Disclaimer: FFX belongs to SQUARE ENIIIIIX. -echo-
Notes: Title and concept sort of taken from, of all things, Indiana Jones. :o I KNOW. "The penitent man is humble...kneels before God."
...
Gatta kneels. He kneels on the Djose beach, his hands shaking and bloodied, while around him the dead lay silent and the wounded cry out in formless, helpless agony. He kneels amidst the wreckage of Crusaders and machina alike, all that is left of their precious Operation Mi'ihen, and watches the great, hulking shape of Sin retreat back into the shifting sea.
"Gatta…"
He lifts his head, tears his eyes from his own trembling fingers, and focuses on the source of the voice. A sob razors its way up his throat and he struggles, bites it back as he drops his hands and crawls, like the traitor dog he is, to the heaving side of his captain.
Heaving, because he is dying. Dying, because he has been bisected, everything below his hipbones neatly torn away with near surgical precision. There is no sign of his legs; Gatta is grateful, because as it is he can just barely, almost handle it, the sight of Luzzu's intestines spilling out of his body into a grey and ropey pile, there's so much blood, everywhere, soaking into the sand beneath his knees and leaving stains on his skin.
There is a smell lingering in the air, disgusting, thick enough to choke on, and Gatta does not realize until later that it is the metallic scent of blood, the smoke from the machina, the stink of burning feces. It is a smell that will stay with him for the rest of his life.
"Gatta, come…come..."
He leans his head down to Luzzu's mouth, close enough to hear whatever it is that he's trying to choke out between the blood, the blood that first bubbles and then gushes, down and over his chin and sinking into the sand.
"Captain," he whispers, voice caught between a shriek and a sob.
My friend.
Luzzu's eyes gleam fever-bright in the afternoon glare, and he is snarling, fiercely. "Don't let them tell you…that it wasn't worth it." More blood rises, fountains away, from both ends. He fights to keep himself from cringing as Luzzu raises his arm, curls his fingers around the curve of Gatta's jaw.
"Yevon be damned," he croaks. "We do what we must…to keep what we…we love safe."
Gatta touches the hand, the hand that no longer belongs to his friend but to a slowly fading husk. His vision blurs, as much from the blood trickling down his face as the tears in his eyes. Luzzu's face is beginning to slacken, but he rallies whatever strength he has left and smiles.
"I never had a son…before you."
And then his lips part, as if he wants to take some of the air of this world with him, but there is no further inhalation, no sound from Captain nor soldier.
Gatta kneels upon the Djose beach holding a dead man's hand, and prays.
...
A/N: More wacky fun in Moorish's household!
Moorish: -sitting at the dinner table- Hey, if you got cut in half, what organs would fall out? I mean, intestines, yeah, but would anything else?
Family: -awkward silence-
I had to look it up myself. D:
So, yeah. Sorry, no Gatta/Luzzu pr0n for you. Totally innocent father/son relationship.
EDIT: My mother has since informed me that the aorta artery is like right there, so Luzzu wouldn't actually have all that much time, maybe like 30 seconds, but this is my fanfic so I'm SUSPENDING THE LAWS OF NATURE for a while. Nyeh.