Somebody made the mistake of joking that I was losing my touch in the feels destroying department. They did not understand what exactly they said. So I stole this prompt from Dragonnutt and got my revenge.
He never thought it would end this way. Each time he thought this through, which was more often than he'd like to admit, their positions were always reversed. It brought little comfort to be wrong, but there was no other way. Never before had he been more reluctant to save the world.
He suspected that the other man had been losing his mind for a long time before this. Each transformation wore a little more of the human and left a little more of the beast in its place until he was caught in between. Now, stuck in a grotesque mockery of man and dragon, he was too dangerous. He was always too good at keeping a well maintained façade when he was falling apart. It was too late to change the past now. No matter what Omi said, there was nothing of his old self left.
He'd seen it in his eyes during their fight. There was none of the usual festering hatred and resentment, none of the usual contempt, there was not even a flicker of recognition. There was only the look of a rabid animal. He didn't realize until that moment, when he knew there was nothing left to save, that he'd held on to fifteen hundred years of hope for another outcome. Now it was all he could do not to pray for a miracle. He knew that if there was even the faintest idea that this could end differently he wouldn't be able to go through with it.
The knife, although feather light, weighed heavy as the world in his hand. He wished it was a spear, or a bow, or a spell, anything really so that he wouldn't have to be so close when it happened. To have to be so close he could practically feel the life fading as the magic ran its course would feel like murder. It already did, there was no hiding from that, but it was worse now that he couldn't look away. There would be no washing the blood from his hands, no matter how hard he tried.
There was no way to end this cleanly if the other man was conscious, he know how lucky he'd been to knock him out, but looking at this was worse. Conscious and fighting he was an animal, but like this, the enemy –there was no other way to think of him. To give him a name would make him turn back- looked almost peaceful. Despite the patches of scales, the spines, and the claws, the other man looked too much like himself now. Almost as if the last fifteen hundred years never happened, but they had and steered both their lives from the course he'd pictured.
But plans change. When he was young, he couldn't picture anything other than two old men playing Mah Jong over morning tea and defeating evil with their canes. Now, it was the furthest thing from his mind.
For the longest time he'd blamed himself for what happened. He'd known what was going on, but hadn't done enough to stop it. He though it would sort itself out. After that night he found him, shaking, soaking wet, and still training, he kept a closer eye on him. He looked like he was getting better, but he couldn't do enough to save his friend. He still wished he'd been there for him more often, he still felt like he could have made a difference, but he couldn't dwell on the past any longer.
His hands shook and he almost dropped the knife as he drew closer. Like this, the beast looked too much like his old friend. He would have to ignore that and everything else screaming at him to stop if this was to end. This was the kindest thing to do now.
As he knelt by his side, he started to remember two young men sitting on a hillside. It was autumn, the grass around them was browning, there was a chill in the air, and they were surrounded by leaves they were probably supposed to be raking. He forced the thought from his mind as one of them said, "You're always going to be my best friend." He couldn't think any more. If he let himself think about what he was about to do, he wouldn't be able to. There was nothing left to do but steel his heart and act.
"Chase, my old friend, I'm sorry." His hands were steady, as was his resolve. "Forgive me."