Soukoku One-Shots

White Wings and Wicked Heavens Pt. 3

Age 18

"Please don't let me die—I don't care who's listening, please don't let me die here!"

The cries punctured Chuuya's ears like blades as he ran around the makeshift hospital—it was actually an abandoned building covered in cots full of all those who caught the plague that had been ravaging the continent for years now. The place was full of frantic medics running around and sickly patients coughing up blood onto the ground, skin tinted green.

At last, Chuuya finally found who he was looking for: a young girl with blackened fingertips who could only sit up to cough bile into a little dish.

"Here, lay back down. This will help." Chuuya pulled out a cool rag and folded it over her forehead, watching her eyelids tremble as he did.

"Am I going to die?" she asked, voice so weak he almost didn't hear her.

Chuuya smiled, grabbing one of her hands and folding it between his own. He could feel her ebbing life force under his fingertips and waited a moment before he felt it steady—just enough. "No, you're not gonna die," he told her, voice low like it was some kind of secret. "I promise."

The girl managed a shaky smile. "Thank you."

The little seed of hope in her eyes was all the thanks Chuuya needed. He squeezed her hands, feeling that steady life-force pulse in reply, and then he let her go, moving on to the next patient.

Most of the people in this building would die. He knew that. But there were a lucky few he was able to walk back from the cliffside of death and set on the path they were meant to be on, and he'd take that over letting them all die.

That was just how Life was. Nothing was fair.

"Nakahara!"

One of the medics bounded over to him from where that young girl was lying, smiling widely.

"You're a miracle worker, y'know that? That girl was in the final stages of the disease and her fever's already going down."

Chuuya snorted, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his medic uniform. "I don't know about a miracle worker."

"I do," she declared.

Yosano was always like that, even when Chuuya first met her a few months ago. She was a traveling medic, similar to what Chuuya told people, and renowned by all for her ability to seemingly bring someone back from the brink of death. She had a cool temper and a sharp tongue, two things that often reminded Chuuya of someone else he once knew.

"You're something special, Nakahara," she said, looking him up and down with her usual scrutiny and her usual slash of a grin.

He waved the comment off with a laugh, shaking his head.

After six straight hours of running around healing sick people in a sick-filled building, he was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic, but he still had the whole second floor to sweep once more before he could move on to the next village. He bid Yosano a quick goodbye before doing his best to navigate around all the cots and blankets on the ground—it would definitely cause problems if he stepped on someone's nose or twisted their ankle.

The second floor was, unsurprisingly, far less attended by medics. It was uncomfortably warm up here and combined with the smell of blood and bile and sickness, it created an unpleasant atmosphere that even the fresh air from the cracked windows couldn't mask.

He blew out a breath. The curse that tugged his hands was as constant as always, accompanied by that need to return something that, at this point, he was certain he didn't have. He was starting to think it was just something leftover from an ancestor of his. How could he have traveled so extensively and never found out what it was he needed to give back? And to whom? Maybe he was delusional.