Chapter Text
As the moon became enshrined in a crimson veil of blood beneath the water, Aqua’s body had lost so much energy, and despite how hard he tried, he couldn’t summon any of it to make it to the surface.
The deep wound he inflicted on himself in the scuffle just a few minutes ago was continuing to leak his precious life energy into the cold, dark abyss that he was now sinking towards the bottom of.
He glanced over at the unconscious man sinking beside him, as much as he could recognize the blurry form of that man through how cloudy the water was becoming. He felt an almost-strange sense of relief, knowing that man would no longer move anymore.
Hikaru Kamiki, the one person who had caused so much trouble for Aqua and his family over the years (including masterminding the murder of Ai Hoshino, his as well as his sister Ruby’s mother), was dead.
No longer would Ruby, Akane, himself or whoever else out there be in danger, because Aqua had done his best to ensure that whatever schemes the man he regretfully had to call his father had in motion would fall apart.
His dear sister, Ruby could be free to live her life the way she wants to, free to become an idol like Mom was, or free to just appreciate life at her own speed. She deserved to be truly loved for the rest of her life, and she was surrounded by so many people who could push her towards her dreams.
Kana was someone that he deliberately shielded from his devious plans, so he never worried about her being in danger because of him. He truly cared about her, as well as what she thought of him, so he had prepared himself for the razor-sharp tongue lashing he would inevitably receive if he ever revealed that part of himself to her.
He knew that he deserved every bit of rage, anger and disappointment from the people close to him for everything he did these past couple years. So many people were put in danger because of him, and none more so than Akane Kurokawa.
Akane was someone who he always seemed to find himself protecting or helping. From saving her life on that bridge, hatching a scheme to get her back into the good graces of the LoveforReal fans online, and once again saving her life in that staircase, it seemed like the two of them were intertwined.
Even after he found out about her going behind his back to try and murder Hikaru, hoping that she could free him from his past, he tried to break up with her, so she didn’t get hurt because of him.
He tried to isolate himself from everyone, so the only person he’d be putting in danger was himself, but that didn’t work how he intended. Akane had stuck close by him no matter what, and he never understood why.
It didn’t matter if he went to prison or died in his quest for revenge, as long as it was only him that suffered, he had accepted that long ago. But why?
Why was Akane so willing to go to such lengths to protect him so much? He knew that part of it was out of generosity for him saving her several times now, but he didn’t deserve any of it.
To him, this was the path he had chosen to walk down, and he knew that he already had a spot in Hell waiting for him someday. However, there was a small part of him that still clung to life even now, and that part was the reason why he found himself trying to claw at anything at all in the emptiness that surrounded him.
As he vainly tried not to lose consciousness, images filled his head of the regrets he had with his life as it stood now. In his haste to stop his father, he suddenly remembered that there were still things he needed to do first.
He dreamed of a normal life with his sister Ruby, who he still needed to figure out what their relationship even was anymore. He had long considered her his sister and nothing more, but he got the feeling she didn’t feel the same about him, and she wanted more.
He then dreamed of responding to Kana’s feelings. He was often perplexed by how he felt about her, and how she felt about him. He knew that she did harbor romantic feelings for her, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t reciprocate somewhat.
Then, there was Akane, and he wanted to rebuild their relationship, but on equal grounds. Whatever that meant, he couldn’t figure out no matter how hard he tried, but he harbored romantic feelings for her as well.
They both represented two sides of life to him, Kana represented the person he wanted to be, and Akane represented the person he was deep down.
There was a feeling of comfort in both potential relationships, and he desperately wanted to preserve both of them, but he knew that’d never happen. To go after one of them would inevitably hurt the other, and he spent many a night weighing both his options, only to not really get anywhere.
There was so much he wanted to say, and so much that he wanted to achieve, but as he couldn’t stop his eyes from closing in exhaustion, the last thing that came to mind was sorrow.
This was the end that he had chosen for himself, and he didn’t stop to think of what he would leave behind, ultimately.
Ruby, Kana, Akane, Miyako & Ichigo… how would they react to learning that he passed away? He tried to imagine what they would do, but even his thoughts were fading away into nothingness at this point.
Instead of looking peaceful in death, his body and his soul were going to represent the utter despair and all the negative emotions he was wracked by in his final hours.
“…This… wasn’t… how… I wanted… to…die…”
One last thought, then it was all over…
===
Just as quickly as everything faded away, his soul’s connection to the body started slowly rebuilding itself somehow. His brain was starting to come back to life, and it felt different from his first reincarnation.
When he reincarnated as Aqua Hoshino, it happened before he could even process what was going on. Suddenly, he woke up being cradled by Ai Hoshino in a hospital bed, and he had to figure out why he was in the body of an infant suddenly.
This time was different, and he had no idea what was even happening to him. Death seemed like an endless void of nothingness, and he was sure that he was going to Hell, but he didn’t expect whatever this was at all.
Sensations slowly started coming back to him, and instead of the cold water enveloping every inch of his being, cutting off every breath he tried to take in, all he could feel was soft padding below him.
As he waited to be able to see anything or move, he felt a strange sense of dread envelop him. Maybe, he really was in Hell after all, and this was the way that he would find out?
He had so many questions, and it seemed like all he could do was to keep trying to make sense of everything. Eventually, enough feeling came back to him that even though he still couldn’t move, it felt like he was being reincarnated once again.
Soon, his lungs slowly started working again, and air started flowing through them once more, which also surprised him. His lungs should’ve been completely filled with water, yet somehow, he was able to start breathing again.
As he took a couple more breaths, he started to smell something in the air. It felt hot, stuffy and smelled like smoke. He knew it, he was in Hell, and he started mentally preparing himself for his judgement that he would no doubt soon receive.
It was only a matter of time before he would be awake enough to open his eyes and be able to move, and then he could be “alive” once more. As a couple minutes passed, he jerked his head to the side, and noticed that he was laying on what could only be a pillow.
It was very strange, and suddenly, he catapulted upright. It was as if everything came rushing back to him, his memories from both previous lives, the rest of the senses he still had to regain, and he gradually opened his eyes.
All he could see was the dim outlines of what looked to be candles surrounding him, and glancing to the side, he could see the lid of a very fancy coffin overturned. The realization suddenly hit him that he was laying inside of a casket, but why?
As his eyes kept adjusting to his surroundings, he had no idea where he was, or anything. He was in the middle of an almost pitch-black room, with the only light being the ones provided by the candles.
He brought his hands up to his face to check if he wasn’t just imagining this, and his hands felt very real to the touch. It was then that he was able to catch a look at the rest of his body.
He was entirely naked, barring a pair of underwear, and every body part still felt the same as it did before. He did involuntarily gasp when he saw a big gaping hole in his chest, in the same spot where he had stabbed himself previously.
What happened to him? Where was he? He couldn’t figure anything out, and that sent a chill down his spine, despite how hot it was in this unfamiliar room. As he tried to scan through what looked to be the inside of a spacious basement, he spotted some movement several feet away.
The figure seemed to be on its knees, and it wore a dark cloak that made it hard to tell who it was, but it didn’t move after that. He could get the sense that this figure was staring right at him, filling him with dread, but it just waited for him to do something.
Finally, after a couple minutes gradually helped everything come into focus more, and Aqua could tell that it was a person kneeling there, looking at him as he suspected. They were still, never taking their eyes off of him, and Aqua couldn’t look away from them.
He couldn’t make out the rest of their face, only being able to see their wide-open eyes which started to cloud over. Were they shocked to see him? Too stunned to speak, like he was finding himself as well? What were they doing?
He remained motionless in the open casket, the room completely quiet, aside from the occasional small crackle of a candle’s flame every now and then.
After a time that felt endless to him, the unidentified person, without taking their eyes off him, hesitantly put their hands down on the ground in front of them. It was then that Aqua could hear the faint sound of crying start, and he wanted to be able to say something to them.
However, he couldn’t pull himself to do anything, and so he just sat there waiting for the figure to move once more. The tears and the noises gradually stopped, and so the figure tentatively moved one of their arms towards him.
Seeing that he was too frozen by fear to go anywhere, the movements accelerated, and the person crawled over to him, until they were only a couple feet away. They then got right up in his face, and were studying him in awe.
Aqua couldn’t even say anything in response to this, and the cloaked figure spoke up, “My God. …It’s you, it’s really you here.”
Pausing slightly before continuing, Aqua realized who this person was finally. It was Akane Kurokawa, surprisingly. He didn’t even have the chance to think about it any more, because she continued,
“Ohh… I can’t believe it. Finally, after all this time, I succeeded. Oh my god.” Akane was in complete disbelief at what she was witnessing. She blinked her eyes several times to ensure that this wasn’t just another hallucination or dream that she often had.
Akane had frequently dreamed many scenarios much like this one, and all of them ended in heartbreak, so she desperately hoped that this was really him, after so long.
As several seemingly-endless minutes passed with the two of them trying to process what was right in front of their eyes, Akane was the first one to stir, throwing her arms around Aqua after so long.
She latched onto him with every ounce of strength she was able to muster, trying to prevent him from being taken away from her somehow. He felt so real and so alive, and she was able to feel his beating heart pressed against her chest, surprising her even more.
Then, she started to cry. Her crying got more intense by the moment, and soon, she was full on weeping, unable to hold herself back anymore. Tears flooded out of her eyes, and she was finally releasing every drop of those pent-up emotions and sorrow that she had unknowingly saved up for years.
Aqua’s chest felt like it was about to be crushed with how hard Akane was embracing him, but he didn’t dare ask her to stop, just letting her have this. Soon, Aqua found himself starting to cry too, and he carefully wrapped his arms around the blue-haired beauty, firmly pulling her as close to him as possible.
So, the two of them stayed in each other’s embrace for a long time. Akane eventually realized she was squeezing him too hard, and lightened her grip on him, though she stayed careful to preserve as much bodily contact as possible.
His skin felt as warm to the touch as it did all those years ago, and even that had started to feel like an entire lifetime ago, after all the time she spent researching, gathering materials, and testing other rituals.
She had to move heaven and earth to get him here, and the resolve she had shown trying to resurrect her once-dead boyfriend in life, as firm as it always was, started to falter these past couple months.
Everyone around her who knew told her to get over it and move on, yet she found herself completely unable to, no matter how hard she tried. She went to therapy, tried every technique out there, but she could never stop seeing his face every time she went to sleep at night.
She was haunted by the regret of not being able to stop him going through with his plans, and not being able to protect him when he needed it the most. She often dreamed of trying to save him, and every single time, he floated away from her.
But now, here he was in the flesh in front of her, and if all her research proved correct, he hopefully wouldn’t leave her for a long time to come. She was going to stick by him, and help him live the life he should’ve lived all along.
He was free from the constraints of his revenge, she had seen personally to that. Any co-conspirators Hikaru may have had were arrested, and locked up for several years, finally paying their penance for ruining so many innocent lives over the years.
Sure, it would take time to get him back to a normal life, since everyone (except her) had seen or heard that he was truly dead, and many of the people closest to him had gone to his funeral, where they could see his body for themselves.
They had all grieved for him, and in a surprising move, Kana had even slapped his corpse right in the face. She had to be escorted out, but Akane could never forget her pained yelling at him about the promise he made to her.
How would Ruby, Kana or anyone else react to him being suddenly revealed as alive again? She was finding it hard to believe it herself, and she was the one who brought him back to life, with full confidence that it would work this time.
So many people were going to be rightfully angry at him, herself included. He had left this world without so much as a goodbye to anyone, and he left no note, video or anything to help the people he was trying to save get over the emotional grief he had to know they would carry for a long time.
They all had to look out for each other, and she focused on staying by Ruby’s side for a long time after the blond-haired, once full-of-life girl lost (essentially) her entire family. Miyako & Ichigo tried their best to act as her parents, but it was never enough.
After the 3 years it’s been since Aqua was taken from all of them, everyone was able to move on from his death, except her. She even found herself willingly researching into the occult to see if there was even a chance that he could be brought back.
She held on to any hope she could find, and eventually, she found what she was looking for. The books she read on the subject had mentioned a price that had to be paid for resurrecting someone, but she was prepared for any punishment she got.
Spending an eternity in hell would be worth it if she could be with him. She truly loved him, that she was 100% certain about. No amount of righteous anger, pain or suffering (of which she would bear full responsibility for) would get her to change her mind, especially when she had already gone this far.
For now, she settled with showing Aqua how deeply she loved him, and what a truly free life could look like for him, which he deserved to have in her opinion.