A/N: Replayed Okamiden. TEARS.

But I also felt bad for Waka (whom I love no matter what) because he had to make that awful decision. So here, have some angst, angst, angst served on a platter. :p

He'd always thought he wouldn't get attached.

Waka gave the computer screen a bitter smile, his eyes fixed blankly on the words that scrolled up and down in rows and rows of neat pitiless blue. He slumped over at the keyboard, his forehead against his knuckles, his flute resting halfheartedly on his lap as if he had been contemplating playing it but then gave up on the idea.

It was done. The latest sacrifice had been made, the world was saved in the process, and Chibiterasu was returning to his rightful home to reunite with his mother. Best case scenario, just like he had calculated. And all was well.

A bitter laugh escaped him. Waka idly turned the silver crescent-shaped pendant in his other hand—one whose twin was owned by a boy now dead. Or rather, sent to die. Murdered?

And he thought it would be so simple.

After centuries, Waka had learned to disregard the things of the mortal world; empires rose up, ruled, and fell just as quickly. Everything was temporary. Even his own long-lived, fabled Moon Tribe fell, and the passage of time on the Earth was even harsher. Everything would age or wither and he would simply have to move on. Even the brush gods grew discouraged at the fleetingness of everything they guarded over, detached by the sheer fact that peoples die and die and die. Amaterasu was the one who kept their bright, genuine love for mortals burning...otherwise, they, too, might one day cease to care.

He liked to hope that he was somewhat kinder to people, but in reality, his philosophy with them wasn't that much different. They aged, they withered, they died. Sometimes he saw it in his visions beforehand, but there was never anything that could be done. He would convince himself that it didn't matter in the long run. He would see them off to whatever funeral was held (he had been to so many and the smell of smoke and the sound of the funeral dirges were disturbingly familiar at this point) and silently commend them for their efforts in the harsh world.

Waka dropped the pendent abruptly, setting it onto the tabletop with a weary air of finality. The half-whispered apologies would no longer be heard by the person on the other end. It was over and he should get up and go help Amaterasu prepare to greet her son and her Celestial Envoy. He should stop thinking of sacrifices.

If he dwelled on their fragile lives for too long, the creeping guilt would slither up from its brittle prison, an accumulated mass of it—an accumulated mass of deaths. How many had he witnessed? How many had he caused? How many had he seen coming and done nothing but watch as they were crushed by destiny's cruel jaws?

Only Amaterasu mattered, he told himself. Only her existence was guaranteed. And so he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the big picture, like a general sitting in his war tent, moving the pieces over a map that marked out the strategies in the war; ignoring or pretending to ignore the fact that the chess pieces were living and real, that the soldiers sent to fight had families and lives and dreams.

Sometimes Waka thought perhaps if he treated his own life with the same ruthlessness, he might keep that hungry guilt from devouring him slowly. Yes, that was the ultimate resolve right?

"Outcome is secondary."

He had said that to guilt Issun and he ended up guilting himself just as much. Pretty words, they were. It seemed easy and cheap for someone like him to say, someone jaded by too much time and practically resigned to die at any point. There was a bit of good old twisted logic in this: If he died in the process of saving the world, surely everything would be atoned for completely. People were always forgiven when they died.

Unfortunately, Waka had a great amount of difficulty with this dying business; every time he threw himself into a perilous state of affairs, he always got out alive. Sometimes he knew it. Other times he didn't, and the blatant hollowness he felt at the prospect sickened him. Of the accursed Moon Tribe, he was the most accursed of all.

"I'm glad I got the chance to live…"

He still couldn't figure out if those words were possibly directed at him. That was impossible, though, after all he had put the boy through. Before, Waka had assumed that any copy of himself would be just like him—ready to lay down his life, eager to die for the cause, etc. Instead, he got a young, idealistic boy, someone who viewed the world through fresh, youthful eyes, untainted by centuries of regret. Someone who still had yet to live before his life ended.

How could he have expected a child to carry that burden? Waka didn't know if he would have been able to do it at that age—he didn't even quite remember all the way back then.

But the sentiments didn't matter. It had to be done. He had sacrificed countless lives. Surely one more wouldn't matter.

Waka rose slowly from the computer. His flute almost clattered to the ground in the process, but he managed to catch it before it hit the floor of the Ark. He lifted it in his hands as though he had never seen it before.

Then he heard a sharp bark and the sound of unsure paws skidding over the smooth polished floor. Waka turned to see a small white puppy curiously prodding the wall with his nose. Chibiterasu turned and regarded him with the same inky soulful eyes as his mother; they held recognition, and Waka knew that the young god was comparing him to his lost friend.

"Hello, mon ami," Waka said softly. The sound of more paw-steps echoed through the empty Ark as the puppy's mother entered. She would probably chastise him for dwelling in such a depressing place, tormenting himself with a place that held so many painful memories.

Chibiterasu didn't wait for her. The puppy came forward, sniffed Waka's hand and the pendant on the table. Then he rested his head on the Moon Tribe man's knee.

Waka closed his eyes. He didn't deserve the unrelenting forgiveness that Chibiterasu had inherited from his mother along with his power and his kindness. He didn't deserve to spend his time on the Celestial Plains with his beloved Amaterasu, after causing so much pain.

Chibiterasu licked his hand and whined softly, and Waka couldn't help but crack a smile. Then Amaterasu came around the corner with the same goofy expression on her face, and then a new voice echoed through the Ark: "Where are you, ya half-bake?"

And no matter what, the sun would keep rising.

Owari

A/N: ANGST. Yeah. :p

I miss Kurow. D;

Thanks for reading, though. Have a nice day. :)