Chapter I: A New Beginning

"Chrom, we have to do SOMETHING."

"What do you propose we do?"

"I dunno."

'What… happened?' the Grim Reaper thought to himself as he slowly emerged from the void of unconsciousness. His sight was almost completely blurred as he regarded shadowed shapes in front of him. Ragna the Bloodedge had found himself in yet another strange situation. He almost felt cheated; wasn't all the chaos in his life supposed to be over now that Terumi was dead?

…Terumi was dead.

It was hard to come to terms with the idea that someone that had caused so much grief and suffering in the Reaper's life had finally been destroyed by his own hands. Now he'd finally finished one of the biggest goals he'd dedicated his life to.

Only one of them.

Returning his attention to the present as best he was able to, Ragna grunted as he tried to move his body around and regain feeling. He felt the annoyance of fading numbness all over, save for his right arm which wasn't moving. He internally groaned; this had already happened far too many times. His vision was much less blurred now, but with his right eye refusing to open it would remain impaired for the time. 'Damn, now my Azure Grimoire isn't working again. Something must've happened during… that.'

"I see you're awake now," said the masculine of the two voices once more. Ragna noticed that the man was wearing a strange style of cerulean clothing, silver armor, and had blue hair to match his clothes. He had a strange symbol on his arm and carried a rather mystical sword at his side.

"Hey there," the feminine voice said to him before giving a small giggle. The woman had blonde pigtails and was garbed in an odd yellow and white dress.

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground," the blue haired man said as a slight jest. "Give me your hand." With their hand extended, Ragna grabbed it with his and the man helped him to his feet. Ragna was taller than the other man, so that coupled with his still returning senses caused him to stumbled slightly when he got up.

"Thanks, Chrom," he said hollowly once he made his way to balance at full height. Looking around, he finally took notice of a brown haired man in metal armor that was standing beside a similarly armored horse. The man carried a lance and was closer to Ragna's height, but the Reaper was still the taller of the two.

"You know who I am?" the blue haired man asked suspiciously.

Ragna rolled his open eye. "Didn't she just say your name?" he reminded, referring to the young woman.

"Oh, I suppose she did," Chrom admitted, realizing that the man had been conscious for that. "What's your name then?"

"Ragna," the Reaper responded simply. While he appeared lax, he was actually trying to gauge how these three reacted to his name. The two closest to him at worst found the name odd in the foreign sort of way, that armored one though… He noticed that he still carried his sword, Aramasa, on his back. It gave him some comfort, but without access to any Seither and his right arm out of commission, it seemed unlikely he'd ever bring out the sword's full potential. Or his own for that matter.

"I'm Lissa, Chrom's little sister and a healer" the blonde woman said, being very friendly in her introduction at least. "And mister stoic over there is Fredrick."

The knight simply nodded to Ragna, who at least returned the gesture. "Where are you from?" Fredrick asked, getting right to point with his questioning.

"…You guys ever hear of a place called Kagutsuchi?" Ragna asked, again trying to gauge their reactions. Fredrick regarded his travelling companions for their input, but without a response he merely shook his head. 'Crap.' "I didn't think so, it's pretty far away." 'Not the complete truth, but at least it's not a lie.'

"Milord," Fredrick began, though his voice seemed stern despite talking to someone that seemed to be his social better. "I think it would be best if we took this man back with us for proper questioning. It would be foolish to ignore him as a threat. A bandit posing as a foreigner is common occurrence these days."

'And here we go again.'

With a long list of misunderstandings that was ridiculous in hindsight, Ragna was only too prepared to take off before he got in even deeper trouble. But… this was the still by far the warmest welcome he'd gotten in some time. In the end, he decided he'd see this through until he got the sense he was about to be in real trouble. Then it'd be back to the usual way of things.

"Whatever, let's go," he said, surprising the three with his willingness. In fact, Fredrick didn't even request Ragna's sword from him. Maybe he figured that Ragna wasn't strong enough to handle such a massive blade with only a single arm (or even both arms if Frederick suspected he was faking his condition).

As the group started travelling with Chrom leading in front with Frederick taking the far back, Lissa decided to bombard Ragna with questions from beside him. "So how long have you been in Ylisse?"

"Just got here," Ragna said truthfully. 'So this place is called Ylisse, better make a note of that.' "I thought I was getting interrogated later."

"I'm just trying to make friendly conversation, Jeeze," Lissa chided, puffing her cheeks out in a pout. This didn't last long; she was back to asking questions soon enough. "What's the Kagu-whatever it was place you're from like?"

"Kagutsuchi, and it's a far cry different from here. We don't have many nosy healers there."

"Sounds like I'd be pretty popular then," Lissa teased, grinning. His gruff exterior faded for a moment as Ragna gave a small chuckle. "Where'd you get that sword? It looks pretty unusual."

"From my teacher. He-" Ragna started to answer before stopping completely. First he took a few sniffs of air with his nose, but when he turned his head to gaze into the horizon, his good eye widened. "SHIT!" he yelled before running off.

"WAIT!" Fredrick yelled before chasing after the red coated man on his horse, Chrom and Lissa following as fast as they could. Ragna's speed surprised Fredrick: how was a man with one good arm and eye able to match the pace of his horse? Even if he was faking it, he still had that heavy sword on his back to weigh him down. Fredrick quickened his pace once he noticed what Ragna had been running towards; South Town, covered in flames.

There were a total of seven bandits around the town, some of them attacking townsfolk while others knocked over harvest stands and set homes ablaze. One of them had cornered a small crying child, a sadistic smile on his face as he raised his blood rusted axe.

"Don't worry kid! IT ONLY HURTS-!" Whatever the thug had been about to say would remain a mystery, for Ragna had cut him in half at the torso with his own blade.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" he yelled at the child. She remained where she was and continued crying at the violence, but luckily a woman from the village grabbed them and ran from the site combat. Ragna noticed Chrom and the others had caught up to him. "About time you showed up. You two take those bandits to the right. Lissa, just stay behind and heal them. The left's all mine."

Before any of them could respond, the Reaper ran off towards his group of bandits. Unable to stop and question it with lives on the line, Chrom gave a nod to Frederick and his sister as the two charged forward.

"Looks like we got a cripple trying to play hero!" one of Ragna's bandits jeered as he threw a handaxe at the Reaper. "Say goodnight Grandpa!"

Ragna deflected the axe with ease off of his own blade before rushing the man and gruesomely cleaving him in half before he could ready a second axe. "Goodnight."

Two more bandits (both myrmidons) rushed at Ragna with bronze swords, but he wasn't close to intimidated as he killed the first with a massive upper cut slash. The second could only watch as Ragna's attack had launched him into the air out of sword reach. More surprising was how he changed his trajectory midair to dive at an angle and impale the enemy swordsman.

On the other side of town, Chrom and Fredrick had taken out one bandit each without much difficulty. What they hadn't noticed was a lone fire mage sneaking around the overthrown stalls. As they were about to target Lissa with a spell, Ragna's senses took notice at the last moment.

"FREDRICK! COVER LISSA!" Though Fredrick hardly trusted Ragna at this point, that standing meant little when his friends' lives were in danger. He quickly shielded Lissa with his own body and took the full fireball spell, though the attack dealt slightly more damage against the knight's heavy armor than the Reaper had figured it would. Regardless, Ragna rushed the mage from behind and killed him with a single swing. Lissa's staff then glowed faintly, covering Fredrick in a similar light as he recovered from his injury in front of Ragna's eyes.

A sudden scream was then heard behind the four. They turned and saw the bandit leader holding tightly to a young woman from the village, his axe dangerously close to his hostage's neck. "You listen here! Put down your weapons or else she loses her head!"

"…" Ragna was silent as he glared down the man in front of him. While Chrom and Fredrick had given into the demand and dropped their weapons, Ragna had yet to do anything of the sort.

"I'M WARNING YOU!" the bandit leader roared, causing the girl in his grasp to scream again in terror.

"RAGNA LISTEN TO HIM!" Chrom shouted. "There's nothing we can-!"

Only Fredrick caught the faintest hint of moment, to everyone else watching it only seemed like Ragna disappeared from view in an instant. Now he was behind the bandit leader, covering his hostage as he held her in his good arm. The bandit leader only grunted as he realized he was no longer holding onto his bargaining chip… before finally taking notice of Ragna's blade that had been left impaled in his chest. Blood leaking from his lips, the brute fell to the ground with a deathly thud.

"You alright?" Ragna asked the woman as he helped her to her feet and let go of her.

"I… Yes, thank you," she managed to say before running off in the direction of the other fleeing villagers.

Ragna headed over to the bandit leader, roughly yanked his sword from their corpse, and gave a swing to swiftly rid it of blood before placing it back on his belt. Figuring that whole ordeal had been enough to prove his innocence, Ragna started to make his way out of the still burning city.

"Hold on!" he heard Chrom's voice from behind him. Ragna rolled his good eye as he turned to face the young lord expecting to be stopped for questioning after all, but Chrom hadn't even picked his sword up. Instead of demanding, he seemed desperate. "I know we misjudged you from the start, but we need someone like you. All of our towns have been plagued by bandit attacks like this one and you're one of the few people strong enough to stand against them."

"Milord, are you sure?" Frederick asked sternly, still suspicious of the circumstances. "We barely know a thing about this man."

"He just saved an entire town, almost by himself! If there was any reason to distrust him, those reasons are gone." Chrom's face looked even more desperate. "Please… join us in the Shepherds, I'm begging you."

"Milord…" Frederick seemed especially surprised of how far Chrom seemed to be taking this request.

Ragna was silent for a long moment. 'This isn't even any of my business, but… can I really just turn my back here?' He sighed. "I'll go with you guys for the time being, but I can't really give any promises."

Chrom nodded. "For now, just knowing we'll have you by our side will be enough. We'll try to find amicable reasons for you to join later."

"Whatever makes you happy, let's get some of these fires out."

After the group had assisted extinguishing most of the flames, Fredrick and Chrom began speaking about a certain detail from the Bandit attack.

"Milord, did you notice that the bandits spoke with a Plegian accent?"

"What do you mean Plegian?" Ragna asked. Fredrick narrowed his eyes at the man's question. 'Shit, shoulda stayed quiet.'

"The kingdom of Plegia neighbors Ylisse to the west," Chrom explained, lacking Frederick's cautious edge. "Relations have never been good between us, but recently they've been attacking the countryside by hiring bandits or posing as bandits themselves."

"So they're trying to start a damn war," Ragna summarized. "What the hell do they think they could possibly get out of it?"

"Honestly we're not sure," Frederick admitted. "Either they're doing this out of a blood feud, or they're trying to take our land and expand their kingdom. Those are two possibilities that come to mind."

"Way you're talking about 'em, it sounds like you're outnumbered," Ragna guessed, causing Frederick to give a noticeable grimace at the assessment. "Make that badly outnumbered. If they just wanted your land they'd simply send their army to the capital and take it all at once. They want Ylisse to suffer, meaning it's a blood feud after all."

Lissa sighed. "And because of that blood feud townsfolk are being killed. Innocent townsfolk who probably don't have anything to do with it and can't stand up for themselves."

"Don't let those thoughts hinder you just yet," Frederick advised. "We'll certainly deal with this problem, but it's important to keep out wits about us until we do. Your energy is better spent helping those who need your aid now rather than worrying over those who only might."

Lissa nodded. "You're right. I guess I'll just have to get used to it."

It was then that a man from the village approached the group. "Milords and Milady, we insist you stay with us for the night. We are but common farm folk, but we'd gladly hold a feast for your valor."

"Thanks but no thanks," Ragna grunted. "The whole valorous hero scene never sat well with me. I just happened to be in the area."

"We've noticed that. And besides," Fredrick began with that signature grin that Lissa and Chrom feared. "We had best report back to the capital as soon as possible. I appreciate your generous offer, but I'm afraid we can't accept while we still have evening light to travel."

"What!?" Lissa exclaimed. "We're not even spending the night? Fredrick it's nearly dark!"

"Get used to it," Ragna said bluntly, turning previous spoken words against their owner. Lissa stuck her tongue out at the Reaper, causing him to chuckle. "What are you, five?"

"If you two are done, shall we be on our way?" Chrom asked, smirking at the two.

"Yeah, yeah," Ragna said as he started following the rest of the group out of town. He heard a voice call from behind him and saw the cornered child and the woman that had been used as a hostage, both waving at him as he headed off.

…This was… new.

Despite his earlier claims of not liking the role of a hero, Ragna gave a small grin as he returned a short wave to the two. This world certainly wasn't a peaceful one, but he was starting to appreciate the chance at a fresh start.

Authors Note (important question):

Made these edits because I'm also posting this on my Archive of Our Own account). Feel free to follow me there.

Quite a few edits to be made in this chapter, both as grammar and just some things I thought would make the story change for the better (seriously, having the bandit leader slip on an apple? What was I thinking?)

If you have new comments, feel free to post them because I can for sure answer them when I post the next chapter edit.

For the important question, I had written this before CentralFiction had come out and we knew how the main BlazBlue series was going to end. I made some tellings of Ragna's backstory that are… HIGHLY contradicted by CF's established cannon. My question is should I go back and edit them out, or treat this story as if it took place after an alternative ending? Let me know in those comments (all the more reason to write them).

All that said, hope you enjoyed the re-write!

Ciao.