Once Upon An Assassination Attempt || Kamisato Ayato

Afterwards: part one

UNEDITED

Tw: mentions of unaliving

I know I said it'll all be fluff and it is later, I swear. This is just a sprinkle of angst 🧍
***

"I found out what you had been looking for," Ayato announced as I jumped into his office from the window.

"What?" I walked to the chair across him, and he sighed.

"When we made a deal, I said I knew about the heart of Seihkria'h. It didn't feel right to not keep my end of the deal."

"You don't have to search for it."

"I talked to the dendro archon while I was in Sumeru about it." He continued, and my eyes widened. "I found out what it is."

"It's a flower. There were ancient texts regarding it."

"Sora, did you want to use the flower?"

"That's not important now."

"Sora." His voice was strained. "Did you?"

"Yeah."

He was silent for a moment, the quiet bothering me more than it should. He placed a document on the table Infront of me, which contained information on the heart of Seihkria'h.

"The heart of Seihkria'h is a flower deemed to bloom in places of chaos and death. It is a flower people use to communicate with the beyond. With death. It may seem too good of a deal, which it is," he read the paper, his eyes now on me. "In order to communicate with the dead, one must consume the flower whole, through which one can achieve the goal. Communicate with the dead and bring peace to the souls in turmoil. However, many die due to the lethal dose of poison the flower carries, never having confirmed its effects to the world. ."

He threw it, and the papers scattered before falling on the wooden floor.

"Ayato? You're making a scary expression now."

"Really?" He laughed bitterly. "What does that tell you?" With a huff, he started walking towards me.

"That you're uh- angry?" I backed away. "Don't be angry?"

I backed into a wall, and he slammed his hand on either side to prevent an escape. I could escape, but for some reason I felt that it was unadvisable to do in this scenario.

"Ayato?"

"You could've died. Had I found that flower and handed it to you, you could've died. You knew it was poison. why.. why, Sora?"

"Come on now, you know I'm immune to poison."

"This isn't any normal poison, and you know it."

"What do you want me to say?" I looked away. "I wanted to atone for everything, okay? I've killed people. I've let people important to me get killed. I wasn't there when they needed me the most. Sometimes I would go to sleep hoping the morning wouldn't come. Sometimes I wished that I didn't wake up."

I looked up at Ayato, expecting him to be furious. His expression wasn't one of anger. His eyes were downcast, little drops of liquid shining on the long lashes. The lips were pulled to a thin line, brows drawn together. "You wished you were..I can't. I can't imagine what it'll be like without you. I don't want to."

I pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry. That's just how I felt. I'm not trying to die. Since I came here, I met you, I made friends, experienced things I could only dream of before. Had my first love. I'm not saying those feelings are gone completely, because a part of me will always feel responsible for what happened to my family, and people who I considered my family, but a part of me also wants to stay here for a long, long time."