Hunters X and X Heroes

Prolouge X if I X Had One

I X Want to X Live
    As if to hold together that which balances on the brim of breaking—

    Shifting all her weight, the only force she can muster left, Rukei knocked her shoulder against the blond's in a pathetic attempt to push him away. Her knees buckled, and the ally that Rukei supported with her meager strength collapsed together in a pathetic schlump.

    The nature of Rukei would not yield to the fire that furled and licked against her back speckled with shrapnel, nor would it give way to the crushing choke of her ribcage cracking underneath her; still she looks up with a face free of human sentiment, coral eyes alight to say flatly, "I can walk, Glass."

    "That's enough. Lean on me," the blond hoarsely spat out, voice brittle like broken—

    "I can walk, Glass."

    Her pitch sliced upwards, and she hiked herself up onto her elbows, grinding her hands into the rubble as she dragged herself forward. Her knees trawled along the ground, twisting underneath the clunks of debris scuttling at her foot from the blast. Rukei shoved herself ahead, pitching the unconscious forward to protect the body from rubble. It's not any easier to breathe with Shichi off her back, and blood like sawdust clumped in Rukei's throat.

    She's so confused; she's so horribly, horribly confused. Rukei's head swims in a sharp lightness that pinches the base of her head with spindly fingers, and as if detached, her entire body lurches for the ground like bundles of lead— charcoal in risk of eruption in the heat and battle that swamps the child, but her neck freezes in a frigid urgency and her chest aches with an icy chill. She's confused, but she can walk so...

    Fire shods her feet and dried blood, the rims of her vision; her head's underwater and her ears ring and ring and scream— it stings with a blistering sear, and Rukei's fingers twitched to reach for the arm strapped around her leg to blow her ears off (calm down. Get out.)

    "S——t, he's still alive," through the fire and the horrid peal, a worse noise scratched through. Glass dug his heels into the cinders, eyes blazing transparent blue— transparent, peer in and see the man's fear.

    What she sees is specked white, and black, and warping with each other— looking at the blaze chars her eyes yet still, look! He's still alive.

    With exhausted desperation, the blond hauled the child up to her feet by her ripped sleeve, and she stumbled forward. "Get Shichi and run."

    Swinging the unconscious' limp arm around her neck, Rukei struggled to dash ahead, swaying and tossing and kicking as if swept under a torrent. The child hobbled over burning, debris globs frantically. Fire roared in her ears, and she clenched Shichi's torn clothes as if Rukei could protect her.

    Get Shichi and run. Rukei pressed through what crackled hotly at her calves— Rukei has to get Shichi out there, she tells herself as she tightened her grip over the burned arms, because Rukei has to get Shichi and run. They need to leave.

    "We're going to die here."

    "You're awake," Rukei breathed out, "We're going to live."

    The woman croaked out a laugh next to her ear, like a door hanging by a broken, rusted hinge.

    Still, Rukei said, "I want to live."

    "Then keep going."

    She tried to lift her head— she really did, half-out of desperation and her nerves bouncing everywhere on high alert and reacting in alarm against the foreign voice (why is it so relaxed? Don't they know?). But the most Rukei could do was stare at the scuffed up, dusty boots at the edge of blackening vision and listen earnestly, swallowing up anything the voice would say.

    Against the crashing and croaking and cracking, Rukei thought this man sounded like the wind whistling whichever whimsical tune.

    "I made a way out while making my way in, y'know; it's that jammed door that you'd tried to hide with shelves— well, even if it's old, you'd know which it is. It's still open, kid. You can make it."

    Rukei didn't know what she was saying. "Glass is still— a man back there—"

    "I know," he replied, "I'll help him. Get to that door."

    Rukei's heart swelled, and her ears stopped ringing and her eyes stopped seeing anything but the little crack no longer hidden in the fire and pain.

    "You want to live, don't you?"

-

i uhhhhHHHH wrote this probably over a year ago, while i was super determined to rewrite All of This Fic, mainly because I really didn't want to let Rukei go (and im not!! She's revived in a comic(?) im planning that'll probably take years to organize but planned none the less).

Rewriting plan is probably down the drain to say the least?? Do i plan to push through the chimera ant arc?? I will say i shall attempt. But theres a heckin heck ton of heckin projects i got on the battle bus as you can see by my absolute lack of presence on wattpad. I published this chapter kinda as both a tool for announcement and Content TM, but also I think Mei from the past loved this very much? And had plans and I wanted to at least share it.

Still!!! I'll continue do my best!!