Nanami was dead.
Riou sat on the roof of the castle, staring out over the lake while an errant breeze ruffled his hair. The waters of the lake sparkled clean and blue in the sun, the wind making rippling patterns on the surface. Riou gazed upon them absently, his mind elsewhere.
Nanami was dead.
Behind him, the Twin Destiny Fangs had been tossed down haphazardly to land on the hard stone. Grandpa Genkaku would have been furious, some portion of his mind thought – 'you treat your weapons with respect' had been drilled into the three of them since day one. He really couldn't bring himself to care, though.
Nanami was dead.
Behind him, he could hear someone coming up the stairs to the roof. He didn't move as whoever it was walked up behind him – the clinking of bracelets and the smell of leather – and Eilie sat down next to him. Automatically, his gaze flicked over her – her posture was uncertain and she was only carrying three of her throwing knives – and she was very pointedly not looking directly at him.
Ah, he thought. They're worried about me.
"Did Shu ask you to come up here?" he asked, his voice hoarse and scratchy.
"No," she said, her voice lowered. "I thought you might need a friend, that's all."
Not taking his gaze off the lake, Riou waved one hand backwards. "Nanami named them, you know."
Eilie made a polite sound of confusement.
"My tonfa," he clarified. "When Grandpa Genkaku said we could stop using the training weapons, Nanami insisted that she get to name our real ones. We sparred for it, actually – best two falls out of three. Nanami won. She's always been faster than me."
Eilie carefully noted the present tense and said nothing.
"That's what makes it so surreal," Riou said in a voice that sounded like it was a million miles away. "For a second, I almost thought I had finally gotten faster than her, because she was moving so damned slow…"
Time had stopped.
Nanami's words – Just like Grandpa Genkaku taught us – still hung in the air, and with a sick dread, Riou could see it coming and wanted to scream at Nanami that her guard was open and the bolt was coming
and her eyes widened…
"And that's that. My sister is gone." Riou said in a voice gone far too horribly flat.
"Riou…" she said.
Riou kept talking, much to her relief – rolling right over whatever pitifully inadequate thing she had been about to say – "In Tinto, she asked me to leave, you know? Just run away and leave all the killing behind.
"I was so tempted – I almost agreed," he said. Eilie stayed quiet – he didn't need someone to talk with, he needed someone to talk at.
"But I refused," he continued, "I had a responsibility. Oh, she laughed it off, said she was joking, but she's my sister, and I know she was serious about it.
"Only – she thought I meant I had a responsibility to the army, to all of the State," he said, finally turning away from the lake and looking at Eilie with eyes that had become far too serious for the boy she had once performed with.
"It was much simpler than that – I had a responsibility to her. It wasn't about the State, or Grandfather's legacy or anything else – I had a responsibility to create a world where my sister would never have to kill again.
"She hated it, Eilie," he said quietly. "Every time we traveled out, she hated having to kill people. Everytime Shu asked me to make a decision that would only end in more death she would flinch a little."
Staring down at the patterns of the stone beneath him, Riou said in a voice made heavy with grief, "And I would keep telling myself that when it was all over, she wouldn't ever have to do this again. I took strength from that – my best friend is now my worst enemy, my entire world has been turned upside down, but I could keep going on because Nanami needed me."
His voice very small now, he continued, "and now my big sister is buried in the cold, cold ground and I have no strength left and Shu wants me to give the order to invade Highland."
Somehow, Eilie found enough strength to say the next part.
"Riou…I know you're in pain, but…I have to say this," and as she spoke, Riou looked up at her, eyes numb with the weight of his pain. "You are our leader, Riou. This army needs you. We take strength from you. You can't take strength from a dead woman. This war has to end, Riou. Otherwise, there will be many people suffering just like you are right now and it'll be because you weren't strong enough. To stay lost in your own grief will be making others share in it, Riou!"
And as Eilie watched, Riou flinched at the passion behind those words before visibly allowing them to affect him.
Eilie found herself trembling as something seemed to unfold within Riou, some hard knot of pain and loss as he stood up and let the breeze flow over him.
"I wouldn't wish this pain on anyone," he said, and then, shakily, started to smile at her.
In that moment, as Eilie saw all his grief and pain and anger transmute itself into an iron-hard determination, she wanted to cry. Rising from the wreckage of his shattered life, he was as clean and simple and beautiful as the sweep of an angel's wing, and, she knew, forever beyond her reach.
And because the war had to end, she accepted the pain of it like a slice to the heart, cutting her free of those ties. And she knew she would always be able to remember this moment, this new life birthing itself like a phoenix from the ashes and even as she grew old and grey she'd always be able to remember what it felt like to be in love.