'Til Death do Us Part

"…Nezumi… Just now, I heard Safu singing…" Shion said groggily as he sat up. Looking to his right however, he saw that the person he was talking to wasn't able to hear him. "…Nezumi…?"

He was just lying there, unmoving though fresh tears remained visible on his cheeks. Hesitantly, Shion crawled over to him and placed a hand on Nezumi's shoulder, shaking it slightly. "Hey… Nezumi? You're okay, right…? You're just teasing me, right…? Hey! Nezumi! Come on! You can't be dead, you can't! This has to be a lie! You said we would make it out alive and we're out now! So you have to be alive! You have to…!" His voice broke as reality washed over him.

Nezumi was… gone. Shion pulled up the other boy's shirt slowly to see that the stitches he'd closed the bullet wound with were torn and bloody. It must have opened when they'd fallen. But hadn't Shion been shot as well? Then why was he alive when Nezumi was nothing but a corpse beside him? How was that fair?

"Nezumi…!" Shion choked out, collapsing over the body of the boy he had loved as his body was engulfed in sobs.

What is this…? Nezumi thought as he watched Shion. That was… his own body lying still in front of him. He was… dead then? But how was Shion alive when he had been the dead one only moments before? Why was Nezumi now the dead one?

"Because it was your dying wish," a voice he vaguely recognized spoke into his mind, like it had those times when he'd lost consciousness and heard its song.

Elyruias…? he thought, realizing as he did that that was the name of the voice's owner. What do you mean it was my dying wish…?

For whatever reason, he wasn't surprised when the voice answered him: "In your last moments, you wished for this boy to return to life. You are the last of the forest people, the last to believe in my existence. Because of this, I decided to grant it."

But this isn't what I wanted! I wanted to be able to be with him again! What can I do for him if I'm dead! This time though, no voice answered his silent question, leaving him with nothing to distract from the pained cry of the one he'd found himself to have fallen for before he'd even realized it.

Shion stood on a hill, gazing at the ruinous remains of what had been the wall surrounding No. 6. Tears still remained stinging at the inside of his eyelids, but he didn't let any fall, remembering Nezumi once telling him that crying was something you should only do for yourself. Nezumi wouldn't want to see the tears, so he wouldn't let them exist.

As he thought this, a sudden wind passed him and he screwed his eyes shut against it, but when he opened them again something had appeared in the corner of his gaze. "…Nezumi…?" he whispered, the other boy was now standing only a few feet away from him, smiling sadly. It wasn't truly Nezumi though. His body was slightly transparent and it seemed to glow a tiny bit in the setting sun. It was Nezumi's spirit.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want it to be like this. But you have to keep living, okay?" the ghost said, continuing before Shion could say anything as he stood agape in shock. "She probably wanted you to see this." He was referring to the wall. Shion's third option had existed all along.

"Huh?" It was all Shion could get out, still shell shocked both by the earlier events and the fact that Nezumi was talking to him. He'd thought he'd never hear the voice again, yet now he was getting to one last time.

"Elyurias… Safu. The walls surrounding No. 6 have vanished. It's a new beginning." The words stung at Shion, Nezumi's face turned away from him. It wasn't a beginning for him. It was and ending. He wouldn't get to the see the other boy ever again.

The two stood there for a few moments, just staring at the city, until Shion heard a light, content sigh and turned to see Nezumi walking away from him, the illusion of his body growing fainter with each step. This was it. Nezumi would vanish in a moment, never to return.

"Nezumi!" Shion called, the form pausing to turn back around. He willed the words to come to his lips, but none appeared. What could he say? It was already too late. Closing his eyes in an attempt to stop the tears that threatened to start again, he felt strong fingers pull his chin up as something pressed against those lips that had been unable to speak.

"You're going to be fine," Nezumi told him, his voice melting into the wind now that he was almost gone. After a moment Shion nodded resolutely, only to find that the object of his affections had disappeared completely.

He would be. He was sure of it. Though Nezumi's body was gone, his soul would forever remain by Shion's side. He knew that was true, even if he couldn't see it. And one day, when it was finally Shion's turn, the two would reunite and be together again.

A/N: So this is just a quick little thing I wrote last night on a whim after seeing an idea buzzing around the fandom that Nezumi had actually been a ghost during the last scene of the anime. As mentioned, this was written very quickly. I litteraly thought it up, wrote it, and edited it in under an hour, but it got good responses when I put it on my blog so I decided to upload it here. That being said, I apologize for the shotty writing and explanations, but yeah, rushed fluff is rushed.