To be real, I can’t find it in myself to mind at all if Kakucho dies.
Hewanted to. He wanted to go with Izana, not because he was forced or coerced or anything; he just wanted to go with him. The person he lived for was dead and he was good and ready to hold his hand and go together. He didn’t choose to survive and he sure as hell didn’t like that he survived.
Him living on when he didn’t want to has felt more tragic to me than anything else that could possibly happen with him now.
It’s telling enough that, since Tenjiku, all he’s done is drag his feet forward and get used by others. But it’s even more telling that between the “looks like I lived” Kakucho and the “if I die now, it wasn’t a bad life at all” Kakucho, there’s no question on which seems happier.
“Just as man has the right to live as he chooses, he has the right to die when he pleases.” (Dazai, classic japanese author.)
