Agito

He's the youngest one, but he's the one who realizes the most in the shortest period of time. He knows that he isn't real—that he only lives on one side of the mirror. And through the looking glass, it is just so very painfully obvious to tell that this skin is only borrowed; that his breaths are only mechanical. This body isn't his, and it sure as hell isn't that other bastard's either.

Then Akito – the only real one – would spin him stories of parachutes, of kite-flying, of birds taking flight, and other things that feel too make-believe, and Agito pretends to understand, because fuck, it's just easier that way. And he would live vicariously through it, because it's almost enough to make him feel alive.

Or, at least, what he imagined living would feel like.

Sometimes, it's enough.

Most of the time, it's too much.

(You won't believe it, Akito would gush in his characteristic guileless and easily-awed way, I've never been able to see the sky. Not like that.)

(yeah? How did it feel?)

(It's incredible, Agito! You should come with me sometime, really, it was like—)

But the words fade fast and blur incoherently altogether until Agito is subconsciously sick of the word "sky" and "fly" and everything else in between. Still, once, while Akito had been taking a nap on a hot afternoon day, he had looked up into that big, vast world above and hesitantly, awkwardly, had lifted a pale hand toward that warning sun.

The only thing he had touched was empty space.

On another day, he repeats the gesture.

He doesn't feel a thing.

It's still enough to remind him that he's not real. Not yet, he tells himself at every midnight, dangling off that flimsy string, watches that sliver of the moon glimmer. And those stars. Not yet.

But he's wrong.

There is nothing up there for him, other than the goddamn heat and too much oxygen.

Existence is still, always, the first thing.

Ringo

She hasn't eaten meat in over a week. The first day, she's the most fidgety and can only fumble with her chopsticks when Rika cheerfully plops a piece of beef on her plate. In the end, it's the only thing she doesn't touch. It reminds her a little too much of Ikki.

Mikan is the first to notice. She jabs the ends of her chopsticks in her sister's direction. "You're seriously not gonna finish that?"

Ringo lifts her hands in defense, laughs it off. "I'm not really hungry, that's all. You can have it if you want."

"Suit yourself."

Mikan had taken it, and that had been that.

The second night is pork and her excuse doesn't fly anymore.

This time it's Rika who brings it up. "What's the real reason?" The oldest of them asks before tearing a piece of the dead meat apart.

Ringo only shoves the topic aside, but it's already painfully obvious to everyone at the table – Ume included – what the reason is, what she's really thinking of. They leave it unspoken, hanging in the air, and continue to silently tear at the wounded prey in their plates.

Tonight is chicken and Ringo can only think of how grounded birds only become dinner.

(And that's why, she clenches her fists under the table, despairs, I told you not to go for that damned sky—)

Kazu

He doesn't smoke, and he doesn't know if Spitfire ever did (hell, there's still so much, too much, he doesn't know), but he stares down at the cold, metal lighter in the palm of his hand. He clicks at it, and a small flame is sparked. The flame is lightning blue and orange and yellow and its sheer intensity is enough to remind him of all the tricks the now-deceased Flame King ever ran – the tricks that Kazu now runs.

To let Spitfire's existence live on.

Kazu clicks at the lighter again. The flame is sealed in an instant.

Without heat, fire can't begin. Without fuel, a flame will stop. Without oxygen, it won't live.

Kazu thinks of this fire triangle, he thinks of Spitfire, and then the only other thing he can think of is: you shouldn't have died.

He sighs and leans back against the rusted fence. Plays with the lighter. Click. Click. Click.

He leaves it on like that for a while.

And this time, it's not the flame he's looking at, but the smoke byproduct – the afterimage of fire and existence slowly trailing into the sky like forever unread subtitles, curling higher and higher up until the whole reaction is submerged by the atmosphere.

Inextricable.

Kazu stares at that daunting, insurmountable sky above and – for the first time – can't help but feel relieved that his road is strictly lateral.

Simca

She dreams of the color blue and etches clumsy crows and pretty swallows with too-big wings all over the walls of the room she's locked in. This should be despair. Still, she hums to herself and smiles slightly (dangles off that last inch of hope), and slowly but surely charts their Icarus futures higher and higher and higher – Another week, and her fingernails finally start to chip at the ceiling.

It takes her a very long time to learn that the sky doesn't exist.

It will take her even longer to learn that it never really did.

Benkei, Yoshitsune

She already knows—his gravestone can speak for itself.

It does.

Ikki, Kilik

He slams his fist against the wall. "Fuck," he curses, because he doesn't know any other way to express himself, because he's still trying to grasp the situation, and because he can barely take it all in. And the only thing there is left is – "Fuck," he repeats.

Kilik only touches his shades and glances at him casually, calculatedly. "You understand now, don't you?"

The Storm King contender drops his head in his hands before looking back up. Something a whole lot like pain and disillusionment glances off the amber in his eyes. It lingers. "So what was it like?"

Kilik arches an eyebrow. It's not really his style to listen to idiots. "Excuse me?"

"When you fought against Sora."

It takes Kilik a moment to formulate a proper response. But when he finally does, his voice is cool and arch and tart – everything that reflects the jaded person he's become since that time. "What is it that you see when you look in the sky?"

"What?"

Kilik just watches.

Ikki's still caught off-guard. "Uh, well, when I'm up there, ya know, it's kinda like I can feel the wind and it feels like flying — but uh, what does that have to do with anything?"

"Yeah, Sora said that once, too."

The sheer mention of Sora is enough to silence Ikki.

("Hey, now that we're outside that damned tower, I want you guys to call me Sora."

"Sora? What, like the sky? Why?")

Kilik looks at the still-tentative Sky King candidate straight in the eye, and all the glass and pretense left is shattered. "Do you know where the sky begins? Or where it ends?"

Ikki pauses, unsure. "What do you mean?"

Kilik calmly pushes off from the wall. He's expected as much. "No one knows how big the sky really is. It can't be condensed down to just arcminutes or numbers. But it's the one thing that binds everyone in this world together. It's the only reason why people keep on going with their lives; the only constant that lends meaning to their existences."

Silence, again.

Kilik readjust his tinted glasses again and thinks of the first time he had looked – really looked – at that infinite sky above.

It had been the first time he realized what the sky really is.

"Hey, hey, what're you trying to say here?"

Kilik thinks of shattered glass, of blood, of tears, and of screams – of the raw screams that tear out through the horizon and resound as echoes. And the blood again, always. "You followed your road because you liked the wind, right? Because it felt right?" He asks rhetorically. He doesn't wait for a response before continuing. "But you really don't know a thing about that goddamn sky or its regalia." An arch pause. "Looks like you still don't know a thing about this world."

Ikki slams his fist into the wall again. "And so what? What is there to know, exactly?" He challenges, adamant – he clings onto all his hopes and dreams and idealism; clings onto every last inch of his existence. "Stop being so fucking roundabout and just say it already, okay? Goddamn."

Kilik simply inclines his head and obliges. There is a pause before he begins.

Ikki waits impatiently.

"The sky," says the Gem King, "When you get to the top, there's nothing up there. Not even the view."

Benkei knows, Ringo knows, Yoshitsune's dead. Simca is pretending not to know, and Kazu and Agito are so much smarter than this.

When Ikki makes it to the top with wings red and bent, he finds that Kilik is right. Of course Kilik is right.

There is nothing but black and black and black and black and the long fall down.