Once upon a time there were neighboring kingdoms with a shared border that represented all of the struggles and issues that the rulers on either side faced. On one side was the kingdom of Hoshido, which had an aging king and queen that had been childless in their lives, but had taken in many children from families who could not support them to raise as their own. The other side was home to the kingdom of Nohr, with its king who took many wives in search of the perfect heir to his throne; he was ruthless in his standards and refused to claim a child as his own if they did not fit the bill of his expectations.
The Nohrian king's first wife bore twin girls who were both filled with the spirit that the king wanted his children to carry, but as neither was male he felt that they could not be raised as his heirs. His second wife also bore twins, two boys who would have made for perfect heirs if one hadn't been so helpless at birth, quiet and still compared to his more active brother. Wanting nothing to do with the weaker child, the king had him disposed of near the border, hoping that the hungry would feast on royal flesh and feel fed for once in their lives, and he went back to raise the remaining twin as his first heir, and continued trying for further successors to the throne.
A Hoshidan woman found the abandoned child and took him in for herself, only to find that his skin was marked with a curious symbol—a notation that she recognized as being related to the royal family of Nohr. Instead of trying to get him back over the border to where she felt he belonged, she took him to her own capital city and let her king and queen, elderly as they were, look onto the child and decide that they would raise him as their own, giving the kind woman an infant of similar age from the city to raise. Several years later, this swap proved deadly as the Nohrian king, realizing that he'd given up a child with blood ties to him, went to reclaim what had been his and murdered the woman to take back her son, which was neither hers nor his at all.
The boy was then raised as being the Nohrian prince, different from his supposed twin brother who reveled in doom and gloom, and his three sisters, two older and one younger, who all had devious intentions with their lives. His name was Makoto, the name given to him by his birth parents and had been retained in all of the parenting swaps he'd gone through, and he learned upon turning eighteen years old that he was not the prince he'd been raised to believe he was. This was not news given to his so-called father or siblings, but to him and him alone, by way of a kindly messenger who'd come from Hoshido because she'd had a vision to share with the Nohrian king.
That vision was, in all honesty, a complete lie, and she'd used it to get herself within speaking range of the prince. Makoto didn't believe the truth at first, but after hearing of his stark differences from his siblings (things told to him by his personal servant, as well as the few friends his father had allowed for him to have growing up), he knew that he was not being steered incorrectly and that he needed to leave Nohr at once. Sneaking out was beyond difficult, but he and his friends were able to make it to Hoshido without conflict, and from there getting to the capital to speak to the king and queen was paramount.
In Hoshido, the boy raised as the prince was unaware of his ties to the neighboring country, knowing only that his parents had taken him in because they saw he had the ability to succeed as monarch someday. His name was Hajime, and he was know to his people as the Prince of Hope, and when Makoto and his entourage made it to meet him and his parents, the first thing Makoto said to him was that he'd been raised as one of the Princes of Despair, and that he was there to rebuke that title because it did not belong to him.
Predictably, Hajime did not want to give up his position as prince in Hoshido, the only home he'd ever known, to get a similar role in a different country, a decision that everyone around him seemed to support. He assured his parents that he would stay loyal to them until then end, then sent for a delegation to meet one from Nohr at the border, to discuss the mix-up and set everything straight. The battle that erupted from the meeting was bloody and Makoto and his friends, who'd crossed enemy lines from the family that had raised him, were left in the middle to make a difficult choice: did they turn back to Nohr and try to help the family he'd known get their proper prince back, or did they align with Hoshido and fight to let Hajime retain the crown he'd been raised to wear?
The decision was not an easy one to make, but choosing to stay with the Prince of Hope and fight against the royal children known as the Despair Quartet and all of their friends was what they ultimately went with. There were many sleepless nights, many days spent coming up with risky strategies to try and get an upper-hand in the war that the whole ordeal had started, and many moments where recruiting others into the efforts of the army were necessary. Makoto wasn't much of a tactical leader, but his closest friend Kyoko was, and between her and Hajime they were able to make decent enough plans for their makeshift army to follow.
It was roughly a year after the first blood had been drawn and the army was sitting around their headquarters, nestled in the mountains of Hoshido near the border. "We're never going to get anywhere in these war efforts if we spend all of our time sitting around here," a ninja by the name of Maki grumbled, lobbing one of her shuriken towards the ground and watching it sink right into the dirt. "They should just let me lead things from here, I know how to get right into the heart of Nohr."
"Y'know, that wouldn't sound so bad if it wasn't immediately going to get us killed," her companion, a fighter named Kaito, said in reply, knowing that they'd rescued her on one of their few excursions into Nohrian territory, after she'd gotten trapped in a winless situation with one of the Despair Quartet. "I love ya, Maki Roll, but maybe we should listen to the leaders here, they should know what's best for us."
"Don't tell me you love me," she snapped in reply, getting off of her makeshift chair to retrieve her shuriken. "That's sappy shit that I don't have time for in the middle of a war."
There was a tapping noise across the room, and both of them looked to see Kyoko and Hajime giving one of their strategy meetings, which were easy enough to ignore when they weren't talking about anything interesting. "Shouldn't the two of you be paying attention?" Makoto asked them, coming up behind them both and nearly earning a shuriken to the face for his sudden appearance. "H-hey, I'm just asking, it's kind of important that everyone knows what the new plan is, just in case…"
"Just in case what?" Maki asked, huffing as she took her seat back. "We're not going to be attacking them straight-on, so I don't know what good there is for all of us knowing the plan right now."
"If you were listening you'd already know what the 'just in case' is," another voice pointed out, belonging to a small mage sitting a little bit over from them, her hat in her hands and her eyes looking sleepy. "Kyoko's talking about some kind of magic stuff even I've never heard of."
"That's right, Himiko! They're called Deeprealms," Makoto said, smiling over at the mage only to see her turn her head and stare in boredom at the presentation still happening. "Since a…lot of our army members have started getting romantically involved, Kyoko thought it was about time that we talked about these with everyone, just in case someone needs to use one of them."
Maki stared blankly at Makoto, while Kaito was tapping the side of his head in thought, trying to recall something right on the tip of his tongue. "Yeah, I've heard about these Deeprealms before," he told them, sounding proud of himself even though Maki turned her stare towards him in response. "Aren't they, like, magic places that people don't actually understand? Or is it that I just don't understand them?"
"Wouldn't surprise me if it's the second option," Maki muttered under her breath.
Kaito must not have noticed what she'd said, but Makoto certainly did, as he shook his head at her. "No, most people don't understand how they work, and we don't really either. We did find that sometimes time goes slower in them than it does outside, and other times it's way faster, and either way we can make them work for us."
"How are we supposed to make use of those?" Kaito asked, and for once Maki was thankful that he put the question out there because she was curious herself, even with her negative attitude towards things. "Wouldn't that mess up our war efforts?"
"If they're not used correctly, sure, but I'm positive that everyone here would use them as intended! I bet Kyoko could answer more questions about them, since that's really all that I know." He shrugged and continued going around the room, leaving the pair to look between each other in confusion, both feeling the same way about being clueless regarding what the Deeprealms were supposed to do for them.
It became a bit clearer a few weeks later, after they'd all gathered back in the Hoshidan capital for a wedding, a ceremony held in the castle but in relative secrecy, as the Prince of Hope took on a bride that had been with him since the start, a girl from the capital that he'd gotten to grow up with. Everyone in the army was happy that one of their leaders had gotten married, but it raised more questions than answers—especially after the couple disappeared not long after the ceremony, leaving for one night but coming back acting like they'd been gone for longer. That was the power of the Deeprealms, everyone learned: getting to sneak away for personal reasons and not impacting time in the real world too much, and Hajime and Chiaki's getaway was their first example of the realms that sped up time.
Now that they had witnessed the first wedding between members of the army, more quickly followed, and soon it was impossible to get anywhere without finding at least one person who'd been married during their time in the war. That was also true for Maki and Kaito, even though they'd skipped the actual ceremony part of things and had gotten the army's shrine maiden to quickly marry them together, but they tried not to act like they'd done something so drastic without everyone knowing. They even forewent the now-traditional time spent together in a Deeprealm just to maintain the sense of normalcy that everyone expected from the two of them.
The second example of the realm that sped up time came months later, when a visibly frantic Makoto was trying to direct everyone to follow rules as they made a march from their headquarters to a battle outpost closer to the Nohrian capital. "Isn't it a bit weird that he's the one in charge right now?" Maki asked Kaito under her breath, knowing that she should've been acting stealthily somewhere else in the corps while he was lugging his axe along with him. "Usually it's Kyoko or Hajime, and neither of them are here today…"
"It is weird, now that you point it out," Kaito replied, scanning the army for any sign of either person she'd mentioned and not finding them. "I hope everything's okay, usually we get told when someone's sitting back and I don't think I heard a thing about this one."
"Yeah, hopefully everything's okay." The last Maki recalled hearing about Hajime was someone talking about him needing to be back at the capital for the queen as her health was fading, but that had been weeks before and she hadn't heard word since. Kyoko, on the other hand, had been around before they'd left, and now she'd simply disappeared into thin air. "Actually…I think I have an idea where at least one of them is, but it's stupid and I'm not sure I want to say it."
The wording didn't faze Kaito, not even when he remembered that it wasn't typical of Maki to act that way. "Hit me with it, Maki Roll. I'm ready for whatever it is."
"Well, the prince is probably still with his family, even if it's weird he's been there that long with no word, but Kyoko? What if she's in a Deeprealm?" She hated that her mind had jumped to the conclusion that it had, but the pieces were coming together and she had little reason to doubt them. "Think about it, Kaito, we're being led by Makoto, who doesn't know the first thing about helming this army. He's panicking, and all we're doing is marching. Something's going on with Kyoko and he's freaking out about it, and I'm willing to bet she's in a Deeprealm to handle it."
He nodded along with the reasoning, but the conclusion didn't seem to jive well in Kaito's mind. "I don't get what she'd need to be there for. Did she get hurt or something? I could've sworn she was out flinging spells just yesterday and everything was fine…"
"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think she's manipulating time with the Deeprealm. I think she's hiding there because she's…because she…" The pieces were all there in order, but Maki couldn't stomach the thought of saying what she'd concluded and being dead wrong, and accusing one of the leaders of the army of such a thing. "You know what? Never mind, it's the stupidest thing I've ever thought, and I've had to try to rationalize a lot of your dumb antics."
She was darting off to somewhere else within marching order before Kaito had the chance to ask her what she meant by any of that. When they got to the outpost there were members of the Nohrian army waiting for them, which they were able to dispose of with relative ease given how large their fighting force was, but as they battled Kaito himself noticed some strange things about their army. There were people who were almost always present that were missing, strong fighters and tactical minds alike, and even in the heat of the battle he found himself unable to locate where the man who'd led them there had gotten off to. After taking care of a couple lance-wielders he ran over to where Himiko had positioned herself, getting her to cover for him in battle while he kept looking around for faces he didn't see.
There was Maki, across the outpost, stealthily taking out enemies from the cover of a bush that she was small enough to fit into. Obviously he knew where he was, and Himiko was right there with him, and he was able to name off several others that he was used to seeing fighting on their side. But Hajime was still gone, as was Kyoko, and he couldn't locate Makoto to save his life, even though he did see Chiaki, so whatever had the prince gone was not bad enough to require her presence. He felt like he could breathe easier knowing that things weren't as bad as they could have been, but the missing people were still a problem.
Once the battle had concluded and the outpost could be considered held by the Hoshidan army, he and Maki met back up to discuss what they'd noticed. She claimed to have been focused more on fighting than keeping tabs on people, teasing him for admitting to relying on Himiko rather than his own brute strength, but when he told her that he'd lost sight of Makoto during the ordeal she visibly flushed. "Y-yeah, that fits right in with my idea of where Kyoko is," she admitted, shrinking back and looking much smaller than she usually did. "I'm sorry, Kaito, but I don't want to spread baseless rumors about our commander, of all people. You'll have to wait until—"
"Did you hear?" Bounding over to them with her own axe in hand, Kaito's female fighter counterpart Tenko looked disgusted towards him before giving Maki the biggest smile. "They're hopefully having their baby soon!"
"What?" Kaito loudly, rudely asked, while Maki gave a sigh of relief, certain that she knew what it pertained to and that she'd been right all along. "Who's out here having a baby? In war? I've gotta give 'em a piece of my mind!"
"Kyoko and Makoto are," Maki said, before Tenko was able to get a word out, but her eager nodding only proved the hypothesis. "That's why we saw her before but not during the march, and why he disappeared. They're using one of those Deeprealms, aren't they?"
"Himiko's tried explaining the magic behind them to me and they make no sense, but apparently they're gonna have the kid in the one they first found, then move them to another where they can live safely until they're old enough to be wrapped up in war." Tenko shrugged, unsure if her own relaying of what she'd heard was correct. "I mean, the degenerate should've thought twice about making a kid in this kind of time, but I get it, they get bored and lonely when we're not planning battles. It was bound to happen."
As Tenko jumped away to pass on the information to the next group she came across, Maki turned to look at Kaito and his passionate expression, the way he looked like he was about to throw hands with the next person who talked to him funny. "That's what I wasn't sure about telling you," she explained, "and now you get why I didn't want to mention it. You clearly have some thoughts about the whole thing, and I—"
"No one told me that you could start making babies during this war and cause zero problems with it," he said to her, stopping her mid-sentence. "If I'd known that…well, I don't know what I would've done with the information but it would've been neat to know!"
"—Kaito, I'm not having your child in the middle of war. Stealth's my thing, remember?" Sure, they could make use of the time speeding powers of Deeprealms to make it a much easier process, but Maki had yet to step foot in one of them and she wasn't completely sold on how they worked, even if everyone else seemed to believe in them. "You wouldn't catch me dead having a kid out here."
Fate had a funny way of dealing with someone who spoke in absolute statements, similar to giving someone a rude gesture in the midst of conversation. Several weeks after the outpost battle, after everyone had returned to the army for better or for worse, the discussion was raised about what was going to happen then. "We'll have to go check on him sooner rather than later," Kyoko said, in reference to what everyone knew was the child she and Makoto had been trying to keep secret. "If we wait too long, we'll have lost his whole life without getting to spend a moment of it with him."
"His Deeprealm's closer to the headquarters, so we'll have to head back to make this work, but…" Makoto sighed, shaking his head. "I've heard a lot of rumors about Deeprealms being overtaken by thugs without anyone knowing. We should bring a few extra people with us, just in case there's any threats."
The general consensus among the army was that they'd all make the trip and the selection of who would get to go into the Deeprealm would be made along the way, to speed things up. It was strange doubling back as a whole during such a crucial part of the campaign, but it was deemed necessary and so they all went, with lively spirits the whole way. The entrance to the realm was somewhere in the mountains that the parents seemed familiar with, but looked like just another trailhead to everyone else, and it was there that the assignments for who stayed and who went were given.
As one of the people selected to go, for her reliance on stealth in battle, just in case scouting was needed, Maki felt nerves begin to build up in her chest before the entrance to the realm opened up. "You're going to be fine in there, promise," Kaito assured her, giving her a small nuzzle on the top of the head (even though everyone knew they were together, it was no secret when they shared a tent or bed every night). "If you're not, I'll go in there and take care of things for you."
She weakly smiled, before the command to enter was given as the portal opened in front of all of them. Stepping through the boundary was completely bizarre, and she wouldn't have recommended it to anyone, but no sooner than when she gotten onto the other side, her and everyone else who'd entered finding themselves in a small village rather than the mountains, did she start feeling physically miserable. Every breath felt like it was going to be her last, her whole body feeling weak and sickly as she stood completely still, while everyone else was beginning to push forward into the village. It was Kyoko who turned around to see who their straggler was, and when she saw that Maki seemed frozen in place, she ran back to her, telling everyone else to continue on. "You need to get out of here," Kyoko sternly said, gesturing towards the spot they'd entered in for the portal to reappear. "Right now, get out before this hurts you any more than it already has."
"H-hurts me?" Maki asked, barely able to speak without succumbing to the feeling that she needed to expel everything that was inside of her body. "I don't understand, Kyoko."
"Just…go! Now!" Being commanded to do something by someone with such power was not anything Maki wanted to argue against, and she managed to make her way out of the portal and back to the waiting army in the mountains, feeling mostly the same once she was taking in the crisp air she'd been used to inhaling.
The murmurs that rose in the group were able to be heard but not able to be understood, as Maki found herself stumbling into the closest patch of trees and bushes, falling to her knees and beginning retching. She'd never felt so helpless in her life, and she swore she would've been fine if she hadn't stepped foot inside that Deeprealm. "Hey, uh, Maki Roll, what's going on right here?" she heard Kaito asking her, but she didn't have the strength to give him a reply, hoping that the sounds of her being sick would be enough to give him a clue.
When he found her, he immediately crouched down beside her and rest a hand on her back, massaging it as well as he could. He stayed with her in silence until she seemed to be finished getting sick, and once she raised her head he moved so that he could help her to her feet, keeping his eyes strangely locked on her face. "Let me guess, I'm a mess," she said, noticing where his gaze was focused. "It's the damn Deeprealm, I go into one one time and…this happens to me."
"Yeah, uh, not gonna lie, you are a mess, but…" He was trying to smile, but she could notice that tears were forming at the corners of his eyes, which was incredibly strange for Kaito, of all people. "Maki Roll, how long have you known?"
"How long have I known what?" She was still feeling weak from getting sick, so she chalked up her stupidity in the situation to that, but when Kaito grabbed her hands and moved them to that they were cradling a tiny stomach bump she hadn't had when she'd entered the Deeprealm, she immediately knew what he was referring to and wanted to scream. "Well now everything makes perfect sense, now doesn't it?" she asked out loud, mostly for herself because he certainly didn't know what she was referring to. "No wonder she wanted me out of there as fast as she did, who knows what would've happened if I'd stayed too long."
He was actually crying, now wrapping her up in a hug that squeezed her a bit too tightly for her liking. "You mean you didn't know before you went inside? You mean this is us finding this out right now? You mean that—"
"Stop sounding so excited, but yes. That's all what I mean."
"—we're gonna be parents, Maki! We've got to figure all this stuff out before anything else happens, I can't believe that it's happening though and that's amazing!" He really was excited, even though she was radiating anger at what they'd allowed themselves to get into, yet no matter how upset she was about their current situation, she couldn't fully put down his excitement. At least it wouldn't be any sort of a surprise to anyone else in the army that they'd gotten themselves entrenched in the baby-making business, even though she'd always been so insistent that anything of the sort would wait until after the war.
They stayed there in the bushes until they heard everyone else come back through the portal, re-entering their world from the Deeprealm, but before either of them could leave where they'd been talking about the daunting prospects waiting for them, Kyoko came into view, looking frantic and concerned. "Why did you allow yourself to enter with us if you knew you were with child?" she asked, the concern in her voice evident. "We've warned this entire army about doing that and how it can end up being detrimental."
"If I'd known I would've said something about it," Maki replied, not exactly comfortable with the fact that it was business that everyone would be discussing now, but knowing that there wasn't anything that could be done to prevent that. "I had no idea that anything was going on until I was inside the Deeprealm, then you had me get out when you did." Perhaps she had known something was amiss, deep down inside her, based on how apprehensive she'd been to be part of the group to enter, but that had felt like a fear of approaching an unknown place. "What did you mean by that, by the way? Something hurting me more than it already had?"
"Deeprealms are strange places that none of us are quite sure about the specific workings of, we just know what we've been told unless we've experienced it ourselves." Kyoko turned to look out at where everyone else was still gathered, before looking back at the couple and shaking her head. "Time has strange effects on people when you're inside them. For the most part, you won't feel anything different, but at certain stages of your life it does seem to have a more pronounced effect on you, as we can see with what happened to you while inside."
"Y-yeah, I had no idea that…this was a thing." Motioning towards that tiny stomach bump that she'd not known to expect, which Kaito had yet to stop holding onto even though he had no reason for it, Maki watched Kyoko nod in understanding. "So I guess that's that, then. I know not to enter any Deeprealms for a while, but then what? You've been through it, you can tell me how it works, right?"
The grimace that made its way to Kyoko's face was a clear indication of how little she actually wanted to assist with anything, despite being in a position of command over the army. "As far as I know, it works a bit differently for everyone. I spent quite a bit of time isolating myself within various Deeprealms over the course of several days, making sure that I was here when I needed to be before disappearing to get things over faster, but I did end up spending actual months by myself, just to keep the burden of bearing a child in this time to a minimum. I'm not sure that's what you wanted to hear, though."
"Honestly? I didn't want to ever hear about any of this because I needed to know it. Let's just…discuss this some other time, I'm sure everyone wants to get back to the headquarters or something." There was no arguing there, even though Kyoko made it obvious she was not going to be much help in discussing the matter going forward, and the three of them rejoined the main group, everyone trying to ignore what had happened when they'd watched Maki fall from the portal and keep their distance from her, just to not irritate her. The walk back to base felt longer than it would have otherwise, but once they'd returned everyone was going their separate ways as they waited to piece together what was going to come next for them all.
Over the coming weeks, more military action was taken and they once again returned to the command post in Nohr to try and push further into enemy territory. Even with the clearly judgmental looks she was getting from everyone she fought alongside, Maki made sure that she did not give up her place in the army, not flinching from getting close to the front lines as an attempt to distract and stop approaching enemies from a distance. With every battle came the need to regroup and figure out what to do next, whether it was backtrack again and look at things from the safety of home, or to keep pushing forward, and as the months went on the army began making more and more decisive moves to put a stop to the conflict once and for all. As they went deeper into Nohrian territory, it became a bit of an issue that they had someone in their ranks who should not have still been with them, but no one was going to try telling her that, not when she hadn't lost even a bit of her deadly accuracy with her weapons despite everything else going on.
It was nearly half a year since the incident with the Deeprealm when, in the middle of their march on to the next battlefield, which would put them right outside the Nohrian capital, just within striking range of the end of the war, one of the other higher-ups of the army dropped back on his horse to speak to the pair of stragglers taking up the rear. "I'm not saying this to you as someone who the leaders trust," Shuichi said, giving a timid glance in Kaito's direction before looking at Maki, "but as someone who cares about you both. I think maybe it'd be best if you chose to sit this next battle out, in case—"
"I'm not sitting anything out," Maki snapped, having figured that he'd come just to tell her that exact thing. It wasn't every day that the person Kyoko had decided to take under her wing (a decision made in the aftermath of a couple nearly failed battles when she'd been distracted with other things, namely her now-grown child trying to fight for himself) decided to come talk to them, even though he was their friend. "I know you all think I'm endangering myself by continuing to fight but when's the last time someone hit me in battle? Before all this happened. There's nothing to worry about."
"—yes, I know that, but…" Sighing, Shuichi let his horse rear up before charging forward, only to turn to try blocking the two in, grabbing a tome to hold in case he needed to get more intimidating. "I should have done it this way from the start. You're sitting the next battle out to give yourself time to breathe, because the commanders need you back to normal sooner rather than later. I've already found somewhere for you to go, and if all goes well then you'll be back with us tomorrow."
What he was talking about hit them both at the same time, and Maki's immediate instinct was to try and run past the horse to get away from his news. There was a reason she'd let things go on for as long as she had, and there was no way that anyone was going to force her into a Deeprealm, as just the thought of entering one had made her heart start racing. Kaito grabbed her before she could charge, holding her in place with his arms wrapped around her as tightly as he could. "Let's just go ahead and follow him, it's gotta be done for the good of everyone," he said, looking at Shuichi and watching his friend nod slowly. "I'm sure he's heard enough about how badly this needs to happen."
"I can't believe you're going to make me do this," Maki spat, trying to get out of Kaito's grasp but being unable to do so, her heavily pregnant body obnoxious to maneuver in such tight confines. "I'm perfectly fine, I can still fight and I've been fighting like everyone else for months! Just because everyone else backed out and went into the Deeprealms to get back to fighting form faster doesn't mean I need to!"
At once, both men had one thing to say to her: "Maki, you need to stop." Kaito's words were said with concern, but Shuichi's were said with more of a forceful tone behind them, a voice that he rarely used. He was the one who continued to speak as they moved on, away from the group as a whole. "I'm not going to act like I understand why you're so against going into Deeprealms, but we've had to do so many battles inside them as of late and not being able to call on you to help has been rough. If you would've just taken care of this sooner you would have been able to beat down quite a few stubborn enemies trying to attack the army's children, but instead…"
That had been a big part of why it had taken them six months to get so close to the capital, because every few weeks they were having to reroute the entire army to fend off attackers in someone's child's Deeprealm. "Instead I savored my time not committing crimes against the universe by manipulating everything in one of those realms," Maki indignantly told him, feeling Kaito's grip on her tighten just based on her fighting words. "I'm not going into a Deeprealm, not now and not ever."
"H-hey wait a minute, I have an idea! What if I go in with you? Will that make it easier for you to handle bein' in there, if I'm by your side?" Kaito's suggestion was well-received by one of the two he was with, but as that one was Shuichi he wasn't given the reaction he was hoping for. Maki responded by throwing her head back into him, hitting his throat and making him cough and sputter for a moment, but his grip did not loosen. "C'mon, Maki Roll, you've gotta just go through with this. It's for the best of everyone, whether you wanna think it is or not."
Her protests continued for as long as they walked, but when they came to the flower-filled ravine that Shuichi was leading them towards, she quieted down, although her feelings on the matter had not changed. "Here it is," he said, pointing a hand towards an empty side of the former riverbank. "Kyoko wasn't thrilled when she found out it'd be in Nohrian territory, and so far from the border, but she allowed for it to happen anyway. I'll open the portal, the two of you go inside and…I'll see you when you come back out."
One moment the riverbank was bare, dirt and rocks that had been forsaken by the water that had once roared against it, and then the next had it shining with a portal that made Maki's whole body begin to ache. She couldn't find the words inside herself to explain why she was so against going inside, opening her mouth to only find air, but Kaito wasn't going to wait for her to say anything at all. He lifted her up off her feet (even with her larger form he was able to do it easily) and together they went inside, Shuichi waiting until they'd disappeared to take a guarding position in front of the remnant portal.
He waited for a couple hours before a similar sight came back out, the biggest difference being how Maki had almost entirely returned to looking how she had before anything had happened. "I'm going to assume it all went well in there?" he asked, noticing the couple didn't seem overenthusiastic or even emotional at all, prompting him to follow up with, "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"It went fine, now let's just go back to where the army's staying so we can act like nothing happened at all." There was a sense of exhaustion in Maki's voice when she spoke, and based on how she was leaning against Kaito after he'd set her down on her own two feet it was clear that she'd not gotten much rest while inside the Deeprealm. "We'll talk about what happened some other time, maybe when everyone's around to hear it so we don't have to say it more than once."
"That's fair," he conceded, tucking the book he'd been reading to pass the time back into his horse's saddlebag. "Go ahead and close the portal and then you can hop on the horse with me, I'm sure Kaito can handle the walk back." The concept of them closing the portal themselves was odd, but Maki found it easy to just hold her hand up to the shimmering light and watch it slip away, as if she was the only one who had the power to do it. She was then helped up onto the back of the horse and before they'd even gotten out of the ravine she was dozing off, getting sleep she'd missed in the weeks they'd been inside the Deeprealm.
Everything made perfect sense in why she was told it would be best for her to sit the next battle out, because she couldn't remember making it back to their base camp for the night, nor did she wake up when they were rallying the troops for the day's fight. When she did wake up it was to an almost barren camp, the members of the army left behind all doing their own things. Maki had gotten used to being one of the ones that stuck back, although it was usually by choice due to where the fighting was taking place, but it was strange to not be included in such a major battle. She saw that Himiko was still around, sitting and practicing some of her spells on a plant, so she went over to her to strike up conversation.
While they were talking, a couple of the children that had gotten pulled out of Deeprealms when they'd been invaded came by, and just the sight of the two blonde girls distracted Maki from whatever she'd been saying. "Himiko, you don't think everyone's going to have two children during this damn war, do you?" she asked, watching the sisters until they disappeared into the forest. "I don't think I could go through that again, especially not now."
"It seems like it's a rare thing." Himiko replied, her eyes not having lifted from the plant she'd infused with wind magic, the petals on its flowers spinning like windmills. "I would think you have nothing to worry about."
"I hope I don't, or else we might be down an axe-wielder." Maki was insistent her fear wasn't going to come true on her watch, even though she'd been helpless to prevent the other thing she hadn't wanted to see happen; she made it very clear to Kaito that if they were ever going to have another child, it would have to be after the war when she wouldn't need to go inside a Deeprealm. He was receptive to the idea of waiting, knowing very well what had happened on the first go-round, and that was where they left it, her thinking she'd be able to finish the war without needing to go inside another one of those cursed spaces again.
That discussion happened during a long trek back towards Hoshido, where they'd been told the Despair Quartet had taken hold of the capital to try and dissuade the army from overtaking Nohr as a whole. While they were on their way, they'd taken a night to tell everyone about what had happened between them inside their own Deeprealm, and while most everyone was happy with the news, there was one person who wasn't quite as joyful. "I suppose that means we should go rescue the child now before we're done with Nohr overall," Kyoko mused, shooting a pointed glare in Shuichi's direction because she'd known of his involvement. "I'm not certain it'll have been enough time for the child to be of age to fight in this army, but I'd rather we bring them along than abandon them forever."
"Actually, I was sort of hoping we'd get back to her later," Maki said, causing a hushed silence to fall over the group. "What? We all know how I feel about going in those places, this shouldn't be any sort of a surprise."
"Coming into Nohr after this war is over may not be an option, Maki," Hajime replied, having been the one to get intimately familiar with the law codes and the terms necessary to end the war. "You could be hunted for being part of the Hoshidan army, and if that happens then no one can rescue the child. We'll need to do it now."
"And I'm saying we're not going to. She'll be fine in there until after everything, then I'll come get her myself. I'm plenty stealthy, I can do it on my own." Even with that reminder, the decision was made that they'd go get the child from her Deeprealm before heading back to Hoshido, perhaps permanently, and so the next day that journey took place.
The ravine was still as pristine and flowery as it had been when they'd left it weeks before, and both Maki and Kaito felt themselves being drawn to the spot where their child's portal could be opened. As Maki did the honors of opening it, the army behind her figuring out who would go in to assist in case of attack, something struck Kaito and put him into a panic. "There's a chance something's gone wrong and I've gotta…no, I need to be the one to put a stop to it!" he shouted, jumping into the shimmering light the first chance he could.
"Go, chase him down and make sure he doesn't do anything reckless!" Kyoko ordered, and Maki reluctantly nodded, giving the portal a sour expression before she stepped inside of it. Like the first time she'd entered, she was put down into a world where the ravine was flowing with water, flower petals drifting across the surface, and she immediately was on edge being inside the place yet again.
Unsure of how long it had been in the Deeprealm since she'd last been there, she chose to go towards the place she'd ultimately chosen as the spot to give birth to her child, somewhere deep in the grove of vine-covered trees that bordered a little village. They'd only learned about the village after the fact, carrying with them a bloodied newborn that needed to be cleaned up and properly dressed, who they gave up to a milkmaid in one of the homes who said she'd raise the child until they returned. Going to the village would have made more sense, but an irrational train of thought had overtaken Maki's mind and she was not going to ignore it for anything.
It was Kaito's voice that she heard as she got close to the bramble where their baby had taken her first breaths, and even though she knew it belonged to him, she still had shuriken at the ready to attack with. At the bramble she saw him sitting down, his axe draped across his lap and his eyes shifted down towards it. "I failed," he said, oddly solemnly for his usually exuberant personality. "There were a bunch of bandits in the village and I couldn't hit a single one of 'em. I just…missed every swing I took. Bet they've already hurt her, if not killed her. What kind of father am I, lettin' that happen?"
"Bandits?" Maki repeated, not wanting to let herself linger on the negative parts of what Kaito had said. "We've got to stop them. Everyone else'll go right to the village, I'm sure, so we can meet them there." She offered him a hand to get back to his feet, and while he didn't seem enthusiastic about having to go try fighting again they both ran towards the village, finding it simply crawling with thugs and bandits alike. After giving Kaito a judgmental look asking if he'd really attempted to take down that many enemies on his own, Maki prepared to start fighting as they waited for the rest of their allies, but she hesitated on throwing the first shuriken when she saw someone dressed completely different from the bandits running in their direction, axe held high over their head as they charged.
As the person got closer they began to make out more about them, seeing their long, nearly black hair trailing out behind them, their determined expression as they ran, the way that they couldn't have been more than a meter and a half tall, if even that much—the way she threw their axe aside as she charged straight into hugging Kaito, him staring down at the girl with his jaw dropping fast. "Daddy! You came to save me!" the girl's voice called, as she turned her head up to look into her father's wide eyes. "I was beginning to worry that you weren't coming back, but you're here!"
"I am here, yeah," he replied, mouthing to Maki about how he was being hugged by their daughter. "And we're gonna protect you, my sweet Tsukia. I promise you won't have to fight anyone ever."
"But I want to fight? I just can't take everyone on my own!" Tsukia laughed, pulling herself off of him and brushing down her clothes, which were decorated in stars sewn into the fabric. "I was minding my own, watching the clouds on the rooftops when these guys started causing trouble, and since I'm your kid I knew I'd have to be the hero and protect everyone."
"That's cute, she thinks she has to be the hero." Maki smiled at the girl, who pursed her lips together before running to grab her axe, which looked to be just as well-worn as her father's, brandishing it like she was about to attack. "Whoa there, don't you know who I am?"
She paused, looking Maki over from head to toe, before laughing. "Of course I do, Mommy! I'm just playing around! Do you want a hug too, or are we gonna stop wasting time and get to fighting? I can't let my home get destroyed!"
"We can protect this place first," she decided, watching Tsukia give a little bounce before turning and running back towards the village, ignoring when both of her parents yelled for her to stop and wait. "Oh god, that girl is exactly like you, Kaito. What did we do to cause that to happen?"
"I don't know, but I'm not lettin' them hurt her!" Doing exactly as the girl had before him, Kaito at least blew Maki a kiss before he was heading into the heart of the village, seemingly to protect Tsukia from getting hurt by the bandits that had already tried to show him who was boss. She shook her head, wanting to follow suit but knowing that reinforcements were on their way, and so she waited for their arrival.
Catching everyone up on what was going on was easy, but watching them all shift uncomfortably when she mentioned that the child that they'd be fighting alongside was both eager to get her hands dirty and exactly like Kaito in terms of recklessness was a lot harder. The battle plans were made and everyone descended upon the village, but Maki hung back after seeing Shuichi giving her a pleading expression. "What do you want?" she asked him once they were there alone, hopping on the back of his horse so they could talk and move easily. "I know that look you were giving me."
"What does it feel like knowing you brought a child just like Kaito into this world?" he replied, voicing the same question she had before, although in a less joking and fun way. "I mean, I get it, you've seen my children and how they're basically clones, and Kyoko's been chasing around a kid as clueless as his father seems to be, but…Kaito. And now we have two of him."
"In the five seconds we talked to her, Tsukia didn't seem to be that bad." Maki knew she wasn't going to be able to give a full defense of the girl, barely knowing her. "I bet she's just excited to be showing off for her dad, that's all."
"I'll be hopeful with you on that. Now we should get closer to the action, I'm the only one with healing skill here right now and if anyone's dying it'll be on my shoulders." Shuichi prodded his horse to move them faster, and they rode into the thick of the battle, seeing bandits getting disposed of left and right by the highly-skilled army that had come to fight them. Once they were in a good spot to help everyone at a distance, Maki jumped off the horse's back and they began attacking with their ranged weapons, but all she could think about was how she couldn't see her husband or daughter in the thick of the battle.
Right as she began to fear the worst for them both, she heard a loud, bellowing cry and a much higher one, and out from one of the houses came both Kaito and Tsukia, swinging their axes at anyone in their range. "That looks less like them showing off and more like them being cut from the same cloth," Shuichi remarked, also having seen the display, and never before in her life had Maki wanted to disappear than in that moment. She hadn't known that all of her life's mistakes leading up to that point would end in her having a child as off-the-wall as her father, but that was exactly what had happened.
After the battle had concluded and the village was cleared of everyone causing trouble, the group made their way to the exit of the Deeprealm, Tsukia hanging onto her father's every word that he spoke. No one said anything to the girl or Kaito, but many comments on their similarities were made to Maki, who felt herself shrinking back with every additional remark about them. Everyone seemed to think that having the two together in the same army would be a nightmare (because Tsukia had declared herself ready to fight for whatever her father thought was right, and since she was a teenager by means of the realm's magic she wasn't going to be turned away), but no one was going to be the one to say it wasn't allowed to happen. Even Kyoko and Hajime weren't going to involve themselves in making that decision, because they'd let every other child come into the folds of the Hoshidan army, including their own.
In the end, the war was won by a fighting force made up of a bunch of young adults and their teenage children, some of which took being in the war seriously and some of which thought it was nothing but a game to be played. The Nohrian royal family was subdued and dismantled, leaving only one of the princesses left to take her spot as the new Queen of Nohr, and she assured everyone that she wouldn't cause any further issues. Hoshido's current rulers stepped aside to let Hajime take the throne, meaning that both kingdoms were ruled by siblings of the same blood and that the divisions that had been created before could begin to heal much easier.
Those who'd taken up fighting for Hoshido settled into normal lives after that, finding their own places in the world to call their own. Maki didn't give up living a life that relied on her stealth, even though she didn't need to worry too much about ambushes and fighting anymore, but she did make sure that whatever she did, her boisterous, hero-minded family came with her. Together the three became known as protectors of the highlands, and if anyone dared cause trouble they'd either meet a well-aimed shuriken to the face, or a barrage of dual axes swung by the father-daughter pair known as the Luminaries of the Stars.
A/N: oh boy a lot of creative decisions went into this Fates AU
1) I kept the names Nohr and Hoshido because at the end of the day, a clean reading experience felt worth more than stylistic choices.
2) I made some interesting class/character choices if only because the classes I wanted weren't available to me (hence why Shuichi is a healing class)
3) there's a lot of things that I decided on that went unused here, so I'll gladly talk your ear off about them
4) I hate babyrealms but