Mikado was crying now but he barely noticed it. He did not hear Kida whispering something to Izaya. All he knew was that Izaya put Kida's limp body on the ground and then like lightening he was on Mikado, giving him a clean chop, causing him to black out on the spot. Izaya then retrieved the still hot gun, put it in one of the pockets of his jacket which he proceeded to wrap around Kida.
"Your will, Masaomi. I'll let him live if you say so. And now I have something to show you."
Kida cuddled into the deceptively lean arms that picked him once more. He felt weightless. Even the pain receded. Kida tried to breathe in Izaya's scent and live a bit longer on that alone.
"Izaya…sorry. I screwed up…"
"You did very well. I am proud of you."
Kida could hear a hollow echo. It was the river lapping at dark shores. Izaya cradled him on his lap. Facing the city.
"See all the lights, Masaomi? Beautiful, aren't they."
Kida smiled.
"Yes. It's like Tokyo is sending me off to…whatever."
Blood trickled down his lips. Izaya kissed them clean.
"Next life. Next life you need to find me before I meet Shizuo. You do that and I will be yours as much as you are mine."
Kida drank up the image of god. The red eyes now a bit strained. A single tear running down his cheeks. Kida traced it with a finger.
"I am happy. Because I could make you cry for me. Orihara Izaya…you have a deal…for next life."
"Are you afraid?"
"Surprisingly…no. You said that living forever proved that love is real…but…I'll die and go on loving you despite it. Death's got nothing on me."
The relapse into humor made Izaya wonder at the crushing feeling in his chest.
"These are your colors. Broken gold amidst the darkness. Know that, Masaomi. These are your colors. And your god loves you."
Kida sighed. The world was fading away from him, swimming into formless nothingness. Dying. At the end of his life he was at his happiest.
"Kiss me."
Izaya brought their lips together and linked their hands. He deepened the kiss, tasting everything that could be tasted, and by the time he pulled out Masaomi was no more. Izaya closed Kida's eyes and watched the soft smile. Kida was a dead child in his arms. Izaya carried him to the shadow waters and let the doll like body - a body that he had held, hurt, and pleasured - sink under layers of darkness. He watched Kida disappear without budging.
At length Izaya tossed the gun into the river. He heard heavy steps behind him.
"Ah, Shizu-chan. You joined the party? I'm afraid you're too late."
"Took a while to figure out where you were. Poor kid."
Izaya faced Shizuo.
"'Poor kid'? I wish I could be half as fortunate as Masaomi. To die in the arms of your one true love...I've been trying to experience that for so many years now."
Shizuo puffed some smoke.
"Did you come to love that kid? In a way?"
Izaya shrugged.
"No one would believe me if I said I did."
"I'd believe you."
Izaya thought about it.
"I guess I did. Do you know why people just can't match perfectly? It's because they're not puzzle pieces all nicely cut to fit in with the rest. People are made of jagged edges."
"For once I think that you are absolutely right. Gotta go, someone needs to watch over the other kid. Celty's there too."
Izaya nodded. He watched Shizuo retreat into the distance and for once was perfectly reconciled with being left behind by him. For the rest of the night he watched the scatter of shattered light on the river and wondered, when dawn infiltrated the barren sky, from where Masaomi was watching him. Because he most definitely was a living witness. In death.
"See you next life. Neh?"
Izaya waved before sauntering away. And he knew that he was not quite alone. Perhaps he never would be. For now he had his very own angel watching over him. And the thought was a radiant one that lit up his path as he wondered how to wage his private wars.
Perhaps there was a way to align the jagged edges into a whole after all.

The End

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A/N: I decided a while ago that I wanted someone to die in this story but I hesitated between killing Mikado or Kida. Killing Izaya would be interesting as well but I needed his comments to close the narrative. With that said, this conclusion posed a few problems. I was not sure of how to get Mikado to accidently kill Kida without it seeming as if he was acting out of impulse which he was not. Which leads me to something I wish I had alluded to but I did not want to clutter these final passages with too much non Kida/Izaya information, and that is Mikado's plan.
While I am no fan of Mikado I do not think he is stupid and the plan he came up with did not simply include killing Izaya and leaving it at that. He made arrangements to neatly erase all of Kida's memories regarding Izaya (by calling favors from Namie) and was going to cover up the gap by a fabricated story about an accident that would be responsible for any memory problems. Then he would ship him to a small town and act as the amazing and supporting best friend.
The moral of this ending is that Mikado could very well be more evil than Izaya since destroying someone's memories may be worse than anything Izaya did to Kida. Rebooting people is not exactly acceptable even if Kida would go back to being very bubbly. I discarded this finale because I did not want Mikado to be too important even if it would be interesting in terms of a certain slippery slope of morality. As it was Mikado will have to live the rest of his life knowing that he killed his best friend which will basically ruin him completely.