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He thought he could kill her.
The moment the blade had first entered her back, he knew he had chosen his side. Irretrievable, wretched, voluntary choice. He knew what his choice entailed; Rin, held back and tied up in a cell. Rin, picked and torn apart by the Hesperians. Rin, eyes burning with hatred, lunging forward to kill him.
Sometimes, whenever Nezha has the time to pause and think back, he questions himself if he was truly aware of the consequences. If he had truly thought through every possibility, every outcome. If he had truly known what kind of choice he was making.
The answer is, every single time, yes.
This would torture her. Yes.
This would make her hate you, more than anything. Yes.
They would tear her apart. Yes.
They would never go back to normal. The bond would be shattered beyond repair. Yes.
This would kill her. Yes.
You might be the one to kill her.
…Yes.
The world is eerily quiet.
Despite the wars that swept through the grounds so much more than necessary for the last few years, nature still keeps its course. The day shines, the world stirs and blinks its eyes open, sounds fill the air to alert the living awake. Yet when the night falls, everyone slumbers down, dozes off and prepares for the next day.
Not Nezha, however.
Today, after pondering hours till end, Nezha opted to fight against nature rather than give in and fall asleep. Now he feels his eyes closing on their own with exhaustion. A moment ago, he was staring out his window, which despite being opened showed nothing but deep black chasm of the night. The next, he found his head sliding off the support of his hand and jerking awake before his head hit the desk.
Rubbing his eyes, he pushes himself up and goes outside. Forcing himself to walk would force himself to stay awake. A tedious game against his own body, but he's determined to win this time.
Out of habit, he slides out the small knife at his belt and sends it lightly across his wrist. It stings, a hiss escapes his mouth and it still hurts even after a million times, even though the cut closes before the blood hits the ground.
The couple of seconds of clarity in his head are worth it.
The night breeze carries something sweet, fresh and distinctly spring. Fresh grass and spring rain, the air void of the sharp cold winter yet still lingering in the winds. As his feet stumble on to nowhere, anywhere as long as he stays awake, his mind distantly realizes that the year has long been new and it's been almost a year.
Shit. Maybe sleeping was a better choice.
Nezha closes his eyes as a wave of nausea washes over him, pinning him down. He feels a thud against his knees before he realizes his legs have gone weak and crumbled down as the reality of what happened managed to penetrate his mind.
He fumbles for his knife, but as soon as he yanks it out from his belt, his shaking fingers betray him and let it slip and fall. He doesn't think he can pick it up.
Sleeping was definitely a better choice.
His vision is a blur but he somehow drags himself back to his room where he collapses on the floor. He lets sleep claim him, begging it to take him away from the real world.
Several hours later, he wakes up screaming.
He thought he could kill her.
He thought he knew.
The worst part isn't killing her.
The worst part is that he kills her again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again and again and again every single night.
Nikan was a world with wars and blood and death.
It had been for centuries: the only permanent thing about the country was war. It was drilled into every Sinegard student's head. It was drilled into Rin's head, Kitay's head, Venka's head. It was drilled into Nezha's head.
But before, they were merely words. Before, they were simply words printed on a page. Before, they were just a passage to read to pass Keju, to fulfil his role as the Warlord's son, to get into Sinegard and become a soldier.
Before, he never truly knew what it meant, not until he saw it with his own eyes and experienced it with his own hands. Until the third Poppy War and the Republic's rebellion and then when he finally thought it was the end of all wars, another bloody civil war spread with the Phoenix in the lead.
Even after that.
Nezha once wished he could sleep on and on and on forever. When he was twelve, he didn't know when the pain would stop. He couldn't understand why the voices inside him hurt and screamed. Why they never stopped. Couldn't understand why his mother was so cold to him suddenly. Couldn't understand why every waking minute was suffering. Couldn't understand why he still had to live on, pretend like nothing happened, put on a mask that he was fine and well. Couldn't hold onto anyone as the god tore through his mind, only to suffocate in silence.
When he turned thirteen and was old enough to understand that his life entailed inevitable agony forever, he wished he could sleep on and on and on. So he slit his wrists. He fell from the Red Cliffs. He tried to kill himself. Yet he always, always woke up.
Waking up meant waking up to a world with wars and blood and death. Sleep and dream were bliss.
Dreams were short but a blessing; the pain dulled in his sleep. He began to crave the night, for sleep was one thing the Dragon didn't take away from him. Everything was possible in dreams, and in dreams, the impossible was achieved: there was no pain.
Till he met her.
His dreams turned from escapism to horror. Every night he watched her disappear. Stabbed, drowned, choked, bled, torn to death. Every night he watched her stabbed, drowned, choked, bled, torn to death by his hand. His traitorous hand doing nothing to pull away from the blade that sunk deep into her chest.
After her, he began to crave the waking world rather than his dreams. For the first time since a god invaded his mind, he thought maybe, maybe, staying awake was better. For even though Nikan was a world of wars and blood and death, at least she was alive and well and whole.
Till she wasn't.
"Rin?"
She turns.
It's her. It's really her. Nezha's heart pounds and he swallows and his hands twitch at his sides. It's her. He thought he lost her forever, but she's here. Her dark hair slightly brushing the top of her shoulders, face halfway turned toward him, eyes wide and alert and bright.
It's her.
"Rin."
He can see a smile—it's definitely a smile. Small, but there. One she wore when she was alive, when she was trying to suppress it but it still threatened its way to her face. She looks happy, and he takes it as a good sign so his steps quicken to hold her, touch her, make sure she won't leave again.
Make sure she won't leave him alone again.
But when he reaches out, she changes.
Her face twists, and the smile is gone, replaced instantly by a snarl that she wore when she summoned the Phoenix. When she faced him in the battlefield. She fully turns toward him, pushes away his outstretched arms and grabs him by the shoulder, fingers digging into his skin.
"I deserved to live," she hisses, eyes flashing with anger. Fire. "I deserved to live and you deserved to die. You should've died, not me."
"I know." He's desperate to agree with her, let her know that she's right, please forgive him, he didn't mean it. "I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
"Too late."
Her hands move to his throat, and for one brief moment, Nezha thinks she'll strangle him. She might, she will, and she will kill him. She finally will.
He realizes a moment too late that it's his hands that are around her throat.
Rin chokes, gasps, claws at his hands, nails digging into his skin and drawing blood. But it instantly heals, leaving no mark of her attempts to pry him off. Nezha desperately tries to yank his hands away, what the fuck was he doing, yet they don't move, they don't move, just like they were too weak to move when she pushed the blade into her heart.
With a final gasp, Rin shudders, stills and her breath gets cut off.
At the same time, his own breath hitches and his eyes fly open.
It takes several moments for his senses to kick in, to realize that no, he did not just strangle Rin to her death, his hands were not around her throat, he was alone in his room and it was all a dream, just a dream, the same old nightmare revisiting.
A brief respite is soon shattered by the much harsher reality.
The dream isn't a dream. It's simply the mirror of his life.
Funnily enough, it's the first three months that are the easiest to survive.
There's an old saying that time can heal anything. So it's natural that one might think that time is a blessing, and the only way forward is to trudge along with time. That the pain peaks in its birth and as long as you cling onto time, it dwindles and fades.
Nezha finds out that clinging onto time to outrun his ghosts is a mistake.
No, he doesn't grieve during the first few months after he killed Rin and Kitay. No, he clings onto time and blindly hopes they will fade away from his mind, as the old saying says.
No, the grieving starts when dust settles down and Nikan manages to stop on the verge of collapsing completely on the ground and Nezha can finally stop and breathe for once.
The first time he allows himself to, he immediately shuts it down. The screams and flashes are louder than any sufferings he endured from the Dragon.
So Nezha buries himself in his work, focuses on uplifting the country, as though as long as he keeps running, he would somehow, someday, outrun his ghosts as well. If he can keep them, her, buried in the past and run, he can survive this. He has to.
He's a fool.
Rin is everywhere.
She flickers in the corner of his eyes, through the smoke rising from fire, edges of the shadows. Everywhere but never here.
Nezha never pays attention to it. He knows his mind is playing tricks, wanting her to be here so, so, so bad.
And so he runs, runs towards his burden of a nation during the day and runs towards the dreams to escape from reality during the night.
But of course.
Rin is everywhere.
In all his dreams, she’s there. Here.
Of course his feet carry him to her. It’s the only path he’s ever believed in.
“Rin.”
A bare whisper when all he wants is to scream her name.
A bare whisper, yet she seems to hear him anyways.
Rin regards him with an empty look.
He's paralyzed under her gaze.
One word.
One word is all she needs to make him move, make him speak, make him do anything.
He would do anything. One word and he would jump off the ledge.
"I would do anything for you."
Rin's smile is cruel and sharp. She leans forward, whispers against his ear.
"Liar."
Nezha cannot tell since when did Rin start to appear in his dreams.
But then again, she’s always been a constant, hasn’t she? Never the beginning nor the end. She never ceased, never stopped, never let anything hinder her. Never in the war, never in his mind.
Not even death can stop her. She burns brighter than that. Lets her light pierce through the walls and crumble the barriers down.
Sometimes, he doesn't kill Rin.
“Can I ask you a question?”
As though he can stop her.
She leans forward, whispers it.
"Did you love me?"
His eyes flicker over hers, unable to answer yet unable to hide it.
"I loved you too," she says. "Can you believe that?"
Please don't say you love me.
Nezha swallows. "No," he whispers. "You didn't."
Her hands ghost over his face, leaving a burning impression behind. He needs to push her away.
"I loved you. I loved you so much that I couldn't hate you, no matter what. I loved you even after you betrayed me. I loved you, and all you did was stab me, hurt me, kill me."
"You didn't."
"I did. I did."
"You couldn't have."
Her face stills. "Am I incapable of loving someone? Is that what you think?"
"No." Of course she loves. He knows how much she loved Kitay.
No. He doesn't know. He cannot even begin to fathom the depth of affection they had for each other. He will never know the bond they shared, for he has never found anything like it.
No, it's not her capability of loving he doubts. The problem is his incapability to be loved.
"You can't love me," he says. "Don't say you love me."
….Because if she does, then all the grounds he's been standing upon shatters, and he knows he cannot survive the fall.
"I loved you. I loved you so much I couldn't kill you."
"Stop lying. Stop."
"Is it really that horrible? Me loving you?"
Her head tilts, lips curled in a mocking smile, and this isn't Rin, this isn't Rin, this isn't Rin.
"Leave me," he chokes. God, he can't breathe. The drowning suffocation is back, and it's multiplied a thousand with her, and he needs her to leave. Leave. "Please leave me."
"Fine."
His head snaps up.
"I'll leave." She whispers against his ear again. "Don't you dare beg for me to come back again."
When he wakes, he finds again that she has indeed left. Left by the blade in his hand.
Sometimes, he doesn't kill Rin. Those days aren't any better.
It was the right thing to do.
Was it a right thing for her to die, then?
Yes. He should be glad she was gone, that Nikan would be free of such madness and chaos, that Nikan would finally have a chance to grow without wars tearing the nation apart.
Her choices had inevitably led her to her own destruction, and Nezha knew it. Knows it.
It was the right thing to do.
Nezha blinks.
He's back at a familiar looking classroom, sitting on a chair and his hands on the desk. Sinegard, where wars were merely words written on pages. Where dreams once were relief, escapes and too short.
"I didn't want to die."
His head turns and she's sitting there, next to him.
"I never wanted to die."
"I'm sorry," he whispers.
Too weak, too futile.
Too late.
She stares straight ahead, not meeting his eyes. This calm facade frightens him more than anything. This isn't a peaceful one. This is the eye of a storm, battle still raging on around them.
He struggles to find words—words his subconscious has been trying to form, words he wanted to say to her if he could talk to her again, just one more time. There are so many, too many, yet all that can escape from his mouth are words that are too late, in vain.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Rin—"
At last, she turns her head slowly to look at him. Her face is too still and placid.
"Why?"
Out of all the questions, she asks the impossible one.
Why? Because he had to. Because he had to. Because he had to.
It was the right thing to do.
I never wanted to die.
I never wanted you dead.
When the silence stretches on with words unable to go pass his lump on his throat, Rin nods as if it confirmed her suspicions. Stands and looks down at him.
"I thought so."
Panic seizes him. "Wait, Rin—"
He reaches out but she's already slipping away from his grasp. As though made of liquid, she slips and turns and evades his hold, so close yet impossibly far.
"You can never save me."
When Nezha awakes, he finds tears wetting his cheeks and never ceasing.
Nature catches up to him.
He grows, he gets older, but his mind and memories and mentality are still stuck in the past. He's running as fast as he can yet always, always, whenever he closes his eyes, he's dragged back into the frozen moment.
History will remember him as a great leader―write him as one, someone who put the nation before anything else, someone who dedicated his whole life to Nikan, who worked days and nights to upright the country, the people.
Nezha never feels like that person; most of the time, he's still a child with the Dragon encircling him, begging for everything to stop.
"Hey," Someone snaps their fingers in his face. "Focus."
Nezha’s head whips around. It's Kitay.
“There you are. I swear you got lost somewhere in that big head of yours.”
“Shut up,” he says automatically. Then he blinks. “What’s with the clothes?”
Kitay’s wearing traditional robes that people wear during special occasions, celebrations. And he’s rolling his eyes.
“I knew one of you, or both of you, would get fucked in the head and freak out, but so soon? Rin!” Kitay waves a hand at a person behind Nezha. “Your fiancé is losing it.”
He turns and there she is.
Alive and breathing. Smiling.
Rin reaches up and straightens his robes.
"You are not running away from the altar."
“The altar?” He echoes.
“Or from here. You are not running away at all. I will hunt you down and murder you myself, I promise you.”
“What?”
Rin reaches up and kisses him on the cheek, softly. "Relax. I never thought you would be the one to freak out."
"Is this real?" He whispers. Are you real?
She makes a face. "Don't remind me. I still don't know why or how I ended up with you, but I guess someone has to look after your ass."
Her hair is decorated with crystal headbands but a strand is rebelliously falling forward. He brushes it out of her eyes. They're warm brown.
He sighs and then pulls her close to him. Again he marvels how such power and strength and stubbornness can be contained in her small form. She feels delicate yet strong in his arms. He buries his face in her hair.
"Don't let me wake up," he whispers. "I don't want to go yet."
"Nezha." A slight pull back, a hand on his cheek. "You must go home."
"I don't have one. Let me stay." If this is a miracle that happens once in a lifetime, if this is a place that only exists in the night skies and across the stars, then let him stay.
Something slides in his hand—a knife.
“You have to kill me now.”
“No. Please…”
“Kill me.” Abruptly, her face changes.
“It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?”
“That’s not true.”
“Liar.”
His mouth is too dry. "Rin…"
“You could’ve pulled away. You were always stronger than I was. You could’ve wrenched the knife away from me. You could’ve done it without blinking an eye.”
Finally, the truth. The one he's constantly been running away from, but never can. It's buried deep in his mind, so wherever he goes, runs, however far or fast or desperate, it always, always stays with him.
Of course Rin yanks it out and taunts him with it.
“Do it. I’m doing you a favor every single night, aren't I?”
Nezha cannot think of a single counter.
Rin’s hand finds his, slides it upward till the knife rests against her neck.
She smiles, reaches up and presses a kiss on his mouth.
"I love you," she says and it's the worst of it all.
History will never know that he was a coward, putting all his force into the future and the country because he’s too terrified to face his past.
This isn’t real.
This isn’t her.
Rin—his Rin—Rin is everything, everything, everything this world renders her to be but she isn't downright cruel. Rin loves as much as hates. She's as vulnerable as she's steel. Rin isn't cruel only. She's a goddess, she's a monster.
But never just one single thing.
And Nezha cannot understand how she could do this to him.
This isn’t her.
But maybe—maybe she is. He’s the one who turned her into this. His Rin, broken and shattered and dead by his hand and reborn in his mind.
On the verge of his ghosts burying him as he fails to bury them, he begs.
Just one moment of peace where he doesn't have to run, doesn't have to tear his mind apart to rip images away, doesn't have to dread waking up or going to sleep.
He begs at his ghosts, knowing they can’t listen.
He begs at his ghosts, knowing even if they can, they won’t.
He begs at his ghosts, knowing that they are his own creation and he cannot help but follow them, even at the end of cliffs.
"Please," he tries to breathe.
He doesn't know what he's even wishing for. Leave me? Come back? Kill me? Let me die?
Please.
And so he drifts, in and out of his consciousness.
The line blurs and the meanings of day and night scatter.
He wishes someone could tell him it's okay. Tell him to let go. Tell him it'll end. Tell him there's an ending to this constant circle. Tell him not to hurt himself so that he can crawl back in.
But the wish blurs away like everything else in his life.
Rin's hand, around his. Flames searing through his skin. Water closing above. A knife pressed against his palm. A voice of a god in his head. A whisper in his ear.
And so he drifts.
One night, when he opens his eyes, instinct screams at him that something's different.
He cannot pinpoint what.
His eyes automatically search for Rin; wherever he is, she will be too.
Which version of Rin would he meet tonight? The downright monster who would taunt him? Or the spirit of a girl who mercilessly, casually reminds him of what he lost? Or the goddess who's so well aware of the power she has on him?
It's impossible to tell from the first sight. Nezha knows from experience that she can turn from a gentle flicker to a whirling storm in a second, as fires do.
She takes a step forward. His breath catches.
"Nezha." She reaches out. He recoils.
An unfamiliar emotion flashes across her face. Hurt. Hurt?
Rin has always been angry. Nezha knows she never let her innermost insecurity show up on her face in battlefields. It's always been anger, madness, chaos, and never such human emotion as hurt. Especially the last years in his dreams and hallucinations and fabrications, she has always been anger itself.
The only times he caught a glimpse of the shattered edges of her soul inside were when she allowed herself to be seen, brief moments when they were in Arlong, together, on the same side.
This is so far from the nightmare that plagued Nezha for decades.
Something's wrong.
"Nezha, it's over. It's okay now."
Over? Over? There's no such thing in his world. It has always been constant, infinite, endless, never a stop or a pause or an end. Constant pain, infinite lifeline, endless life. Waking up to the horrors of reality, sinking into dreams of nightmares. Never over. Never death. Back and forth between waking and dreaming, never knowing which is real, never knowing which is worse.
"It's over," Rin whispers, gripping his arms.
"I need to wake up," he says, voice shaking. "Let me wake up. Don't make me kill you again, I'll do anything, please let me wake up—"
"You don't have to kill me. I'm dead. It's over."
"I killed you, haven't I? Again and again. Haven't I done enough?"
"Nezha—you're dead, you died, it's over, it's over now, please—"
He finally catches what was wrong—what was different. It's the desperate, human voice in Rin, one she reserved for Kitay, one she reserved for Venka, and one she reserved for him, once.
Nezha's hand acts on its own and reaches out, the tips of his fingers lightly brushing her cheek. She doesn't move, vanish or fade away.
"Who are you?" He manages to choke out.
Rin's hand reaches up and covers his own. The touch feels soft, warm and real. "It's me."
“But you died.”
“I did.”
"But you shouldn't have died," he whispered. "I should've died. You deserved to live and rule, not me. You said so."
Rin’s face freezes under his palm. “That wasn’t me.”
“You do think the same.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“It felt like you. I thought it was you.”
“That. Wasn’t me.”
This isn’t happening. He lost Rin a long time ago.
“Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
Nezha closes his eyes. “Don’t make me wish this is real.”
Whatever she does next, he can’t see it. He doesn’t think he can bear to see the twisted look on her face again, even though he’s seen it countless times.
When he feels a tickle on his fingers, he frowns and opens his eyes.
It’s a tear.
She's crying. She's glaring at him through her tears.
“You fucking idiot.”
“You’re crying?” It’s more of a wonder than a question.
"God, I hate you. I hate you. Fuck you."
Without warning, she pulls him toward her, hard, and Nezha stands frozen as she buries her head in his chest. It takes a moment for him to realize she's hugging him.
It takes another moment for him to realize it's not him that's trembling, but her.
His arms tentatively rise and he slides them around her, and she shudders and cries and something in him breaks and he shifts and holds her as tightly as he can dare.
If this is a dream, then let it last for one more second.
She doesn’t leave.
She doesn’t fade away.
He doesn't wake up.
He feels her hand against his and he immediately flinches.
“Don’t―”
“I am here. It’s over.” She backs away slightly, just so he can see her face. It’s wet with tears. “Have I ever lied to you before?”
That sends a choking, startled laugh through him and it’s a strange sensation. A slight smile etches upon her face too, but it’s a smile that he loves and has never seen for decades.
Then it drops and fades and Nezha falters.
"You can stop running," she whispers.
She reaches up and wipes tears on his cheek. He didn't realize.
“I’m so―”
The look on her face instantly shuts him up.
“Not yet. We can talk later.” Her head returns to settle in his chest. “You can rest for now.”
Life has been a constant circle of waking and dreaming, caught in the middle till he was sure he would be shattered apart and yet still unable to escape.
But now, as death shatters the circle and Nezha escapes, he finds that he can finally take a breath in Rin's arms.