A/N:
So, so incredibly sorry for how long it's taken to get back to this! A lot of stuff ended up happening - sib was dealing with a lot of health issues, family tensions got super rough to the point I'm no longer even on speaking terms with my grandpa, uni work, and now trying to plan to move out later this year and having to get everything sorted to make it as smooth a transition as I can.
I can't promise that updates will become more frequent or be on any kind of schedule; but what I can promise is that this story will not be abandoned. If you ever want an update on how it's going - or just to ask me what's up - message me anywhere from Tumblr, Insta, or on Ao3 (I try to get back to stuff here, but I don't know how to navigate replying or messages honestly 😅) ^^
Thank y'all for being patient and for any reviews - I really love getting to see them!
King's eyes were wide, and his voice caught in his throat. But even if he wanted to say anything, he had no words. All he managed was a strangled gasp before he heard the distorted and so, so painfully familiar voice of his baby sister come from the lights.
"Ban, what happened? How did you get that scar?"
She didn't even acknowledge him, the lights tilting slightly to the side but still near Ban, still not moving away from the man who should still be petrified.
Ban scoffed and tilted his head King's way, but didn't actually look at King. His expression was… if King had to name it, he'd say fond, faux annoyance plastered on his face.
"I thought you guys watched over us from the other side?"
"It… it really is her- Elaine!" King choked out, and he was vaguely aware of Ban glancing at him, but King couldn't- he just couldn't be bothered anymore. Not when… "Please, show yourself to me too!"
Ban continued looking at him, and he said something, though King didn't hear it. It wasn't too quiet, but everything suddenly seemed muffled, and all that mattered was Elaine. He had to see her again, make up for his mistakes.
The orbs of light swayed slightly, side to side, as if she were shaking her head. King's heart settled in his throat as tears stung his eyes.
"The Necropolis allows people to see each other even after death, but only through strong emotional bonds."
He looked down, finally tearing his eyes away from the pair. He couldn't help but laugh quietly to himself. "So you're still angry at me… for abandoning you, the forest, and everything we believed in…" King mumbled, feeling the tears collect at the corner of his eyes and trying to blink them away. He clenched his fists, trying to distract himself.
There was an explosion in the distance. The power was almost overwhelmingly familiar, followed by a certainly familiar aura of magic.
"A holy knight?" Ban hissed, whipping around to look in the direction they had come from. King glanced up, seeing the immortal posed to run that way. At this point, King didn't really care.
Elaine's voice stopped them both - Ban from running off, and King from continuing to wallow.
"Ban, why did you come here?"
Ban didn't even turn to face her. He just paused, and even when he began speaking, his face gave nothing away.
"I came to say one thing to you: that I will one day take what is mine."
Despite his expression never changing, King could only imagine what the man meant by that, and his despair over Elaine refusing to let him see her easily morphed into a rage that heated him to his very core.
"What more could you take from my sister, Ban?!" he snapped, but Ban didn't even look at him this time. King ground his teeth together, fingers twitching, calling Chastiefol back and about to transform it.
The only reason he stopped was because of Elaine.
"Thank you, Ban." Her voice was softer than it was before, and King was frozen in his confusion.
Ban didn't wait a second more, running off towards the remnants of the explosion.
Elaine watched her brother drift to the ground, head hanging, the tears finally slipping down his boyish cheeks. She watched impassively, the only thing she would allow herself to feel regarding her brother.
Too many years she had wasted in sorrow and anger and confusion. He didn't deserve more than impassion from her.
"Why?" he was whispering, she realized. "What could Ban give you that I can't? When he's the reason you died?"
She said nothing, but she did drift closer, if only to hear more of what he would say on the things he had no knowledge of.
"How can you forgive Ban?"
How could she forgive him?
What is there to forgive?
Ban didn't do anything to her.
…
Well. That's not true.
Elaine didn't inhale, because she no longer needed to, but she thinks if she still had to breathe she would have. She let go of the impassion, the indifference. And she let the pain in her heart soul boil to the surface as she stared at her big, foolish brother.
"You left," she starts. "You left, and I was forced to spend hundreds of years in solitude." She could hear her voice reverberate off the crystalline walls around them, so far away still. But his breathing had hitched, he was listening, and she could see the moment his heart skipped a beat when she finally addressed him. She could feel the way his heart ached, the pain that plagued it, the pain that he had no right to feel when he left.
The pain was familiar. The pain was her own as much as it was his.
Her next words were clearer, grounded in her instead of around them. His head snapped up.
"Seven hundred years after you abandoned your country, after you abandoned me. And Ban… Ban erased all the loneliness in just seven days. He made those centuries feel like nothing more than a nightmare."
He couldn't find words, his mouth opening and closing but not even a stranged sound could escape. She narrowed her eyes, just slightly. He was still her brother, after all, and she would not allow her rage and hurt caused by him to take over her soul. She would not.
"You ask how I can forgive Ban. But I have to ask, how can I forgive you?"
The anguish on his face didn't bring her any satisfaction. It only sparked a fury in her chest, and she ached with the anger. She took a faux breath, if only to ground herself, and smoothed the glare away, dragging back the indifferent expression to her face.
"You don't know him, brother. You don't know him at all."
Zeldris hauled Meliodas out of the rubble, the brothers hunching behind Gelda a moment later as she blasted one of Guila's incoming attacks.
"We're getting nowhere," Meliodas huffed, "and only being driven back to where Elizabeth ran."
"We're getting somewhere," Zeldris said. "We're being good distractions."
"I wouldn't call you distractions. I haven't forgotten about Princess Elizabeth," Guila said from where she stood on a high crystal that Diane had made in an attempt to attack her. "However, I have no intention of passing up the chance of fighting two of the Seven Deadly Sins." She tilted her head, regarding Gelda and Zeldris with a contemplative frown. "Well, two depowered Sins and their… family, if the reports are to be believed. I must say, it is a mystery as to why two people so seemingly as powerful as the Sins would not have fought alongside them over ten years ago. I must ask-"
"None of your business!" Diane swung a hammer-shaped crystal at the pillar Guila had claimed, forcing the possible holy knight to leap to another. Before she could get her bearings, Diane swung again, aiming for Guila's feet, and again with every move back she forced Guila.
"Interesting," Guila mused on the fifth swing, before twisting her body and propelling herself back on Diane's make-shift hammer. She flipped back and created an explosion beneath herself, bringing her higher than the giant and keeping herself in the air with multiple smaller explosions. The next time Diane swung, there was a warning shout from Zeldris, but it was too late, and Guila blasted the hammer swinging at her with a large ball of flames.
The explosion forced the hammer to swing in reverse, and Diane narrowly avoided being slammed in the head by it, but lost her footing in avoiding the bludgeon. Guila took the opening and barraged her with explosions, and two, three stumbles back, Diane finally crashed.
Guila aimed another explosion at the downed giant, dismissing the fact that Gelda and Zeldris were in front of her. They braced for impact, both Gelda and Zeldris creating a barrier of purple and red flames in front of them and Diane. Guila's frown deepened and brow furrowed. Something about the aura…
It didn't matter. The flames would just bolster her power.
She sent the blast forward.
When it made contact, she expected the explosion to absorb the flames and continue on its path, smashing into the three.
It absorbed the flames.
It did not collide.
She had just a second to dodge her own blast.