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The blade trembled in her hand, and yet, the ring of fire around her pupils spoke of surety. Fang Runin was ready to die.
The buzz of the dirigibles faded away to a low hum, replaced by ringing in Nezha’s ears. He wished he could stretch this moment for eternity; a second for them only, gazes locked, turned into the forever he’d once, foolishly, craved .
“You have to do it now,” She urged, and Great Tortoise, there were tears running down the curve of her cheeks. Rin pressed the blade harder against his palms.
She was so small, so fragile. Strong, too. Resilient. Fucking stubborn .
If only the path she’d so obstinately chosen hadn’t clashed with Nezha’s own inflexible morals, her stubbornness might have been endearing. This was not how this meeting was supposed to play out. He wanted to be angry at Kitay for not being able to convince her, but they too were opposites. The fundamental difference lay in the fact that Kitay had chosen to love her and follow her nonetheless.
It should have been easy, to plunge the knife hard and tear through flesh until the metal reached her heart, until she heaved her final breath. He’d done it over and over in his dreams; in those feverish nightmares where his hands held the blade as he did now and her corpse turned to ash in his hands. Was it his psyche longing to play a role in her demise, or was it his deep rooted dread at the thought of losing her forever?
She was a monster. She was a goddess, a destroyer of worlds.
Nezha had learned firsthand how cruel and vicious and ravenous the Gods could be, and yet they paled compared to the divinity of her; ablaze with hellfire and ready to ruin and ravage, to singe and burn. She was the cruelest demon, an abominable force of nature, and Nezha had the chance to stop it all now.
“I can’t,” He said, but it came out as a breathless wheeze that betrayed the weakness of his resolve. “Rin, we can truly fix this, all you have to do is cooperate—”
Only she could see this side of him; the maddening desperation as the world tilted, as everything crashed and burned.
“I won’t bend,” Her grip tightened. “I won’t let them take the Phoenix from me, Nezha. Never , but something has to be done. With you, Nikan has a chance to survive.”
The rage in his stomach simmered, and Nezha pressed forward. How dare she drop this responsibility on his shoulders, as if he too were not tied to a ravenous deity, as if years of war and death hadn’t taken their toll on his body, on his soul. The tip of the dagger brushed the skin of Rin’s chest. Nezha tried to draw back, but Rin closed the distance between them even more, until the blade sank further and his heart lurched.
She was ready, but still she hesitated. Nezha took the opportunity to ease the knife away from her chest
“ Don’t ,” He seethed. He felt the burn of tears on the corners of his eyes. Once, his pride would’ve forced him to look away. Now, however, all he wanted was to show her how much this hurt him, to hurt her with his pain, but not like this. “If you stopped being so fucking selfish we might actually be able to save our country! Please .”
“Shut up!” She screamed, arms flailing, a ring of fire wrapped around them like a snake waiting to strike. “Shut up, shut up, shut up . You know that as long as I’m alive, so long the possibility of people like me, us , exists, those pigs won’t leave Nikan alone.” Her fire burned brighter, and in that moment Nezha could only stare in awe. How could he have ever been afraid of those flames? Why had he wanted to quell something so magnificent, the one thing that could scorch away the rot in his soul? “I will never collaborate with them. You know this.”
Still half unconscious on the sand, Kitay whimpered. Rin immediately rushed to him, dropping to her knees next to him. She took his hand and cradled his limp form, and he gave her a weak smile. Rin’s shoulders sagged in defeat.
Oh, he knew their souls were connected in ways he could never begin to fathom. Knew she’d always choose him. That Kitay had always been her better half—perhaps the better half of all three of them. And yet, what if she had loved Nezha, instead?
“I made a lot of mistakes,” She whispered, so low Nezha might have imagined it. Her lips tilted in a wry attempt at laughter. Only sobs came out. “I don’t regret it. If I had the chance to rewind, I would’ve done it all the same. I would’ve burned harder, hotter, to reach this same moment and realize that it can only end this way.”
She brushed the hair away from Kitay’s damp forehead. His chest heaved with exhaustion, but he managed a nod. Nezha’s stomach churned.
“It was supposed to be different,” Nezha’s hand reached out to her. He wanted to touch , to hug her and cry and wail until everything disappeared, but he couldn’t bring himself to kneel at her side. His legs remained rooted in place, cursed waves lapping gently at his feet. “I— we were supposed to be different.”
“I know,” Her eyes found his, tear-streaked. The red around her pupils flickered for just a second, the human in her overpowering the God. Nezha was almost glad to see it. “In a different life, in another world, perhaps we…” She finally stood up and came to stand again before him, so fucking small , so small he wanted to crush her to his arms and raise the ocean against the Hesperians, to let her hellish fire consume the rest of the world, consume them . “We could’ve had everything.”
We still can , he thought, and the lie tasted bitter on his tongue. Their fates had been sealed long before they were born, not by Gods but by humans too selfish or too selfless. He knew there was no way it could’ve been different, had forbidden himself to even think about the possibilities; she was fire and he was water, after all. They were natural enemies. It made sense that it came down to this.
He’d always pictured it differently, though. Nezha had imagined their final showdown to be in the thick of battle; the clash of steel around them. The Dragon against the Phoenix, but also simply Rin against Nezha, tragically forced to different sides of a futile war.
They were only kids.
She was so close they were almost touching, and Rin hadn’t picked up the knife to continue what she’d begun. Shaking, Nezha raised a hand to caress her cheek, and Rin nuzzled into his palm. This is what they could’ve had. Nezha ran his thumb over her cheekbones, her temple, her jaw.
“That night,” He said. There was no need for clarification; they both knew what exactly he was talking about. And oh how he’d wondered—what if they’d escaped together? What if he’d been braver instead of a pitiful coward and done what his heart longed? “I was so afraid. Of my father, of the repercussions. I fooled myself into thinking duty came first,” Nezha laughed, bitter and scornful. “I don’t even know what that is anymore. So I never stopped to think about what I actually wanted.”
“And do you know what you want, now?”
There was a hum in the air, a spark of something stirring. It was such a simple question.
“Yes.”
But she still had to beat him to it, of course. She rose on her tiptoes to press her mouth against his, a kiss too chaste and too soft, loaded with everything left unsaid, the words they couldn’t bring themselves to say back when it mattered, back when everything wasn’t so irreparably broken between them. Nezha wrapped an arm around her waist and his hand found the ridge at the small of her back where he’d pressed a knife to the open wound, had understood for the first time how hard a heart could break.
This is what forever feels like, then . It wasn’t years upon years with your beloved, but simply a second in the arms of the person you spent five years chasing, loathing, yearning, cursing. It was the moment before dawn came, and it would be broken when those dirigibles finally reached them.
He was surprised she didn’t flinch, only relaxed her stiff stance, although the occasional sob still racked her back. How could he console her, when they both knew this was only stalling the inevitable?
His touch was featherlight now. It was her hands on the dips of his shoulders searing his skin and making him want more and more , to press harder, to forget they were ever enemies. She rested her head below his chin, forehead grazing his collarbone. She was so small.
“You were such a prick, and you made me so angry all the fucking time. I hated you so much. I still do. You stand for everything I both craved and despised.” Her voice was muffled, words coming out in a rush. “In Khurdalain, when the Mugenese soldiers were dragging you away into the gas, I realized I also loved you so much that every bone in my body ached, and then you kept choosing the other side, you chose to fight me and kill everyone I loved. You broke my heart.” She paused. “Hating you made it all easier.”
His mouth opened in breathless astonishment.
“Loving you ruined me, too,” He whispered, carding his fingers through the mess of Rin’s hair, trying to hold on as the scraps of time they’d been gifted banished beyond sight. “Kitay would know.” Nezha managed a broken chuckle. The sight of him on the sand, barely breathing as Rin was, felt like a stake to his gut. They’d dragged the most selfless human in the world into their senseless destruction. “Yet I’ve never been so sure about anything in my blighted life. To love you was a curse, but it was also my salvation.”
It was then that he realized they were both shaking.
“I had so many chances, and yet I could never kill you,” Rin drew back, tipped her chin to look him square in the eyes. Fiery red against icy blue. “Now I understand why.”
He let go of her to ball his hands into fists, and the absence of her hit him like a blow to his gut. The wind picked up and the noise of the machines loomed closer. They were running out of time.
Hadn’t it always been like that for them, though? It was never enough—time, love, compassion.
If he’d loved her enough, if he’d been less of a coward, they could’ve fought on the same side. If only for a little bit. It was a sour delusion.
“So why are you doing this to me?” He croaked. Rin bent down to pick the dagger, and this time she offered the hilt to him. His hand hovered midair. “I could never kill you, too. Hell, I had the advantage, and I couldn’t, every single time, Rin. Please don’t do this to me.” I’m not strong enough , is what he didn’t say, so his voice wouldn’t end up betraying his fear.
Why can’t it be you ending my suffering? Why is it the blade in my hands and not yours?
But what else could they do? How could they right their wrongs?
Ah, History moved in such cruel, vicious circles.
Nezha took the dagger, latching on to it like an anchor until his knuckles turned white.
“Because I want it to be you.” Rin trailed her fingers across his scars, the broken porcelain of his skin. It tickled. “It can only be you. Tell the Hesperians that you killed us both. Do whatever it takes .” And even then she managed a smile that only brought salty, hot tears to Nezha’s eyes. She wiped them away. “Nezha, you must live.”
Was he so obvious in his desire to be released from this life? This, too, she had to snatch from him. She wanted her to live , to hold the weight of Nikan’s fate on his shoulder. Once, he would’ve hated her for it. Now, however, the fact that she trusted him in death and in what came after completely and absolutely obliterated him.
“I really wanted things to be different. For the three of us” Nezha said, steadying his hold on the dagger. He spared Kitay a final glance, at the friend he didn’t nurture, at the man who loved this girl so fiercely would depart this world with her. “I’m sorry I didn’t try hard enough.”
“Me too,” She replied, and the red of the Phoenix in her irises dulled until there was only the human brown of her eyes, and Nezha’s heart broke again, and again, and again. “Maybe in the next life, they can be.”
And in that moment she was not a goddess nor a monster; in her features he saw the shadow of the girl she could’ve been if the trip for power had not corrupted her. She was Fang Runin, the last speerly, heir to a kingdom of ghosts and ashes, broken and mangled beyond recognition.
Lightning arced above them, around them. The earth rumbled.
He couldn’t do it.
“Properly this time, okay?” She wrapped his fingers properly around the hilt, drew him closer. “Let’s fix this.”
He thought then that his resolve wouldn’t be strong enough, that he’d pull away at the very last second, but Rin propelled him forward with a tug, and Nezha found himself driving the blade into her heart.
She was so small.
It was an awful crunch, one that reverberated into his marrow, into the broken bits of his soul. Her body slumped and he sank with her, discovered with horror that the blood gurgling from her mouth and blooming in her chest had stained his hands a cruel red. But Nezha only held her tighter against his body, murmuring his penance to the crook of her neck as the life seeped out of her, as a part of him died with her.