Starting Life From Another Choice Than Zero

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Smoke. Embers. Fire. Wind. Explosions and shrieks. Crumbling buildings. Bodies under rubble. Drizzling blood. Stenches of scorched flesh. Bloodied swords clattering to the dirt. The cannon fire, the echoing of bullets, the screams of agony.

The sight.

The sound.

The smell.

The taste.

All of his doing. Splatters of scarlet strewn across the battlefield. All him. Homes burnt to join the many ashes hurling away. Only him. Families dying, children crying, bodies piling. All in his bloodstained hands.

"Subaru!"

A shout expelled from out the chaos instilled him back of his senses and turned away from his handiwork. Thick smoke clouded sight, but, he could still discern those ever distinct pupils of hers, as it stared back at his.

"You have a death wish, I suppose?" she shouted again, "Hurry up or you'll get us both killed!"

He lacked the air to respond so only nodded, and hurried away, far from the anarchy, far from the suffering.

Debris continued to thunder the streets, narrowly avoided, as they continued north, pelted by embers that escaped the raging flames. with the relentless blast of cannon fire subduing their hearing. Within sight, through the grey miasma of war, towering above a city of ruins, a clocktower chimed to the starry, moonlit skies. A view that he had yet to desecrate.

Mass chaos shaded them throughout, yet the death, the destruction, hopeless to elude. North ever deeper, ever closer to their goal, the rumble of the earth shook with fewer recurrence and less potency so unlike the many corpses that continued turning more grotesque, more defiled with every last.

His fist tightened, scraping against the sensation of the brown sack in his grasp. Tighten, tighten more, grasping with all effort, never letting go, never slacking a grip. He was very close. Too close to losing now.

Another shout, Beatrice, more alarmed, once again deafened the battlefield.

"Stop moving! Subaru!"

He stopped and at once, the wind blew against him. A breeze in dissonance with the one that still blew with him. A strong, concentrated blast of wind, fast, sharp and deadly. Searing agony immediately set ablaze his cheek, ceaseless throbbing drew and formed trickles of blood to spill down his chin. A free hand rose to tend to the cut. Familiar dread instantly flushed away the pulsing pain, as he met the piercing stare before him, starkly tinged with the glow of burning red.

A slender bruised hand was outstretched before him, unsteady, shaking with the fatigue of battle, bloodshot eyes that stream tears down a bloodied face, gazing with such ferocity, anger, that his eyes flickered briefly above to the scarred skin on her forehead.

"You," spoke Beatrice, arms at a wary brace, "your sister is dead, I suppose?"

Rage could only focus on one. The one it fronted. Ram took a step closer, hostility permeating out every fiber of her being, her jaw tightening, her teeth gritting.