By the sword

Chapter 1: Awakening

-Mainland-

He was walking.

As if someone else was controlling his legs. Every step was heavy and the ground; his enemy, burned his bare pale feet where they met. It was dark and silhouettes danced mockingly across his failing vision. Breathing came in short, painful gasps.

Though the heat mercilessly followed him, he was cold, cold and wet. And his head hurt.

Why did his head hurt so much?

Finally his legs gave out beneath him and he fell to the floor. Darkness found him before the ground did.

It was the crippling sound of screams that reached him first. Piercing through the silence surrounding him like a knife's edge across a silk surface, flowing just as gracefully into a haunting melody of terror and fear.

He tried to place the sound but it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, muffled behind an invisible bubble that seemed to surround him, making everything seem deceivingly distant.

An eternity later he became aware of himself; aware that he was laying flat on his back on a soft but warm surface. Regretfully he became aware of a sharp pain that burned beneath his right collarbone, pulsing painfully with every pump of his accelerating heart. And finally, he became aware of the frequent vibrations from the earth that gently but urgently thumped against his back.

Someone...No, more than one were coming.

Wrong again; they were already here.

It was only due to a deep embedded instinct that he rolled out of the way of the steel sword that would of just moments later decapitated him. A gasp escaped him at the pain the movement caused him as his would be murderer rode on unaware.

Unable to ignore the pain any longer, he looked down and realised he had a wide cut across his chest, bleeding down his navy blue yukata like the trickling of escaping water from a long-sealed dam.

Panic began to fill his system. How did that happen?

He gulped. He had to get out if there. Had to get to...

What?

He hissed at the sting this thought brought to his temples but his mind refused to provide him with an answer.

"Round up the women and children!" came a rough shout from behind him but it didn't register in his mind as fear was slowly beginning to seize his heart.

Get to where? Where was he? His head snapped up in search of the answer but when his clouded eyes took in the sight around him, he instantly began to regret it.

The whole area was covered in flames, the fires eating at the wood of the villager's homes and market stalls like a starved and merciless beast. The smoke rose in the air, dominating the night sky and slowly but surely turning it an ashy grey.

He then realized with slight relief that the village seemed to be deserted but it soon turned into cold unyielding horror as his eyes cast over the bodies littering the ground; unmoving. Shaken, he began to scamper back, biting his lip painfully to prevent himself from screaming but as soon as he turned in the opposite direction he found his eye inches away from the point of a dripping sword. He scrambled back, a yelp escaping from his mouth before he was painfully reminded of his injury and he clutched at it tightly.

"Nakuma-sama...I've found something" The wielder spoke softly from his horse, his blade not trembling an inch from the boys face. The boy resisted the sudden urge to glare up at the man's face; he was line of the people responsible for this evil.