Chapter 4 - The Funeral

Athrun walked by the open casket in the main hall of his own house. The large room was almost filled to capacity just with people standing in it, let alone moving. But there was a long line of people wanting to see the young brunette once more before he was lay to rest.

He was not one of them.

It had been hard not falling into a depression so deep he couldn't crawl back out. It had been hard seeming strong with the bad news. He now looked in at his best friend in a white casket, eyes closed and looking peaceful. He was pale, but it was still as if he were just sleeping.

Athrun closed his eyes and turned, walking swiftly from the room.

He didn't dare stand in the entrance hall, as it echoed to much. So after exiting the main hall and entering the entrance hall, he turned and entered a room below the stairs. It was the first floor's entrance to the library.

The blue haired boy paused and looked around the room. Everything was quiet here, with no one around. The ladder was in the same place as it had been when Kira had last used it, but that was pure coincidence.

He could see the window seat that Kira used to sit on when no one was there. That one time that Athrun had ever seen him cry...

Before he realized what had happened, Athrun was sitting on the window seat, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them. He rested his head on his arms and knees, staring at the wall blankly.

"Kira always said that we would have over 100 fortunes worth of gold before we turned 20, did you know?" a voice startled him back to reality. Cagalli stood leaning against a bookshelf, arms behind her back and looking out the window over his shoulder.

"Cagalli." he near whispered, and suddenly realized how close he'd come to crying by the sound of his voice.

"It's ironic. We have the gold, and we are rumored the best pirates ever to roam the seas, since Manson. But Kira didn't even live to be 20. He died at 18."

"Cagalli." he repeated, a little stronger.

"Athrun...He died." she managed to say after a long pause.

"No Cagalli. He didn't die. He's still alive. He'll always be here for us." Athrun shook his head, convincing himself too.

"No, he died. I never thought it could happen. There were always times when I thought he would die, anyone else would've...But he never did..." she choked. "He always survived."

"I've always thought he was some ethereal being that had dropped into my life to rid me of my hatred...But he was human..." Athrun said softly, looking at her with an almost defiant look in his eyes. "He helped my emotional wounds heal, and protected my life on many occasions." he continued. "But he is still here, he's a real ethereal being now."

Cagalli just stared at him, an emotion in her eyes that Athrun couldn't identify.

-

It was the day of the funeral, and almost the entire town that had known Kira (almost the entire town) was there to pay their last respects.

"Kira was a great person, a great man, and a great pirate." Athrun started. He had bee made to speak for the funeral. "He helped us all in many ways, both great and small. Kira was the Prince of the Sea, and no one else will hold that title for a long, long time." he revealed. "I always thought, that pirates were an evil type of human that didn't care for anyone else."

The Freedom's crew shifted nervously.

"But Kira and his crew are different. Kira has always been very nice, kind, and caring. He would do anything to help someone else, and I think that sometimes...we took that for granted." Athrun continued.

He paused and looked around.

Kira's crew was standing a bit behind the rest of the town. Tears were running silently down their faces. And as he watched, Athrun had the distinct impression that no of them had any second thoughts about becoming part of that 13 year old's crew 5 years ago. They all probably wouldn't change anything about their own captain. The feelings he was seeing on their faces, he wished he could put them into words for his book.

His book. It would be rewritten to include everything he had realized.

"I've always thought he was some ethereal being that had dropped into my life to rid me of my hatred...But he was human..." Athrun said he repeated what he'd told Cagalli. "He helped my emotional wounds heal, and protected my life on many occasions." he continued. "But he is still here, he's a real ethereal being now. And I believe that he will stay here with us forever."

Athrun lowered his head and bit back tears.

"That's all...Anyone else?" he waited for someone else to agree to speak before he walked to the near back of the crowd.

He could see the casket, held up so that everyone could see it. His emerald green eyes scanned the group slowly. Then they widened and his hand shot to the necklace around his neck.

'Impossible...'

Standing just behind the crowd, the end opposite the current speaker. Brown hair and lavender eyes. At 18, Kira hadn't changed one bit in Athrun's eyes. But...it couldn't be Kira. Kira was dead! Heck, he was standing at Kira's funeral!

"Kira..." he whispered almost inaudibly.

Lavender eyes turned to lock with emerald. The solemn yet somehow content frown-ish look on the younger boy's face instantly turned in to a large smile. Athrun blinked and the boy was gone.

"Kira." he smiled. And the tears he'd been holding back finally began to drop as everyone clapped, the last person willing (and able) walking away and back into the crowd.

Athrun used his right sleeve to rapidly brush away the remaining tears and walked over to Lacus. She was still crying, a lot. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and she placed her hands on his arms and lowered her head to hide her face with her hair.

Kira Yamato Hibiki

The Grand Prince of the Sea

'We'll go wherever we're taken. That's fate, that's destiny. That's...adventure.'