Work Text:
Your love affair with justice began when you were in middle school, with too much heart and too much rage, and not enough years to spend them somewhere big. When you looked around you and saw that things were Wrong and tried your best to fix the world, a little bit at a time. Tackled injustice whenever you saw it, and stored all those you couldn't fight in your heart, to remember them later.
Your love affair began in middle school, when you saw that one kid with the computer books get bullied and stepped in front of him, paying with your body for all you could not yet correct.
He has large, dark eyes that burst with light the moment he starts speaking about the things he loves, a shy but warm, friendly smile that coats all the knowledge in his head, and the kind of laugh that makes you feel safe even though you're the one protecting him. The bruises fade, the cuts heal, the shyness gradually ebbs away into a hint of confidence, and you stay, firmly telling yourself that the spark in your chest when he praises your actions is that of righteousness.
He gives you his number at the end of middle school (as if it wasn't already there, on speed dial, carefully registered along with his email, home address, birthday), and you promise that you'll remain his friend even in high school, even though you won't be sharing a school or evening transportation anymore.
If you don't call him, it's probably because of that. You're not sure that particular promise could be kept if you stayed around him, if you saw him smile again at the mere sight of you.
You protect him. You never call, and let time erase you.
When you meet him again, you're broken and half-pieced together, bitter, hateful, and already sentenced, the number over your head almost a relief. Let it come, this end of the world the people around you whisper about in pathetic, hysterical tones. You've seen the real face of humanity, and there isn't much worth saving. (You're not much worth saving, with the sins in your skin and the bitterness in your mind, your too eager heart who still can't forget)
You see him again, and you run away, sick with the world, sick with yourself, because somehow in this wretched world, his life is fated to be shorter than yours.
Justice is a harsh mistress, who makes you run in her wake, always just out of your reach.
He comes back, though, with the light of life in his hands, and you think you've never seen such a miracle before. Maybe, just maybe, with people like him, like them, whose strength of will can command to death itself, you can have a chance to change the world.
You might not be worth saving, but you can still make a difference before you go.
They don't let you go.
They don't let you go when you try to barter your life for Midori's (innocent and faithful, like the sister you almost forgot in the madness of the lockdown). They don't let you go when you feed your life and anger and belief into Yama's furnace, running to destroy as much sin as you can before the hand of judgement finally turns towards yours (you don't have a lot of doubts). (What would they do to you, you think, those people you smile to, protect, stretch yourself thin for. What would they do if they thought your death could give them a little solace.)
They don't let you go--he doesn't let you go, even after you betray them, even after you've killed, even though your heart still burns with poisonous fire when you see him.
The sun rises on the sixth day of the lockdown, and you lie on your back, staring at a sky you don't deserve to see, and you wonder how you can repay them for all the life they've given you.
His friend chooses to follow God.
You help him, with some trepidation. A Messiah granted by God to cleanse humanity of its sins and lead it to new glory, and you get to be one of his first followers. It's almost too good to be true. But if God can give this rotten humanity a chance, then maybe with this you can win forgiveness too. As long as you don't stray. As long as your heart remains unyielding, giving in to neither mercy nor temptation.
You don't question it when the first sentance falls. He is chosen by God, unlike you who tried to deal your own justice with a demon. Those who bear the brand cannot be redeemed, unlike you (and how tainted their heart must be).
Atsuro's heart is soft, and prompt to mercy. That, maybe, is why you were allowed to stay. That someone may dirty their hands and heart in his stead (you don't want him to kill. Not now, not ever).
Reality moves on. You watch Cain cast away some of his pride and hate to protect his brother's throne. You watch people repent, and people burn. The world settles around you, and you are still alive.
You watch Atsuro start to fray at the seams.
It's wrong, impossible; this new world born from justice should not have any room for that kind of unfair pain. But the light in his eyes is dimming, like it did every time you saw an innocent die in the lockdown, and this time there is no new hope, no great plan to bring it back. This is the world he fought for, the path he decided to shoulder, and you start to realise that maybe he carries every single death, every execution, as something he could have stopped if only he had been fast enough, convincing enough, powerful enough.
It's too much. You know it, with a cold, nauseating certainty; in time the weight of responsibility will crush him. You want to lift that weight from his shoulders, and yet--
Yet the fire that burns in you crawls up your veins every time you see him, his half-painted smiles, the cheer that he gathers for you, and you remember, acutely, his shape shadowed against the red dim of the sun, his hand stretched down towards you, the lurch in your heart when you realised that even after you went astray, even after defeating you, he would still welcome you into his heart.
You want that, and more, selfish as you are.
You want to burn under his warmth, be consumed, a last moment of rapture as you finally, finally experience his touch, a last gasp of sinful life as you are cleansed. You want to cry under his hand for all the pain, all the desire you could never kill, the desperate faulty love in your heart, the justice you could never bring about because you were too flawed to carry its banner. You want to be freed, from this body, this heart and their failings, just a soul in a million of souls, your sins and identity forgotten.
You want to give it to him, all of it, all of you, to atone for loving him, for clinging, through all these years, to this yearning in your heart.
(You are selfish, you know, to want to put that weight on his shoulders. Love? Love does not take, does not harm. You are a poor excuse for a lover)
The Messiah grows ever distant, closer to both God and demons than to the humanity he left behind. Cain is nowhere to be found. Plotting, probably. Or perhaps he, at least, has made use of his curse, his gift, to free himself of this life's failures. Yuzu clings to music, the inflections in her voice telling what words are no longer allowed to say.
Atsuro comes to you.
You give him your time, for want of anything better, talk to him of the past, try to make him laugh. The smile he gives you is desperate in its cheer.
You cave.
He gives in to your touch like flower petals breaking into a welcoming hand, eyes burning, voice chanting your name. You cling to him, hold him, press him closer when his legs hug your sides. His skin is scalding under your fingertips, and all it does is make you want to reach deeper. You press your mouth against his, swallow the moans he doesn't even try to hold back, bury your fingers in his skin, in his flesh. He arches into you, gives himself in to your lust, your love, and your whispered name only makes you want to cry.
You lie in the dark, with his taste on your tongue and his breath in your ears, and try to carve the Brand into your shoulder with your fingernails.