#akira debriefs Kolivan on the situation and the man has never had a worse headache in his life

[discordiansamba]

whenever I think about Kethe and Akira's future relationship in abyss of memory, and how they'll eventually come around to viewing each other as twins, my brain automatically asks 'okay but what if they were twins for real' but today I actually made the mistake of entertaining it and now I am just. thinking about it a lot.

like. they're identical twins. When Krolia left, she took Akira with her, and Keith stayed behind on Earth. They both know they have a twin brother, but only Akira knows the full story. Heath was always planning on telling Keith when he was older, but he didn't have the chance to before he died.

Despite being literal galaxies apart, they've always shared a connection and can sometimes get impressions from the other. It helped Keith feel a little less alone while he was in foster care, but he doesn't really talk about his twin that much. Shiro's the only one who knows he exists.

So which on is the red paladin, you ask? The answer is that they both are. Akira is on Sendak's ship for a Blade mission at the same time Keith is there to steal the red lion back for the paladins. They meet each other in the hangar, briefly face off before recognizing the other- which what the fuck, how are you this far out in space, before they team up against the sentries and are both scooped up by the red lion.

They don't have any time to talk until after the crisis is handled. At no point does Keith ever mention over the coms that he's run into his fucking twin in the middle of space. Akira debriefs Keith on everything- including his own heritage- and they both mutually decide it would be bad if anyone found out about it. But how are they supposed to hide that there's two of them?

Well. Easy. They both pretend to be Keith. This is a great idea, and it will work perfectly. They're identical, especially after Akira cuts off his braid. No one will notice a thing.

(The funny thing is, no one knows Keith well enough to notice anything is amiss... except for Shiro, who definitely notices. He just doesn't have any reason to suspect that Keith ran into his identical twin in the middle of space.)