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The adrenaline buzzing through him briefly numbs out the pain of something shooting right through his chest. Anasui looks down and recognizes it right off the bat, almost doesn’t believe what he sees. He expects it to be a sword, or a metal bar, or a bullet, or maybe even the priest’s stand.
What he doesn’t expect to see is Stone Free’s hand, threaded white fingers protruding through his sternum. Jolyne’s own stand, so close to his heart that she might as well just grab it and rip it out of his broken chest.
It sounds like a nice way to die, now he thinks about it. Definitely preferable to the priest slitting his throat or being shot through the head. Jolyne being his inevitable cause of death seems so inviting, his heart in her hands, right where it belongs.
He only has a second to see it before Stone Free disappears and all that’s left is a huge gaping hole. He falls into the water gracelessly and bonelessly. The salt water in his open wound stings like a bitch. He’s bleeding, bleeding bad—there’s so much blood. Crimson leaks out of him in a steady stream from both his chest and back, and he feels dizzy with the blood loss.
He opens his eyes in a stupid attempt to fight death. He looks at Jolyne with blurry eyes, and time seems to stop for a moment.
Funny how just minutes ago, Anasui was raving to Emporio about how lucky he’s been lately, giggling like a stupid teenager with a crush when he mentions asking Jolyne to marry him. And Jolyne told him to ask her when they got out of this. Jotaro never did give him his blessing, but that didn’t seem to matter because Jolyne saw Anasui’s hope and she was willing to put her faith in him. He was almost trembling with nerves and excitement. He had something to look forward to when he kicked that priest’s ass.
But now that dream dies as he sees the love of his life with a knife in her side, mumbling something that Anasui can’t hear through the pain and the amount of water in his ears, and her head falls under the water.
He can’t tell if the ocean water got in his eyes or if he’s crying.
Dead. Jolyne is dead.
He hates that this is the last thing he’s ever going to see. The blank look on Jolyne’s pretty face, surrounded by the fallen bodies of her father and Ermes. Black starts to dot the edges of his vision, everything starts to go numb, and he thinks he hears Emporio screaming. His body sinks lower into the ocean of saltwater and blood, and the waves are almost reminiscent of a comforting embrace.
At least he can pretend he’s dying in Jolyne’s arms, hands bloodied with his still-beating heart in her hands, a wedding band wrapped tight around her finger. He can pretend she has that glimmer in her eyes instead of that blank emptiness. Pretend she’s happy dying with him. A good death, he thinks, would be with Jolyne.
It’s unfortunate that he’s never going to see that ring on her finger or that veil covering her face or a white dress as she walks down the wedding aisle (or a suit, honestly he might prefer that). He never even got to kiss her. He never got to hold her. The closest they’ve even gotten to anything romantic is when she fell asleep on his shoulder.
He realizes now that he’s dying with a lot of regrets. Maybe he could’ve been a better lover in his short, shitty life. A single tear falls from his eye and mixes with the sea. So much for his good luck streak.
He feels his heart beat its final time and the last breath leaves his lungs in a slow exhale as Jolyne’s empty eyes stare back at him.