Light

And time passed as it always did; the short springtime of youth came to its end as it always did, unironically, in spring.

It ended as it always began-on a day of blue, blue skies.

- 0 − 0 -

Today was Momoi's five thousand four hundred and sixty-third middle school graduation ceremony.

It still hurt.

A wish, Tetsu-kun? A wish at any cost?

You think she'd be used to it by now: the deep hunch in his shoulders, the pale cherry blossoms caught in his paler hair, the way he clutched the black band on his wrist like a funeral rite.

Momoi had figured out, long ago, even before her thousandth graduation ceremony from Teikou Middle School, that the only way to defeat the future was to let someone else do it for her.

Well, after what happened today…

His back was to her; she had not let him see her today. Around him, boys and girls were laughing and snapping pictures, smiling despite their tears. Kuroko Tetsuya passed through them like he didn't exist.

In the morning I'll probably say something different, but right now…

Time had a way of stopping here, even without magic, at this long, cherry blossom moment.

How much more could he stand? she thought, regret still a hard lump in her throat. How much until he broke? She had done this enough times to know you couldn't always put a person back together again, even with all the magic in the world.

Maybe it's just a silly hope, but…

But she also knew: if she did not utterly destroy him, if she only hurt him enough, just so, the right word at precisely the right moment, the right wish and the will to use it-

The heart would not shatter. It would grow stronger, and it would learn to save itself. A miracle in the making.

…I would wish to return to the way we were.

Momoi's eyes slid past Kuroko to the others: to Murasakibara, who was eating monstrous amounts of junk food and glaring dully at those who dared to photograph him; to Akashi, speaking with the principal of the school on matters of no doubt grave importance; to Midorima, standing alone under a cherry tree, an old-fashioned pocket-watch held contemplatively in his hand; to Kise, chatting aimlessly with the admirers who surrounded him like an impenetrable shield.

Aomine was beside her, but then he always was. She made sure of that.

Even if that's kind of impossible.

Alone, she could not change their fates. She had tried. Over and over she had seen their soul gems blacken and break, and she had learned the hard lesson of years: her wish alone was not enough. The future refused to change for her alone.

What would you wish for, Tetsu-kun?

But she was not alone anymore. She had found him-it was never Akashi's discovery, but hers-she had found Kuroko Tetsuya, who was all about possibilities, the one person whose future she could not predict.

Wouldn't you wish for…

That was why she'd chosen him. That was why she loved him. That was why she'd become the shadow behind the shadow.

That was why she hurt him.

…something like me?

Momoi's cell phone beeped; she fished it out of her pocket and checked her messages, almost glad for the interruption.

The news was good. The American company she'd been remotely influencing via cell phone over the past three years had finally transferred a certain employee to a certain branch plant in Tokyo-along with his sixteen-year-old son, who had lived in the United States since third grade, and who happened to be a basketball player.

The company was arranging a furnished apartment in a safe neighbourhood for the employee and his son, and nearby there was a high school that had been built just last year-a school with a good, but not great basketball team. Kuroko, it so happened, had enrolled at that very school.

Tetsu-kun?

Momoi closed her eyes and breathed in the cool spring air.

Events were moving fast. She had to make sure the American boy went to Seirin, and she had to make sure he joined the basketball team. And then there were the roommate assignments at Rakuzan and Yousen, the class and seating arrangements for all the schools her friends were going to-so much work to be done, even if she had done so much of it before, in past lives. Momoi needed to move.

Instead, she pressed the home button on her phone. She'd been using the same photo as a wallpaper for sixteen thousand three hundred eighty-nine years; and still, even at the extra-temporal age of sixteen thousand four hundred and four years, she was sentimental enough to take out her phone just to look at it.

On some days, she would look at this photo and wish she could be more like Kyuubei, who didn't need a human heart of his own to know how to manipulate the hearts of others.

On other days, she told herself she was a lot better at this than Kyuubei, so the trade-offs were worth it.

And on other days, on days like this, when Kuroko walked away with pale cherry blossoms in his paler hair, when Aomine's eyes filled with childish hurt, when she knew her own soul gem to be just as fragile despite the long hardening of years-she would look at this picture and be glad her heart was still human, still able to feel hurt, still capable of making its own wishes.

One day, her heart always said, there would be another photograph like this. The people in it would be taller, eyes a little warier-for the past could never truly be erased no matter how a girl tried, she'd learned that the hard way-but in that photo her wish would finally come true.

She thought she could see it even now, written in the future: all seven of them, all seven colours of the rainbow, together again after the long, long rain.

- 0 - 0 -

And Kuroko Tetsuya walked away from Teikou Middle School for the last time of any lifetime, having had his fill of wishes and lights and shadows.

Until he went to Seirin High School and, by some strange coincidence, met Kagami Taiga, the boy from America, the light who had never known shadow, the Miracle who was not a Miracle. With Kagami Taiga, Kuroko Tetsuya learned that miracles could happen, that wishes could come true. With Kagami Taiga, Kuroko Tetsuya learned to be his own miracle, to make his own wishes come true.

And if he had a little help from the shadows behind the shadows, well, it was probably best if that fact never came to light.

Metaphorically speaking.

- The End -

Author's notes:

Would you believe that I had no idea Momoi was the secret heroine of the story until she suddenly showed up and demanded her own chapters? But I guess that is just what secret heroines DO.

This story is definitely the longest thing I've written that I have actually FINISHED. I am kind of amazed and embarrassed that my weird wish to put the Generation of Miracles in skirts went on this long. Honestly, I think some of these chapters probably could be cut, but meh, too late now.

Thank y'all for reading my long-winded, magickal recap of the Teikou arc, and may Kyuubei never grant you any Faustian wishes. :)