a/n: just fyi, i'm playing with their ages and making them both 16, but this could change at a later point at which time i'll come back and edit this. For now, though, asuna and kazuto are both 16.
The seal was imprinted on a large flag waving proudly in the air. The sun shone down on the busy city street, and the hustle and bustle of the Saturday farmer's market crowd rang out clearly throughout the heart of Reksinya. Kazuto laid on a pillar, taking a moment to bask in the warm afternoon light. As the wind blew slightly across his face, he thought, life doesn't get much better than this.
Suddenly, a loud BOOM rocked the entire market and the screams of the people nearby him jolted Kazuto out of his laziness. He jumped up and into a defensive position, only to be greeted with a horrifying sight. Everyone around him was melting away; like water on a rainy day, they rolled down the brick pathway…
Something was wrong. This wasn't right. Kazuto frantically scanned the area, looking for any sign of what was happening. The liquid form of his fellow Reksinyans rushed around his ankles. He happened to glance down and found the ground much closer than he'd thought. Why am I so short? Come to think of it, where's the yellow in the sky? Where are the holes that litter this street?
From the sky, a bright flash of light was followed by roaring thunder. When Kazuto looked up, he strained to crane his neck. The violent waving of the flag caught his eye. The wind picked up furiously around him while he realized the flag had changed. There was no seal, no gold. The flag was just a block of red. The rain spontaneously started coming down in sheets.
What? RAIN? In the middle of the summer? The rushing water served as a mirror. Wait...why am I seven years old? The reflection that greeted Kazuto was one from nine years ago. His hair was different; more spiky. His eyes were bigger; more innocent. This isn't right, this isn't right, this isn't right-
Something wet dripped onto the top of Kazuto's head. Not rain. This was thicker than water. This...is stickier, he thought. The liquid coursed down his hair, Kazuto feeling every bit of it, and had just started to drip down the front of his face. Kazuto lightly touched his index finger to it and… "Crimson?" he whispered to himself, confused.
He glanced up to find out what this maroon liquid was. He was shocked when he found it was the flag. Disintegrating with every drop of rain that touched it, the flag was becoming a liquid, falling onto Kazuto. Out of the blue, the flag started liquifying faster, and the world around Kazuto shifted.
He was in a black void, a realm devoid of everything but the red liquid. The nothingness began to envelop him, each passing second filling Kazuto with more dread. His last thought as he was sucked into the liquid was...blood.
Kazuto shot straight up, gasping.
Peaceful moonlight filtered through the largest hole in Kazuto's room, where a window used to be, but he was feeling anything but calm right now. Beads of sweat traced a trail down his bare back and Kazuto could swear his heartbeat was causing earthquakes all the way in the Eastern Constituency.
His terror receding but his confusion still very much present, Kazuto stood from the raggedy futon he called a mattress and took deep breaths. The feeling of the viscous, adhesive liquid choking him with its very existence was something he could not get off his skin at that moment. He leaned against the clay that made up the structure of the house and looked out at the dark and abandoned city-state. For all of its flaws, the Authority was very good at enforcing the mandatory curfew for Reksinyan citizens.
Kazuto could only wonder one thing.
Why did the flag transform into suffocating blood?
Asuna winced as she saw more blood spill down on the coliseum floor. This sick form of entertainment was much too gruesome for her to enjoy, but the rest of the Yuukis seemed to take some wicked pleasure in watching the poorest of society fight each other to the death.
By far, death was a preferable option; the alternative was living to fight another day, then another; until they, too, finally succumbed. If Asuna was one of those peasants forced to kill to survive, she didn't know what she'd do. It was disheartening, if she was being honest. What are they living for? Why don't they just give up? It's a life of misery. She simply did not understand.
Next to her, Asuna's father, Shouzou Yuuki, laughed heartily. Below them, a man's arm was cut off by the other. His screams of pain were inaudible through the roar of joy that rippled through the entire stadium.
Are they really so depraved they laugh at the dismemberment of someone else? Asuna looked at her family, who was wearing proud smiles. No, it can't be. The Yuukis sure as hell aren't depraved but we enjoy this too. It was sound logic to Asuna.
The sword from the other plunged into the one-armed man's throat, ending his life right then and there. Blood gushed from the wound, staining the dirt floor of the coliseum, and the survivor collapsed next to it. Asuna didn't get how he could be right next to that blood and not flinch. He had made it appear. It was like the entire place was flooding with it, and yet that man was still there, motionless as the corpse he'd just created.
"Never mind," Asuna whispered to herself. "The only depraved ones here are them."
Later, at the dinner table, Shouzou brought up a topic of conversation Asuna had been dreading for a while. At first, the conversation seemed innocuous.
"Ah, Asuna, dear, you do remember the Nobuyuki family, right?"
She thought back for a second before swallowing timidly and answering in the meek, "womanly" voice her mother had conditioned her to use around men. "The family who runs the Recto Bank?"
"Precisely. I'm sure you remember Mr. Nobuyuki, and how he's a partner in one of my business ventures in the Occupied Territories, too."
"The mine, yes. I remember, father."
"Did you know he has a son?" asked Shouzou.
Asuna's voice tightened a bit. "No, I didn't."
"Well, he's 23 - only seven years older than you - and runs a very tight ship down at the mine. He's very successful," her father continued.
He sounds like a salesman. Trying to sell me something I don't want.
"Well, I hear he's single and looking for a noblewife."
"Father?" Oh no. Oh god no. Asuna's worst fears were being realized.
"He's coming over tomorrow-it's entirely platonic, by the way-and I'd like you to meet him. Just talk to him. See if you like him," he quickly explained.
"Yes, honey, see if you do," Kyouko Yuuki interjected.
The unspoken addendum hung heavily in the air. And you better.
a/n: I KNOW THIS IS LATE BUT I'M INTRODUCING AN OC NEXT CHAPTER AND I TOOK A LITTLE BIT TOO MUCH TIME WITH IT IM SORRYYYYY