sailing miles away // tomokazu

24. the fallen eternity

the thunders ceased.

the air was burnt through above the humid soil swallowing their steps. they were coming back defeated to the end they never wanted to imagine. as soon as they stepped through the boarder of narukami island, the sight worse than death awaited.

everything was burnt down. every hemp of grass, every leaf on every tree. the ground was scorched to ashes as they stepped forward, inhaling the putrid smell of time far gone. smoke was still steaming from certain spots, though the fire already died out. a suffocating mist swallowed down the path ahead, and everything down the horizon.

and bodies. the bodies were everywhere. not a single soul in sight stayed alive, and those who managed to escape the slaughter were nowhere to be found.

they moved slowly and quietly, but their steps never halted. until the shadow of towering city came around.

"god..." gorou sucked in breath, craning his neck up.

kazuha also saw it. hanging on the gate above the entrance to the inazuma city were the bodies of the heads of both tenryou and kanjou commissions. they were stripped naked with visible chastise marks over their chests, eyes open wide and two streams of bloody tears still dripping from their cheeks. the blood drained down to ribbon into a river of blood slowly marking its way down the slope.

when kokomi said that inazuma has fallen, they didn't stop to think what exactly she meant.

"come," kazuha's attention was diverted as a warm hand wrapped around his shoulder and pulled him forward. tomo looked ahead, his eyes merely brushing over the last piece that held power over inazuma, "let's get this over with."

climbing up the hill, it was hard to tell if fire spared the buildings or simply digested them and spit out. some places stayed strongly rooted with smouldering flames marking them black. other crumbled almost immediately, stone and metal littering the streets. the further they went, the less damage could be spotted. as tenshukaku grew clearer in the eyes, so did the macabre difference between top and the bottom.

the cherry blossom trees were untouched over the stone walls, moving gently on the wind and spilling their delicate petals to dance in grief, landing softly over the fallen soldiers' backs. gentle in the sun, delicate and soft. and far below, the ground covered in corpses.

as they stepped forward and the gates of tenshukaku opened, kazuha felt his chest squeeze harder, and it had nothing to do with the wound he acquired. six years ago, he passed the same route, running as fast as his feet could take him, knowing he was going to be late, but the hope... it carried him forward. it didn't cease even when the blade of a trusted sword was halved just as a numb body fell into his arms, that last breath still painfully unfulfilled in the boy's chest. so this time, kazuha refused to let go.

squeezing tomo's hand tighter, he bit into his lip as they crossed the entrance together.

the ominous stone eyes of a god were closed to it all, blind and unseeing, unaware of the dozens of visions inlaid on her wings. she didn't acknowledge their presence. she didn't spare them a glance.

for years now, inazuma was a godless country held in by a puppet, but only now that it had butchered its own blood did they realise how empty the term 'home' was.

they didn't stop walking until the very entrance of what once was the shogunate's palace. in there, at the very entrance, a throne of bones and cherry blossom branches was mounted, and a pale youth cloaked in black and a huge wailed hat sat leisurely across it, playing with an electro vision in his hand. as they stopped beneath him, he didn't spare them a glance of indigo eyes. he continued spinning the purple gem in his fingers, a lazy smile on his handsome face, the title of kunikuzushi, the country destroyer signed up over the land he purged. he truly deserved the name he was given at birth.