Author's Note: This chapter has the final details concerning Aaron, the mysterious deceased father and friend. I really like Aaron because he's rather... peculiar. I always had a thing for characters that weren't all what they seemed. Before I wrote The Takakura Tales, I had a piece called The End dealing with that figure from the game which I never finished. Although it wasn't "Aaron's" story, I've begun to think I should write something similar for him.

As for this chapter, it's a little slow since it's mostly Takakura's memories, but I felt there needed to be some closure concerning the formerly mentioned. Enjoy!

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Chapter 10: Dead Heroes

"How did my father die exactly?" Tanya blurt one night. Not that I should've been alarmed by such a question from my friend's daughter, but the words gave me an awful start.

A winter storm raged outside, blinding us from seeing as far as the barn. After a sudden power outage, she had fought her way through the wind with Scraps over to my cabin, and it appeared as though we'd be bunking together for the night. With her on my bed and me on my spare futon, of course.

Tanya had come over to my place hungry again, and I was working to oblige her need for good cooking. Stew seemed appropriate due to the chill. We would have to eat over candlelight although I doubted every much that being snowed in at my house was very romantic. However, I was grateful for her company, and the pup wasn't causing any trouble sleeping in the corner of the room.

Although I would've preferred to ask my own question, I decided to give her an answer that I had been dodging since that red envelope first passed under my gaze. There was a strong chance I didn't want to relive that breath-stealing winter, yet the day had finally come where I'd have to lay it all out on the table.

The only question that remained was where to begin. "Aaron never told me he was suffering, so I can only guess when it started," I explained. "I believe I might have saved him in the end if I had."

"Don't tell me what could've happened," she pleaded, taking my calloused hand in own. I was surprised to find her hands were soft, but even so, that wasn't the moment to love or be loved.

"You're right. Let me tell it to you plainly...

Spring came early the year before last. We had little to nothing but what we had brought with us, and I sincerely doubted anything good would come of our efforts. Being the eternal optimist, he merely smiled and promised me a last chance for success. Though he never bet a coin, he was a gambling sort, I suppose. For better or for worse, he believed we could make it on whatever we managed to earn that coming year.

Throughout that entire season, we worked until I swore we'd collapsed in a mound of dirt only to wake up and do it all again. Though our crops grew, there were little to no profits, and I believe that's when it began to dawn on the man that his dream might be coming to a premature close. Loss of hope may be a fact of life for some, but I imagine it crushed Aaron's spirit.

"It was after that he started to die, wasn't it?" she interrupted, her head buried in her arms while her hand still rested on mine. I was afraid she'd begin to cry, but maybe that was the best thing for her to do. I felt as though all I had been doing lately was making her feel just plain awful inside. I began to understand the truth could be a very cruel thing...

"Yes... It was a slow, dying pain which took your father away day by day...

At first, I could hardly notice, for I hadn't learned to look beyond the smile. He simply didn't know how to express sadness or depression. He never truly knew what was expected of hardship. If there was a rough patch in the road he was on, he'd press on or turn in a different direction. However, in this instance, he could see the dead end, nothing beyond or around it. Maybe he had taken too many forks in the road to know where he was heading?

I paused trying to remember when I had known he was wasting away. I thought it may have been near the end of summer, but there was a nagging notion long before. Seeing her expecting misty eyes, I continued.

By autumn, he had grown haggard. His body had once been strong and ready, but soon it became frail and hollow. The glassy gaze that came into his brown eyes told me how dire the transformation was. Aaron was invincible until that point in his life. Needless to say, he gave up when life was at its hardest. I hate to put it that way, though, because he had acted as my hero for so many years.

Tanya nodded sorrowfully, her eyes fading and her lips drawn in. Her grip on my hand tightened, urging me to go on. I held back my own yearnings to end it there, and I pressed on with caution.

"Your father had many friends here in the valley, but I suppose you've heard this yourself. The people here welcomed his vigor and spirit as much as anyone could. No expects a man like that to lay down and die quietly, and I figure that was what shook this valley when he did just that. He didn't fight or struggle. He let it all end.

"However, I should tell you this as well. He may have slowed down to a near crawl, but... your father kept working this farm until the day he died. As I told you of him giving in, I was referring to his soul. The outer affects came after the death of his heart. I'm sure he had let that die a season before his body threw itself down in the pasture. I..."

"You found him... under that cherry tree..." she finished. I merely nodded, choking back my own bitter tears. To see the man you held above all others lying in the snow, returning to the earth before your very eyes is to know the most gut-wrenching suffering. It was winter, and the pasture was as dried up and as dead as his limp body.

"Dammit. Dammit! Aaron, don't you die on me you mother fucker! I can't forgive you for it if you're dead, you asshole!" I sobbed over his rigid body as I dragged him into my cabin. I knew it was over for him... for us as a team. It broke me, too, because I had nothing then. I was alone...

Those had been my ugliest thoughts. The day I found Aaron dead cold as the snow he lay in... I became the young man I had been when I first hated him. I damned him for nearly seven days while I intoxicated myself, drowning in nearly every vice within my grasp. It was a sour time for me to be living. We had always joked during his life that I was the old man, but this time he was the one who had died.

Suddenly, I felt a tug on my pant leg which pulled me out of self-pity, and I saw Tanya was beside herself in fitful sobs. She couldn't say a word as she cried for her lost hero. Although she never had to tell me, I understood what he meant to her. She, too, had lost her idol. He had been knocked off of his alter by the truth I told. I regretted breaking her dreams of what he meant to her. I shouldn't have told her all those horrible truths I had known.

Be anything like your father just... promise me, I feared. Promise me you won't die his death. Not now...

And that was all I need from her. That simple vow which meant nearly everything to me in the moment. She rested her head on my lap and cried until she fell asleep, like a small child needing comfort, and when I felt her breathing relaxed and even, I eased her up gently and bundled her lithe body into my arms. Her head rested on my shoulder as I took her over to my small bed. I'm certain she stirred, but she let me carry her there. She was too emotionally exhausted to refuse.

Once she was tucked into the warm covers, I heard her whisper in a voice I had to strain to hear as she drifted back to her dark sleep. "I promise... Takakura... I promise..."

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Final Author's Note: I've never seen a person die that way, but I don't doubt it happens. What's worse, I wonder. To die because you didn't have the inner strength to keep on living, or lose a hero because he wasn't willing to keep moving forward?