Protagonist was breathing heavily as they looked across the field at the defeated Antagonist. They were both bloody, but the Antagonist had suffered more damage, a fatal wound to their chest having ended their personal war. The field was charred, the surrounding buildings were rubble, and on this cold night, only the fires from their earlier battle offered them warmth and light.
It had been a long fight, where they had used powers beyond mortal comprehension. Protagonist had brought all that they had to bear in this fight, equaling the passion and skill of their enemy until the Antagonist was spent.
The two had never been friendly; in fact, they had hated each other from the moment they saw one another. Their ideologies, personalities, and ambitions were completely different. The contempt in their eyes for the other person was the only thing the two had shared in their long lives.
The Antagonist had dragged themself to a collapsed building, the curling path of red blood spoke of their enemy's struggle. They were clutching at the wall trying to pull themself up, letting out pained grunts, but the Protagonist felt no pity. The Antagonist might as well have been evil from the moment they were born; hate, anger, and pain had consumed them. They had caused nothing but suffering and delighted in petty cruelty.
But it was over now, the Antagonist had been defeated and was only seconds from death.
Protagonist had finally found the peace they had been searching for, a respite from the decades of torment at the hands of the Antagonist. They were content to watch the Antagonist take their final breaths as they departed from the world.
"You think you have defeated me?" The Antagonist growled, glaring at them. They sat leaning against the wall with a hand on their chest, ineffectively trying to stop the bleeding from the large gash.
"Yes," Protagonist replied calmly, "your time has come."
"You have only defeated my body, my spirit still lingers, and it will linger for as long as people remember our names." The Antagonist pointed at the Protagonist smiling as they did so. "Our names will echo across the multiverse."
"I have no interest in hearing your delusions, just do yourself a favor and die already." Protagonist rolled their eyes. The Antagonist had been speaking this rubbish since they first met, something about destiny and bonds, how the two of them were connected.
"Have you ever heard of enemies to lovers?" Antagonist asked, smirking at the Protagonist's confused look. "It's a literary trope about enemies coming together and loving each other."
"What does literature have to do with us?" Protagonist frowned. This was a new tangent, Antagonist had never spoken of any interest in literature before.
"Our story has become famous in this world, two sides connected by the greatest of all bonds: enmity and a desire to see the other dead at any cost." Antagonist explained, still smirking, no doubt thinking of something evil and vile. "This story will be written and rewritten till the end of time, it will be perverted and desecrated till nothing of the original remains."
"What are you going on about, Antagonist?" Protagonist scowled, charging an explosive attack, their palm outstretched in the direction of their enemy. "Get to the point or die."
Antagonist laughed cruelly. It was a sharp sound that would grate on a person's ears. "Patience Protagonist. I am already dying, give me the time I need to have my final say."
"You don't deserve any time at all," Protagonist said, angry at the audacity of their enemy. "The fact that I'm allowing you to speak at all is more than you deserve."
The Antagonist spat a mouthful of blood at the ground and chuckled. "Even now, you're so consumed by your self-righteousness. Maybe it was this trait of yours that led me down a lifetime of evil."
Protagonist was baffled at what was going on. They narrowed their eyes at the Antagonist. How was the Antagonist still not dead? How were they even speaking? Protagonist was sure their last attack had cut deep into the Antagonist's chest. They were even more confused by the words that came out of the Antagonist's mouth: the Antagonist had been evil long before they even met each other.
"You killed a hundred and thirty-seven people before I even met you," Protagonist said slowly, eyebrows raised so high, they were trying to escape their forehead.
"Maybe they deserved it," Antagonist shrugged, then turned a baleful eye on their enemy, "It's not like you ever bothered asking."
"Eighty-seven of them were children."
"Children can be cruel, and perhaps I had been forced into doing so by my superiors who were using me for their own ends." Antagonist said mournfully, sitting up straighter now as they made up their backstory.
"Were you… forced into your evil?" Protagonist asked awkwardly.
"No, not really," Antagonist said, shaking their head, droplets of blood flying away from their face as they did so. "But the truth doesn't matter, does it? My poorly explained backstory is all the fuel they will need to make up whatever they want to make me look sympathetic. Actually, it doesn't even matter if I had a backstory, that still won't stop them from making something up that better fulfills their desires and completely disregards my origins." Antagonist finished, looking seriously at something distant on the horizon. It seemed as if their deranged worldview made them really sad.
Protagonist had only gotten more confused as the Antagonist spoke. They really wished that they had just killed the Antagonist earlier. This is what happened when you listened to crazy people. "Who are 'they'?"
Antagonist didn't look like they had heard them, they were still looking into the distance staring at nothing in particular. Finally, after a long pause, the Antagonist responded, "They are the most powerful beings in the world. They can blur the lines between truth and fiction, so much so that you're not even sure what is real or whether a truth existed in the first place." The Antagonist looked at them now with sad eyes, "You're going to kill me today for my crimes, and in a few years, there will be a legion of people who will vilify you and lionize me. They will make our battle of vengeance into a love story, our tale of tragedy into a romantic comedy. Our names will remain, but who we were? What we fought for? It will be muddled by lies and deceit."
Protagonist didn't understand what the problem was. They didn't care what people did with their names or their stories, they just wanted their enemy dead. What happened to their stories five years from now, ten years from now, or after they were dead, it didn't matter.
"Whatever happens in the future doesn't concern me, Antagonist." Protagonist said, their voice becoming more certain as they conveyed the truth in their heart. "In this moment, at this time, all that matters is the truth shared between you and me. That is all I need."
The sun had just started to rise and it made the Antagonist's face glow as they regarded the Protagonist with annoyance. They sighed, and their expression became softer, "With my death and your words, you have sealed our fate forever. Now everyone will misunderstand, Baka."
Those were the last words they heard the Antagonist say as they faded away into dust. The wind carried them towards the horizon they had looked at in their final moments.
The Protagonist pondered over their enemy's final moments, the soft look of the Antagonist's face, the way they called them a Baka, and the vulnerability they displayed when they opened their hearts to each other. It made their heart skip a beat.
