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“What are you going to do?” Josuke blinked to find himself standing just outside Reimi’s alleyway, the sidewalk on either side of him shrouded in mist. She floated some distance away, looking quietly devastated. Arnold stood next to her and whined. His usually benevolent tail-wagging had come to an uncharacteristic halt. He wanted to walk over and console him, suddenly, but he stopped at the threshold of the alleyway when he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Something’s wrong.
“...What am I doing here?”
Reimi looked at him sadly. “If you’re here, it means you’re dying.”
“...Oh.” Slowly, he remembered the ambulance, and Okuyasu holding onto his hand for dear life. What he’d said was hazy, and got even hazier as he tried to remember what had happened before he blacked out. If he leaned closer to the mist, he could still hear Okuyasu calling his name. “Can I--” he turned to gesture at the rest of Morioh behind him, “can I still go back?”
“I think you have a choice.” Reimi looked back at Morioh and the fog behind him. “You can choose to go back, or stay here, or pass on if you’re finished with all this.” He heard Okuyasu scream something he couldn’t make out, but when he looked back he was nowhere to be seen.
Josuke swallowed. “I don’t want to leave them.”
The more time he spent near the alley, the lighter he felt. The weightlessness scared him, so he took a few steps back, and just as he touched the mist his wounds reappeared. Pain cascaded through his shoulder, his torso, his leg. He could feel the pole piercing his thigh even though he couldn’t see it. He collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. “I would have to crawl back through that?” he asked, shaking as he dragged himself out of the fog. His wounds faded almost instantly, but the pain took much longer to dissipate.
“You could stay in the alleyway if you want to rest, but you’d be staying forever. Or at least until you pass on.” Reimi pointed to the mist. “If you’re going back, you need to do it now.” He looked up to see her kneeling at the threshold of the alleyway as she spoke and reached out to squeeze his shoulder gently. “You’re fading away already, and you’ll have to stay if you don’t fight it.”
The idea of staying with Reimi wasn’t as comforting as he’d expected it to be.
The tips of his fingers were already starting to shift into something like a pale gold cloud as he grew lighter and lighter, but he’d made up his mind. “I’m going back.” She nodded with approval and something like distant jealousy.
“Good luck.” Reimi smiled sadly and walked back to her alley. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Josuke nodded and stepped into the fog.
The pain knocked him to his knees, but he knew that the mist didn’t go on forever. Standing took his breath away, but he did it even as his lungs filled with lava instead of air. His body stayed upright through sheer force of will. He sucked the mist in with each shaky breath and coughed at the charred taste. Every ounce of weight on his left leg was like a bolt of fire shooting straight through his body, but he kept moving. All the while, the golden sheen on his fingers crept further up his arms, taking the color and life out of him inch by inch.
Just as the edge of the fog was in sight, he felt his foot catch on the curb, and he fell before he could stop himself. The sidewalk came up to meet his already broken ribs, and he cried out, coughing violently. Each spasmodic breath sent the sharp bone deeper into his lungs. As the spots across his vision faded, he saw blood spattering the sidewalk in front of him.
He couldn’t stand up again. He wasn’t sure if he spent seconds or hours trying, but his legs shook and came out from under him each time. He tried crawling, but he couldn’t hold himself up. He knew that he could easily give up; let himself get swept up in Death’s arms and carried off to whatever was beyond the alley. A small part of him wanted to lie there and wait for it to take him.
He remembered Okuyasu screaming, and the urge faded.
Josuke grit his teeth and pulled himself forward by his fingertips. His legs trailed uselessly behind him. For every inch he pushed the pain only increased, until his vision went white from clenching his eyes shut. With every move he made, he told himself to make another. Finally, he looked up to see that his hands stuck out of the fog. The pale gold that had crept up them was gone.
Josuke grinned wildly as hope flooded back through him. He pulled the rest of his arms past the wall of vapor, then his head, then his torso, until he was far enough out to roll onto his back and pull his legs out. The golden kiss of death was gone. He tapped the asphalt underneath him in appreciation and was surprised to find it felt something like bedsheets. As his vision faded, he grinned up at the sky in triumph, taunting whatever reaper had tried to claim him.
The last thing he felt before losing consciousness were his lips forming the words “take that.”
***
In the Morioh General Hospital, a crowd of nurses and doctors took a unanimous breath of relief as a heart monitor stopped screaming.