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”He shouldn’t be able to see us,” Kido says, and a profound feeling of wrongness paralyzes her. After years of trying to control her eyes, of desperately clinging to that person in order to not fade away entirely— after all that, she suddenly wants to disappear again more than anything.
"Ah, sorry!" Kano says cheerily, stepping forward, no hint of strain in that voice. He’s deceiving, of course, he always is, but she’s grateful for it, if it might stop the others from realizing what she and Kano already know. "We’re blocking the road, aren’t we? We’ll get out of your way—"
The mask and the smile drops from Kano’s face abruptly. There’s a noise, loud, so loud. Kano stays kneeling for a moment, swaying a little, a look of confusion on his face— Hey, Kido, how did this happen to me? I don’t understand—
He’s upright for just that instant, and then he falls forward.
Kido hears a weird noise, a low, long, drawn-out scream, a sound like someone’s tearing it out of an unwilling throat. It’s so annoying, so annoying, she wishes it would stop— it takes her a moment to realize it’s her who’s making that noise, and she chokes it off with her will and her gasping, sobbing tears that she can’t stop. Kano’s murderer is grinning madly. Her adrenaline and the chemicals pumping through her bloodstream are telling her to run away, but she runs towards Kano’s collapsed form instead, instinctively.
His body’s already gone still by the time Kido reaches him.
She holds him anyway, and the tears run down her face with all regard for outer appearances gone. She can feel the last vestiges of life and warmth that are still there, not ready to leave yet. She holds him like he held her as children: at this rate I’ll disappear, she’d said, and he’d said it’s fine, I can see Kido, she’s right there.
She sees the gun being pointed towards her out of the corner of her eye, slowly. He’s making a game out of it. It’s so slow that Kido could try to run; that’s probably his goal, she thinks dimly. To see her run, see her dance, see her beg.
She doesn’t close her eyes, doesn’t look up from Kano’s face. It’ll be the last thing she sees before she dies, she thinks, and almost laughs— imagine how much he would’ve teased her for that—
"Shuuya," she says, and she’s going to say something else to that cold, unhearing body of his, but the bullets rip into her skin before she has a chance.
It takes her a few seconds to black out. All she can think is, with a strange sense of relief, At least he didn’t have to watch me die like this.
He’ll be saved from that, at least.
—-
The next time, it’s her who Konoha turns to first (it can’t be Konoha, and yet—) and she’s not even given that comfort as she’s stabbed and ripped apart. She sees Kano’s face as it happens. The mask slips away and is replaced with uncontrollable, contorted anguish and he screams her name and continues screaming her name even as Kuroha points the gun towards his forehead.
Her death isn’t instantaneous. It takes a few moments, and that’s enough for her to see Kano be shot again, in the front of his forehead this time, forced into honesty for once in his life.
—-
It’s not always as kind as a bullet to the head. One time, Kuroha grasps Kano’s head and twists with a grinding and crunching of bone and the bright, bright, bright red splatter of blood.
Kido can’t even scream, that time; she falls to her knees and vomits onto the ground, heaving and gasping for air. It delays her too much. She tries to move towards Kano— not Kano, that mangled, disfigured corpse can’t be him— but Kuroha reaches her first, and stomps down hard on her leg. She feels the bone of her shin shatter and hears herself scream.
Kuroha steps back, satisfied, to survey his work. Kido ignores him, ignores her leg, pulls herself forward with her arms towards Kano despite it all out of pure anger and spite. Kuroha’s expression changes from pleasure to distaste.
"How pathetic," he sneers. "How boring. You still have hope, even now?"
She continues to crawl, and Kuroha’s face contorts. “That really pisses me off.”
She’s not looking at him, but she hears the shot and then feels the bullet hit her arm. Kido collapses.
The pain is starting to lessen, somehow, and she realizes that this is what dying must feel like. She tries to hold onto her anger, but it slips away; all she has left is guilt. For doing nothing, for failing to protect everyone.
She tries to look at Kano, to see him one last time, but the last thing Kido sees is Kuroha standing before her, smiling, as he stomps down on her throat.
—-
They die together, sometimes; Kido steps in front of Kano, or Kano pushes her out of the way, and they’re shot simultaneously. This is one of those times. Her body’s fallen on his, head on his stomach where she can feel the blood spurting out, fast, too fast.
"Kano—"
"I’m alright," he says, through clenched teeth.
"Liar."
Kano laughs at that, and laughs and laughs, and then goes still very suddenly. How fitting, Kido thinks wearily, that he should die laughing.
—-
They lie on their backs, side by side, the tips of their fingers brushing. Kido tries to move her hand to reach his, but she can’t; there’s no strength left in her body.
"Tsubomi?"
She would have been surprised at the use of her given name, normally, but she doesn’t question it at this moment. “Yeah?”
"Hey, do you think there’s…" His voice trails off but then resumes with a strained tone, like it’s taking all he has to speak. "Is there a way this doesn’t happen? Is there something we could’ve done?"
"I don’t know." It’s hard to think, but she fights against that overwhelming desire to let her eyes close. "Maybe there’s some other world where we don’t…"
She can hear Kano’s choking, labored breathing beside her. “Th-that’s. Maybe, yeah.” He grins, or tries to, but the movement makes him grimace in pain. “Too bad. There’s something I would’ve liked to tell Kido in that world.”
"Don’t be an idiot," Kido says, urgently. "Tell me now, then." She can feel his fingers getting colder against hers.
Kano laughs a little. “Sorry, I can’t—” he breaks off to gasp for air. “A deathbed confession is just too depressing, don’t you think? And not original at all.”
Kido tries desperately to move her hand to grasp his, as if she can drag him back with her, but she can’t move. His fingers twitch once and then grow still.
A noise rips out of her throat, halfway between a scream and a sob. She closes her eyes and waits for death.