Who is on for some angst? Be prepared for crying. Warning: death of a character. You've been warned.


7. Loss

It couldn't be, right? It had to be some sick joke of some kind or some collective nightmare induced by Momoi's crazy food… Gulping and trembling, their faces got paler as they tried vainly to speak some words, not even blinking… They would have accepted any explanation, not caring about how irrational it were, as long as the evident truth became a lie. They could accept it as witchcraft, a dream, a fantasy an illusion, but never as the reality. Because if they accepted the current instant as a reality, then the smell of blood and the broken body on the floor, were also realities they had to face.

What have they done? Why have they even thought that might be funny? The dog they had used to scare Kagami had run away with the same deathly metal sound of the car breaking that body and throwing it away, that had frozen them…

"Kagamicchi?" Kise was the first one in break the silence, his voice usually loud and obnoxious had turned into a trembling thread on the edge of tears. His throat hurt almost as much as his chest, which felt crushed to the point where he could hardly breathe; the whole world before him got blurry and distant, turning around him like a heartless wind wheel.

"O-oi…K-kagami…" Aomine, trembling with a broken smile, dragged with effort his feet closer to the body that rested on the ground, stumbling upon a little stone after hardly advancing three steps, falling with all his body to the cold ground.

The stinging pain on his arms and legs, were little cuts started to bleed, passed unnoticed as the crushing pain in his chest took all his attention.

"Kaga-chin…Can't… can't be…" Murasakibara's voice broke into a childish cry before he could say the last word, as the giant let his body fell to his knees… His whole body suddenly felt as cold as ice, trembling in despair as the feeling of loneliness surrounded him… Wrapping his arms around himself and closing his purple eyes he tried to escape to the reality.

Aomine lifted his face, finding the still warm body of the player number 10 of Seirin right there; it wasn't an illusion. He reached out with his hand without getting to touch him… He was so far… His hair wet by the rain that pouring from the sky filled the street with dirty puddles, his lips stained by his own thick blood and his body strangely placed… It was just as if he were sleeping; his beautiful face didn't showed any pain.

Unable to find the strength to stand up, he crawled over the wet street, filled with Kagami's dissolved blood, his nails almost breaking as he used them to move, until his hand got to touch the smooth skin that he had loved so much, and everything became real in a second, bringing him all the tears he had saved in his life.

"KAGAMI-KUN!" The phantom player that was usually calm and quite lost all the control on his body, and slipping on the wet floor, falling on his hands and knees over and over again, rushed to the side of the red haired, his face distorted by the fear, the sorrow and the pain. His blue eyes filled with tears, his mouth opened as he let screams of pain leave his body over and over again, screams that made the gray sky tremble over them, screams like those of an animal deadly hurt. Finally he fell besides the red haired, placing his hands over that chest, which now, crushed by the impact of the car that had also misplaced his body, sank a bit under the small strength of the blue haired, making him panic even more…

"K-kuroko?" the threat of trembling voice that left those pale lips as the red eyes opened slowly, probably for a last time, took the words and life away from all of them. "Why… are you scr…eaming?"

"Don't talk!" Midorima, who had stayed motionless, his head in blank all that time, suddenly got enough control to say those words, taking his phone out of his pocket, trembling so much that it feel on the street by his side "W-we will… call an ambulance… It will be…ok" He tried to take the phone, but it slipped between his fingers and sliding on the street, crashed against a wall and broke… The green haired boy gulped, blinking twice, trembling as he couldn't find anything to do… the lucky item he had on his hand fell to the ground, breaking into small useless pieces of ceramic. "We have to call…"

Kuroko's screams sounded as if he was intentionally trying to break his throat. Kise haven't moved from his place now showing a broken smile between the tears that ran like a river down his eyes, accompanied by the cold rain, his nails ripping his skin as he scratched his arms at the feeling of uselessness that ate him from inside. Murasakibara, had become a little ball, kneeling on the floor, his head almost getting to his knees and his arms wrapping his whole body, like a lonely child. Midorima kneeled too, cutting his left fingers by accident with the pieces of ceramic without even noticing, completely affected by the situation… Aomine was lying in the floor besides Kagami, touching his face and crying helplessly… Akashi closed his phone, he had already called both the police and the ambulance. He wasn't crying, and he wasn't broken like the rest, but his hetero-chromic eyes had no light.

"Why is every…one, crying?" Kagami asked slowly, the blood following his words out of his mouth.

No one could answer that question, because no one wanted to make the reality into words; no one wanted to accept what was happening. Akashi walked closer, his body moving heavily, his clothes completely filled with water, pouring down as he advanced, and kneeled slowly besides Kagami.

"I love you more that you can even imagine… We love you more than anyone else, that's why…we are crying" He calmly turned into words what everyone would have wanted to say, caressing the black and red hair of the ace of Seirin with his right hand. "We love you, and we will continue to love you"

Kagami smiled to those words as the last light in his eyes started to disappear, along with the warmth of his body… And in the exact second his last breath abandoned his body, as if they could felt it, all of the Generation of Miracles let a painful scream escape the deepest part of his heart.

They called his name, they moved his cold body, broken in so many parts over and over again, they said they loved him as much as they could and kissed his lips until the blood that had tainted him was no longer there. And then, the blue and red lights shined over them, telling them just how late had the "help" come for them.

"Why is it that you are in all my losses, Taiga Kagami?" He whispered as the tears that he had contained until the last moment started to flow away, with the strong rain that wouldn't stop.