mudo, I would not be able to go on. I need you, Kira: I need your faith, your encouragement, and your strength. I'm not Alexiel: I can't do this on my own, without anyone's support. I can't be their Saviour if I no longer have your cross to lean on.

So, in a minute, I'm going to look up at you, and smile like everything is fine, because that will make me believe it is. And you'll nod back, and take my delusion as proof that your secret is still safe, that I still don't know that, every time you think of Setsuna Mudo, you see Alexiel's hair, and the tattoo on her breast. We do what we have to in order to get through the lives that we've chosen: if I keep telling myself that, maybe one day I'll stop being hurt by it.

After all, it doesn't seem to bother you.