Title: LiVE/EViL
Pairing: NaruseXSerizawa
Rating: PG13 (violence)
Warning: SPOILER ALERT
Note:.
Woah. I wrote it in one night. It was hard. And I dunno if it’s so great. I like it. I really do. I dunno if it’s exactly what Ace wanted, but I hope she likes it. If there are any errors, feel free to tell me!
THIS IS FROM THE LAST SCENES OF MAOU. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED AND ARE GOING TO, DO NOT READ, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT. (This is not my own work, exactly. The words have been used from the drama. Just saying.)
Requester: Ace-nee!

——

Night. Everything that was not lit up by street lamps or house lights was dark; ominous. The one now called Naruse Ryo, he who had abandoned his given name Manaka Tomoo, approached a man with his back turned. The man was surveying the area, the place where he had committed a near crime, though he had not been found guilty by the court. That had been an action of truth and his father. Now, the Detective stood. Finally able to understand why Naruse Ryo pursued him so. The one he had accidentally stabbed had been Manaka Tomoo’s brother. The brother was not willing to let go of the cold and painful feelings the occurrence of the death and following after had caused him.

            Naruse swallowed, taking tentative yet determined steps towards his victim. His footsteps echoed through the building which was lit by a dull light and the shine of the moon on the place where his brother had been killed. Many thoughts swarmed through his head.

            Serizawa turned, penetrating Naruse with his pitying and resolved gaze. Naruse turned the words around in his mouth before he spoke; “What an appropriate place for our ending, don’t you think?”

He felt the words penetrate the Detective who replied, as if he had already sought out the words beforehand, “Your final target…” he took a deep breath, readying himself for the next phrase, the next line which would lead him closer to what needed to be done for redemption of all the deaths. “…is me, huh?”

            Naruse didn’t respond. Serizawa knew he was correct. He had figured it out like a smart detective. He waited for the moment. And the moment in which the detective reached to his back pocket and drew the gun arrived. Naruse was ready for it.

            “I’ll never…” Serizawa growled, “… let you complete your revenge.” Naruse looked at the man, detached from the entire scene that was playing out before him. It was happening exactly as he planned. Right from the beginning, everything was going according to the plans he had created. “Because of me…” Serizawa continued, arm shaking as well as his voice. The muscle in his raised arm and the muscle in his neck strained. “…So many people died. My father and brother too…” Serizawa breathed in. His voice getting hard to control; trying to steady the emotions that were dying to break out of his body. “It’s because of me you’re on this path of revenge. That’s why… I have to stop this with my own hands!” The other hand rose to grip his gun, steadying it. Naruse stood still. He was completely ready. His lips twitched in contempt.

            Serizawa held the gun in his shaking hands, his finger twitched on the trigger. He was ready to pull, but not, at the same time. The emotions still conflicted within his mind. His emotions and those of Naruse. He took a breath as if to speak, arms shaking with the strain of holding the gun up for so long. His jaw clenched and he took another breath.

            Naruse swallowed, eyes slightly watered with a pain he must not let Serizawa know of. “Why are you hesitating?” He asked. His composed stature slightly falling as he spoke the words. They wobbled and his lips trembled. The plan he had thought would go so well was not. “Don’t you hate me?” He accused. For the man should hate him.

            Serizawa raised his head at the uncharacteristic words of the lawyer. Naruse blinked and his head twitched with pain. “Your…only father…and kind brother were taken from you.” Serizawa blanched just a bit. The words that were so true stung. “And…your precious…” Naruse’s voice cracked as he plowed on through the painful words he was using to egg Serizawa on. “…friends were murdered!” Serizawa clenched his teeth, eyes watering with pain of memories that he was sworn to remember. He sucked in a tortured breath and Naruse continued, not letting up. “Even if you kill me…” He choked out, words nearly failing from the intense emotions he was desperately trying to hold back. “…your hatred will never be satisfied. Am I wrong?!”

            Serizawa clenched his eyes shut, pain hitting him harder with each word that was released from Naruse’s trembling lips. A tear slipped down his cheek and he dared not wipe it away. “Even the law…can’t punish me,” Naruse said, words defeated. Serizawa opened his eyes, not yet looking up to the tortured lawyer. “This is your last chance for revenge! Quickly! Kill me!” Naruse pleaded. The words tumbled from his mouth. The pain filled the last phrase; the uncontrollable sorrow overflowing in his words.

            Serizawa lifted his head. His eyebrows pulled away from each other as the realization of Naruse’s words sunk in. The stream the tears had left on his cheek sparkled in the dim lighting. He swallowed, lowering his gun. Naruse’s eyes flicked back and forth, from Serizawa to the lowered gun. “This was…” Serizawa said, voice low and defeated as well. “…what you were aiming for…?” Naruse’s gaze stuck on Serizawa’s eyes. “You wanted me to kill you…?” Naruse’s eyes widened. The Detective had figured it out. He had figured it out and disrupted the plan, yet the man continued to speak. “To punish me who escaped from my sins…” Another tear fell. “…By making me kill someone intentionally…” Naruse swallowed. “… You willingly threw your life away…?” Naruse knew the man was unable to understand the feelings, and the feeling of his own hatred towards himself, not just towards the Detective. How could he understand when his life had not been lived with the suffering and pain that he had to live through his entire life?

            “You…” he said, trying to compose himself. He sniffed, trying to blink the tears in his eyes away. “… Really don’t get it yet?” A tear fell. “In my life…I have lost… absolutely nothing. From the moment… Hideo and my mother died. Everything…” His breath shivered from his lips. The pain of revealing his life was worse than living through it. “…will end with this. Finally…the time for me… to return to myself has come.” The tears streamed down his face, voice tight with the strain of holding the tremble from his voice.

            Slowly, he approached the other pained man on wobbly legs. “Now…shoot me… please…” He could not look past the sorrowful eyes of Serizawa. “This is…your responsibility as the one…who ran away from the truth.” Serizawa shook his head. Whether from the unwillingness to believe or the harsh words of the truth Naruse had spoken, he could not yet be sure.

            “Stop,” he choked, words barely audible, for Naruse still drew near.

            “End this…” He pleaded, drawing up closer.

            “Please stop,” Serizawa choked, pain unbearable. Naruse clenched his teeth and grabbed the hand in which Serizawa held the gun. He pulled it to his body, causing Serizawa to stumble on weak legs.

            “Shoot me!” He pleaded. Streams of tears leaving marks on his cheeks. His voice and body shivered with the ache of his words. The words he was voicing, the actions he was pleading for were so true that his body was having a hard time letting them out. Serizawa looked at the tortured man, unbelieving of his misery and suffering and of his need to be killed. “It’s your duty! Kill me!” He yelled.

            The gun fell from Serizawa’s hand with a deadening thud. Naruse blinked and looked towards his feet where the gun lay. Serizawa shook his head, pressing his lips together in an attempt to not voice his cries. Naruse’s eyes turned blank as he looked back to Serizawa. “I can’t…” he said, another tear falling. “The one who has made you suffer…was me.” The tears on Naruse’s cheeks sparkled in the light at Serizawa’s defying and incredulous words. “No matter what…I can’t kill you…” his voice cracked with the strain of his words for the man he felt so much pity for. He bowed his head, breathing hard against the tears that streamed down his cheeks.

            Naruse swallowed, His head shook slightly from side to side, trying to find a resolve. “If I…” he said, leaning down to pick up the gun with shaky hands. “…Live on like this…” Serizawa stood with his hands clenched, eyes on the slowly rising, trembling gun. “I…will never forgive myself!” He stood tall, cocking the gun and pressing it against his temple with silent resolve.

            “Stop!” Serizawa yelled, horrified, lunging for the gun. He grabbed it and pulled away just as a shot was fired. It went ringing through the air as the two men struggled for possession of the gun. Naruse’s eyes shut and a sob escaped his raw throat. Serizawa’s eyes would not leave the gun which he knew had another bullet in it.

            “End it,” Naruse pleaded as Serizawa brought the gun down lower to their waists.

            “Stop!” Serizawa exclaimed.

            “End it now!!” Naruse screamed.

            “Calm down!”

            “Just kill me!!” Naruse ordered, screaming out the words.

            “STOP!” Serizawa pleaded as the struggle commenced… and ended with a gun shot. Serizawa fell onto Naruse’s shoulder, hand still clutched over the hands that held the gun. Naruse looked into nothing with the collapsed man on top of him, not realizing what had just happened, gun shot still ringing in his head. Why wasn’t he dead?

            Serizawa pulled away and Naruse’s head turned to meet Serizawa’s incredulous gaze. They stared at each other until Serizawa collapsed to his knees on the cold, hard concrete. His hands curved in front of his belly and he lowered his gaze to look at the bloody hole the bullet had caused. Naruse looked at the blood that dripped from the man’s stomach. Serizawa’s eyes fluttered shut and his neck leaned to the side as strength slipped from his tired limbs.

            Naruse looked on, eyebrows pulled together, as the man’s body flopped fully onto the concrete with a solid thud. He dropped to his knees next to Serizawa, gun falling from his hand to the ground with a clack. His breaths sped and his hands fumbled on Serizawa’s stomach and shoulder.

            His breath trembled as he yelled, “Hold on!” The dying man looked up at him with half lidded eyes. His lips were parted and each breath that left his lips seemed to be pained. Naruse looked from the bullet wound to Serizawa’s face then reached into his suit pocket to pull out a dark blue handkerchief and press it to the bloody spot. His hands shook. “Oi…! Hold on!”

            Trembling hands reached back into his pocket to pull out a cell phone. Serizawa’s breaths became hitched in his throat and Naruse’s quick breaths matched. A bloody hand reached up and gripped the cell phone. Naruse looked into Serizawa’s tired eyes.

            “T-T-This…” Serizawa said, voice weak and strained. “…is how it should have been…” Naruse’s eyes widened. This was not what he had intended to happen. This was not what he wanted. “I-If only it had happened…from the very beginning…” Serizawa struggled to voice his words. He swallowed dryly and reached up with his other hand to push the cell phone out of Naruse’s hand and grip it within his own. Naruse’s lips trembled more than they had before as he looked down on the dying man that still pitied him. “Please live on…” Serizawa requested, voice failing. “…With everything you have… for your own sake. Please…continue to live…”

            A lone tear fell from Naruse’s already worn eyes. He couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand why the man he had compiled all his hate onto was willing to forgive him and tell him to live on. “Tomoo-san…” Serizawa said with his weak voice, addressing Naruse with his given and thrown away name. Another tear crawled down Naruse’s cheek, his eyes becoming less wide. He sniffed and his lips twitched. He was unable to speak any words. “Please forgive me…” Naruse’s heart clenched. “Forgive me…And… Your own self…” Naruse stared dumbstruck at Serizawa. How was he to forgive himself…

            The hands slipped off of his. The eyes closed. The head fell to the side. Naruse sniffed, fumbling with his words. He was unable to say anything. Unable to believe what was happening. Unable to believe that this plan had ultimately failed. Unable to believe that the man he had hated so much was now forgiving him… and asking his own forgiveness.

            “Hang on…” He sobbed, shaking Serizawa by the shoulders. “Open…” He choked out. “Open your eyes…!” His voice squeaked with passion and broke along with his heart. “Oi…!” He sucked in a watery breath through his teeth, tears streaming openly down his cheeks. “Don’t die…” He lifted up Serizawa into his arms, hugging him tight to his body. “Don’t die Serizawa…!” He choked out, gripping the man closer. “Don’t die..!” He begged. “Please don’t die,” he took a breath. “Don’t die, Serizawa! Don’t die!”

            Naruse’s body hunched over the dead man’s. The person who he had hated had forgiven him. The person who he had hated had asked him to forgive himself. The person who he had hated told him to live on when Naruse knew it was not possible for the aching knife wound to his belly.

            Carefully, he pulled Serizawa over to some boxes, sat him up and sat beside him. He knew he was going to die and did nothing to try to stop his death. To live is to be plagued with evil, he though. He took his brother’s harmonica out of his inside pocket and placed it in Serizawa’s open, cold hand. He gripped it tightly, a signal that he had forgiven Serizawa for what he had done, though unsure if he was able to forgive himself. He pulled away, eyes closing. His head fell slowly and landed on Serizawa’s shoulder. His last breath slithered out of his lips, yet he was content.

            His life as “live”ing and being surrounded by “evil” because of it was now over.