Title: Ashes and Oaths
Characters: Shun, Ruri, Yuuto||Ship: N/A
Chapters: 2-3||Words: 3,040||Total: 6,319
Genre: Angst, Drama||Rated: PG
Prompt: Arc-V Angst Week, day #1, Heartland
Notes: This takes place, obviously, pre-canon, during the early days of the invasion of Heartland. Upon rewatching Arc-V, I noticed it was said the invasion would be soon, three years prior to canon. So, for the sake of this story, the invasion began two and a half years before Yuuya discovers Pendelum Summoning. Also, there is minor character death and everything else that pertains to the invasion in this.
Summary: Once everything was normal. People didn't hurt themselves regularly and if they did, it wasn't hard at all to get it taken care of. If people died, there were others to take care of those left behind. All that's changed now: changed forever.
Shun made his choice in a heartbeat. It wasn't a choice that he wanted to make but he didn't have any other to make. Which really made it not a choice at all.
He threw himself forward, past the tattered canvas he'd concealed himself behind, and swore loudly at the sharp pain that raced up his leg from his ankle. The three Fusion soldiers were already looking in his direction, and one of them looked almost impressed by his choice of language.
"He's injured," one of them observed, voice floating faintly over. "This isn't going to be a very fun game."
A game. Shun hissed at the words, buttoning down on what he really wanted to say, if only because he needed the breath to keep on running. At least he tried to run. With each step his ankle and leg hurt even more and he had to force himself to move just to have a chance of escaping.
He didn't think he had a good chance. He wasn't sure if it was even a chance at all. Certainly not from the way the three of them – six of them, he'd almost forgotten the other bunch coming his way – sauntered in his general direction. None of them seemed all that worried about him getting away from them.
But he was going to try, whether or not he could. He snarled, holding his duel disc close to himself, ready to at least attempt to draw if they got too close. Well, closer than they already were. Just the fact they existed in the same dimension that he did meant they were too close for him.
"Are we sure he's one of the resistance?" One of the ones that hadn't spoken yet asked. "Do we even have a chance at a good game?"
Shun didn't wait around for one of them to answer that. "Yes, I am!" It wasn't as if he'd ever hidden what he was. He'd made a point of taking pride in how much he wanted these people out of his world. Nothing they did could ever make up for what they'd already done, if they even wanted to try to make up for it.
The Fusion soldiers didn't even act as if he'd said a word. One of the second bunch gestured towards him. "He is. Look, he's wearing one of those scarves. That's how they mark themselves, the idiots."
"As if you're any better, wearing those ridiculous uniforms!" Shun shot back. If they weren't going to pay any attention to what he said, then did it matter what he said at all?
They followed. They made no attempt to respond to what he said, casually chatting among each other, as if it were an every day thing to stalk down someone with only limited ability to defend himself.
Shun hated them all more and more with each moment.
His foot dragged on the broken road, catching on a small crack, sending another blinding shard of pain all through himself. His heart beat faster as he struggled to stop himself from falling.
Struggled and failed. He landed face first, a streak of pain along one cheek, another against his stomach, a third thrumming on his left side. He dragged in a harsh breath of air and pushed himself to his feet, twisting around. He expected to see them closer. Why would they not be?
And yet they'd come to a halt about where they'd been. Five of them chatted among themselves. One watched him. When that one saw Shun glaring at them, he smirked.
"Why should we ruin our fun by just finishing you right away? You're not really going anywhere, are you?"
Shun hated those words as soon as he heard them. But another thought sparked the moment he did and he fought to keep himself under control.
"You might just be surprised," he muttered before he pushed himself back to his feet and started to move again. If they weren't just going to card him or challenge him, then it gave him time to do more. To think more. To maybe, just possibly, get out of here in one piece.
And if it didn't, then he would at least have tried. And he would be able to keep them away from the people that he cared about. The resistance would survive. They would find a way to win, with or without him. That mattered more than he did. Much more.
He pushed himself on even more. The one who'd started talking to him didn't stop.
"Do you have anything decent at all in this world? No food. No drinks." His lips moved in a way that Shun thought would mean a smile if they were on a different face. Not a very pleasant one, but a smile all the same. Shun hated it. He hadn't seen a good smile since the day of the invasion. "Not even a decent summoning method."
Shun snarled, lunging for a few paces before he stumbled again, going down on one knee before he caught himself. All six of the Fusion soldiers laughed at that, with the one who'd been talking sneering.
"And you can't even walk decently. The least you could do is run from us. It will be a lot more fun if you do – and you might even live longer." He tapped on his duel disc briefly. "Not all that long, of course. I'm going to card you."
"No fair!" One of the others protested. "It was my Hound that found him first! I should get to do it!"
The third growled at both of them. "I say we duel and whoever wins does it."
Of the other three, the one who looked in nominal command snorted in his own turn. "We could just flip a coin. It would be a lot faster and we could get back to fun before we miss anyone else who might be in the area."
Shun shook his head. "There isn't anyone else. Just me." Which wasn't entirely untrue. He just didn't want to risk them chancing across the refugee camp. The sentries and roving patrols would probably take them out before any real damage happened, but he preferred not to take that chance.
And yet he might as well not have said anything in the first place. One of the last two pulled out a small item from a pocket. "There are six of us. I've got a dice. Who wants to be what number?"
They're talking about who wants to card me. Who wants to kill me. More than once Shun killed or carded Fusion soldiers, and had on occasion bantered with Yuuto on which of them got which particular ones when they had options. They had a more or less standing agreement to take turns.
But they hadn't flipped coins or rolled dice or anything like that when it came time to settle. For the most part, there were more than enough soldiers for them to take all that they wanted.
Shun pressed his lips together and shoved onward. If they wanted to take him, they would still have to actually walk to do it, no matter how slow they had to do it. He kept an eye on the holographic hounds as he did. They growled and snarled in his direction but never moved away from their masters. He wondered if they were somehow that well trained or if they were programmed not to move a certain distance.
Yuuto would be a lot more interested in that than he was. So would Arclight-sensei. Shun wanted to know only so he had some idea of what he was going to be up against.
He wasn't quite to the point of hopping along but if he hurt himself much more, he knew that he would be. His swollen ankle throbbed and dragged along; the ankle that hadn't been hurt still didn't move as fast as he wanted, and he wondered if he'd injured himself there somehow and just not noticed it. Scrapes and aches flittered all over his body and there were streaks of blood that even if the six Fusion soldiers weren't there, they could have easily used that to find him.
Most of the light poles had been knocked over in the last couple of years and were used now more for landmarks than for lights. One of them, bent to the side and with the bulb long since shattered, hung not that far ahead of him. Shun half-skipped and half-lurched along, wrapping his fingers around the pole and taking in deep breaths, each one of which came from the deepest part of his lungs, and each one of which ached for him to breathe.
They're still there. Now what? He almost hoped they would get bored and go find something else to do which would give him the chance to get out of there. He wasn't even sure if they'd decided who got the chance to card him or not. As long as they didn't decide to just do it, he still had a chance.
A very slim chance, but perhaps a chance all the same.
"You should get moving." One of the Fusion soldiers spoke up. This wasn't the one who'd talked to him before. That one kept his attention on Shun, a smirk playing over his lips as he moved closer. Shun drew in another breath, trying to ignore how much that hurt, and started forward again.
What he wanted to do was throw them off his trail and get somewhere long enough so he could call up one of his Raid Raptors. He'd be able to get out of there with that kind of help. As much as the idea appealed to him to just do it now, with six of them there and with how slowly he moved thanks to his injuries, he knew they would pull him down before he could escape. So he needed time and space. And preferably a few allies who'd be able to interfere before his pursuers could do anything to him.
A soft beep sounded and he jerked his head back to see the Fusion soldier who led the pack checking something. Apparently a message of some kind, as an expression of rage crossed his features.
"I did not want to hear that!" He all but spat the words out before he glared at Shun again. "If you want to keep breathing, you'd better start really running. Not that it's going to do you any good, but what's coming is a lot worse than us."
The other soldiers looked as confused as Shun himself felt at the moment before the leader let out a very annoyed snarl. "It's him. Just got the message that he's on the way."
Whoever 'he' was, the soldiers took a near collective step back and started to look around as if they expected whoever it was to just appear out of thin air. Given how Shun had seen some soldiers appear at times, it wasn't that impossible of a thought. But nothing happened, at least not in the sense of someone new appearing.
"Why?" One of the others asked. Shun couldn't really tell them apart except for the one that seemed so intent on getting hold of him. "What does he want here? Just hunting?"
That got a shrug. "I don't know. All I was told was that he's coming here for a mission of some sort."
"Who?" If Shun were going to run – which he absolutely didn't want to do unless he had no choice – he at least wanted to know who he was running from. "Who are you talking about?" He also wanted to have some kind of idea on what sort of person he needed to avoid. Seven people instead of six made escape that much harder.
Especially if one of them were someone who made monsters like this wary.
"You don't want to know. He's carded more of your kind than I can count and I won't let him steal another one from me!" The soldier hissed his words, fingers clenching into fists before he glared at Shun. "Go! Run!"
Shun stood his ground. It wasn't that he had any particular bias against running, but he wanted to find out something. "What makes you think I should do anything you want?" For that matter, what held the fool against simply carding Shun right then and there if he wanted to do so that badly? It wouldn't at all be the first time that Fusion soldiers carded those who couldn't fight back.
"Because if you get caught by us, we're just going to card you," one of the other soldiers said, ignoring the sharp hand wave that came from the supposed leader. "Yuuri cards people too, but he's…" The soldier shook his head and if Shun hadn't known better, he would've thought the other looked pale. "Yuuri hurts people before he cards them."
"So if you just run from us, we'll hunt you down and make it quick. You might not even notice a thing." Another one said.
A third snorted. "Which is always disappointing to me, because they never scream right when they don't notice it."
Shun sneered at that; what did they think he was going to do, just scream to make them happy about it? What kind of idiots were they, really?
"Yuuri's worse. Yuuri is so much worse that I can't even describe it. He will make you suffer. You'll want to be carded before he's done with you." A fourth said with a shake of his head.
The fifth glanced around even more nervously than before. "I heard that someone once carded himself just to get away from Yuuri. Can you believe that?"
No. Shun thought he had enough of his breath back. He refused to believe a single word that any of them said. There most likely wasn't even someone else coming: it could all be a trick just to get him to do whatever it was they hoped for. Shun wasn't at all in the habit of co-operating nicely with his enemies.
To the left. To the right. A quick check behind him. He didn't see anyone else and the only real sounds he heard were the quiet footsteps of the six soldiers and their hounds, and the sighing of the wind through the ruins. If there was anyone else around, they weren't anywhere near here and that gave him more time to get to solid cover.
The more he looked the more he recognized where he was, and that meant he knew where there was better cover. As always, the issue would remain on if he could get to that better cover before they got to him.
The pain from his ankle eased off a bit by now. Not nearly enough so he could walk without effort, and running wasn't even an option. If he tried, he'd fall again. He still couldn't use his duel disk. Even if his arms and hands worked, he'd heard a crunch from within his jacket when he'd fallen. He remained certain that his deck was safe, but as for the disc itself? He didn't have time to look and he refused to check where they could see him.
Ruri would lecture him once he got back. So would Yuuto. He wasn't going to pretend that they wouldn't, not once they saw how badly battered he was and heard about how he'd had to escape six Fusion soldiers. He wouldn't put it past Yuuto not to let him out of base on his own for at least a month, if no longer.
It'll take that long to either get my duel disc fixed or find a replacement anyway. The rules were that no one could go out who couldn't either defend themselves or have someone with them who could do the defending.
He moved. He moved as fast as he could, hauling his battered leg along and wishing that he could move faster, do something that would help himself, or just do something more than limping.
"We could just go on and card him now," he heard from behind him. "We can tell everyone what kind of an entertaining hunt it was. Who would know the difference?"
That was one of the others; not the one who seemed to want to hunt him down personally. He was the one who answered. "You're right. He's not in good enough shape to make it really fun and if we don't hurry up, Yuuri will get here anyway. Go!"
Shun didn't stop to see what that last word was directed at. He didn't really need to, not when he heard metallic paws surging forward, and something plowed into him, knocking him down against the ground.
So close! No! Shun's fingers stretched out towards the half-ruined building that stood only about two dozen steps away from him. The sign that marked what it was could barely be read with how weather-beaten it was, but he knew what was inside: perfume. Probably not much left now, but if he could find enough of it, he knew it could be used to hide his trail.
Those footsteps coming closer to him, far too many of them. Shun surged and strained, wanting to get back on his feet, wanting to take the final leap into the wreckage and at least try.
"I really wanted this to go on a little farther. I was having fun!" The main soldier almost seemed as if he were pouting. He was close enough for Shun to see him now. Shun wriggled and writhed, managing to flip himself to one side so he could glare at the six of them as they approached. The one in the lead had his duel disk up and out. "Any last words?"
The six looked at each other for a heartbeat before they all started laughing, the sound echoing back all around from the nearly empty city. Shun refused to give them any satisfaction at all, his head held up high and proud and defiant.
The soldier's hand moved towards a button on his duel disc. Shun didn't move.
"Am I interrupting?"
To Be Continued
Notes: So, is it Yuuri? Is it Yuuto? Is it someone else? Could even be Kaito! Or Ruri! Or some other resistance member. You'll find out tomorrow! However, whoever it is, I'm contemplating an alternate ending so it's someone else. But not for a while yet. Still working on completing fics properly before I do alternates. But who would interest you to see?