A/N: Written for the Symphogear non-flash bingo, #158 - you are my sunshine.
shawms and cymbals and harps of gold
2. black and white
Their hair is light and dark and that seems to be the only obvious part of their yin-yang relationship – until Shénshòujìng happens, anyway.
Maybe if Shénshòujìng hadn't happened, they'd have danced around each other in the sky.
No, that wasn't right either. Shénshòujìng was just somewhere in the middle of a long list of other things for Hibiki. For Miku, too, even if that was the only time she harmonised with a Relic and transformed. In any case, that was forced and she'd suffered through the withdrawals (and that was some potent stuff, to get withdrawals from a single dose – but it had ripped Kanade's body to shreds before her swan song too…) and that was the end of that chapter. It had given them both a glimpse of another side of her, though.
But it began well before that. With the Noise. One could even say with Kanade, even if Miku herself had never met the woman. She'd seen the posters though, and heard the songs. And missed the one fateful song that meant their peaceful lives spiralled out of control.
But the sun didn't shine nearly as bright on bland days. And the night didn't look quite so dark either. They were light and dark but their peaceful lives caused them to blend into a soft grey and they didn't realise, didn't need to realise…
And then Hibiki almost died. And Miku cried.
Which was entirely reasonable, and then Hibiki got better and they were closer than ever: too close. Miku carried with her the weight of worry and guilt and what-ifs… What if she'd been there? What if she'd never invited Hibiki and bailed even if she'd had a good reason if nothing had happened at that concert – But things did happen. An entire crowd dead except Hibiki. Half of Zwei Wing dead. Amou Kanade dead. Hibiki with scars dancing above her heart even now but at least she was still alive.
Would she have died too, Miku wondered? Or would she also have been alive?
Dead, probably. She was just a civilian and the only Relic that ever chose her was the one who heard the calling forced into her veins. That hardly counted. Hibiki, on the other hand… Well, Gungnir chose her. Gungnir and Amou Kanade saved her.
And Hibiki saved the world. And Miku. That was how it went.
And then Hibiki disappeared and Miku cried over her grave. That was how it went as well.
And then Hibiki appeared again, and that time in the middle was like an eclipse had swept in, covered up the sun, and disappeared again. That eclipse had been the absence of HIbiki. The sun came back with her return. And they were closer than ever and further away than ever and maybe it was because Hibiki had touched the sun but Miku had only drowned in grey. They dressed in black for mourning but mourning was really grey, not black. Death was black. Evil was black too and maybe that was a little unfair to the colour black but that was just the way things were.
And then there was Shénshòujìng and even Hibiki's radiant light hadn't quite reached at first and maybe Hibiki hadn't even needed that, seeing so many terrible things…
But when Miku's grey turned black, it was the perfect canvas for the white light from Hibiki to shine. Not brown or yellow, but white.
Black and white.
