CW: Blood & gore, graphic descriptions of bodies/death.
In the ruined landscape of the battlefield, a lone figure picks his way through the bodies of soldiers and horses. The grassy field has long turned to mud from the bloodshed and every step drags upon the figure’s trembling legs. If not for the rare patches of blue winking through the thick black smoke, one might believe it to be dead of night.
In the distance, the war rages on. Cumulative sounds of conflict echo across the field – steel on steel, shrieking horses, maddened roars and agonised screams, and occasional ground-rumbling explosions. The stench of war that lingers behind is so overwhelming, one is easily brought to tears.
The figure pauses and hunches over, panting and shaking from exertion. He’s not in the heavy metal armour of a regular soldier, but a blue leather outfit which serves as defence that doesn’t hinder movement. Strapped at his side is a compact bag branded with a splayed hand and a four pointed star upon the palm. The Healer’s emblem.
The most striking detail about this figure’s appearance however, is the roaring lion’s head emblazoned across his chest, glossed in metallic gold and brilliant even in the murky haze of smoke. To accentuate his House insignia, Jun’s golden eyes shine just as bright, as though they are struck by the light of Solaris.
And always, sheathed at his hip, is his sword. But for now, it remains unbloodied and not yet exposed to the carnage of war.
Jun pulls out his water flask and takes a small sip to wet his mouth. He straightens up, surveying his surroundings as he catches his breath. He’s long lost sight of Mira, who was caught in a skirmish when they were confronted by a lagging band of rebels. That ferocious look on her face told him that this fight was hers and hers alone, and like a rabid beast protecting its prey, she snapped and growled whenever he drew too close. So he advanced into the miry depths of the battlefield, for there were those in desperate need of his service.
As per Mira’s instructions, he doesn’t stray too far. In fact, he can hear the screams of the dying rebels behind him, though the bloodshed is obscured by the slope of this muddy ridge. He hopes that she at least softens her hand, so that he can double back and preserve their lives. But seeing that cold look in her eyes – and by the way she has been shrouded in an impenetrable darkness during this entire campaign – Jun knows that she will leave no survivors.
The Healer stiffens. In his periphery, he sees a subtle movement.
There. Amongst the grotesque mass of decaying corpses – a soldier in red, twitching and trembling in delirium.
Jun scrambles to the corpse pile, grabbing onto the survivor and carefully pulling him free. He lays the rebel away from the bodies of his brethren, at least where the air is free from the heavy stench of decay.
“Brother…brother…help me…please…” The rebel keens weakly, bloodied hands scrabbling at Jun’s chest.
Jun hums soothingly and opens his healer’s field bag, calm and deft in his movements. “I will help you, be assured. You shall survive this.”
An initial inspection of his patient shows several deep blade wounds that have long festered. While they have stopped bleeding, the edges of the skin are dark and mottled, indicating necrotisation. This man will need surgery to have the dead flesh removed – nothing that Jun can do other than dress them best he can. He quickly glances around for red armour, but there seems to be none alive in their vicinity.
Once he has finished treating his patient, he would need to carry him closer to the frontline – closer to danger, yes, but also his own people.
Jun wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Even in the midst of winter, prolonged exertion and armour makes it unbearably hot.
“Brother…it hurts…it hurts…”
“I am going to make the pain stop,” the Healer says, unsealing a packet of morphine powder. This is his last packet. He will have to return to camp to restock. “Stay still for me. Can you tell me your name?”
The rebel whimpers and nods, clinging onto the hem of Jun’s shirt that peeks out from his leathers. “Salim…my-my name is Salim…”
It’s clear that this soldier is far too young for real combat. Perhaps Rin’s age, if not younger. His youthful features are lined and greyed by the stresses of battle. Even if he were to survive and return home, the war would remain with him, stealing precious years from his lifespan.
“Salim, that’s a beautiful name. My name is Jun. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.” Jun chuckles, sprinkling the powder onto the exposed wounds. “Tell me, Salim. Who is waiting back at home for you?”
The rebel gasps and grits his teeth as the powder settles into rend flesh. Tears leak from the corner of his bloodshot eyes. “M-My father and-and sister.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Younger sister?”
“Yivfg. Vtf’r jr mibrf ab j wbatfg P tjnf.”
“Tbe wera yf nfgs mibrf.”
“Vtf mjc yf bnfgyfjglcu r-rbwfalwfr,” Vjilw rjsr klat j kbyyis rwlif. “Dea P tjnf jirb mjerfv tfg wemt uglfo.”
“Ct. P reqqbrf atja lr jc fdejilrfg.”
“Y-Yes, although abbi says that we are–ahh! It-it hurts! Please, brother!”
“Kjxf atlr lcab sbeg wbeat. Aera j ilaaif yla cbk.” Aec qbegr j rwjii jwbeca bo atf vgeu lcab Vjilw’r wbeat. Ktf ijv rkjiibkr kfjxis, rtlnfglcu ogbw atf rtbmx bo qjlc. “Xbbv wjc. Tbe rtbeiv rajga ab offi atf qjlc ifrrfc.”
“Thank you…thank you, brother…” Salim’s feverish eyes attempt to focus on his saviour. They travel from his face to the golden lion’s head emblazoned upon his chest. Surprise ripples across the soldier’s drawn features. “…Lion,” he whispers, raptly.
Jun’s already moved onto dressing Salim’s wounds, pulling him upright and supporting him as he winds sterile bandages around his torso. Tight enough to be secure and stem any bleeding but loose enough to allow the wounds to breathe.
“Ah…yes,” Jun says, noticing the man’s stare. “That is my House sigil.”
“Lion of Reshun.”
The healer frowns in confusion. “What is the Lion of Reshun?”
“You are, brother.”
“Oh? How so?”
“You are the Lion of Reshun. Saviour of the fallen. The Healer blind to allegiance. How good my fortune must be to meet you before my death!” Salim smiles shakily and grabs Jun’s arms, the latter having finished tying off the last bandage. “Lion…Lion…thank you…!!”
Jun stares at him, dumbfounded, stunned. He holds the man upright, letting the grateful babble fall unhindered. “Ah…of course. However, there is no need to thank me as this is simply my duty. Worry not – you will not be dying any sooner than your twilight years.”
Tears track through the grime on the rebel’s cheeks as he traces his shaking fingers over the golden sigil, praising the gods and the Healer in quick succession. He’s too lost now in the throes of his fever. The infection is spreading and they have little time to dally.
Jun’s preparing to throw the feverish man over his shoulder, when there’s the sound of hooves rapidly drawing near. There’s hardly time to react. A glimmer of blue in his periphery. A flash of steel. He pushes Samil and propels himself backwards as a bloodied blade cleaves the air between them.
“Stand down!” Jun shouts, heart pounding so loud, it’s all he can hear. He holds his hands out in surrender. “Stand down, comrade! I am with you!”
From atop her decorated black horse, the loyalist jerks in surprise upon recognising his figure. “Hwan? You’re a Hwan?” She scowls and lowers her longsword. Because of her royal blue helm, it’s difficult to see much else of her face. “Stay back so I can kill this Otsuki scum!”
He quickly rises to his feet and places himself between Salim and the loyalist. Both hands remain in the air, palms out. “Please, comrade. This man is heavily wounded. He is of no threat to anyone–”
“He is a threat if he recovers,” the loyalist growls, clearly confused as to why she’s even having this discussion in the first place. She deftly dismounts and lands in the mud with a great splatter, catching Jun in the aftermath. He hardly blinks. A critical eye casts down upon his Healer’s field bag. “Why are you not healing our soldiers? We have many wounded. Yet you are here instead, wasting time on corpses and devils.”
“I am treating everyone I come across,” Jun says, emphatically. “I have been working my way towards the frontline, comrade, you must understand–”
There’s an audible creak of her jaws as she clenches them. “I understand you are a fool. Either that or a crown traitor.” Her grip tightens on her sword and she raises it, tip hovering near his throat. “Move aside, boy. Or be prepared to die with the devil!”
Jun slowly reaches for his sword, strangely calm. He meets her fearsome glare with a cold one of his own. “Comrade. Please. A Healer cannot discriminate in their treatment. The true battle is not here. Show mercy now, and it shall be returned in kind when you are in need of it–”
“I would rather die than be shown mercy by Otsuki scum!!”
The longsword draws back briefly to swing at his neck. He whips out his own blade, meeting her strike in a brilliant eruption of sparks.
He knows that it is a lost cause within the first few exchanges. The fervent hatred blazing in the soldier’s eyes is beyond his reach, and no amount of reasoning or imploring will douse those flames. War is a cult of hatred. To this loyalist, they are no longer people, but mere obstructions that must be cut down.
Her blade bites into his chestplate; cleaves the golden lion. Jun blindly thrusts his sword, thinking of only survival. He needs to get away, far away, so he can save his patient (no time, there’s no time), and he moves, he strikes, and with a fierce yank and a violent spray of blood, he kills.
Hatred lingers long after life flees her eyes. She lies spread-eagled in a sea of red – vitae and rebel shades; a shared grave in the paralysis of death.
Jun drops his sword, hands gone numb. The rest of him too, like dirt caked on his skin, muffling sensation, the world around. He sinks to the ground, unable to fathom anything other than the dead soldier (his victim) splayed before him; a gruesome memento of his corruption. He’s cold. Freezing. The cruel winter bite has nothing to do with his sudden chill. It comes from within, spreading ice crystals through his veins, from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes, and he sits with it, sits in it, letting it consume him with nary a protest.
When the roar in his head dies to a shock-silence, he realises that his patient isn’t moving. Hasn’t moved, in minutes (or hours?). With shaking hands, he carefully turns Salim onto his back.
Wide vacant eyes reflect the sky. Still pools of cold winter blue.
Something vital, something fragile, breaks within the little lord. He knows that he won’t ever return to how he was before. A part of him followed Salim to Izayoma’s maw and whatever remains will always be incomplete. A mere impression of the whole.
Jun presses his fingertips to Salim’s eyes to close them. He searches the crimson armour, hoping to find something he can use to identify the man – a token to send to his family, perhaps – but there’s nothing outside of the usual military provisions. So in lieu of a memento, Jun brands Salim’s face into his memory, willing himself to never forget the man he failed.
Then he does the same for the loyalist, removing her helm so he can memorise her face. Upon her is a simple bronze ring on a string around her neck – the cheap kind bought in a market for a few coppers – and he slips this into his bag. Whoever this soldier is, he took her life, her future, to ensure his own. Every second from her last breath is a stolen moment laden with her presence – hateful, raging.
The little lord bows deeply to the dead. A grievous debt he owes them now. Icy foetid mud soaks into his pants, but he’s numb to it all. “What do I do? What do I do?” He understands that his kindness could have attracted destruction, but he never thought it would be so immense.
What he feels is beyond guilt. It is a wasting. The complete and utter devastation of the soul. He rises to his feet unsteadily, hyper-aware of the sea of death churning at his feet. His head spins. Bile crawls out of his throat. Apologies fall, scattered and broken, heard by none but his own anaemic conscience. Somewhere in the distance is a lonesome scream.
Jun freezes, palm against his chest, as he tries to calm his panicked gasps. He narrows his eyes and scans the jagged landscape. A scream means life, however endangered.
There’s no cognition. He’s just moving instinctually on multiple levels – and his current instinct leads him towards the treeline.
Another scream, this time weaker.
He hurries his steps. Every stumble is against a corpse – gaseous, mangled, sculpted to the cruel specifications of war.
“Young master.”
A firm hand latches onto his arm. He’s forced to a stop, an unbearable stillness. The inaction makes him ache.
“Young master, we must return to camp.”
He distantly realises that it’s snowing (when did it start to snow?), and that he’s soaked through and shivering violently. There’s a deep chill that burrows into his flesh, the pain of it so foreign to him. Then more of his cognition returns, incited blood flooding into his shell-shocked brain, and he’s suddenly aware that he’s speaking, voice like crumbling stone. “–killed them. I killed them. What Healer wilfully commits murder? What Healer fails their patient? Father was right about me. Father was right, he knew this would happen, and Mira, look, I’d slain one of our own. I’m a traitor. I must be hanged, mustn’t I?”
“Calm yourself.”
Two words, sharp and merciless like physical blows.
Jun blinks himself into the present and he sees Mira, armour grimed with blood, hard-faced and radiating steeliness, the kind of stoicity birthed only by fresh kills. Her visage terrifies, but he latches on because she means security. She means stability. A fixed point in a world gone askew.
“…Mira.” He sounds young. Very young. And her steeliness softens by a degree.
“Young master, we must retreat from the frontline. It is much too dangerous here.”
“The frontline is where I must go.”
“The battle can be won without your sacrifice.”
He flinches. Despite her insensibility, Mira’s words ring true. Even if he were to throw himself into the thick of battle, there will always be one victor – and in their wake, the needless death of many. After all, what is his will against Izayoma’s maw?
“Those you were fighting–”
“Are dead,” Mira says, bluntly.
Jun pauses, and for one disorientating moment, he’s unsure of who stands before him. A third scream, though too weak to be called more than a cry, returns his focus to the treeline. Without a word, he pulls free from Mira’s grasp and continues on.
He hears the latter follow, sword drawn. The plodding of hooves echo their footsteps. At least one of them has foresight – if there are more wounded, they will need a mode of transport. The lord furtively murmurs his thanks and apologies to the dead loyalist.
They draw ever closer to the frontline, where armour and blades flash, and screams of the dying and fighting covers the land in white noise. Here, on the very precipice of battle, is the death zone – where fallen soldiers are abandoned as the battle surges forth; left behind to die alone, staring blindly at the sky.
Mira sees them first – a leathered loyalist writhing on the frostbitten ground. “Young master. There.”
The lord snaps into action. He rushes to the soldier’s side and quickly notes that they are missing an arm–
“Mira, this wound…I can do little for them here,” he pants, grabbing a cord from his bag and tying it tightly above the point of amputation. A pulsing fountain of hot blood soaks his front. “We must return them to camp. And quickly.”
The Swordsmaster nods curtly and proffers the horse’s reins. “Go, young master. I shall follow by foot and meet you there–”
“No.” Jun carefully pulls the soldier upright and over his shoulder to carry. “You must take them. Even from here, I can see three more wounded I must attend to.” His voice strains as he stands, legs shaking under the extra load. If he’d not been Healing without break or sustenance since dawn, he may not be so weakened now.
Protest rises in Mira, as expected. “I cannot leave your side–”
“You will and you must.”
“My only function is to ensure your safety, not attend to the wounded.”
“We are at war. There is no safety here.” The lord settles the semi-conscious soldier onto the horse, ensuring that they are secure should they collapse. He turns his pale, austere gaze to Mira, and he suddenly appears twice his age and thrice as burdened. “Ride to camp and ensure that this soldier is seen to. And return to me promptly – there will be more wounded to transport.” He pauses, then says in a tone not unlike his father’s: “This is an order, Mira.”
The Swordsmaster takes a moment to study her student and young master – whom she could no longer consider a child. Since their arrival at Reshun, this is as much address he’s given her – and in truth, she too had been lost to the chaos of her mind, focusing only on clearing the path for Jun to reach those wounded. If she can mend what little remains between them now, then she would do whatever it takes.
Mira gives a curt nod of assent. “Yes, young master. I shall return promptly.” In one deft motion, she swings herself up behind the wounded soldier, and urges the horse into a gallop.
The little lord slips out a gold coin from his pocket and presses it to his lips. He indulges in his yearning for but a bittersweet moment, before turning back to the scarred battlefield.
aaaah i missed this!! but jun will not be the same when he goes back to rinnie 🥹🥹
Yes!!! Jun will definitely return to Rin a changed man ;u; Thank you for reading lovely ^_^ <3
That’s ok take care!! Take all the time you need and don’t force yourself!! Thank you for the chapter!! <33
Aww thank you me love <3 I appreciate your ongoing support and kind words ^_^ <3