YEAR THREE.80 3/4 Solicitude & Dire Break
Your absence has not taught me to be alone, it has merely shown me that when we are together, we cast a single shadow on the wall. ~Doug Fetherling
Yuu Nishinoya's wings burn, but he barely notices. Instead, he pushes them a little harder.
The skin on his face is going numb from windburn with the blistering pace he'd set, and the muscles in his back have been threatening to cramp every few strokes, but he ignores them. He can't hear anything over the roar of wind in his ears, and he can feel the line of sweat sliding between his shoulders.
He couldn't care less, because none of it matters.
The others were all in Sheru Bay today. Tanaka and Natsu, Suga and Daichi, Bokuto and Akaashi, the other two cats. He's seen so much destruction on the way home from the earthquake that he dreads what he will find.
Asahi. As the small crow crests the last ridge before Sheru Bay, his soul fractures and the air leaves his lungs.
He recognizes nothing.
Debris fills the water in the small inlet, it's usually pristinely crystal clarity muddied and murky with floating bits of splintered wood and netting and broken furniture. The wharf and all the boats normally tied there are missing. He can't find where Ukai's shop is supposed to be or Sugawara's relatives'. He can barely tell where the main road ran through town.
Noya's heart plummets, because there is no Sheru Bay.
The roof of the local butcher shop is caught between two uprooted trees, another house crushed up against the hillside, cages from the aviary mangled between bits and pieces of buildings scattered about like leaves in fall. A fishing boats lies on its side near where the path that leads to the beach house should be. Trees are uprooted, the earth weathered and exposed, and seawater gathers in low areas. A wash of jumbled slats and shredded boards runs along the hill that backs the land side of Sheru Bay, a perfect line showing how high the wave reached. The twisted wood guts of buildings is interspersed with torn netting, broken roof tiles, and personal belongings like whispers of the lives that have been overturned.
He can see several avians flying around a patch of earth stripped bare like hornets buzzing around the place their nest used to be. He desperately hopes the rest of the beach crew is among them. He desperately wants one of them to be Asahi.
His shoulder spasms and his wings falter; he mentally snaps at them in annoyance. This is no time for fatigue. He needs to find the others.
Asahi and Tanaka and Daichi were supposed to be helping renovate Sheru Bay's single inn near the path that led up into the hills behind the town; the building isn't where he last saw it. He searches and searches, but there's nothing.
A familiar shape flashes across the sky and for a moment, Noya is at a loss beneath the sight of something— someone— familiar. And then he's scrambling.
"Daichi!" He screeches and the crow's wings jar mid flap. He turns toward him, his eyes wide.
"Noya!" The small crow nearly collides with him as he crosses the distance to him.
"Where is everyone? Tanaka? Asahi?" Their former sentry leader's brow creases.
"Come on." He says and turns over a wing. Noya's chest constricts.
Why hadn't he answered?
The command he'd given instead was more cryptic than helpful, and as the short crow speeds after him, he can feel how off balance the destruction around him is making him. It's surreal, he thinks, that the town they've called home for nearly four years… is gone.
Daichi leads him at a breakneck pace up one of the creek valleys that opened up onto Sheru Bay, the entire way there boasting more debris, and he follows the former sentry leader around a large stone face. And the moment they're clear of it, he almost stops in surprise.
There is the inn they were supposed to have been renovating, half crushed up against the ravine's rocky outcroppings and its lower level mostly gutted. Noya has to distractedly marvel at how far it's traveled from its foundation. On the roof, a pair of figures is working to dislodge the tiles and get at the inside and he almost grins in relief at seeing two more familiar shapes.
Tanaka and Bokuto both straighten at their approach, the streaked owl's eyes lighting on him with surprise.
"Noya!" Tanaka greets grimly as he and Daichi drop onto the roof.
"This is nuts." He says in return. "Where is Natsu? Asahi? Suga?" The bald crow frowns, his gaze falling to the roof searchingly, but it's Daichi that answers first.
"Suga is fine and so are his relatives." He murmurs before looking back toward Bokuto and Tanaka.
"We found the cats." He says, his voice a little tight and Noya knows his next words aren't going to be something they want to hear.
"Are they—"
"They're alive. For now," Daichi cuts the owl off, "We found Lev clinging to a tree with one hand and Yaku caught up in his other, but…" The large crow looks like he wants to be sick. "They're not in good shape. Between Suga, Akaashi, and I, we were able to bring them to Takeda's since his place was high enough to escape the water, but they're… the small cat's been unconscious since we found them and Lev flat out refused to let go of him even as he was trailing intestines.
"They were apparently in the hallway of the house when it hit. The big picture window… Lev's got a hell of a gaping cut across his belly and Suga was going to attempt to put everything back inside, but that moron won't release Yaku for anything. Suga and Akaashi are going to have a task to put him back together."
"Pinfeathers, you gotta be kidding." Bokuto murmurs with shock and Noya can't help how his jaw drops.
"Lev is that bad?"
"Yeah… but Yaku might be the bigger concern. He was breathing, but totally unresponsive. It looked like he might have had a broken arm, but I didn't see any other obvious injury." Noya blinks before cutting back to Tanaka, his mental headcount still short.
"Where is Asahi?" He asks again. The bald crow frowns, his face pale.
"We aren't sure. We think he's inside with Natsu, but the steps to the second floor were on the back side which is conveniently just splinters now. We um… I'm alive so we know Natsu's alive, but we haven't heard anything from inside at all and it's been like an hour since anyone has seen them." His gaze drops, his face creasing in troubled thought.
"It depends on whether they were on the second floor when it hit, I guess. If they were on the bottom, they might have been drug back out to sea when it receded, in which case… we're wasting our time here and they'll probably drown. Or at least Natsu will." Daichi shakes his head.
"There are plenty of people flying right now on the lookout for missing people in the bay. If either of them are there, they'll be seen. This was where we were working when the quake started; this is where we should look now." Tanaka looks up at him with a pained expression.
"I should have been there with her."
Noya hates how there is no real certainty in what he's hearing, and his gut tightens with unease at the plethora of horrible possibilities that crowd his mind. But they can't let their worry distract them and he latches onto the bald crow's shirt.
"How do we get in?" He asks forcefully and the crow swallows.
"I'd say the windows, but they're all shattered and not very large; we'll be feathered ribbons if we try."
"Then we go through the roof or a wall." Bokuto says confidently.
The roof seems a more viable option given that there is a place to stand on and use as leverage. He and Tanaka immediately start pulling up more roof tiles, stripping it down to its wood base. And in a matter of minutes, the streaked owl is returning with an axe from where in all the chaos around them, Noya hasn't got a clue. But he's grateful for it—really grateful. There was probably no way they were going to get in without it.
It's slow work; they only have the one and it can only cleave so much wood in one swing. They trade off every five hits, but Noya can barely lift the heavy blade let alone swing it. Fatigue from that bolt across the sky to get here is catching up and his body is dismissing his commands no matter how he swears at it. When they wordlessly bypass him on the axe's next trip around the circle, he feels pathetically useless. Relegated to waiting, he paces in a circle around the slowly growing hole in the ceiling, his nerves snapping with tension.
What if Asahi isn't here? Nobody has seen him for probably the last hour. What if he was dead?
Noya's mind keeps slipping numbly toward that thought.
The short crow was constantly hanging out with Tanaka or Kageyama and Shouyou, but… it was always Asahi that he curled up to every night. It had been ever since they'd come to Sheru Bay. Last night was the first in a very long time that he hadn't fallen asleep to the large crow's steady, even heartbeat.
Asahi was quiet and mellow and often meek, but his presence was always there— if not directly, then as a wallflower at least. The large crow has always been there—ever since the Grand King had selected them for Kageyama's unit.
It was ironic— and Noya always jokingly blamed it on his larger frame, but Asahi was the one who'd always been prone to midair collisions in Volley. Noya'd sustained a sprained wing once after running into him, Tanaka had weathered broken ribs, they'd all earned the occasional bruise from an elbow in the back or something, and even Kageyama had gotten a concussion when they'd cracked heads once.
And that didn't include all the times someone got nailed in the face by one of his serves or spikes. Noya has had more than one bloody nose on account of those. Asahi somehow never failed to be depressed enough over even the least of all those injuries that Noya would be apologizing for bleeding and making him so miserable.
And yet, the diminutive large crow could be every bit as imposing as Daichi— maybe more— if someone took it upon themselves to threaten someone he cared about. Noya had rarely seen it in action… actually, he'd never seen it before they came to Sheru Bay. He imagines it was probably because they were always together as a unit, so one: people didn't usually mess with them because they were, obviously, a sentry unit; and two: if someone did, Tanaka or Hinata or Kageyama were usually always quicker to get into a brawl which normally meant Asahi rarely ever had to get involved at all.
But since they've been here, the group splits frequently— and they don't really look much like sentries anymore. They don't wear the typical sentry uniform, everyone's hair is longer than sentry regulation—except Tanaka who evidently has a serious aversion to it, and even their posture has slipped away from that of their rigid militaristic upbringing. It makes them appear far more approachable to civilians… and much easier targets, apparently.
He'd gone into Sheru Bay for supplies with the girls and Asahi one day not long after Bokuto'd speared himself with that metal rod. They'd stopped in at the local apothecary stall Miss Haruka ran so Yachi could talk to the elderly woman. She had a vault of medicinal knowledge that she was happy to impart to the younger generation, and the little bunting had been knee deep in picking the old woman's brain for tips on treating infections when a man he'd never seen in Sheru Bay had walked up to her stall.
"I need apple vinegar and calendula." He'd said gruffly, startling Yachi and interrupting the old woman.
Noya had instinctively cast about for Asahi who was tagging along after Kiyoko to help bring back supplies. He'd been two or three stalls down, patiently waiting while the pretty female crow had measured out rice into a bag since they'd gone through their last month's supply in two weeks.
Close enough if we need him.
Which they apparently had. The old woman had wordlessly gathered the foreigner's items, and bagged them for him. As he fished out the coins to pay, his gaze had landed on the nervous little bunting, his eyes traveling once up and down her form in a way that had made Noya burn to dropkick him.
"You. You can come fix the poultice for my friend." He'd said and she'd jumped.
"Oh, I'm um—"
"She doesn't work here." Noya had cut in, stepping in front of the instantly quivering little blond, his back rigid and eyes snapping with a hard focus.
"Then she has no reason to stay. Skies know the hag probably won't even make it there."
"Our wonderful Miss Haruka is quite spry yet, and would only fail to make the trip if she happened to meet a suspicious misfortune in questionable company. Luckily for you, she is well versed in remedies and can write it down for you so you can do it. Yachi has other things to attend to." Noya had said firmly.
"She your squeeze, runt?"
"Whether she is or isn't doesn't matter." He'd said with brittle patience quickly wearing right through. The man had scoffed and stepped closer.
"If she ain't yours, then don't speak for her. Songbirds are as common as you are, so find another." He'd growled and reached past him toward Yachi.
All it took for Noya to react was catching the petite blond's violent flinch from his periphery. His eyes had narrowed, his hands closing around the grasping arm and his body had gathered before snapping a foot forward. As his heel connected with ribs, forcing the breath from the man's lungs in a grunt, he released the arm and let him tumble backward.
"You will not touch her." He'd said, his pulse picking up.
After a moment's surprise, the man had climbed back to his feet with an ugly leer at him, his head dipping and shoulders hunching in an offensive stance.
"Big talk coming from such a little punk."
The small crow probably could've bested him with ease, but he hadn't wanted to make a scene if he could help it. It apparently hadn't gone over well when Kageyama had grounded a gull for several months and he'd hoped to avoid another mess like that. Still, he'd been wary; he'd have lost the element of surprise after his first attack and he knew nothing about the foreigner. The man had been larger than Noya and if the brute managed to land a hit, he'd probably have felt it. Fortunately, he hadn't needed to worry.
"Good Morning. Is there a problem."
Asahi's shape had loomed up behind the man, his wings pulled up behind him and splayed with mild threat, and his face set into a ferric flat stare. The man had spun at the glacial inquiry, come face to face with a long-haired crow who was every bit as large as he was and more. Noya had smirked, remembering the waters he'd tested at one point.
"Now you've done it. Yachi's not mine, but she is already taken." He'd said, knowing the man would assume Asahi was her beau, and not the beautiful female crow right behind him. The large man had glanced at him at his words, but his expression never wavered, giving nothing away.
"She's yours?" The man had asked, his composure faltering.
"She's all of ours." Kiyoko had said coldly, pushing by him to circle the blond in a comforting embrace while Asahi took one step forward.
"Is there a problem?" He'd repeated.
The man had glanced between them, a shaky bunting, an elderly woman with lips pressed into a thin line, and three crows all watching him with blatant hostility.
"No."
Asahi had stared him down until he'd disappeared from Sheru Bay entirely before he'd released a huge breath he'd been holding far too long. He'd found Noya with wide eyes.
"That was terrifying." He'd said and Noya had laughed and launched himself at the large crow.
"What are you talking about? You were awesome! You went all 'Good morning, is there a problem' and he just caved and left with his tail between his legs! You were all formidable and serious and scary!"
The crow hadn't seemed too thrilled with any of those descriptions, but he'd smiled all the same. That quiet smile that was half-sheepish, half-gratified at Noya's reaction. That smile that could stick Noya's feet to the floor.
He can't imagine what it will be like to wake every morning and not see Asahi's lopsided sleep fogged smile slowly light his groggy face.
Noya's mouth twitches at the memory before the thwack of the axe once more interrupts his train of thought. There's a small sound that escapes the hole beside them and Tanaka is kneeling beside it in a heartbeat, the rest of them crowding around him.
"Natsu?" He calls.
"Mwen la, Baldy." The small voice echoes back from the dark within and Tanaka glances up at them, a relieved grin flashing briefly across his face before he's bending back to the opening.
"Natsu! Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
"I okay." Noya shoves past Daichi, his shoulder colliding with Tanaka's.
"Hey, Munchkin. Is Asahi there with you?" He says urgently.
"Yes. Li pa nan deplase." That was an affirmative, but he has no idea what she said after. He looks at Tanaka who stares back at him helplessly.
"Natsu." Daichi says, dropping beside them as well. "Natsu, can you speak crow?"
"Ey… Sahi no move? Hurt. I go back."
"Wait! Natsu, wait." Noya say frantically. "Natsu is he breathing?"
"Wi, men li pa la pale. Um… not talking. I go Sahi." Noya can hardly make sense of her broken babble and when he calls her name again, there's no response.
"Asahi!" He calls and when there's no sound from inside his hands grasp the splintered wood at the edge of the hole. Planting his feet, he strains against it with all his might, slivers digging into his fingers. He feels the wood bending, but it doesn't break.
"Asahi!" He yells again, and then someone's grabbing him. His arms somehow end up pinned to his sides, his wings uncomfortably jostled to the side.
"Calm down Noya! She said he was inside. Give us five minutes to make the hole bigger and we'll all be able to get in and see them." Tanaka says over his shoulder.
The crow slowly lets him go, as if he were waiting for Noya to go berserk. The short crow simply glares at the hole where Daichi and Bokuto have resumed hacking at it.
And the bald crow's right; five minutes later, he's squeezing through an uncomfortable fit, his arms scraping and shirt catching on the jagged wood. He has to straighten his wings out until they are nearly flat against his body, but he wedges his way through it and into the dark interior. He loses his hold on the rafter he uses to pull himself through the hole once his full weight comes through and he tumbles the ten feet to the floor in a heap, his shoulder smacking an overturned piece of furniture. He glances around him in the dim light that comes from the hole in the ceiling and the shattered window on the wall, his eyes slowly adjusting.
"Natsu?" He calls, climbing to his feet. "Natsu, I'm inside. Where are you?"
He's in a guest room, this much he can tell. He heads for the door, his face poking out into a hallway that is darker than the room he was just in, the only light coming in through cracks by his feet. The wood is half splintered along the walls, the floor warped and uneven. The narrow hallway ends in a jumbled mass of wood and beams on one end, and since the other ends in a wall, he surmises that the stairs must have been that way.
"Natsu? Asahi?" He calls.
And then there's the patter of small feet, the footsteps too staccato to be anything but a child's. The girl's face pokes out from a room on the other side of the hall, close to where the tangled wood sits like snapped matchsticks tossed into a pile.
"Sahi here." She says, taking his hand and pulling him after her.
The doorway is warped, the entire wall bowed, but he squeezes through after her. The first thing he sees are three small candles that illuminate the room in a dim glow… and his first thought is that they shouldn't be lit like this because he just came from another building that had gone up in smoke because of them. But without them, he'll be completely blind. They throw enough light for him to realize that it's not really a room at all anymore and he remembers that this was the side of the inn that had been compressed into the rock face.
"Noya?"
Yuu jerks at the soft sound of his name uttered with disbelief, and squints into the tight corner, his eyes adjusting to the low light. There's a figure there, large and broad shouldered, long hair falling across his face. He takes a step forward, barely daring to hope.
"Asahi?" He asks shakily.
"Pinfeathers, am I happy to see you."
Noya's muscles break their seize and he stumbles over the crumpled bed frame toward the crow where he stands in the corner.
"Asahi!" He says, throwing his arms around the larger crow, his sheer elation at finding him alive making his whole being hum.
But Asahi goes rigid, a heavy grunt that is closer to a whine escaping him, and his hands grab Noya's shoulders to still him. The short crow looks up at dark eyes creased sharply with pain in the candlelight.
"S— sorry. Maybe a little gentler?" He asks and Noya blinks at him in confusion. Asahi grimaces tightly once more and then looks up over his shoulder.
"A couple feathers got caught and the walls—I'm kind of stuck." He supplies and when he follows the large crow's gaze, Noya sees it in the dim light. His eyes bug and his mouth drops, his pervasive, all-consuming fear returning tenfold. The small crow goes white, at a complete loss.
This is bad. Really bad.
We need Yachi, he thinks desperately, because one of Asahi's wings is crushed between two collapsed walls.
A/N: So... yeah, Asahi and the cats, too. And their home. Nyx is a monster. But... my little bunting is on the way, so maybe not all is lost?
Next POV is someone who hasn't had one in either Pair or Horizon yet... I'll give a hint. This one isn't one of my go-to characters and when I initially penciled them into the role, I started piecing it together and it had quickly grown so that no one else would fit. I actually really like the next one XD
Heh, have a spectacular evening you guys!