Visions of Gideon (Tokyo Revengers Fic)

Mercy

Takemichi has lived many lives. Been a friend and an enemy. Today, he is a stranger. Today, and perhaps forevermore, he will be a ghost, back to the man he was in his first life. Filled with half-lived fantasies and fallen promises.

In his first life, Takemichi had begged time for mercy. He found mercy in the form of a girl named Hinata Tachibana. In his second life, mercy came to him as a boy who called himself Mikey, gleaming and glowing like the summer sun.

The same boy would then grow to teach him cruelty.

In this life, there is no mercy. No saviour. No destroyer. Only an eternal silence to fill the void.

"Are you going to fucking answer?!"

He doesn't quite have an answer to Kisaki's question. Finds himself lacking the vitality to even bother to find one. Time won't grant him peace, so Takemichi had thought to create some for himself. It is a harder task than he had thought and he thinks he understands why time had forsaken him this time round.

It's tiring.

As a child, Takemichi had always wondered if life was eternal. He never learned the weight of death - not truly. Not until hours after Hinata's death, where he found himself scrambling to remember their last conversation. Their last hug, and he wasn't quite given the time to remember nor dwell, because what was supposed to be their last became eternal.

Time played tricks, and sent Takemichi spiraling backwards, where he was able to create another goodbye. A different timeline.

Death became fleeting and life eternal. He found himself running away from death, as feeble as it had been. Feared it. Perhaps not for himself, but those around him. Those capable of saying goodbye. The ones who were not given a second chance to life, because he had learned death is inevitable.

But life...life is just as fleeting! Just as inevitable.

For one day, there will be a last hug. A final goodbye. A final laughter - and Takemcihi learned it the day life decided to remove him from the equation.

He had been so focused on escaping death, he forgot to live. Spent so long trying to preserve, he forgot to cherish. Forgot to seize the smaller moments. The sprinkles of joy and laughter...he forgot-

He forgot life. And life forgot him in return.

"Are you even listening?!"

He feels drained, unable to reply to Kisaki's question. Instead, he drags his feet back to his bedroom, locking the door behind him and curling underneath his covers. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear Kisaki yelling, and finds he doesn't quite care. Too busy wondering if he should mourn his funeral. If he should curse his own pitiful existence.

Instead, he finds himself laughing, giggling softly to himself. He rolls on his back, arms spread wide and stares at the white ceiling before him. A field of snow. He was not the one creating the footsteps, he was the trail left behind, and like any trail amidst a snow-storm, he too will disappear. Not a step, nor a trace left behind.

His life was no tragedy. A comedy perhaps. A satire in the making, but not a tragedy-no...far from.

Takemichi had always believed that the universe had deemed itself as Takemichi's enemy, holding out a personal vendetta against him. But that wasn't the case, was it?

In those final moments before death-two steps away from the train track-Takemichi had made a prayer, and the universe had answered. He made a similar prayer on the edge of the bridge that night. The night he wished not to die, but to stop.