The Beginning

There had once been three of them. Three born of starlight and shadow, but Sekhmet... she had not come from Kaguya as they had. She was something older. A being not born of chakra, but of ancient fire and divine breath, a primordial goddess, shaped in the stillness before time, from the hush between Heaven and Earth.

When Kaguya first tasted the forbidden fruit of the God Tree and tore the veil between realms, it was not just a ripple through space...It was a scream through the cosmos. The balance trembled, the stars pulsed, and the Earth wept. From that rift, Sekhmet descended willingly in a physical body like a falling star, cloaked in flame and wind, not for power, but for preservation. While the Ōtsutsuki sought dominion, she came to heal what had not yet shattered.

She found a world already bruised, already bleeding beneath Kaguya's growing shadow. The air was heavy with ash and unnatural stillness, the land strained under unseen weight... There she had also found two young boys: Hagoromo and Hamura, with frightened eyes and divine blood carved into symbols on their skin.
They were being molded into weapons. Not raised, nor nurtured. She wished to change this as she had seen something in these boys.

Sekhmet did not kneel to Kaguya. She never had. Instead, she opened her arms to the boys who ran into them. From the moment they touched her skin, warm like sunlight on stone, carrying the scent of wild jasmine and sacred fire, they knew something they had never been allowed: safety.

She pressed them to her chest, whispered promises in a language older than chakra, kissed their brows, and said: "You are not born to serve. You are born to live."

In the quiet temple she built with her own hands, hidden among the whispering mountains and ringed with night-blooming trees, Sekhmet became their everything. There in the temple she fed them rice seasoned with salt and clove, honeyed fruit warm from the sun, cut with her own hands. She combed their hair with fingers that were strong and gentle, showed them how to patch tears in robes, how to tend to a garden, how to sit in silence and hear the earth's song beneath their feet. Their mornings were filled with chants and laughter. Their afternoons with sparring and stories. Their nights? Spent curled beside her beneath silk blankets, lulled by the hum of her voice and the warmth of her love. She taught them how to read the stars, how to listen when the wind carried warnings, how to use their hands not just for jutsu, but for shaping clay, baking bread, and mending wounds.

Her touch could heal, but her presence? It transformed. She was their sword, their compass, their warmth on winter nights. She was their Mother, not by blood, but by the sheer weight of her love. And yet, even as peace bloomed in their hidden sanctuary, beyond its borders, Kaguya began to rot from the inside out and her jealousy of Sekhmet grew.

When the day came that she succumbed fully to madness, her silhouette turning to shadow, her eyes void of warmth, her limbs twisted by obsession, Sekhmet was there and she saw it. She saw the sky shatter in crimson rifts, saw time bend around the god-tree's corpse, saw mountains devoured in silence by the Ten Tails, heard the earth wail beneath her bare feet.

At that moment, she knew. It would have to be her. Not her sons, not those boys she had nurtured, but her, that made the impossible decision, because that is what mothers do. Preserve the safety of her sons and the Earth.

The Present

Hagoromo knelt in the dirt beside her body.

She had fallen gracefully, as if only resting. Her soft, pink, braids spread behind her like a golden halo, her skin still warm. Her axe, Astra, pulsed faintly beside her, humming with spent power, its head buried in the fertile soil she'd created with her dying breath. "...She's not breathing," Hagoromo whispered. The sky was stained gold and violet. A hush had settled over the ruined battlefield. The wind rustled through the newly grown trees, brushing the tips of blooming cherry blossoms that hadn't been there an hour ago. Sekhmet's final chakra had revived the land. "She understood the price of peace better than we did," Hagoromo said. "We were cowards. We sought consensus... but she knew delay would be death."

Hamura stood behind him, arms limp at his sides, fists clenched white. "She told us. She said she'd use all of it. And we still let her." A breeze stirred the soft sakura petals and carried them over her still form, scattering pink and white across her skin. "She chose to die in our place," Hamura murmured bitterly.

Flashback: The Temple Courtyard

The sun was bright, casting golden light over the overgrown grass. A younger Hagoromo tore across the yard barefoot, chasing a glowing dragonfly with both hands stretched in front of him. "Slow down!" Sekhmet called, laughter in her voice. Her long braids were tied back with silver cords, and the silver bangles on her wrists clinked like wind chimes as she moved with sheer grace.

Behind her, Hamura stuck close, hugging her leg. "Let him fall," he muttered. "He's loud." Sekhmet scooped Hamura into her arms and tossed him into the air. He shrieked, then laughed uncontrollably when she caught him.

"You two act like gods already," she teased. "But you're just sprouts. And even sprouts need sun, water... and someone to scold them when they act foolish."

"Is that you?" Hagoromo asked, panting as he returned with scraped knees.

"No," she said, pulling them both into her lap. "That's me being your mother, the one who nurtures you because she won't."

Last Council Before the War

Hamura stood tall, arms crossed, face unreadable. Hagoromo stood slightly behind him, his brow furrowed and voice tight with restraint.

"You... want to seal her?" Hagoromo finally said, as if the words tasted like ash. "You want us to destroy the Ten Tails. Divide it. Lock her away forever."

Sekhmet nodded once, the lines around her eyes hardening. "It is the only way."

"No," Hamura said immediately, his voice sharp. "There has to be another path."

"There isn't," Sekhmet replied, louder now. "Kaguya is not your mother anymore-"

"She's all we've ever known!" Hagoromo snapped, stepping forward. "She brought us into this world. We carry her blood. We carry her pain."

Sekhmet's lips parted, as if to answer, but the words caught somewhere between fury, sorrow, and pain as her boys still leached on to the idea of Kaguya being their mother. Her green eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with something heavier: grief without release. "You carry her pain?" she echoed quietly. "Then what of the pain she's caused?"

Hagoromo faltered, but his jaw clenched. "She wasn't always like this. You remember. She taught us to listen to the earth, to respect the moon's pull, to give more than we take. You remember that, don't you?"

"I remember the woman she was," Sekhmet said, voice low and iron-edged. "And I've watched that woman die, piece by piece, until nothing remained but hunger."

"She's not a monster," Hamura bit out.

Sekhmet's voice dropped, quiet now, too quiet. "Then tell me, Hamura... when she tore open the heavens and fed an entire mountain range to the Ten Tails to watch it scream... was that mercy?"

He didn't answer. "She's still trying," Hagoromo whispered. "I've seen it. In dreams. In the pauses between her rage. There's still something in her that wants peace."

Sekhmet turned away from them, shoulders rising and falling with something heavier than exhaustion. For a moment, they saw her not as a goddess or a warrior, but as a woman alone against fate, bent by it but unbroken. Hamura's fists trembled at his sides. "She's not gone. You raised us to believe in light even when it flickers. Why stop now?"

Sekhmet's gaze broke from his, not in anger...but in something deeper. Quieter. She turned her head slightly, and for a breathless second, the warrior vanished, and all that remained was the mother who had rocked them to sleep beneath moonlit trees.

"I raised you to see clearly," she whispered. "And now you look at a corpse and call it a candle."

Hagoromo's eyes softened, guilt prickling behind his anger. "You're asking us to kill our mother."

Sekhmet stood still. The wind tugged at the edges of her cloak, carrying the scent of ash and wildflowers, of home long lost. Her jaw trembled as her back remained to them, her voice quieter than they'd ever heard it. "No," she said. "I'm asking you to remember which mother held you when you cried." There was a silence.They didn't speak. They didn't reach for her. And that silence crushed her. She pressed a hand to her chest. And then, without a word, Sekhmet turned from them.The moment her face left their sight, the tears fell, silent, molten, unrelenting. Not the weeping of a goddess or a warrior, but of a mother whose children had chosen someone else.

The night air grew still, heavy with the weight of what hadn't been said. Sekhmet walked until their voices no longer reached her ears, until the scent of old prayers and the warmth of their chakra faded into silence. Only then did she stop beneath the ancient tree where she once taught them to shape chakra from the wind. Her knees touched the soil with a grace too fragile for someone once called a goddess.

Her fingers brushed the bark, remembering when Hamura had climbed this very tree and gotten stuck halfway, how Hagoromo had cried until she lifted them both down with a laugh and a scolding. That memory, so simple, so human...now felt like a wound. You chose her. Even after all she's done, all she's become. You chose the one who gave you life... Not the one who gave you love.

The tears didn't come as sobs. They came like a slow, unstoppable tide, one that slipped down her cheeks, trailing across the dirt on her skin, mixing with the blood from earlier wounds. She didn't wipe them away. She had stood against celestial armies, tamed storms with her hands, and once halted an entire dimension from collapse by sheer will alone. But this? This was the one battle she could not win. "I sang to you," she whispered aloud, voice cracking as if speaking to the memory of her boys. "When you were sick. When you couldn't sleep. I told you stories from before the stars had names. I gave you everything I could, and still... still..." Her hand fisted in the fabric at her chest. Still, it wasn't enough.

Present

The fire burned low. The sky-burial flames crackled as blossoms blew through the clearing. The trees bloomed where her final chakra had been spent. Birds began to sing again. She had revived the land, yes. But she had left them. "She was the only one who loved us without fear," Hagoromo said, rising slowly. "Not as sons of Kaguya. Not as weapons."

"She was our family," Hamura said hoarsely.

Neither of them could bring themselves to touch her axe. It lay there like a tombstone, like a promise. "She never taught us how to say goodbye," Hamura whispered.

"No," Hagoromo replied. "Only how to survive. How to stand again." He looked at Astra, then away. "I can't carry it."

"Nor can I." So they left Astra where it lay, sacred and unmoved. Neither aware that within its carved metal heart, her soul still pulsed. Dormant. Waiting.

The storm battered the mountain temple like it too was breaking apart.

Thunder cracked again, shaking the earth beneath their feet. Wind howled through the broken archways, flaring Sekhmet's bloodstained cloak as she stood alone in the center of the stone chamber. Her body bore the deep slashes of her battle with the Ōtsutsuki vanguard, but none of it pained her as much as the silence in front of her now.

Flashback: Candlelight Lessons

The temple halls glowed with warm flame as Sekhmet knelt beside them at a scroll-strewn table. "When you speak, speak truth. When you strike, strike for justice," she recited as Hamura traced the words with his fingers. Hagoromo scribbled diagrams beside her, mouth pursed. She smiled, gently correcting his grip on the brush. "Don't carve power into paper like a soldier... But write like a scholar, words can build nations." Hamura curled against her side, already drifting to sleep. She leaned her head against his. "And remember, boys. Kindness is not weakness."

Flashback: The Night Before the War

It was storming. The wind howled through the cliffs. Lightning flashed like fire across the sky. Inside the stone temple, the hearth crackled as Sekhmet pulled both boys into a blanket. Their bodies trembled beneath the weight of what awaited them.

"We don't have to fight her," Hagoromo whispered. "We can find another way."

"We have to," Hamura said. "You saw what she's become."

Sekhmet didn't answer right away. Instead, she pulled them tighter, resting her chin on their heads. She smelled of cedar smoke and herbs. "If anything happens to you-" Hagoromo began.

"Then you'll rise again," she said firmly. "Because I didn't raise cowards. I raised warriors to defend the idea of peace. My sons." She pressed her forehead to theirs, her voice soft. "If I fall, don't mourn me long. Instead, build what we dreamed of. A world where strength protects that peace, not strives for more power."

Present

Hamura fell to his knees beside Hagoromo, the wind lifting petals and ashes into the sky. "We let her face it alone," he murmured, stunned. "We made her face it alone." He hadn't even said goodbye. They hadn't touched her axe. They hadn't believed her. "She wept," Hagoromo whispered, voice trembling like glass. "And we didn't stop her from walking away."

Hamura turned his head, eyes glassy. "Do you remember... when she used to braid your hair to calm you down?" Hagoromo nodded, slowly. "She'd hum that old lullaby from the Moon Temple ruins," Hamura continued, voice breaking. "Even after the night raids. Even after everything. She never stopped trying to make the world gentle for us." The silence thickened.

"We told her she was wrong," Hagoromo said. "That she'd lost sight. That she didn't understand love anymore." And yet, She was the only one who had ever truly loved them. Not as gods. Not as weapons. But as sons.

"She died thinking we didn't love her," Hamura whispered, and it shattered something in his voice. The two brothers knelt at her side, and for the first time in their lives—since their births, since the first ripple of chakra, since the divine blood in their veins had marked them as something other—they cried like children. Not as sages. Not as saviors. As sons who had failed their mother.

"I would give up everything," Hagoromo whispered into the stillness, "everything, if I could hear her voice again. Just once. Just to say I'm sorry."

Flashback: After Kaguya's Cruelty

The vast chamber felt impossibly cold, despite the warmth of the afternoon sun streaming through its towering windows. But no light could reach the chill that settled over the two boys standing before their creator, their mother. Kaguya's eyes were sharp and unyielding, her voice dripping with disdain as it tore through their fragile spirits. "You are weak. Pathetic children who cannot even control the power I gave you," she spat, every word a wound. "I created you to be gods, yet you stumble like mere mortals. You shame me."

Hagoromo's chest heaved as he struggled to hold back the flood of shame and sorrow. His fists clenched so tightly the nails bit into his palms. Hamura's face was pale, lips trembling, but he refused to look away. The sting of rejection burned deeper than any physical pain. "You are nothing but mistakes," Kaguya continued, her tone venomous, "unworthy of my bloodline. You will never be what I intended. You disappoint me." She turn her back towards them and left.

Tears threatened to spill, but Sekhmet's footsteps echoed softly before the boys could crumble completely. She moved swiftly, but gently, kneeling before them, gathering them into her arms like fragile saplings caught in a storm. "My precious boys," her voice was a soft, steady flame in the dark room. "Listen not to those cruel words. They are but shadows that seek to blind you. I see your strength. I see your heart."

Hagoromo collapsed against her, letting the tears fall freely into the warmth of her embrace. Hamura leaned into her side, shaking from the ache that was not just in his body, but his soul. "I have watched over you since the moment you first breathed," Sekhmet whispered, pressing her cheek to theirs. "I held you when the nights were too cold, when fear threatened to swallow you whole. I sang lullabies beneath the moonlight to calm your trembling hearts." Her fingers traced gentle patterns along their backs, anchoring them to a love that was fierce, unyielding, and pure. "No matter what darkness falls, know this: you are not alone. I am your shield. I will bear every blow meant for you."

Sekhmet's eyes shimmered with unshed tears, not for herself, but for the pain her sons had endured. "They may call you weak, but I call you my sons, the warriors of light, love, and peace. Their bitterness cannot touch the truth of your souls." She cupped their faces tenderly, forcing them to meet her gaze. "I have loved you before the first dawn, before gods or demons walked this world. My love is the eternal fire that no storm can extinguish."

Kaguya's cruel words echoed in their ears, but wrapped in Sekhmet's arms, the boys found a sanctuary: a place where love was not conditional, where protection was absolute, and where they were, unequivocally, cherished.

Flashback: A Mother's Light

The moon hung low and full, casting silver light over a quiet grove of ancient trees. The air was thick with the scent of blooming jasmine and soft earth, alive with the gentle hum of night creatures. Sekhmet sat cross-legged on a mossy stone, her hands cradling two small forms nestled in her lap...her boys, Hamura and Hagoromo. Their breathing was slow and steady, innocent in sleep. Her jade eyes softened as she brushed a stray lock of hair from Hagoromo's forehead. "My brave boy," she whispered, the voice of a melody only the night could carry. "You carry the stars in your soul."

Hamura stirred, nestling closer, his tiny fingers curling around her braided hair. Sekhmet smiled, fingers weaving gently through the strands, humming an ancient lullaby, a song older than the heavens themselves, one only she remembered. "You are light," she said softly to Hamura. "A spark that will guide even the darkest paths." Her hands traced gentle circles on their backs, soothing away the fears that had yet to take shape. Despite the burdens of divinity and war yet to come, in this moment there was only warmth, safety, and love unspoken but felt deeply.

"Never forget," Sekhmet breathed, "you are more than the weight of the world. You are my heart. My sun and moon. My sons." As dawn threatened the horizon, she pressed a tender kiss to each of their foreheads, a silent promise that no matter how far the shadows stretched, she would always be their shield, their mother, their light.

Flashback: Quiet Moments Beneath the Stars

The night was calm and still, the kind of silence that wraps around you like a soft blanket. Sekhmet sat with Hamura and Hagoromo on a gentle hill, their backs resting against the ancient bark of a towering tree. Above them, the stars blinked in endless patterns, whispering secrets of time and fate.

Sekhmet's fingers traced slow circles on Hamura's small hand, while Hagoromo leaned into her side, his breath steady and calm. The boys were tired from the day's lessons, their young minds heavy with the weight of their destiny. "Do you see the stars, my sons?" Sekhmet murmured, voice barely louder than a breeze. "Each one is a story. Just like you." Hamura's eyes sparkled in the starlight. Sekhmet smiled, warmth flooding her gaze. "Remember the greatest stories, woven from courage, kindness, and love."

She reached up and gently brushed a loose strand of hair from Hagoromo's face, her touch feather-light. "No matter what comes, remember this...your hearts are stronger than any darkness. You carry the light within you." The boys sighed contentedly, comforted by her presence. For a brief moment, there was no battle, no gods or curses, only the quiet beating of three hearts under the same sky. Sekhmet closed her eyes, letting the peacefulness settle over them like a promise. Here, in these gentle moments, she gave them everything she had: her love, her strength, and the hope of a future bright enough to chase away even the deepest shadows.

Flashback: True Colors of Kaguya

The battlefield was a twisted tempest of swirling chakra and shattered earth. Kaguya's eyes burned with cold, merciless rage as she loomed over her sons, Hagoromo and Hamura, who stood trembling but defiant beneath her shadow. "You disappoint me," Kaguya hissed, her voice sharp like a blade slicing through the air. "Born of my blood yet weak. You defy me, and for that, you must be broken."

Hagoromo's chest heaved, his hands clenched tight. "Mother, please... don't do this." But Kaguya's wrath was a storm beyond reason. With a cruel smile, she raised her hand, the air thickening with lethal energy. A jagged spear of chakra formed, aimed directly at Hamura's heart.

"NO!" The roar shattered the tension like thunder. Sekhmet surged between them, her presence fierce and unyielding. The primordial goddess, older than the Ōtsutsuki line itself, radiated an ancient power that rippled through the battlefield. Her gold-red-tinged chakra flared wildly as she planted her feet firmly.

"You will not harm them," Sekhmet declared, her voice both gentle and terrible. "They are mine as much as they are yours."

Kaguya's eyes widened with fury and disbelief. "Who dares-? You were not born of me. You have no claim here!"

Sekhmet's gaze was steel. "I am the shield against your madness. The mother who raised them, who nurtured their spirits when you sought only to control and destroy." With a roar, she swung Astra, her chakra-bound axe glowing with vibrant gold light, smashing the lethal spear midair. The clash sent ripples through the air as ancient forces collided.

Kaguya snarled, stepping back, fury burning hotter. "They belong to me! You cannot steal what is mine."

Sekhmet stood unwavering, her every breath a promise. "They belong to their own destinies. And I will fight to the end to protect that truth." Her eyes glimmered with fierce, maternal love, not born of creation but of nurture and sacrifice. In that moment, Sekhmet was more than a goddess or warrior, but she was a mother, unbreakable and unyielding, willing to stand against even the cruelest creator to guard her sons.

Flashback: Lessons in the Garden of Light

Sekhmet led Hagoromo and Hamura through a serene garden bathed in golden afternoon light. The air was fragrant with blossoms, the soft hum of nature surrounding them like a living prayer. She stopped by a delicate flower bending under the breeze. "Look closely," Sekhmet said softly, "how even the gentlest wind can move this flower without breaking it. Strength is not always about force."

Hagoromo frowned, gripping a small wooden training sword. "But, Mother, what if the wind is too strong? Shouldn't we use our power to stop it?"

Sekhmet smiled, kneeling to meet his eyes. "Power without wisdom is like a storm that destroys the garden instead of nurturing it. True strength lies in knowing when to bend and when to stand tall." She stood, reaching out to cradle Hamura's cheek. "We are warriors, yes. But first, we are protectors; of life, of balance, and of peace. Power that conquers without care is hollow."

Hamura's gaze was wide, absorbing every word. "So peace is stronger than power?"

"Peace is the foundation," Sekhmet whispered. "Power is only a tool, nothing more. When used with compassion, it can build worlds. But when wielded without heart, it brings only ruin." The boys exchanged glances, the weight of her words settling deep within them. Sekhmet gathered them close, her voice a soothing promise. "Remember this, always: to protect, not to dominate, to heal, not to harm. That is the divine path I walk, and the path I hope you will choose." In that quiet garden, beneath the endless sky, her sons understood for the first time that the greatest power was the power to choose peace.

Memory Fragment: "The Night of Ambush"

It began with silence. Not the peaceful kind, but the suffocating stillness that comes before a storm, where birds vanish, leaves hold their breath, and the very world seems to recoil. Sekhmet stood atop the blackened cliff, her bare feet planted in ash and her braids dripping with blood and rain. Astra, the axe forged from the pulse of the earth's core, sat heavy in her grip, glowing faintly gold-red where it once shone like a star. Below, the village she had sworn to protect smoldered, gone, burned to bones and soil by celestial invaders. She had been too late; a day, an hour... It didn't matter. The scent of scorched wood and split chakra still clung to her skin. The sky cracked open above her.

Seven... Seven Ōtsutsuki descended in tandem, like ghosts stitched into reality wrong. Their robes didn't billow with the wind; they moved as if they ruled gravity. Their Byakugan eyes glowed like pale moons, their bodies inhuman and perfect in that unnerving, wrong way only gods could be. "You are not of the bloodline," said one. His voice layered with distortion. "You were not born of the Tree. Your existence is a defilement." Sekhmet didn't answer. "You toy with powers that do not belong to your kind and you have stolen children that do not belong to you."

"I don't need your kind's permission," she said, voice low and dangerous. "Especially when you use that power to destroy those children." A pause. Then without warning, they struck. Seven beams of compressed chakra lit up the mountain. Sekhmet hurled Astra upward, spinning like a wheel of green fire, and it shattered three attacks instantly, she vanished in the same moment, reappearing in a flash of momentum behind one Ōtsutsuki. A clean slice, shoulder to spine. He didn't die, but he screamed.

They converged on her then, folding space, blinking through dimensions. Hands reached out, bones stretched unnaturally, orbs of nullified chakra struck like meteorites. Sekhmet fought like a falling star: blinding, beautiful, and terrible to witness. She was not invincible, no, she had lost her invincibility when she had taken on the physical form. One of them pierced her side with a spear of light. She gasped and retaliated, swinging Astra upward and sending a shockwave that split the clouds. Another shattered her kneecap from behind with a crushing kick. She fell to one knee. Blood spilled freely now. Her vision swam. She coughed, tasting iron. Still, she rose again.

She let out a battle-cry that was not divine, but human: raw and primal, the scream of a mother who had known grief, and refused to surrender to it. With one final, furious arc, she carved a circle into the ground. The forest responded, trees exploding upward, roots snatching limbs, vines crackling with emerald energy. They paused, unsettled. She stood again, surrounded by flame and earth, the wind whipping through her braids. Her skin was laced with golden fissures, chakra leaking from within like molten cracks. "You think I'm alone?" she growled, lifting Astra in one hand. "The earth itself is my ally."

Moments Later: A Memory Carved in Time

Far away, Hagoromo and Hamura came running. They arrived to find the battle site glowing like a cratered battlefield kissed by twilight. Six Ōtsutsuki had fled. One lay shattered, and Sekhmet... She was broken, bleeding, but still stood until the sight of her sons, and then she collapsed into their arms.

Hamura caught her, holding her tight. "Mother," he choked. "Why didn't you call us?"

"I needed to see if they would come for me... or for you." She gritted her teeth. "They came for all of us."

Hagoromo wiped blood from her cheek, voice shaking. "You shouldn't have stood alone."

She opened one eye, barely smiling. "I never stand alone."

Present

Memory washed over them like moonlight, sudden and soft. It had been a night long before war, before madness, and before destiny became a curse.

The two brothers, younger, smaller, lay curled up against Sekhmet beneath a canopy of whispering trees. The sky above was painted with stars, and a fire crackled low beside them. Sekhmet was humming: low, ancient, wordless. Her arms encircled them both, and her cloak wrapped around them like wings.

Hamura stirred first. "You're awake," he mumbled, half-asleep. "You always stay up."

"I have to," she whispered, brushing back his hair. "You dream better when I'm watching."

Hagoromo shifted, tucking his face into her shoulder. "You smell like sage," he murmured.

She chuckled softly. "That's because you poured it all over me when you were trying to make tea."

"It was an experiment," Hagoromo defended sleepily.

"I know, my clever boy." She kissed the top of his head, then Hamura's. "My little moons. Do you know I love you more than the sky loves the stars?"

Hamura blinked. "Even when we fight?"

"Even then."

Hagoromo reached for her hand. "Even if Mother gets angry?" Sekhmet's smile faded into something softer. She looked up at the sky.

"She can be... a storm," she said slowly. "But storms are not what raise flowers. You must remember that." She held them tighter. "My love for you is not born of blood. It was chosen, earned, and built from every scraped knee I kissed, every nightmare I chased away, every tear I caught before it fell."

"You're not just a goddess," Hamura said quietly, his voice small and honest. "You're our mom." Her breath caught, and in the present, so did theirs.

In the clearing, neither could speak. The memory faded, leaving behind its warmth and its wound. "She gave us everything," Hagoromo said at last, his voice hoarse. "And we questioned her. We defended her," his voice shook." We defended the one who wanted to destroy us, and turned our backs on the one who only ever loved us."

Hamura pressed a trembling hand to his eyes. "We betrayed her. And she still chose us." A breeze passed, and with it came the scent of sage and wildflowers. A mother's love, eternal.

"She was never just a shield," Hagoromo whispered. "She was our heart." As they stood, heads bowed before the place she fell, a silent vow passed between them, not just to build the world she dreamed of, but to honor her with every breath they had left, because they had lost their true mother, and they would never forget her and her teachings.