Struggle by Threads

Screams from innocent villagers burned into the night air. A stifling atmosphere hovered around Skoupa, one that mirrored similar events in other border villages. Nothing got spared in the search, especially if resisted. The barbarity of the border patrol was known and not uncommon during such times, but it still didn’t mean those that suffered became used to it.

Anything short of burning down the home to ensure no hiding place remained undiscovered occurred. The lateness of the hour made the search all the more difficult. Some villagers already ran off towards the center of the village seeking the mayor. Others stood out of their homes huddling together helpless at the sounds of their homes being ransacked by an uncaring soul. A few even helped in the search, falling into paranoia about the scary foreigners that might wander their village.

All of these reached Yuki as cries and pleas that painted terrible pictures in his mind. It made his hands shake with guilt and helplessness. Each cry floated in his ears filling him with echoes ghostly and horrific amplified by his fears. ‘It’s all my fault, isn’t it?! Because I’m here!’ His heart pounded in his chest loud enough for him to feel it through him.

Eudokia fixed Yuki with a commanding stare. She knew the look that he had. “Don’t think for a second that this is your problem!” The distance between them closed and she latched on to his arm making sure he didn’t escape from her. A moment later, ripples came from her feet announcing her activated Field. “You’re not going!” Little showed from the barrier that she erected.

Chapter 104 – Struggle by Threads

Only a slight reflective sheen bounced back for everyone to realize what just happened. When she trapped them, it set the room on edge, no longer letting Yuki and Eudokia argue. Seiji and Saki appeared on either side of Eudokia ready to protest. However, before they did anything a trap set in the Field sprung. From the wooden floorboards, long tendrils of fluid light burst up to take hold of Saki and Seiji.

Saki’s speed gave her the ability to dodge. She vanished from the center of the tendrils, appearing suddenly on the floor sliding away into the wall as a second set of tendrils appeared significantly faster than the last completely tying her up. It took her a moment to realize what happened to her and that her escape failed. “What do you think you’re doing, Ayumi!?” Saki tried to make use of her strength to break free, but it only made it tighter for her.

At Eudokia’s side Seiji stood tied up and enraged by the act. She looked back at Saki with a flat expressionless face. “You didn’t think I wouldn’t make plans to deal with the two of you, did you? I know how reactive you two are. No one is going. We are leaving nothing more.”

“Damn you!” shouted Seiji struggling with his bonds. “You can’t hold me down with this!”

“You won’t be able to break them. I made it specifically to deal with your strength. It converts all of your efforts to break into strengthening and tightening the hold. So you’re only making it hold you easier.”

“Ayumi!? How can you do this to our friends?!” Yuki leapt forward grabbing a hold of Eudokia. “Let them go now!”

Eudokia snapped her arms out of Yuki’s grasp. After freeing herself from Yuki, she slugged him hard in the face. “No. I’m doing what must be done to ensure you get to the capital without trouble.”

Yuki lifted himself off the floor a little. His eyes held a surprise that Eudokia struck. “But we’ve already caused trouble! The village is being sacked because of us!”

“They don’t know you’re here yet. They are only searching. This isn’t the only village that’s going to be searched. Don’t think you can be everywhere and stop everything from happening. This isn’t your fault.”

“But it’s happening right in front of you! How can you not care about it?!”

“So just because it’s in front of you have to do something? You can’t protect a country with that weak thinking. You have to see everything, even what’s not in front of you. Else you can’t protect anything.”

Hesitation cut into Yuki for a moment as he heard Eudokia’s words. He turned his gaze towards the window hearing the voices of the screaming villagers getting closer. Each second to listen racked him completely. It felt as though it poured into him. They filled him until it burned like molten metal ran through his veins. He just wanted to close his ears, but his hands refused to move. ‘Is she right? But I could help them…right?’

Yuki’s hand tightened up again, fighting with own instincts. A part of what Eudokia said reached him. As much as he hated the thought of what she said actually being true, denying it only made it more painful. Yet his actions had more significance than before. An entire people made the scales change. It no longer was just himself anymore. ‘What can I do? Is fleeing the only option I have?’ Yuki sought answers around the room feeling lost.

No one in the room had an answer for him. They kept to themselves left in disinterest with the situation or uncertainty. However, one of his friends couldn’t deal with it any longer. A light suddenly broke from within the room. It took a few moments to realize what happened and find the source, giving plenty of time to finish.

The shattering of something like glass echoed through the room. Seiji gave a relieved sigh as he stood glaring at Eudokia, completely surprised that he managed to break through.

She took a cautious step back to prepare herself seeing the way that Seiji looked at her. ‘Impossible! I thought I accounted for his strength! Is he even stronger than Saki? And what was that light?’ Eudokia readied herself for whatever Seiji might have planned as shallow as it undoubtedly would be.

Seiji ground his teeth as he bled out seconds in mounting tension. Everyone in the room felt like he would punch Eudokia knowing how he acted. They waited to see what he did with uncertain anticipation. And he didn’t disappoint their expectations, finally lifting up his arm already with his hand tightened up. In the next moment a painful crunch let out as he hit his target by surprise.

Yuki laid back on the floor, which he became unwillingly accustomed to. “What was that for?!” He rubbed the other side of his face where Seiji walloped him.

“I had to knock some sense into you, dammit!”

“Huh?”

“Why the hell are you hesitating?!”

“…but…”

“It’s a simple decision! You don’t need to think about it!”

“No, it’s not so simple!” Another punch to his face came in, again not expecting a second from Seiji. Yuki staggered, but it brought him to his feet to face down Seiji. “What the hell’s the matter with everyone punching me?! What happened to just talking?!”

“Words don’t get through to you as well as a punch!” shouted Seiji, getting into his face. It made him sick to see Yuki being weak willed about taking action. The Yuki he knew didn’t hesitate. Certainty filled every movement and action that he made, not the fear that poured over him as he saw from him at that moment. “Do those people outside need help?”

“Yes!” Yuki replied without question.

“Then there you have your answer!”

“What!?”

Seiji brushed back Yuki going to the window. The barrier that Eudokia erected remained sternly still as the last act of defiance. He spared no moment for it or Eudokia slamming his fist through the transparent wall. Around his arm the field cracked out falling apart in pieces leaving a small hole. Seiji threw in his other arm, tearing down the barrier until he made enough room for the window. “Let’s go! Whoever feels that it is the right thing to do to help someone suffering follow me!” He jumped out of the window disappearing into the night.

Only a few moments passed to reveal Yuki at the window. Eudokia reached out to him for appeal. However, his eyes fixed her with a determined stare. The resolve inside him had shifted, becoming strong and rigid. She lost her chance.

Yuki hopped up on the ledge of the window staring out at the ground. His mind looked back at Eudokia with the look like she had given up cracking through her features. He tilted his head back into the room. “I’m sorry, but he’s right. This is just my nature.”

“…I know…”

A second later, Yuki leapt out to follow Seiji. Taking up behind him, Yori’s sister went to the window looking down at the distance that she had to go to make it. It felt further than it actually was, but before she made her attempt Yori grabbed her. She stared up at him. “You coming with me, brother?”

No pleading or doubt from his little sister made Yori step back. He didn’t expect her to appear so focused. “It’s too dangerous for us to go out there, Yumi! We aren’t like those two.”

“There’s more than just fighting that we can do!”

“If they see us we’ll be targets!”

She narrowed her eyes, more tired of her brother making up excuses for them. Taking a page from Seiji and Yuki, she did something without thinking of the consequences. She already had the window in her back from Yori pressing. A little more effort pushed her out of the window using her back as an awkward fulcrum. Yori remained holding on to her getting dragged out the window roughly sending the two of them to the dirt ground below on their back.

She let out a low groan feeling the dagger of pain cut through her. A bit of regret surfaced realizing how much it hurt. Yori’s sister rose to her feet working on getting her bearings back. Screams in the distance still lingered and grew in volume. Homes invaded and broken softly played in the background. “Where’d Yuki go?”

Still reeling from the fall and surprise that his sister acted so suddenly, Yori staggered to get to his feet. Once he managed to get some support from the building he focused on her, distracted by her search. “What do you think you’re doing, Yumi!? Do you know how reckless and dangerous that was!? You could’ve been seriously hurt if you fell wrong!”

His sister gave him a half sheepish knock on her head knowing how right he was. “We didn’t get hurt though! So everything worked out!”

Yori sighed to himself, seeing that he had little left to reason with her. ‘Is Hayashi’s thoughtless heroics starting to rub off on her? I need to keep them further apart…’

Across the village already running towards the source of the ruckus, Yuki and Seiji saw someone in military uniform standing out in the street. Around them villagers ran about in panic and fear yelling in a language that neither could understand. The few villagers that paid attention in their blind running realized that Yuki and Seiji faces stood out from the rest screaming even louder.

The closer that they came to the figure the more everything seemed to divide before them. It was as though the man’s presence made it so that the frightened souls unconsciously moved for his will. He slowly slid his eyes to them, picking up their arrival.

Yuki felt an odd sense of unease from seeing the man. There was coldness in his eyes that he never felt from the assassins that sought for his life. ‘What’s this strange feeling? Like I’ve seen it before…’ The only time he remembered seeing such eyes was when Ayumi killed. An expression lacked any sense of remorse or regret only driven by purpose. ‘So cold… Why does he seem so commanding?’

When they came within a house of the man, Seiji and Yuki stopped. The Atlantean spoke to them in a foreign tongue that left both of them confused. Seiji searched over at Yuki for a clue to what the man said to them. “There’s something damn familiar about his words, but I can’t understand him!”

A nod from Yuki agreed with Seiji, though he had a little better luck. “It’s familiar because I think he’s speaking in English.”

“Huh? But I thought the girl said it was Greek!”

“Maybe he thinks we’re American or something.”

Seiji threw up his fist at the man in frustration. “We’re Japanese! Ja-pa-nese!” All he got in return was confusion. The same look of peculiarity that they gave the Atlantean a moment ago didn’t make him any happier. “Damn language! How are we going to tell him to stop?”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Yuki. “I think fists will be the only answer at this point…”

“I like the way you talk, Yuki!” Seiji grinned eagerly, pounding his fists together to psych himself up. The arrival of a second man out of the nearby house made the numbers even. His sights turned to the younger man that just appeared. “You can get the old man, Yuki! This new one’s mine!”

“I don’t think the man’s even in his thirties, Seiji!”

“What the hell do I care? He’s older than me!”

Yuki sighed, having forgotten how straightforward Seiji used to be from their old days. “True enough, I guess…” The thought of standing side by side with Seiji in a fight made Yuki a little excited. A normal fight that came down to only strength of muscles and reflex felt right. He missed the feeling that it gave him. Yuki let out a gentle smirk marking down his target.

“Don’t run too far, Yumi!” shouted Yori trying to keep up with his sister. Once they oriented themselves something triggered in her. She claimed that she knew where Yuki was in the village, but had no explanation other than a feeling. The same feeling from before when they met everyone for the first time. Yori did not understand it too well, but the accuracy that she had then made it difficult for him to doubt her intuition. “Yumi!”

His sister blew around a corner of a home with certainty in each step. All of the sounds of the village faded into the background for her. She let her sight from within guide her. ‘I can feel him! He’s close! Yuki!’ The next corner disappeared and a few villagers crashed past her knocking her down. Her foot worked to get under her to rise back up.

‘Look out!’ shouted a voice from inside her.

By reflex she jumped back roughly still not balanced on her feet. A wooden and stone shelf collapsed where she used to stand. Among the wreckage laid broken pottery and crates. She lifted her head up to see a young man in the black military uniform she saw before at the barrier. Her eyes widened in surprise to find herself standing so close to the enemy.

Yori finally caught up to his sister, finding the soldier staring down at her. “Yumi! Run away!”

The soldier gave the two teenagers a perplexed look not understanding them. He turned back toward his comrade that joined him. Yori’s translator gave a clear view into their conversation. “Hey Kalliope, I think we’ve found the intruders! But they’re just kids. You recognize their language? It’s not English or European like most of those we find!”

The woman stepped out around him looking down at the siblings trying to pick out their words and features. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword as though always prepared for trouble. She looked over at Philon. “They sort of look like those from Asian countries, don’t they?”

Philon leaned over staring down at them trying to confirm the guess. He remained unsure, but pulled back to address Kalliope. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before. Aren’t most of their people by the north gate?”

“This’ll make communication impossible unless you know the language.”

“You kidding? I have enough trouble with English. Such a pain learning foreigners’ words just to use them so infrequently.”

“Well either way children or not we need to take them back to the Captain.”

He nodded back to her and started to reach for something behind him. Yori looked over at his sister realizing that she knew nothing of what happened. ‘I’ve got to get her out of here. She’s not ready for this!’ He pulled on his sister to get her to move. “Come on, Yumi! They’re going to capture us if we don’t move!”

Her eyes appeared empty with her voice just repeating the fragmented thoughts from her mind. “I-I…thought…Yuki…” She didn’t know what to do anymore. Her mind ran blank in the face of real danger.

The two soldiers started to make their approach for the scared teens. Yori tried to put himself between them and his sister, but they surrounded them quickly. It seemed that they had no choice, but capture. ‘…sister…I need to do something!’ Suddenly from behind him a burning ball flew past Yori and scattered the soldiers leaping out of the way.

When the flame hit the ground it blew out in a shockwave of dirt and debris from the ruined houses. Out of the shadows stepped Fumiko lowering her hand back down. “That was just a warning shot. If you don’t want any more of this I’d suggest you retreat!”