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It was like waking up from a nightmare only to find that the waking world was just as bad. Cold stone walls and ice cold glares and the future promise of nothing but pain. If only he could stop it now, but…
But their fate was carved in stone, and he hadn’t yet the strength to shatter it. All he could do was wait and try to weather the coming storm.
He didn’t bother trying to break the restraints. It would do no good, and he knew he’d be out of here soon enough anyway.
When he heard the tap tap tap of footsteps descending the stairs into the dungeon, he knew who their owner was, too. He didn’t have to turn to check.
“Hazama,” he growled
“Hazama?”
Not the right voice. Ragna whipped around to face-
“Jin!?”
“Expecting someone else, Nii-san?” he pouted, his tone achingly plaintive.
“... Didn’t think you’d want to see me. Thought you hated my guts.”
Jin’s eyes lit up, and his lips stretched into a smile wide and wrong. “Oh, not at all, Nii-san! I love your guts! But I think I might love them more if I could see them outside you, all nice and pretty in the light…”
His stomach turned flips. “You’re sick,” he spat.
“So was Saya, and you never abandoned her,” Jin answered breezily, as if his words didn’t cut straight to the bone.
Ragna inhaled sharply. There was a burning behind his eyes, but he refused to cry.
It’s your fault, Jin might as well have said, it's your fault that I’m like this.
And he could never really find it within himself to argue. When Jin turned his cold green gaze to him, oversaturated with pain and loathing and not one hint of kindness…
Was it darker, now? Did he feel the weight of his other selves like Ragna felt the phantom pains of wounds that had once killed him? Did their suffering add to his, layering atop his madness, hollowing him out timeline upon timeline?
Was the first Jin this hurt? This madly murderous?
“Jin, I-”
“Shh. Your voice makes me sick.”
And just like that, he turned on his heel and left, the only sign of his visit the frosted footsteps outside the caged bars.
At least you don’t have to remember, Ragna thought. At least in this one thing I can suffer in your place.
---------
“Stop hitting on my sister. It’s weird.”
“Awh, but Noel is so cuuuuute!” Kagura whined.
Whatever else he might have said was cut off by a manila folder cracking against his skull.
“Hibiki! That hurt!”
“Good.”
Ragna wasn’t used to being around people, and this particularly crowd was, quite frankly, chaos. Kagura couldn’t go two seconds without commenting on one woman or another, and Hibiki was all too happy to shut him up with a solid strike to the head.
“Sir, you need to act with some dignity. We have guests, after all.”
“Some guests they are! Kokonoe destroyed my bedroom!” Kagura flung his arms wide to emphasize his point and only succeeded in knocking over his glass (again). Hibiki heaved a long-suffering sigh as he got down to wipe it up.
“Oi. How long we gonna be kept waiting,” Kokonoe muttered from around her lollipop. “Toldja sending Celica was a bad idea. Girl could get lost in a one-room house.”
“Don’t be rude to such a lovely lady when she’s not around-”
Whack.
“Ow!”
And so on and so forth, for what felt like forever to Ragna’s fraying nerves.
Until finally, finally, Celica walked through that door.
And in her grasp, the limp hand of-
Jin. Looking more exhausted than Ragna had ever seen him.
Their eyes met, and Jin did not utter a single word. Not a single squeak of Nii-san~! or Let’s kill each other~!
Nothing.
That wasn’t right.
His uniform was stained and rumpled, and that wasn’t right either. As far as Ragna could remember - and he could remember far, could remember backwards and forwards and sideways - Jin’s appearance had always been immaculate to the point of absurdity. Ragna had always found it unsettling - like putting a little doggy costume on a rabid wolf - but this was somehow worse.
“Oh,” he said dully, “You’re still alive.”
Kagura’s expression shifted to one of concern. “Uh, yeah. We weren’t gonna execute him or anything. You feeling alright, Jinjin?”
“Fine.” He waved one hand dismissively through the air. He levelled his gaze at Ragna again, his mouth pulling into its usual mad smile. “Die.”
Kagura caught his sleeve as he shot past, pulling him back before his blade could find flesh. “Jinjin. We talked about this.”
“Talk means nothing,” he snarled.
Celica touched her fingers to the side of his neck. There was a spark of green light, and he slumped forward into Kagura’s arms.
Ragna stared. “... Uh.”
“He’s been… volatile, lately,” Kagura sighed. “Dunno what’s gotten into him. I mean, he’s always been a little… y’know, when it comes to you, but…”
Noel piped up, “Yeah, he ran at me yesterday screaming something about ranking-”
“Major or no, shit’s gotta get done,” Kokonoe interjected.
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Jin woke up laughing. Considering his other option was screaming, he counted himself lucky.
Not that he knew what he was laughing at, but he didn’t know much at all these days. Things… blurred. Stuttered. He found himself doing things with no recollection of the steps in between, or with memories that made entirely no sense.
He would be certain - absolutely, completely, totally! - that his brother was dead.
And then he wasn’t.
And then Ragna was there, some dark and terrible phoenix arisen again. His despair gave way to giddy hope - alive, alive, alive!
And then not.
And then yes.
And then no.
He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes as if hoping to dig his lying memories out of his skull.
Where was he? When was he?
A voice drifted to his ears, “Jin, we don’t have much time…”
Trinity. Embryo. A mission, an end, a god, a promise to be broken, a wish ungranted. A tool turned against its master to stand above his bleeding corpse with nothing but satisfaction in its unseeing eyes. A man turned monster turned more monstrous still -
I do not know what you desire.
Repeat.
“Jin.”
It felt like someone had taken a hammer to his skull. “What.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have-”
“Time. Yes. I know.” He heaved himself up using Yukianesa. He closed his eyes, breathed in and felt. Frost bloomed around his feet.
“You cannot use this much power-”
“Hush. This cannot drag on any longer.”
There. The spark. The darkness. The hiss in his blood, a terrible allure of kill kill kill destroy him and her and all who would stop you…
The muscles of his body pulled taut even as they decayed. Jin sprinted forward on borrowed time.
------------------
“Jin! This time, we do it for real!” Ragna snarled as he pulled out his blade. “Take my life or I take your dream.” He spat out his words with the confidence of knowing he could not lose, that in a thousand timelines Jin had never been strong enough to beat him.
Jin’s own sword lowered. “Take it,” he said, and held out his hand.
My dream is… to live with you.
Ragna inhaled sharply as a tender warmth blossomed in his chest.
I only ever wanted to be with you. I only ever hoped you wouldn’t leave me again.
“Jin, I-”
But Jin wasn’t looking at him. He had not wasted his body’s last strength on a useless fight. He moved forward, because he could, toward the bright light of the Gate.
“This time, Nii-san, I’ll be abandoning you,” he murmured, before the nothingness swallowed him whole.
------------------
On the edge of a cliff lay an ice-cold sword. Its origins, its owner, its purpose - such questions may have been pondered, had anyone seen it at all. But no one did.
Years went by as it sunk deeper into the earth. Moss crawled up its blade and came to coat its hilt as the flowers died of frostbite.
The world won’t miss me the way it missed you.
(you won’t miss me like I missed you)
… “Was there ever a thing I was meant to protect?”
“Lay back Taro, have a drink! After all, you can always protect me!”
… And the relatives laughed and clinked their glasses while an assistant bent double under work not his.
… The Yayoi heir laughed like the sun, and met the lips of her beastkin bride.
… In a church on a hill, a man lived with his sisters, and he wanted for nothing more.