ren

You paid your toll, and you paid it dearly. The gods forgave his debt, and in fact took what you gave and showered it upon the blue-eyed boy. You clawed tooth and nail to enter a world that was supposed to be your birthright, struggling to barely scrape the bottom of the barrel. He was incarnated as the new coming of god, a rise so significant and immediate you needed only to be born to know of his existence. He, most of all, had everything you ever wanted: power at his fingertips, heavenly dominion if he so wished. For you, even an innate technique was unachievable. For him, it wasn’t something to even blink at. The fault splitting the ground you stood upon ruptured Earth to its very core, and that was the difference between you and him.

Yet you were wrong once again. At sixteen, despite your incapacity to become a sorcerer, you were sent to the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College. Every day, you walked through those gates, the entrance into Master Tengen’s barrier inducing nausea and vomiting until one day there was nothing left to puke. But you were suffocated and disgusted not just by the sudden shift in cursed energy that was the barrier, but also the self-torturous cycle that was walking into the school only to be smothered by those who could be what you simply could not. 

When you made eye contact with Gojou Satoru for the first time, you nearly puked on the spot, because in that moment you realized the difference between you was not simply a canyon of molten rock, but a tear in the milky way, in which the limits of infinity were undefined and stretched beyond human comprehension. You could chase after him all your life, and yet, just like his powers and those math equations of x approaching infinity that you hated learning in your homeschooled calculus classes, there’s an asymptote. In simpler words, you’d never reach him.

Your lives should have never intertwined. But greed is twisted, as is jealousy. Hatred even more so. Enough to bend fate.

“It isn’t like you to be late.”

The door is slightly ajar, enough to see his right eye peeking over his black spectacles. You can only sigh.

“No,” you agree. 

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t show up,” he says cheerfully, pulling the door open wide and stepping aside to let you in. 

“Please,” you scoff, pushing past him, “I’m not so rude as to do something like that.”

He laughs, and it is an obnoxious sound. Gojou Satoru takes a hand out of his pocket to offer help with your bag, a gesture to which your face contorts with disgust. Gojou Satoru is not a gentleman, this you know. 

“Don’t be like that, (y/n)-chan,” he says, pouting as he sticks that awful sounding honorific to your first name (which you never let him call you by). 

The room spreads before you now that you set your things down on the leather stool at the front. It’s a familiar sight, reluctant as you are to admit that. A patterned wallpaper, spacious bathroom, small counter, two lounge chairs. Most importantly, a king-sized bed neatly made, and a box of condoms on the nightstand, supplied by the hotel. 

“Come on, (y/n)-chan. You’re in a strangely bad mood today,” he teases, walking to you after he gives the door a light push to close on its own. “What happened? Miss me too much?”

A groan escapes your lips, but it fades as Gojou Satoru offers his innocent smile. Gojou Satoru may not be of this world, but he is still a man of worldly desires. You like to think these meetings with him confirms that. He leads you to the bed, a stranger’s bed made by a stranger’s hands (because you insist that meeting at his or your place would be the establishment of a relationship that doesn’t exist, and that you like watching him waste his elaborate wealth), pinning you beneath him with your back sinking into the mattress. 

Every night starts like this, and every night you cannot look in his eyes. You’re afraid he will try to kiss you.

“Still no good?” he asks, that everlasting smirk still on his face. Your silence earns a small chuckle. “Ah well. We all have our limits.”

There’s no good, rational explanation for why you let him have his way with you. Worse, you are still at a loss for why Gojou Satoru finds interest in you. You have asked him twice before over the years, but he has given you nothing but vague avoidance. Regardless, all interaction you have with Gojou Satoru is a result of twisted human nature, you think, of your unbridled desire for some kind of proof of your worth in this world, for there is nothing for you here other than being the object of desire of the person who stands at the top. For you, who lives at the bottom, what else could you hope to obtain? There is something selfishly fulfilling about witnessing god incarnate appear so fervently enraptured.

“Yes,” is all you can breathe out as he hovers his face above yours. You look in his eyes for one moment, thinking them so endless, so empty, and shake your head slightly. “I don’t love you, Gojou-san,” you say, your tone almost apologetic, “so I won’t kiss you.”

“That’s too bad,” he hums, the bed shifting under his weight as he pulls back to unbutton his jacket. “I’m a good kisser, you know.”

“Sure you are.”

Hatred is a twisted thing. You despise this man. You have despised him for ten years. You want to see him unravel and grovel at your feet, to see him at his weakest. You want to see him in your place and see if his pride would crumble. See him beg for affection, see him suffer the humiliation that festers in the pit of your stomach. Would he smirk so smugly if he were you? Could he? You want to know that he can’t. But part of you thinks he would be glad to be rid of his worldly burdens. You can’t expect things from someone who has nothing, after all.

So you wish to be rid of him. Yet your greed clings onto the fact that you of all people has Gojou Satoru holding them, that the one people admire more as The Strongest than as Gojou Satoru seeks you out again and again. To be special to someone is to be worth something, and doesn’t it make you worth more if that someone is the god of your very world? You like to think you are something you are not, of course, and you know it has always been this way. Nevertheless, when the man who transcends the bounds of humanity stoops down to your level, there are times when you think that maybe, just maybe, you can reach him.

You can’t, of course. But you’re addicted to this feeling of substance you were never given the chance to feel in your youth. In this room, in his arms, you are something, so no matter how much it infuriates you, you’re afraid you’ll never be rid of him.

Instead, you’ll make the most of it. You paid your toll, while the gods paid his. Life is unfair, yes. So Gojou Satoru will pay it back to you in their stead.

She wanted to curse her weakness, and to curse Sasuke most of all for all the tears she shed and the nights she lay awake. Yet still she cannot. Love would not let her, and that was the cruelest thing of all. She would love him to her grave, and whether that is testament that her love is true or that she is just plain old stubborn, she’s not sure. What she’s sure of is that she’s tired of watching Naruto run off ahead of her in Sasuke’s pursuit.

Sakura has been watching this whole time. She watched the curse mark embed itself into Sasuke’s flesh, take root like an invasive plant. Orochimaru sank his fangs into him, and though she’s sure Sasuke’s not foolish enough to hand over his body so willingly, even she could tell that the venom was corroding him from the inside out. His bloodline—Sakura does not pretend to know its blood-steeped history, and she’s long since stopped pretending to understand the pain and hatred that comes with it. But she does know the pain that it has brought her, and the pain it has brought Naruto. 

She can see the way Naruto’s eyebrows furrow the tiniest bit at Sasuke’s mention, the way his gaze softens at the murmur of his name to the way it hardens when people speak ill of him. She notices the skyward glances, the clenching fists. His steadfast promise, his unwavering shinobi way, she can see its resolve strengthen for the sake of Sasuke. Like her, Naruto loves Sasuke, and Sakura can see this too. It is ironic, then, that it is Sasuke who possesses superior sight in the Sharingan who cannot see the same.

Nonetheless, Naruto has been chasing Sasuke all this time. And what has Sakura been doing? Weeping like a damned, helpless damsel, waiting for someone else to do all the work to bring back her Prince Charming? She has watched the Uchiha crest grow smaller and smaller upon the horizon of her heart, so faint and out of reach that despite thinking of him every day, she feels he is going to dissipate. Naruto, too—his back has grown broader in the years he has been away from the village, but smaller as well the further she lags behind. 

The same scrawny brat has grown into someone reliable, and Sasuke surely has advanced as well. Sakura cannot sit idly by any longer. Not that she has, by any means—under the tutelage of Lady Tsunade she has grown into a medical ninja of unmatched potential and honed her physical prowess to the highest degree she can. But it is still not enough. So long as she cannot reach Sasuke’s heart, she is afraid it will never be enough.

“Sakura.”

Naruto’s voice shakes her out of a trance. They are sitting side by side on the bench by the village gate, the same scene that marks the biggest failure of Sakura’s life. The sakura trees are blooming, but Sakura cannot say the same for herself. Each passing day she is continuously wilting. There is no cycle for her, only an everlasting process of fading until one day she will have fallen completely from the branch. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I was lost in thought.”

“About Sasuke,” he asks, though he says it like he already knows.

Sakura nods, twiddling her thumbs. “I wonder what he’s up to.”

Naruto typically takes it upon himself to brighten a dismal atmosphere, but today Sakura is sullen enough that she does not want to be cheered up. No, she wants to linger in this sadness a little longer, let the melancholy soak the way one does in a freshly drawn bath. It is better to face the pain than to continue shutting it down. To bleed is to be alive, so to hurt is to love. 

“You know him,” Naruto says, sinking against the backing of the bench. “Probably moping about revenge and all that. He won’t come to his senses unless we sock it to him, Sakura.”

“I know that, idiot.”

Naruto gives her a sideways glance and smiles. Pats her on the back a couple times, then stands in preparation to leave. Naruto is more sensitive than most, in that regard.

“I miss him,” Sakura says, before Naruto has a chance to turn his back to her again. “I wish he would come back. If we could just talk to him…”

“Guys like him,” Naruto says, “only talk through their fists.”

“I can’t beat him,” Sakura admits sorrowfully. She buries her face in her hands. “I’m not strong enough to get through to him.”

“Right now, neither am I.”

Naruto’s confession brings Sakura’s face out of her hands. She turns to Naruto, who is smiling against the blue sky and blossoming petals. 

“I lost to him at the Final Valley,” he continues. “I’m sure Sasuke’s gotten super strong since then, too. So I’d probably lose to him now anyway.”

“Then—”

“That’s why we both gotta get stronger.” Naruto turns, looking over his shoulder. “That way, no matter how strong Sasuke is when we see him again, it won’t matter. Because it’ll be two against one!”

Yes, Sakura thinks, her eyes closing as her lips pull upward into a smile. Tears are pooling in her waterline. They will get Sasuke back. And when they do, they’ll be three again. Naruto’s back is growing ever smaller as he walks toward the village center, but for once, she doesn’t mind it. 

     AMONGST the broken rubble of Orochimaru’s hideout, Sakura is perusing the halls like a child lost in a maze. She’s not looking for anything in particular. No, that’s not true. She’s looking for a reason. Something, anything that might explain how Sasuke had become the stranger that stood before Naruto and Sakura, how the clan crest etched on his back had fanned the flames from a kindling warmth to raging wildfire. There must be something. 

Naruto is outside, still standing in the crater left behind by Sasuke. Locked in place, his head is tilted upward, and the sky is clear despite the way their hearts are overcast. Yamato and Sai are by him, having left Sakura to wander on her own, but she can sense the little inkborn mouse that Sai sends to tail her, to make sure she doesn’t go off too far or get herself into danger. Sakura has always been the most observant of the three—so it’s an easy task to hear the tiny footsteps that tap against the stone floors a few paces behind. 

Sakura pushes it out of her mind. Let them follow her all they like, it doesn’t matter. What matters right now is finding something that will help. She checks every path and every turn until she turns the last one and finds a dead end. She places a hesitant hand against the stone bricks. She’s ready to accept defeat and reconvene with the makeshift Team Seven. She’s ready to go home, she thinks. She wonders if Sasuke ever misses Konoha. If he ever misses home. (Was Konoha ever home to him?) Then she feels her hand sink into the wall. Her head whips around as she sees one of the bricks push inward. She pushes harder, until the grinding of stone relinquishes into a click. The wall crumbles. It seems that the explosion from earlier broke the mechanism.

Regardless, Sakura ducks her head to squeeze through the hole that has appeared, and on the other side she is rendered speechless. The room sprawls out before her, empty and bare but familiar. To her right, aligned against the corner, there is a desk and a chair pulled out in front of it. Someone was here, not too long ago. She walks over. Somehow, she can tell—if there is anything of value in this room, it will be in this desk. She reaches a tentative hand toward the drawer, careful not to break it. It’s unlocked, and it slides out smoothly. There’s a blank white sheet of paper. It’s been ripped apart and put back together. The paper is fraying at the edges, and when she flips it over she begins to cry. 

The smiling faces of their younger selves—Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura—they are gazing back at her, though Sasuke and Naruto are, of course, glaring at each other more than they are posing for a picture. There’s no doubt about it. This belongs to Sasuke, and it proves nothing if not that Sasuke thinks of Konoha, of them. Enough that the attempt to sever these ties is remedied by tape and glue, shoddy though the job is. Sasuke is not yet out of reach, and for now, that is enough.

     WHEN Sakura tells Naruto she loves him, she already knows that Naruto won't be fooled. He’s not that same naive kid anymore. But she says it anyway, because it’s worth a try if it means obtaining closure. She disregards the shocked faces of all those around her, ignoring the way their eyes are baring into her back. She meets Naruto’s gaze, and she meets it with headstrong determination, a conduct becoming of the kunoichi she knows she can be. She will kill Sasuke, and she will kill her love when she does. Then it will all be over. 

She tells Naruto she loves him. That she’s done chasing after the once noble Sasuke who has fallen to criminal and fugitive status. She says to him that Sasuke keeps getting farther and farther away, that in her mind’s eye she can hardly see the Uchiha crest on his back anymore. That it is Naruto, who remains steadfast by her side and staying true to his word, whom she loves now. A woman’s heart is as changeable as the autumn sky, she laughs, and she hugs him.

Naruto does not move, and instead he shoves her back by the shoulders. He tells her, “I hate people who lie to themselves.”

They argue. Naruto says it's not just about the promise anymore. He wants to help Sasuke, and Sakura can see through the windows to his soul that he knows more than he is letting on. Inside, Sakura wants to scream. Why is she always the last one to know things? Why is she always outside of the loop? What does Naruto know that he cannot tell her, that she does not deserve to know? How can she ever reach Sasuke when everything is always one step ahead of her, whether enemy or comrade or information or life? 

“Fine!” she tells him. “I’m going home.”

She beckons Kiba and Lee and Sai, and they follow. She bites her lip to stop it from trembling. She cannot show weakness here. Sakura must not falter.

Her plan is simple, and executed despite a few bumps on the way. Kiba, Sai, and Lee are put to sleep, Naruto caught in it too. 

At the bridge, she sees him, cloaked and standing over a woman’s body. Sakura doesn’t have time to worry about who she is. 

“Sasuke!” she yells. “I’ve come to join you! I’ve gone rogue from Konoha.”

Sasuke meets her eyes with skepticism, eyes blood red and whirling with the Sharingan. He tells her that if she’s serious, she’ll kill the woman he’s standing over. Sakura can tell she’s wounded, though not fatally. She could live, if Sakura treated her. But Sakura says that she’ll do whatever Sasuke wants, and even when she flinches at Sasuke’s desire to destroy Konoha, she forges onward. When she walks by Sasuke, a poisoned kunai is ready to strike. With it in her trembling grasp, she thinks to herself, “Right now, if I stab Sasuke, it’ll all be over.”

That moment of hesitation, the multitude of thoughts that flash through her head in that single millisecond are enough to spell her doom. A chidori is crackling with static behind her, and if it weren’t for Kakashi intercepting and redirecting the blow, Sakura was as good as dead. Of course she knows why she faltered, even if she resolved time and time again to bring this to a close. She doesn’t want it all to be over. She wants Sasuke to come home, to be himself again, to smile with her and Naruto and Kakashi and to be Team Seven. 

Kakashi orders Sakura to take the woman and leave. Tells her that this is not a burden she needs to bear alone. That it is his fault, his failure as their teacher and mentor, that led to this rift between them. Sakura is tired of being coddled. Tired of things being out of her hands and sick of being reminded time and time again that she can do nothing but rely on others. She takes the red-haired woman who Sasuke has now abandoned away from the battle, treating her as the tears flow uncontrollably. She’s careful to make sure none of them drip onto open wounds, because she can handle this, at the very least. 

“Sasuke…” coughs the woman, her eyes on the verge of unconsciousness, “you don’t know Sasuke anymore.”

Everything after that is a blur. She leaps into action, ricocheting herself off the arch of the bridge in a sudden movement, kunai ready to pierce the very back she has spent her adolescent years chasing after. But she freezes, and she falters once more. She cannot do it, and such is the curse of love. 

Sasuke whirls around and brings a hand to her throat. This time, Sakura is okay with it. Better that she die by his hand than somewhere on the battlefield, unfulfilled. She closes her eyes, waiting for the release of death. This love was going to die eventually.

That much is evident when it is Naruto, always only ever Naruto, who can reach Sasuke with his words. 

    IT is in the midst of battle when Sakura sees him again. Kneading chakra and channeling into her medical ninjutsu as she treats Naruto, Sasuke leaps down to land in front of them. He says her name, for the first time in what feels like forever, and the sound of his voice washes over her like a springtime breeze. This is the Sasuke she knows. Warm and strong and genuine. Sure, his announcement of his interest in the position of Hokage shocks her (as it does everyone else), but she can look past it. 

At his arrival, Naruto has seemingly recharged and been given a burst of new energy. Looking over his shoulder, he thanks her for the healing, tells her to take a break. 

“Let’s go, Sasuke,” Naruto says, and Sakura is sure that he means no harm and is simply oblivious to how the words spear her heart. She’s done being reduced to a spectator. She’s done sitting on the sidelines and merely being the third member of Team Seven who cannot compare to the great Uzumaki Naruto and infamous Uchiha Sasuke. Haruno Sakura is a Konoha shinobi, too. Haruno Sakura is an apprentice of one of the great prodigal three, too. 

She will take her stand here. Not once has she been proud of her life, of her journey of being a shinobi. But today, that will change. She always considered herself beneath them, figured that their destinies were simply far greater than hers. But Haruno Sakura, you are not only the third member of Team Seven, an apprentice of the prodigal three, but also the Fifth Hokage’s disciple. She feels the heat bubbling in her forehead as the 100 Healings Mark settles. Her once greatest insecurity has now become the shore which harbors her greatest achievement, and this time, she stands beside and not behind Naruto and Sasuke. This time, their clan crests circle each other as equals. Yes, this is how it was always meant to be. Even in the crossfire of war, Sakura cannot help but wish for this moment to last forever.

But when the tides of the war ebb and flow, as they do, she wonders if that feeling of equality were nothing more than her own childish delusions. A belief in grandeur, a meaningless faith in a destiny greater than oneself—was that all her efforts amounted to?

Obito is kneeling before her. Sasuke has been whisked away to some other realm in a different time-space that only Obito can reach. Naruto is off occupying Kaguya, and Sakura has once again been relegated to a supporting role where she cannot do anything on her own. Assisting others, helping others—don’t get her wrong, she’s happy to do these things. But it is so damn frustrating to see her teammates do, on their own, the things that she cannot. 

Sakura swore off self-pity years ago. Still, it manages to stick, like gum on the sole of your shoes, the residue forever there, unable to be washed off. As she’s pouring all her chakra into Obito, she can only pray for a miracle. She had tossed off her tattered combat vest, it falling to the floor as she quickly pushed her sleeves up. She released her mark, letting all the chakra she’d been kneading and storing flood through her. She can feel a prickling electricity travel down her neck down to arms, the mass amount of chakra she’s circulating through her body making her heat up, and if Obito can’t find Sasuke soon, she’s going to burst.

Suddenly, a portal opens, and off in the distance stands Sasuke, facing the opposite direction. She can see him as clear as day, though—she’s been staring at his back all this time, after all. She’d recognize it no matter the distance, because no physical distance can match the mental rift she’s come to realize exists between them. She still loves him, of course. But she can’t deny it any longer.

She yells his name. It falls off her tongue flawlessly because it is second nature. His name was engraved into her from the moment she was born—this was the boy she was always meant to love and always will.

Sasuke turns and begins to run, and it takes every fiber of Sakura’s being to maintain the portal, and she can tell Obito is struggling just as hard. She’s not sure how much longer she can hold out, and she can tell she’s nearing her end when the portal begins spasming, flickering as it tries to close. The portal is growing smaller and smaller as the seconds tick by, and Sasuke is nowhere near. This is it, Sakura thinks. This will take the place of the greatest failure of her life.

Her eyelids flutter as sparks fly from her hands, the heat combusting in her veins as she falls back from Obito, weakly. Her body is collapsing, and she can see the ground growing ever closer, until—

She feels an arm around her and a warm presence she could never mistake. She has barely enough strength to merely shift her gaze to the man who caught her, and she is met in return with the same red wheels of the Sharingan. But this time, there is no spite, no hatred, no vengeance. There is fire, but it is gentle and caressing, and suddenly she realizes there was never a rift between them at all. 

To show one’s back is to show vulnerability. To leave it unguarded symbolizes trust. Sasuke and Naruto have shown her theirs all this time not because they were leaving her behind, but because they knew she would never betray them. It’s so stupid. If that was what they meant, they should’ve just said that. Sakura feels a tear well up in her eye. 

“You’ve got it from here,” she mumbles, giving Sasuke a grin. 

Sasuke allows himself the slightest of smiles. “I made it here thanks to you,” he says.

“Hmph!” she scoffs with pride. “You got that right.”

“Sakura.” Her name sounds so right in Sasuke’s voice. “You did well.”

She feels a blush rise to her cheeks as her consciousness begins to fade. 

“Come back alive,” she says as he sets her down against a rock. “And tell that to stupid Naruto, too.”

Macht did not understand such a concept. But maybe he could, if he let you go. “Alright.”

Your smile grew wider at this, and Macht mirrored the expression. He stopped your bleeding by turning the wound to gold, and accompanied you to the center of the city, walking beside you though a few paces behind. His goal had still remained unchanged. He wanted to understand humans, to somehow relate to these so-called feelings that they have. He had tried, with Gluck, and failed. And even then, he felt nothing toward it. Everything was simply matter-of-fact. Things were how they were, and even when Macht looked inside himself to try and understand it, there was no reaction to study. He tried to tell you this, somehow. You didn’t seem to be afraid of him, despite what he’d done.

“I am Macht,” he said, remembering that when meeting someone, etiquette called to introduce oneself first. 

“Hm?” You turned to look over your shoulder. “Oh, right. I’m (y/n),” you said. “Don’t worry, Macht-san. I know who you are, and I know what you’re trying to do.”

Ah. That would make things easier. “Do you hate me for it?” he asked. From his studies of humans these past decades, he had observed many things. He studied feelings like patterns, and he noticed them among all humankind. The people of Weise had tried to help at times, too. They told him that love was warm and fuzzy, like a fur blanket wrapped around you during a cold winter. They said that joy was a bubbly thing, something that drew the corners of your lips up involuntarily. They tried to teach him affection. And he knew that he had had fun serving Gluck, being beside him, but then again, what was fun? 

Macht, more often than not, met with negative emotions. And he understood them, to some extent. Anger showed in furrowed brows and raised voices. Sadness showed in crying, in tears and wails and sobs. Pain showed in spasms and sweat trickling down temples. Hatred showed itself through all the times a survivor charged at him, screaming and looking at Macht as though he were the filth of the earth. These things were the closest things Macht ever came to fully understand, he thought. Hatred was typically the response when something dear was taken from them, or so he noticed. But what made something dear? What did it mean to be dear? What difference did it make?

But he understood enough to know that you surely hated him too, because this fountain is apparently precious to you, and he took it away.

Then you said: “No, I don’t,” and Macht realized that that was an answer he was not expecting. “I used to visit Weise as a child,” you went on, admiring the scenery of the town despite its monochrome. “The adults told me you were kind, and that you were trying to coexist alongside us. They said that if Lord Gluck trusted you, then it was right for us to as well. You protected the town, and fought off members of your own kind.”

“I was merely acting on orders.”

“You could’ve killed us whenever you wanted to. Even after the bracelet was put on you.”

Macht studied your figure as he trailed behind you. So you understood the way demons’ brains worked. That to them, malice had no meaning. 

“That’s just the way things are in this world,” you continued, your hands behind your back as you walked on. “When your species was created, you were made without emotions. Humans, on the other hand, were. And we can try to tell you what things feel like, but we can’t share them with you.”

“What are you saying?” Macht asked. The two of you had reached the fountain.

Everything, including the water, was frozen into gold, and the sight of it made your heart clench in your chest. Your chest swelled as memories went through your head, and you felt as though it were going to burst at any moment. You looked around the plaza, each building unchanged even as the decades passed, fossilized and preserved in Macht’s magic. You saw where the booth that sold your favorite candy used to stand, the road which you took with your father’s hand in yours, the ledge of the fountain where you once fell into the water. These memories are precious to you. 

“Do you have memories that you think are more important than others?” you asked in return. “When you think about your life, what memories do you think will last for the rest of your immortal life?”

Macht watched as you made a quick lap around the fountain, your hand every now and then tracing the gold that made its walls. He wasn’t sure how to answer your question.

“The time I spent with Gluck,” he decided. “But simply because it was able to help me get even a tiny bit closer to my goal.”

You came to a stop once you made your full way around. You sat against the fountain, gazing up at the demon. “Then those are precious to you,” you said, “in some way or another. No matter what anyone says.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I know. You can’t know. That’s you demons’ curse.”

Macht gazed at you silently. He could kill you now.

“Come,” you said, waving him over. “Sit with me.”

He obeyed, just to see where it might take him. He sat beside you, brushing a hair from his face.

“Truthfully,” you started, “I used to hate you and all other demons, too.”

Macht prepared himself for what was sure to come next.

“But then I realized that it’s not your or any of their faults.”

Again, you’d diverged from his expectations.

“It’s not your fault that your constitution was made without feelings. If anything, I think it’s quite sad. For you guys to be sentient and have all the means for connection, and yet the bonds between people that drive our species are unobtainable for you. It makes me sad to think about it. I don’t know how I could live feeling nothing all the time, no matter what it is that I saw happen.”

You were rambling now, you knew, but Macht didn’t make any move to stop you, so you kept going. “But I don’t blame us either, for our fear and retaliation against demonkind. That’s also the way we’re programmed. Because we have emotions, we’re driven and ruled by them. That makes us think you guys are evil.”

Macht turned his head skyward. He thought about turning you to gold then, so that he doesn’t have to hear yet another person call him and his kind evil and heartless.

“But none of us are evil. Humans think demons are evil because you kill us, because you prey on us. None of it, though, is inherently evil, I think. It’s just how you are. That’s the order of nature. And there’s nothing you can do about that.” You turned to the red-haired demon next to you. “If anything, it’s tragic.”

You looked down at your feet to see that the transmutation had started. Macht did not turn to face you, but as you hugged your knees, you smiled softly at him. You had gotten to see the fountain again, and that was truly all you wanted. “Thank you, Macht,” you said. “I don’t blame you for any of this. I’m sure the people of Weise don't either.”

The truth was, you were sure that demonkind and humankind would never be able to coexist, as much as you wished otherwise. No matter how much you felt for the other-wordly species, as long as they could not feel in return, the effort would always be one-sided. Even if there were more demons like Macht, who wanted wholeheartedly the same goal. You wished it weren’t so. You couldn’t imagine the pain that came with not knowing who you are, how to feel, how to live. Then again, demons don’t know what pain is in the realm of emotions either. So in all your life, you don’t think you’ll find anything as sad as Macht’s impossible dream.

Macht waited until you were fully transformed before he stood, and he was reminded of what the old priest said when it became clear to him that malice and grief had no meaning to demons.

“You poor thing.”

He did not understand it then, and he still did not understand now. How could he be a tragic being, a poor thing, if he didn’t know the concept of tragedy?

Higuruma raises his gaze to yours. You have a crooked grin sitting on your face and a knowing look that makes Higuruma feel like you see right through him. It makes his skin crawl.

“No, I—”

“That’s alright, Mr. Rookie Lawyer,” you chirp. “I did do it. So I’m going to plead guilty.” Higuruma blinked, at a loss for words. “I killed them,” you say again, as if Higuruma didn’t hear you the first time, smiling without a care in the world. “I just wasn’t expecting to get caught.”

Your lawyer’s face was struggling to remain stoic, and you found that notion strangely pleasurable. Behind his eyes, you could tell that he was disgusted with you.

“Why?” he finally asked.

“I wanted to,” you shrugged. “I thought it’d be fun.”

“That’s it?”

“I thought it would make me happy,” you told him, “and isn’t that what life is? The pursuit of happiness.”

“For reasons like that,” he says slowly, “you murdered five people.”

“You look like you don’t know two things about happiness, Mr. Lawyer,” you said, wagging a finger at him. “You can look down on me all you want, but even you can see the difference between us. You’re not happy in that line of work, are you? It’s cute, you know, seeing these public servants preaching goodwill. What brought you to the law, Mr. Lawyer? Vocational calling? Were you one of those kids who thought you could make the world a better place? Did you think you’d be the valiant hero who defends the people wrongly accused? I bet you’re just overjoyed to be defending people like me—”

“Enough.”

Higuruma wanted to leave. The pressure of your gaze and corruption of your soul were the reason his job was so unbearable sometimes. He couldn’t fathom what you were saying. To kill for pleasure, for happiness—sure, he knows that people are twisted and have sick urges, but you believe your worlds so wholly that he cannot be sure any longer that these ideas can be boiled down to delusion. Perhaps some people are, at their core, just horrible beyond repair. 

“You can plead guilty,” he had said, standing to leave. He was wrong to take your case, no matter how desperate he was to get his practice off the ground. He had read your file, and assumed you were one of those people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. After all, who would think on first glance you had the capacity to rip out the hearts of three men and tear apart the bodies of two children? Yet after speaking to you, he realized he was wrong—and even if he wanted to believe, even if he knew defending you was the right thing to do, he could not deny that somewhere deep inside he despised you. “We’ll try and figure out a way to reduce your sentence. You can tell me the order of events in detail another time.”

But he never got the chance to see you again, because the next day he was served with a notice that you’d requested a new lawyer. Your case was open-shut, and the trial lasted barely an hour. He wondered how you could’ve ever been happy perpetrating violence.

Until now, years later, as his client is staring at him with contempt after all of Higuruma’s efforts and sleepless nights scrounging for evidence that would prove his innocence, he hadn’t a clue of what you meant about happiness. This case isn’t his fault. Higuruma Hiromi is not to blame for the gavel that is about to hand down his client’s sentence. The anger and hatred for the actions of higher authorities he is subjected to is not deserved. A man he worked tirelessly for, a man he believed in, a man for whose sake he had shown time and time again he would not give up on now looks at him with a stare that is icier than yours, and it fills him with a rage Higuruma doesn’t know how to calm. The ramblings of the court proceedings turn into garbled static as blood rises to his head. When he hears silence, Higuruma stands and demands a retrial on the spot.

In that moment, he wonders if killing them would make him happy.

HIGURUMA finds you in the same prison he first met you. The Culling Games had begun not long ago, and it’d been mere hours since he spent all his points on a new rule and transferred the remainder to Itadori Yuuji. Now that the onslaught of aggressors out for his life finally seemed to calm, he resumed his search for your whereabouts. The prison is within the boundaries of the colony he’s currently in, and when he arrives he finds the grounds desecrated by blood and ravaged bodies. He sees the decapitated head of a guard lying on the stone floor. For you to have survived—and he’s sure you have—you must be a strong jujutsu sorcerer. That makes your easy submission to the conviction of your crime those many years ago all the more puzzling.

In the chaos, most of the convicts escaped. Higuruma walks through empty hallways and pries open jammed doors, climbing over fallen rubble. He had half expected you to be gone as well, but he finds you in one of the cells, lying on the floor. With your hands behind your head, you look as if you’re on a grassy hill cloud watching, eyes closed in content.

“It wasn’t you,” is the first thing Higuruma says to you. This much is now clear with his newfound abilities.

“No,” you hum. “It was the curse I was there for.”

It makes more sense that way. “Are you one of them?” he asks. “Those sorcerers?”

You laugh. “No, no. Not for a long time now. Since even before I met you.”

“Ah.”

“So, why seek me out, Mr. Lawyer? You need some wisdom in this new world of yours?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I wanted to ask you something.”

You crack open an eye to peek at him. “I think I can guess what about.”

“Why did you plead guilty? You didn’t do it.”

Shrugging, you feel your shoulders brush against the concrete. “I wanted to see what it would be like.”

“That’s all?” he asks quietly.

“Isn’t wanting to enough justification?” you ask. Then you click your tongue. “I guess maybe not to a lawyer.”

“But you’re innocent.”

“For that crime, maybe. But I’ve killed before, for the same reasons I told you back then. And what about you, Mr. Lawyer? Are you still innocent?”

Higuruma lowers himself to the floor, sitting against a chunk of rock outside your cell. “No,” he says quietly. “No, I’m beyond saving, I think. When this is all over, I’m going to turn myself in.”

“Now why would you do that?” you tut, and Higuruma thinks it’s ironic you’d say that. Despite the ceiling and walls of your confines being blown apart and merely the remains of a wreckage, you act as though you are still trapped, not leaving. You’ve also willingly turned yourself in. 

“You've killed people too, (y/n)-san.”

“Plenty,” you confirm.

“I couldn’t understand you back then, when you said that you thought it might make you happy.”

“You still can’t, Mr. Lawyer.” His eyebrows raise slightly. “When you killed those people, how did you feel?”

You sit up now, turning your body towards him. Higuruma knows you’re a killer, and he figures that you could probably kill him in the blink of an eye. There’s no fear, though. He feels strangely calm in your presence, and it reminds him of all the cases he fought where he thought back to you. People who do not want to be saved cannot be. So all the other clients he had over the years, who pleaded innocent and needed someone to trust them—Higuruma knew that there was a chance for them to be absolved. You taught him that.

His eyes fall to the floor. “It felt awful.”

You let out a gentle laugh, retreating into the corner as you lay back down on the concrete, rolling onto your side so that your back faces Higuruma. “Then there’s still hope for you yet, Higuruma. You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? Protecting the weak is your job. Go.”

Higuruma seems somewhat moved by your words, and it is the first time he hears his name in your voice. He stands and dusts himself off. “After this, (y/n)-san, what will you do?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” you tell him. “I’ll stay here, probably. At least until the games are over.”

“I’ll come back,” Higuruma then says, and this time it is his turn to catch you by surprise.

“Why bother?”

—

     EREN Jaeger was only fifteen when he was told that in him was a power his people couldn’t trust, subjected to scrutinizing and fearful gazes, chained in the middle of a room for witnesses to gawk at. A pitiful display, Erwin thought, to be muzzled like a dog and belittled like a child.

“I feel bad for him,” Erwin whispered, though he didn’t let it show on his face.

“Is that a joke?” Levi asked again, face contorted into what seemed to be disgust. “He might be a titan, for all we know.”

“You saw his eyes, Levi. Do they look like the eyes of a titan?”

“Maybe a cannibalistic one.”

Erwin stifled a laugh. Then, “He’s just a kid.”

Levi scoffed once more. “We were just kids,” he said. The conversation ended there, with the heavy truth hanging above their heads.

The trial proceeded as planned. Eren pleaded his case, stood his ground with protests and declarations until Levi went down there and kicked him across the face hard enough that a tooth fell out. The cowards in the MP section all cringed, wincing with second-hand pain and the instinctual fear when faced with violence, but those in the Survey Corps watched without batting an eye. Erwin noticed that the girl brought in as a witness had to look away, the blood boy beside her having a hand on her shoulder.

Afterwards, he remembered seeing her eyes shift into hatred whenever she saw Levi. He had never seen someone so angry on someone else’s behalf.

—

         LIBRARY hours went from eight in the morning to nine in the evening. Erwin had gone to read about coal mines and the resources that were lost by the breaching of Wall Maria. He checked out a few books, and headed back to his office. There, Levi Ackerman awaited him.

“There you are,” he said, sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed. “Hange told me you were at the library.”

Erwin nodded. “Did you need something?”

Levi opened his mouth to speak, but he paused before any sound escaped. He pressed his lips back together, shaking his head. “On second thought,” he said, “never mind. I have to get back.”

Erwin watched in subtle confusion as Levi left. A mystery, that man, and Erwin was sure that he’d never fully understand him. He wanted to, though—he wondered what it felt like to be the strongest soldier, to shoulder the hopes of all humanity, both those who did not acknowledge them and those who died alongside them.

Could a man like him really not have any regrets, Erwin wondered.

—

    ERWIN had often been asked the question, “was it worth it?” in regards to the lives lost after each mission. The first mission executed with the addition of Eren Jaeger to the ranks had ended in failure, and again he was faced with these dreadful words. Erwin remembered little of the ride back, but he remembered hearing a man said to be Petra Ral’s father talking nervously, voice shaking and rambling away to Levi. There had been nothing to do but hold one’s head high and continue walking, no matter how hard it may have been. And that was exactly what they did, even if met with the scorn of the public.

To hang your head in shame meant to admit defeat, and that was the one thing the Survey Corps did not do.

Erwin typically had hopeful enough of a constitution to not be bogged down by the weight of what was lost. But today, as he took a seat in his office, clothes still stained with dried blood, he slammed a fist on his desk. Burying his face in his hands, he yelled profanity, wondering for the first time he became commander if it was truly worth it.

Levi got injured, Eren almost kidnapped, and now the Military Police were demanding custody of the boy. Levi’s entire squad died—some of the best soldiers the Survey Corps ever had. Without them, their forces had diminished only slightly in number but significantly in experience and strength. In what world was that mission ever worth it?

“You can’t fall apart.”

A voice from the doorway interrupted him.

“If you fall apart,” he continued, “it’s the end for the Survey Corps.”

The commander sighed. “You’re right.”

He didn’t need to look up to see who it was. Albeit limping, Levi Ackerman would be standing the way he always did, confident in stature with a frown on his face, eyes cold—but for once, Erwin was wrong. Levi was leaning against the doorframe, eyes downcast, face grim.

“You alright, Levi?” Erwin found himself asking before he could stop himself. He braced himself for a snappy remark.

“I just lost my whole squad,” Levi said, and his voice was softer than Erwin thought it’d be. “For a stupid fucking brat. What do you think?”

Erwin smiled sadly. “They’re all dead, huh,” he murmured. “We’ll have to notify their families, and hold a service for each of them. I wish the mission had—”

“No,” Levi interrupted. “No looking back, Erwin. I don’t have time for regrets.”

Leave it to Levi to set Erwin’s priorities straight. 

“Sorry. You’re right.”

—

    IT was the night before the Shiganshina retake mission, and it was then that Levi had the sole conversation with Erwin where he did all the talking. Typically, the captain and his chatterbox personality dominated what was said. But tonight, Levi had sat down with him in his office, a solemn look on his already-solemn looking face, telling Erwin that whatever he was going to say wasn’t something he wanted to hear.

No commander wishes his people to die. Levi knew that. After all, what kind of fool willingly burdens oneself with more blood on his hands?

Even so, Levi had his hands clasped, fingers clawing at his knuckles as he brooded in silence. He was leaned over, weight on his elbows as they dug into his thighs. Head hung, eyes dark.

“Erwin,” he said, and his voice shook.

“Can’t sleep?” Erwin asked, setting aside a stack of paperwork. “That’s unlike you.”

Another scoff, as Levi mumbled a small “yeah.”

“Something on your mind?”

“I have a bad feeling about tomorrow,” Levi said, glancing at his superior. “Gut feeling. One of us is going to die.”

Erwin’s stomach dropped. Not long ago, he had narrowly escaped death himself, having lost only an arm. “Then I suppose that it will be me,” he said, trying a smile to lighten the mood. “Karma, I’d say,” he joked.

“Erwin.”

Erwin never wanted to hear his name come out of Levi’s mouth the way it did. Never out of helplessness, never out of fear, never out of defeat. And yet, in a voice unfit for Humanity’s Strongest Soldier, Levi had said his name. Weakly, softly, almost pleading, if he dared ot say.

“If it comes to it,” Levi began. Erwin wanted him to stop. “And if you order it—” Erwin wanted to stop listening. “—I’ll die quietly.”

“Levi.” Erwin said his name quietly, wanting to command him to stop. He can’t do this without him.

“Don’t be afraid to send me to my death, Erwin,” Levi said, and Erwin could tell from the look in his eyes that he was serious. “That’s what soldiers are for.”

—

    THE morning of the mission, Erwin found himself without rest. He’d slept as best he could after Levi left, though admittedly it was nothing more than a few hours. The horses were being assembled, the troops gearing up, and Erwin sat on a cargo box outside the stables, his head aching after the night before.

Levi approached him, sliding a blade into its slot. Adjusting his cloak, he stood before Erwin, looking down at him. “Don’t forget what I said,” he said. “I meant it.”

“Even so,” Erwin protested, “I can’t go sending our best soldier to his death just like that, can I?”

His joking tone didn’t seem to land. “Humanity needs you more than me,” Levi said. “Do it if it comes to it.”

“Would you sacrifice yourself? Without my orders?”

“Huh?” Levi scowled. “Who would do that, dumbass?”

“I see.” Erwin laughed. “Only on my orders, huh.”

“Don’t think about it too much,” his subordinate said, heeding the call of one of his men and beginning to walk away. You don’t have time for regrets, Erwin. You’re the one who’s going to save humanity.”

As he turned his back, the wings of freedom that symbolized everything the Scout Regiment stood for fluttered upon his cloak. Erwin couldn’t help but laugh. What kind of commander was he if his underling was more prepared for what was to come than him?

—

    THE basement. The basement. The basement.

Everything was so close. The truth. His dreams. His father. The basement. Finally, Erwin would learn whether he was right or not. Whether his father died because he knew too much or because the military simply didn’t like curious fools. Erwin’s meaning in life was going to be fulfilled. He’d finally know. That itch he could read would finally be scratched, and he’d be able to die in peace.

Maybe he’d finally have time to charm a woman and take her to bed. Or read those books he’d been buying but ended up collecting dust. Or go to sleep at a decent time. Or—

“Oi, Erwin! What are we going to do?!”

Man, what an idiot, Erwin thought, thinking about the future at a time like this. Thinking about all the things he wouldn’t get to do that he wanted to, all the people he made promises with that he could no longer keep, all on the battlefield while titans were rampaging.

Levi’s face had an expression Erwin’s seen many times. Desperation, some may call it, but on Levi’s face Erwin would say it was more out of stubbornness and the refusal of death than desperation. He remembered what Levi had said the night before. One of us is going to die. Don’t be afraid to send me to my death.

Oh, man. And the basement was right there. 

“Erwin… If you tell me there’s no way left for us to fight back,” Levi said, “I’ll start preparing for defeat. Eren’s sprawled out there, right? Go wake him up. You and some others get on him and run. Then we’ll at least have a few survivors.”

It was true. A hopeless situation was unfolding right before their eyes, with the Colossal and Armored Titans rampaging and making Eren’s titan pale laughably in comparison. The boy had been thrown to the top of Wall Maria, rocks were falling like rain from outside the town, and the puny humans of the Survey Corps were going to die. Not to mention Hange had bit the dust, too.

“The recruits and survivors from Hange’s squad can scatter on horses all at once and try to head home,” Levi continued. “With them acting as bait, you and the others on Eren will be able to escape.”

“And what are you going to do, Levi?” Erwin asked. 

“I’ll deal with that beast. I’ll lead him away.”

“No,” Erwin said immediately. “You can’t even get close to him.”

“Isn’t that the situation we’re in? It’s a major defeat. Honestly,” Levi said, looking down at his hand, “I’m not expecting anyone to make it home alive at this point.”

“True,” Erwin replied, eyes downcast, “if we didn’t have any way of fighting back.”

It took a moment for Levi to realize what Erwin was suggesting. “Do you have one?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t you put that ugly mouth of yours to work earlier and say something?”

Another round of rocks were flung. All the bits and pieces collided with the roofs of the empty homes, mini explosions erupting across the district. Smoke bellowed, filling the air with dust and debris. The scenery was being destroyed. The situation was only worsening.

“If this plan works, you may be able to defeat that beast,” Erwin said. “But only if we sacrifice the lives of all the recruits here, as well as mine. But I doubt these young-recruits would charge forward unless I was leading the way. I’d have to be the very first to die.”

Fuck.

“Without ever learning… what was in that basement.”

The basement. That stupid, damned, fucking basement.

“I just,” Erwin sighed, slumping against a wall. “I just want to go to that basement.”

What did Erwin live for all this time? To lead humanity beyond the walls? To save humanity and become a hero? Fuck no. Erwin Smith was a selfish bastard who cared for nothing but checking his answers, driven by a desire to know the truth about the dream he shared with his father. And those answers—the answers to every question he’s ever had, the questions that kept him up at night, the unanswered questions that haunted his father’s death—they were in that basement.

“But Levi… can you see them? Our comrades? They’re watching to see what they died for. Is it all nothing more than… my own childish delusion?”

Levi’s eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed as he knelt down before his commander. “You’ve fought a good fight. We’ve only come this far thanks to you. I’m making the choice,” he said, nearly choking on his words. They were gnarled in his throat, but he managed to speak without a semblance of hesitation. “Give up on your dreams and die for us.”

Erwin’s eyes widened slightly.

“Lead the recruits straight into hell,” Levi continued, “and I’ll take down the Beast Titan.”

Erwin could only smile. Sadly. 

—

    THEIR last conversation was one that Erwin hoped he could keep with him even after dying.

“I tried to live without regrets,” Erwin muttered, readying himself for what would have to be the most convincing speech of his life. “I really did.”

“Any yet…?” Levi asked, prodding him on. It was the first time he ever encouraged Erwin to speak.

“I still have them. I still have so many of them, Levi.”

Levi held his silence, gazing down at the grass beneath their feet. It continued to sway in the wind, green and prosperous despite the patches next to it being trampled flat, despite the world around it crumbling to pieces. Humans are a lot like grass, Erwin thought. 

“But I think my biggest one,” he sighed, “would be not being able to see what’s in that basement.”

Levi scoffed. It was something he often did when Erwin said stupid things. It was a sound Erwin was beginning to enjoy hearing. “Out of everything, it’s not the hundreds of lives you’ve sacrificed to make it here?”

The commander laughed. “I suppose not. That’s cruel of me, isn’t it.” 

“Yeah. It is.”

“Sorry,” Erwin said, standing up. “We have no time for regrets, right?”

He seemed taken aback by his words. A brief silence. Then, “Yeah,” Levi agreed, “We have no time for regrets.”

There was a rock the size of a building flying at Erwin. In the next second—no, half of a second—he’d be dead. Yet in that second was thirty something years of his life, from his father to his grave, from the day he became commander to the day he’d die.

There’s became I, then I became you, and finally, you became we. 

We have no time for regrets, right?

Erwin laughed. Not dying with a smile on his face wasn’t something he wanted to add to his list of regrets, after all.

Don’t be afraid to send me to my death. One of us is going to die.

It turned out to be him, just like he suspected. At least he was right about something. And in the end, it was Levi who sent him to his death.  Another thing to laugh about over drinks if he could just make it home—

Erwin fell off his horse before he realized it. There was a hole in his side. There was no way he was going home alive, now. He screamed. He yelled at the troops to march forward, but he couldn’t tell if they heard him or not. Everything was mute, the world around him deafened and soundless. His eyes closed.

No time for regrets? At least on my deathbed, let me dwell on them a bit, Levi.

People say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. They say that you’ll arrive at answers to questions you’ve been asking all your life, you’ll make life changing realizations, and that your past mistakes and regrets will tear you apart until you’re gone from this world for good. They say that there’s a strange sense of peace when it comes to dying.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since his eyes closed. But for Erwin Smith, as his consciousness was fading once and for all, all three came in the form of one answer. His biggest regret wasn’t that he wouldn’t get to see what was in the basement.