Based on the recently released Baal trailer.

As the sun rose upon the cliffs of Inazuma, a quartet of friends can be seen frolicking away under a sakura tree. With a picnic blanket spread out beneath them, and the sky above them warm and welcoming, there was nothing more picturesque.

But the people were no ordinary folk. They were the Raiden shogun herself, surrounded by her allies.

Saiguu Kitsune, the Trickster.

Sasayuri, the Chessmaster.

Chiyo, the Conqueror.

And Baal, the Storm herself.

None else were deemed more worthy for the company of Baal. None else would make better allies in times of strife. What could they be discussing over such scenery that embodied all that they had fought for? Risking their lives for nothing but the sight of a more peaceful Inazuma, they truly were worthy of the tales that surrounded them. With good weather, food, and friends aplenty, what more could Baal ask for?

"I will stab you, you bitch! Do not test me!"

Better friends, apparently.

"You'll have to reach me first with those stubs you call legs!" Saiguu taunted, dancing out of her reach again.

"I'm not short! I'm just vertically challenged! I'm still growing!"

"Chiyo," Sasayuri put down his manga for a moment to give her an unimpressed look. "You said that exact thing a decade ago."

She opened her mouth to retort-

"And the decade prior to that."

Chiyo flushed and turned to her left.

"Baaaalll, Sasayuri's bullying meeeeee…." She whined.

Baal, too engrossed with a small bottle of something, spoke absently. "Don't bully our vertically challenged friend, Sasayuri."

"Hmm-hmm." He agreed. "Now could you two stand to be a little more quiet? I'm just getting to the good part."

"The same damn thing happens in every issue you dolt! Two idiots talk about fighting, get ready to fight, then have a flashback for over ten issues! It's just foreplay without any payoff!"

Sasayuri abruptly gripped the manga, creasing the spine and nearly bent it in two. "The fuck did you say about manga you little shit?"

"I said it's trash! Your opinion is trash! At least be interested in 3D women!"

Saiguu, being the dumb little fox that she was, chose this moment to interject. "Now, now, no need to fight."

"Silence traitor! Don't think I've forgotten about you! Traitors don't get an opinion! You gave her my diary, I know you did! You betrayed the sacred trust of the bro-code! How do you plead?" Chiyo accused, pointing her finger of righteousness towards Saiguu.

"What is this? A trial?" Saiguu nudged Baal, "Come on, defend me."

"She pleads guilty, your honor." Baal muttered in deep concentration, adjusting the purple nail polish on her fingernails. Damn this accursed brush. Why were these things so small?!

"What?! No I don't!"

"The court hears your plea. Jury, what is your sentencing?" Chiyo shouted with glee.

Sasayuri didn't even look up from his manga. "Death."

"THIS MEANS EXECUTION! BRING OUT THE POISON!"

Baal twitched at the remark. "Oi."

Saiguu blanched at the sight of the…. food(?) that Sasayuri took out from the basket that Baal had brought. He took a spoonful of the… sludge from the container and pushed it towards her. Saiguu loved challenges. The judge had yet to determine if challenges loved her back, and yet, this… consumable made her pause.

Baal flushed as the three stared at the spoon. "It's porridge."

Saiguu, never one to turn down a test of courage, opened her mouth and took a deep breath.

Her lips closed around it, and as soon as the seal was made, the skin around her face tightened. Her expression, usually full of cheer and mirth, turned to fragile glass, as if a single breeze could shatter it completely. Her eyelids shut immediately, trying to stop any more stimulus from assaulting her senses, but the pupils behind them had shrunken as though she was staring into the sun.

Sasayuri pulled the spoon free, and Saiguu shifted her jaw to chew, but recoiled at the texture. The… mass between her teeth could have slimy or soft, crunchy or watery. She couldn't tell anymore.

Baal winced at Saiguu's expression as sympathy and guilt gripped her being.

"Th-That's okay, you can spit it out now. I won't be offended, I promise!"

Her eyes immediately rolled back into her skull as she fell, her head barely making it past the blanketed floor to land in the grass and dirt just beyond.

Saiguu, Lady Kitsune herself, the trickster that deceived demons and gods alike, was slain by bad cooking.

"Oh no…" Chiyo muttered, toeing the corpse of her friend. "She's dead."

"She will be missed." Sasayuri agreed. "Much sadness. Many regrets. Should we bury her?"

"Yep." Chiyo said, popping the p. "Now hold her down while I dig the hole. I don't want another repeat of the incident."

"You guys know I'm not actually dead, righ-"

"ARRGHH! SHE'S A ZOMBIE! SHOOT HER IN THE HEAD!"

-0-

"-then maybe I'm learning!" After that event, Saiguu and Baal had turned away to sit by themselves, leaving the chaos behind them for a moment of peace. "Maybe I'm much smarter than what you think."

Baal scoffed with a wry grin. "Maybe I'm too intelligent for my own dreams for you to be believably intelligent enough to pass for you."

"Then do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Still hallucinate?"

"That depends. Are you a dream?"

"That depends. Was it Sasayuri you asked?"

Baal chuckled this time, and Saiguu felt her grin sit more properly on her face.

"Sometimes," said Baal quietly.

"Hm?"

"Sometimes I still dream. They're just not the same as they used to be."

"What are they like?" Saiguu asked, and Baal looked up. Saiguu felt a chill as Baal's face went blank, her eyes dulling as her heart closed off once more.

"Most of the time," said Baal finally, "I dream of you all dying."

"How do you know if we're real?"

Baal looked at Saiguu, and the chill down Saiguu's back deepened. "I don't," said Baal. "I still don't. But if I'm going to be insane, this is a much nicer place to be, and…" She hesitated and motioned towards her tail. Saiguu nodded and let her hug it, waiting in silence. Finally Baal said, "I was afraid of losing you all."

"After Sasayuri died?"

"No. Even before then." Baal looked towards the tree, where Chiyo kept trying leaping to grab Sasayuri, as the latter held her hairpin above his head, chuckling like the manic he really was, only hidden behind that cool exterior and sharp tongue of his. She was kicking him in the shins, but not hard enough to hurt or break their rules but enough that his theatrical flailing seemed genuine.

Baal turned back. "Since you pledged your names to protect me with your very lives, I've been afraid to hope that we would be able to stay together without anything befalling us. Is it strange, that even that the war is nearly over, I still have the fear of losing you all?"

"I don't know," Saiguu admitted uncomfortably, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She'd never quite believed that this would work. Maybe she hadn't meant it to work, and just wanted Baal to tell her she was alright. "I've never been much for the fears of what-ifs before. Maybe you should ask Chiyo."

She glanced back at the others. Chiyo was now on Sasayuri's back; her hairpin completely forgotten to the side as her arms wrapped around his shoulders to lug her small frame up. She smirked, blushing slightly when she noticed Sasayuri trying to hide his own laughter and flushed face, failing miserably at both.

"You know," Baal pondered. "Chiyo's actually quite the philosopher whenever she's not vying for the attention of Sasayuri."

"We're not exactly fully sane ourselves, y'know." Saiguu chuckled in agreement. "We're definitely not a good influence for anyone. I mean, we're fighting demons and monsters with life and limb for the adoration of people we don't know, with hardly any gain for ourselves. We're definitely not smart enough to even consider teaching another person about feelings."

Baal smiled. "You're certainly a bad influence."

"I never claimed otherwise."

"Then maybe I should ask Chiyo." Baal nodded. "But not now. If you don't mind, I'd like to bask in this life some more, just in case talking to her puts some weight back on my shoulders."

"And it was in that moment, on that last syllable, that Baals voice broke ever so slightly. Her voice caught on a note of uncertainty, of something raw and broken and startling genuine. It was then that they saw it, as clear as day. It was a buried desperation, a need for love so well hidden you would almost doubt it even existed.

"But before you go, please tell me. Are you-

-0-

"-real?" her excellency asked, and her voice was so full of wonder and hope and something like fear that it made Kojou Sara's throat tighten.

-0-

"Oh Ei…" Saiguu sighed sadly, cupping her face with her tail to wipe away the tears.

"Of course this isn't real."

Baal's chest felt like it was ballooning with too many emotions to exist, and she clutched onto herself as she tried to stop whatever was causing her this much pain. She pressed her face tightly against the ground and began to shudder, unable to explain to feeling of immense sadness that gripped her heart in that moment.

Was that so wrong? To not accept death? Was that not the privilege of the living, even to those who denied the dying of their own deaths? If death was the only real thing on this cursed world, then life must be the place where impossible things can happen.

She had fought. Hadn't she fought? She had fought for so long. She had fought for them so hard, and yet they still left her.

She heaved and strained against herself, but something in her broke.

When she finally looked up once again, the Tengu, the Oni and the Kitsune stared back, and when they spoke, they spoke as one, and their voices did not break.

"But who is to say you cannot enjoy the euphoria of what could have been, even if it's just a moment?"

-0-

"I hope you can understand what I'm doing," she told them, her heart tight in her chest.

Their ghosts turned to her, invisible to all but to herself, and contemplated her. But they had nothing to say, because they were dead, and she dared not put more words in their mouths for the fear that they would not understand why.

"Because I can." She said, because her reasons... her reasons were for friendship, and she'd stand by such reasons, morally wrong or not, always and without hesitation.

(Eternity was a very long time to be lonely)

Ei only sat down after they had finally vanished.

She did not cry or shake.

'That is just my body's natural response,' she told herself .

It was neither sorrow nor cowardice that drove her actions.

It was simply just proof that she missed her friends.

The rain outside fell harder.

Should I have released an entire chapter based on 1 minute of unspecific lore? No. Should I have made entire personalities based of a picture without any dialogue? Also no. Do I care?

Yes, but I'm still doing it.