A/N: I apologize for all these irregular updates.

And in response to last chapter's guest review: No love triangles here! Never!

Chapter 21: Broken

AZURA

"Apparently the eldest Prince of Hoshido kept Lady Corrin as his pet for months, if you know what I mean. Imagine that."

Common soldiers could come and go to the nearby village to replenish their personal supplies, to convey to that side of them that still yearned for the mundane. Locals accepted the presence of unusually kind strangers and their wish for trade, and they'd warm up to them enough to indulge in the exchange of gossip. Azura, of course, was alien to all of that, as she would avoid interaction with the soldiers if possible.

Azura was aware that news in the time of war would either travel fast or be halted at all costs, depending on the context… however…

She never liked gossip, whether it was true or not, she only knew it as something damaging, something that could evolve and devour people's lives inadvertently, and right now she couldn't stop feeling her jaw tense when she started to hear more and more soldiers in Leo's army speak about Corrin like this; it spread like a disease.

The princess was on her way to take her own meal to her quarters in the fort and she casually passed through a couple of mercenaries talking.

"Huh. That's kind of sick. What makes you think it's true though? It sounds fake."

"But what if it isn't? It makes sense that they'd send her away after the little brother went missing. The Hoshidan royal family must be falling apart—Hey, watch it!" The princess 'accidentally' dropped the bowl of her soup ration to the shoulder of the mercenary when she stepped nearby; the man forgot his rage when he recognized the noble bearing of the woman, as she silently apologized. "L-lady Azura, please be more careful!"

Admittedly, she rarely ever let herself act under the influence of anger, especially anything malicious, but it wasn't just Corrin's reputation what was being tarnished by this gossip…

Nearby, Prince Leo was hidden around the corner from the hall those soldiers were talking, and understandably she was startled to encounter him, and from the looks of it, he wasn't pleased.

"Leo…! Were you listening to them?"

"I've been hearing them for days, actually. Locals in the nearby town came upon those rumors… I'm afraid that maybe some of Iago's confidants must've made sure to spread the gossip before the massacre at his camp", he said, crossing his armor-clad arms, twisting his thin lips in disgust. "Even in death, Iago does nothing but bring misery to all of us."

Azura took a quick look around, make sure that nobody else would be hearing them. Then she spoke, looking at him more intently. "What do you make out of this situation?"

"Ill-conceived rumors were the indirect cause of my mother's death years ago… not a coincidence that Iago was at the heart of them too" Azura had heard as much from the years she spent in the ruthless nohrian court, but Leo's case was difficult, for he was the son of one of Garon's many concubines that had made her life miserable in there. She decided to not press the matter. However, that only begged for the question: what would they do about these rumors? They were far from harmless and she didn't want to think of the effects it'd have on Elise… or Takumi.

"Unfortunately, addressing the matter myself will barely hinder the damage… The least I can do is to discourage the gossip from spreading", Leo spoke; he looked extremely tired. Azura wasn't sure how well has he slept if he did at all; he seemed ready to pass out anytime. "Don't tell Corrin any of this, Azura. She's got enough things to worry about these days."

"You too. Xander will arrive to us shortly, so, you better be prepared to lie on his face."

"As long as he doesn't make the right questions, I won't have to try too hard to lie." It wasn't that he was a bad liar, but probably his brother was too good at telling when someone is; it was hard to tell if he was ready to meet Xander, Azura knew that she wasn't. "But then, we'll have to see what's going to be done about Prince Takumi as our hostage. Something tells me that he won't try to escape, but he isn't going to make our lives any easier either, especially when Xander arrives and begins to mobilize our troops through Hoshidan territory."

"… Will you explain to him about what happened with Iago?"

The young prince nodded softly, albeit holding a bleak expression. "It won't shake his faith on Father, but at least it'll serve to ease him into what's to come. And don't worry, I don't think that Xander will outright expose Corrin or Prince Takumi in front of that Impostor… I know that he won't."

The songstress didn't sense any hint of hesitation in his words when he spoke about Prince Xander, and it somehow reassured her. It's been a constant surprise to find out that her nohrian 'siblings' haven't been completely broken by King Garon's relentless abuse and manipulation… and she often found herself admiring Leo for his flexibility. She wasn't wrong for relying on him.

The earth shook beneath her feet, the rumbling of explosions penetrated into the fortress and Leo immediately closed his distance with Azura while the soldiers from minutes ago were alerted by that booming sound as well.

"What is it now? Are we under attack?" Leo griped, his expression suddenly more awake. Azura parted from him quickly and sprinted to the fort's entrance where all the guards were gathering.

"Rogues!", one of them yelled, before the force of a powerful red flare made five different men fly in the air.

Azura stepped back, momentarily blinded by the smoke produced by that and she struggled to breathe, left vulnerable. There were mage users among those attackers, definitely nohrians as well…

Before she could see, there was a man wielding a large axe lifting his weapon above her head, and she had no time to react, as she was unarmed.

That brief moment of terror was short-lived however, as an unnatural set of tree branches appeared before her, the thick wood shielding her from her attacker and gruesomely twirled around the barbarian's limbs… This could only be the work of the magic tome Brynhildr, legendary weapon bestowed on Leo's hands. Such a terrifying and beautiful magic, she never truly saw it from this close.

Leo called Azura out, and she took the chance to run. They needed to prepare for battle.

…

TAKUMI

He heard it when it happened, a part of his heart probably expected it to be a strike from hoshidan troops that had come to rescue their prince, but he quickly dismissed the idea as preposterous. His family surely had other more important things to do than to waste forces into retrieving him, a husk of the prince he was supposed to be.

Whatever happened, it was grave enough for Azura to rush into his room and press him to follow her immediately to whatever safe place they thought he needed to be.

But Azura wasn't going to protect him, no. She sought for someone else to do the job as they ran through the fortress filled with clouds of dust and smoke. They found Corrin with that old gray retainer of hers, her sword was ready in hand and her single red eye was glowing with wild panic when she spotted Takumi.

"Hurry, we can't let them see that Takumi is here, nor you", she gasped as she spoke to Corrin, pushing Takumi towards them. "It's not safe that you remain hidden in the fort."

The old knight took promptly guided both him and Corrin to a different exit, and Azura stayed behind, possibly thought that she was needed on the battle unfolding at the fort's courtyard.

They found a secret exit at the back of the fortress facing the lush forested area, and Takumi could listen to the tumult from afar, and for a moment, the old knight—his name was Gunter, he recalled— flinched with his lance and shield on hand upon hearing the movements of the underbrush.

"… Stay close, both of you." the old man commanded, Corrin was particularly tense as she would look back at Takumi every few seconds. Nobody was comfortable with this.

It happened too fast, the whispers were not lift by the air and nobody heard it until the thunder cracked on Gunter's shoulder, making the man cry out by the blow. Corrin reacted immediately and went out to chase after the source of that magical assault. She moved so fast, like a predator, and with a quick swing of her sword, she terminated the hidden enemy before Gunter could recover his breath. Gunter was resting on his knees; the large armor was suddenly too heavy for him, apparently.

Takumi observed it from such a distance; he didn't feel like he was actually here at all. Why was he here in the first place? It was hard to breathe. More rogues appeared, Gunter yelled alerting his lady about the danger, Corrin suddenly found herself fending an axe-wielding barbarian; her sword technique was still clumsy, but enough to keep her alive…

He could run away. He could move his legs, run until his feet bled, run until all of them were left far behind him. He could run now and warn his people about what was to come. He could redeem himself…

"Takumi, don't split! Takumi!"

Corrin ran after him, and he realized that she was already close to catching up with him, which only prompted him to consciously pick up the pace. She would not trap him, not again.

And then he tripped.

No. He was pushed to the ground, but just not from behind. His body rolled until his back collided with a tree's roots.

Corrin screamed his name, and Takumi watched a man wielding sword and shield cross her path, avoiding her by sheer luck, and her only eye instantly fixated on the blade he was holding. Takumi could only see the armed mercenary's back, but he could tell that the man was confident of his stance. He was well-equipped with a pair of swords hanging from his belt, even several knives that might as well just serve for anything but battle.

"… After the havoc that you caused at the camp, I escaped with my life, but never thought that I'd ever have the chance to repay the favor!" The man had a wyrmslayer in his hand, one cut could prove to be fatal to dragons… and Corrin, in a sense, was a dragon. If Corrin became so cautious all of sudden, it could only mean that it was indeed her bane.

The man struck first, she blocked the sword's strike, but her counter was effectively blocked as well. Corrin grunted, pressed her weight against the man's sword and swung again, stronger, she'd be able to knock him off-balance. Takumi decided to take this chance to run away; that's what Corrin would have asked him to do anyway…

She'd be fine. She could beat that one man without problem. He ran, realized that he pain that travelled through his body was that of a twisted ankle—must've happened when he tripped—; but he resisted, he refused to stop running. It'd be fine.

She'd be fine.

She'd be fine. Why should he worry?

… Suddenly the pain became unbearable. He couldn't breathe. Takumi stumbled on his knees, sweaty on his neck and face, feeling so sick that he thought he'd throw up.

There was no way that he'd make it. He was small and weak, his pride was mutilated to a thin thing, and he couldn't possibly even think of showing his face to Sakura or Hinoka, less of all, Ryoma. The shame and disgust they'd feel if they ever found out. They'd never let him live it down… How could he ever consider himself their brother after all the things he was forced do do?

He couldn't breathe. He was so small and weak and broken. Being this scared, where could he go? What could he do?

The movement of dry leaves crunching and steps came after him; as he thought, Corrin probably didn't have any problems to find him, and now she'd take him back to Gunter…

The hand that grabbed his shoulder pulled him up so violently that he was startled. It was the man that Corrin fought, and gods, the wyrmslayer's edge was painted in red. Takumi's heart froze and his mouth dried when he saw that man's satisfied smile.

"It's you! You're the hoshidan boy! Don't you remember me?" Without thinking, Takumi tried to kick him away and escape. "Where do you think you're going?" Another push like the one before, and then a large hand slapped his face, making him taste blood in his mouth; he was pinned to the ground on his chest, with the weight of the man's knee sitting on Takumi's back.

He tried to move, but suddenly his stomach grew heavier and his arms froze in place, feeling a hand grab the nude back of his neck. "I was extremely nice to you, don't you remember? They were all yanking your pretty long hair all the time, so I decided to chop it off. If I didn't do it, they'd have broken your neck."

Those words sent chills down his spine, but he couldn't remember any of that, he couldn't even reason with the idea that this man did—

He was turned over, took a good look at the man's wretched smile to make Takumi shoulders shiver while his mind struggled to find a response. The man tried to undo his lower garments, Takumi couldn't understand why he was frozen like this, why his mind so desperately wanted to escape while his body couldn't muster the strength that he needed to fight. It was like it gave up before he could reason a way out.

He hated himself for this. This is why he was so worthless, so weak, so small… This is what he's been reduced to and he only had himself to blame.

"I… I can't breathe…!" he gasped; couldn't even understand why he said that aloud. Nobody would hear and nobody would care. The world was vanishing before his eyes.

And he heard that coarse laughter, inviting him to dive into darkness. "Just take a deep breath—"

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY BROTHER!"

There was a scream that shook the woods, there was the sound of iron and a splatter, a heavy thud that hit the ground next to him. His face was wet, he touched his own face to see that someone else's blood was sprinkled on his face, and it took him one moment to understand that Corrin's sword had cut the brute's head in half, the body limp on top of Takumi.

Corrin was heaving, her hands on the sword's hilt were trembling and she fell on her bottom while her left eye was wide and looking at the body of the man that she slew. Takumi, however, couldn't stand seeing the man.

Clarity jolted through Takumi, and he moved the body off him, so much heavier and colder than what he imagined. A strange surge of mirth followed, as he found that he could breathe again.

He snickered; he found out that his hands couldn't stop trembling either, just like Corrin's.

"… I didn't even recognize his face", Takumi murmured, wiping the blood from his chin with his dirty sleeve.

"W-what's the matter with you?" Corrin whined. He wasn't looking at her, just at his own hands, then at the corpse beside him.

"You must think that I'm pathetic, don't you? You just keep on coming to save me over and over again and I can't even fight against one single man. Pitiful, isn't it?" He smiled, and somehow it only made his words come out easier. Smiling should have been the last thing to do, but he couldn't help it.

"… I'm tired. I'm so tired, Corrin", he finally said after moments of hearing Corrin pant.

Maybe Corrin was too exhausted to understand right away and act fast, but Takumi didn't think about it when he took one knife from the corpse's belt and placed the rusty tip against his own stomach.

It wasn't very sharp, but if he did it with enough force and quickly, he could avoid making it messier than it was supposed to be. It'd be fine. It'd be over soon if he did it right.

He felt it, how Corrin suddenly jumped and tried to say something, but with his own faltering hands, the grip on the handle went completely loose; he lowered the blade before she could even touch it.

He couldn't go through with it after all.

With a more careful demeanor, Corrin sat close to him. Takumi observed that there was a large bloody gash on her right thigh, her white tights were damp with angry crimson and it looked too painful to watch. She was slashed in several parts of her body, but her thigh looked the worst.

"Give it to me." Corrin didn't have to fight to take it from his hands, it was almost lovingly how she retrieved it and put it away. "… This is not how it has to end. I know, I'm the last person you'd like to listen right now, but please, don't let this be the end! You're so much stronger than that!"

"That's not true!" Takumi shook his head, refused to look at her face. Her words were again meaningless, an easy pretense of understanding. "There's no way that you can come out stronger from something like… this. I should have died before letting them have me! I wanted to die when they laughed at me and I wanted to die when they made me cry out. Whenever I came back to my senses, I only wanted one of them to simply cut my throat and make it end… You can't understand how this feels like!"

He always avoided to talk about it, not because it was so painfully obvious for everyone observant enough, but because of the shame and distress scarring him so deeply. It was for the best to never bring it up, he thought. It was for the best if he could work his way into acting as if it never happened, he thought.

But right now it was overflowing, no matter how much he couldn't afford to let it out, it was impossible to hide how bad the damage was, as the wound kept on opening wider and wider.

And Corrin was always in the middle of the wound. Always.

"I should have come for you sooner", she whispered, she tried to swallow a whine of pain as her hand hesitated to reach out for him.

She was trying so hard to gain his sympathy. Why?

"Why are you doing this?" His question had so many meanings, and she had to be quiet for a few seconds to think of an answer. Her shoulders were tense, and her hands were suddenly twisting on her lap.

"… I promised that I'd take you back home."

No.

"No! You're just saying it to give your reckless actions an excuse, but you shouldn't even care whether I hate you or not! You always get hurt because of me! Why are you like this?"

She snapped a glare at him, and her lips twisted while tried to find a way with words. She was shaking again, seemed angrier too. "I don't know! Maybe because I feel guilty! M-maybe because I want you to just forgive me for what I did! I should take you home and keep my promise no matter what, but I also want you to forgive me, because I don't know how else to deal with you! I can't stand the thought of you hating me so much anymore! I want you to trust me, I want you to validate me, even if the only thing I can do is to receive the blows and cuts for you! So why don't you forgive me already?", Corrin cried, one of her fists grabbed a handful of her own hair in frustration. "Why won't you just forgive me?"

He's seen her like this before, before everything went to hell, when she was so deep in despair that he thought she'd fall apart. Was this how she's been feeling all along?

It took a few moments for Corrin to regain her composure, but her heart was left open before him and he knew the extent of her affliction, how willfully he neglected to acknowledge her sacrifices. He's been hurt, and in return he had done nothing but to make her bleed.

But no matter how much he owed her, how much he wanted to relieve her of her pain, Corrin wasn't within her rights to demand forgiveness. Not when she was at the verge of betraying everything she loved once again… It'd be cruel to falsely reassure her that her actions wouldn't weigh on her later on.

Then she got back on her feet, albeit noticeably her legs shuddered in the effort. It looked painful to stand with such a big wound on her leg.

"… I'm sorry. I know that it's too much to ask from you", she said, her voice was still dreary, but held itself with some sort of sweetness.

For one last time, she stretched out her hand towards him and he saw her only eye glistening, how she extraordinarily fought back the tears that should be drenching her cheeks. It was so unfair to see how strong she was, how such a small show of grit moved Takumi to accept that hand; unsurprisingly, she was warm to the touch, contrasting the bittersweet feelings swirling inside him.

And even Takumi tried to loved her… he couldn't forgive her. It was too much, too soon for that.

For now, he only wanted to lean on her and let her lean on him in return, because the world was too heavy and their wounds too grave to pretend that they didn't need solace. Their prides weren't worth much anyway.

The noise of warring echoed distantly around the woods, slowly dying down. The rogues were probably not many anyway, so those that Corrin and Gunter have faced must've been just trying to surround the fortress… Takumi could only ponder about the grim origins of those rogues and their reasons for attacking Prince Leo's forces out of the blue, despite being nohrians.

Suddenly, Corrin tensed and took up her sword again at the same time they heard the aggressive clopping of a horse approaching to them at alarming speed.

"Stand back!" Corrin stood defensively in front of Takumi, making sure that he would be shielded from an upcoming attack.

He didn't like to be in this position when she was still so heavily wounded, and he considered taking up one of the swords of the dead body, but he instantly dropped the idea once he recognized the figure of the man who rode the giant black horse that appeared after layers of trees. Corrin seemed to recognize it as well.

"Corrin?" said the horseman, his poise was something that could only belong to nobility. It was on the way he dressed, the way he spoke, the air surrounding him. And then there was that formidable black sword he lowered when he spoke Corrin's name with such familiarity.

For some reason, it struck fear in Takumi.

"Xander?"