The Grand Narukami Shrine was quiet at twilight, the sakura trees swaying like they held secrets between their petals. Yae Miko sat alone beneath the Sacred Sakura, a strand of hair curled lazily around her finger, her eyes fixed on the crimson horizon—but not seeing it. She knew before she heard her that Ei was coming. She always did.
The sound of soft steps on the path, the ozone hum of a familiar presence. Thunder that walked in silence.
“Miko.”
“You’ve taken to using the front entrance lately,” Miko murmured. “Should I be flattered, or worried?”
Ei stood behind her. Even after five centuries, her presence hadn’t changed. Still as solemn. Still as raw. Still as impossibly hers.
“I came to speak plainly,” Ei said.
Miko gave her a sidelong glance. “You always do.”
“No.” Ei stepped closer. “Not always. Not about this.”
The wind tugged at her sleeves. Ei reached into her sleeve and pulled something out—a lightning lily, pressed and preserved.
“You gave me this before I went into the Plane of Euthymia. You said it would remind me of what I was leaving behind.”
Miko’s smile faltered.
“I kept it,” Ei said. “Even when I tried to forget everything else.”
A long pause stretched between them like a scar.
“I love you, Miko.”
Miko inhaled, sharp and shallow. Then she laughed—but it was brittle, and too quick. “That’s not fair, Ei.”
“It’s not meant to be fair. It’s true.”
“And how many truths have you locked away behind your doors of stillness? Behind a perfect eternity?” Miko stood now, turning to face her. “You left me. Five hundred years. You chose to leave me.”
Ei did not flinch. “I know. I was wrong.”
“Worse than wrong.” Miko’s voice cracked. “You abandoned me at the edge of a war-torn world and came back like no time had passed at all.”
“I thought I could protect everything by staying still.”
“You protected nothing.” Her nails dug into her palms. “Not your people. Not your nation. Not… not me.”
The silence was thunderous.
“You say you love me,” Miko continued, quieter now, “but what if one day, corrosion takes root in you? You’re a god, Ei. It’s already touched you. What if you forget me entirely? And I…” Her voice broke. “I will remember everything. Always. Every second you gave me. Every second you didn’t.”
Ei stepped closer. “You’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” Miko looked away. “I’m afraid of what you mean to me. Of what you could do to me. Again.”
Ei reached out, slowly, gently, until her hand rested above Miko’s heart—but didn’t touch.
“You said once that I do not understand loss,” Ei murmured. “But I have lived without you. I know what that emptiness feels like. I know what it means to wake every day and wonder why something that once felt eternal suddenly… doesn’t answer when you call its name.”
Miko’s breath caught.
“I am stubborn,” Ei said. “And I know you. You’re not cruel. You’re just afraid to hope. But I have time. And I will spend all of it proving that I will not leave again. That even if corrosion touches me, my soul—whatever's left of it—will find its way back to you.”
“That’s romantic,” Miko whispered. “And terrifying.”
“I will be terrified too,” Ei said. “But not of loving you. Never again.”
For a long moment, neither moved. The wind slowed. The trees listened.
Miko turned, brushing past Ei, walking away—but paused after a few steps. “You’re still a fool,” she said over her shoulder.
Ei smiled. “Then I will be your fool.”
Weeks passed.
Ei didn’t press. She visited the shrine like clockwork, always in the early morning or just before dusk—never demanding, never pushing. Sometimes she brought tea. Sometimes books. Sometimes, she just sat on the steps, silent beneath the tree Miko once joked was more sentimental than the Shogun herself.
She never asked again.
And that, more than anything, wore down Miko’s resolve.
Because Ei knew her. Knew that to chase would drive her further. Knew that silence could be louder than any plea.
And yet, Miko hated how her heart leapt every time she heard that familiar footfall on the flagstones.
How even now, five centuries of absence later, her body remembered the way Ei looked at her—like she was home.
Tonight, the shrine was bathed in moonlight. Miko sat alone in her quarters, a letter half-written before her, her tail twitching with irritation she refused to name. The sakura trees rustled outside.
And then—again—that presence.
“Miko,” Ei said softly from behind the screen door.
“You never knock,” Miko muttered, not looking up.
“You don’t keep the door locked.”
“Maybe I should start.”
Silence. Then: “Would you like me to leave?”
Miko let out a slow, exhausted breath. “No.”
The door slid open, and Ei entered, holding something wrapped in silk—an old poetry collection. Miko’s poetry. One she'd published centuries ago, back when they still wandered Inazuma side-by-side.
Ei knelt, setting it on the table. “I found this in an abandoned temple. I thought you’d want it.”
“You always were a sentimental creature beneath the lightning,” Miko said, fingers brushing the worn cover. “How long did you wait to bring this?”
“Until I thought you might not throw it at me.”
That earned a laugh. Not a cruel one, but weary. Fond.
Miko finally looked at her.
“Do you know what haunts me, Ei?” she said. “Not the wars. Not even your silence. What haunts me is that I still love you. I never stopped.”
Ei froze.
“But love isn’t enough when trust is broken.” Miko’s voice trembled now, and her perfect poise cracked like old porcelain. “When you left, I told myself you’d come back. Days passed. Then years. Then decades. And still I waited. I waited until I hated myself for it.”
“I know,” Ei said.
“No, you don’t,” Miko snapped. “You can forget. You can be forgotten. I can’t. I am cursed to remember you perfectly. Always. Every word. Every look. Every time I thought: this is the day she returns—and she didn’t.”
The pain in her voice was a raw thing.
“I have spent 500 years carrying both your memory and my own heartbreak. And you want me to open that door again. What if you forget me, Ei? What if one day you look at me and see a stranger, and I still remember everything?”
Ei stepped forward. Not reaching this time. Just standing there—steady as thunder.
“Then remind me,” she said.
Miko blinked.
“If I forget, remind me. Remind me of who you are. Of what we were. Of the way your laughter cracks through stillness like dawn through clouds. I will tie my soul to yours with every memory I still have. And if one day I’m lost… then I hope I find my way back by the sound of your voice.”
Miko’s breath hitched.
She looked away. Her eyes burned.
“You’re still a fool.”
“Only for you.”
Miko’s lip quivered—and then, after a long pause, she whispered:
“I still love you too, Ei.”
She said it like surrender. Like a secret she'd sworn never to speak again. And then she let herself fall into Ei’s arms, trembling as centuries of silence unraveled like silk between them.
And Ei, quiet and solid as the storm, held her—finally, finally home.
They didn’t make promises.
Not the kind mortals do, anyway. Not the kind that swears on forever.
Because gods know better.
Love, for them, is not eternal because it is invincible—it’s eternal because it is fragile, and still endures.
In the weeks that followed, nothing changed. And everything did.
They walked the shrine gardens together in the morning, sometimes in silence, sometimes in old rhythms of banter so familiar they felt like music. Miko still teased. Ei still didn’t rise to it. They never spoke of the five hundred years in full. But sometimes Miko would pause mid-sentence and go quiet—and Ei would simply reach for her hand, grounding her. Present.
The corrosion hadn’t touched Ei again.
Yet.
But it hung in the air like the smell of distant thunder. And one day, under the Sacred Sakura, Miko said quietly:
“I want to make a record.”
Ei looked up from her writing.
Miko’s expression was unreadable. “Of us.”
Ei blinked. “Like a chronicle?”
“More like a map.” Miko glanced away. “For you. In case one day you… forget.”
A long silence. The wind played with the corners of Ei’s papers.
“I won’t,” Ei said.
“You can’t promise that.”
“I know.” She lowered her pen. “Then let’s write it together.”
They filled page after page.
Not a history, but a memory. In Miko’s hand: details. The softest things. The way Ei used to over-steep her tea. The way she tilted her head at bad jokes, trying to understand the punchline. The scent of ozone and sandalwood. The precise pitch of her laugh the one time Miko
made her drunk on sake.
In Ei’s hand: the quiet truths. How she memorized Miko’s voice like scripture. How she’d written letters to her in the Plane of Euthymia but never sent them. How even now, her greatest fear wasn’t forgetting—but being forgotten.
They bound it in violet silk.
On the front, Miko wrote:
“When You Forget Me, Read This.”
And tucked it away in a box of memories—where gods could find it if the storm ever swept too far.
Time passed.
Not like it does for mortals.
Seasons blurred. Festivals came and went. The world moved on, slower for them than anyone else. But still, it moved. And in it, two immortals loved each other by choice.
Miko still teased her.
Ei still burned for her.
They fought. Made up. Learned each other all over again. Again. And again. And again.
Sometimes Miko would wake, alone in her chambers, reaching across the bed for someone who hadn’t left—but still stirred echoes of when she had.
Sometimes Ei would sit beneath the tree, eyes glazed, lost in a memory that corrosion hadn't yet taken—but might.
And each time, they would find each other again.
Not in eternity.
But in the moment.
The only kind of forever that matters.
Years later, as the Sacred Sakura bloomed bright against a silver dusk, Ei pressed a kiss to Miko’s forehead and whispered:
“I remember.”
And Miko—smiling, sad, full of a love she’d once feared to name—replied:
“I know.”