Written for March 5th and originally uploaded to ao3. I wrote this with a high fever and without a beta, so please tell me if there's an issue! English isn't my first language so any feedback is welcome.
"Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, and yet a third of life is passed in sleep."
— Lord Byron
Minato sleeps a lot, more than the average person. He takes frequent naps – in class sometimes, on the dorm sofas, on his feet, and even against the walls of Tartarus, as if there was nothing to be feared – and peace is his in sleep, the darkness of Shadows and heartache lifted from beneath his eyes. In sleep his world is quiet and warm; in sleep, he is sweet.
(Nightmares cannot touch him – they are carried away, cut down by a scythe edged with night and the end of all things.)
When Minato sleeps, there is nothing to it; it is such a frequent thing that no one thinks anything of it anymore and if someone happens upon him and finds him asleep, it is just the way of things. Minato is asleep, and that is that.
Most, if not all, are content to leave Minato, wherever he may be found, to his rest; his story is well-known and Minato, already of a more delicate build than most, is made small and fragile by the exhaustion born of persistent grief and ill-health that is all too plain to see. It's hard to wake him, especially when he is serene and safe within a dream.
Minato sleeps a lot, and it is not at all surprising to find him deeply asleep in places away from his bed.
It also comes as no surprise that it is when he is asleep that he dies.
Death comes for him gently, when his world is quiet and warm. It takes his hand and leads him deep, draws him from shadows and exhaustion to a peaceful rest and a quieter, warmer dream.
In death, he is sweet.
The first thing the members of SEES see when they open the door to the rooftop is Minato lying on one of the hard stone benches with one hand resting against his chest and his head in Aigis' hard metal lap. His silvery eyes are closed and there's a faint, peaceful little smile on his face, and of course, of course, he's deeply asleep.
Of course he'd sleep through graduation day.
Typical Minato.
He also doesn't wake when Junpei taps him and it's just so typical of him that Junpei laughs and shakes him gently. "C'mon dude, wake up!"
He doesn't, and Akihiko leans over him for a closer inspection. He spots a pink petal in his hair and grins. "Wow, he's totally out."
Yukari thinks for a moment and grimaces, recalling the way they'd fought through the blood and darkness and grief of Tartarus, climbing higher and higher to where death had waited in a gown of night and silver beneath the sick green moon. She remembers the endless streams of Shadows and the sounds of the battle raging at her back, and the crooning of that terrible voice amid the pained cries of her friends.
Most of all, she remembers the way she had not dared to turn and look, far too afraid to see.
"Well, I don't blame him!" Yukari says, and Fuuka, ever attentive and always on the same page, perks up.
"Yeah... anyone would be tired after that." She agrees. She thinks about the exhaustion she sensed as he swapped and swapped and swapped Personae and how his mind strained under the burden of their weight, his soul stretched between their numbers. She also thinks about how he had gone after Nyx and adds, "It makes sense that he would still be," but she does not say why, does not say that he left something behind when he returned to them.
Aigis' smile is strange and lopsided – she is not yet used to smiling and truly does not want to smile, not right now, but these are her friends and seeing them now brings her joy. "Yes," She says softly. "He gave that battle his all." Every last bit of his strength, she thinks. Everything, even his life.
Junpei looks up. "I wasn't really paying attention, but now that I think about it, hasn't he been tired since?" He tucks a cherry blossom behind Minato's ear and snickers at the sight. "Well – can't blame him."
"I was not the only one who never forgot," Aigis responds gently. "He was worried and did not rest well."
Rather, he was struggling to hold on, to not let go; she had watched him carefully as the days passed, and remembers now how serene he had looked, content like someone who had accomplished everything in life.
He had looked tired, exhausted to the bone, but so incredibly peaceful and light, like a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
(Life, she thinks. Life.)
Minato had looked like someone with one last thing to see to before he was ready to be put to rest. Of course he'd been worried – he had lingered for the sake of keeping his promise to his friends, and what if they never remembered that promise?
Now, though – he has stopped resisting, his promise kept, and let go, surrendered to the peace.
Junpei's snort brings her attention back.
"He would be worried," He says, voice warm with affection. He looks at his sleeping friend and smiles, eyes soft. "Take a nice long break, man—you've earned it."
Most of the group is quiet, but Koromaru is strangely so. He's cuddled close to Minato and had licked his hand in gratitude and affection, but he's not acting as one would expect a happy dog to act. To the others, he's relieved and content and behaving as such, but he is a dog and dogs express such feelings differently. He's quiet, and strangely so.
Aigis is not human either and as such sees things differently.
Koromaru is cuddled close to Minato, curled into the crook of his arm. His head is on his chest, feeling his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest, slowed with sleep, and the warmth of his body. He is breathing in deep his scent, staring at his face.
He is feeling the pulse, breath, and heat of life and taking it in to remember how it felt. He's filling his lungs with Minato's scent so that he might never forget it, and burning Minato's face into his memory so that he might recall it when he is old and can no longer see.
He licked Minato's hand in gratitude and affection, and in farewell; his silence is one of respect. He is not happy, but he does not want to say goodbye in grief, not when Minato's smile is so sweet.
Minato is dying; his life is gone.
His soul is still here; it has not yet left. It is sitting on his hand, close to his heart.
Koromaru can see it – he'd kissed it farewell.
Its wings flutter gently, opening and closing with each of Minato's slow breaths. It has a hazy sort of glow, a radiance like the shimmer of heat, and is lit from within.
Aigis can see it too, and in it she can see Minato, the way he truly is. His soul is brilliant, radiant and burning brightly, warm and gentle, and colored velvet blue, so soft, so sweet, and so very, very peaceful.
Of course it would be a butterfly – a symbol of sleep, the peaceful rest of death.
(It's still here; Minato's still here. His soul has not yet left.)
It is Akihiko who volunteers to carry Minato home.
"Poor guy's really tired," He says with a shrug. "It's the least I can do, considering…"
It's the least he can do considering how Minato carried them all through the end itself. It remains unspoken but understood, and no one objects when he gently takes Minato into his arms. Minato is too deeply asleep to hold on if Akihiko carries him on his back, but Akihiko does not mind; he is very strong after climbing Tartarus and Minato feels very light.
None of them care about the fact that they've essentially ditched the graduation ceremony. They're too happy to care about something so trivial – and how could they, considering how the world almost ended only a month ago and only now they feel like there's finally enough air to breathe?
The relief brings with it a strange sort of relaxed giddiness, a surging joy and calm that makes them want to dance as much as it makes them want to sit and quietly enjoy the sun, and they have time for both now, don't they? They have all the time in the world to live instead of try to survive, thanks to Minato. Whatever he'd done that night – whatever miracle he'd made – it set them free.
Unnoticed to them the butterfly takes off and Aigis and Koromaru stop to watch, turning to see it fly into Ryoji's palm. The others can't see him or the way he smiles when Minato appears at his side, surrounded by motes of light that drift skyward and as bright and blue and beautiful as his butterfly soul.
Minato takes in the sight of his friends' happiness and watches them go with open affection and pride. He smiles at Aigis and Koromaru before turning to leave for good, assured of the fact that he is no longer needed. The world will continue to turn and life will go on without him, and he can rest easy knowing that they are safe and will continue to be safe until the end of their days.
Don't go, Aigis wants to say. Don't go — but she cannot say anything, cannot deny him his reward. She can only send him off with joy and watch him go with an ache in her heart.
Ryoji offers his arm as Minato reaches out to him, and Minato takes hold, tucking his hands into the crook of Ryoji's elbow and pressing close to his side. Ryoji smiles down at him, eyes soft and full of love, and it is not Death's typical love, though he loves all things – it is the love of friendship, of a life shared, the love of knowing and understanding someone and being known and understood in kind.
It is a love of the soul, not platonic or romantic. Ryoji loves Minato – they are one in the same, Death and the Universe, and he will never leave his side. And Death is beloved by Minato; he is looking up at him just as adoringly, and he too will never leave his side.
Together they follow the butterfly – Death and the Universe, arm in arm as it guides them to a dream – and fade as the lights drift away, leaving the butterfly as it lingers in the sun. Soon, the velvet blue of its wings is lost to the blue of the morning sky, and Aigis turns with Koromaru on her heels to catch up to the group, feeling what can only be a profound sense of loss.
Up ahead, Minato is in Akihiko's arms and cradled safely against his chest. His breathing is even and deep and barely noticeable, but he is gone.
Arm in arm with Death he is gone; sleep has carried him away to a dream that he will share only with Death, who loves him above all else.
Minato is gone.
He is asleep in the morning. In Akihiko's arms, he breathes.
By midday, he is still asleep. He does not wake, not even for Mitsuru's false threats and Ken's tears.
It is evening. His heart is slowing, and there is no cause, nothing to be done.
The sun sets, and the flat line's hum is low and mournful.
Minato is gone. He'd left in the morning.
"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death."
— Leonardo Da Vinci