Brutality

AKIRA's P.O.V:

As I come to after being trapped in that place, only Tsukuyomi knows how long it was. All I feel is aching and stinging pains all over my body every time I breathe a sharp pain shoots through my body and it causes me to kneel over heaving and gasping. I clutch my chest, but as I'm doing so, even more pain erupts throughout my body causing everything to start spinning,causing me to fall over onto the ground. However, not being able to handle the pain, I kept on passing out but no matter how much I tried. I can't seem to hold off the exhaustion that riddles my body. I close my eyes, and everything goes dark.

???'s P.O.V:

As me and my clan are looking through the forest that erupted in flames 2km away from our village nearly getting to us until they just vanished; this was confusing to us, so we began investigating where the flames seemed to emanate from the strongest.

"Hey Kazui! Over here! There's a man over here who seems untouched by the flames!" I suddenly hear a member of my clan shout my name interrupting my thoughts and so I head towards the man who shouted for me. Upon arriving at my destination, my clansmen are surrounding a young man whose arm was missing. We began giving him water and wrapping bandages over his arm and chest, along with some over his left eye.

"What is this?" Is all I can ask as the scene here is brutal, who did this? Was it the man on the ground? If so, how could a single man cause all of this destruction upon our peaceful and beautiful land? Snatching me from my thoughts my younger brother answers me.

"A man found lying here clutching his abdomen with almost all of his clothing burnt with scars littering his body."

My mind began racing with even more questions, but before I could even ask, I was interrupted.

"He has fresh and grave wounds, the missing arm and eye are the main problems of the blood loss."

My eyes widened at the news, causing me to become alarmed and yell at them. "Well— get this man to the village now! He needs help from our medical team, not us!" Upon my yells they nod and immediately head off with him to our home. "Brother, why did you not send him to our home immediately?" Upon my question, he looks a bit sheepish and rubs the back of his head before answering me.

"Well… you see…He could be dangerous, and I thought we could bandage him up and wait for him to wake so we could question him." I sighed while pinching the bridge of my nose with furrowed brows, I began to chastise him.

"Well, if you would remember my orders it is to always help people first, then ask questions later— AND, to always be kind to outsiders unless they hurt the people of our village." He quickly gains a scowl on his face and glares at me and ignores my statement as he pushed past me, heading back towards our village. All I could do is sigh because of how childish he was being before continuing to look around for anyone else.

3 Hours Later

I finally arrive back home after checking for anyone else and finding nothing; as if it had all been burnt into oblivion. Upon my arrival I see my little brother and little sister sitting at the front gate bickering about something.

"No, we shouldn't allow that man to stay here Kiera!"

"Well I think we should brother!"

I sigh again for what feels like the 20th time this day, it never gets easier dealing with these two after the death of our parents and taking my place as the head of the clan. It was especially hard on Kagerō; as he had secluded himself from others emotionally, however, he's still close with Kiera.

"Oi you two! Quit your bickering!" They both snap their heads my way, with Kiera being the first to respond by insulting me.

"Shut it baldy."

This in return gets a snicker out of Kagerō who sticks his tongue out at me. I just deadpanned at their actions while walking over to them and reached out to them to give the both of them a proper smack on the back of their heads.

"Be respectful to me! I'm the leader of our clan and this village!" All Kagerō does is grunt and Kiera whines about it hurting. I ignored their complaints before moving onto the subject at hand,"Now now, is that man who I told our men to bring here?" Upon asking that it gets a scowl out of Kagerō while Kiera quickly responds to me.

"He's doing better! Buuuut…we aren't sure if he'll recover, all of his muscles are torn to shreds and he has a fever of 50°c. He shouldn't even have survived this long nor should he even be alive right now. If anything, he should have died the moment you found him." Hearing this my eyes nearly pop out of my head— 50c!!! Who is this man to be surviving that high of a fever?! Yet she continues much to my terror and worry for this man.

"Not to mention he has lost a lot of blood and shouldn't be alive. He's lost over 3 liters of blood, and he has a puncture wound in his chest which seems to have recently healed and is directly over his heart; which, I suspect, got stabbed in the heart by a long blade of some kind." The information continues to amaze me and make me wonder who this man is…could he be? No, there's no way he could be one of the people with an honor; it's way too rare for us to just randomly find him in the middle of a forest fire. Though it's the most likely reason for his survival, this is a once in a lifetime chance to meet someone of this caliber!

I urgently order my siblings, "Make sure this man lives no matter what!" This obviously makes them worry at my urgency due to it coming out of nowhere but they quickly hop up and nod before heading towards where this man is being held and I quickly follow them.

When we arrive we are greeted with the sight of 20 of our strongest men struggling and barely managing to hold down his convulsing body as our medics try their best to calm his body and help him. Kagerō rushes to help hold him down while Kiera rushes to help the medics. I quickly leave the room after glancing at his body littered with scars nearly gagging at the sight. I head off to get more men to help hold him.

AKIRA'S P.O.V: 2 weeks later

I slightly open my eye only to be met with a blinding light causing me to quickly shut it. Along with that I was having one hell of a splitting headache, it felt like I was dying— and my body feels sore beyond belief, along with it, I felt restricted, as if something was restraining me. Finally I open my eye and left it open, allowing for it to become accustomed to the light. After doing so, I look at my torso only to find it bare with the only thing on it being bandages that are tightly secured around it. Feeling a sharp pain in my left eye, I reach up to place my hand on it only to feel more bandages around my head and eye. My head snaps up as I hear a door slide open and in doing so spot a young lady with black hair, elegant green eyes and a tan complexion. She seems surprised to see me. She quickly rushes over to my side and presses her hand on my chest trying to get me to lay back down.

"Sir! Please lay back down, you shouldn't be sitting up!"

I comply with a grunt of annoyance. "So what am I doing here?" She doesn't dignify me with a response, and instead she tightens my bandages that had loosened up from my movements. One she gets done, she finally responds to my earlier question,

"Some of our men found you in a forest two weeks ago, when they did you were on the brink of death, and to be honest with you sir…you shouldn't be alive right now." I just relax back onto the mat I'm laying on and close my eye again with a sigh of relief.

"Don't worry kid, I don't die easily— though can you bring the people who found me? I have a couple questions for them." I don't get a verbal response, she just stands up and walks away. I know this because I hear the taps of her feet and the door sliding open and closed.

10 Minutes later

I was getting impatient while waiting for them to get here I start getting up against my better judgment, upon doing so I start looking around for any of my things. I don't find anything of mine aside from my blade. I then walk towards the door, sliding it open I then find least 10 men standing in front of me.

"Well if you guys will excuse me I got places to be and things to do so—" Cutting me off, one of the bigger men swung an odachi at me, which I barely dodged due to my weak state from being asleep for weeks. "What the hell?! Watch who you swing that thing at!" They don't respond to me, they keep attacking but this time two more join in swinging various weapons at me; on top of the odachi I'm forced to dodge a staff and a tanto. I push past them with as much force that I can muster and run out of the building I was in only to find wherever I am in ruins various men are fighting each other and houses are being set on fire. I heard heavy footsteps coming from behind me and upon turning around I'm met with a fist the size of my head, I won't be able to dodge in time, and so I was forced to take the attack head on; and in doing so i was sent flying 4 meters. When crashing down onto the ground, I'm met with a foot on my chest, I look at who the foot belongs to only to find a filthy looking man at least twice my size grinning down on me.

"Oh? What do we have here boys? Looks like we got a runner. It's best we skin this one and feed him to our wolves." At that statement the men who attacked me initially start cackling like Oni, this causing me to scrunch my face up in disgust which the man notices and apparently doesn't like which is noted by the extra force he applies to my chest. The pain is unbearable, I try my best not to show it as I carefully reach for my blade, he doesn't seem to notice so I quickly unsheath it and stab his leg which causes him to get off of me and fall over. I quickly jump up and form a ring of flame around his head and close it which shocks his men apparent by them freezing up. I heat up my flames to the point that they triple in size killing the man. Looking towards the others they have looks of fear on their faces which I capitalize on by forming a sword of fire in my hand, which was enough to scare them to the point they ran off.

I turn around and head towards where the other houses on fire are to fight off the rest of the bandits. Upon reaching the rest of the houses a group of bandits are standing around the young lady from earlier, so as a way to repay her I do the only thing I can do in the moment— I kill the men. Starting with the one that's wearing armor wielding mace, I run behind him and place my hand on his back alerting him I'm there however before he can turn around and attack I set his insides on fire melting them causing him to fall to the ground attempting to scream in pain but all that comes out is smoke and flames; his eyes pop as well as soon as this happens the other men run at me ready to cut me down but all I do is cover their heads in fire and let them die slowly.

After doing so I walk up to the lady before collapsing to my knees gasping for air and panting. She has a look of fear in her eyes but approaches me nonetheless. "Um…thank you sir, for protecting us and fending off those bandits." I just wave my hand while responding.

"It was nothing, you folk kept me here and helped me it's the least I could do…now can I speak with the man who brought me here?" She immediately nods while running off however I see other people— women and children alike coming from the tree line with looks of terror and awe respectively. They start walking back towards the village while I spot a small militant also approaching the village this time with the lady talking to the man in the very front in a frantic manner. I just sit here panting still— that is until I start coughing so bad that I even cough up blood, and a lot of blood at that.

When they reach me the man who the lady was speaking to immediately kneels next to me checking on me. "Are you okay sir? And thank you for saving my little sister, is there any way I can repay you?"

Waving him off I take a couple strained breath's before responding. "I…I'm fine…just— exhausted…and I would appreciate some nice warm cup of tea and maybe some new clothes." He nodded at me before ordering the men behind him to do so, and apparently they fixed my clothes while I was out.

After a little while they helped me to a tent where medics are now checking on me and applying ointments to my body to help my muscles heal. Once they finish up, the man from earlier visits me to discuss important business with me. "Hello, my name is Kazui Sakami and I appreciate all that you did…but the people of this village fear you after witnessing the massacre that you brought upon the bandits— and they appreciate it but with how easily you murdered them they're scared of what you might do to them."

I just nod before responding. "I understand, and I was planning on leaving as soon as possible because I was on a mission beforehand that failed and so I must report to the people who issued the mission." He sighs while pinching the bridge of his nose as he squints his eyes.

"I'm sorry for the fools, but I have a request if you don't mind?" Staring at him for a couple minutes with a bewildered look before I respond I say.

"Sure…I'll take your request as long as it's within reason." Taking a moment to ponder it seems he's taking a moment to think before he finally gives me an answer.

"Could you…take my brother Kagerō with you? Please, it's what he needs after the death of our parents." I give him a small chuckle followed by a nod as my response, in which case he thanks me and leaves to gather his brother while I get my things together.

10 minutes later:

I find myself sitting at the front gate of this village writing a letter to the Nakama family detailing what happened to Nanaka and I due to the masked bastard. Soon I'm interrupted by the two brothers who are now standing before me, I give my letter to the messenger bird while shooing it away; I then turn towards the two brothers, "Well, we'll now be heading off towards the west to civilization." Kagerō grunts at me and marches forwards whilst his brother apologizes for him profusely, all I can do is laugh and follow after him as I wave at Kazui for possibly the last time ever.

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