Chapter Text
Nagi never liked being on the battlefield.
No, it wasn’t because he couldn’t stand the sight of young boys dying at the age of twelve, or because millions of soldiers’ last breaths were taken upon that very field. 'A hassle,' he called it. War, fighting, politics,. They were all reduced down to one singular word in Nagi Seishiro’s mind: a hassle.
Yet for someone who hates it, ironically, his hands craft excellence from the very job suffocating his throat.
Even now, standing ankle-deep in blood-soaked dirt, sword resting lazily on the side of his hip, Nagi looked bored. Behind him, soldiers screamed in misery, pain, hopelessness. A man to his left begging to be killed faster. Another crawled, dragging half his body through the field, pleading. Pleading for one chance to go home, see his wife, live a normal life.
None of it made Nagi flinch. Not because he was brave.
Because he had long since stopped feeling anything.
...
The slums of Hakuho weren’t a place for 'people' to be born into, but rather a place for pariahs, prostitutes, and slaves to be isolated in, to slowly wither away in.
Nagi didn’t know who his father was, and his mother was more shadow than person. She was often away on multiple nights, and when she was there, it was honestly worse. She never hit him, not exactly, but she did call him useless, selfish, a parasite. He never responded back. They lived in a shack made of rotting wood and patched fabric. It wobbled with every gust of wind and leaked when it rained. Rats were the only friendly neighbours. As shameful as it may be, some nights Nagi would curl up beside them because they were warm. He didn’t think much of it then. It was just life, simply something he got used to, like breathing tobacco filled air on said cold nights.
She died when he was four. A man came into the shack one night, yelling. There was blood. Lots of it. Nagi watched from under the table as the man stabbed her, and stabbed her, and stabbed her. He didn't stop. She didn’t convince him otherwise. She just blinked slowly and fell over like a broken doll knocked from a shelf.
Afterward, the man looked at Nagi. Their eyes met for a heartbeat.
“You’re not worth killing,” he muttered, and left.
Nagi didn’t move for an hour, he sat there, still under the table, his quiet breaths slow and spaced out. Then, quietly, he got up, covered his mom’s body with a blanket, and went to sleep.
The next morning, he went out to steal breakfast. No one noticed the blood on his soot infested clothes. For the next few years, Nagi didn't 'live', but he survived... and for now that had to be enough. He stole to eat, slept in alleys, and sneaked small peaks at the rare sights of men wandering the streets together. He rarely spoke. Didn’t need to. He grew taller and leaner, but his eyes stayed foggy. Most orphans were too tired to comment on it, other orphans teased him for it.
“What are you, a ghost?” one sneered.
Nagi shrugged. “Ghosts don’t get hungry.”
...
Then the war came.
The king declared conscription across all provinces. Officers and guards swept the slums, stealing boys from their hiding places, conscription. They came with polished armor and promises of gold, glory, hot food. Most children were too afraid- no, too tired and hopeful to resist.
Nagi didn’t run.
They found him curled up in a doorway, half-asleep. A guard yanked him up by the collar. “You’ll do,” he said.
Nagi didn’t reply.
The barracks were hell. Hundreds of boys stuffed into stone halls with straw mats and iron chains. Some cried the first night. Some begged to go home. Some fought and got beaten until they didn’t fight anymore.
Nagi just watched.
He remembered one boy, Isagi Yoichi, who tried to escape. The guards caught him before he made it to the gate, his fingers just grazing his freedom. As punishment, they made all the other boys watch as they broke his legs. Hammers, nails, the glint of steel, and then a sickening crack. Pain travelled through his body, blinding, as his legs folded beneath him in ways they never should. The world dimmed to the sound of his own scream, raw and sharp, echoing off the stone walls like a cry swallowed by silence. They didn’t stop there. They kept going.
Isagi Yoichi disappeared the week following that.
That night, Nagi didn’t sleep. Not because of the screaming. Because of the silence after.
“You’ll learn,” a guard told him. “Obedience or pain. You decide.” Over the months, the training worsened. Sword drills until their hands bled. Forced marches through snow. Days without food. "Once you prove your worth to his majesty, then only will you be considered a human."
The guards treated them like beasts. Nagi, with his slow drawl and sleepy gait, was an easy target. One in particular seemed to delight in humiliating him. “Eyes up, bastard!” Ego would bark, slamming the flat of his blade against Nagi’s back.
Nagi never flinched.
“You think this is gonna be allowed when you're fighting for your country's honour on the battlefield?”
But he also never fought back.
Ego began cornering him in quieter moments. Once, he grabbed Nagi’s jaw and hissed, “One day, you’ll scream for me.” Disgusting. Him and that sick, perverted grin, his filthy hands travelling lower and lower each time he spoke to him.
Nagi didn’t scream. Nagi couldn't scream. But he stopped speaking altogether for a while.
Only when Zantetsu joined their unit did things shift slightly. Zantetsu was loud, reckless, fast. He wasn’t lenient, exactly, but he wasn’t cruel. He talked to Nagi like they were equals. He called him “empty-minded” and mocked his laziness, but with a grin rather than a frown. Once, when Ego tried to drag Nagi away for punishment, Zantetsu stepped between them.
“Leave him alone. He doesn’t even care enough to be a threat.” The guard sneered but backed off. That night, Nagi said, “Why’d you do that?” Zantetsu shrugged. “No one should be punished before the war even starts.”
Nagi didn’t respond. But something softened in his chest.
By age ten, Nagi was lethal. The officers- hell, even his own 'acquaintances' called him a prodigy. He could take down a fully grown man with his bare fists and no armour. But his reputation wasn’t what protected him. It was his detachment. They could hit him, starve him, threaten him, but they could never reach him.
“You’re already dead inside,” Ego once spat. “You don’t even care if you live or die.”
Nagi tilted his head. “Is that a bad thing?”
...
Now, years later, he stood on another battlefield. Another endless plain of broken bodies and burning carts. Zantetsu, somewhere behind him, shouted orders.
Nagi didn’t move. His sword drenched. A soldier crawled toward him, begging for mercy, whispering silent prayers.
Nagi stared at him blankly. “I’m not the one who decides that.”
Then, clean and precise, he ended it.
...
After the battle, they returned to camp.; dust still clung to their boots, blood stained their metal armour. The nobles, of course, had not fought. They waited in silken tents with fancy wine and maps. Nagi hated nobles. Not because they were cruel, but because they were untouched.
Amongst them was Reo Mikage. Youngest son of the Mikage House. Rumored to be a genius with numbers, with a voice as smooth as honey and a jawline that made the servants whisper. Nagi had seen him before, from a distance of course. Reo had a way of moving like he expected the world to shift to accommodate him. Today, Reo was inspecting the returning soldiers. Nagi caught his eye briefly. Reo’s gaze flicked over him: the dirt, the scars, the deadness in his eyes.
“...You’re the slum sword from Unit 40,” Reo said.
Nagi didn’t respond. He adjusted the grip on his sword nodded as he strode past. Reo watched him go. A flicker of curiosity behind his eyes. Later, Nagi overheard him.
“That one," he pointed, "he’s interesting.”
Interesting, like a rare breed of animal. Nagi tightened his grip. Some brat who'd never held a real blade calling him interesting like he was a pet on a leash. It churned his stomach in a way he couldn't explain. He was used to being looked down on. But that gaze had felt different. Not malicious. Just focused. Too knowing. It made him think of things he shouldn’t. It made him feel watched- no, worse. It made him feel seen.
And Nagi didn’t like being seen.
He didn’t like the way Reo looked at him like he was something tragic. Like he was something to be pitied. He wasn’t- he wasn’t anything. He wasn’t soft, he wasn’t broken, he wasn’t... he wasn’t like that, like them. He had once heard another soldier whisper about a man who’d been executed for loving another. They’d laughed, calling it sickness, a disease. Said war beats that sort of weakness out of men.
Nagi had stayed silent.
That night, he dreamed of fire. And hands, gentle ones, holding onto his calloused ones, pretending to care for them, gentle. He woke up angry at himself.
The next day, Reo passed him in camp again. Their eyes met. Nagi looked away first. A noble’s son. Clean hands. Silk sleeves. Pretty mouth. Nagi shoved the thought away like it could rot him from the inside. He wasn't like that. He wasn't. He was a soldier. A weapon. Nothing more. And Reo Mikage was nothing but another reminder of the world that had never been built for him. He would die before he let himself reach for something soft. Let Reo be curious. Let him ask questions.
Nagi would give him nothing.
Not a word. Not a glance. Not a piece of whatever was left inside him.
Not ever.
///
Years later, standing on yet another battlefield, Nagi couldn’t even remember how many lives he’d taken. Faces blurred. Names slipped away. Only one name still stuck in his mind.
He exhaled, fog curling from his lips.
"Reo, are you still waiting?"