Chapter Text
It was early on in the time of the eighth, before even Maki had arrived, before they could really be called a department at all. At that point it was just Obi, Hinawa, and the old chapel. The high of putting that first infernal to rest made it easy to forget that neither of them had any business experience whatsoever - suffice to say they were in over their head. Nevertheless, Obi showed no signs of hesitation in continuing to build the eighth, and Hinawa showed no remorse in following him. Though, early on, things were certainly… strained, in the social department. Obi took a sip of his protein shake, the two of them at the table for lunch, and tried to be casual under Hinawa’s bullet-like glare. “So,” he began, “I guess if we’re gonna be working together we should get to know what makes each other tick! What’s your story?”
“My background is military, sir,” he responded icily, “Sergeant for four years, in the service for nine.”
Obi looked uncomfortable with that answer. “Well… that’s very impressive. But I more meant like, do you have any hobbies, or… interests…?”
“Nothing that would help the team, besides marksmanship,” he answered honestly, “If we want niche skills we’ll have to go to someone else, but I do have some contacts I could-”
“Er… Hinawa. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but… what’s with the routine?”
“Routine, sir?”
“Yeah, the whole ‘yes sir’ ‘no sir’ thing.” He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. “You know firsthand that I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m only higher in rank because you said so. It’s not like I’m going to fire you, you’re my whole crew,” he laughed.
Hinawa looked down at his bento box, and ate a piece of sushi. “I assumed that if you wanted to build a fire force crew from the ground up, that chain of command would have to be top priority. You’ll have to hold a lot of respect as captain from your team as well as your peers if you want to rise up the ranks.”
“Mm, that’s true…” he said pensively, leaning on his hands. Then, he smiled. “Hey, does that mean because you followed me you were ready to respect me right off the bat?”
Hinawa cast him a look. This guy’s clearly hard as nails on the scene, he thought, but off it he’s like a golden retriever. “I followed you out of the military to a start up project you have no idea how to start. Do you really need to fish for compliments?” he asked.
Obi looked stern for a moment, even intimidating, his brow low on his dark eyes. Then, he smiled thoughtfully, and laughed. “Are you always this honest?” he asked.
“You wanted me to stop being so military, didn’t you? So, I’m at ease,” he answered, taking another bite. While his voice was aloof, there was an insecurity under the tone. It had been a long time since he’d been expected to be likable. Intimidating and competent he had down pat, but he hadn’t made new friends in a long time, and one of the few friends he did have was… well. Not the time to think about that. Even still, he couldn’t deny a resemblance between the two of them. Not in their faces, just… maybe their eyes, their voices. It was hard to place, he thought, and probably just grief regardless.
Smiling, the captain said, “You’re a very honest man, aren’t you, lieutenant? In general, I mean.”
“Most would say honest to a fault, captain.”
“Call me Obi.”
Hinawa nodded sternly. “Obi.”
“Obi!”
Climbing over the burning stone Hinawa saw nothing but sick black smoke, sucking it into his aching lungs as his sharp eyes poured through it. Outside, everyone but him was fighting off a new hoard of the white-clad, the eighth and a military brigade to go with it. They needed all the help they could get, but Hinawa, knowing he had the sharpest eyes of the group, couldn’t just leave his captain dying in the smoke. It was dark as pitch in here, lit only by dim holes in the ceiling, everything destroyed. It used to be a barn, or at least it looked like it. Gasping for breath Hinawa vaulted over a fallen pillar and peered into the mountain of rubble, the flames licking at the sides of his boots. He’d never seen a fire so dark. The smoke was so thick it dampened even the light of the flames.
Nevertheless he pulled in another breath. “Obi, sound off if you can hear me!
Obi!”
Then, a meager voice from the smoke. “T… Take… hisa…”
Hinawa’s head spun towards the sound like a shot. There he saw him - Rather, his hand, with blood dripping out of the glove. As he landed there beside him he saw his captain, fully dressed, with a massive stone pillar three times his width laying across his hips. He fell to his knees beside him, watching his chest quickly rise and fall, hearing him gasp for breath. “Obi,” he said rapidly, opening up his helmet to see his charred and bloodied face, “What shape are you in?”
Gritting his teeth, he breathed shallowly. He smiled softly. “I knew you’d… come back for me… You always… came back for me…”
“Your injuries, Aki,” he persisted, leaning in towards him, “Try to breathe slow and think. I’m gonna get you out of here.”
He nodded, swallowing. “Broken… ribs… Burns all over my body… Broken leg too, I think… And it’s… It’s getting hard to b-breathe, Taki.”
“I know. Hang in there.” He looked at the pillar above him. “I have to get this off you. The easiest way to do that is to break it. Hold still.” He closed the shield over his face.
“Alright,” he choked out.
Hinawa took a step back and pulled out his handgun. A sharp shot should do it. He scanned the pillar, the cracks in its body, all its weaknesses. Lucky for him it was stone and not wood, so it wouldn’t light. He could break it, and take his captain home. He just had to focus, keep his aim right…
Then Obi went tight, and gasped. The sounds of his pain distracted Hinawa for a moment, before he snapped at himself, focus! He was bound to be in pain, all the more reason to get him out of here quicker.
“Taki… Taki!” Obi cried. At the panic in his voice he had no choice but to drop to his knees beside him again. When he lifted the shield off his face he saw a horrified expression, one that wasn’t there before. He saw the captain like no one else did, and even he had never seen him so afraid. He was staring at his own hand, just beneath his glove, breathing even faster.
“Aki, what-”
He stopped as his hand landed hot and heavy on his shoulder, fingers desperately tight around his suit down to the muscle. As Obi gasped for breath, he strained to speak. “I’m sorry… to make you… s-see this… again…”
Hinawa gritted his teeth. The hand around his shoulder got tighter, desperately tight. Obi was gritting his teeth now, more in pain than in fear. “Just p- please …” he sputtered out, “Don’t let… me die… alone.”
Dread sank into Hinawa’s chest while he watched his captain wince and writhe in pain. Helpless, he stared and placed a hand on his chest. “Aki…” he whispered.
Obi stifled a whimper through gritted teeth, and just as he did so fire exploded just beneath his helmet, brilliant yellow just at his temple. Hinawa felt a stone drop in his gut. He leaned back slowly as the fire spread, reduced, just like last time, to slack-jawed shock, to quivering stillness as Obi’s grunts devolved into agonized screams. It felt like a dream, unreal. He couldn’t think to shoot. All he could think of was the future, burning to a crisp, as young as it was, as new as it felt. Obi scrambled at the ground, reached for Hinawa, and he didn’t deprive him. As the now burning, now infernal Obi scrambled for his shoulders Hinawa let him in, indifferent to the shrieking pain of fire that covered his shoulders as he sat beneath him. His protective suit melted underneath him, then his shirt, then the top layers of his skin. He didn’t move a muscle.
“Leave him alone!”
Before he could see a thing he was pulled out of the captain’s grasp by his underarms, and three of his crew were on him where he burned, now beginning to free himself from the pillar. Behind him was Shinra, who had broken through the ceiling, letting the smoke blossom out and leaving the air clear like pool water. His mind reeled. He felt freezing. “Lieutenant, are you alright, sir?!”
“Let me go,” he said, but it was no more than a murmur.
“W-what?”
“Let me go. Let me go!” he shouted, louder this time. However weak and burned he was he thrashed against where Shinra held him up. The captain was free now, and being pursued by Arthur with his lightning blue sword, roaring and running out of the smoke. Shinra stared in awe as tears streamed down his face. “I have to get to him, I can’t let him die alone! I have to be with him!”
“With the infernal, sir?!”
But when he pulled away, he had nothing left. He’d already fought as hard as he could all day, matched toe to toe with Arrow once again, only this time Haumea was by her side. And now, he was covered in third degree burns. The moment he stepped forward his muscles gave out and he fell hard onto the hot stone floor. Reduced to powerlessness and searing pain, he winced and rolled onto his side, clutching his gut with one hand and covering his crying eyes with the other. “Obi…” he whispered.
That was a week ago. He got away, in the end - Once Shinra and Arthur understood who he was, they couldn’t attack him with full force either. In the end he slipped out and in the chaos he wasn’t pursued. He was out there somewhere, burning.
That was all Hinawa could think about at his funeral. As Iris read his eulogy with perfect composure, he watched the suffering of his co-workers. Maki was trying desperately, unsuccessfully, to keep the tears from streaming down her face, Arthur stood like a dejected kid with tears balling in his big blue eyes. Shinra, oddly enough, was fighting back a smile as he cried and caught his breath. Hinawa knew from the way he dug his nails into his palm that it was something far from joy that caused it. Vulcan had his head low. Even Licht looked somber.
Everyone came, a shocking turnout from every district of the fire force, the church, the military, everyone. And yet, Hinawa spoke to none of them, his face stone. His shoulder hurt. He’d never been burned so deep before, right down to his bones like he’d been barbecued. There wasn’t another pain to compare it to. It made all humanity, all emotion irrelevant. Now he understood why there were people like Hague who wanted nothing more than to touch the fires of Adolla again. It hurt so badly it transformed you, isolated your mind and body to that one thing, unfaltering, like a shining light. The burn was pure, like God.
And somewhere, Obi felt it too. He’d known since he was a child gritting his teeth in church that someday he’d burn beside a man. That feeling on his shoulder, the vision he had of Obi charred and sputtering, was exactly the love he’d always been promised.
When it came his turn to speak of the deceased, he walked up to the front of the room, averting his eyes from everyone inside it. What could he say? How shocked he was, how much he ached for his death? From an external standpoint, he could see he was in denial, and that soon his feelings would come down on his head like a wrecking ball. But the fact remained it didn’t feel like denial. No, it was more like his closure, a twisted satisfaction. He thought of being young and hearing his prophesy in the form of spittle from his father’s lips:
“Mark my words, boy, in the end you will burn with the rest of them!”
Nevertheless, he had to say something.
“Akitaru Obi was valuable to all who knew him, as a captain, an ally, and a friend. Since the beginning he has been motivated by helping others, and now, in the end he has been taken by the very fate he kept from those around him. He was taken by the flames and damned to burn, let down in his moment of need by the ones who loved him most.” Maki was giving him that look of betrayal, that look of ‘how could you say that’, and he looked away from her. He lifted a hand to touch the burn on his shoulder. Perhaps he should have lied - But then, Obi always liked him for his honesty. “I admit I can’t find any value in telling sappy stories about his life and pretending he didn’t come to an early and horrific end before my very eyes. As though somehow a life well lived makes that kind of death excusable, by any means. The only comfort I can find is that I was burned beside him. That even as Sol tortures us, the agony I felt in being separated was what brought me closer to him. I feel as though I’ve had a rare opportunity to see Sol’s intentions and deliver my own personal message, and that message, of course, was what I always wanted it to be: Go fuck yourself.”
The silence he heard after that - no, more than that, the silence he felt - was more than anything he’d ever experienced. You could hear the air choking for want of a sob, a footstep, a brush of wind. He ignored them all and went back to where he was standing as if no one in the room was staring at him, looking only at Obi’s empty, decorative casket. He focused on the pain on his shoulder, searing like a branding iron. I will not let them take you, he promised. He said it to the burn. He said it to Obi. He was referencing everyone, and he was referencing God.