A/N: Written for the Green Room Challenge (Rlt), Challenge #4 - using one of the Majora's Mask moon children game quotes as a prompt AND provide your answer to the quote. The quote I chose was: "The right thing... what is it? I wonder…if you do the right thing, does it really make everyone happy?", and for the Diversity Writing Challenge, e22 – write in first person narration
Wishes
The fate of the world shouldn't rest on my shoulders. It shouldn't rest on any one man's shoulders, much less a man who is still a child, a man who thinks the world is far too large a thing to be on anyone's shoulders.
But it's on my shoulders nonetheless. And I have to choose. Again, and again, until one side or the other win out. After losses cutting at both. After losses that will until I fall weigh upon my soul.
I made a choice already – and I've lost two best friends because of it: the two people I thought I'd chosen to save the world for. Pretty sentiments, but that's all they'd turned out to be in the end. I'd thought, then, that I didn't know nor care about the future of the world, but if I had to choose, I'd choose the future where Kotori and Fuuma would be happy.
But there was a dichotomy between the two Kamuis I hadn't known. I hadn't known about the twin star back then, or the "other" Kamui, or that Fuuma of all people would be him. Why did it have to be him?! I wished for the world he would be happy in, and in doing so I doomed him to fight for the other side, fight against that happy world that I would, in his place defend.
And for what? Kotori was dead. According to Hinoto-hime she would have died either way, no matter what choice I made. I could only have saved her by prolonging my choice and even then, only indefinitely. The Seals and Angels had already collected in Tokyo for the final battle and the choice was the only thing left. Things must be completed within the year, or so the prophecies said. The fate of the world would be decided before the end of the year.
But I still had a choice. My choice was not one that could be set in stone, like the Seals and the Angels. I could change – but there would be consequences for that change just like there were consequences for making the choice to begin with, even if it had been inevitable. The right thing…what is it? Does it even exist? If I'd chosen the world's destruction instead of its preservation – if I'd chosen the path instead of the happiness of those dear to me, or their happiness meant the remade future – then Fuuma would be the one who cried over Kotori's beheaded corpse. Then Fuuma would be the one whose hand was scarred beyond repair, and whose heart wept like so.
If he is spared from that in his stupor then perhaps I've made the right choice after all. But what of the future. Fuuma was the one to kill Kotori by this choice of mine. If I'd chosen the path of destruction at least I would have taken that burden from him, though I'd leave the tears.
No choice of mine could truly make Fuuma happy, even if that was the wish I had made. The only salvage was that he might never recall – but it was still a battle to that point. The end of the year had to come first, and the end of this fight. It's barely begun but already I'm not sure if I can fight any more. One fight has cost me the reason I'd chosen this path, so what is left?
I'm not entirely sure what binds me now. The duty that wears on my soul: the duty that was mine since before I was born? Or is it the allies I have made, the allies that have sworn their lives to me because that was the hand fate gave them. None are dead yet but in my desire to avoid the fight I injured one. And he saw me, soul bared. He saw a little child crying into his arms because that's all I am, in the end, deep inside. He saw it all and told me it was okay to not fight, if that's what I truly wanted. It was okay to stay in the ocean of my soul, cocooned up, ignorant of the happenings in the outside world until my shell of a body failed and the world was gone. But he also said I might regret – regret the things I couldn't do, regret the opportunities I would miss. If there was something I wanted to do, I should do that instead, even if it hurt.
It might not be the right thing, but Fuuma is still here and that's my wish. That will always be my wish, I think. To save Fuuma. To create and protect the world he'll be happy in. Even if it means hurting others for it. Even if it means hurting Fuuma – because I'll have to fight him. Many times, before the end of the year and the end of this long drawn-out fight.
And so I've chosen. I will fight for the choice I initially made, and the path it led to. Even if I wished, I could not turn time back and I do not wish. Kotori would not be saved either way, nor would Fuuma be spared the burden of this destiny: the antithesis of mine. I will not regret it, I think, no matter what pains come from this path. Because the path I have chosen will make Fuuma happy and the fact that my feet have wondered onto the path with a wish so phrased proves it true. If only Fuuma could walk upon the same side…but I would find it: the way to put Fuuma back into the world he loves best.
I will not regret it, I think, but it is a difficult choice. Daisuke dies. Hinoto-hime's tears are an anguished scream and Subaru-san loses an eye. He says he meant to, but I cannot understand that of him. It was he who saw my soul and heart bared after all. Maybe it is related to his own wish, the wish so tender and so desperate that he would risk the happiness and health for it, like I would for my own. He must understand, I thought even then. He must have something like that to be able to say such wise words, for wisdom only came from experiences and understanding. And he'd shared a little of the tale with me, a stranger but a Kamui still, his Kamui, as well. A sister and a friend that was closer than a friend, and one had killed the other. Fate had indeed been cruel, to give this Seal the same fate as the Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven, the Kamui of the Seals. Perhaps it was for that understanding. Perhaps it was so he would be able to dive into my heart and draw me back out, otherwise fate would not get its final war.
Fate seems intent on getting its final war. We fight many times. After Daisuke, there are no casualties for a while though we're injured many times, and repaired. Subaru-san is the slowest to repair because of his eye, and is on his feet too soon in the end. We don't see the treachery then. We simply heed Hinoto-hime's words and split up, two Seals apiece to a kekkai. And, unknowingly, we've left Suburu-san to his destruction.
But it is Subaru's wish. And the Sakurazukamori's wish as well, and they are different wishes and both misunderstood, because there was a long and drawn fight on that bridge before it ends. And it ends with the Sakurazukamori's wish fulfilled, and the Sakurazukamori's death, and Subaru-san is embracing his nemesis and his love: the man who murdered both his sister and his heart.
We speak again after that, about those matters which the other Seals can never know about, can never understand. Or perhaps they can, if an opportunity is granted to them but I would not wish it on them. It is too cruel, the tears in the heart when a loved one dies and we've lost too much because of this destined fight. But, at the moment, it's a conversation only the two of us can follow. As the Kamui my life may be on parade for those of us directly involved with the end of the world, but Subaru-san's is not. Maybe Fuuma knows. Fuuma knows quite a bit, suddenly, about all of us. But he is not Fuuma. Not really. He is Kamui as well, the Kamui of the Dragons of Earth as I am to the Dragons of Heaven. Sometimes I wonder if saving Fuuma means killing this Kamui. And I'm doubting again because, next to Fuuma and Kotori, Subaru-san has become a precious person to me and more than the other Seals. And he is going. I can see in his eyes even as he sits before me, drenched in blood. And yet I am selfish. I ask that fleeing soul for advice on my account.
'How will I know what the right thing to do is?' I asked, plea for help in the tone.
'Do you regret?' was the reply, 'that wish you made that drew you out of your heart, that wish for which you chose to risk everything – health and happiness – for?'
'No,' I say, slowly, 'but my wish has brought misfortune for others.' I do not need to list them. Subaru-san has borne witness himself. Daisuke. His own eye. And now, the blood on his clothes and the emptiness in his heart were the person he loved and the wish he had thrown aside everything for were both beyond reach.
'There is no one wish that can make everyone happy,' says Subaru-san. 'You just follow your own wish.'
And with the weight of the world on my shoulders, following that path may lead to even more loss, and unhappiness. But what else am I to do? I must follow my wish, because it is that sort of wish I can bear to lose other precious things for. How am I to know the right thing for the world, nor do I care. It is Fuuma who holds my heart, and wish is simply to save him and the world he loves because that is, I hope, within my means and my grasp.
