Archive of Our Own ^beta

No battle took place here and no murder was committed, but there's a dead body huddled on the ground.

It's the edge of a forest. Somewhere deep within the forest is a place where horrors happened. Darkness consumed a girl in agony, and a boy sacrificed everything about himself to defeat a monster. Those were epic battles, but no bodies litter the floor of the forest or the castle at its heart. No, it's here on the edge of a forest that a dead body crouches slumped against a tree.

The man is dead. His strong fingers are pale and cool. Black blood trickles so very slowly from the corners of his mouth. He was wearing the robes of a priest not long ago, but he's shed them. He's just a corpse now, in ordinary clothes. The reason why is simple enough: people can't usually survive without a heart.

Of course, this man survived without a heart for ten years. But he had a replacement. It was black and terrible, an ugly construct of poisoned mud, but it pumped something close enough to blood through his body. Now that's gone too. So it's natural that he should be dead.

But the corpse's fingers slowly grasp at the tree he leans on, and he draws in a long and useless breath that does nothing for him. He is dying, he is dead, but he will not expire. Kirei Kotomine needs an answer more than he needs to live or die.

The problem is that it's hard to tell his body that. This isn't a matter of him being weak and unable to beat his body into submission. He's pushed his body more mercilessly than anyone else on this planet, and it is not bragging for him to say that; it's just a statement of his nature. In the past, he has abused himself until sometimes he could almost forget his body was his own, rather than that of some anonymous slave beneath a lash. Almost. But forcing one's body to move forward and onwards with no heart at all might just be beyond even his powers.

Kotomine's vision contracts and expands, each time more tinged with dark red. He is losing this fight. He rarely lost fights even when he had no reason to win them, so how can he be losing a fight that he finally has a reason to win? He needs to live, or at least continue existing, until Angra Mainyu is born. He needs the answer it will give him.

Memory passes over his brain like clouds. This cannot be his life flashing before his eyes as he dies, he knows. He already died ten years ago, so it should have happened then. But it's now that he sees her. He sees her outlined in sunlight, so it's definitely a memory, because it's growing dark with the evening in the present. Besides, she's dead--not dead like him, but dead and gone.

"It's a beautiful morning, Kirei." She isn't whispering, but her voice is still softer than the feathers of the birds that soar above.

In his memory, he responds. "It is not as beautiful as you." At the time, agony twists his real heart as he lies. She might be beautiful, but how can he tell? He cannot appreciate beautiful things. What does it matter to him that her one good eye shines, or that her hair frames her face like a silvery halo? All he sees is the pain in that eye and the hollowness of the smile on her lips, and that is why she is beautiful to him. There is a part of him savoring the words he speaks next, even as he rejects it. "What news from the doctor?"

"Must I tell you?" Her smile is not hollow now but sad. How unfortunate. The anguish in it was greater before.

"He told you not to come outside any longer," he guesses, and her face falls with the accuracy of his assessment. He tells himself he's chiding her for her own health, but didn't he really do it because he wanted to see the face she'd make?

"Do you love the sunrise as I do, my dear?" she asks suddenly, with her fading voice.

All he can do is shake his head and admire her drawn and pale face. "I have no doubt it is a beautiful sunrise. Nearly as beautiful as you."

A faltering smile rejoins her face. "It won't matter how beautiful it is if no one who loves it is there to greet it."

Pain squeezes his heart. Is that why she's dying? Because he cannot greet that smile with love for its own sake, only for the agony that lies behind it? No. Of course not. Claudia Ortensia was dying when he met her. That is why he chose her. Or was it why she chose him? A woman who cannot live and a man who should not live, don't they make a pair? Sometimes Kirei loses track of the cause and effect in there.

"But Kirei..." Now she is whispering. "I will tell you something shameful. I don't love the sunrise for its own sake. I love it because it means the night is over."

"Why are you telling me this?" He should have something more to say to such a confession. He should leap to comfort her, to tell her that since he loves her, it doesn't matter what she loves or why. But he doesn't love her, so he can't.

"Because it is still love, and I think the sun still needs it to rise."

What did he say to her after that? The memory stops, and Kotomine cannot recall more. His vision is still darkening to the red of corrupt blood. He still feels the ground of the edge of the forest beneath his knees.

Impossibly, laughter bubbles up out of his throat. Blood comes with it, splattering from his mouth onto his fingers as they clutch uselessly at the tree he leans against. But he cannot stop laughing. It's so absurd that he should think of her now. When what he needs is strength, he thinks instead of the weakest person he has ever known. Why? Why? Why?

Another memory, like the briefest thunderstorm within his skull.

Her hands are not just splashed with blood. They are covered with it. Red pours from her slashed wrists and stains the white of her dress as well as the white of her bony fingers. At the time, he doesn't understand. Kirei doesn't get it at all. Why has Claudia done this, when he is the one who should be dying? That knife was meant for him. He would not have bothered with wrists. He would have gone straight for his throat.

He gazes at her without comprehension, only with bitterness. He feels pain, but not because she's dying. He feels pain because she's dying with the happiest smile he's ever seen on her face. He wanted to see her die in agony. He would have cherished that agony. "Claudia." He cannot tell her that he cherished her. He only cherished her agony. "I could not love you." It should have been him dying.

She continues to smile, all the same. "No. You loved me."

In the memory, he sees nothing. He only sees her spindly legs give out beneath her as she collapses to the floor like he had been intended to, no longer able to stand even with his assistance. But--

Watching from so many years later, the hole in his chest about to drag him down into oblivion, Kotomine sees something else. He sees the love in that room, clustered thickly about the two of them like flies about a corpse.

And he opens his eyes fully. "I understand."

Kirei Kotomine smiles into the darkness he embraces. His voice is weak and cracked, like heavy paper that's taken water damage. But he speaks anyway. He speaks to the world around him because he loves it. "Yes, I understand that I am needed."

He stands up. His legs are strong. There is a hole behind his ribs, but his legs are strong. He lets go of the tree and takes a step forward. It is no longer brute strength of will dominating his body that overcomes the death that stalks him. His movements are powered only by love.

He continues speaking. The world needs the voice of one who loves it. "There is something waiting to be born." Strength begins to return to his voice. "What will it do if no one who loves it is there?"

Kotomine starts walking. The sunrise waits for him.