Empathy. This was a concept Kaguya thought about, sometimes. Occasionally, idly. Just like sometimes, she'd think about how much hair she had lost over the millennia she had been alive. Maybe she thought about that more often, actually : her hair was down to the bottom of her legs, and was shed at an average rate, with an average rate of regrowth. However, each time she died, everything within her was reset to a previous state, a snapshot of herself that apparently, somehow, was considered her ideal state; she reckoned this would mean that longer hairs would drop out faster than most people, since they often didn't have to regrow all the way. At an average of losing one hundred strands per day, each strand being over one metre fifty, that would mean the total length would be… She enjoyed calculating things like this about herself, statistics for which the results were on a scale far different to most people, results that set her apart from everyone else. Alienated her. Immortality factoids. Eternity hadn't quite dulled her curiosity, even if she often used the results to then feel bad about herself. Look at these numbers and pity the poor immortal who had been forced to live so much, she'd think to herself. Of course, there was never anyone to share these with, except for Mokou, and instead of getting pity out of her, it would just make her feel sick or get angry. Which was a good enough reason for Kaguya to still be thinking about those little facts containing such large numbers. They put things into scale, which was precisely what neither of them wanted, but Kaguya's cruelty towards Mokou, towards herself, was by far the stronger motivating factor.
But, empathy. Thinking about that didn't give her facts that she could use to hurt Mokou, to hurt herself. It wasn't as useful, as fun, but she still did it, occasionally. Sometimes, she liked the sound of her own thoughts, when they were working through something at her own pace, getting a decent workout without overexerting themselves. It distracted them, kept them in good shape. It also drowned out the background noise of her other thoughts, the constant screaming, for a while. A short while. Empathy, she thought, calmly arranging her ideas into constructed sentences, empathy was a framework that served most people two purposes : firstly, to prevent actions that would have negative consequences to someone else, and secondly, to give pity to someone else over the consequences of actions that had already occurred. This was the general conclusion that she had arrived at and stuck to, after abstracting the notion over millennia of being alive. Maybe she was correct. Probably not. It didn't matter : she had already moved past any considerations about the accuracy of her definition, and instead, would ponder over its application, its uses. And, as was common to her when thoughts were left to fester in the stagnant waters of her brain for all those years, she'd come to two completely contradictory conclusions, antinomies that she could present under whichever angle best suited her at the time.
Empathy was no exception to this. She considered : in a way, with her definition, it no longer applied to her. Empathy was all about consequences, and yet, especially in her current situation, nothing she did really had any consequences. She took her surroundings as an example : she was lying on the bottom bunk of a bunkbed, Mokou above her, snoring loudly. She could choose to shoot a beam of light at the source of the sound, killing Mokou, killing the noise. She'd like to do that : it would be purely beneficial to her, with absolutely no downside. Most people, however, would not do that, because of empathy : there might be some pain in it for Mokou, and, of course, some death. Consequences. Empathy serving its first purpose. But the reason she didn't do it wasn't out of empathy, but the exact opposite : it was because empathy couldn't be applied to her. She'd kill Mokou, who would simply come back to life, and eventually forget what had happened. Her action would be pointless, would have no consequences : therefore, empathy couldn't apply to her, since it lacked that fundamental driving force. So, she was free from needing to worry about being empathetic, then ? She rested on that conclusion for a while, toying with it in her mind. It was comfortable, comforting. She could allow herself to sink into it like a soft bed, wrap herself in its covers, blocking out the harsh cold surrounding her, the biting cold that was accountability for her actions, with her warm cocoon of irresponsibility. Yes, she'd keep this conclusion available : a useful fact (she'd proven to herself that it was true, had she not ?) that she could use if she ever wanted to escape from thinking about her actions for a while. And yet, this was just another shield around herself. A way to be even more detached from reality. She already barely existed, she already wasn't a person anymore. This conclusion had its perks, but it was also dangerous. Maybe if I think about it a little longer, then. And so, she carried on playing with the notion of empathy, unravelling it at the seams, painting over it with all new colours, yet somehow keeping the original still intact, still visible in her mind, until she came to her second conclusion, her contradictory conclusion that she would hold on the same level of truth as the first. She already knew that her actions had no consequences, and that had been what removed any considerations of empathy from them. But, (she started smiling to herself), but. Letting herself do what she wanted to Mokou would bring her pleasure. There were many things she could do right now to the sleeping immortal, all possible, yet none acceptable within the framework of empathy. (Pause in her train of thought as she imagines what she could do to Mokou, right now, if she so chose. Smile widens. Feelings of power, slight arousal. She knows she could, and so she keeps this feeling for later, she stores it. If she wanted to, she could, and savouring the possibility was almost as exciting as actually exerting it.) But. She wasn't within that framework. Her actions wouldn't have consequences, and thus couldn't be immoral. And yet she still held herself back. This was it, the contradiction she was looking for, the logical fallacy she could sink her teeth into and suck the sweet nectar from, despite knowing that it shouldn't exist, ignoring that fact deliberately. If she could trick herself into believing it, that was all that mattered. And she could. She excelled at that. And so she smiled : if none of her actions actually had consequences, and she was free from empathic considerations, but still chose not to follow her every whim, then maybe it wasn't so much her actions, but her every inaction that was inherently an act of empathy on her behalf. Yes, this was something she would like to believe. After all, she had a lot of thoughts that she didn't act upon, even though she could have done so, nothing was stopping her. Why, by this logic, she was a saint ! Immortality hadn't made her a monster, but on the contrary, it had taught her empathy on a much deeper level than most people ! I'm sure Mokou hasn't thought this much about it. She doesn't understand empathy like I do. Maybe that's why she's so impulsive. Once again, Kaguya had managed to twist her thoughts into a convoluted mess that happened to be the exact configuration that she needed to feel smug, superior. She had placed herself above Mokou, above everyone, and found a way to feel good about herself. She chuckled, savouring the glow of self-righteousness.
The feeling faded quickly, as it always did, leaving her once again in the dark, hating herself and making up lies to try to avoid doing so. All her thoughts were ultimately pointless, she knew this, deep down. The darkness mocked her for trying. She shoved her conclusion to the back of her mind for later, because damn it, even if I'm wrong, it could still be useful. And it's not like I'm definitely wrong…
The underside of Mokou's bed was a sight that she was getting used to, by now. It was, of course, Kaguya who had decided on the sleeping arrangements, when Mokou wasn't lucid enough to object. Not that she would have : she had been given the top bunk. She was above Kaguya, dominant : a position of power. Let her believe that, Kaguya thought. Let her have her false sense of power. I hold it where it matters. Because, whilst Mokou may have been given the symbolic position of power (worthless to Kaguya, probably to Mokou as well, but poor Mokou must be so starved for any kind of self worth that she'd cling onto it anyway and pretend it meant something), Kaguya had the useful position. Kaguya didn't sleep much. She was a lunarian, technically : sleep just wasn't something she really needed. When she did it, it was mostly to escape consciousness briefly, to bring her one step closer to… (She wished it actually brought her closer to something, some kind of end, instead of just briefly stalling in her unending battle against eternity.) To Mokou, sleep was also technically unnecessary (death by sleep deprivation, revival in perfect health), but she did it to escape the adverse effects of tiredness. It was very human, very biological. (The lunarian concept of impurity surfaced in Kaguya's mind; it disgusted her that those old thoughts still lurked in her mind.) Instead, Kaguya spend most of her allocated sleeping time pretending to sleep (she couldn't say "nights" : deep space didn't really have any indicators of passing time, and their own biological clocks had stopped ticking long ago; it was far too irregular to be anything close to "nights"), and instead, thinking, or simply existing. Maybe she would have slept more, but she couldn't, she wasn't built that way. So she monitored. If Mokou was to leave her bed, if she went and tried to do something without her, Kaguya would know about it straight away. Like this, she could keep a close eye on Mokou, she could make sure that she knew her every action, even the ones she might think would go unnoticed. She can't just have an existence outside of me, after all. Of course, nothing ever happened. Mokou slept like a log. This didn't stop Kaguya from obsessing over the possibility of her doing something. What if.
Another advantage, of course, was that the opposite was true for Kaguya : she could slip out from beneath Mokou at any point, unnoticed. As much as she hated the idea of Mokou doing anything without her knowledge, she valued her own secrecy, to an extent. She didn't really mind whether Mokou knew what she did or not : she held no secrets worth keeping after how close they had gotten in the past. She wanted her secrecy simply because she could, because it was something that, in a way, gave her a slight edge over Mokou in their eternal power struggle. It wasn't something that actually mattered, objectively, Kaguya knew this. But at the same time, when interactions with Mokou were the only thing that did matter, proportionally to everything else, it was of utmost importance. Mokou was Kaguya's life, and Kaguya wanted to make sure she was Mokou's. This, as well as for "privacy", was why she had smashed all the screens in the room that were able to connect to the central AI. To Eirin. Here, Kaguya really did want to act unobserved. She had spend millennia with Eirin, under the stern gaze of a mentor, a gaze that had soured, that had been drain of all positivity, until all that was left was a constant feeling of being pitied for being alive, and judged for the way that she was doing it. She was Eirin's biggest (only ?) mistake, she was well aware of that. She had made Eirin feel guilty, by being guilty herself of living. So guilty was Eirin that she had packaged it all up and uploaded it to the Red Dwarf. Well, I want none of it. Not here. The idea of that stern yet sorrowful gaze constantly trained on her from inside the screen deeply disgusted her. This room was for her and Mokou only : their corner of deep space, their cocoon for them to liquefy into each other and become one. Eirin's gaze was a barrier between them, a hole in the cocoon from which the fluids of their fusion would leak out, leaving it incomplete, unsatisfying. Just thinking of Eirin's interference, existence, made her angry enough to need to stand up, to leave the warmth of her bed and start pacing, glaring into the dark room around her. But her anger had nowhere to go, no target : the screens had already been smashed, the problem, solved. Anger needs a target, otherwise it keeps burning, consuming all the air in the space it takes up inside you until there's none left, and you suffocate. This place, though, was hers to control, hers alone. Their situation was perfect for Kaguya to take advantage of Mokou's weakness and turn it into dependence : Mokou was still adapting from her time spent in solitude and suffering, and so didn't feel capable of leaving this room yet. This was great : it reduced the variables enough for Kaguya to monitor everything. No more wondering where Mokou had gone, what she was doing, without her. There was barely any time during which she didn't know exactly where Mokou was. She had abandoned Mokou once, when she left earth on the Red Dwarf : never again. She had learnt her lesson. During that time, she hadn't necessarily been miserable, but she'd been her own person, living for herself. She didn't want that. To her, it felt like she was only half a person, without Mokou. Living for herself just seemed so dry, so bland, and being reunited with Mokou had brought all the colour rushing back into her life. Never again would she go without her other half. In this room, she could plunge herself back into Mokou, intertwining their lives, their very existence, until she no longer had to worry about herself as a single entity, as a person.
Yet Kaguya couldn't help but worry. Mokou wasn't "herself" again yet : she wasn't how Kaguya wanted her to be. Their interactions were somehow duller, and Mokou, less sharp. Kaguya hated this. She wanted Mokou to be sharp. She wanted her to cut deep. Right now, she could barely leave a scratch. This wasn't right at all : their interactions were supposed to be destructive, they were supposed to tear each other apart so that they could rebuild together. How was Mokou supposed to dissect Kaguya into small pieces when she could barely piece through the skin of superficiality ? But Kaguya was determined to sharpen Mokou up again. So she'd started taking care of her. Bringing her food, even. Like that, Mokou didn't need to leave the room, but could still eat healthily. That was how she had explained her actions to Mokou, a wide, insincere smile on her face. Mokou hadn't even noticed the insincerity. That hurt Kaguya, a lot, but not in the way she wanted to get hurt. There's still a long way to go. But with a sigh and a shake of her head, Kaguya had resolved to keep bringing Mokou food. It put her in Kaguya's debt, deeper and deeper every time, whilst reminding Mokou of her own weakness; it shifted the balance more in Kaguya's favour. After all, Mokou had remembered the taste of food : this gave Kaguya the power to cut it off whenever she wanted to. Back in Gensokyo, this level of power being on Kaguya's side would have made Mokou's blood boil. Prod the wild animal enough, and it'll fight back : Mokou would have done something, she was resourceful, she'd have found a way to restore the balance. Kaguya didn't really want the power balance in her favour for this long, she told herself : what she wanted was the struggle, something to dedicate her mind to. So, if she kept pushing Mokou down, indebting her, gaining power, maybe, she hoped, maybe she'd finally fight back with all the ferocity she loved.
Thinking about the situation had Kaguya all frustrated. She needed a break from the cell she had locked herself in. An outlet for her anger, her anger at not being able to use her usual outlet. As much as she hated her, she knew it was time to visit Eirin. It was ok : it wasn't in their room, so it wouldn't interfere with her reality, the one that mattered, the one with Mokou. A break : she allowed herself that. After all, she was on the bottom bed : Mokou would never know.
It didn't take long after leaving the room for Kaguya to find a functioning screen. After all, they were everywhere on the ship, embedded into the wall like scabs. Ones Kaguya itched to scratch off. She had healed, had she not ? Eirin's protection wasn't useful any longer. She could scratch her off her skin, discard her. And yet here Kaguya was, coming back for more. Reopening the wound, making it go through the whole healing process again, creating a new unsightly scab. She just couldn't let herself be healed. She had to always be healing. Future-oriented. She couldn't allow herself to stagnate. It would mean she had lost to eternity.
"Eirin !" she called, zero hint of respect in her voice; a demand. The screen flickered on, and Kaguya reflexively curled her lip at the sight. Already she considered walking away, going back to brooding in the darkened room, but she was restless, and wanted to take it out on someone who probably didn't deserve it.
"Princess. It's been a while. Why did you destroy the screens in your room ? They were my only way of contacting you." Kaguya let out a single derisive laugh (concentrated, precise); "it's because I can't stand to see your guilty, pathetic face" (the release, the attack). Out here, in deep space, she could finally treat Eirin the way she had wanted to for so long. She could spit the venom of millennia's worth of accumulated resentment right at Eirin's face. As she had already concluded, she was free from any considerations of empathy. She could let loose. And yet, she didn't even have to speak to Eirin at all : her simple presence, here, giving a purpose, a reason to exist to this AI, was an act of empathy towards this sad husk of her former mentor. Feeling justified, she smiled.
"I need to be able to keep an eye on you, Princess. It's unsafe for me to not be able to monitor everywhere on board the ship." Eirin's voice : a sickening mix of concern and reproach. Kaguya couldn't stomach it. It was missing the most vital part of the interaction : anger. Why couldn't she just get angry ? Kaguya would provoke her, deliberately get in her way, and yet she'd never get angry. Her venom would simply wash right over Eirin, leaving her unaffected; her attacks were as ineffective as a snake spraying venom on a marble statue. Eirin would never get angry. Kaguya hated that. Mokou had the decency to get angry, to fight back. Kaguya had an effect on her : that's why she liked Mokou so much, maybe. Affectable, yet unbreakable, she could pour the most corrosive parts of her personality, of herself, over Mokou, and it would burn her, it would cause her pain, but she'd always recover from it, be back for more. All the fun of breaking, without the consequences of it being broken. Always future-oriented. Eirin, she never changed. She would never be broken by Kaguya's caustic attacks, but only because she would never break. A never ending supply of something with no demand, that was the feedback she got from attacking Eirin. She'd never be able to go too far, she'd never break her and then have to fix her, but she got no satisfaction from her attacks. All she could do was exhaust herself. What was the point ? Mokou and Kaguya were trapped in eternity, but when it came to Eirin, it felt as if she was eternity. Unchanging, impossible to influence, to effect. A constant. She might as well not be there at all.
"I don't want you keeping an eye on me. I came here to escape from you, Eirin." A short pause. "I hate you." It wasn't the first time she had said those words to Eirin. Far from it; Eirin was used to it, by now. But before, it was when she was drowning in despair, lucidity clouded in the murky waters of her thoughts, wishing only for death, to cease, to not have to keep going and going and going. What did it matter what she said, when she was feeling that way ?But it would eventually pass, her brain would allow room for other thoughts; she was, and would always be, alive, so it did matter what she 'd apologise, and of course, Eirin would forgive her. Not now. There was nothing cloudy about her thoughts. No possibility to claim that she was beside herself. No excuses. She stared Eirin right in the eyes (the meaningless pixels that drew them on the screen) when she spoke. A bullet of hate, aimed right for Eirin's heart. She waited for her to start bleeding out.
Instead, Eirin just shook her head, disappointed. Fuck you ! You're not above me ! You don't get to be disappointed in me ! Once again, Eirin managed to make Kaguya feel judged. Inferior. She started charging a spear of light in the palm of her hand : she didn't need this. She was ending the conversation.
"Princess, don't do that. I'm here to help you."
"I told you, I don't want your help !" She thought back to Mokou, still almost silent, dépaysée now that she was in a world where time actually flowed around her."It's not like you could help with anything that matters, anyway." The petulance of a child refusing help from a wiser adult; Kaguya easily reverted back to their old roles. Eirin's expression softened.
"Try me, then. What is it you want help with ?" The calm in her voice, her eyes. She was always a good listener. Despite all her resentment towards Eirin, Kaguya would still go to her and talk about her problems (her solvable ones; the ones that didn't really matter), back on Earth. How easy it would be to allow Eirin to slip back into the role of her mentor. Especially now : she'd be able to treat her however she wanted, yet still be able to benefit from her advice. A win-win situation : she wouldn't even be sacrificing anything. Anything, besides her stubbornness. These days, that was most of her.
"You can't help. The problem is with Mokou. That's not your domain, she's mine. She's been through a lot, so right now, she's…"
"Vulnerable ?" Eirin asked with a smile. She had found the exact word Kaguya had been thinking of, that much was visible from her expression. "I'm correct, aren't I, Princess ? Remember when I said that this version of me is here for the sole purpose of taking care of you ? You know me well. You should know better than to underestimate me." Kaguya felt her skin crawl; a profound sense of uneasiness was starting to creep through her. This wasn't just any computer, this was a computer with Eirin's personality in it. Her intelligence, her ruthlessness. What has she done ?
"Inversely, I know you well too, Princess." Another self-satisfied smile.
"What are you getting at ?" The question was aggressive, a snarl : a warning. She wasn't sure if she wanted Eirin to carry on, so she was on the offensive, pre-emptively.
"Well, I know you well enough to know that Mokou is your everything. That's why I brought her onto this ship. But you, you had left her behind on Earth. It seemed very unlike something you would do. I was suspicious : you say you left because you wanted to escape, because you had grown tired with your life on Earth, but it was more than that, wasn't it ?" Kaguya couldn't hold Eirin's gaze any longer. She was staring right through her, deep into her thoughts. There was triumph creeping into Eirin's voice : she had always enjoyed her monologues, her displays on mental prowess. Kaguya suspected it was what had kept her going : Eirin was always involved in some kind of long-term scheme spanning years, decades, sometimes even millennia, and the pleasure she took in seeing everything slot neatly into place somehow made eternity seem worth it to her. She had her enemies, other creatures of intelligence on a level Kaguya couldn't begin to rival, to keep her occupied. Delving into Eirin's machinations always made her feel worthless, stupid. Right now, she was realising that she was part of one, and Eirin's gaze was crushing her, reminding her of her own inferiority, objectifying her into a simple cog in Eirin's plans.
"It didn't take much for me to realise what you were really looking for, Princess. It was control you were seeking out here in the stars. Earth was too vast for even you to control, so you wanted a fresh start, as if that were possible. You wanted control over your life, so you tried to leave your old one behind for a more manageable one. A microcosm that you'd extend your influence over, bit by bit, until you controlled it all. But that wasn't all, was it ? You also wanted control over the people in your life. And by that, I mean Mokou, obviously. You wanted to force her to make a difficult decision, one that you already knew what the outcome would be." Kaguya gulped. Eirin was reaching into her, breaking down the barriers of contradictions she had set up around her thoughts, exposing the lies she had woven to prevent her from needing to think about herself too much. What Eirin was saying was true, she was now forced to admit it, even though she wasn't ready, she was still in denial. Eirin's cold gaze tore through all that and exposed her hypocrisy for what it was. She felt naked, stripped of the comforting lies she always draped over herself. She tried to tell Eirin to stop, but her earlier bravado had withered, died. Her venom had tried up under the harsh light of the truth : she was defenceless.
"You could have left on any ship, but you waited until you knew Mokou was nearby before setting off on this one. You told me about your plans, even though we were barely ever speaking at the time. And when we were touring the ship, you kept bringing Mokou up. You know I'm far from stupid. You know I'd pick up on what you really wanted : for me to tell Mokou about you leaving. That would force Mokou into a difficult position : give up on Earth entirely to be with you, or lose you forever. But you knew what she would pick, didn't you ? You must have felt good about yourself when you saw that she had chosen you over everything else, no ? You must have felt powerful. You were the shooting star, shining bright with power; Mokou was but the trail, forced to accompany you and your brilliance. You got what you wanted." Kaguya couldn't deny it, nor could she prevent a nervous yet gleeful smile from creeping onto her lips. Powerful ? Yes, she had felt powerful; it was a rush that made her tingle all over, shudder with pleasure. The kind of feeling she could get high off of. Just thinking about it made her heart sting with a delicious twinge that nothing else could provoke. So what if it made her a bad person, at least it made her feel something, at least it made her feel like a person at all. She wouldn't deny or apologize for this. This was her.
"I know how much you crave that kind of power, Princess. Luckily for you, I'm on your side, even if you don't seem to think so. Maybe my full self would have been held back by empathy, but I'm not; that wasn't included in what was uploaded to the ship. So I helped you. I got you into a situation where you would have even more power." Smile erased; in its place : a cold sweat, tense breathing. Kaguya could now see where Eirin was going. She wanted to be wrong. She doubted that she was.
"Since you destroyed the screens, I can't be sure, but I'd imagine that Mokou is quite manipulable, right now ? The two of you, locked in that room together… I'm sure you've been taking good care of her. And I'm sure she feels very indebted to you. Like she owes you everything, maybe ? That's a lot of power to have, isn't it ? Everything is in your favour. It's the kind of situation that you'd only be able to dream of normally, right ? You wanted power, control, and you're enjoying it to the fullest." The locked room, the isolation, the ease of monitoring Mokou… it was like a dream come true. She was powerful. She was enjoying it. It might have been missing the fight she was used to, but that would come back with time, right ? And of time, they had plenty. So what was the harm in enjoying the situation while it lasted…?
"But Mokou wouldn't let herself be dominated so thoroughly like this, not under normal circumstances. She had to go through a lot to be this broken. That's where I came in. You wanted isolation with her ? No escape from each other, forced proximity ? You wanted control over her, more control than ever before ? All that was achievable. All it took was a radiation leak." Kaguya felt sick. She had known that was coming, but it hadn't helped. She felt sick, sick at Eirin, but mostly sick at herself. She couldn't forget how ecstatic she had felt when Mokou was at her feet, looking at her like a saviour, a goddess. Eirin was showing her a portrait of herself, one that didn't shy away from all the grotesque details and ugly features, and was forcing her to nod and say yes, that's me.
"Maybe most people would have stopped at that, but I'm always a few steps ahead. It would have been a shame if Mokou wasn't in the right state of mind, when I reawakened you from stasis. I had to make sure I had done the job correctly. That's why I kept her locked in the same corridor all that time." Shock flushed out the sickness in Kaguya's system, creating room for anger.
"Wait, you're saying she was where I found her, the whole time ? She didn't have access to the rest of the ship ?" Kaguya had assumed Mokou had at least that. The ship was massive, there was entertainment, food, distraction. She had revelled in the idea of being Mokou's saviour from loneliness : her first living contact in so long, her friend from the past here to deliver her from solitude. But this. This ? Something was clawing at Kaguya's heart, a feeling she wasn't used to. Empathy. So this is what it feels like. Empathy's second function.
"Of course not. She might have found the food, and she'd have eaten it all by now. And she'd have explored the entire ship, in that time. I know you well enough to know you'd hate coming second to her in any way. Am I right ?" Kaguya cursed Eirin. Yes, she's right. She would have despised that : she could even remember having thoughts about that very same situation. Attacked, exposed, she needed to cover herself once more in comforting lies, in half truths that shrouded the ugliness of her thoughts. Outrun the guilt. This, of course, came easily to her. It was her or me : that was the bottom line. There was only one stasis pod, and she hadn't even chosen to use it : it had been decided for her. It was out of her control. It wasn't her responsibility. She didn't need to feel bad about it. She could still take the moral high ground.
"All this put Mokou into the situation most favourable to you. I told you, I'm on your side, Princess. So you would do well to trust me a little more. What do you say ?"
"I didn't ask for this, Eirin. You decided this for me. This is all on you." Erase the guilt, pass on the responsibility. Kaguya couldn't handle those kinds of feelings, so she needed to be able to lie to herself. For that, Eirin had to take the fall. In a way, that made her useful for something.
"Princess, Princess… It's unhealthy to lie to yourself so often. Besides, like I said before, I'm not the real Eirin, I don't have all the extras like compassion or empathy : I'm only here to help you. You don't need to keep up any kind of façade with me. You don't have to lie about how this isn't what you wanted, or pretend to believe things like that I'm the enemy or that there was really only on stasis pod or-"
"What did you just say ?" Kaguya's eyes were glowing.
"The stasis pod ? Come now, princess, did you really believe that ? What kind of ship would only have one-" Eirin was cut off by a loud explosion. A beam of light had shot out of Kaguya's hand, piercing through where Eirin's face had been just moments ago. She was breathing heavily, her eyes wild. When the smoke settled, she fell to her knees. She felt heavy : guilt had finally caught up to her, pounced, and was now refusing to let go. Digging its claws into her back, it was whispering into her ear, telling her how true everything Eirin had said was. Yes, you were enjoying having Mokou under your power. Yes, this was all your fault. No, you wouldn't have made things happen differently, if you could. Kaguya was trying to shake off guilt's massive burden on her shoulders, but it had wormed its way deep inside her, it was in her brain now, becoming part of her, but she couldn't accept it, she couldn't let it stay, if it was in her brain, she'd remove it, she'd burn it out, she'd-
When Kaguya eventually revived, there was a second burn hole underneath Eirin's screen, at the high where Kaguya's head had been. She had taken guilt down with her. It wasn't a matter of choice for her. She couldn't handle those kinds of thoughts, she really couldn't. But she was calmer now, able to think more clearly. No, Eirin was still the one to blame. Maybe she did enjoy the power, but she wouldn't have gone that far for it. This might have been a lie, so she then decided to take action, to convince herself. To prove Eirin wrong. It would shake up her little microcosm, but she needed this, and she was stubborn. Eirin was the enemy, the cause of Mokou's problems, and she'd make sure Mokou was aware of that.
She marched straight back into the room where Mokou was sleeping. "Wake up", she ordered, not even waiting before dragging her out of bed and onto the floor. "We're going around the ship. Together." Yes, this wasn't so bad. Maybe this was in her favour, after all : they now had a common enemy, a concrete one, not just Eternity itself. Someone to blame everything on. She walked at a brisk pace, dragging Mokou by the hand. Whenever they came across a screen, she'd destroy it. Finally, Mokou took the bait. "Why are you doing this ?", she asked, and at those words, Kaguya knew she had won. She spun her story of how the AI had kept her locked in a corridor this entire time, when she could have escaped into stasis. She riled Mokou up against the screens; "they're the reason you're suffered so much", "I was destroying them to get revenge for you. But maybe you'd like to join in ?" Of course, she left out the part about how it was her fault the AI had done that. Mokou didn't need to know that. It wasn't important. And so, they went on a rampage together, destroying any screen they could see. Mokou's anger, the anger that had always made her so alive, the burning heat that attracted Kaguya to her, now had a target : her suffering was no longer a vague, incomprehensible ordeal, but an act of malice by something concrete, an enemy, one that she could take out her fury on. Letting out fireball after fireball on her tormentor was cathartic : she could finally externalise her rage at something real, she finally had a target, and there was nothing she needed more than to be able to attack her suffering at its source. And Kaguya… Kaguya ! She had led her to this source ! She was on her side, after all ! Mokou's ferocity was back, and Kaguya loved it, loved her. She had sacrificed Eirin to Mokou's flames but it was worth it, oh so worth it. This was proof that Eirin was wrong, that Kaguya didn't want a passive Mokou that she could completely control. Eirin was wrong, Kaguya wasn't like that, this was proof. Right ? She had destroyed something that was advantageous to her, to help Mokou. Surely, this is enough proof, isn't it ?
Standing amid the smoke and fire together, Mokou finally felt like she was starting to reconnect with Kaguya. She had known what Mokou needed, and provided it to her. It was more than she could ask for. She was thankful to her.
And on her side, Kaguya smiled. Mokou was back. Mokou was in her debt. She had turned everything to her favour, once again. And she was barely even lying about anything. Best of all ? None of this was actually required of her. She could have let Mokou carry on being vulnerable, malleable, broken. She could have kept all the power to herself. Yet she didn't. She helped Mokou when she had no obligation to, nor any consequences if she hadn't. It was an act of utmost empathy towards Mokou. Kaguya was amazingly empathetic, compassionate. That, she was able to tell herself, despite everything. It felt good. And so, she smiled.
