Chapter Text
Rui falls to the ground with a thud, breathing heavily. His head is throbbing, and the harsh winter wind is blowing mercilessly across his face. Every breath he takes makes his chest ache from the pressure. His ears ring in distress.
He quickly blinks open his bleary eyes to look at the man standing a couple meters away from him, out of breath like Rui. He is clenching his sword with what seems to be his last energy he can muster up, and yet, the glare he is giving Rui is unwavering.
Rui tries getting up from the damp forest floor, but he suddenly feels impossibly heavy, like his legs are made of lead. He grabs his aching head, and grunts with discomfort.
He eyes the man standing in front of him through the gaps between his fingers as he tries to come up with a plan. The man seems to be thinking too, still clutching the sword for dear life. Rui doesn’t have any energy left to summon magic, and albeit grudgingly, he accepts that the man is the better one in a sword fight.
He can’t form any useful plan, he can’t think properly, and he is starting to feel the despair creeping in. He has to escape, and he has to do it fast. But his legs feel as though they are welded to the floor, and his body feels impossibly heavy. Though, if he doesn’t move soon, the man in front of him…
Tsukasa Tenma will kill him.
Tsukasa seemingly has the same idea too, as he approaches Rui slowly, lifting his sword up with trembling hands. Rui’s eyes widens in terror, his thoughts all jumbled up, and he feels adrenaline coursing through his veins. The fight suddenly comes back to him, and he reaches down for his belt, grabbing the first potion he can get a hold on, and hurls the potion in Tsukasa’s way with a grunt.
The bottle hits Tsukasa directly on the chest, shattering from the impact. The shattered pieces slash him in various places, and he hunches in on himself with a wince. Uh oh, Rui has no idea which potion he threw at Tsukasa. He feels nervousness pool in his stomach as he gets up from the ground with a newfound energy.
Tsukasa looks up at him with a glare, his face all bloodied now, and tries swinging his sword one last time. It doesn’t touch Rui at all, and the sword falls to the ground with a clank. Tsukasa’s eyes seem hazy, unseeing, and he stumbles on his feet as he tries gaining balance. But it is all in vain, as he collapses to the floor unceremoniously.
The world around Rui stills for a second, and the only thing he can hear is his staggering breaths. He looks down at Tsukasa’s body, horrified. Did he… actually manage to kill him? No way, that’s not possible, right? He kneels down beside Tsukasa to check his pulse, but suddenly a dense fog starts coming out of his body.
Rui quickly backs up, eyes bulging as he stares at Tsukasa. Well, not at Tsukasa, since he can’t even see him from how dense the fog is. He waves his hand in the air as an attempt to clear away the fog, and the fog dissipates little by little. And… Tsukasa isn’t there anymore? He …vanished? He didn’t even know he had a potion like that?! Then his eyes wander to the floor, and catch a flash of yellow.
He immediately kneels down beside it, only to find out the yellow thing was a… cat? Lying where Tsukasa is supposed to be? Rui feels his brain fry up.
“What?” Rui mutters under his breath, still not processing the situation enough to make a move. Then, it hits him. The cat potion, which he has been working on lately in his free time, not really expecting it to work. But Tsukasa has to be the cat lying on the ground, right?
He quickly checks the potions in his belt, and sure enough, the cat potion is the one missing. He cards his fingers through his hair, damp with snow, as the situation slowly sinks in. He scrutinizes the unconscious cat slowly. It is covered in blood, and he can see a glass shard stuck to its ear. He winces at the sight, seeing an injured cat is never fun, even if it is his enemy.
If Tsukasa was still a human, his injuries probably wouldn’t affect him much, but as a cat, these injuries could be lethal if he leaves it on the ground like that. He checks his surroundings; they are at the part of the forest that almost no one visited. No one would find Tsukasa if he leaves him there, and he would probably bleed to death because of his injuries. While the scenario doesn’t look too bad to him, he has a promise to keep.
Now, what is he supposed to do with it? He can’t just go to the enemy and say “Yeah this cat is Tsukasa Tenma, please take him. Okay, bye.”, can he?
He grits his teeth, feeling annoyed. He has no choice, does he? He has to take Tsukasa with him and keep an eye on him until the potion wears off. With a sigh, he takes off his robe to wrap Tsukasa in it. He doesn’t want people to see him carry a cat in his arms, they would most definitely question him. Speaking of which, how is he even going to explain this situation to the people in the inn?
He walks back to the inn with quick steps, ignoring the occasional looks people give him. It is probably a weird sight to see the collected and calm mage all jittery. But Rui doesn’t have the time to dissipate any suspicion that might rise because of him. He will deal with it later. Probably. He isn’t the best at communicating with people, so he can only hope that Emu would lend a helping hand.
He enters the inn while lost in his thoughts, not really paying attention to his surroundings, relying on his muscle memory to help him get back to his room. He opens the door harshly after securing Tsukasa in his other hand, and steps inside.
His room is tinted with a green glow, caused by the moss stuck to his windows, illuminated softly by the afternoon sun. He wouldn’t call his room ‘big’, not quite, but he has enough room to store all his plants, his books, and his tiny bed he can barely fit in (having a tall body is a curse in disguise) with a wooden table large enough that he can work comfortably.
Taking large steps, he lays Tsukasa down on his table and fetches the medical kit he had stored under his table. He shoves the chair out of the way haphazardly, and unwraps Tsukasa from his robe.
Then, he works swiftly with the moderate experience he has with treating wounds. He only really started to learn since last year, when Nene had fallen into a pit and injured her leg badly. They were alone in the forest, in the danger zone, and Nene had a huge gash in her leg. It had been one of the moments where he felt truly helpless, and he rarely experiences that emotion.
Once again, he feels completely helpless as he takes out a big glass shard out of Tsukasa’s ear. He doesn’t like the way his despair coils around his neck like a poisonous vine, nor does he like the way his eyes burns.
After he took out all the glass shards, he bathed him in a small container he had laying around in his room. Tsukasa was mostly limp for the whole process, which worried Rui a little, since he almost looked like he wasn’t alive anymore. But his heart is beating and he is breathing, albeit irregular.
He will be fine, Rui thinks. He despises the way that thought makes him feel a tad bit relieved.
After disinfecting his wounds and wrapping them in gauze, he deems his job done. He places Tsukasa down in his bed, careful to not rustle him so much. He turns his chair to face his bed as he sits down on it.
Tsukasa looks peaceful in his sleep, like he is dreaming of something wonderful. His bandaged chest rises softly with his rhythmic breathing, and his ears twitches occasionally. His fur looks like it is almost glowing, and it gets even brighter at the tips. Rui has an inkling it would actually glow under the sun.
He sighs as he places his head in his hands. He feels the mess he put himself in finally sink in as he starts to feel a sense of dread again. He groans loudly as he tugs at his hair.
“What am I supposed to do now?” He mutters under his breath. He gets up from his seat swiftly to pace back and forth in his room. His potions clink loudly in his bag that is still attached to his hip.
“The potion actually worked. How is that even possible? There is simply not a logical explanation for it! And it is fairly easy to create. Does that mean the other spells in the book are real too?” He turns around to look at the book lying down right in the center of his table.
“…I honestly thought someone wrote it to mess with people.” He walks up to his table to open the book.
“Does this mean I can turn people into actual frogs? What about the truth potion?” He says as he riffles through the pages. He stops as he finds the page containing the cat potion description.
“…the person, whom will not lose consciousness, will be affected for 1 to 3 months, although it might last longer/shorter depending on the slight changes in the ingredient ratio.” He mumbles to himself as he reads the page carefully.
“…3 whole months?” Rui feels blood drain from his face as he stares at the words in disbelief. Tsukasa doesn’t so much as twitch from where he is sleeping, unaware of his impending doom.
Rui slowly sinks down the chair, as his knees are no longer supporting him, suddenly weak. He is caught in between feeling an ever growing awe and a cloying dread. The surge of emotions starts to become overwhelming, suffocating even, and he chuckles humorlessly in disbelief.
He straightens his back, which cracks loudly, and takes a couple of big breaths. Kaito trained him to have a serene mind, and Rui isn’t looking to fail him any time soon.
“Rui-san… are you going to patrol?” Saki whispered softly in the dead of the night. Rui flinched as he turned around sharply.
“You shouldn’t be sneaking up on people like that, Saki-kun.” Rui said in a serious tone, “Especially me. I could have hurt you.”
“Pardon us for our rudeness, Kamishiro-senpai.” Answered a deeper voice. The source of the voice showed himself as he stepped into the moonlight.
“Aoyagi-kun, what’s the meaning of this? A sneak attack of some sorts? Is this how you repay someone who saved your lives?” Rui questioned with narrowed eyes full of distrust. Saki worried her lip between her teeth, but answered nonetheless.
“No… of course not. We are here to ask for a… favor.” Rui’s eyebrows rose.
“A favor, you say? What makes you think I will comply?”
“Even if you don’t, we would like to think that you will at least regard our words.” Toya said, his hand on his chest.
“…I am listening.”
“Please don’t kill my brother.” Saki said in one quick hitched breath. Rui stared at her expressionlessly.
“Just to be clear, you’re asking me not to kill my mortal enemy, whom I very much hate and want dead, correct?” Saki and Toya shook their head in confirmation, they had a weird glint of desperation in their eyes.
“…Do you hear yourselves? That man left you both to die, and if it wasn’t for me, you WOULD be dead. Doesn’t that anger you? Don’t you feel resentful? Or did he brainwashed you to the point you feel the need to protect his life in cost of your own lives?” Rui said, baffled. Saki winced, her eyes still not meeting his, while Toya frowned slightly at his words.
“I can assure you that he didn’t have enough communication with us to brainwash us in the first place. Yes, I feel angry, resentful even, but I am also confused and lost.”
“So am I.” Saki butted in, “We need answers, a salvation for our countless questions that went unanswered, and we can’t even have that if you get rid of him.” She paused, suddenly unsure. “He’s also… my brother, as you said. I can’t help but place the little trust I left in me to him.” She licked her lips and finally met his gaze.
“Call it intuition, or our blood bond. I just know that he wouldn’t have let us die even if you weren’t there to save us.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of that.”
“Maybe I am. It doesn’t matter, does it? Both you and me know that his hands haven’t been tainted with blood yet. That’s a choice he made. He could have killed countless people if he so wished by now. He knew about me and Toya’s intentions for a long time, but guess what? He didn’t do anything about it. He could have got us killed long before our voices got louder. He isn’t heartless, and he knows something. We need that truth if we want to win.”
“Please don’t try to convince me your lapdog of a brother is a good person; you’re just wasting your breath.” Saki’s eye twitched at the ‘lapdog’ mention, but she didn’t say anything. Rui rubbed the tip of his fingers into his temples as he continued. “This conversation is getting far too long for my tastes, and all you keep trying to make is a ridiculous point.”
Rui turned around to head out the door, but Saki caught up with him to latch onto his arm like a parasite. Rui glared at her but didn’t try to get out of her hold.
“I will beg if I have to. Please, Rui-san. Do whatever you must, just don’t kill him.” Her hold tightened. “Please.”
Rui wretched his arm away with a grimace. “Fine. I won’t kill him, happy? Now leave me alone, I stalled long enough.”
“Promise?”
Rui didn’t answer as he exited the door.
“…I didn’t kill him.” He sighs loudly. “They better be grateful.”
He puts down his head on his desk slowly, suddenly drowsy. He shuts his eyes and sighs again.
First and foremost, his biggest concern is how is he supposed to look after a cat?! He is barely able to look after himself, always skipping meals or forgetting them and what not. People would think he lost his mind if he suddenly adopted a cat out of nowhere, added with the fact that cats don’t like him at all.
The situation becomes even more muddier if he adds in the fact that the cat isn’t really a cat. He could potentially offend Tsukasa if he pretends him to be a normal cat. While it would be funny to see him struggle with cat foods and litter boxes, he really doesn’t want to test out if the cat is as noisy as he was as a man.
He feels frustration tighten his chest. While rare, people do in fact go in and out of his room, and he isn’t so sure if he can hide Tsukasa every time someone enters his room.
…Why did it have to be Tsukasa, out of all people? He would have been fine with even Akito, but no, it just had to be the one person he feels genuine hatred towards.
While it would be easier to just hate the kingdom folk, he can’t bring himself to bear that hatred. In a sense, they are a sheep herd following their shepherd blindly, who happens to be their queen, Hatsune Miku. He can’t blame them for following her, not really. Miku is like a goddess that descended down the earth in the kingdom’s most desperate times. She offered them safety, food, power. Her power is unmatched, unheard of across the whole world. It was only natural for them to flock to her like bees to a honey pot.
They didn’t question when she started to banish the magicians one by one, and they are certainly not going to start questioning any time soon. Their faith in her is absolute.
It is a whole lot different in Tsukasa’s case, though. He is perfectly aware that magic doesn’t make people go ‘crazy’, unlike Miku claimed it to be. He still follows Miku’s orders without complaint, even more than your average person. He is always seen with Miku, as he is her personal knight, to the point people started to call him Miku’s lapdog, although the kingdom folk is quieter about it.
Calling him a lapdog now would be quite ironic, Rui thinks.
Tsukasa is well loved in the kingdom because of his warm personality and his overly enthusiastic way of being. His friendly demeanor makes it hard for the army to see him as an authority figure, even though they are supposed to be under his command. However, the situation completely flips when he and his army enter the battle field.
Which is why the magicians are having such a hard time in the war. Tsukasa knows how to coordinate people, to make himself listened. Knights doesn’t need magic as long as they have Tsukasa.
His warm presence that Tsukasa makes oh so sure to carry with himself all the time, vanishes in an instant he steps foot into the battlefield. His eyes become hollow. The magicians know well to fear him, but not because they are scared for their lives.
They are scared because they don’t know what came after.
Some of the magicians they lost in the war, they aren’t sure if they are alive or not anymore. Tsukasa never kills them, at least not in front of them. He always stops abruptly when they are on the brink of death. Instead, he has them escorted back to the castle.
They never see them again.
So, people usually try to stay out of Tsukasa’s way on the battlefield. Dying for your freedom is one thing, getting dragged into the unknown is another.
Rui never lets that stop him, though. He is the only one who can go head to head with Tsukasa, and… win, apparently.
He looks at the cat mindlessly. Through the whole ordeal, he didn’t have the chance to even pat himself on the back because he finally won against Tsukasa, the strongest knight in the whole kingdom. But he doesn’t have the energy to feel proud of himself now.
Reflecting back at the encounter, he suddenly becomes suspicious. Tsukasa is too busy to be patrolling, and he was in an area that most knights doesn’t patrol at all.
He saw Akito a few times there though, thankfully he isn’t aggressive like Tsukasa is, so they just went their separate ways after giving each other the stink eye.
...Well, Rui might have attacked first, but that didn’t change the fact that Tsukasa answered as much as aggressive, if not more.
“What were you doing there in the first place?” Rui questions, but Tsukasa isn’t awake to hear it.