Hi everyone! I'm back! School and band and getting older have gotten in the way of my writing. Being a music major is really time consuming, believe it or not. I take twice as many classes each semester as anyone else because each class is only 1 or 2 credits. But I digress...

Welcome to my new story, Beautiful Disaster. This is my third attempt at a Peacemaker Kurogane fanfic. The reasons for the multiple attempts are long and boring, but if you really want to know, message me. =)

I want this story to be a songfic, using the actual lyrics at the beginning of each chapter (excluding this one) to give each chapter a theme and tie it all together. But it has been a couple years since the last time I posted anything, and the guildelines say that song lyrics not in the public domain aren't allowed. So my idea might not be possible at the point...we'll see.

Beautiful Disaster

Prologue

Ayano couldn't erase the image of bright red from her mind.

But it didn't matter right now. All that mattered was that she had to keep going. Keep running as far away as she could, like she was told. Keep running and don't look back.

Complete darkness. That was all Ayano could see. She might as well have been blind-folded and told to run in a random direction. The moon was gone from the sky, and all that illuminated the land below it were tiny stars. Ayano could barely see a meter in front of her. Fallen leaves cracked loudly beneath her bare feet. The sound spread like wildfire through the silent woods, grating on her nerves. She had forgotten her sandals when she ran out of the house. Now she felt everything, from the cold, hard ground to the prickling nuts and the rough tree roots sticking out of the ground. Her body shivered with small bumps—from fear or cold, she couldn't tell, though she realized she was still wearing her dirty, thin field clothes from the day before. The fabric clung to her body from the dirt and sweat of the day. She felt something warm snaking down her hand, and she knew she was still bleeding, but she didn't dare look down to see just whose blood was whose and whether the thin trickle of liquid down her back was sweat or blood, or both. She clenched her fist even tighter, hoping the pressure would stop the bleeding. Thankfully her nails were particularly short today.

Ayano's head was full of sound. The crunching leaves, the whining wind, piercing screams—wait. Those screams made her pause a moment to listen, to see if she had gotten far enough away. The sound didn't stop, but she felt like she had been running for at least two kilometers. Had she really not travelled that far? Her mind racing, she couldn't focus on anything but the order to run and get as far away from what was her home as possible. Every little sound made her fingers twitch, but she wasn't quite sure if they were real or just a product of her adrenaline-saturated senses.

Keep running, a voice in her head called to her. It seemed to focus her mind—or at least clear it of everything else. Strangely, the voice comforted her. Though she knew it came from within her mind, it made her feel like she wasn't alone, like a voice of strength and reason. The firm male voice was unfamiliar to her—she had never heard such a voice interlaced with strength, warmth, danger, and kindness all in one. Surely her family provided her with all of these things, but they were nowhere near her. She had left them all behind: her parents, her sister and brother. She didn't know if she would ever see them again. Why did they tell her to run? Why her? Ayano was definitely not the quickest or strongest, not the oldest nor youngest, not the smartest nor wisest. If anything, she should've been the one to stay back and die. She was the one cursed with a terrible gift. A gift she vowed to never use again, no matter the circumstances.

A wave of guilt swallowed Ayano whole, and her knees buckled underneath her. Her body wracked with jerking sobs, but she kept her mouth shut and pushed back the cries of pain. She wasn't about to make it easy for anyone to find her. She wasn't going to let her family's sacrifice be in vain. She had to live, whether she wanted to or not.

The cold night stung her face with tears that Ayano wiped on her sleeve. She shouldn't have stopped. Given the chance to rest, her nerves have caught up with her mind. She became aware of every twinge of pain and cold and fatigue. Her lungs burned of exhaustion. Her body felt hot and cold at the same time from running and perspiration. Her feet ached, and when she reached out to touched them, a sharp pain travelled up her leg. Something had cut into her foot. She felt around in the darkness until her fingers fell upon a sharp twig lodged in one of her toes. A small wave of nausea mixed in with her already exhausted body as she squeezed her foot as tight as she could to pull out the twig. She realized just how hungry she was and wished she had thought to bring her pouch of food from the fields. Plums and rice, a meal not meant for the servants of the Choshuu noblemen, but that didn't stop the more clever ones from sneaking some away to feed their families and themselves. If they had been found out, all of the servants would have been thrown on the streets or executed, whether they were responsible or not.

I have to keep going, Ayano told herself. She reminded herself of the voice she heard a minute ago. Bracing herself against the pain, she propped herself up onto her feet. Taking a few careful steps, she walked forward for a short while before breaking out into a run again.

The feeling of being trapped began to dwindle. Ayano didn't understand why until she squinted her eyes and realized that the trees were thinning. She couldn't see just how much farther she would have to run to make it out of the forest, nor was she sure that there was even civilization out there at all. That didn't stop the bubble of hope from rising up within her. She was almost out, almost safe.

But Ayano wasn't sure she could make it that far.

Her foot throbbed with intense pain. Her hand felt numb. Both her hands cramped from clenching so hard for so long, but she didn't dare open them. The nausea in her stomach never left. She was fearful that she would keel over and retch, because there was nothing in her stomach but bile to come up in the first place. Ayano's vision swam in foggy waves and she grew suddenly very light-headed. Maybe her body has finally had enough abuse and has simply given up on trying to survive? Ayano's already racing heart pumped faster and harder and the thought of dying. She couldn't, she wouldn't give up now.

The last thing Ayano remembered was the soft, cold grass beneath her.