Sakura Blooms (Yamato x Male Reader)

Chapter 9 - My Fight

Tooru was trying to laugh, and it was disgusting. "I'm free from Kaido." her words were distorted as blood gurgled from the gash in her throat.

"Shut up you asshole, what aren't you telling me?!" Yamato frantically glanced at Y/N, who seemed to be fine. He just sat there, hand on his throat as he watched Tooru.

"Yamato." That way he said her name.

"What is it?" she breathed, not taking her eyes off Tooru.

"Yamato, I understand now. She dies, I die."

-

"What?" she exploded out. Yamato rushed to Tooru's side, ripped off a piece of her shirt and tried to stop the bleeding in her throat. Within seconds, the fabric was stained red and Yamato's hands were sticky with blood.

"It's futile." Tooru's words were even harder to understand now. "He was never meant to feel love. That's why he failed."

"You bitch." Yamato breathed heavily as she looked at Y/N, who was still sitting there, staring at her.

"If only he had someone like your mother as his mother, Tooru."

"I'm NOT his mother!" Tooru's outburst sent blood spraying over Yamato, and the blood covering Yamato's hands thickened.

Suddenly, Y/N let out a yell. Yamato whipped her head over at him, and his image seemed to flicker.

"Yamato." he said, panting.

"Shut up."

He did. Yamato abandoned her attempts to save Tooru and turned to Y/N instead, pleading in her eyes.

"She said if she dies you'll be free." Even as she said it, Yamato grasped the true meaning behind those words.

Y/N shook his head, the movement obviously paining him. "Come here.." he whispered.

Yamato rushed to Y/N's side, where he sat on the dying grass. "You can't." she breathed.

Y/N looked towards the sakura trees in the courtyard. "When those bloom..." he whispered. "Think of me, Yamato."

Even though the words were in her head, nothing came out. Yamato nodded.

"Be.. h–happy, Yamato."

Yamato gently took hold of Y/N's arms and kissed him. One last time. She breathed in his scent, felt the muscles in his arms, and in one blissful moment everything could have been normal.

And then Yamato was grasping thin air, her eyes blinked open, and nothing more remained of Y/N. Finally, the tears spilled out.

The first time he'd shown her Haki. That day she thought he betrayed her. When he first met Ace. When they finally declared their feelings for each other. When he took her drinking. When they shared a bed. And finally, when they beat Kaido and thought they could be together. Such wishful thinking, which made the tears fall harder.

"Y/N." Yamato whispered. There wasn't even a body to bury. Yamato kneeled on the ground where Y/N had last sat. "Y/N."

-

Yamato reached across the bed for the warm, muscular body, only to feel the cool silken sheets. Shit. Tears threatening to spill again, Yamato turned back around and squeezed her eyes shut.

She'd found Momonosuke and asked for a gardener to start tending to the courtyard. And when she needed someone to talk to, Momo was there. She had to remind herself that he was actually still an 8 year-old kid, but it was a start. A start to life without Y/N. Yamato could handle it. She believed it. And Y/N would have believed it too.