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Chapter Text

It’s a normal day for Akito. He faces days full of monotony broken by many factors, one major one being his boyfriend, endlessly after all.

Akito wakes up when his mornings usually start, 6 o’clock in the morning, firmly tucked in with his blankets, listening to the relaxed ringing of his boyfriend’s mashup of Baby and I’m In Love With The Shape Of You going ‘BABY BABY BABY OOH” and ‘I’m in love with your bodyyy’ under his pillow, the distant groans and mumbles of Ena complaining about how she didn’t see the signs of obvious gayness while raising him, and the soft action of his chest rising and falling while he takes tiny breaths to fully wake up.

His routine remains largely the same as always, getting ready to go to school, until he spots a speedy blur falling past his window. Normally he would’ve assumed it was a bird carcass or something, but today his heart felt unbearably heavy at the sight. 

He chooses to follow his instincts and looks outside of his window, then he proceeds to instantly shut the window and promptly collapses on the floor in revulsion towards the abhorrent and vile view before him. He certainly makes noise enough to worry Ena, as she rushes to his room concerned about this sudden outburst.

She looks at him as he appears, skittle-orange hair and his school uniform disheveled from the abrupt fall after crashing against his wooden table, his dead expression while desperately clutching at his windowsill.

Some other observations were how he looked as if pushed to the brink of insanity, despair clearly painting his pale and nauseous face.

Deciding to confront the apparent cause of his sudden shift in demeanor, she delicately pushes past him and heads to the window. She is more afraid then she lets on, but suddenly to her the window looks like all her anxieties merged—how was it for Akito then, to reduce him to such a grovelling mess?

(Pitter patter)

Her footsteps sounded like claps of thunder striking down in her ringing ears, her slow pace full of hesitance—she wasn't going to let her pathetic nerves get in the way of Akito’s health, at least when it was as serious as this. A glimpse is all it takes for her to understand Akito’s state, the body below his room was unrecognisable yet oh so familiar, the scene painted with hurried and frenzied strokes of red, body relentlessly flattened into the stiff concrete cracks. Though the face remained indistinguishable, the familiar split-coloured head of hair was the final nail in the coffin.

Ena’s expression wasn’t visible to Akito as he could see nothing but lines moving past him, joining and splitting into colourful messes and only the same sight of Touya’s body was a constant behind his eyelids, yet leaving them open just contains the same visual torture.

Maybe this was an overreaction, but his mind couldn’t handle the explosive change in worrying about Tsukasa to having to see that.

He so desperately wishes for this to be a faraway nightmare.

He tries to make sure of this hazy reality? Dream? By taking one more peek below, he sees the same sight and abruptly passes out.

Chapter Text

It’s a normal day for Akito. He faces days full of monotony broken by many factors, one major one being his boyfriend, endlessly after all.

Akito wakes up when his mornings usually start, 6 o’clock in the morning, firmly tucked in with his blankets, listening to the relaxed ringing of his boyfriend’s mashup of Baby and I’m In Love With The Shape Of You going ‘BABY BABY BABY OOH” and ‘I’m in love with your bodyyy’ under his pillow, the distant groans and mumbles of Ena complaining about how she didn’t see the signs of obvious gayness while raising him, and the soft action of his chest rising and falling while he takes tiny breaths to fully wake up.

He is immensely relieved to wake up safe and sound from the horrid nightmare that struck him when he was most vulnerable in his sleep. He does find it odd that things have played out exactly the same as the dream but surely it wasn’t like he was stuck in some strange time-loops, right?

So he strides forward towards his desk, moving aside his chair and these actions, mundane as they are, slowly breathe life into him after the dreadful sleep he experienced. He feels himself come back to himself and feeling pleased, he almost misses the blur passing by his window.

Almost.

With his nerves lit on fire once more, he braces himself and walks to his windowsill, briskly raising his hands towards the curtains he had drawn immediately after waking up.

(Pitter patter)

His footsteps brought his worries up a notch with each pitter and each patter that echoed in his ears.

Curtains raised, the stage for his fucked up performance set, Akito once more recoils violently at the sight of the body compressed against the concrete. Like a marionette having their strings pulled masterfully, he performs to the whims of whatever cruel being demands this from him.

This time he falls onto his bed, stifling his shock with the soft fabric of his bedsheet, and preventing Ena from worrying about his pathetic existence. He feels that weird swirling in his gut intensify as he processes tat fact that Touya is dead.

Touya is dead, Akito thinks as he tastes burnt traces of coffee wrecked before its prime.

Touya is dead, Akito thinks as he hears notes being slammed on a piano relentlessly, without any signs of control.

Touya is dead, Akito thinks as he feels his heart about to burst out his chest and his brain implode into shards of nothing.

Touya is dead, Akito thinks as he realises that Touya didn’t just die, he killed himself.

The last thought pushed him right past the point of nausea, but before his body acted up on its own, he felt a strange swirl in his gut. A mix of resentment and love, a mixture of truth and deceit, a sick mixture of yearning and separation. As he only begins to realise the significance of those feelings, he passes out.

It was supposed to be a normal day for Akito. He was supposed to face days full of monotony broken by many factors, one major one being his boyfriend, endlessly.

Akito was supposed to wake up when his mornings usually start, 6 o’clock in the morning, supposed to be firmly tucked in with his blankets, supposed to be listening to the relaxed ringing of his boyfriend’s mashup of Baby and I’m In Love With The Shape Of You under his pillow, supposed to be ignoring the distant groans and mumbles of Ena complaining about how she didn’t see the signs of obvious gayness while raising him, and supposed to observe the soft action of his chest rising and falling while he was supposed to take tiny breaths to fully wake up.

Instead he chooses to run outside as soon as he wakes up, ignoring Ena’s questions, right to where the blur landed previously. He obviously makes it in time as he sees a figure leaning against the railing.

He’s just about to yell at Touya to get off the roo–

Touya watches in despair and resignation as Akito's body gets crushed by a truck and as he dies in front of his eyes once more, already preparing to leap off of the building.

He wonders if things would be different if Akito had forgiven himself, back then. Touya no more than tears up before the impact of gravity hits and his corpse lay flat for the whole world to see.

Chapter Text

Akito knew he had no other choice, lest the empire fall because of his mistakes. This was truly the only way he could think of to reverse his mistakes in love and war. 

He had to collude with the enemy, not for the first time, after all he had been courting the Knight of Snow for so long with no fruits to bear other than a revolt. 

He certainly digresses as he shuffles towards the Alchemist’s residence, battle-worn and blood-stained.

“..alchemist Rui,” Akito watches the figure turn in interest, presumably at the sight of a half-dead White Knight, looking right about ready to throw gangrene-affliction at him.

“Oh my, if it isn’t the esteemed Grand Knight Shinonome himself..” He draws out his words looking sympathetically at his wounds, and just for a brief moment Akito wonders how Tsukasa had dealt with this man before remembering his goal.

“I request of you, something not related to Tsukasa, not related to the Kingdom I serve, but something in the benefit of your prince.” These words do get a rise out of Rui as he seemingly ponders his gains and losses.

“What do you wish from me, oh great knight, just do be aware, if the request ends up being quite nonsensical, killing you will take no more than a single hit.” He laughs rather fittingly for the role he has resigned himself to.

“I wish,” Akito pauses and takes a weak breath, ”for you to take my mana and lifeforce, and to use it to protect Prince Touya, no matter the world.” This selfish yet selfless request certainly piques Rui’s morbid curiosity but it also confuses him all the same. 

“Why would you wipe your existence away just to protect your enemy?” Rui asks but he quickly notices Akito’s inability to speak and his valiant efforts to keep awake for this one request.

Rui huffs, “I suppose this is in my best interests, I hope you won’t regret this Akito-kun”

It really doesn’t take long with how notorious the spell is in the Kingdom of Shadows, and how easy it is to learn.

Rui drags a crisp green chalk and makes an imperfect circle, resembling more of a triangle, and places a piece of blank rouge parchment in the middle. Bringing a dagger, he nicks Akito’s arm and Akito simply doesn’t have the strength to even wince. 

With the blood on the dagger, he drops it in the circle, not even a second later, the bright blue flames dry Akito to ash.

Absorbing his mana and lifeforce lead to leaving him nothing but a husk. 

The intricacies of the spell do have a side effect, the one who sacrifices themselves will forever be bound to the other affected by the spell.

Touya feels his mana cry out, driving him to the alchemist’s residence in a daze.

Only when he lays his eyes upon Akito’s corpse does he feel himself be human again, he sharply looks at Rui, face full of fake regret.

Touya lunges at Rui with his sword drawn right before he keels over and—

Rui does indeed wish them the best when it comes to their next life.