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“The responsibility is mine,” he says, aiming his gun, but his eyes are on Kiryu. “So let me do this.”
There’s nothing else he can do. Years of effort spent for wasted achievement, and all he has to show for it is the blood on his hands. It’s all useless, but at least he can end it now with some dignity. At least he can say that he saved Kiryu one last time.
Nishikiyama closes his eyes for just a split second, preparing for the end, and then he turns and pulls the trigger. The gun fires at the same instant he feels something slam into his side. A second later, he’s laid out on the ground, dizzy from the force of the impact, but he’s still alive. He missed. He missed because Kiryu is kneeling above him, breathing hard; he must have tackled Nishikiyama out of the way.
“Kiryu.” He feels angry as much as anything else. How dare Kiryu take this from him, too?
“You can’t do this, Nishiki.” Kiryu is shaking and furious. Nishikiyama can see his hands clenched into trembling fists. “You were wrong, all those years ago. There’s only one thing you can’t come back from.”
“Kiryu…” The blazing eyes of the Dragon of Dojima flash to Nishikiyama’s gun, and then lock gazes with him, and he doesn’t understand. There’s no undoing any of what happened. The instant he killed Dojima, his fate was set, and now the costs have grown too high to ever repay in his lifetime.
“Killing Jingu—killing yourself—doesn’t fix any of this. You’re still just running from fate. But we can face it head on. We can fight it. Together. Just like we should have ten years ago.”
Nishikiyama is speechless, now, just staring in mixed horror and awe. Kiryu looks as determined and sincere as he’s ever been, and Nishikiyama realizes, as Kiryu unclenches his fist and offers him his open hand, that he isn’t furious after all.
“So, please.” Something in Kiryu’s voice breaks. “Don’t go getting ahead of me… brother.”
A second chance is more than he deserves, but the look in Kiryu’s eyes tells him that Kiryu is really the one who needs this, who needs him. All he can do is meet that need.
“Kiryu,” he sobs, dropping the gun. They come together in a tight embrace, both broken, and Nishikiyama clings to Kiryu like he’s the only thing keeping the world together.
They stay like that, locked together, until emergency services arrive. They’re both weak, battered and bloody, but by the time he wakes the next day in his hospital bed and Kiryu is still there, Nishikiyama knows they’re strong enough to make a life for themselves, whatever it takes, and he’s determined not to waste the one that Kiryu gave to him.