She still most certainly looked like Sonia, in her long black wig and contacts of a clearer-skylike blue.
So Gundham thought. Knew, rather.
Naegi had said that she reminded him, meanwhile, of someone else who he used to know, and he said this wistfully. Gundham did not know who, but perhaps this was due to his own perception - of course he could see Sonia through whatever glamour was cast upon her, enough to see her face through the colors and attire of another being enough that he could not begin to know whose they would be.
Regardless, it eased his heart to know that, to someone else, at least, she could have been mistaken for someone else.
Naegi had assured him that he looked like an entirely different man, too, with his colored lens and his jewelry removed, and his scars from warring with particularly wrathful demon beasts covered, and his hair having grown out in preparation for this excursion sufficiently that its old white streaks were no more, having grown back in, without proper maintenance to do the due respect to his angelic heritage, in demon-black.
He disliked looking this way - stripped of every talisman he had amassed over his lifetime in the name of feeding the infinitely potent dark aura that had kept him safe for so long, because the strength of it made it, and thereby him, so easily detectable , even to a peon of low sensitivity. He understood the necessity of it, however, as he was embarking on this mission as Sonia's familiar, so to speak. Her protector - to strengthen her own powers of illusion. For him to be detectable would be to put her at risk. To defeat the whole purpose.
He truly was wicked.
He remembered that now.
The others, likely, would say the same, but it was not true of them, for they hadn't the same seed of darkness in them that he was long aware that he'd always had. That demon blood. Thus, they couldn't accept it, having nothing to accept. He had accepted it long ago; as he was now, all that had changed is that he had all the proof he needed.
Him accompanying Sonia on this journey had nothing to do with atonement, which was worthless to him.
It had everything to do, however, with respect.
The admiration that a Dark Empress is due, particularly in such a moment of strength as Sonia's.
She had told him of her plans at length before seeing them executed.
It hadn't been in search of atonement on her end, either, that she had spoken to the Future Foundation and seen to arrangements to tour the land that they had razed, under that false leader's curse, recalling that she had attended Hope's Peak to begin with due to her own singular imbuement with powers to cleanse, to order, to build and command and illuminate.
It had been that spark in her wanting to act for its own sake. That something inherently divine possessing her, despite being her.
Of course he had been awed, as he was so frequently by her; he supposed it was also natural that, as opposite as he was, she so frequently gave him the honor of being her companion. Only subconsciously could he fully make sense of the metaphysics that surely meant each's presence kept the other's aura in balance, but in the end, such was the case with all metaphysics - even the most adept could not grasp everything with the conscious, earthly, mortal part of their mind.
He supposed it was then also fitting that they went in the guise of companions.
They went before settlement councils and reconstruction centers as two people older than themselves, with assumed names - Sayaka and Jiro Suzuki (ugh), a unit that did not exist but as theirs for infiltration, powered partway by his presence, his dark power feeding into her exercise of her light, and manned by her; she did all of the talking, so good was she at charming the Ouroboros Unit, as he called it, past leaders' walls to hear and scribe down notes of their strategies at rebuilding their ravaged countries. She subtly tinted their minds with her influence where she could without risking exposure of her true nature, but where she could not, she would convene with him wherever it was they may have been staying for the night - pour back through her notes and dismantle those strategies and put them back together, drawing maps and diagrams. Once they returned to Jabberwock island, she would begin construction of an elaborate talisman which she would hand off to the Future Foundation, who would use the power she had imbued it with to allow her to possess the world's leaders, make them her instruments of light, having thought her simply a passing, friendly, mundane woman scouring the land for a thought-dead relative with her taciturn mundane husband.
On those nights, he didn't speak much, apart from to the Devas, for hers was not his area of expertise.
He did speak, however, when spoken to, knowing his purpose in the mission was to feed her energy, and that it was a humblingly noble cause.
Often, she asked with regards to the contentment of the Devas, being so far from the comfort of their temples on the island for as long as this mission had thus far lasted. Let him know where they would infiltrate next, and where in those areas he thought it would best behoove them to adjourn together in lulls in business - which zones he expected to hold the most spiritual energy for them to draw from.
On this night, neither of their glamours projected in their solitude, she asked him - he looked up at once from the hostel desk on which he'd successfully convinced Cham-P and Jum-P to delay a duel - if he thought it was silly.
He scowled.
Her smile was wistful and her eyes were thoughtful.
She already knew that the topic wasn't.
She was right.
It was that she felt as if she was doing far more as a leader now that she had no homeland to serve as the patron of with her abilities.
Gundham's brow knit and the pulse of his heart deepened, but there were no tears.
There hadn't been for long, from any of them, where he had borne witness - even he, himself, felt nothing but aches at this time before reminding himself to accept it; he was wicked - but one could not let their guard down when it came to tracking signs, from beasts or humans or anything more powerful - the souls that would be rent if Sonia were to shed a tear…!
Thusly, he waited for further signs.
Then spoke frank. Slow enough to be delicate.
Her powers could not be contained, he told her.
It was foolish of any to think her any more than a mortal princess.
In fact, it had been foolish of him to misjudge her for a Dark Empress.
With her sway to be felt across the world with none ever even knowing her name, or recalling her face, well…
...One such as him dared not speak the name of what he thought she was.
She held her gaze on him, and in two, thoughtful blinks, her smile became warm.
He felt inclined to mirror her, the warmth picking up in his chest, too. He resisted, neutrally - something meek - n-no, knowing of his place told him that it would be inappropriate.
She stood, her eyes shutting and skirt rustling, and crossed over.
He looked up as if in tracking the flight of a legendary bird.
Barely understood, overwhelmed by her aura, as she rested her hand on the side of his face.
She kissed him, and in the warmth taking over by her insistence on granting it hospitality, he felt himself becoming something different. Seeing something new in the moon turning around.
Something divine.
And he looked up at her with sad eyes, the warmth overlaying an ache.
Plain and simple empathy at her sorrow. The darkness it had reflected, too, understanding for a moment that if she wasn't an unworthy fiend, then it wasn't something he needed to be either, all the time. Touched and blessed, he still felt their energies feeding off of each other - the blackness and oily coiling of pain and sorrow and rage and old corruption and fear of being ultimately alone that wasn't his reaching for him and coiling around his heart as, through his very look, he sent curves of golden shimmering light reaching back out to her to take its place, as both of them replenished both from within. Kept the both of these things rejuvenated and in flow.
Symbiosis.
She began to smile, and so did he.
Both of them with eyes still sorrowful.
...He began to wonder if it would be the best thing to do, when they returned.
The most useful and the most restorative.
The most noble, and the most nourishing to this source of gold that he didn't want to shut off; it gave Sonia what she needed, too.
To offer to maintain this arrangement, once this journey had concluded.
- To be permanently bound.
Written as a gift for the 2020 Just Married exchange at AO3!