SA: Well, I wrote this one a while ago and finally typed it up this weekend, but my cousin’s Internet is crap so I had to wait until I got home. So here it is! Finished copy! Just a little one-shot. I hope to post a real, chapterful story soon!!

Summary: Heartbroken and confused, Motoko Kusanagi visits the grave of someone very familiar before she makes the most difficult decision of her life.

By His Graveside

By: Silver Affection

The sakura blossom petals fall from the trees to land on your grave, painting a very beautiful, yet tragic, picture.

Motoko Kusanagi, the proud Major of Section 9, stood here, her black trench coat blowing in the wind, staring down at the pale tombstone. ‘Hideo Kuze. A Brave Hero.’ That was all it read.

Next to his tombstone, the only ones in that secluded corner of the cemetery, sat two other tombstones, both blank. The tombstones of Motoko’s parents. No records of their names still existed.

“I’m sorry, Kuze. Sorry for everything. I just couldn’t open up and accept you fast enough. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that you really were that boy from all those years ago.”

With an uncharacteristic soft gaze, she looked up at the pale morning sky, sakura petals falling into her hair, her black trench coat waving in the wind, catching more petals in its folds. “I’ve left Section 9,” she whispered very softly, as if embarrassed to admit it. “I know that your consciousness has to be somewhere out in the Net. Someone as strong as you are can’t just die the way you did…” She then paused. “Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part….” she trailed off, shame and hopelessness in her voice. “After what I felt…under that rubble, together with you again…I don’t know how I can ever go back to the life I once lived.”

She knelt down then, laying a bouquet of flowers atop the recently disturbed soil. “Maybe I’m the one that’s trapped. Not just by Section 9, but by society itself. My Ghost, Kuze…My Ghost tells me that it’s time for me to move on. I feel so constrained by the rules and regulations. I…I do want to help people. I’m not a monster with no feelings…I just…Don’t know what to do with those feelings anymore. I feel like I cannot function under Section 9’s rules and regulations anymore.”

She paused, staring at the gravestone. “What have I become, Hideo?” she asked, calling him by his first name for the first time. “Because of my inability to believe in anything…to trust you…you died. You sacrificed yourself for your cause that you were so devoted to, but you also sacrificed yourself to set me free. And now I’m all alone again, left without you. Without hope.”

She paused again, tears unwillingly coming to her eyes for the first time in years. She hadn’t cried since she was in the plane crash…She looked back fondly, remembering how as she cried, Hideo had wrapped his arm around her, as if trying to comfort her in her seemingly final moments.

She bowed her head. “I will continue on for you, Hideo. I—I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize my feelings before. But what I really want you to know, if you can hear me somehow, is that you were the one to help me realize my feelings, even though it was too late for you. I promise now that I will help others in your stead, Hideo. I’m grateful for all that you’ve done for me.”

She then turned away but stopped before moving a step foreword. “I never got a chance to tell you my name. It’s Motoko Kusanagi. I hope you can hear that, wherever you may be. Goodbye.” And with that, she began her trek back across the graveyard, the sakura blossoms scattering from her gliding trench coat, more falling to decorate her hair.

Her car was parked just outside the cemetery, but to her surprise, Batou was standing there by her car.

“I figured that you would have come out here,” he said in a somewhat gentle tone. “Tell me, why did you leave?” What was that tint of emotion in his voice? Sorrow? Regret? Not even Motoko could read that one.

Motoko was silent for the longest time, staring of into the crystal clear sky where the sun was rising up, bringing the new day. “I just need some time to myself. To think things over. I may come back someday, I may not. Bye, Batou. And thank you.” She said no more as she stepped into her car, starting it up by driving it off.

Batou wouldn’t see her again for almost two years, in which his feelings would grow even stronger.

FIN