Bakemonogatari – 'A Thousand Miles, A Thousand Days'

"It has been a long time, or is it short?"

A pair of eyes that glared at her. Six legs clacked on the road. Partly visible crab was then present in front of her. For no bad reason, not at all. After all, it was only there to ease one's suffering, and not only this once that it visited a person for the second time. Yet never once before that it came to save one's life like it did for Senjougahara Hitagi. It did not even remember the name of the lady, not even a slightest bit of clue. Well, gods ain't one to remember much, though its purpose was to hold memories.

She was in a bad shape. Since her husband left, her health seemed to be insignificantly deteriorating. Yet it got worse after years, to the point where she actually felt pain for no reason at all. Her heart and brain, especially, were too weak. Her son had tried to cure her, brought her to many professional doctors, but to no avail. She was indeed exposed to the risks of dangerous shock. In fact, she was lucky to be alive after her family's first trade of fist. These violent incident had put a very high risk, and the crab wanted to at least lower the risk, erase the pain, for that was what it can do.

"Then, would you like to do it again?"

She actually pondered over it; it actually did ease her pain for some time. Since she was very old herself, maybe it was not a bad idea to erase the memories and live her own life to the fullest, or at least, what's left of it. However, she also thought what response might her husband made upon knowing her decision. Nothing good. At the very best, he would respect her last wish, and maybe walk away, since she would no longer remember him. It was just like a reset button.

Blizzard. In the middle of such great disaster would the son of man born, facing harsh reality right the first second on earth. Nobody had agreed nor supported him travelling far, far away, not even the weather. But it was his decision, and what he thought was best for everybody. Everybody except himself.

"It's a boy!"

Holding her hands, he was confused. Should he be joyful? Blissful of his offsrping? Or should he cry upon his decision? Cry for the fate that sets them apart after the birth? Nothing proper came to his mind. It was all blurr, all too confusing to think about, like maths. He was not happy nor sad, but she was. She was happy and sad.

"Kuzuki. Senjougahara... Kuzuki..."

Tears of void. It was not tears of joy, nor of sorrow. He named his son, and cried while doing so, that was basically it. He let her hug their son, and just stared at the most heart-warming scene ever; the scene that he could only enjoy just once. He truly wanted to hug them both, cry as a whole family, but the more he was away, the less he would affect his son's spiritual life. Thus, he contained himself. That was when he met her eyes.

"I'm... leaving, now. Take care of him."

Not even once did she wish to be apart from him. Not even once did she truly agreed upon his decision. It was heart-breaking to even accept that. However angry, sarcastic or pleading she was, that very decision was absolute, though not fully understandable nor rational. She wanted to suffer for him, she wanted to sacrifice for him, be hurt for him. He had saved her, and she loved her for that. She wanted to protect him, in any way she could. It seemed that she couldn't.

"I.. would.."

It actually takes less than a whisper for a god to understand. Well, if she would be likely to refuse, it wouldn't even bother talking to her again. But again, no one truly understood any act of such god, and no one even bothered trying to. In no time, scribbles of red filled the refracting body of it, memoir of her taken away from her soul.

In a blink of an eye, she remembered her love.

She ran to him. It was the end, the end of their life, their love, their story. They had started it, and they were one to end it, once and for all. She hugged him, filled him with her surpressed love that she had kept through all these years. He would be here no more, he would exist no more, and she would forget about him, and would pass away without even a single memory about him. If that was the end, she wanted to at least hug him for the very, very last time.

Teary eyes of a vampire weren't exactly a beautiful sight, but Araragi was Araragi, the one she loved. Though he had little else to think about, he thought about how, tragic, his life would end. The sun would surely burn him to ashes at any moment, so he gathered all his strength to talk. Before he would be stripped from his only string of life, before she would be stripped from all her memories about him, before the world would abandon the man Araragi Koyomi and the woman Senjougahara Hitagi, he wanted to say his last word.

"Aishiteru, Senjougahara."

Their lips touched, the very second Koyomi had his body burnt, and the very second Hitagi had lost her memories about him. The black remnant of his body, blown by the wind, flew away from her, and then up to the endless sky. He would be reincarnated, and nobody knows how his next life would be like except the creator. She fainted, and when she regained consciousness, she remembered nothing. Nothing at all.

That was how the world wanted a kind man's life to end.

Well, that's the end of it. Thank you for following my messed up plot, my confusing grammar error and inapropriate use of words, and the failure of setting up atmosphere.