Characters: Cagalli Yula Attha, Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala
Pairings: None
Time frame: GS ep 37
Strength
"How was Athrun?"
"Absolutely useless. In pieces. Torn up. Groggy. Out of it." Cagalli explains casually but somber. "Take your pick. The kind where he wouldn't have noticed a nuke blowing up next door."
Kira hasn't been much better.
Even with Lacus tugging him out of his own mind, talking to him, staying with him and taking that terrible possibility away that Kira might have actually managed to kill Athrun. But then, that is Kira. The crybaby.
"He kept crying and saying he killed you," Cagalli adds, even more softly.
Crying? Athrun? Kira remembers seeing Athrun cry a few times on the moon, but he has always been so strong in character that the memories are few and far between. And whenever Athrun has cried, Kira has cried too, always sooner. Once, when they have still been little, there has been a time when Kira's crying has made Athrun cry. Kira has felt wretchedly guilty for it and it has only made him cry more. How old have they been then? Kira doesn't know.
But he also remembers that even when Athrun has cried, he has still been put-together and responsible. He has never cried for long. He has always gotten busy doing something about what has made him, or mostly Kira, cry. Once, Athrun has gotten into a fistfight on Kira's behalf because of it.
Athrun has always quickly gotten better, too.
And now it turns out that Kira is the reason.
Kira wishes for the simplicity they have had when they have been kids. Then Kira would have known what to do. Then he would have known what to feel. And he would have cried.
But already, he has decided not to anymore, now. He isn't sure he has any tears left, either. Nor should he, probably. For it is already past. For Athrun is grieving for Kira. And Kira is alive. And even if Athrun grieves for him, they aren't exactly friends anymore. Or are they?
(Kira quickly turns away from that direction of thought, lest he invite the all too familiar depressing circle of grief, not-dieing hope and despair again.)
"I killed his friend." Kira eventually says, taken back to that moment. He hasn't wanted to. Hasn't even had the intention of attacking the Blitz, but it has come at him and Kira has just evaded and reacted and...that cry of Athrun's...it'll stay in Kira's head for the rest of his life.
"And then Athrun killed Tolle." Has Athrun wanted to?
Tolle has attacked him, Athrun has thrown the Aegis's shield in reaction. All to be able to go back to killing Kira.
"There was no other way. For me. And for Athrun too." Because killing Tolle has taken the last lines of hesitation Kira has still managed to hold onto in a fight for his life. Like Kira killing Nicol has done for Athrun.
He probably doesn't even know yet that I'm alive, he thinks and sees Athrun struggling under the weight of his own guilt. But there is nothing Kira can do about it. He doesn't even know where Athrun is.
The war has to end. For that, Kira is living right now. That goal gives him strength.
And if he meets Athrun again, that'll be what he'll face him with. More, he doesn't know. More, he doesn't think of.
"You have been friends since you were little, right?" Cagalli interrupts Kira's thought process. Her voice is comforting, grounding and Kira lets himself get pulled towards happier memories.