Prologue
"Let's end it all," he said roughly, crouched down with his hand hovering over the fallen katana, looking up at his one-time friend while blood poured down his face, out of his shoulder, arms, and leg.
"If that's your wish." He didn't have to look to know that the pale-haired man's foot kicked out at the same moment he tossed up the sword before diving for the gun, standing, and firing just as the blade slashed across his abdomen, staining itself red with the blood it spilt.
He didn't look up when he heard the thud of the body hitting the floor. Holding his right arm over the gaping slash, he began to stagger to the stairs, vision blurring and hearing becoming deafened. Unaware for the moment of the group of men watching him from below, he made it to the center of the steps, smirking as he looked up.
Blood. So much of it pooled in rivers before falling to the red carpet.
Ignoring everything, he lifted his left hand and point his index finger at the men in the shape of a gun. This was the way it should be: his past dead and with him trailing behind.
This was what he wanted...
...to go out with a "Bang."
And so he fell...
And then--~
It was insane to go back. Being dead for over a year was the main reason. Being the one to leave them before he'd die was another. But they couldn't really hate him for it, could they? Had they understood his reasons? Why he had wanted to go the way he almost did?
Gripping his left arm with his right hand, looking away from the seeming-offending limb, he continued his way toward the ship. There was no way around it. The past was buried, gone, hopefully never to return to haunt him; and perhaps, for the first time in a long time, he could live in the present, with a future he could go to.
He grinned at his thoughts. Fate wouldn't allow him that pleasure, he knew, but he could damn well try for it.
He was there. Standing on the deck, looking at the sun, ignoring everything around him. Jet Black. A suitable name for the elder man who acted a lot more tough than how he really was.
He smirked slightly. If he approached Jet, he would get a nice punch in the eye, or maybe the jaw. Better than Faye Valentine shooting him on sight.
And so, he approached the ship's deck carefully. Just as carefully, he climbed onto the ship and paused, watching Jet with cat-like curiosity that suited him as well as the name 'Black Dog' suited the man he watched.
Nothing had changed, so it seemed, save for the new sag in the elder man's shoulders.
He took a step forward.
"Get off my ship." Jet's voice came out gruff and hard. "I don't care who you are. Just leave."
He didn't move. He took a step forward--
"What do you--?!" The former ISSP officer spun toward him angrily only to freeze and unconsciously inhale with surprise at who he saw before him.
Giving a light half-hearted, tired smirk, he greeted his old friend. "Yo."