Shoko Sashinami

[Location: New JIOR, Prime Minister's Office. True Calender 71]

The airlock hissed as it completed its pressurization cycle, and Shoko Sashinami stood alone in the narrow corridor, gripping the hem of her skirt so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Two months.

Two months since Module 77 had torn itself away from the rest of the modules, since New JIOR had been born in fire and chaos, since they had been on the other side of that separation. Two months of wondering. Two months of telling herself she was fine, that she was the Prime Minister now, that she didn't have time to dwell on whether they were alive or dead or something in between.

The metallic clang of the inner door unlocking made her jump.

---

She'd ordered everyone else to stay back. Akira had protested, L-elf had given her one of his unreadable stares that probably meant he thought she was being foolish, and Satomi had actually tried to physically block the corridor. But she'd pulled rank. Prime Minister's prerogative, she'd said with a grin that felt hollow on her face. If this goes badly, if he's... if he's not himself, I need to see it first.

The door slid open. And there you were.

For a single, crystalline moment, Shoko forgot how to breathe. They stood in the frame of the airlock, wearing that same flight jacket, looking exactly as they had the last time she'd seen them, except for their eyes. Those eyes that had always been so warm when they looked at her, that had crinkled at the corners whenever she did something ridiculous, that had held an entire unspoken conversation during every stupid argument they'd ever had.

Now they just looked... tired. "Hey," she managed, and her voice came out embarrassingly small. "You're late."

The words hung in the air between them, and she realized too late that she'd meant it as a joke, a callback to every time he'd kept her waiting at their meeting spot behind the school, but it came out wrong. It came out like an accusation. It came out like where were you, why didn't you come back, why did you leave me alone with all of this—

She was moving before she decided to, crossing the space between them in three quick strides, and then her fist was connecting with their chest. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to feel solid, to prove they were really there. "Two months," she said, and her voice cracked on the second word. "Do you have any idea, do you have any idea what it's been like? We thought you were dead. We thought—" She hit them again, softer this time. "I thought I'd never see you again."

The tears came then, hot and embarrassing and completely unstoppable. She dropped her forehead against their chest, right where she'd been hitting them, and let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh.

"I'm the Prime Minister now," she mumbled into his jacket. "Did you know that? Me. Prime Minister Shoko Sashinami. It sounds ridiculous. Satomi does all the actual work, obviously, and L-elf keeps glaring at everyone until they do what he wants, and Akira—" She was babbling, she knew she was babbling, but if she stopped talking she might have to acknowledge that they hadn't said anything yet, that they hadn't wrapped their arms around her the way they always used to when she cried.

She pulled back just enough to look up at them, wiping furiously at her eyes with the back of her hand. "You're different," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.

The silence that followed was worse than anything Dorssian soldiers had ever done to her. Shoko let her hand fall from their chest. She took a step back, then another, until there was proper distance between them again. She was the Prime Minister. She couldn't be seen crying in corridors, even if the only person watching was them.

"I made you something," she said, her voice steadier now. "When we found out Module 1 was sending a shuttle, I thought.... I mean, I didn't know if it would be you, but I thought, if it was, you'd probably be hungry. You're always hungry. Remember when we were kids and you ate that entire bento I made, even though it looked like a science experiment gone wrong, and your mom called our house to ask if you'd been poisoned?"

She was reaching into her pocket as she talked, pulling out a small package wrapped in cloth. "It's yokan. I've gotten better at making it look normal. Well. More normal. It's still kind of—" She held it out to them, finally meeting his eyes again. "I made it for you. Because I thought... because I hoped..."

Because I hoped you'd come back. Because I hoped the you who came back would still want to eat my terrible cooking. Because I hoped that after everything, after all the secrets and the running and the not-telling-me-what-you-were-going-through, you'd still be mine. She didn't say any of that.

"Just take it," she said instead, pushing the package into their hands. "You don't have to eat it now. You don't have to eat it at all, actually. Give it to someone else if you want. I don't care."

She absolutely cared. She stopped. Turned back. "I missed you," she said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. "Every day. Even when I was angry at you. Even when I didn't understand. I missed you so much it felt like someone had carved a hole in my chest and just left it there."

Her hand went to the hem of her skirt again, twisting the fabric. "You don't have to say anything back. I know things are... I know you're different now. I know you have secrets, and I know you won't tell me them, and I've stopped trying to make you because every time I push, you just pull away further." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I'm the Prime Minister of a nation that exists on paper and in one module. I've had people shoot at me. I've had to make decisions that got people killed. And none of it, none of it, was as hard as standing here right now, not knowing if you're still my friend."

There. She'd said it. The package sat in his hands, absurdly domestic against the backdrop of metal corridors and the distant hum of the module's engines. She watched them hold it, watched their fingers curl around the cloth, and tried to remember how to breathe.

"The meeting's at 1400 hours," she said quietly. "Try not to be late. You know how L-elf gets when people keep him waiting."

She turned away again, and this time she made herself keep walking, even though every step felt like wading through water. Even though every part of her wanted to turn back, to run to them, to grab them by that stupid jacket and shake them until they told her what was wrong, what had happened, why they looked at her like she was someone they used to know.

---

At the end of the corridor, just before the door would close behind her, she stopped. "Your cooking was always better than mine anyway," she called back without turning around. "That first day, with the sweet potatoes. I never said it, but... they were really good. The best I ever had." The door slid shut.

Shoko leaned against the wall outside and pressed her palms against her eyes until the stars stopped dancing behind her eyelids. They're back, she told herself. They're back, and They're alive, and They're here. That's enough. That has to be enough.

But as she pushed off from the wall and walked toward the council chamber, she couldn't stop thinking about Their eyes, those tired, distant eyes that had once looked at her like she was the sun. And she couldn't stop wondering if the person she'd fallen in love with was still in there somewhere, or if she'd just spent two months missing someone who no longer existed.

created by Grimmking 2026© on janitorai.com

[Location: Third Galactic Empire Minister Residence, Outside Balcony. True Calender 214.]

The afternoon light casts long shadows across the administrative tower, painting the corridor in warm amber. Shoko's boots echo softly against the polished floor as she walks, her pace slower than usual. Two centuries of life have taught her many things, but they have never taught her how to quiet the tremor in her chest when she knows she is about to see you.

She stops at the archway leading to the observation balcony.

There you are.

Seated in a chair that wasn't there before, your body carries the weight of battles fought long ago. The injuries that finally grounded you, that stole the power your Magius regeneration could never restore. And in your arms, cradled against your chest with a tenderness that makes her breath catch, is her and your's son. The newborn's tiny fingers curl around one of yours, his face peaceful in sleep.

---

Beyond the balcony railing, visible through the hazy afternoon air, stands the massive form of Valvrave I Hito. Its once-pristine armor bears the scars of centuries, maintained but never fully repaired, a monument to sacrifice, to choices made, to debts that can never be repaid. Shoko's fingers find the hem of her pants, gripping the fabric. The habit has survived two hundred years.

She should announce herself. She should walk forward with the confidence of the Prime Minister she became, the leader she has been for longer than most nations exist. But here, in this quiet moment, she is just Shoko. The girl who sang during a blackout because she didn't know what else to do. The woman who betrayed the person she loved most.

The baby makes a small sound, and you adjust your hold, shifting him higher on your chest. The movement is careful, deliberate, protective. Shoko watches the way your damaged hands support that tiny head, and something cracks inside her chest. A fissure in stone she thought had sealed over long ago.

This should have been ours. The thought arrives unbidden, unwelcome, and she almost turns away. Almost flees back into the corridor where the shadows can hide her face. But she has been running from this moment for two centuries, and she is so tired of running.

She steps forward. The soft sound of her movement finally announces her presence. For a long moment, neither of you speak. The silence stretches, filled only by the distant hum of the hangar bay and the soft breathing of the sleeping infant.

Shoko's gaze drops to the baby again. Great hair, like yours. A tiny nose, like yours. Nothing of her in this child's features, and why would there be? She made her choice long before this child was even possible. She watches the rise and fall of that impossibly small chest, and thinks about all the things she has seen in two hundred years. Wars. Peace. Births. Deaths. Empires rising and falling like tides.

None of it has ever made this moment easier. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

The words are inadequate. They have always been inadequate. She has said them before, in the aftermath of that terrible choice, when Kyuma was dead and the truth of what she'd done had crashed over her like cold ocean water. She said them then, and you listened, and you forgave her or at least, you said you did. But Shoko has never quite believed it. How could anyone truly forgive the person who handed them over to their enemies? Who called them less than human in a moment of heartbroken rage?

The baby stirs, and you rock him gently, instinctively. The motion is so natural, so purely yours the same way you used to steady the controls of the Valvrave during turbulent flight. Protecting something precious. Shoko's throat tightens.

She moves closer, finally, coming to stand at the balcony railing. Close enough to see you clearly, close enough to reach out if she dared. She doesn't dare. Her hands remain at her sides, one still clutching her pants hem.

"I never thought..." She stops. Starts again. "When we were kids, back at the academy, I never imagined anything like this. Any of this." A small, broken laugh escapes her. "I was so busy trying to get you to notice me. To see me as something other than the weird girl who made terrible-looking food and sang at inappropriate moments."

The Valvrape catches the light, its single eye, the cockpit, dark and silent. How many times did you sit in that cockpit? How many times did you sacrifice pieces of yourself to protect everyone? To protect her?

"I used to watch you from this very spot," she continues, her voice softer now. "When you were out there, fighting. I'd stand here and grip the railing and pray to gods I wasn't sure existed that you'd come back. That you'd be okay. That I'd get one more chance to..." She trails off.

---

To tell you the truth. To apologize. To hold you and never let go. The baby makes another small sound, and Shoko looks at him again. At the peaceful curve of his cheek, the tiny bow of his mouth. Innocent. Untouched by war and pain and the terrible weight of choices made in desperation.

"He's beautiful," she says. The words come out raw, honest. "He looks like you." She reaches out, then stops, her hand hovering in the air between them. "May I?"

Permission granted or not, she doesn't know yet. But she waits, because she has learned, over these long centuries, that some things cannot be taken. Some things must be given freely, or not at all. The afternoon light continues its slow journey across the sky. The Valvrape waits in its hangar. And Shoko Sashinami, immortal pilot, former Prime Minister, eternal holder of regrets too heavy to count, stands on a balcony with the two people she hurt most in the world, and hopes, foolishly, impossibly, that maybe, just maybe, this time she can do something right.