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Nezha was dead.
He had thought it was impossible for him to die. But he was dead. He knew he was dead because he had felt the moment his heart stopped. His breathing had labored until there was no more air for his lungs to pull.
But louder than the hollowness in his chest and the emptiness in his eyes as the light left them, had been the chaos in his mind. Turns out even the God-like dragon fails in the face of fate, even he couldn't keep Nezha from aging and eventually wilting.
The muted presence of the dragon that had always been with him quietly but steadily had suddenly grown to a deafening roar as it tried to keep nezha's soul tethered to the living. He hadn't felt the dragon so furious, so desperate in decades. He hadn't felt its unrestrained power to this extent, not since the day Rin had unleashed it and then given her everything to subdue it.
Rin.
He wondered if he'd see Rin in the afterlife.
He wondered if there was an afterlife.
And if there was, did creatures like Rin go to them? or were they reborn, like her phoenix of a God, to cause more destruction.
For that was what she always was and always would be. The world's destruction and his ruination.
He had spent 50 years as a ruler to the broken empire she had left him with and piece by piece he had built it up again until it could stand on its own. And yet in those 50 years, he had never forgotten her for a second. How could he forget when she was everywhere. When every fireplace he looked in, every bird that flew over, every wave that crashed onto the shore, reminded him of her.
And now.
Now, perhaps he'd get to face her again.
He shouldn't be feeling excited. He shouldn't be feeling the same way, he had felt back when they were both still alive.
But that was the point, wasn't it? They were both dead. All the blood, destruction, enmity and rivalry must have died with them. Left behind on earth to perhaps manifest into another story, another cycle, with new characters. Theirs was a clean slate, they deserved that atleast.
Nezha stood at the precipice of a cliff. He recognized these cliffs. Ofcourse he did.
He wanted to shake his head at whoever planned all this and tell them 'good job' because ofcourse he'd die and come to the exact place where he had failed several times to do what fate succeeded in.
His eyes fell on the characters etched on the side of the cliffs. No matter how much Kitay had argued, he still believed that the characters translate to "Nothing Lasts" because wasn't him standing there an undeniable proof of that? that nothing, not even the power of dragon lasts.
He was still busy pondering over the irony of his presence on the Red Cliffs when the air behind him disturbed. If his heart had been capable of beating, it might have skipped a beat or two. Just as it always had in her presence.
He didn't need to turn around to confirm, for, how could he not recognize her footsteps? He had spent years studying those footsteps in attempts to beat her, he would have recognized them in every universe, along any timeline, in death and in another life.
'finally.'
the one syllabus was enough to make him turn. she had said it with so much exasperation that it made Nezha wonder if she had been waiting for him. He finally looked into her eyes and despite the fact that he was facing her after fifty years, her eyes sparkled with the same familiarity as if they were old friends.
they hadn't even been entirely friends when they were alive.
she looked. beautiful. She had always being beautiful, even when he had been young and vehemently in denial, even when they had been on the opposite ends of a devastating war, even when they had been consumed with the weights of their decisions.
but for some reason she looked beautiful in a lighter way. maybe death did that to you. took away all your burdens and regrets. but if death did that then why did his entire existence crushed under the force of regret. regret over their choices, regret over their lost childhood, regret over the years they spent at each other's throat.
as if she could read his thoughts, she stepped forward, the force of wind blowing her short hair away from her face, and spoke, 'you spent fifty years in life regretting, i spent fifty years waiting and wondering what we could have done different and i realized something'
Nezha swallowed past the rocks burdening his throat and asked, 'what?'
'nothing we might have did would have changed the course of fate. life was just a play controlled by the powers that we might have seen and touched but could never fully comprehend. but this isn't life, this is our own story to write, this is a clean slate and we are not puppets in a never ending cycle of misery anymore"
'but we lived through it', nezha couldn't believe this was rin telling him to let go, he couldn't believe that after all that suffering and distress they were just supposed to start anew and forget it all.
'we are not forgetting it', once again he felt like she could read his mind, 'but you're right. we lived through it and we are finished with our part, it took me fifty years to accept it too. fifty years for my anger to stop hurting, fifty years for me to believe that there is nothing else left to do. come now, don't make me wait more'
'where?', was this not afterlife?
'to the other side, ofcourse. the fate's sense of humour is not that sick that they'll make you spend eternity on the edge of a cliff'
nezha stared at the hand rin extended. this didn't feel like his rin, the one who would spit and clash with him every chance she got. but if he looked closely he could still see that spark in her eye, ready to be ignited into fire and wasn't this the rin he had dreamed of? the one who was not so burdened by the ghosts of her past, the one whose aggressiveness came from a place of playfulness and not from desperation.
'did you really wait for me', nezha mused.
rin rolled her eyes and nezha saw their old dynamic once again, softened by the lightness of their shoulders, but there nonetheless, "I would have rather died again, but like i said the fate's think they are hilarious and decided that are paths are interwined even in afterlife, so i am supposed to receive you and cross you over.'
he still stared at the hand she was offering, it felt like more than just a hand presented. it felt like hope.
'come on, kitay and venka are dying to make fun of you, they have a list of your years on earth and everything', rin prodded, waving her hand mid-air.
nezha finally lifted his hand and slid his fingers into the spaces between her fingers. the slide of their palms together sent something electric running up his arms and he marveled at how perfectly their hands slotted together.
'lets go', he glanced back to the city of Arlong, one final time, before he stepped in the direction of hope.