Notes: AU, in which Arima is the God of Death - the Egyptian God of Death. Featuring Osiris!Arima, the judgement of Kaneki's soul, and my poor attempt to write sadistic & massive Arima. WHAT DID I JUST WRITE.
Beware of slight gore, and some spoilers for the end of TG manga and for TG :re.
Written for Arisasa Week 2015, Day Four: Rebirth.
Catharsis
There's a saying that no mortal eye could bear the sight of a god.
And Kaneki Ken wasn't exactly wrong when he saw Arima and recalled, the God of Death.
For seeing too much, Kaneki has now IXA-shaped-eyes, blood-tears streaming across his cheeks.
And now, there is no movement, no sound, no more breath in V14.
V14, the underground… his land, his kingdom.
(You have to pay a price for coming here. You have to pay with your life for coming here.
Nobody can run from him; in fact, everybody runs to him.
That day always comes.
And you realize.
He's been waiting for you all along.)
Everything ends here, and everything waits. Everything observes.
It's Kaneki Ken's turn.
Arima takes Kaneki's heart from his chest with bare hands, feeling his aspect and his function come upon him. The act is clean, and there isn't a single drop of blood on his clothes. The pulsating muscle still beats on his palm, as if rebelling against his grip.
He closes his eyes. He thinks about metal and fate, about judgement and fairness, endings and beginnings. When his eyes open again, there's a balance next to him. Arima lays the heart on the left of the balance, weighing it against the feather that lies on the other side. Measuring lives; this is his duty, and he has done it countless times.
The result of this trial is predictable.
Kaneki Ken can't be granted with an afterlife.
For a heart isn't shaped to carry the world, or other people's hearts. A heart could barely carry its own pain.
Kaneki's heart sinks in the balance. Though there are missing pieces, it is still too heavy, with too much losses, nightmares, regrets, words, wrongs, rights, faces, love.
Arima has never seen a more beautiful heart, or a more broken one.
And, in the brevity of that instant, his decision is made.
"You cannot pass on, Kaneki Ken."
He kneels besides the unconscious body, and caresses the younger's face, cold to the touch. His palm finds wet, and this, he recognizes, is tears.
This is rain.
This is blood.
This is oil balsam, for the dead.
And, as he takes his hand back, light-strings follow his fingers, like lifelines, like a lifetime, like every smile and every tear, every fear and every love, and each heartbeat, always in the shape of a now-forgotten-name.
Though dead, he senses Kaneki Ken struggling against his pull, almost as if pleading to him that please, please don't take them from me.
But the pull of final sleep is inevitable to a mortal being and soon, too soon, it is done.
To take a life is always easy - in a way or another, Arima thinks.
When Arima's eyes fall upon the balance once more, the heart is higher than the feather; the heart is less heavy than the feather.
And he knows.
Kaneki Ken shouldn't have to live - but now he is no longer Kaneki Ken.
Because his heart is lighter. Because now he is nothing but an empty heart, a pure soul, a spotless mind.
He takes the heart from the balance, and returns it to its owner.
I told you… it would be over soon.
He looks up at the ceiling, before looking back at the half-ghoul. It's raining, he had said to whom once was Kaneki Ken. It's difficult to tell from here, but I know. It's raining above, as well as below.
His arms raise the wet and light weight that is his corpse. He carries the body with the same care one would carry a weapon, a child, or a son.
I made it rain - all this blood, and the saltwater drops of your eyes.
He lays a kiss on his forehead. He leans in, then, his lips ghosting over the other's. "Haise," he whispers, blowing life into him.