How can you- [His voice isn't raised, a cracked hiss nearly consumed by the rising gust around them.
Violent wind ushers with it black smog, obscuring everything but the muffled sound of gunshots. Silence hangs, eerie and misplaced as the scent of fetid muck and oil grows thick, and the ground they stand on shakes.
Takasugi looks forward, silent. Still.
A mortar shell covers the skyline with mud; when the debris clears, they're in the midst of a battle between human and monster. Over clashing metal and rallied cries, Takasugi's voice rings out. It isn't coming from the man Cain knows, but a younger teen.
Everyone, to me! We'll cut our way through!
A bold command. Most who rally to his call end up skewered on pikes or riddled with holes. One man, covered in blood and missing almost the entirety of his left side, cries for help.
The teen stoops at his side, risking his own retreat to take a small, folded piece of paper from his shaking hands.
Only about five men make it from the fray with him. One stumbles, silent in his distress. The teen slows, then doubles back to hoist the boy onto his back. Like that they retreat, until they reach the edge of their camp, and he collapses.
When he falls, face in the muddy grass, everything goes dark.
A blink, and the scene is different. That same youth, kneeling with palm pressed into bleeding eye. In front of him, a severed head.
Takasugi draws his sword, approaches the anguished form he remembers with vivid disgust, and slices the boy's head from his shoulders. It thuds to the ground, rolling into the other skull.
They're both smiling.
And with that the illusion begins to fade, a non-descript field seemingly growing from the environment itself, until they're left surrounded by nothing but Nysa's wilderness.]
...how can bring yourself to save someone, when you couldn't save the ones who truly mattered?
How can you bear to watch people move on, when the only way you'll ever escape the pain is by slicing through your own guts?
cw suicide mention
Violent wind ushers with it black smog, obscuring everything but the muffled sound of gunshots. Silence hangs, eerie and misplaced as the scent of fetid muck and oil grows thick, and the ground they stand on shakes.
Takasugi looks forward, silent. Still.
A mortar shell covers the skyline with mud; when the debris clears, they're in the midst of a battle between human and monster. Over clashing metal and rallied cries, Takasugi's voice rings out. It isn't coming from the man Cain knows, but a younger teen.
Everyone, to me! We'll cut our way through!
A bold command. Most who rally to his call end up skewered on pikes or riddled with holes. One man, covered in blood and missing almost the entirety of his left side, cries for help.
The teen stoops at his side, risking his own retreat to take a small, folded piece of paper from his shaking hands.
Only about five men make it from the fray with him. One stumbles, silent in his distress. The teen slows, then doubles back to hoist the boy onto his back. Like that they retreat, until they reach the edge of their camp, and he collapses.
When he falls, face in the muddy grass, everything goes dark.
A blink, and the scene is different. That same youth, kneeling with palm pressed into bleeding eye. In front of him, a severed head.
Takasugi draws his sword, approaches the anguished form he remembers with vivid disgust, and slices the boy's head from his shoulders. It thuds to the ground, rolling into the other skull.
They're both smiling.
And with that the illusion begins to fade, a non-descript field seemingly growing from the environment itself, until they're left surrounded by nothing but Nysa's wilderness.]
...how can bring yourself to save someone, when you couldn't save the ones who truly mattered?
How can you bear to watch people move on, when the only way you'll ever escape the pain is by slicing through your own guts?