Time of Dying
A Hagi story based off the song "Time of Dying" by Three Days Grace
A/N
I was rereading Time of Dying to get back into gear and try to work on it again and I was mortified by it. All those wrong Japanese words!? It was horribly shocking! But, I wrote most of this before I attained a wider Japanese vocabulary. It is has expanded greatly (not to mention corrected) compared to before and I plan to write the Romaji correctly from now on. Speaking of which, I've got two corrections off the top of my head: it's not "wagarimashite", it's " wagarimashita ". Also, shut up is "urusai", not "uruse"
Also, I'll be spelling his name Haji now. I'm teaching myself katakana and you have no idea how confusing it is to get to the middle of a sentence and then suddenly ask yourself "What the hell is a hagi?" with a Romaji "gi" sound, rather than the proper "ji". It's killing me, so I have no choice but to change it. I apologize in advance for any confusion…
Oh yes… my long break between updates… Well, my style's improved significantly in this giant time span, so… I guess you can consider that your reward for your patience. *wipes tear from eye* You guys are so awesome with putting up with my inconsistencies… Well! On with the chapter!
Saya: *sigh* I'm all alone… abandoned…
Delein: Urusai, will ya? I'm trying to sleep!
Saya: *looks around in confusion* Matte, there's actually someone HERE?
Delein: I SAID urusai!
Saya: *finds Delein and wraps her in a tight hug* Oh, I'm so happy! There's someone else here to talk to!
Delein: *said like Kanda from DGM* Get the hell off me!
Saya: *jerks away fearfully* Gomene. Just excited…
Delein: *glare*
(Since when is Delein like Kanda O.o??)
Silver. Glinting moonlight. Reflecting. Everything. The silvery light consumed the world, dyeing it grayscale, like an old movie… Amidst the colorlessness, a figure in kuro. Pale skin dyed white in the light. A spark of color—a glinting aoi. It was so odd amongst the grayscale realm… Another figure, this one strange and different. Inhuman. Monstrous. Evil. Long claws dragging across the ground left trails dug into the cobblestone and an ear piercing screech like fingernails on a chalkboard. Deafening and obnoxious. Dangerous. Hinting death. Fear permeated the air—although its source was from neither figure. It came from another, this one cowering on the ground, silent in their terror. With a numb swipe, their life ended at the hand of the towering beast. The metallic scent replaced the fear. Akai… covered the gray cobblestone. It seeped between the pavement, coursing through in a slow, bloody river.
The monster pulled its gaze away from the blood to gaze with its equally bloody-akai eyes at the being before it. Aoi to akai ("blue and red"). Opposites. Enemies. Imminent death.
Aoi like a dawning, clear morning, the air still tinted gray with the fading night, yet, hinting at hope.
Aoi like water, forever pulsing and carving its way through any and every obstacle no matter the time which might be spent enduring its hardships … Forever pushing onward. A source of life, for where there is water… there is…
Akai like Mars. Dead. A lifeless desert. Lost to the sands of time… A mystery and an ever present threat looming overhead in the backs of our minds, hinting at a dark… dead… future… of…? Nothingness.
Akai like fire. Burning. Reaching. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Consuming. Destroying. Nothing but rubble in its wake. Nothing but death. Twisting curls of smoke choking the life out of any and every thing. Its hunger never appeased. From a burning light to a dead darkness… ash snowing down and dyeing the rest of the world dead alongside it.
Aoi like ice. Strong. A possible end.
Akai like blood. A pulsing life-liquid through the livings' veins. Spill and die. Fiery liquid, desiring more than it can have. A possible end.
Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. Aoi versus akai. Fire and water. Blood and ice. A blooming realm and a dead desert.
The air seemed to have stopped moving. Time seemed to have stopped flowing. Everything… came to a halt… And amongst the deathly stillness—movement.
The monster, drool dripping from its mouth and trailing behind its head as liquid droplets floating in the air, charged. Its arms trailed behind as it leaned forward, mouth open, tongue hanging out, drool flying, eyes glowing… Blood. Fresh blood pumping beneath the kuro figure's skin. It wanted it. Yadda, it needed it. Liquid life to the beast of death, its thirst was never satiated. Once life lost was not enough. It needed more. It always needed more. Before it… was more…
The kuro figure didn't even flinch. He stared dead on, gazing straight into the beast's bloody eyes. Akai with longing, with hunger, with…
'Agony. Self loathing.'
He understood these well. All too well, for he suffered from them all himself. He was the same is this bakemono ("monster"). An ever pervading thirst for others' lifeblood. The urge to kill; to end lives; to bring an end to everything good; to appease one's own self loathing if only in a moment of distraction from the pain. Within, he sympathized, yet he could not allow himself to do such a thing.
Even though it was forbidden—a taboo—he couldn't help but feel for the thing. Humanity lost; abhorrence at its new appearance. Total loss of control over oneself. He understood it all. All too well. Loved ones dead. Comfortable lives gone. Belonging… evanescent. Fear everywhere. Everyone felt fear around their presence. A fear of death. A fear or the unknown. A fear of… of what had become what you once knew so well. Someone you loved. Gone. Someone you cared for. Dead. A monster. Out to kill you. An all-consuming hatred. Why me? Again and again, an ever pervading question. Why not another? Why me? Penetrating. Breaking. A dam of pent up emotion… let loose. A torrent of hatred and anger, sorrow and despair, flooding an unprepared world. Once hidden thing, held up to the light. Unacceptable. Something so horrible in a supposedly beautiful world? Yadda. Yadda. Unacceptable. Not real, not true. Resulting isolation. Further… into the depths… Sanity slowing slipping away into the unknown. Instinct and emotion taking over. Hiding within oneself, too scared to look. To see what had become what used to be you. It's unrecognizable. Unacceptable. Monstrous. Inhuman. Evil.
He understood it all. All too well. Therefore, he appeased their hunger. He ended their sorrow; their suffering.
Just as it came within striking distance, the man leapt into the air with inhuman agility and grace, attaining impossible heights as he practically flew overhead. Aoi eyes which seemed to glint with unshed tears in the silver moonlight. His own hidden pain. His own restrained torrent of emotion and tortures… He did not hide within himself or shy away from the truth, however. He restrained his thirst. His hunger for death. To end everything good and consume all with bad. With evil. Unacceptable. He'd used the once foul word to motivate himself. To let loose and kill the innocent, take out his own frustrations on the undeserving… that was… unacceptable.
The weak. They fell to their emotions. To their desires. To their hatred. It consumed them. Their heart. Their mind. Their sanity. They had nothing left but themselves and when even that was too abhorrent, they'd just hide. Let the monster control them. Give up. Lost causes. There was no saving them. They were gone… Might as well have been dead.
And what was more, when they'd died, they'd become a disease. Spreading the death. Consuming others because of their own inability to accept. To control. Rejection. It had consumed their very being. They rejected everything else. Hid. Pretended it wasn't real, when it was oh so real for everyone else in reality. Who had to face their actions. Who had to realize the truth.
A glint in the moonlight, silver tinted akai like blood, for it was. Crystallized blood… All that remained of the lost. The dead. Those who could not face the truth. Who could not fight back. Who gave in. Who harmed the innocent because of their own self rejection. Their own self loathing. Unacceptable.
In a final flash of movement, a spurt of akai. Liquid flowing and dyeing the grayscale… dead world… akai…
A "thud" as the head hit the cobblestone. Cracking. They traversed the street, small pebbles jumping up, dust arising into the air. Color refilled the world. Akai. Aoi. A muddy brown as the monster's body made contact with a puddle nestled in a sharp pothole. The dirty water splashed out of its hole, spattering across the akai rivers traversing the cracks and paths amongst the cobblestone. It cleansed the stone. Dirtied the red. Made it… less unreal. Toned down its intensity.
They eyes ceased their bloody glow. They slowly began to fade. In their final moment, gazing up at the kuro man, sanity once again pierced their endless depths. Bloody tears slipped through. Tears of sorrow? Grief? A final show of the soul's true lamentation? Iie. It was something much more. Happiness. The forsaken had been forgiven. Released from its prison.
But he could not escape. He was trapped.
So easily, a fire's light could dim. Its intensity could decrease. It could be snuffed where it was.
Ice could never compete. Ice was slow; steady. A glacier which seemed to never reach the ocean from its place atop a snowy peak. It could not simply melt. Not in normal circumstances, anyway. It would take an erupting volcano to accomplish such a deed. To release the frozen water from its solitary prison. But for a glacier to form at all, it needed time. Volcanoes did not give the necessary passage of time for it to form. Mountains did. Mountains did not explode. They did not melt their ever present glaciers. They did not simply release them. Iie, they clung to the compacted snow. They didn't release it. They didn't capitulate it to the surreal paradise it longed for. Yadda… Ice had to find its own way down the mountain. Carve its own canyons to the ocean. Make its own path.
Such a lonely life, really. Knowing you can't escape, yet still trying. But what else can you do when you have forever and no other hope?
The man pulled his aoi gaze from the dying thing's akai. Its eyes were dead. The soul had passed on. It was free. He was trapped. An icy glacier atop a mountainous peak.
Perhaps there was hope. Where was his mountain? The Appalachians of the East Coast or the Himalayas of Asia? Only time would tell…
He wiped the blood on his blade off on his jacket. It blended seamlessly into the kuro. No sign whatsoever that it had ever been present… A fading tale destined to go untold. But he had chosen this life. He'd known of this future when he'd chosen to remain by her side. To assist in her goal. To fulfill the promise.
His heart had frozen that fading day. With the falling sun, the warm once flourishing within him had dispersed with her passing into a seemingly endless sleep. Still so many years and she had yet to awake, and his instincts told him he still had a way more to go, at that. So long to thaw, yet it occurred so slowly… he had doubts as to it being accomplished by the time she finally awoke. If anything, it seemed to be freezing over even more so with the passage of time. With his separation from her.
She was so warm. When she'd fallen asleep, that warmth had evanesced. She'd become as cold as death. Her lively warmth had dispersed with her consciousness… How he missed her. Her smiles which seemed to make the sun rise. Glowing eyes bright with hope and happiness, if only tinted with loneliness from her isolation. Peeling laughter like music.
"Saya…"
Aldedron: T.T Admit, it's sad…
Serin: *cocks eyebrow* Ya think?
Saya: *wipes tears from eyes and speaks, voice hinting at repressed sobs* Oh my god, what have I done to Haji?
Aldedron: *pats Saya on the back soothingly* Hey, Haji's awesome the way he is today… even if he doesn't talk much… and he's been shaped like that by your actions. If anything, you should be proud he turned out this good^^
Saya: *coughed sob*
Serin: *gives Aldedron a "look"* *sarcastically* REALLY?
Aldedron: *frown*
Neles: *jumps in from outta nowhere, glomping Aldedron with a big smile* Hey, Aldedron~! I had so much fun with—
Serin: *silences Neles with a glare*
Neles: *silence*
Serin: By the way, Aldedron owns neither Blood+, nor the "Fire and Ice" poem which was referred to in this chapter
Aldedron: She's also very sorry for being so slow with posting a chapter
Neles: *eyes Aldedron* Why're you speaking in third person?
Aldedron: *shrug* Uh duh know. I feel like Suede at the moment…
Serin: *rolls eyes* Project Runway…