"Good," he said, when he found her waiting there, kneeling elegantly on the bamboo floor. "Remove your seal, I have something to show you." Something wonderful.
His smile clearly didn't decrease her suspicion any, but that was all to the good, he thought, smile growing broader. He didn't want to form bonds with fools and he certainly didn't want to mix his mind with a fool's. He had high hopes that his sister would help compensate for Alcor.
"Remove my seal," she repeated. "Yamato Hotsuin, what have you done? Don't think I didn't realize the nature of the power you used against me earlier: who granted you this new power? The Lifespan Star or Amatsu-Mikaboshi?" Alcor or Polaris, their patron or humanity's enemy?
Straightforward: Yamato liked that. As expected of his twin. "The Shining One," he told her, amused to see her suspicion turn to certainty when he didn't immediately deny contact with Polaris. "Hiro. Hiro is the one who motivated me to remember, who made this part of myself," he waved an arm, the chains moving with it, appearing to wrap around that human limb, "refuse to remain suppressed." Refuse to be tamely sealed, leaving Yamato to continue to think he could court Polaris' favor. "It is my bond with him that gave me the power to remain myself even after being bound to an inhuman mind, that of our clan's patron god."
He could ask Alcor to appear now, but he was currently sitting sandwiched between Hiro and Io in a cafeteria booth as they ate dinner with Daichi, Joe and Makoto. It made Alcor happy to be treated like an ordinary human, so Yamato would leave him to it. It was also an opportunity to study their interactions through his link to Alcor: Yamato saw it as part of his training in dealing with other humans as friends.
In addition to that, Miyako would demand proof that the pale, poofy man really was their clan's patron god. Yamato knew he hadn't reacted well to that. All their sacrifice and suffering because of this… frilly person?
"If you want to," ever, "be my equal, if you want to be capable of taking my place," he said, laying out the challenge because this was the bottom line, "then you must master this power as I have mastered it. It's this power that lets me remember the other times Polaris tried to destroy our world, all the times we faced him and all the times he broke his word to us, to leave us alone after we overcame his challenge!"
Well, to be totally accurate, they all blurred together for Yamato. He was certain there were a handful of times before Hiro started to remember that Hiro chose the world of merit, but only in the most recent world like that had Hiro become his lover before Polaris returned and wiped them out. It wasn't anger at the loss of his world of merit that made Yamato refuse to forget, it was having Hiro's favor and then losing it. The determination to get Hiro back and not lose him again, to create their ideal world together and have it stay that way so they could enjoy the fruits of their labors.
"Hiro has fought beside me countless times," he told her. "I thought you deserved this chance to fight beside me, to fight the enemy we Hotsuin have trained and built and waited for all these centuries. Will you prove me wrong? Did I waste my time, should I have left you to die with the civilians? Remove your seal, accept your power as a Hotsuin! We should never have cowered in fear!" They should admire us for our strength and superiority, he might have said before. Before he met Hiro, before he realized that yes, civilians had wisdom, and the ability to create bonds with others was a true form of power. One the Hotsuin were deficient in. They might be born geniuses in any other branch of knowledge one cared to name, but the simple fact they thought more like Alcor's kind, like the beings that maintained all knowledge, meant they thought less like humans, meant creating these bonds would be harder for them.
When part of them was wired for bonds that were far easier, far simpler, it was hard to grasp the complexity Hiro had mastered… How long ago? How many timelines had it really taken him, to make it look so simple? The power Hiro wielded was the accumulated power of bonds. He had that strength because he cared, because he had merit. He had the power to rule this world and Yamato because he had earned it countless times over. That, that was true merit: Ronaldo had a point. There clearly was some nobility in caring for others: it was not something to take for granted or dismiss as Yamato had before.
"I now have someone who accepts me, even knowing everything that I am. Two," Yamato corrected himself, remembering Alcor. "The strength that comes from fighting for someone precious like that: be grateful I called you here instead of leaving you to be erased with our estate, be grateful I'm giving you a chance to wield that power for yourself!" He was, he realized. Because if she connected to him, then she would feel his emotions towards Hiro, and also Alcor's. Once she released her seal and felt Hiro's light?
They would have to reach some sort of compromise. About Hiro. That was what humans, friends, siblings did, apparently. He almost wanted to share Hiro, wanted to show off how wonderful Hiro was. Wanted others to have a taste of Hiro, and envy Yamato that he could have his fill!
…Well, he could. As soon as Polaris was dealt with and these cycles were finished.
"Take off your seal," he told her. "Let me show you what I have learned." Because wasn't that her role, for now? To carry on the Hotsuin traditions, to teach their knowledge to the next generation if he died in battle? He realized then that he wanted her to take off her seal willingly. Wanted her to trust him, not just be forced to obey him.
She glared at him, not baring her fangs but compressing her lips over them to keep them hidden. She still unbuttoned her coat, and finally reached under her shirt to remove the seal.
What sprang into being around her weren't mobius strip-shaped chain links, like his, but a number of flat plates. Trying to count the sides of them made his eyes water, and was it really that all of them were facing towards him even though they circled her, or did it just seem that way? Not showing him their backs, or their other sides, just facing him fiercely. That made him smile, that was correct for a Hotsuin. His approving smile made them speed up their rotation around her, but Yamato was oblivious to her shame or rising anger.
"I'll show you how to connect," he told her, "and how to see the state of the battle so far, in my mind." He would even show her how to feel Hiro, he thought, because surely that would make her like him and cement this bond. Sharing things was a very important activity for these purposes, and Hiro was the best thing. Smiling with delight now, he let his chains appear around her, let them wrap around and flow through the centers of her many-sided panes.
Yamato was shocked and dismayed by what he found there.
He thought his sister wanted to fight and overthrow him because she wanted to be the stronger, she wanted to be the one worthy to rule JPs. He thought she was fighting for her own pride, her own self.
It made him step back, forced him back as though he'd been physically struck, to find that she hated him.
Hating someone because they were stronger, wanting to push them down and make them weak: that was a sign someone was weak, that was something despicable. For his own sister, his own twin, to think that way?
…was he the reason she thought this way? Had he made her weak like this somehow? Not noticing her pain at being constantly told that she wasn't good enough, wasn't worthy, not compared to Yamato. Otherwise she would have won.
Always second best, and the face reflected in the shifting many-sided mirrors of corroded bronze, green and gold and blood, was his and hers and a monster's. Because the Hotsuin were monsters, had been corrupted by a foreign god: they were tolerated because they were necessary monsters for the sake of the country's defense, and she? She wasn't necessary. She was the spare.
What she wanted wasn't important. Only if she defeated him, only if she took over JPs and the clan, would what she wanted have any effect on what happened. She wanted that. She was powerless, and she wanted Yamato to know what it was like to be the powerless one. Wanted him to be seen as only a tool to ensure Miyako's improvement. Wanted him to be forced to dress like her.
Yamato didn't understand. He wasn't the one who said she couldn't have the nice things if she wanted them: if they were the ones who were imposing these rules on her, then why hadn't she fought them instead of all that anger turning on him? But apparently there was more to it than that, and human interpersonal matters were so hard for him to understand.
Hiro would know, he thought. Yes, Hiro would, and feeling his light would surely placate her, yes? She would have to hate him less if he let her have part of something as wonderful as Hiro.
It was a little surprising for Hiro to suddenly be yanked through that other space again, but he knew the feel of Yamato's chains by now, so he might have been startled but he didn't panic or anything. Yamato clinging to Hiro's back as soon as he appeared as though Yamato was suddenly Alcor or something was new, though. He actually had to reach back and feel the different texture of that hair just to be sure that the face pressed against his neck wasn't Alcor's, even though Yamato's body was cooler and he was less bony.
Alcor's hair was, well, fluffy. Yamato's was thick and coarse, able to stand up in shapes on its own without gel. So it was easy to tell them apart that way.
That settled, Hiro wondered what he was here for, exactly. The usual answer was probably ruled out by the way Miyako was here and Yamato wasn't trying to remove Hiro's jacket. "Uh, hey?" he said, waving hi to Miyako. "Cool mirrors."
Her lips moved, but no sounds came out. "Can't find words right now?" Hiro wondered. "Well, I guess if you're not used to…" Reflex made him duck as one of those mirrors came flying at his head: his leg got tangled with Yamato's and he fell.
That made Yamato start doing the chain thing, pushing himself up with those other limbs, coiling around Hiro protectively and quickly subduing Miyako, who had nowhere near as many mirrors as Yamato did chains. "Your quarrel is with me, not with Hiro!" What kind of fool did his sister have to be to attack Hiro, even if she clearly must have been counting on him to dodge a simple attack like that? Even so, the disrespect of it! How could his own twin be such a fool as to reject Hiro's sympathy and clear intent to aid her?
Hiro tugged sharply on Yamato's jacket, getting to his feet himself. "Let her up. No wonder she's in a bad mood."
As he said this, Hiro realized that, "I don't know her at all." He wouldn't have encountered her in any of the resets, right? Thinking of that actually made him a little excited. Not just because he must have grown to like making 'new' friends over the reset and this was someone who would really be new, but he wanted to know if he really could get along with her first try. He hadn't lost his skills for dealing with people who weren't already his BFFs subconsciously, right?
Yeah, he thought, smiling to himself. Like that would happen.
Hiro ignored the part of himself that was thinking, 'Yay, fresh meat!'
Miyako was glaring at Yamato over his shoulder, but before Hiro could decide what to say next she froze, like a hunter detecting a sign of prey. She turned her head, eyes focusing on Hiro.
Yamato snarled, outraged. "Don't try to take all the light!" Not only was this the first day and Alcor was still wounded, how dare she try to pry Yamato's chains loose from his Hiro, even when he was leaving plenty of light for her to taste?
At that point, things degenerated into some sort of multidimensional slap fight, and Hiro could only stand there and watch the parts of it that he could see, kind of amazed.
"Shining One?" Alcor appeared next to Hiro, blinking at him pitifully. Why had he been shoved away from the light? Could he please have some more?
"Yamato and his sister are fighting." Hiro didn't say 'fighting over me' because it was pretty clear there was more to it than that, and Miyako had gotten just as messed up as Yamato was. "I don't think she can keep you off me if you don't let her push you." Even though Hiro couldn't count them because trying made his brain hurt, he was pretty sure Miyako had a lot fewer mirrors than Yamato had chains, that she was a lot weaker. If she had an inferiority complex, then Yamato leveling up so much because of the repeats wouldn't help, huh. From the snarl on her face, she was finally starting to realize that instead of being a little stronger than her, Yamato had her outclassed.
Alcor tugged on one of Hiro's bunny ears, looking over his shoulder at the combatants. "Shining One… Is this because of the fate I inflicted on the Hotsuin Clan?"
"No, I think it's because the people who raised Yamato and Miyako were pretty messed up." Yamato's only memories of his mother were from when he was a little kid, and she had clearly wanted him to be able to fit in and make friends. Trying to raise Yamato to think of himself only as a tool for Japan's defense: these Yatagarasu guys had a lot to answer for.
Suddenly Miyako froze, staring at Yamato's face. The sounds of bells and ripping tinfoil stopped, and Hiro heard what had caught Miyako's attention.
"Aniki… Are you crying?" Miyako was utterly shocked.
"I am not crying!" Yamato insisted.
Hiro raised a hand. "Yamato." Who was the expert here. "You were crying." Hiro had scrambled to get out of the line of fire while unearthly metal was banging around everywhere, but now he went to Yamato's side. "What's hurting?"
Yamato looked at him, defiant and pitiful, clearly only even considering answering because it was Hiro who asked. "I didn't know she hated me," he said quietly. "Even though there is so little that is Yamato-and-Miyako, it's still making me hate myself. No, because of how little there is." He wasn't hating himself because the two of them were blurring around the edges and it was making him feel Miyako's hatred as his own: the realization of how little they shared was part of what was causing him to ache inside and hate, blame, himself. The way Miyako clearly did.
Miyako's jaw dropped. Yamato was confessing something like that to another human being? Yamato had feelings like that in the first place? Since when? She'd never seen her brother cry, not even when they got the news about Mother.
Someone dared hug her brother, and Yamato was leaning into it instead of either pushing him away or standing there stiffly and glaring?
"It's not going to be easy," Hiro told him apologetically, consolingly. "You're pretty messed up, Yamato, so she probably is too." This was Yamato: he'd prefer Hiro's honest assessment to platitudes. "What did you think was going to happen?"
"That being able to share our thoughts would allow us to bond, and shouldn't that have resolved any differences between us?"
Hiro pulled back to arms' length to look skeptically at Yamato.
What? "I also intended to share you with her," Yamato said defensively, in case that was where Hiro thought he'd gone wrong. Even Yamato knew enough about people to know that trying to keep someone away from Hiro's light would end in a battle.
"That's very nice of you, but," Hiro said, and pointed at Alcor, who hovered nervously in the corner of the room. "Thinking that will resolve all differences? Really? You already worked out your issues with Alcor, remember? Tons of times. It wasn't linking to him that did it. It helps you understand him, but if just being linked meant people wouldn't be jerks to each other, or even that they wouldn't disagree, none of this would have happened to Alcor. Or be happening to us, for that matter." Either the others would all have sided with Alcor or Alcor would have yielded to the will of the majority and they'd be screwed. Without Alcor, the Hotsuin Clan wouldn't have had the knowledge of the dragon stream to create the tower shields.
"Not to mention that just because you have a bond with someone doesn't mean you won't get into fights. You have to work not just to create bonds, but to maintain them." Hiro smiled. "Ah, so that's what this is about. You wanted your sister to be your friend." Yamato wanting more friends was progress. "But thinking that it's going to be easy to be friends with someone… That's kind of insulting their feelings. I know you know you wouldn't let anyone close unless you liked them and they were worthy, right? Even I had to earn your friendship. Miyako isn't going to be easier than Ronaldo: she might even be harder. Because it looks like you both got messed up, so you both have baggage to overcome."
While Ronaldo was just a nice guy: that was the real reason he'd gotten so angry with JPs killing his mentor and not sharing the food, because he was a good guy who had standards and didn't see what was so hard about acting like a decent person. Once it was clear that Yamato was a good kid who was trying, even though he was messed up, Ronaldo's empathy and sense of fairness made him want to help Yamato. Miyako, though? It was pretty obvious she didn't have people skills either, forget those of someone who was good enough with people to track down criminals for a living and rally an army when civilization broke down.
There was a flicker of calculation in grey eyes – despite his real distress Yamato was still a teenager, and a scarily intelligent one. Possibly Hiro shouldn't have mentioned the category of 'comfort sex' when he gave Yamato that rundown on types of sex and PDA and when and where they were appropriate in the normal world as opposed to the World of Merit, where it had been perfectly fine for Hiro to have his way with Yamato in the throne room after overthrowing him. Normally acting pathetic in order to win was beneath Yamato's dignity, but, well, sex.
Hiro reminded himself that he needed to be strong, really, and a World of Merit or any other attempt at utopia was not the answer. Really.
It was also really wrong to just think of Miyako as 'female Yamato.' She had to be sick of that. The Hotsuin weren't things, to be used for their power or anything else. So Hiro firmly suppressed the part of himself that was thinking things like, 'Score, catfight!' and how Yamato plus Yamato-with-breasts was just awesome, since Hiro was bi, not only interested in men. To be honest, making the world a place where people could do what they wanted with who they wanted and no one cared was a nice thought, in theory, as long as it was consensual. That right there was one of the problems with the World of Merit, although with everyone thinking differently what people wanted in that world had gotten a little… strange. Rewriting humanity into the way Hiro wanted them to be without asking them first, though? Not okay. Not at all.
Anyway, he needed to learn who Miyako was, and how to become her friend for her own sake, not just as an extension of Yamato.
He couldn't help remembering what Daichi said about hot alien twins, though.