A lost friend's journey

Chapter 23

Well hello there! What is this???? Two chapters on the same day to celebrate the fic's anniversary???? YES! My little treat for you ;)

They were both slightly longer than usual, also, to make up to the break I'm going to take now until mid-January. Finals, you know how it is...

Prepare yourselves for tears, I almost teared up myself multiple times.

ENJOY!

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When asked, Rukkhadevata would say all she wanted was to reconcile with someone she wronged, take him to her nation and show him around, introduce him to Nahida, her little child, and bond with him.

Rukkhadevata was ashamed. She was ashamed of herself, and of the other archons.

They had all wronged someone without bothering to know even a little bit of the story, much less the details. They had refused to look at the picture that was directly in front of them, acting purely and solely on presumptions and on wrong facts.

Rukkhadevata wanted to apologize to Barbatos. Rukkhadevata wanted to make things right. Rukkhadevata also wanted to see her little branch again, hug her tight like she saw mothers do to their child.

And yet here she was, being told she had to be ready for a war she wasn't prepared for. Here she was, being told the one she wanted to apologize to so badly was dead. There would be no redemption for her, nor for the others. They would have to live the rest of their lives knowing what a terrible mistake they had made, knowing they would never get to properly apologize, knowing Barbatos had died without knowing how terribly sorry they were, knowing Barbatos never got to discover they had tried to look at the bigger picture, never knowing they had made efforts in the past five hundred years to understand what they hadn't when he was still around them.

It broke Rukkhadevata's heart to think she would never be able to look him in the eyes and tell him how sorry she was. It brought tears to her eyes to think about the fact that she would never be able to give him the hug she knew he had longed for; she didn't need to look into his mind to know he had craved one, had wanted for someone to take him into their arms and shush his worries, assuage his fears and dry his tears for him.

It made her weak to the knees, just thinking about what could have been, about how much he had suffered in silence without anyone, anyone ever knowing just how alone he must have felt for a long time. She didn't want to know if he had still been feeling so lonely when he went and sacrificed himself.

Rukkhadevata would never be able to show him she was raising Nahida to be someone she herself was never able to be. Rukkhadevata would never be able to tell him she was using her mistakes to teach Nahida better. Rukkhadevata would never be able to tell him just how much he had an effect on her, she would never be able to tell him she did everything she could to become a better person just so she could feel worthy of apologizing to him when the time came.

Except it never did.

And the one time Murata apologized, Barbatos hadn't taken it kindly. He had thought she was joking around. He had thought she was not sincere. He had thought it had all been a scheme.

That was how untrustworthy he considered them, and it stung.

More than that; it hurt, and badly.

And really, could she blame him? Certainly not.

The worst part was knowing Barbatos was justified in his mistrust towards them. Oh, yes. Hadn't he avoided them as much as he could? Hadn't he made all he could just to avoid crossing their path while they were together in Enkanomiya?