Hi there! Here I am, sliding into Usamamo week right towards the end. I've spent the last week alternating between a family vacation, being glued to the Olympics, and ignoring my impending dissertation data analysis, but I'm excited to participate this year!

This story was first conceived from the prompt First Kiss for Usamamo Week 2019, so it seems appropriate that I post the end of it for Usamamo Week 2021. Today's theme is "The End of the World", and let's just say this fits.

A million thanks to Kasienda for being a rockstar beta and the QueenRisa for her help as well. Both of you are freaking amazing, and your suggestions made this so much better. Finally, thanks to idesofnovember for hosting this year; you really are a rock in this fandom!

Enjoy!

5 Years
Epilogue
7/30/21

This isn't the kind of story that has a happy ending.

At least, not yet.

Centuries later, it would come to them in nightmares. Flashes of a long-ago tragedy that was somehow both terribly foreign and unspeakably familiar. How unprepared they had been for the hatred that gripped so many of his people, for the swarms of them that flooded the palace's steps, treasonous words spilling from their lips as they stormed the most sacred halls of government. Aiming to destroy. Aiming to kill.

The red-streaked sky, the howling screams. The acrid smells of smoke and fire as they mixed with blood that dripped onto the grass canvas below, a capital city's once-magnificent landscape marred with horror.

The agony that etched onto his features and stung his eyes as, one by one, each of his remaining brothers betrayed him.

The tortured screams that tore from her lungs and left her throat raw as, one by one, each of her sisters fell.

The contemptuous, jealous glare that looked down on them, smirking in macabre satisfaction at their pain.

And, most of all, the moment he couldn't deny his heart and threw himself in front of her, the impact of his body against hers setting off ripples that would echo into the universe for eons to come.

But there was power in what they did not see that day.

They didn't see the wisps of light that rose up from their prone forms—silver from hers, gold from his—that entwined and exploded in a powerful, blinding burst of light and energy.

They didn't see how that light shot their enemies down, the power of a forbidden love finally shown to the world living up to every fairytale and indeed conquering all.

They didn't see how those streaks of silver and gold wrapped around both of their bodies and the bodies of those dearest to them and sent them safely to another time.

In time, those silver and gold lights would make their way to modern-day Tokyo, to one lonely boy and one cheerful girl. A boy and a girl who spent their days sparring with each other over chocolate milkshakes and flashing video games but then spent their nights working together to protect the city from an achingly familiar evil.

Boy. Girl. Sailor-suited superheroine. Masked superhero. In every scenario, both secretly hoping that the other wasn't actually their enemy. Both secretly in love.

And then it was more than nightmares that came to them in their dreams.

It was electric first touches in bright, airy throne rooms. It was shared laughter and delight in the snow. It was a comforting embrace on the edge of a burbling fountain, surrounded by the heady scent of roses. It was racing heartbeats and desperate lips and fingers on wet skin in the warm and cold swirl of ocean water.

And it was enough to spark a constant, aching awareness that something was missing, or rather, that something had yet to be found.

So then, at second glance, maybe this is the kind of story that does have a happy ending.

Or, at least, a hopeful beginning.

And there you have it…and here you have my reflections on this story as a whole, as I think I have kind of an interesting relationship with it. It's not my most popular thing, but it's one of my favorite things that I've written. It's not perfect, and there are bits of it (especially in the last chapter, the one I posted before this one) that I really struggled with due to the pandemic and I'm still not sure about, especially given the minimal reactions I got to it. I think also there was a part of me that challenged myself to write this because I've been trying to write a good multichapter SilMil fic for literally almost two decades (I wrote one in middle/high school that I'm trying not to insult, but I almost feel like this was me trying to make it up to myself, if that makes any sense). In the end, I'm proud of this precisely because it's not perfect, and, to me anyway, the subtext of it is my own story over the last 3 years or so. And I do love the symmetry of conceiving the idea in Usamamoweek 2019, first posting it for Usamamoweek 2020, and finishing it off in Usamamoweek 2021.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts in the form of reviews, dm's, whatever you're comfortable with. Thanks for coming along and reading this, and good luck to everyone else participating this week!

And thank you again to Kasienda, QueenRisa, and Ides!