The Girl Can't Help It

If asked, Satsuki Kiryuin would deny, quite quickly, quite calmly, that she's keeping an eye on her little sister.

"Matoi is more than capable of taking care of herself," she would say to any such accusations, without even a moment's hesitation, and surely, certainly, she would believe her words. There is, she knows, little in the universe that could bring her baby sister down.

But maybe Satsuki can't help the knot of worry building deep inside her, even as the sun droops down low and Soroi's tea grows cold and Matoi shows no sign of strain. How could she help it, really, Satsuki justifies to herself, when it had only been mere hours since this girl before her had been drenched in her own blood and had ripped away her unbearable burden and Satsuki had to imagine scenario after scenario of all her efforts being for naught and her sister falling to the ground and suffering and screaming and choking out her last breath as she herself stood useless and powerless even after everything she'd fought for and everything she'd done and—

Okay, so maybe Satsuki looks Matoi's way just a bit. Just a bit. You can't blame her.

But Matoi, Satsuki sees, seems perfectly fine, even for all that had happened. The girl's smiles are wide, her laughter genuine. She plucks croquettes from her plate and eats with the kind of vigor that any growing teenager should have. No matter Satsuki's own mistakes and all she had done wrong, the sight before her tells her, wordlessly, that Matoi is happy.

The knot deep inside loosens. Now Satsuki can't help her own smiling, or the strange, bubbling warmth that builds and builds, and bashfully, uncertainly, she lets the feelings stay. They're beautiful, she thinks. They're incomprehensible. They're not distractions. They're strength. If Matoi had taught her anything, it's that.

But no matter the happy picture before her, Satsuki still knows that it's not exactly a surprise when Matoi's big, eager grins fall into something more subdued, something tired, as though the day's events finally catch up to her and she finally feels the exhaustion of everything that had occurred. Matoi stretches her arms over her head, a plate half-filled with croquettes still in her lap, and says, with a yawn and a groan, "I'll be back in a bit."

Matoi stands, yawning still, and it seems for a moment that she's going to explain where she'll be wandering off to on this ship, but Mankanshoku doesn't let her, rushing to her own feet with a knowing grin.

"I got it, Ryuko!" she cries. "After being apart for so long, you need to spend some alone time with Senketsu!"

Even in the darkness that surrounds them, Satsuki doesn't miss the bright-red blush that comes over Matoi's cheeks. "Um…" Matoi says, awkwardly, a crooked smile on her face, "I think you're misunderstanding…"

Mankanshoku shakes her head, offering Matoi a wink as she piles croquettes from her own plate onto Matoi's. "Take these, though!" Mankanshoku says. "You need to build up your strength! Huah, huah!" Mankanshoku punches the air, scowling, as though attacking an invisible enemy. "Got it?!"

Matoi softens. She looks down to the croquettes Mankanshoku had given her, smiling a timid smile, and then she says, quietly, instinctively, automatically, "Thanks, Sis."

And Satsuki can't help it. She stiffens at the word, her grip on her own plate of croquettes tightening just as much as the knot deep inside does. She turns her eyes away, but she's not fast enough, catching a bashful, embarrassed look come across Matoi's face before she lets her attention fall completely to the half-dozen croquettes still littering her own plate.

"So, uh, see ya," Matoi says. She walks away, and Satsuki sighs. The croquettes that once seemed so delicious now seem to taunt her, and she can't say that she feels all that hungry anymore, either.

But Mankanshoku won't let her drown in self-pity. The girl plops down next to Satsuki quicker than Satsuki would have even thought possible, piling croquettes off her plate and onto Satsuki's now.

"You know," Mankanshoku says, without giving Satsuki the time to react or respond, "the best part about eating croquettes is eating them with family!"

As though to demonstrate, Mankanshoku takes one of the many croquettes she somehow still has left and stuffs it in her mouth, mmm-ing and ahh-ing as she chews.

"See!" Mankanshoku says, her mouth still half-full. "These croquettes wouldn't be nearly as good if I were alone!"

Satsuki manages to smile again, just a little. "I'm sure you and Matoi have shared many good memories together, eating croquettes," she says. She ignores how the knot inside tightens at her own words.

Mankanshoku doesn't make any note of Satsuki's discomfort, either. She stuffs three croquettes into her mouth at once, nodding her head as she chews and swallows, looking quite deep in thought, and with nothing more to say herself, Satsuki takes to poking at her own croquettes with her chopsticks, watching blankly as the greasy meat balls roll and flip over.

Like a child! Satsuki thinks, and she curses her ridiculous feelings. She doesn't have time to waste moping like this, and yet—

"Mm-hmm!" Mankanshoku bursts out. She jumps to her feet once more, and Satsuki wonders for a moment if all the croquettes she has piled high will fall to the ship's deck.

But they don't, simply shuddering with Mankanshoku's quick steps, and the girl holds a hand out to Satsuki, smiling wide.

"Won't you come walk with me for a bit, Lady Satsuki?" she asks.

Satsuki takes a look around. Jakuzure looks to be arguing with Mankanshoku's younger brother, Mrs. Mankanshoku can't stop piling croquettes onto Gamagoori's plate, Sanageyama seems preoccupied in egging them on, Soroi is fixing more tea…

"All right," says Satsuki, sure that she is unneeded here for the moment. She stands herself, still holding her plate full of croquettes that she's hardly convinced she'll be able to eat. Mankanshoku beams.

The two walk along the ship, taking care to note the rhythm of the sea. Where they're going Satsuki hasn't the slightest clue, but the destination seems of little importance to Mankanshoku, and Satsuki can't say she minds the distraction. Mankanshoku skips along and eats croquettes as they go, talking with her mouth full the whole way.

"You know, Lady Satsuki," she says, as the stars begin to glimmer in the sky, and after relaying quite the incomprehensible tale about her favorite pajamas, "the first time Ryuko ate croquettes, Mom thought there was something terribly, horribly wrong with them! Ryuko just started bawling at the table after she put them in her mouth! Like they were poison!"

Mankanshoku swallows, only to stuff another croquette into her mouth. "But there wasn't a problem at all!" she goes on. "Ryuko just thought they were so good that she couldn't help but tear up and cry!"

Mankanshoku swallows again, just as loudly and unseemly as she had been doing all evening. Satsuki manages another smile, sort of. "Is-is that so?" she asks.

"Yup!" says Mankanshoku. "Ryuko was so itty bitty that I don't know if she remembers it, but I do!"

Mankanshoku has sped up, and so Satsuki quickens her own steps as well. "I see," Satsuki says, unsure, because there's a part of her, deep inside, that can't help but wonder why in the world she's devoting so much time and energy to such meaningless, frivolous concerns, and why it is she walks alongside Mankanshoku at all, and why she would ever think she has the time for any of this when the fate of the world is still in her hands, as it always has been.

But the greater part of her is twisting the knot tighter and tighter inside, and that greater part is saying, loudly, that today, tonight, there is nothing more meaningful than hearing of her little sister's life without her.

The knot only tightens further at the thought.

"All right!" cries Mankanshoku. She stops quite suddenly, popping the last of her croquettes into her mouth. Satsuki very nearly knocks into her, but manages to still herself right before her own plate of croquettes topples onto the sleeve of Mako's sailor uniform.

If Mankanshoku notices the near-collision, she certainly doesn't seem to mind. She turns to face Satsuki straight on, her eyes alight with excitement. "Anyway, Lady Satsuki," she says, so bubbly that it seems she's holding back laughter, "sisters should share croquettes together, don't you think?"

Unfortunately for Satsuki, she is not allowed the time to respond. Mankanshoku places her hands on Satsuki's back and gives her a great push forward that surprises even Satsuki, and Satsuki quickly finds herself stumbling towards the sea, a few croquettes tumbling off her plate and onto the deck with gentle thuds that are just loud enough to draw the attention of the girl who sits right before her, at the edge of the Sol, her legs dangling down towards the water, an empty plate of croquettes beside her.

Satsuki swallows hard as she realizes that Mankanshoku had deliberately led her right to where Matoi went. She feels her face burn red as Matoi stares her way.

"I," Satsuki starts, in a manner that is most undignified. "I was simply wondering if I might join the two of you."

Satsuki holds up her plate. "I brought you some more croquettes," she adds, as though they were truly the reason she stands there. Satsuki sighs in frustration when she steals a look behind her and notices that any last trace of Mankanshoku is long gone.

Matoi frowns, looking down—to Senketsu, surely, Satsuki knows—before nodding her head. "Sure," she says, and her own face burns a bit pink as she stutters, adding, "S-S-Si-Satsuki."

Somehow, Satsuki manages to smile at that, as she sits beside her sister on the deck, her own legs hanging down towards the water. The knot inside twists and twists tighter.

"It's okay," she says, though she knows that with the way she says it, it certainly doesn't sound okay at all. "You don't have to force a sisterly bond with me, not for my sake." Her smile only widens. Her gaze falls to the sea.

"After all," she says. "You already have an older sister."

Satsuki can't say she knew what she expected in response to such a statement, but it certainly wasn't a laugh and a shake of Matoi's head. But that's exactly what Matoi does, and to Satsuki, it could almost be a month ago again, in the burnt remains of Osaka, their weapons pressed up against each other's throats.

"Hmph," Matoi says after a moment, sounding disgusted, disappointed. "Still acting so high and mighty, even with your own little sister?" She pauses a moment, looking to Satsuki's croquettes, and then right into her eyes. "Who says I'm doing any of this for you?"

Satsuki does not know what to say to that, and so Matoi continues, "How much of my story do you know, huh, Satsuki Kiryuin? Did that computer-geek Inumuta give ya all the dirt on my life, huh? Did you look into every last, little detail you could about me so you could better use me as your precious little asset? As your weapon?"

"Ryuko…" Satsuki thinks she hears in response to Matoi's words, but the voice is fuzzy and hard to make out, and she figures it must just be her imagination, or tiredness.

She shakes her head, looking towards her sister—

"I don't want to hear it, Senketsu!" Matoi snaps. "This is between me 'n Satsuki."

Matoi returns Satsuki's gaze. "So?" she asks.

Satsuki sighs, long and deep. "I didn't know much, Matoi," she says, truthfully.

"Well," says Matoi, "did ya know that my dad dumped me 'n Senketsu off at Mako's house when I was five, huh? Did you know that he said it'd just be a little while, and that he'd be back for me in a week? Did ya know that he never came back, even though he damn well could have, but his fucking research always mattered to him more than me, and I never heard from that shit sack again until the day he fucking died?"

Matoi turns away. Satsuki feels her mouth go very dry. "No," Satsuki says. "I didn't know any of that, Matoi."

But Matoi is not finished. She speaks louder now, her words coming faster and faster. "Did ya have any idea," she asks now, "what it felt like, to grow up in a place you knew you didn't belong? Did ya ever think about what fucking hell it was to hear your mom and dad arguin' about what to do with you, while you kept tryin' and tryin' to find your real dad and kept comin' up with jack shit?"

Satsuki is quiet, and for a moment, Ryuko is, too.

Then, much more restrained than before, she says, "It was never a walk in the freaking park, Kiryuin. I knew that Mako's family wasn't mine. I knew she wasn't really my sister. I knew I had no right to call her Sis."

A bitter smile comes over Ryuko's face. "But the lot of them… they always tried so hard to make me feel like I belonged. Like I really could be part of a normal family like that, even though I knew damn well that my real family was fucked up." She shakes her head, drawing her arms around herself.

"And now…" Ryuko says, "well, it's even more—I'm even more—fucked up than I coulda ever guessed."

Ryuko looks Satsuki right in the eyes once more, her gaze just as piercing and passionate as it was the day they first met.

"So fuck you, Satsuki Kiryuin!" Ryuko says—shouts, screams. "Fuck you if you think I don't care about finally having someone else who understands where the fuck I'm comin' from."

Silence falls between them, the air thick with the intensity of Ryuko's words.

"Who's just as fucked up as you, isn't that right?" Satsuki manages to say, quietly, after a moment.

Ryuko laughs, turning away from her sister. "I s'pose so. Two fucked-up-as-shit sisters, right here."

"I didn't know you felt this way, Ryuko," Satsuki says.

Ryuko flashes a cocky grin. "There's a lot you don't know about me."

"You're right," says Satsuki, and she pushes her plate of croquettes closer to her sister. "But I hope you'll let me learn more."

And right before Satsuki, Ryuko's cocky smile shifts into something almost soft, her eyes wide with what Satsuki can only think of as hope.

Ryuko pokes her own chopsticks into the offered croquettes.

"Of course," she says, taking a bite.

A/N: Written as a response to the prompt, "Satsuki and Ryuko fic (sisters bond) in show, except that in this au Ryuko was adopted by the Mankanshokus when she was a child."