Seeing things with normal eyes versus the Delphi eye is very different. Shougo had known that since he first manifested the eyes. But the thing was, in order to use Delphi eyes, you have to understand Birdsight, Emperor Eye and Daemonica.
And the various sights are different. Sure, the current generation saw everything clearly, or wide areas, but Delphi Eyes, when activated, saw everything in different colours and shades. For example, before going back, Haizaki had known that Taiga and Tatsuya had believed him because their base colours- a rich red and purple, respectively- had been sheened with gold, and underneath had been a blackish tint that indicated their physical and mental strength. In order to know those things though, he had to work to understand them.
In the months since they'd been tossed back in time, the Sins and their Virtues (Shougo and Taiga, and surprisingly, the former Miracles were very insistent on that point) had made it a point to be in different, specific places on certain days. Or at least to give command over in certain areas.
After Daiki had pleaded with Shintarou to tutor him so he could later get a degree that would help him take care of Satsuki, the others had paused and considered the wisdom in that. So Shintarou usually led an evening group chat for an hour or so every evening. Weekends were spent at the spacious Akashi mansion, either studying or working out or scheming. Evenings, most days, were reserved for streetball games or for volunteering with group Nijimura's siblings attended, often leading to an invitation to the Nijimura home for tea.
Biting his lip, Shougo considered what he was seeing with his Delphi Eyes. He was at the Nijimura home, having somehow ended up with Nijinura's cranky cat in his lap, studying Nijimura's father, Ren. His base colour was beginning to pale, not in any specific area, but just in general.
That was… rare. Normally, Shougo could pinpoint an actual problem before it happened. If he could hold someone's gaze long enough, his… spirit would cleanse that of the person he was attempting to heal. Well, in traditional Delphi medicine.
When he'd given the others an obstacle to overcome, he'd seen that the black in their natural hues going from a healthy ebony to a sick obsidian. His own hue had paled until it was white gold, which was really, really bad. Considering it had started as silver-dappled smoke grey, he'd been mentally and physically so ill it was a miracle he'd been able to heal at all, pun intended.
Instead of getting lost in memories that often resemble a minefield, Shougo concentrates on the cat in his lap. His fingertips slide over the smooth fur, shoulders leaching tension as the cat rubbed it's head against his knee.
Pulling in a breath, he formulates a plan, parsing through it with Tetsuya the next day, the slyest sin willing to help him heal Nijimura's father so that Nijimura doesn't have to leave them.
(None of them will ever say it, but they remained fractured, not quite whole until their first Olympics, when Nijimura had been recalled by the Miracles' combined pleas, and Haizaki had been so uncomfortable but had somehow integrated into their unit)
Once he's healed Nijimura-san the next day, he has to make an excuse and bolt. He makes it to a park, vomiting behind some bushes even as he throws himself onto his knees. Once he's stomach is empty, he moves onto dry heaves, exhaustion fleeing his body as he chokes out bile.
His compatriots had followed him, of course, and as the other Sins and Tatsuya and Shuuzou approach him, the world tilts. Akashi's Eyes burn, his irises fluctuating as they slid through the evolutionary ladder from Hawk to Eagle to Emperor to Belial to Delphi, pausing longest as he took in the kaleidoscope of colour that is Delphi before adjusting, fixing on a combination of Emperor and Delphi.
Kuroko's quasi-Emperor eye regained itself, shading everything in blue almost as if he had the Delphi Eye as well. Midorima felt the precision he'd been honing burn in his fingertips, as if he'd recovered an old memory, his quasi-Delphi eye turning the world green. Murasakibara gasped as his full control of his body returned to him, closing his eyes against a purple world. Aomine fell to his knees as the Zone door appeared in his mind, not the darkened portal of before, but a well lit, black oak door accented in slim red lines in a white and blue hallway, his Delphi Eye branding his sight blue. Kise choked out a noise as Perfect Copy flooded his body, his own Zone door appearing in his mind, across from Aomine's but in Kaijou blue and white. Taiga reached for Tatsuya blindly, panicking as his Zone door flashed across his eyes as the muscles in his legs burned, black-red haze narrowing his field of vision yet somehow expanding it.
Shuuzou and Tatsuya did not have so severe a reaction. Aside from tingling hands and greying vision, they experienced no ill effects. Until Shuuzou actual looked at Shougo with his quasi-Delphi Eye and saw Sin of Greed return to full psychic health before his eyes.
"Shougo!" He darted forward, jaw trembling when Haizaki rises shakily, grey eyes glinting silver as he blew out a long breath.
Another.
And another.
Before he laughed, rasping out
"I'll be damned! The travellers have Eyes!" Frowning, Akashi suggested
"Let's move this elsewhere." He then whipped out his phone, calling his driver and within a half hour, Shougo was explaining in Akashi's room
"By averting such a supposedly fixed time point, and you all helping me do that, you have quasi-Delphi Eyes, which makes it a Gaze, because it only has the one talent. In this case, you can bring someone back through the timeline with yours. All of you."
Not a particularly surprising revelation, considering Alex is already with them, but now…
Aomine can play properly for his Touou.
Kise will avoid the foot injury.
Akashi can maybe finally prove he's been redeemed to Mayuzumi, for whom he's been carrying a torch for years.
Muraskibara can give more to Okamura and Fukui than a victory after they graduate.
Haizaki doesn't have to stew in his sins forever, if people remember and see his change and forgive him.
Kuroko does not have to fight the Generation, but he also does not have to lose Ogiwara.
Midorima can be the team mate he always wanted to be but it was too late, by the time he beat Jabberwock, because the third years had graduated.
Kagami won't ever lose Tatsuya, he knows, but he can also have time to play with Kiyoshi and Hyuuga and Izuki again.
They had known this before, had intended to do these things, but now… They no longer have only each other to rely on and reminisce with.
