Staring up into his eyes, it was just the same as it'd always been. I was the weaker, and he, my mentor, elder, and master, the stronger. With that gun pointed at his forehead and my finger on the trigger, I forgot my family, my beautiful wife and the daughter we loved so much. He'd overpowered me again, seized control of my thought, and all of my memories of him came crashing back down on me. The love, the loss, the guilt—all of it was so immense, so powerful that it rocked me to the core and shook me from my senses. Hearing whispered promises echo endlessly in my head, seeing freeze-frames of late afternoons and rainy mornings spent together, my stomach turning from the all-too-familiar fragrance that his room was always scented with—holding that gun, my finger trembled on the trigger.

I lost control of everything, all of my senses. I couldn't remember where we were, what this was, why—just me here, him above me, and between us, my finger on the trigger. Through the fog of the past, only one thought penetrated like a beacon—this had to end.

And so I did it. I pulled the trigger. Staring right into his eyes, those eyes that loved me and haunted me and burned with desire and betrayal, I pulled the trigger. I watched as his skull was blasted apart, and his blood splattered all over me. And I could have sworn, in that split second before the bullet hit, somehow, he'd whispered, "I love you," one last time.

XXXXX

Endnotes: I think I'm obsessed with writing things about Kakaro and/or Malachai's death... and it always changes; sometimes Kakero dies, sometimes Malachai dies, sometimes they both die. Oh, and in LMP, the same confrontation takes place, but neither dies. So obviously in this one Malachai dies. His head a splode. Ohnoes! I really do love the whole story we've got going between these two, though... whee. I think this is another thing I wrote in the middle of the night, you know... XD I write the strangest things then, I swear... okay, I'll quit ranting.