𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 ; 𝐤𝐚𝐳𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐚 . ◈

trust

Unsurprisingly, the outside of the base is in pure chaos.

Up until now, the Tenryou Commission had mostly sent its troops out in small, isolated forces, meant to scout out the territory and pick off the occasional straggler. They'd destroyed a few of the supply lines too, and Scaramouche remembers hearing no end to Kokomi's bitching about that.

Now, though, he suspects that she might even be able to out-curse him, because the Resistance, caught off guard and badly outnumbered, is very clearly losing. It doesn't make for a pretty sight, several soldiers already fallen and littering the battlefield with their unmoving presence, the Tenryou Commission's General swooping about like some kind of hideous vulture, the perpetual rain drenching them all in icy sheets--all of it.

But Scaramouche has spent the past couple of weeks tearing out his own hair over a truly ridiculous issue, has spent his nights pacing back and forth, cursing out an inanimate leaf. He and Kazuha haven't slept together in days because of his own brooding, only for his first attempt at their usual method of stress relief to be soundly interrupted by the most poorly-timed attack in history.

This--the battle--this is a good thing for him.

Beside him, Kazuha curls his fingers around the hilt of his katana, a quiet, steady presence at Scaramouche's back, and to his credit, it only unsettles him a little, how easily he trusts the other to guard his flank. They don't even have to speak--all it takes is a nod before he knows that Kazuha is following him into battle, no matter how soundlessly the other walks.

Admittedly, he gets a little carried away.

He's a Harbinger, after all--his presence on the battlefield is meant to turn the tide, if not stem it entirely. There are too many enemies for him to be particularly careful about which way he aims, anyways, and he instead opts for the strategy of flooding the rain-soaked fields with sweeping pulses of Electro.

Between the flickers of his own power and the obscuring rain, it's difficult to make out anything on the battlefield, much less the silent shadow of Kazuha's presence.

But even still, he hears it, somehow, above the sound of everything else--the pained quiet of Kazuha's gasp.

Something lurches in his gut then, his stomach such a tight knot that his next swallow drags harshly against his too-tight throat. He barely turns around in time, instinctively reaches out his arms just as Kazuha falls back against him, a sickly warmth seeping into the fabric of Scaramouche's clothes.

Kazuha's clothes are soaked with rain, his own body a dead weight against Scaramouche's, his trembling limbs unable to hold himself up--but even still, he feels so light in Scaramouche's arms, like he might drift away at any moment.

Scaramouche takes one, two steps back, and Kazuha stumbles along with him, blindly following him as he's dragged behind the relative safety of a crumbling boulder. The world goes oddly still, even as the ground feels like it's tilting out from beneath Scaramouche's feet, rises up to meet him with such dizzying force that he crumples bonelessly towards it, cradling Kazuha's weight in his arms.

It's here, in this strangely silent moment, that Scaramouche forces himself to see it, to look down and find the shaft of a Dendro-tipped arrow, sunken halfway into the pale space of Kazuha's side.

Anger rises up in his throat, because anger is all he has--every other part of him feels empty, painfully weightless and hollow in his aching chest.

"What the fuck ," he hisses out, tightens his grip on Kazuha's body as he pulls the other closer against him, Kazuha's back a trembling weight against the pounding of his heart.

His fingers won't stop shaking.

"Didn't you hear it coming? Didn't you see it--?"

At the sound of his voice, Kazuha blinks up at him unsteadily, once, twice, then gives him that familiar little tilt of his head, confusion flickering across his features like the answer should be obvious. Then his eyes, hazy and unfocused, flutter closed, like he doesn't even have the strength to keep them open, each breath coming out shallow with pain.

"I did," he murmurs, then swallows in a way that tears another sound from his throat, weaker, this time, and barely there. When he next speaks, his voice is so soft that Scaramouche has to strain to hear it, even when they're so close together that it hurts to feel Kazuha breathe. "But I thought that you might...if I moved..."

Scaramouche goes very cold, an arctic chill snaking through his veins in a way that has little to do with the rain. He can see it, suddenly, in his mind's eye, a faraway recollection of events--the path of the arrow coming towards his own back, the resolve in the red of Kazuha's eyes as he'd made his choice.

And then he sees past that--instead he's thinking of picking apples in a sun-soaked field, fruit in the air and grass beneath his feet, the patient little look in Kazuha's smile. What it'd felt like to want and be wanted, for once.

Automatically, he feels it in every part of him--that things can't be allowed to end here.

Very gently, Scaramouche sets Kazuha down, and then, as an afterthought, tucks a stray lock of the boy's hair behind his ear, his silky strands tangled and undone. The action has its desired effect--Kazuha's eyes flutter open at the motion, just barely long enough to meet Scaramouche's gaze.

"Don't you fucking dare leave," Scaramouche says, softly, tenderly, with all the venom of a genuine threat, because he's never meant one more in his life.

The corner of Kazuha's lip tilts upwards, one trembling hand pushing lightly at the empty space of Scaramouche's chest.

"Trust me," he tells him.

And Scaramouche does.