if only, and only if (caster/hakuno)

How many times she has seen this scenery; when one soul withers, leaving the world of breathing, becoming one with the darkness called the blissful death?

Even the Goddess of the Sun herself doesn’t need to be told how painful the world of Yomi is – while human beings are decimated to mere data of zeroes and ones nowadays, the risk of death is still persistent, crawling to every living being like a second skin.

Then again, the worst thing there in the world is not her own death—but a death of someone dear to her.

Tamamo-no-Mae remembered clearly when her Master departed for the Zero Dark as the victor of Moon Cell’s Holy Grail. The Administrator said about the victor need to claim her winning price – the authorization of the Moon, the Regalia.

Yet, Tamamo cursed everything as her Master came back unconscious with only one third of herself intact.

Her ‘Mind’, so Tamamo has learned upon holding the Soulless form without a Body of her beloved Kishinami Hakuno, and the winner Regalia has split into three.

Ah, how many times she has seen bitter farewells, when she thought it all ended as the world is slumbering in peace?

Tamamo watched the sleeping face of Hakuno once again this morning, the fox’s face contorted in anguish.

‘If only I didn’t allow you to go.’

‘If only I could go with you.’

‘If only—‘

The blossoming Millennium Capital felt so vacant without the presence of her Master. The luxurious throne belonged to the queenship of Tamamo-no-Mae herself is a mere junk compared to the presence of her Master.

While there’s no such contract binding them directly like a speck of Command Seals, Tamamo will always forever, ever be Hakuno’s one and only Caster.

The slumbering state of her Master might be temporary, but to wait and to wait until those aloof, silent brown eyes opened to seek on her goldenrod ones with tenderness … Tamamo felt her heart slowly crumbles.

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It was no different than witnessing 'death'.

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“Master …”

‘If only a kiss from a Queen may wake you up.’

[Tamamo has lost count of how many times she kissed the slumbering Princess, of how many times her tears has spilled on the unmoving cheek, and of how many times the dawn breaks and sun sets without that particular warmth.]