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It would be easier if this were all meaningless. The forceful freeing of the chains around his heart had not been enough to strengthen his resolve against theirs, and so he lost and was left in the ground – that would have been easier to understand, he thinks. Easier to leave all this without the weight on his heart. But because it has meaning, that’s why it hurts so much worse, doesn’t it? The conversations over coffee and chess games, the banter, the battles – even their sympathy, as sick and repulsive as the pity in their eyes made him feel…it meant something.
That’s why it’s painful. More than the wound in his side, his life leaking over his fingers, the rejection of an offer he never thought he would be given and most certainly did not deserve. It cuts deeper than flesh and bone, slices through him and into a place that is far more difficult to heal.
Akechi moves his hand, can see his fingers twitch wet and red around the gun that weighs them down. His mask crumbles further, revealing the sneer beneath it, a poetic send off for the final act.
Teammates. Companions. Friends. No matter how much he yearned, they had always been words synonymous with weakness, and that was something Akechi could not allow himself to be. After coming this far on his own, he could never ask for someone else to lick his wounds. Not even in moments where the deepest, most vulnerable parts of himself had wished that someone would offer.
He laughs a sound that is all air.
It doesn’t matter now.
His cognitive spits blood as it struggles to its feet, their wounds perfectly mirrored, shadows hunched around them and one order away from finishing what the Thieves – or rather, he – started.
Speaking of, those idiots are yelling at him through the partition. Banging and hollering and desperate to save someone who never asked to be – Akechi doesn’t imagine he has much time left, but given every minute remaining in the world, he still isn’t sure he would be able to wrap his mind around that concept. His choice has been made, and if they won’t accept that, he better give them a reason to back off.
“You would have all perished…if you had tried to face these with me weighing you down.”
He grits his teeth to hold back a wet cough, but blood still escapes and dribbles down his chin. Loathe as he is to admit it, there may be more truth to that excuse than he intended. He still cannot swallow the fact that he’s lost without feeling it slide sick and sour down his throat.
Joker had called him his rival. Skull had said he was special. Akechi wasn’t as sure as he used to be. He had always been a failure, right from his birth; it took everything in him on top of god-given power to claw from the bottom of that hole where he had started.
In everyone’s eyes, he had been a failure, and now he had even failed himself.
Akechi takes a breath that rattles his insides, wipes sweat from his eyes and smears blood on his bangs in the process.
Yeah. He failed. But he had found something here, at the end of it all. And he wouldn’t fail that. He wouldn’t fail them, even if they didn’t understand his decision. There is a small turn at the corner of his mouth.
Damn. What sentimental garbage…
“Let’s make a deal…okay?” The light clunk of his helmet as he rests his head on the partition, as close as he can allow himself to be now. “You won’t say no, will you?” He swallows; dull to the pressure of dozens of red eyes upon him, of his cognitive self seething in an all too familiar rage. He only has ears for Joker right now, and he better not disappoint him. “Change Shido’s heart…in my stead. End his crimes.”
He wonders if they understand the extraordinary amount of will it takes for him to leave this – his father, his hatred, everything his life has centered on for the past three years – in their hands. When his plea is met with silence, he feels his anger swell like a physical thing. Joker is doing it again, scrambling his mind for the better outcome, for a way to fight against his wishes - the hesitation is nothing short of infuriating.
He slams his fist against the metal between them. “Please…!”
He can’t see it, but he can imagine the way Joker jumps, the little furrow that creases his brows in that last bit of stubbornness that refuses to give in – and then, with certainty, “I promise.”
And just like that, the anger dissipates, leaving behind a bare smile and a single nod.
Good. This is it then.
He straightens himself with only a slight wince, raising his arm and the gun it still holds. “So my final enemy is a puppet version of myself. Not bad.”
“Insolence…” his cognitive self mirrors him once more, words tearing into him through unabated fury and ragged breathing, “What right…does a dog have…to defy its master’s orders?!”
“None,” Akechi mutters. His frown feels more like a grimace, and it slowly twists into a sneer. “You’re right. I would have done anything for him – for his ruin, and for my mother. For the acknowledgement...I thought was worth everything.” His eyes flick up, lancing his own shadow. “I was a fool.”
Not so different from them, really. He can’t help a more than mildly self-deprecating smirk. “I am a fool.”
The cognitive throws its arm out, aiming the gun in his direction. “Then die like one!”
Akechi chuckles, high and light and broken. “Fair enough.”
This version of himself that Shido created was given life by the blood on Akechi’s own hands. He didn’t know it until now, but he had helped to create this, so perhaps it was fitting that it would be the end of him. That suits him just fine, because, “Here, I finally found my truth.”
Every one of those driveling idiots flashes through his mind in that moment, and if he were any less himself, he could attribute the choke on his words to be from regret rather than rage.
Maybe next time.
“This choice is mine!”
Two gunshots ring out. The shadows collapse into black wisps. The room deadens with quiet.
~*~
In the moments where his vision begins to swim, and he can feel his heartbeat throbbing in all the wrong places – his head, his side, his throat – Akechi finds himself wondering for the first time in his life where he will go after this. He finds himself hoping that he can see the outcome of their promise from that place. He finds himself hoping that it will be the same one as his mother.
There is a lot he would like to tell her.