Work Text:
he thought minato trusted him.
he thought there were no secrets between them, after he spilled his guts and his deepest fears - after minato told him, so quietly, about his Family and his mental health and the hope that has been slowly growing in his heart.
he thought they could trust each other. but this first night after his Death, he watches the World turn green and wrong and he watches his Friend walk out of his dorm with a sword and a gun, and he thinks that he doesn’t know minato at all.
.
.
minato's Friends - his classmates and a dog and a little boy - converge on the enormous, towering monstrosity in the middle of town, and they shoot themselves in the head, and they attack unknowable, horrifying consciousness with everything in them.
"why?" akinari asks, screams, begs to know why his dearest Friend is doing such a thing, but no one answers him.
.
.
in this Place, he knows things.
it's not that he learned them. it's just that he didn't know them, before, and now he does.
the Dark Hour is a fact of life, to the others Here. but akinari did not know of it when he was alive. (the coffins, tall and black and bloody, line the streets as minato leads his Friends forward. akinari feels sick at the thought of the people they should be.)
the Dark Hour has existed for years and years beneath his very nose though he never had the perception to notice it, and something twists in his lungs and his heart as he watches his Friend kill himself again and again.
how long has he been doing this? how long has he been protecting japan, protecting iwatodai, protecting akinari with no thought to his own health?
minato and his Friends discuss defeating the Reaper. "i think we're strong enough," says akihiko sanada. "that thing's ratings are off the charts," argues junpei iori. and little ken amada - a grade schooler by anyone's estimation - squares his shoulders and says, "if you think it'll stop whatever ikutsuki was planning, we should do it."
minato leads a team of his Friends to fight Death itself in this hollow bastion of humanity's heart. they defeat it, but only just. the way his Friend yukari screamed when megidoloan came down upon their heads is something akinari never wishes to hear again.
"congratulations," fuuka says, but her voice wobbles and her hands shake. "let's go home for the night," minato says, and for once no one argues with him.
akinari thinks this is the first time he's truly seen his Friend scared.
.
.
minato makes a new Friend, and akinari does not trust him.
it's november, scarce weeks after he died, and the scent of Death is still thick and heavy in his lungs. ryoji mochizuki, the new transfer student with the too-wide smile and the sunny scarf, reminds him of it far too much in a way he cannot shake.
the boy's memories may be gone, but akinari's aren't - and something uncomfortable twists in his gut as he grows ever closer to minato. they share meals and headphones and quiet nights on the dorm rooftop, and akinari can do nothing but watch as he's sure the Earth spins toward certain doom.
.
.
"kill me."
akinari's watched his Friends and Family for weeks, now. he's watched his parents grieve; he's watched minato destroy countless Shadows in the depths of that dark tower. he's watched the World move on without him.
he watches ryoji mochizuki remember, and he watches minato arisato crumble. these may be the worst things of all.
"you have until new year's eve," ryoji says, something like compassion on Death's face as he hugs his middle, looking at the teenagers clustered around him. "if you kill me, you will not feel any pain when it ends."
"i'm not going to kill you! " minato snarls, and tries to shove his tears away, and doesn't try to keep his voice level. "you're my Friend, ryoji -"
"i'm no one's Friend," ryoji says, and something in his eyes makes that a lie though akinari cannot make it out. "i am the avatar of Nyx, and Nyx is unstoppable. there is nothing you can do."
he's always thought that if anyone in this World could perform a miracle, it would be minato. but minato does not seem to think so - because akinari watches him storm up to his room and throw himself onto the bed. he watches his Friends dissipate to their own rooms, lost and terrified looks on their faces. and he watches ryoji mochizuki disappear into thin air on the dorm's front step, a desolate and haunted look on his face.
.
.
december passes by in a blur, even for akinari.
the sky is bleak, and the cult rises like a firestorm, and minato despairs. there is nothing he can do about it.
back then, his Friend surprised him with his familiarity with Death. "i had to grow up fast," he told akinari, once. "if i kept being scared of it, i wouldn't have survived as long as i have."
he thinks this is still the case but still minato stagnates, and his Friends do the same around him. these children who are aware enough of their own mortality that they can kill themselves to summon their Souls - the children who have kept going out of desperation and hope and the surety that there has to be some way to stop this -
well, that's all gone now. Death himself has announced the end of the World, and who are they to defy it?
he watches minato go to that strange blue room on new year’s eve. the man with the long nose smiles toothily at him, and then he smiles at akinari. minato does not seem to notice.
"how can we help you today, dear Guest?" he asks, and minato swallows.
"i want to fuse something that can kill Death," he says, and akinari's breath catches.
igor's smile grows, and grows, and grows.
.
.
"we're not giving up," minato says to ryoji that night, and akinari is so relieved that he nearly forgets they're talking about the end of the World. "i'm not going to kill you!"
ryoji sighs like an old man, and rubs at his eyes, and scarcely notices when aigis tries to shoot him full of holes. "there's nothing you can do," he says loudly, his voice cracking. when he looks up, his eyes are full of tears. "why would you want to die in pain and fear?"
"because this life is worth fighting for," minato says, steel in his words and his Friends behind him.
ryoji shakes his head, and disappears at the stroke of midnight, and akinari doesn't think he's ever been so proud.
.
.
january is all nervous energy, and Shadow fighting, and something akinari can't quite put his finger on growing between SEES as they ascend the tower.
it's something warm, something terrible, something like a final Judgment as minato leads his Friends higher and higher. it's something like the feeling in his chest that he got every time he talked to minato at the shrine.
it's something like the rising Sun though this Dark Hour is pitch black and eerie green. when minato swears to them that they will win this, akinari believes it.
.
.
the World is ending, and minato stands alone.
akinari screams with everything in him - his Friend who gave him so much life, his Friend who swore to his team that they could save the World, his Friend who was so comfortable with - and so terrified by - Death -
his Friend is staring Death in the face and he smiles. even when the Earth is coming undone beneath his feet, even when his Friends lie strewn upon this battlefield, minato drops his sword and his evoker.
he smiles in a way akinari has never seen, and then he lifts one hand.
the World is blinding and glorious and then a Messiah is there. akinari does not need to blink against the light but he does anyway, his non-breath catching in his throat as minato climbs and climbs and -
a single finger, a single breath, a tiny whisper of a SEAL and then -
.
.
Death has been locked away.
minato is fading.
he dies on a rooftop surrounded by his Friends. akinari thinks they will not meet again, even in this afterlife, and his gaze blurs with tears as minato closes his eyes.
this World is unfair, he thinks, to tear minato arisato away so suddenly, so cruel, so early. his Friend with the heart like a prism, refracting and amplifying all the color and beauty around him - his Friend with the infinite possibilities within his Soul - his Friend with enough kindness to blanket the whole World in protection, and enough courage to give up everything to see it through.
his Friend, and minato smiles, and akinari, sobbing, must turn away.