Once Again, Messing Up

"Why don't I tell you something about me now?" asked Keith, once Elea had calmed down after 10 minutes of weeping.

"Hmm" Elea nodded, sitting once again in front of Keith, nodded.

"I am probably going to die when I'm out of here" confessed Keith, making Elea widen her eyes in alarm. "There is a very angry woman I provoked, and even mocked a bit before coming here."

"Why would you do that?" asked Elea, relieved that Keith's 'death' was simply metaphorical.

"She wanted to punish me, so I escaped" explained Keith. "But my accomplice had been her ally from the start, and shamelessly betrayed me and took away my treasure. I was pissed off but had no grounds to argue with this woman as she had gotten quite hurt to help me, so when I felt dizzy and knew I would arrive here, I... vented a little."

"So basically, you are running away from your punishment" summarized Elea, receiving a nod. "Why run away? You are just going to make it worse."

"Yes, but better suffer more later than less now" said Keith, receiving a blank stare that showed what Elea thought of it. "I will only need to endlessly run away from punishment, that way it will never find me."

"That's stupid" was all Elea had to say about that. "It's like asking for a loan to pay for another loan. Your debt will never stop increasing, until you are left with nothing."

"But I had nothing to start with" argued Keith. "I'm pretty sure the punishment that woman had for me was more than I could take. I was living on borrowed time anyway, why don't make as much time as you can?"

"What did you even do to make that woman angry?" asked Elea, who knew would never understand Keith's reasoning.

"I was training with my teacher, who lost his marbles and unleashed an attack that would have bisected me, and she used her power to make my frozen ass jump to one side to more or less avoid it, but the backlash of doing so rendered her unconscious for a week" replied Keith with a calm voice.

"...." Elea didn't know what to say to that, there were too many things wrong in a single sentence. But there was one thing she caught. "What did you do while she was unconscious? Escape?"

"Of course not, I don't think I gave you reasons to think that way" replied Keith with a frown.

"You were the one saying you escaped" noted Elea, making Keith close his mouth.

"Touched" Keith admitted defeat readily. "But no, the escape came later. I stood by her side for the whole week, and I only left when I knew she was going to wake up."

"You still ran away" remarked Elea.

"Of course. I don't think I gave you reasons to think I wouldn't" replied Keith.

"Sigh, never mind" Elea sighed, realizing that as much sense as Keith's bits of advice made, his head also worked in mysterious ways. "Why did your teacher try to kill you? My mother said that miscalculating your strength is the show of an inexperienced swordsman, or the proof that you were not ready to be one."

"Heh, what would your mother know?" asked Keith with a smirk that made Elea frown. "Just so you know, my teacher is far better than yours."

"That's impossible" Elea instantly denied the statement, and vehemently shook her head. "My mother is the best swordswoman in the world."

"But my teacher" Keith made a dramatic pause, in which Elea only frowned more. "Is immortal."

"...what?" asked the shocked child.

"As you heard it, he is immortal" repeated Keith, obtaining amusement from arguing against a 7-year-old child. "Your mother can't beat him."

"How can he be immortal?" asked an unconvinced Elea. "That's impossible."

"In your world, maybe" Keith shrugged. "But when you eat the still 'alive' corpse of a being who carries the will of an Aeon, everything might happen. Oh....maybe I shouldn't have said that."

"Bleeergh"

The idea of consuming a still-moving 'corpse' was too much for a child with a vivid imagination.

"Never mind how, my teacher is immortal" said Keith, patting Elea's back. "So your mother can't beat him."

"That... doesn't mean... he is a better teacher" said Elea.

And Keith realized that indeed, that was true.

"And the fact that you allowed a person who could eat a- bllergh!!.. corpse to teach you says a lot about how dumb you are" said Elea, with a pale face after vomiting again.

"In his defence, an immortal life is not easy" said Keith. "But there is only one way to know who is right."

"What... are you talking about now?" asked Elea, feeling a bit dizzy.

"This is your homework for the next time we come here" declared Keith with a finger pointed at the small child. "Think about how to bring a sword! We will fight against each other to see whose teacher is the best!"

"Are you kidding me?" asked Elea, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "You are an adult."

"You are a God's child, and you can't hear me complaining about unfairness" said Keith, ignoring Elea's argument.

And conveniently choosing to keep silent about the fact that his own body would probably be far stronger than anything this child had ever seen.

"So, your reply?" asked Keith with a provoking grin. "Your mother seems to be a straightforward person, at least when swords are involved. Will you retreat in the face of a challenge? Is that what she is teaching you? What a disappointment."

"...okay" grunted Elea with a frown.

She couldn't let down her mother by retreating in the face of a tough adversary, and she had blind trust in her mother, whoever she might turn out to be.

"Good luck" said Elea, with a smirk she hadn't shown anyone but Keith, as no one pissed her off more than him. "If I understood it correctly, there is a very angry woman who has all the right to be angry with you right outside this place."

Hit, sunk, and lost.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Elea!!"

A worried shout came from a purpled-haired woman, and Elea opened her eyes drowsily.

"Mom..." Elea muttered, knowing whose eyes were looking down at her with concern and worry.

Makoto hugged Elea tightly, and Elea felt her mother's anxiousness and worry.

"We need to know what is happening to you" muttered the worried woman, tightly hugging the child's body close to her. "Your fainting episodes are growing more frequent."

Elea opened her mouth to reassure her mother, but ultimately closed it.

She still remembers the first time she went to that strange place and took a purple leaf with her.

It was the first time she had seen the woman who had been in a 'close' relationship with his father argue so fiercely, and the emotions she had felt from them the following week had made her hide in Yoimiya's house, as they had been too traumatizing for her.

So bringing up the topic of the place she was in again didn't cross her mind.

But hearing and sensing her mother's worry.... maybe she should think a bit more about it.

'Maybe the next time I go there, I can ask Keith for some advice' thought Elea, who realized that Keith was a wise person.

Wise, as in knowing how to think, not merely knowing things.

And wise as he was, she was ready to follow his advice once again, but there was something she still needed to take care of.

"Where is Sara?" asked Elea, knowing that the golden-eyes woman was probably worried sick about her.

"Here" a calm voice came from Elea's side, who turned her head and was exposed to Sara's naked worry.

"I'm okay" said Elea with a smile, trying to reassure the anxious woman.

Sara only sighed in relief, but Elea felt her underlying worry.

And now that the topic at hand was dealt with, Elea pushed her mother a bit to look at her eyes.

"Mom" said Elea, whose the certainty of the loved her mother had for her, and the one she had for her mother, gave the security to directly ask her. "What have you been hiding from me?"

Makoto looked at her daughter, who didn't look away, and sighed in defeat.

'I only hope she can understand us' she thought, hiding her worry.

And the Plane of Euthymia swallowed both her and her daughter, while Sara voluntarily moved back to give them some space.

Elea was greeted by the sandy floor and dark sky of the Plane of Euthymia she was so familiar with, but this time, there was something she hadn't expected to see.

Her mother was as she always was, in the center of the Plane, meditating.

So then...whose hand was she holding?

"Ei" said the person besides Elea. "Come here, and sit."

The woman in the middle of the Plane of Euthymia opened her eyes, the exact same eyes the woman next to Elea had, and complied.

Elea sat on the floor, looking at the 2 physically identical women, and realized that once again, Keith had been right even if it had been due to sheer luck.

'They are 2 different people' thought Elea.

If this scene had happened before her talk with Keith, she might have started shouting and crying in anxiety, but once she had put things in their place with the older man's help, she understood that ultimately, only their feelings for each other mattered.

This was noticed by both nervous and unsure women, who saw how Elea seemed to have suspected it for a while.

"My name is Makoto" said the woman sitting on Elea's left side. "And she is my sister Ei."

The aforementioned woman nodded, looking at Elea's reaction.

"..." Elea looked at both women's faces, seeing their anxiousness and trepidation.

No matter how they were called, no matter what their relationship was.

Elea didn't want these women to feel that way.

So she stood up, and hugged both women close.

"I love you, mom" was all Elea said, but all that she needed to say.

Because the feelings those words carried were all that was needed, and also her answer to this revelation.

How could Ei and Makoto miss this?

So with trembling arms, they hugged back the small child, who had already made her stance clear.

With nothing but love inside of them.

----------------------------------------------------------

"I met your father when he was a baby" said Ei with a fond smile, once they had calmed down and decided to reveal everything to Elea. "He entered this place by accident, and looked at me with what I think was a scared face."

A fond smile that might have disappeared had she known the distances this baby was willing to go to 'conquer' this place.

"Someone can enter this place by accident?" asked a shocked Elea.

"Your father had always been special" replied Ei, as if that served as an answer.

"What is this place?" asked Elea, thinking that knowing it might be helpful in the future in case a problem appeared, and Keith seemed to be quite knowledgeable.

If he knew the nature of this place, he might be able to help her.

Unknowingly for her, the trust she placed in Keith was growing by leaps and bounds, even if it wouldn't compare with the one she had in the women around her, like Yae, Sara or Jean.

"This is my soul" replied Ei. "Or better said, our soul."

"And dad was able to enter here by accident?" asked Elea once again, engraving her mother's answer into her mind.

"He had a very special ability" replied Makoto evasively, not wanting to tell Elea some things that might put her in even more danger. "An ability that gave birth to yours."

"I know that" nodded Elea. "But his ability was a lot stronger."

"More or less" replied Makoto. "Maybe when you are older we can tell you a bit more, but for now don't ask about that, please."

Elea nodded without any disconformity, because she could feel Makoto's worry.

And Ei's blistering hate, that threatened to choke her.

"Ei, continue" said Makoto, noticing her daughter's expression.

"The next time I saw him" continued Ei, knowing that she had slipped up once again, but controlling her emotions when she wasn't meditating was hard for her. "Was a few years after that, maybe 10 or 12."

"He was a teenager then?" asked Elea. "Or a 10 year old child."

"I don't know his age, time here loses a bit of its meaning" said Ei. "But he was able to identify a person working under me who had been doing illegal things using his ability. He sensed someone else's guilt, and we found the culprit of the assassination behind Ayato and Ayaka's father."

"That's..." Elea wanted to scold her mother as someone under her had been a such a person, but knew it wasn't her place.

"We already know, Elea" interrupted Makoto, seeing her sister's dismay. "We will tell you about it later, but you need to understand that Ei was not in a good state back then, and she made a few questionable choices. But that has already ended, so please listen with an open mind. You can ask all you want later."

Elea nodded, not knowing what to think about Ei's feelings of nervousness and guilt.

"I saw his talent, and hired him" continued Ei. "Some time passed, and he quit his job."

"He... quit?" asked a confused Elea, her head tilting slightly to the side.

"The Shogunate back then was a lot firmer than it is now" added Makoto. "Ei was revered as a God, unlike now that we are revered as a ruler, even if there are still a few praying to us. Your father quit the job, which ruffled a few feathers and left for Mondstadt."

"What ruffled a few feathers was the letter he left" muttered Ei.

"Mondstadt?" asked Elea with surprise. "Is there where he met Jean?"

"He did" nodded Makoto with a smile, thinking that it had been a while since she had seen the blonde Knight of Favonius. "And he also met Guizhong, in a way. But you can ask them about it. The case is that he left for Mondstadt, and when he came back, he was blind."

"Wasn't he blind from birth?" asked Elea with a frown. "Why am I only hearing about this now?"

"Because it was directly related to his ability" replied Ei with a stern voice. "And knowing what happened would have put you in danger."

"Will I lose my sight too?" asked Elea, who realized the harrowing possibility.

"No, that won't happen" answered a calm Makoto. "You ability lacks what made him lose his sight, so be at ease."

Elea only nodded, grateful that she wouldn't need to worry about being blind.

How would she be able to read the Radiant Knight again?

"In any case" Makoto continued, sensing that Ei didn't want to explain what happened next. "He came back, and started working together under my sister."

"And where were you?" asked Elea.

"Later" replied Makoto, and Elea nodded. "But at this time, some disagreements between your father and Ei started to appear."

"..." Elea looked at Ei, who only nodded in acquiescence.

"Some bad decisions were made, and trouble appeared" Makoto knew that it was still too early for Elea to understand what Ei had gone through, and the small girl wouldn't understand nor share the decisions Ei had made, so she opted to leave them out for now.

Sooner or later, Elea would need to know everything that happened in those years.

It was her right after all.

"And I got into a fight with your father" sighed Ei, not remembering those moments with fondness. "He challenged me to a duel."

"A-A duel?" asked the shocked Elea, who knew what duels meant for her mother.

A direct clash of opinions, which meant that whatever her mother had done, her father had been unable to take it and chose to directly fight her.

Her mother, the strongest person she knew of and who had fought against gods in the Archon war.

Against his father, who as powerful as his ability might have been, was still a common human.

"Yes, a duel" nodded Ei. "He couldn't accept my decision, and challenged me. And the place we fought was none other than the one we are currently standing in."

Elea looked in surprise at the space around her, realizing that her father had been moving around this exact same place, fighting what she knew must have been an incredibly difficult fight.

"And I lost" continued Ei, this time with a small smile. "He had the advantage here, and he used it masterfully. I know he had a different opinion of what happened here, but I admitted defeat, that was enough to make him the victor. And looking at the result, it was for the better."

"How did he win?" asked an unconvinced Elea. "I already heard he won, but I can't imagine a normal person winning against you."

"That is something we can't tell you" interjected Makoto with a stern voice. "No matter how curious you are about it, we won't tell you until we think it's safe, but we would prefer if you didn't know about it at all."

"Okay..." muttered Elea, thinking of asking Keith about the ability the father might have had.

He was an alien after all, he had probably seen stranger things.

"And then, he brought me back" revealed Makoto, knowing that even if Kenshin's ability couldn't be told, they also couldn't hide what happened.

Because if they wanted Elea to know about the decisions Ei had made, the child also needed to know the state Ei had been in.

"Brough you back?" asked a suspicious Elea. "Brought you back from where?"

"I..." Makoto hesitated a bit, trying to choose some words Elea might not take in the best way possible, but it was proving to be harder than she expected.

You can't sugar-coat the fact that you died millennia ago after all.

And someone else realized it.

"Makoto died 500 years ago" said Ei bluntly, making Makoto glare at her sister, and Elea look with horror in her gaze towards the once-dead woman.

"D-Died?" asked Elea, whose anxiety was skyrocketing. "W-What do you mean died?!"

Seeing the state Elea was in Makoto tightly hugged the child, who hugged her mother back desperately as if she was trying to keep Makoto by her side, fearing that she might leave.

-----------------------------------------------------

"Calm down" said Makoto in a gentle voice, patting her daughter's back.

"Uhn" Elea nodded, and stepped back, only after being reassured for half an hour that her mother was not going to go anywhere.

"I fell in the Cataclysm, a disaster that took away a lot of people" explained Makoto. "Including every single friend of mine and Ei's. Ei lived the last 500 years alone, only with Yae by her side."

Ei nodded grimly, not wanting to remember those times, but opened her eyes in surprise sensing Elea's small arms around her.

"She was not in the right state to control herself, much less running a country" continued Makoto, looking at her sister hugging Elea with a fond smile. "But that changed when your father brought me back."

"He could revive the dead?" asked Elea with surprise, wondering if Keith had ever heard of something like that.

He had an immortal teacher after all.

"No" replied Ei categorically, making Elea sit in front of them again. "And it's very important you understand this. Your father could bring Makoto back, but he couldn't revive the dead. That's simply impossible."

"But how did that do it then?" argued Elea.

"He had a very special ability" replied Makoto. "A dangerous ability that a lot of people wanted."

Ei's sadness and hatred flared upon hearing that, and the darkening in her face was visible to everyone, even Elea.

Who understood something from those extremely intense emotions, that coupled together, drew a very dark painting.

"Ei!" shouted an alarmed Makoto, looking at Elea's face.

And realizing it was too late.