To Shatter An Oath
So, the trip to the countryside went... well enough. My cat got to run free and had companion and everything was fine and dandy. Except for the fact that I had headache almost all of the time. Ugh...
Happy news is that the school's ending in two weeks! Yay! ^^
And well, there's the first chapter (kind of chapter) of a story I think I mentioned a few entries back. Well, it's more like the first part than anything else, but well. Anyway, like everything in here, it's Yullen and AU. And doesn't probably make much sense, but I hope you like it. Oh, and it hasn't been betaed, so...
...yeah. T__T
Summary: Kanda didn't question his position, Allen couldn't afford to. When their paths crossed by change, everything was bound to go spiralling into turmoil. But can another oath replace a one that has been broken?
To Shatter An Oath
the hand that breaks me, is the hand that repairs me
***
Prologue - Fire leaves smoke, death leaves blood
***
There are steps pounding against the ground, boots hitting the dry road that goes through the small village, men running left and right, but they aren't interested in him (aren't interested in the body lying on the ground, unmoving). The crackling of a fire gets louder, and as the blue sky is covered in smoke people start screaming louder. He hears a shriek of pain, absently knows that someone has killed a woman.
But he can't bring himself to move his eyes from the now dim skies and push aside the fog that fills his mind. He wants to, but the darkness that spirals closer by each passing moment is like a heft that chains him down to the ground. His legs feel heavy.
Then something yanks his hair, hard, and he winces at the daggers that pierce through his skull. There is a grunt, curse, before that something (someone) grabs him by his shoulder and starts dragging him away from where he's been lying. His head lulls to side, too heavy for him to hold it up, and there is a dead child in the puddle of her own blood.
The last thing he hears before the suffocating darkness washes over him, is a command to take the intact wagons and burn everything else to the ground. He doesn't have time to wonder if it means the men are going to burn the people too.
***
The first act: A beginning that isn’t the beginning
***
There had been a time when sun had been gold and fire and brightness and rain a wail of liquid silver. That time his happiness had bloomed and his smiles been sincere.
That time he'd been a child and he'd had a father.
***
Kanda took a step back and detached Mugen from the body of a young man, probably even younger than himself. Limply, the already dead man fell to the ground, his body rolling over once so it was lying on its stomach as if to hide the deep wound that went through it. Watching with no interest as the blood that poured out the corpse's chest got absorbed into the chapped soil even before it could create a puddle, Kanda wiped Mugen's blade on the dead man's clothes.
Blood caused steel to rust.
A muffled sob directed his attention to the small girl, maybe around the age of seven or eight, cowering against the building’s wall. Her blond hair that had been braided neatly to a one simple plait at her nape, was now stained with blood drops, and her blue eyes were red from the tears that ran down her cheeks. All in all, the girl looked horrified to death by the murder of the man - his brother, father, guardian, Kanda didn't care - and it would've probably been more merciful to just kill her then.
But war didn't know such a thing as mercy and the orders were to take alive everyone who wouldn't cause too much havoc.
Kanda let his sword stay unsheathed and stepped over the corpse, making the child cry out in fear. Unceremoniously he grabbed the girl by her arm, starting to drag her with him to the center of the village. She kicked and screamed and struggled, anything to make him let go of her, but Kanda just tightened his hold and ignored every protest she made to stop him.
What was left of the small caravan of assorted vagabonds they’d assaulted had been gathered to the square in the middle of the small town, and as Kanda walked along the road that went through the entire village, he could tell that the people travelling with it hadn’t put up a real fight. Here and there some of the platoon’s men were still finishing off the last ongoing scuffles and few bodies lay scattered on the ground, but otherwise everyone had surrendered without resistance - or been caught like the girl he was dragging with him.
The villagers, on the other hand, had probably shut themselves inside their homes and wouldn’t dare to come out until all of the black jacketed men of the platoon had long since left. Someone would need to check through the houses for outlaws, but that was as far as their current authority went - inhabitants of the villages in the secure areas were to be left in peace unless they opposed Empire’s soldiers or hosted the enemy. Anyone who resisted the army was to be captured, interrogated and - depending on the previous acts and the information gotten from the hearing - executed.
Often the process was skipped right to the last part.
Kanda scowled.
He’d been in the army for nine years and acted as a lieutenant for the past three ones, he knew every code and law by his heart like they’d been branded on him - which wasn’t actually that far from the truth, but he hardly thought about it - and had never even once broken any of them. His fast rising in the ranks was based for long on his discipline and infallible loyalty to the Empire and Order, both facts that aroused talk in the army. Within the common soldiers he was either feared or hated, among the higher ups and nobility despised and acknowledged - a dangerous, talented pawn, but pawn non the less.
In other words, he had reputation.
Kanda hardly cared.
He’d been trained to become a soldier of the Empire for as long as he remembered, a role that had been decided for him even before his birth. No one had ever asked if that was what he wanted, and Kanda had never said a word to question his fate - had barely even thought about it during his twenty-three years of living. He’d been raised by the Order and the Order was his purpose for existing, just like it was - or at least was supposed to be - that for every other person within the organization. Its word was to be his law, his only concern fulfilling its will. He wasn’t permitted to care about what other people thought of him, wasn’t permitted to care at all.
The Order was the law of gods and its pawns were the priests.
Not that Kanda gave a damn. He didn’t need anything he couldn’t get from the Order, and it didn’t matter to him how many lives he took in the name of the gods. He had nothing else to do, no relatives, no family, hence it was only rational for him to stay. Whatever vows or oaths he’d sworn before his pedagogues, his pride wouldn’t stop him from breaking if needed - the mark in his flesh, though, would make him pay a high price for a treachery. The Order wanted to be sure its power was absolute, even moreso when it came to its own subordinates. The higher-ups were afraid of their underlings.
The cowards.
Kanda rounded the first intact wagon, and a mop of fiery red came to his sight before he could take another step. The girl behind whimpered in pain as his grip on her wrist tightened notably, and in annoyance he yanked her forcefully. Not slowing down - quite the opposite, actually - he strode to where the redhead was standing next to Daisya, laughing like the idiot he was. Most of the prisoners where sitting on the ground near them, already chained together. Those who were injured or unconscious had been carried into two wagons in the middle of the square.
The dead would be left where they lay. They didn’t have the time to bury them.
Lavi spotted him coming ten feet away, ridiculously wide grin splitting his face in two, and Kanda would’ve been ready to bet everything he owned that the only reason the idiot didn’t bounce on him right away was the girl stumbling behind him. For a soldier the redhead had absolutely no sense of eligible behavior at all, what with how he acted like an adolescent brat that had nothing better to do with his time than pull pranks on others.
The idiot.
"What took you so long, Yuu? I’ve been waiting here forever!" Lavi whined with the most pathetic - and, consequently, the most annoying - tone he could muster, though his face was positively radiating hilarity. "You can’t be getting rusty, can you, Yuu? It’s been just a week since the last strife!"
Kanda’s eye twitched in annoyance. "Shut up, Usagi. And stop calling me that unless you want to be charged of treachery", he snapped as he stepped past the redhead to thrust the sobbing girl to Daisya. Lavi didn’t even wince, just kept wailing on about how he acted so cold even though they were supposed to be closest friends. Kanda almost snorted. As if.
Daisya arched an eyebrow at him nearly mockingly - nearly - while tugging the girl’s arm up so she couldn’t wriggle so much. "Sensitive, are we not?" he bantered, grinning almost as wide as Lavi had just a second ago. Sometimes Kanda could swear the two were somehow related despite their looks.
"Shut up", he growled, eyes narrowing menacingly. The tattooed man just rolled his eyes and turned around to take the girl where the rest of the prisoners were sitting, shrugging his shoulders in indifference.
Which left Kanda alone with Lavi. Well, shit.
"Come on, buddy! Tell me what’s with that sour look", the junior Bookman grinned, swigging an arm around his shoulders in a too friendly manner. With an irritated grunt Kanda shoved the slightly taller man away and moved Mugen so it was between them.
"Start fucking remembering your place, baka Usagi. I’m your platoon commander, so act accordingly", he snapped angrily even though he knew full well that Lavi wasn’t going to change his habits anytime soon. Not because of his threats at least - the redhead wasn’t working for the army, thus nothing Kanda said could really affect him. As long as Lavi didn’t become hindrance to his missions, he had no authority to order the idiot.
"Just like you say, sir", the man replied without missing a beat, rocking back and forth on his feet. "Now, what’s gotten you all worked up, Yuu-chan? Did someone ask what a pretty woman like you was doing in the army?"
Kanda threw his best glare at Lavi, seething with barely controlled anger. He really wasn’t in the mood to tolerate the redhead’s jokes, what with the ache in his muscles and the steadily mounting pain on the left side of his head. Lavi, however, didn’t take the clue, simply shrugging the angry scowl off like it had no effect whatsoever. And really, it didn’t. Not that Kanda had any idea why.
"No? Then what is it? You know you can tell me! I’m your best, closest, most reliable friend! No need to be shy, Yuu-chan!" the junior Bookman went on with a grin and too cheerful tone as Kanda turned around to find some place where he could have peace even though he knew there wouldn’t be any. Not before they got back to their camp, at least.
"Che. Reliable my ass", he scoffed, brows furrowed. "Aren’t you supposed to be checking the houses, anyway? We’re not letting you tag along for nothing, Bookman or not."
"I did already", Lavi replied, his tone serious all of a sudden. Frowning, Kanda turned to look the recorder over his shoulder just to find the previously cheery grin now mirthlessly crooked. "There’s no one here. Not a one soul besides ourselves and the vagabonds. Oh yeah, and a cat that was sleeping on one of the verandas. Pretty ugly thing if you ask me."
Kanda’s fingers gripped Mugen’s hilt more tightly as his body tensed. "What do you mean there’s no one here?" he growled, eyes only thin sliver of black between the eyelids. Lavi just shrugged his shoulders, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, and took up staring into the sky.
"It means exactly that. The people that lived here, aren’t in the village anymore. Nor on the fields around it", the redhead said. "There’s no other signs of a fight than the ones we’ve done and that cat I found seems to be the only animal left behind."
Kanda stared. It wasn’t uncommon to find desolate villages or even towns these days. The current war had waged over seven years and the previous one had ended only four years before it. Those few years were the only peacetime during Kanda’s lifetime and many of the people in the frontiers had it worse - it was never really peaceful in the remote regions. But that a village at least fifty miles from the border was abandoned? It just didn’t happen.
Something was wrong.
***
The bouncing movement of the surface he was lying on was the first thing Allen became aware of. After that, came the pain.
"Ugh…"
Red spots filled the back of his eyelids and very carefully he cracked one eye open, hissing as he was met with blinding brightness of the outside world. In an instant thousands of needless were piercing his head, a headache so intense that he wanted to vomit blooming to its full beauty before he could even think about turning his head away. With a pained groan he raised an arm to shield his vision and rolled onto his side.
What in the name of all gods had happened…?
The thing he was on - in? - swooped down suddenly, collided with something and bounced back up again. Allen muffled a whimper as his head hit the hard surface he lay on, sending another wave of pain through his nerves, but forced his eyes open anyway.
He was met with a view of old boards and someone’s feet.
Rattling of wheels and another bump made him finally realize he was in a wagon, and as he glanced around gingerly, he saw he wasn’t alone; there was at least ten other people with him, most of them lying still on uncomfortable looking positions. Allen frowned in apprehension, pushing himself up carefully. Half way to his knees a wave of dizziness came over him, nearly making him threw up at once.
After some time he got his stomach under control and was able to straighten up to a sitting position. One hand propped against the boards to give support and the other one holding his forehead Allen closed his eyes, breathing slowly few times to get adjusted to being upwards. When he finally made to look around, the force of the deja vu that hit him almost had him gagging again.
The wagon was steadily rattling forward with seven others following behind it and probably more ahead of it. People dressed in the army’s black attire were riding on horses around the caravan, keeping watch on the shabby line of prisoners who’d been chained together as they shambled forward, trying to keep up with the convoy. Orders were being shouted somewhere further ahead and it seemed like something had happened, but Allen couldn’t distinguish the words.
Though, it wasn’t like he was trying either. The initial shock of understanding the situation hadn’t still worn off.
"They’re taking us to their camp", a soft, clear voice said somewhere from his right, causing Allen to jump. Hastily he turned his head towards the source of the words, just to find a young girl staring at him with clear blue eyes and melancholic expression.
"W-what?" he stuttered, not really aware of even opening his mouth.
"They’re taking us to their camp", the girl repeated. "Everyone who was with the caravan. Everyone who’s still alive, that is. They leave the dead on the side of the road."
Allen stared, still unable to process her words properly. The camp? Dead? What had happened? What was happening? He didn’t remember. It was all hazy mass of pain, confusion and mist. All he could remember was lying on ground, his vision swimming in and out of focus as the clear sky was covered by smoke. But it was wrong. He shouldn’t have woken up in a moving wagon.
"The… village", Allen said slowly, eyes staring through the blond girl. "There were men with weapons. Soldiers. Was there…?" he trailed off, pressing hand against the prick of his nose. Why was it so blurry? "Was there a fire?"
"Fire? No. I didn’t see fire anywhere", she answered , watching him with unblinking eyes through her blood stained bangs.
"Where’s…?" Allen started but cut himself off almost instantly as things finally clicked into right places. The village that had burned down and the village that hadn’t, the soldiers in gray and the black-cladded men of the Empire, the man with too wide smile and disgustingly sweet voice and now this girl that had dried tiers on her cheeks. There was no use asking where Mana was, since he wasn’t with him anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time. "Where are we now?" he asked instead.
The girl cocked her head to side as if curious, but her face remained emotionless as she answered. "About a day’s travel from the village."
Allen glanced at the slowly walking line of the prisoners, this time recognizing some of them, before let his gaze drift to the soldiers. He counted eleven in sight and by what he could hear, there had to be more. It seemed like they had been taken in by either a platoon or a small company.
He pressed his lips into thin line and tried to think what to do.
"It’s an inquisitorial section."
Blinking Allen turned to look at the girl, only now noticing that she was holding a hand of an old man lying next to her. He was covered with a worn out cloak that had fresh looking blood stains on it, and Allen could hardly see his chest moving as he breathed. It seemed like the man was injured.
Forgetting the girl’s words for a moment, Allen turned to fully face the pair. "Is he your relative?" he asked, trying his best to make his voice sound soft. Her expression didn’t change at all.
"Not by blood."
He swallowed, pushing back the face of his foster father, and smiled gently at her. "Is he injured? I don’t know a lot about tending people, but I can fend wounds if needed."
The girl looked at him quietly for a moment, her clear blue eyes staring at him like it was the first time she actually saw him. Finally she spoke. "You can’t help him. And even if you could treat his wounds, he would die soon after either way. It’s too late now, there’s nothing to do anymore than wait", she stated calmly, too calmly, and let her gaze drop. "But thank you for offering your help."
"I’m sorry", Allen answered, looking away again. There was something in the scene that made him feel like intruder just by being there, sitting next to the two when he knew nothing of them. When he couldn’t do anything for them.
The silence went on for a good while, rattling of the wheels and distant voices filling the air as Allen gazed the grassland extending to horizon. The land was hilly and no matter which direction you looked, there was just more and more grass with few groves punctuating the scenery in the distance. It was warm - it was always warm these days - and the constant wind did little to lessen the heat of the sun. The prisoners that had been forced to walk staggered in the line, exhausted and some of them hardly even staying on their feet anymore, and as one of the soldiers told them to pick up speed, he suddenly remembered the words the girl had said earlier.
Hastily Allen turned towards the two again. "Excuse me, but did you say this is an inquisitorial section?"
She looked up at him, her sun colored hair spilling over her shoulders like a bloody cascade. "Yes. I saw the insignia on some of the soldiers when we left the village."
Allen felt his face draining from all color, the urge to throw up washing over him once again. Swallowing hard he turned to watch the line of wagons slowly rumbling along the unpaved road. If the girl was right - and she probably was - he didn’t want to think about what would happen once they reached the camp. The life of vagabonds hadn’t been easy to begin with, but ever since the army had found an entire ring of the enemy’s spies hidden among tramps, travelling with caravans had become outright dangerous. The Empire had legalized the imprisonment of everyone found wandering the country side and the consequences of travelling with other than merchandise caravans were more often than not torture and execution.
With desperation Allen stared at the plain landscape stretching all around him.
There was no place to hide.