KINTSUGI ⊳jin sakai x yuna

にじゅうしち (twenty seven)

Even though Jin believes he is, in fact, very skilled in the art of controlling his emotions, there are certain moments when he fails. And this is one of them.

He knows Yuna can take care of herself. But Benjiro is unpredictable, just like any child is, and that can get in the way of even the most skilled fighters. His worries only multiply when he notices the mongols that had picked up on his presence make a run straight for the explosion. To the shack where the prisoners sleep. To where Yuna was supposed to attack from.

Panic thumps somewhere deep inside his heart and lungs, but not in his head, and even less so in his hands. Jin's not skilled enough to suppress the emotion itself, but burying its effects on him is second nature. That's what makes him becomes even more ruthless under stress. He has no regret left to feel, no honor to regard, no blood to fear spilling — not when Yuna's life is at stake. Unlike most people, his mind is steady when adrenaline takes over, and Jin takes advantage of every weapon in his arsenal twice as much as usual.

He sprints after them, multitasking that with lighting a sticky bomb on fire. If there were any larger rocks in his path, he'd be doomed to trip, but the kami are on his side tonight. He has to thin the mongols down before they get to Yuna and the others, or at least cause a distraction. What better way to do so than what got their attention in the first place?

Jin can't even hear the low crackling of the bomb's now lit fuse over the blood rushing through his ears. He keeps his gaze straight, throws the bomb.

Two, no, three men are all sent flying for a few steps, and that's already an encouraging drop in their number.

Some look back, only the ones that have already reached the slaves' shack don't. Jin hopes Yuna can manage them, at least until he takes care of the ones that remain.

Sword fighting isn't something graceful, not by default. There's nothing civilized about metal against metal, about blood spraying the grass along the impetus of a blade, about being so close to your enemy that you can smell their rotten breath, their sweat. It's all pure savagery, and the samurai were fools to ever think they could make something spotless and elegant out of it. But as are the mongols, relying on nothing but pure brutality to break through what stands in their way.

Jin knows the most efficient answer lays somewhere in-between, deep within the golden middle. At his best, he's both remorseless and elegant — that makes him a force not many want to reckon with.

And the ones that do always end up dead.

"Ene bol bidnii süülchiin bömbög!" (Tr: This is our last bomb!) Jin looks up from the dead bodies that line the earth around him, searching his surroundings. His attempt to identify the source of the voice is anything but easy in the moonlit slave camp. But what he does does stumble upon with his glance are two silhouettes atop the shack's roof, one wielding a bow, the other empty-handed. Yuna and Benjiro.

"Daraa ni gichii deer ashigla!" (Tr: Then use it on the bitch!)

Another thing that isn't difficult to spot is a spark, below the shack, out of Yuna's line of sight, and the unmistakable crackle that follows.

"Yuna! Bomb!" Jin shouts, but he can't tell whether his warning was heard.

Once she draws another arrow, he's sure she hasn't.

It can't end. Not from a simple bomb, when they've been through so much. She can't die. Not like this. Please, not like this.

Without even the slightest idea of how he could possibly stop the impending disaster from happening, Jin rushes forward, sword drawn. He's not going to reach the mongols in time, not even if he had Fūjin's wind at his back.