Author's Notes: Once again, I blame the ending to Crisis Core for yet another sad fic.

A Hero

The pain was excruciating at first. Agonizing, sharp, unbearable even. Imagine being shredded from the inside, like having a sharp fan being turned on inside your body, ripping your lungs, shattering your bones, severing your blood vessels, cutting your skin, stopping your heart... Broken, there really was no option left than to just lie there and stare at the helmeted figures of those who had riddled your body with penetrating bullets. You could feel some of those foreign objects, lodged painfully against a bone, or a muscle, unable somehow to pass through the other side of your skin. The foreign objects are like itches you cannot scratch, feeling foreign and out-of-place in your broken body.

The two stared down, watching the life glimmer weakly in the pained mako eyes. They turned, spotting the other monster, lying on its side and shivering from the cold. One of them wondered why such a monster would carry the other monster around without any regards to its own life, and decided then that he would never find the answer. He jerked his head, a signal that they would leave the two. The other wasn't alive. It was dead, trapped in a living body.

The footsteps faded away.

A breath escaped his lungs, and he suddenly felt the presence of a stronger, much more honourable man standing by him. A smile came to his lips; he refused to close his eyes, afraid that, like the many times he had sought the comforting presence before, it might leave him. But the man did not go away, and was instead watching the other sadly, a deep and sorrowful look in wise blue eyes.

"You gonna leave me again?"

"No. You've done well."

"I'm not gonna leave yet, you know."

"I wish you aren't, either. But it's time to go."

"No... Give me a moment."

"...Just a moment, then."

A forced breath sucked in, he turned his eyes on his friend struggling on hands and knees to edge closer to him. Pride swelled in his shattered chest as he watched the painful journey, his friend, still fighting, even after all that he had been forced through. He wasn't sure, at that moment, which of the two of them was truly the brave one, the strong one, to still cling onto life against all odds. He turned his eyes back towards the sky, sucking in short breaths as if he was trying to breathe. His friend's face appeared before his eyes then, a small croak escaping his lips.

And in that moment, everything changed.

He wasn't sure if the friend understood what was really happening. He had been able to move and talk for a little while now, albeit in small snatches requiring a lot of energy... but even there, lying and unable to perform any more squats, he had the hope that his friend understood. He grabbed the golden hair, pulling his friend to his chest in a final embrace, trying to convey the hope and pride swelling in his chest. He owed it to this one trooper that he had been able to live for so long. Damn, Gongaga was located in harsh terrains, but he would never have been able to survive Nibelheim without four years of prior lessons from the trooper.

He didn't want to leave, but he needed to. But he needed to make sure that, in a way, he would never leave. His eyes trailed to his blade and his gaze softened. Yes. That would be their medium, their connection. He lifted it, using the last of his life, his strength, to place it in his hands.

Reassured, he closed his eyes.

"Are you ready now?"

"...Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready."

"Let's go."

"Just for a little while. I'll be back."

"Sure you will."

"Those wings. I want them too, you know."

"...I'm proud of you."

He smiled then, a genuine smile that burst from his heart like a warm bubble. To know, truly, that he had indeed become a man who stuck to his pride and dreams, to fight for them with courage and honour... To know that he had made the man he admired the most, proud. He looked down, just for a moment, to see his friend continuing their journey, dragging the heavy blade against all possibilities for his weakened, defeated body. A small part of him wished that maybe, just maybe, his death had given his friend the life to keep on going. To continue the journey together, as they always had. The friend he knew would have laughed at the possibility, to tell him to stop being so full of himself.

He chuckled lightly, imagining himself ruffling the chocobo hair.

"Hey. Would you say... I became a hero?"