So...my grand adventure into the land of a what-if after X begins! While I do actually have this whole story plotted out, the road between this chapter and the last one still has a long way to go (mostly because my procrastinating skills are second to none) and I'm looking forwards to the journey.

Much credit must be given to Fields of Paper/Otter Than Most for both helping me immensely with this story in fleshing it out and guiding it on its path, and for drawing the lovely cover art. She's just completely amazing and I couldn't imagine what I'd be like without her alternating between gently pushing and roughly shoving me into everything.

Lessee...warnings...the only ones I can think of at the start are character death in the sense that everyone who died before the last instalment are still dead, plus several as of yet unrevealed who died during the battle, and angst, because survivor's guilt is very heavy.

Also shh, I know it's short. This is the prologue, it will get longer. Like everything does when I get my hands on it...

The Last Promise

All fell apart, I could not restart

A wish so broken. Sad words left unspoken.

The new year was cold. Very cold, the ice of January sinking into his blood and chilling out even the life that he'd sworn to live for all who weren't anymore.

It was night, he knew that, and yet it could have been day for all of the light the new year had cast so far, dimmed by the swirling clouds of smoke and ashes that turned all the world to grey and loneliness.

He'd sworn to live for them, but was wandering endlessly in a dead city really living? All that seemed to thrive in the life he'd fought so hard for were the carrion birds, swooping down and shredding at any unlucky enough not to escape the ruins around them, cawing and attacking each other in good humor and fluttering to the remains of the buildings on shadowed wings.

The trees in Ueno park hissed as the chilling wind swept through empty branches, scraping the last leaves still littering the ground in front of him, and he shivered involuntarily as it cut through the tatters of his coat, leaving him numb on the outside as well.

At least his boots weren't shredded to pieces, if his feet were as unprotected as the rest of him, they probably would have just broken off by then. As it was, they seemed to grow heavier with each passing footstep.

Kamui's blood still lingered on his hands, even though the flecks of brown had long since fallen off, he could see it easily, a stain that would never fully wash away. That was probably for the best, he would never forget that way. He would always carry that weight. Along with Kotori's. Both of them.

He had to carry it, so they wouldn't be forgotten.

He'd gone back to the shrine at first, but it was...uninhabitable. The trees had collapsed on the house in the earthquakes that had shaken up the whole of Tokyo, his fault again. Strange, how everything could be traced back to him, that it was easy to rationalize everything being his own fault.

Good.

His feet were heavy, weary. The cold swallowed him up and left him strangely peaceful. He needed something, a place to sit. A bench up ahead caught his eyes, and he stumbled for it, whatever strength that had carried him through the days since the end failing at last, and when he hit the bench, he collapsed against it, nothing left to carry him.

Is this what dying feels like? He wondered dimly as the single streetlight in his view seemed to flicker out and in again. He hoped that he wasn't dying, that would be disappointing after all of the things he'd sworn to stay for.

Strange, he could hear footsteps now, slightly uneven and strong. They were walking closer to him, in and out, in and out. Suddenly all sorts of things were clear, like the fact that the last time he'd had anything to drink was at least two days ago...

...how did that chant go? Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food?

Well he was a fool then.

The footsteps came closer, and closer, and stopped. He'd closed his eyes at some point, and he felt too weary to open them. He could feel the weight of someone staring at him. Who was undetermined.

There was a long pause, and then a quiet voice, one he knew far better than he'd thought, spoke. "Do you want to stay here?"

He didn't know how to answer that. The answer of the side that was full of guilt for what he'd done was convinced that yes, he should. Staying on a freezing bench alone, dying of thirst seemed like the beginnings of a suitable punishment for what he'd done, though he could never fully atone for what he'd done in the sake of trying to make an ending not happen, and yet...

And yet there was the small part of him that wanted to go anywhere that wasn't there, that wanted to stand up and walk away from that bench and keep living.

How horribly selfish he was.

Somehow, the other person could see his dilemma, and even more, what the answer that he couldn't choose was. Warm hands, gloved hands, slipped under his chest, and with surprising strength, he was lifted off of the bench. There was the gentle tingle of magic wrapping around him, an illusion? He would have known if he wasn't so disoriented, but it was as light as a butterfly's wing and just as uncatchable as sunlight.

"If you want to try when you're awake again, find me." the soft voice said again, and Fuuma fell asleep, his dreams too dark to be the dreams of death.