Chapter Text
The very first time I remember you, your eyes are brown, and you don’t love me back.
The next time, they are blue, and you do.
After a while, I give up trying to guess if the color of your eyes means anything.
Because even when you don’t exist, I'm always in love with you.
I remember most fondly those lifetimes when we get to grow up together.
Where you share your secrets and sorrows and hiding places with me.
I love how you always go along with my bad ideas.
Before you grow up and realize they are bad ideas.
(and in our times together, I have many many bad ideas.)
When we meet as adults, you’re always much more discerning.
I don’t blame you.
Yet, always, you forgive me.
As if you understand what’s going on, and you’re making up for all the lifetimes in which one of us doesn’t exist,
and the ones where we just, barely, never meet.
I hate those. I prefer the ones in which you kill me.
But when all is said and done, I’d surrender to you in other ways.
Even though each time, I know I’ll see you again, I always wonder
is this the last time?
Is that really you?
And what if you’re already perfectly happy without me?
Ah, but I don’t blame you;
I’ll never burn as brilliantly as you.
It’s only fair that I should be the one to chase you across ten, twenty-five, a hundred lifetimes
until I find the one where you’ll return to me.
The Kawoshin version of Tongari's poem, 25 Lives.
“Don’t make me do this, Guren,” Shinya said, and he hated how his voice shook. Yet despite his trembling voice, his hands were firm. Byakkomaru was steadily pointed at Guren’s face, the end of the rifle hovering just inches from Guren’s face. “Do not make me shoot you.”
Guren smiled, but it was an unnerving, blank smile; in fact, his entire face was cold, blank. Like a doll, something inhuman.
Yet no curse marks marred his face, and his sword remained sheathed. The events that had occurred moments before hit Shinya with the force of a physical blow— Guren had just murdered their comrades, their friends.
It couldn’t be true, Shinya thought, swallowing against his dry throat. His lips were cracked and dry, his face bloodstained, his overall appearance rumpled and dirty. Guren looked so clean compared to him.
So cold.
Who is the Hiragi here?
Shinya’s eyes widened. “Mahiru,” He said, but Guren’s face didn’t change. “Mahiru. You’re not Guren. You’re Mahiru.”
“Mahiru is dead,” Guren said, flatly. “She is no longer here. Calm down, Shinya.”
Shinya laughed. It was a hysterical sound; nothing seemed real, anymore. Was this all a nightmare? A horrible dream, conjured by his mind?
The corpses of his comrades were too real to be a dream, the overpowering smell of blood too sharp. This wasn’t a dream. This was reality, which was so much worse.
“Hey, Mahiru,” Shinya said, voice cracking. “Why… why did you do this to Guren?” Guren remained silent, and Shinya had to swallow his hysteria down enough to speak. “Tell me!”
“Mahiru is no longer here,” Guren repeated. “I am not her, Shinya.”
“ ‘No longer here’,” Shinya repeated, the words bitter. “You mean, she was here. You were possessed by her, but not any longer.”
Guren was silent, observing Shinya with dull eyes. Dull, slit-pupiled eyes.
“I am not possessed,” Guren said, finally.
Guren’s teeth were pointed. The realization made everything go numb; Shinya did not feel, not any longer. The rising panic and overwhelming hysteria drained out of him, falling away, leaving a shell. The corpses and blood were a distant memory, the chaos around them faded, like an old photograph. His emotions were dulled and gone, a familiar lack of feeling, a comforting apathy, but not one he thought he would ever feel around Guren.
He had always felt around Guren. It had been the only time it had been okay to feel emotion, around Guren.
Had he lost even that?
“I see,” Shinya said, and it sounded hollow, even to his own ears. “I understand now. You are no longer a human, nor a namanari.”
“What am I, then?” Guren asked, but they both already knew the answer. Guren was just toying with him, anyways; or at least, the thing that had used to be Guren Ichinose was toying with him. Toying with a helpless human with an emotional attachment too strong to ever pull the trigger.
“Die, demon,” Shinya whispers. “Go Byakkomaru. Bang.”
The demon actually managed to look surprised before the white, flaming, tiger-possessed bullet struck him, and Guren’s corpse fell to the ground, the demon dead. A ring of blood began to spread out underneath his head, like a twisted halo.
Shinya dropped his rifle and wept.
His sight went dark, and he already knew his fate was sealed.
Byakkomaru appeared before him in the form of Guren. Guren in his high school uniform, young and face unburdened by the troubles of the world. He looked remarkably young and carefree.
Shinya knew that Guren had never actually looked like that. It was simply his demon taking advantage of his weakness, manipulating him.
He didn’t care anymore.
Guren offered his hand with a beaming smile that the real Guren never would have ever made.
“Let’s go, Shinya.”
Shinya doesn’t ask where. It doesn’t matter; he doesn’t care. He smiled back and accepted Guren’s hand, and everything went dark for the last time.