XVII. bullet wound
"Bye, Yata."
Fushimi felt something bitter rising in his throat and he swallowed it down as he double-checked the repeating pattern he'd set on the radio. It was a simple bit of code, designed to burn itself out after the predetermined time period, so that if anyone walked into the communications room after the three minutes had passed there would be no sign that Fushimi had even left it there in the first place.
The Green Army's communications room was above ground, inside the now-abandoned Ashinaka University. It had likely been there even before Hisui Nagare had taken over, judging from the bits and pieces of equipment that were still strewn everywhere – some kind of broadcast room used by students and faculty back in more peaceful days, now taken and twisted into just another weapon of war. The jammer had quite likely been there from the start too, unfinished perhaps, but intact enough that it had been able to become Hisui's trump card in the fight against the United Colors, disrupting their communications and leaving them vulnerable.
That was over at least, assuming Misaki had enough of a brain left in his head to deliver Fushimi's message. In truth, Fushimi put those odds at perhaps fifty-fifty, at best. Who would trust the words of a traitor, after all, and Misaki had made it clear that was all he saw Fushimi as now – a person who had left the United Armies and joined with their greatest enemy, all for his own personal gain.
And what else would he think of you as? You didn't tell him about the mission. The words hovered on the edge of his mind and Fushimi dismissed them. This was no time for worrying about Misaki, what he did and didn't think. Misaki's opinion of him wouldn't matter if he never made it out of Ashinaka and his mission – the mission he was staking his life on – had not quite finished yet.
It had taken some time to prepare the trap. For all the freedom Hisui Nagare gave him Fushimi was constantly aware that he was always being watched while in the Green Army's headquarters – if not by Hisui himself than by Yukari or Sukuna. And beyond that there was Iwafune Tenkei as well, an unknown quantity who appeared and disappeared as he pleased, who had run into Fushimi more than once when Fushimi had been carefully making his way through the maze of the Green army's tunnels, trying to perfect the map in his head. Iwafune always acted as if the encounters were mere coincidence but Fushimi knew better, and had kept his secrets close to his chest.
It had been impossible to tell exactly how much trust Hisui was placing in him. Hisui had certainly been willing to send him on multiple missions unaccompanied, even going so far as to have him evaluate the current state of the occupation at Shizume. Running into Awashima and Kusanagi had not been part of the plan, though he couldn't help but wonder afterward if that had somehow been a part of Hisui's plan, to see if Fushimi would dare raise a weapon against his former comrades. In any case, Fushimi had held his cover until the very end.
He had been on edge ever since then, sensing gunpowder in the wind, waiting for the chance to act. He'd been certain of it that morning, when he'd met Hisui in the main room of the base and found that map laid out on the table again and Hisui sitting beside it, staring down with shining eyes. From what Fushimi could discern Hisui was preparing for quite a large offensive – he hadn't said much to Fushimi about where they were planning to attack but weaponry and fuel for the planes had been shipped into the secret base in droves in the last few days, often enough that Fushimi would have had to be blind not to notice it. As part of the preparations, Iwafune had left the base early to oversee a shipment of shell casings arriving on the next truck. Yukari was also elsewhere, off on one of his own missions, and even Sukuna had been doing rounds through Ashinaka to make sure everything was still tightly under their own control. At this late stage, the possibility of rogue civilians or rebels starting up a disturbance was something that could not be tolerated.
Left alone in the base, Fushimi had finally been given the chance to put his plan into action. First, he'd made his way into the ammunition stores and set off as many fires as he dared, just enough to create a distraction. He'd stolen a few bombs and set them in the airplane hangar, doing a decent bit of damage to the Green Army's planes – again, enough to keep most of the rank and file busy and distracted while he made his way out of the tunnels and into the university. Most of Hisui's operations were taking place either beneath the school or behind it and so the majority of the force was concentrated there. Fushimi had prepared himself for the possibility of having to dispose of the soldiers manning the communications room but they had apparently been pulled away by the commotion Fushimi had made outside and the room had been entirely empty, giving Fushimi the precious time he needed to locate the jammer whose existence Munakata had theorized in their discussion months ago back at Shizume. He'd taken a moment to familiarize himself with the radio and then, judging that no one appeared to be in pursuit of him currently, he'd finally risked sending his own transmission.
He hadn't expected Misaki of all people to be the one to receive it but that was all right. As long as that idiot was able to get someone to decode the location transmission he sent out it didn't matter who he talked to. It certainly hadn't made him pause for a moment, hadn't reminded him of the voice he'd been certain he was never going to hear again after that night he'd walked away from the emergency outpost with bruises in the shape of Misaki's fingers darkening on his neck. Misaki's presence had been an unexpected hurdle but not one Fushimi had been incapable of leaping over without looking back.
So he'd moved forward, as he'd planned to do from the start, relayed his message and then cut communications entirely. Which left him where he was now, still in the heart of enemy headquarters, and with only one last move left to play.
Fushimi slowly made his way out of the communications room, letting the door click shut behind him. There were still no signs of any soldiers but the sounds of chaos from outside were dying down, the plumes of smoke he could see still rising out from behind the building growing thinner and thinner. The fires were likely almost out by now, the majority of the bombs discovered or disabled. Soon the focus of the Green army would turn from securing their remaining power to hunting down the one who had begun the destruction in the first place.
That meant two roads lay in front of him. He could try to run, get out of Ashinaka as fast as his feet could carry him. They were miles away from the nearest United Colors outpost and he would have no choice but to try and reach it on foot, making use of every stealth technique he knew in order to navigate the terrain and avoid capture. And even then the odds of him making it out safely were negligible at best – had Fushimi been in any other town held by the Green army he would have felt confident in his ability to out-think and out-plan any of the enemy's officers, but here he would be pitted against Hisui Nagare's own hand-picked inner circle. He would be a fool not to expect Mishakuji Yukari, at the very least, to be immediately on his tail the moment the other man returned from his own mission. And even if Fushimi did escape, his flight would likely signal to Hisui Nagare that there was a heavy possibility the United Colors had been made aware of his location. Even if Fushimi's message reached Munakata in its entirety, by the time the army arrived it might already be too late. Hisui Nagare would have moved on, and any chance at finding him would be lost for good.
And the second choice...Fushimi slowed to a stop directly outside the metal gate that led down into the tunnels. If he ran, it would be expected that he'd already communicated his location to the United Colors. If he was a double agent still working with them, he would naturally communicate the location of Hisui Nagare's home base and then try to reconvene with the rest of the force. But a traitor, a person who was only interested in his own plans, his own escape, and nothing else...
Fushimi could feel his throat starting to constrict, the world around him narrowing to something fathomless and dark, lungs clogged by the memory of smoke, and his hands felt numb as he pulled the gate open.
If he was captured leaving Ashinaka, it would be assumed he had already come from the communications room, had already notified his comrades of his location. But if he was discovered inside the tunnels instead, going back underground to continue the havoc he'd already begun, there was a possibility no one would even realize the full line of his trail. After all, only a fool would go back down into his own grave rather than reaching for the open sky above.
A fool. Fushimi laughed quietly to himself, short of breath and heart beating fast from something more than just exertion as he stepped forward and forced himself back down into the darkness.
The tunnels seemed to close in on him as he walked and Fushimi kept one hand on the far wall, following the twists and turns of the underground. He didn't bother to head for the centralized bunker Hisui and his comrades used as a living area and war room – there would be no reason for him to return there and if he wanted to fake an escape it would make no sense to go to the spot where he knew the enemy would be. There was more than one way out of the tunnels, after all. All he needed to do now was follow the turns until he got close enough to one of the exits, and then wait to be caught.
Fushimi felt a thin smile wind its way onto his face, feeling oddly detached from the workings of his own body, as if his mind was a separate machine from the muscles that moved his flesh. That was all he was doing, really. Biding time until he was captured and returned to Hisui Nagare to be killed, only hoping that the minutes and hours he bought with his life would be enough.
"Hey, Saruhiko. It's really too bad it turned out to be you after all, huh?"
Fushimi immediately slowed to a stop at the sound of the voice, one hand going to the holster of his pistol as he turned even though he knew full well that there would be no point in drawing the weapon, especially here underground. Iwafune Tenkei leaned against the wall behind him, shaking his head as if confronting a troublesome child.
"I'm not an idiot," Fushimi said coldly, putting all the scorn he could into those words. "Don't tell me you're all so stupid that you didn't see this coming, right? Ootori Seigo."
Iwafune's expression tightened for just a moment before he gave a sheepish laugh, shaking his head.
"Well, well, you've got me there! But it's Iwafune Tenkei now. Honestly, kids like you are just too bright nowadays, huh?"
"I've read about the Grey Division," Fushimi said with a shrug. "It wasn't hard to figure out after that. I never saw anything about an 'Iwafune Tenkei' in their ranks. Guess that military funeral with full honors was wasted on a living man."
"No, no, those rites were meant for the dead and belong to the dead," Iwafune said amiably. "Ootori Seigo did die that day, you see. That guy was loyal to old man Daikaku, and, well..." He spread his arms wide and shrugged.
"Is that why Hisui Nagare sent you after me?" Fushimi laughed coldly. "So we could talk, traitor to traitor."
"Whatever makes you feel better, kid," Iwafune replied, completely unaffected, and Fushimi couldn't help but frown in annoyance. "But you know, I don't really see myself as a traitor. I guess you could say...we're liberators."
"Liberators." Fushimi snorted. "You're all a bunch of idealistic idiots, chasing a stupid dream to your deaths."
"Ah, well, I guess that's how you'd see it." Iwafune chuckled, scratching his head. "But you know, Saruhiko...aren't you tired of it too? Bein' dragged into a war without any understanding of it."
"Tch. I never had any interest in the reasons from the start," Fushimi said blandly. "The only thing I'm interested in is a battlefield, pounding blood and torn flesh. I'd hoped the Green army would be more suited to my tastes, that's all."
Iwafune stared at him for a moment then and Fushimi's hands twitched again, keeping his breathing steady. It wouldn't do to be seen through here of all places, closed in with no more tunnels to escape into.
"Honestly, you kids." Iwafune shook his head. "That brat, Munakata, he put you in a high position, didn't he? Can't even drink yet and they've got you leading an army. Do you even know what any of this is about? Or did they just hand you a gun and tell you to fight, and you did it?"
"Does it even matter?" Fushimi drawled. "You're the ones who started all this, right? The Green General's just as interested in a war as anyone else, you don't need to shroud it in your shit morals just so you can feel righteous about it."
"I raised Nagare, you know." Iwafune's voice took on a conversational tone, as if telling a story to a child, and Fushimi's face twisted in a scowl. "His old man and I were best friends. Before that guy died, he asked me to take care of his kid. To make sure Nagare didn't die like his dad did, insides all torn up by a landmine on a battlefield. I'd barely got back to base when that old fart Daikaku handed Nagare a gun and a rank. Like more blood sacrifices to the beast called war could do any good, or bring us any peace."
Coming from a guy whose hands are caked in blood to the elbows, and Fushimi clicked his tongue again, measuring the possibilities of whether or not one of his knives could hit its mark before Iwafune retaliated and killed him in return.
"Well, I guess there's no point in tryin' to explain it to you, huh?" Iwafune shook his head. "We were pretty excited to have you join, too. Once we get the rest of this country under Nagare's control we'll finish the ships they're building in the coastal towns and Nagare's dream will spread everywhere. Would've been nice if you could see it, you know?"
Fushimi tensed, mind immediately shooting ahead, calculating trajectories and the arc of a bullet's ricochet in such close quarters – Iwafune had only his gun and would he dare to draw it, would he hesitate, and Fushimi still with his knives that could give him the advantage in a space like this, even as his breathing sped up and his throat felt like it was closing.
Iwafune's stance shifted and Fushimi's hands immediately flashed inside his sleeves, fingers grasping for the hilt of a knife. But Iwafune's eyes weren't on him at all, hands not even moving towards the gun at his waist, gaze focused instead of something just over Fushimi's shoulder-
A moment too late Fushimi whirled, knife falling from limp fingers as Mishakuji Yukari materialized out of the darkness, a whirl of black cloak and silver sword. There was a spike of pain in the back of his head and then the black spots hovering on the edges of Fushimi's vision converged and swallowed him whole.
No exit, and as he fell heavily to the ground Fushimi smiled.
–
Fushimi's hands bled slightly where they were tied behind his back as he was led through a line of silent staring Green soldiers towards his death.
There was something almost calming about it, numbness settling in, and he couldn't quite feel his fingers. This was fine, though. If the Greens were wasting time on him that meant the full scope of his treachery hadn't been discovered yet, and that was the important thing.
After being knocked unconscious by Yukari Fushimi had woken up with a raging headache and blood on his forehead, bound behind cold iron bars and pressed close to a rock wall with barely enough room to turn around. From what he could tell the cage had been originally made to be part of a transport elevator but only the elevator shaft and the bars for the door had been constructed. The cage had been pitch dark, not even so much as a candle left for him, and he'd lain there in the darkness for a long time, focusing on breathing in and out and keeping his heartbeat steady. That was when Sukuna had shown up with a lantern and a mouth full of idiotic bravado, gloating about Fushimi's failure and calling him a traitor.
Traitor, as if Sukuna was the first to say that word, as if it even mattered coming from Sukuna's mouth when so many others had beaten him to it. In the end, though, Sukuna's presence had been a stroke of luck – Yukari or Iwafune might have seen through Fushimi's taunting replies and held their tongues, but Sukuna had been too easy to rile up and it hadn't taken long for Fushimi to grasp the situation. The problems he'd caused around the base had of course been noticed and had even done some slight damage, but there had been no mention whatsoever of him infiltrating the communications room. If the Green Army had known about it Fushimi was certain Sukuna wouldn't have been able to resist rubbing that last failure in his face. His own life might be forfeit now, but his message at least had remained a secret until the end.
One of the soldiers flanking him shoved him forward and Fushimi clicked his tongue, trying not to stumble. The soldiers around him all watched his passage with faces completely obscured by their masks and it made him feel lightheaded somehow, being surrounded by row upon row of faceless figures, impassive and anonymous. Near the front of the procession Fushimi could see Yukari glance back at him curiously, one hand on the hilt of the saber that Fushimi knew from experience was no more decorative than the knives that covered his own body. Or had covered, rather, as all of those had been taken from him, along with his two pistols (and part of him wanted to ask for it, where they'd taken that old secondhand pistol he'd once scavenged from a garbage bin and fixed up while Misaki stared at him with fascinated eyes, the relic that had been one of his most precious things all this time).
He was completely unarmed now, for the first time in a very long time, and it made Fushimi feel more exposed than he'd ever been before. The sky above was hazy, heavy with gray clouds, and he wondered if it was going to rain. Not that it would matter to him in a few more minutes, of course. But the United Colors should be marching even now, and rain would only impede their progress.
"Hmph. This is something you've gotten yourself into, traitor," Sukuna taunted as Fushimi was forced down to his knees in front of a wooden platform. Hisui sat to one side of the platform with Sukuna and Iwafune at his side, looking down at Fushimi with an unreadable expression. Yukari moved to stand on Hisui's other side, shaking his head.
"How unfortunate," Hisui murmured. His gaze was fixed on Fushimi and Fushimi returned it as steadily as he dared. "I did have high hopes for you, Saruhiko. You would have done well as part of my army."
"This is my freedom, right?" Fushimi gave him a cold smile but Hisui didn't so much as blink.
"Indeed." Hisui nodded to one of the soldiers standing behind Fushimi and Fushimi found his head jerked abruptly upward, a cloth pulled down over his eyes so that his entire line of vision was obscured by darkness. He could still hear Hisui's voice though, and something like the hum of an engine in the distance.
So he hadn't managed to destroy any of the planes after all. Fushimi suddenly felt a laugh building in his throat as he was dragged up onto the platform, blindfolded with arms still bound.
"Your betrayal has won you nothing." Hisui's voice continued. Fushimi felt the light touch if raindrops on his skin and he wondered if they were all going to stand out there like idiots in the middle of a storm just so Hisui could enjoy the theatricality of a public execution. "I had hoped you would be the one member of your family who could stay by my side, Saruhiko. You had such potential. It is a shame that your choices have lead you elsewhere. But of course, I cannot allow such a thing to go unpunished. I apologize for this."
Fushimi heard Sukuna laugh again accompanied by the familiar sound of metal being pulled from a sheath, Yukari drawing his sword.
"Men, raise your firearms!" Yukari's voice carried easily, even with the sound of planes drawing nearer. Fushimi leaned his head back, letting the rain hit his face cold and wet.
Misaki... Fushimi chuckled quietly. Well, what else had he expected, in the end? To be saved? That was foolishness from the beginning, and he'd known it. He had completed the mission. His own life was immaterial now. His only regret was that he wouldn't be able to enjoy watching Hisui Nagare's army fall.
Still, he'd gotten his own revenge now, for that day on the hill and the dark red hole where Misaki's eye had been. That was enough. After all that digging in the dark, he'd finally found a tunnel that had only a single way out.
"On my mark. One..."
This is so stupid. He wanted to laugh almost, laugh and keep laughing until the moment the Green army's bullets pierced his body. Wouldn't that give them all a show, far better than anything he and Misaki had seen in the town square so many years ago. At that time he'd actually thought that perhaps it wouldn't even be so bad if they were caught, as long as they died together.
But this was the way it had been meant to be from the start. Dimly he heard Yukari continue the countdown and Fushimi let his head hang down limply against his chest. It was fine this way.
A cellar full of smoke, and he'd always been meant to die alone.
"Three...and f-" Yukari's voice was cut off by the roar of engines. Something exploded nearby, so close that Fushimi found himself suddenly thrown to the ground below, blindfold nearly coming loose as he landed hard on his side.
"W-what the hell, why are our planes-" Fushimi heard Sukuna's voice over the sudden commotion, followed by Hisui's reply.
"Those are not our planes." He didn't sound upset or worried, as Fushimi would have expected. Instead there was nothing in Hisui Nagare's voice but anticipation.
"But they have to be ours, the United Colors doesn't have any air support!" Sukuna sounded like a child throwing a tantrum and Fushimi found himself laughing quietly as something else exploded to his right. The blindfold had slipped down slightly and with his glasses missing he could just make out the hazy shapes of Green soldiers running around the camp, trying to put out the rash of fires that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere. He heard someone yell off in the distance and then the soldiers were running back towards the town gates, a black shape that might have been Iwafune in the lead.
"So they've come at last." Hisui Nagare was already moving to follow Iwafune, Yukari at his side. Fushimi couldn't see where Sukuna had gone but rolling his head back to look upwards he could see small hazy silhouettes darting through the sky. There was another explosion somewhere further back, near the university entrance.
There was only one division in the United Colors that had air support, and Fushimi found himself smiling despite his position. His message had made it after all.
You finally managed to get through to Mihashira, huh, Captain? The planes above could only mean that the Silver General, at least, was still alive and had no doubt been contacted by Munakata as soon as he'd managed to adjust the frequency of their transmissions in order to get around Hisui Nagare's jammer.
Another explosion made even the ground shake and Fushimi found himself thrown forward again, debris scattering around him as the platform burst into a shower of splintered wood. Fushimi felt something strike him, sharp and painful, and he angled his head so that he could just make out the thick piece of wood that had hit him, buried deep in his side.
Fushimi grimaced and tried to pull himself into a sitting position, moving his arms so that he could just press the ropes that bound his hands against the sharp splintered end of the plank sticking out of his body. There was blood pooling on his shirt from where the wood had sunk deep into his skin and Fushimi's already hazy vision swam even more but still he worked his bound hands against the wood, the rope fraying just enough so that he was finally able to pull his hands free.
Fushimi forced himself to his feet, stumbling forward as he yanked the rest of the blindfold off his face. The base around him was in chaos, fires and bodies everywhere, Green soldiers trying to put out the flames as others ran through the camp with their weapons drawn. In the distance Fushimi could just make out an approaching wave of red and blue figures coming to meet them, and above it all, carried along by wind and smoke, a familiar voice.
"Saruhiko! Where the hell are you?"
Fushimi felt another laugh bubbling in his throat as he took a staggering step forward. Pain lanced through his side and he could feel something wet on his lips. Fushimi pressed one hand against his injured side, forcing himself to walk forward.
That idiot... Of course Misaki would be here, calling for him. Fushimi stumbled and sank down to his knees, his limbs feeling suddenly too heavy to move.
"This is all your fault!" Fushimi barely had time to register the sound of Sukuna's voice before something dealt him a glancing blow to the side of the head and he fell to the ground. Fushimi stared up blankly through the rain and the blood that was running down his face. Sukuna stood over him, still clutching the pistol he'd just hit Fushimi with, breathing hard and face wet from something more than rain.
"Nagare welcomed you!" Sukuna's hands clenched spasmodically around the pistol. "And look what you've done. You...traitor!"
Fushimi couldn't stop himself from laughing now, his entire body shaking with the force of it, and even Sukuna raising the gun and the white hot pain that lanced through his upper thigh, along with the sound of a gunshot that accompanied it, couldn't stop the convulsive laughter.
"Looks like your precious Nagare's finally lost, huh?" Fushimi's vision seemed to be going gray at the edges and it was hard to keep his gaze steady on Sukuna's face, the image constantly slipping just out of focus. Dimly he heard Misaki yell for him again. "But you never thought of that, did you? This is a war. Did you really think you could always win?"
"Shut up!" Sukuna's pistol pressed cold against his forehead and still Fushimi couldn't stop laughing. "Nagare won't lose. Nagare can't lose."
"That's why I hate kids like you," Fushimi murmured. "You think you can hold shit like this together with just words. It doesn't work. It never works."
"I said, shut up!" The pistol again, pressed close against his skin and Fushimi couldn't even feel it, entire body gone numb with cold and pain. "We haven't lost yet."
"Yes, you have." Fushimi smirked, letting his body go limp in the dirt. "None of you get that, do you? You, Misaki...none of your ever know when to just accept when you've finally, finally lost."
Sukuna's hand was shaking on the hilt of the pistol and Fushimi smiled up at him.
"Go on." His voice sounded like a croak in his own ears and Fushimi couldn't hear anything but the rain. "If you're going to do it, get it over with."
Sukuna gave a wordless scream and there was the roar of a gun firing in his ears, accompanied by a cold pain in his head. The sky above had gone completely black, the sky and the ground and everything, and as his eyes began to slide closed Fushimi could just make out someone running towards him, reaching for him.
"Misaki." The word was thick in his mouth and it felt almost as if it was someone else speaking, not his voice at all.
"Saruhiko..." Misaki's hands were gentle as they cradled him and Fushimi couldn't seem to keep Misaki's face into focus. Fushimi tried to open his mouth again, to speak even without knowing at all what he would say, and all that came out was another wet cough. Misaki's hands tightened around him and Fushimi couldn't tell which one of them was shaking.
Misaki...I'm...
Cold crept in through every one of his limbs and despite the dimming light Fushimi could just make out Misaki's mouth moving even though Fushimi could no longer hear the sound of his voice.
Something gray closed in along the corners of his vision, sweeping Misaki's face away entirely, and Fushimi reached up to embrace the darkness with both hands.
