Work Text:
Taiyo falls in the battle of the 10th generation and all of the previous generations. He takes his last breath in the arms of his wife, so young but so, so scarred by the people who claim to be her family. The sun setting into the mountains is the last thing Taiyo sees when the light in his eyes fades away(he doesn’t notice the rest of the family, begging for him to stay awake, even Kyoichiro. He doesn’t notice their bloodlust rising with every shallow breath he has left in his body. He doesn't notice the Chizakura flowers wilting around the battlefield from every drop of blood that falls).
He doesn’t expect to wake up. So consider his surprise when he does wake up and finds himself in a white void, staring blankly at the figure in complete black standing before him.
Yozakura-Asano Taiyo stares at Death. Death stares back. “You’re early,” Death finally says.
“Shouldn’t I be on time?” He questions, confusion laced in his words. Death turns, the black robe swinging behind them. The scythe glinted dangerously on their back. Taiyo freezes, fear pulsing through his body. Cold sweat drops from his head.
“No,” they turn to look Taiyo in the eyes except Death doesn’t have any eyes. Instead a skull peers at Taiyo. "You are not suppose to be here right now,"
"But I don't have anywhere else to go!" If he couldn't stay here, where else could he go? If he doesn't even have a place in the afterlife, does that mean he'll never see his family again? Both of them?
“You are not allowed in this realm.” Death scowls as best he could with his skull face, raising his scythe at Taiyo. His blood runs cold, his face turns white as his hands clenches his Yae. There was a split second of calm and then the storm appeared. The scythe swings down as he brings his Yae to counter it.
His eyes shut as lightning sparks from the revolver, bright and nearly blinding him despite the closed eyelids. It’s not like he could hurt Death anyways. That deity(if they are one that is) is the person who oversees the dead so they’re practically immortal(right?).
“Your weapon is useless against me,” Death said, pulling his scythe away as Taiyo does the same, jumping back to create distance.
“I know that!” Taiyo grits his teeth, forcing his eyes open. Death stares coldly back as he flinches. His knuckles turned white, his Yae digging into the palm of his hand. He could hear his heart in his head as he prepared to defend again.
“I thought mortals like being alive,” they tilted their head, holding their scythe by their side.
“But I’m dead now!” He protests. “There’s not much I can do about that,” he said, a downcasted expression on his face as he thought back to the bloody battlefield that he left his family on.
“Mortal, did you not understand my words?”
“Huh?” Taiyo looks up, confusion evident on his face. His brain slowly goes over their words, processing them one by one.
“This is why I don’t like dealing with anomalies,” Death mumbles under their breath, a skeletal hand clenching the snath of their scythe. “You do not belong in this realm, so I’m sending you back.”
Taiyo gaped. Isn’t there a rule against resurrection?! “But my physical body is dead,” he said, mouth wide open.
“But your soul isn’t.”
“But if you put my soul into my physical body, I will die again.” He could not have mistaken the pain he felt before he died. Taiyo was punctured through the back of his chest and his ribs had been bent horribly, piercing into his lungs and heart. If he didn’t die from blood loss, then he surely should have died from that. Except. This is Death, so he can’t help but add, “Right?” A small tentative part of him hoped that he would get revived to save his normal.
“You’re right." His hopes were crushed with those words. “Which is exactly why I am not putting you into that particular physical body.” Death raises their scythe again. “You will realize what I mean.”
His (dead)heart pounded(somehow) in chest. The glint at the edge of the scythe was the last thing he felt against his chest when the world exploded.
Taiyo wakes up at the break of dawn with the worst headache he has had in years. The birds chirping outside doesn’t help the pounding in his head at all, in fact, it was making it worse. He groans, rolling over in his bed, trying to get comfortable.
He stops eventually and ends up looking at the familiar-yet-not-so-familiar view of his old apartment room ceiling… His familiar-yet-not-so-familiar view of his old apartment room ceiling? He’s pretty sure he has had his ceiling for the past 2 years since his family died.
He looks out the window just in time to see the sun rise above the mountain, sending a glow of orange and gold across the town. And then he remembers.
The cherry blossom petals fall down from the sky, scattering on the floor below, as Taiyo gets up and ready. He has his normal to protect, and he’s not failing them this time.
(And Death would see him again, years into the future, where the timeline had gone right. They would stare face to face, Death having not aged a single day since the last time Taiyo saw him although Taiyo, himself, has grown with wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and his trademark scarlet hair growing into a dull gray.
And Taiyo would ask, “what about now?” His head tilting to the side, a small placid smile on his face.
And Death would raise their kind hand, beckoning Taiyo to hold on, and they'll say, “you are on time. Welcome Yozakura-Asano Taiyo.”
And Taiyo would take Death’s hand as they lead him into the afterlife. If he had just turned around, perhaps he would have seen the silhouette of a new moon, rising in the white void of Death’s realm, welcoming the man into their domain as one of theirs and not an anomaly.)