Chapter Text
“All soldiers, advance!”
The signal cry goes up, and all around Jungkook, soldiers leap from their waiting positions to their feet. He follows shortly after, sprinting down the hill towards the unsuspecting village below.
For him, it’s hard to imagine that this quaint wooden town is hiding some of the most wanted Irisian fighters this side of the border. Hell, he’s even come here once or twice with his fellow troop members for drinks and laughs. He supposes, though, that every town hides it secrets differently.
“Intel reports three key members of the Irisian military forces hiding out somewhere in this village. The civilians have been lying to us about their whereabouts, and therefore innocence cannot be assumed,” Suga had said during the briefing before the raid. “It’s also possible that they are smuggling supplies out to an Irisian unit nearby, so any surplus goods or weapons you find on the raid should be destroyed or confiscated.”
He replays the scene in his mind over and over again as he stops at the nearest building, between two other soldiers who carry torches. He gives them a nod, watches them fall into defensive positions, one pressed against each side of the door. Then, sword in hand, he rams his shoulder into the back door, slamming it open, and steps inside.
“We’re here for the Irisian spies!” Jungkook yells into the building; it’s a house, and the family must have been asleep upstairs, because he hears a thump from the ceiling, followed by screams of terror. “Hand them over and we will let you go in peace!”
There are stumbling footsteps overhead, and then there are figures coming down a shoddy staircase, arms raised in surrender. Jungkook readies his sword, backing out of the doorway until their faces have been illuminated by the torch light.
He falters for a moment; it’s just a mother and her children, two daughters and an infant. But Jungkook steels himself, raises his sword to point at the woman -- this could be a distraction. “The spies ,” he barks out.
The daughters begin to cry, and the mother shakes her head furiously, tears streaming down her face. “We don’t know any spies,” she sobs out, clutching her baby tighter to her chest. “Please, we don’t want trouble, just let us go.”
Jungkook presses his lips into a thin line. “We’ll have to search your home first,” he says, jerking his chin at the soldiers behind him. They’re inside the house in an instant, and Jungkook can hear them overturning furniture and yanking open doors in their search.
Deep down, Jungkook feels... wrong about this, holding his sword to the throat of a mother while her children watch. They are so weak and defenseless, and Jungkook is horribly tempted to just let them go.
But he can’t. His duty is to his country; and even if this scene stirs discomfort somwhere in his gut, it certainly isn’t the first one to do so, most likely not the last. I am a soldier of Mirn , he tells himself, steadying his sword as he hears the ransacking of the home go silent. My duty is to serve my country, no matter the costs.
The words sound hollow to him.
“Sir!” Jungkook is broken out of his thoughts by the shout of one of his soldiers. The sudden noise causes the family to cower, children sniveling in fear and mother collecting them to her sides even closer than before. “Sir!” the same soldier comes to the doorframe, breathless.
Jungkook narrows his eyes, sword still trained on the family. “Did you find anyone?”
“No, sir,” the soldier pants out. “And no goods or weapons; barely enough food to feed a family here. But someone did attempt to shoot us through one of the windows as we were searching the house, from the main street.”
“Looks like we have one of our targets. Let’s go,” Jungkook says, sheathing his sword. The mother of the family sobs in relief, falling to her knees. He spares her only a brief glance before calling out to his soldiers. “To the main street!”
One by one, the others run out of the back door of the house; Jungkook counts them off as they exit, and once everyone is out, he begins running down an alley to the main street. From above the buildings, he can see -- and smell -- smoke rising over the village, and the glow of flame against the night sky. Stars, which had been so easily visible before the raid, have vanished completely behind billowing black clouds. Clearly, someone in the troop has found something big.
His unit stops just before the main road, and from there they have a clear view of the fire. It’s not just one of the buildings; four or five of them are burning now. The wooden houses with their thatched roofs are no match for the roaring flames. Jungkook can hear screams and yelling, children crying for their parents, coughing from the smoke; and all along the main road the villagers are fleeing in their night clothes; a glance down the road reveals a small river, which people are crossing to safety.
A distraught cry behind them snags Jungkook’s attention, and as he whips his head around to determine its cause, he watches as the building they had just entered catches fire, ignited by the floating embers from the main blaze. Suga had said “destroy surplus goods or weapons”, but Jungkook hadn’t expected for the troop to strike lucky so soon.
“Move!” Jungkook yells to his soldiers, and they all file onto the main street in a rush, combining with the flow of civilians moving towards the river. It isn’t long before they’re mostly separated, sandwiched between crying mothers and shouting fathers herding their children to the riverbank. With a jolt, Jungkook realizes that the Irisian spies could have crossed the river by now, and he begins to shove his way through the crowd.
Eventually, it becomes too much to push every damn civilian out of his way, so he pauses for a brief moment before casting a light energy spell.
It works wonderfully; the people surrounding him are pushed away, some stumbling to the ground, crying out in shock and pain; not surprising -- energy attacks are always painful to be hit with, even if the one he just casted was light. At least now, Jungkook has a clear view to the riverbank.
He’s beginning his advance towards the water when the screams of the crowd escalate even further. Jungkook watches in surprise as the homes on both sides of the river burst into flames. “Who let that get out of hand?” he mutters to himself; the point of the raid was to find the spies , not burn the whole place to the ground.
But Jungkook can’t afford to muse over the idiots in the troop; the fire is burning dangerously close to him. He breaks into a run, taking advantage of the cleared area. When the people converge once again to block his way, he uses yet another spell to clear his path.
After a few minutes of alternating energy spells and sprinting, Jungkook finds himself at the riverbank. There is no bridge, which perplexes him for a moment -- did nobody ever think to build one in case of an emergency? But his attention is quickly drawn to movement over the dark water.
Barely illuminated by the distant flames are several small boats, which are currently being loaded up with what appear to be women and children. There are men helping them in and pushing them off to the other side.
Jungkook quickly scans the other side of the river; it’s not terribly wide, but the use of boats tells him that it’s too deep to wade across. He can’t immediately recognize any enemy soldiers; all the people on the other riverbank are fleeing with nothing but their families and the clothes on their backs. Instead, he turns his focus to the side he’s currently on.
His eyes immediately zone in on a man currently helping people into the boats. He stands apart from the rest of the villagers; his stance is firm, even in the swirling water, and he lifts fully grown women up into the boats with ease. But what gives him away to Jungkook is the sword strapped to his back -- it’s too large to be some family sword kept in the broom closet, and even in the dark, Jungkook can see the sheath holding it is well-made.
This is one of our spies, Jungkook thinks. Wordlessly, he makes his way down the riverbank, drawing his sword, until he has a very clear view of the enemy. He seems to be alone, attention diverted completely to the people he is helping cross the river.
Again, Jungkook hesitates.That wrong feeling in his stomach begins to swirl again. The people this enemy is helping are helpless and afraid, scrambling away from the destruction Jungkook’s troop has caused. He watches lamely as the enemy soldier lifts up two children -- a boy and a girl, faces sooty and streaked with tears -- into the next boat and flashes them a boxy grin, hands pressed to their cheeks in a gesture of comfort.
Wrong, Jungkook’s conscience whispers. This is wrong.
Once again, the screams around him bring him back to the world of the living. He’s snapped out of his stupor; “Always thinking too damn much,” he berates himself aloud. “Suga would kill me if he found out I wasted time.” He hurries down the riverside, shoving people out of his way, until he stands behind his target.
“You there!” Jungkook shouts, hoping he can be heard over the chaos. Luckily, he seems to carry over loud and clear, because the other man quickly places one more child into the boat before whipping around and facing Jungkook, stance widened and defensive.
It’s clear in his eyes; this man has been caught, and he knows it. Jungkook presses on. “On behalf of the Mirnian army, I order you to surrender; drop your weapons and raise your hands to your head!” he yells, drawing his sword and pointing it at the man.
The stranger scoffs, raising his chin. “I hope you aren’t used to being obeyed, because I refuse,” he snarls, and then he’s drawing his sword from its sheath. Jungkook nearly takes a step back, because the thing is huge -- it can only be a greatsword. He hasn’t seen one since his training days at Volka. But he shakes off his shock; a big sword doesn’t mean anything unless you know how to use it.
“Surrender now, and we’ll let you live,” Jungkook says, tightening his grip. He doubts that this man will just give up, but he always makes an attempt to end conflicts peacefully; no need to spill blood where none is necessary.
“‘We’? Kid, this ‘we’ you’re talking about has no intention of letting me live ,” the other man spits back. “Maybe you do, but not your friends. They didn’t seem have any intention of leaving these people with homes to return to!” Jungkook does flinch at that. The message shoots directly down to that churning sense of wrongdoing , but he silences it with all of his will so he can glare directly into his opponent’s eyes.
“You probably have a heart in there,” the man says. “It’d be wrong to just kill you, so I’ll try to hack you up as little as possible.” And Jungkook feels his blood run cold. His opponent laughs. “I doubt you can take me without the help of your friends, kid.”
“Don’t call me kid!” Jungkook roars. “I don’t need help to bring someone like you down!”
The other man laughs darkly. “Try me, brat ,” he scoffs --
-- and Jungkook raises his sword, charging the man with everything he has.
--
“Jinyoung! Jinyoung!”
Jimin is snapped awake by the cries of a little boy, running up the stairs to where he, Jinyoung, and Taehyung are hiding. “Jinyoung!” the boy says again, out of breath. “They’re here, they’ve found you, you have to run!”
Gods, no , Jimin thinks to himself. Where did we go wrong?
From beside Jimin, Jinyoung swears under his breath. “Not careful enough,” he mutters to himself several times over. Then he raises his head towards the boy, saying “Go now. Alert the rest of the town and evacuate. These soldiers won’t leave much behind them save for ash and smoke.”
The little boy squeaks in terror, before running down the staircase. Jimin elbows Jinyoung harshly. “That was mean ,” he chides. “Taehyung and I will handle this. Get to the river and hide; you have all the information,” he adds, when Jinyoung narrows his eyes in protest. Jinyoung still hesitates to move, so Jimin shoves him towards the window. “ Go , you idiot! If we get caught I want to go down knowing that we died for a good reason.”
“We’ll follow you as soon as we can,” Taehyung adds. He‘s strapping his sword to his back.
“...Fine. But I only want you two getting the message out to the villagers. Once they’re all moving to the riverside, I want you across that damn river , understood?” Jinyoung snaps, waving one of his hands at them. The other clutches his tome tightly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jimin drawls, placing his sheath of arrows over his back and tying his sword to his belt. He’s so used to Jinyoung’s persistent mothering at this point, even though Jinyoung (almost) always is right to worry. He plucks out a few arrows and grabs his bow. “We’ll be there.”
“I have to come back, yeah?” Taehyung snorts. “Hobi would come find me to kill me himself if I let myself get caught.” He runs towards the stairs, motioning for Jimin to follow.
Before he descends, Jimin turns towards Jinyoung, who’s clambering out the window. “Hey, Jinyoung!”
“What?” comes the terse reply.
“Don’t get shot again,” Jimin laughs, before leaping down the staircase; he doesn’t catch Jinyoung’s answer. When they reach the bottom floor, they find it empty, and the back door swinging open; at least the family has fled by now.
From the windows of the bottom floor, Jimin can already see chaos in the streets. There’s a faint glow coming from further down the road.
“Fire,” he breathes, nocking an arrow. He crouches down beside the door, motioning to Taehyung; a second later, Taehyung has the door kicked open, and then they’re moving along the main street as quickly as they can, doing their best to blend in with the growing crowd of fleeing villagers.
“Looks like we won’t need to worry about informing the villagers,” Taehyung shouts over the screams, while gently guiding some children in front of him to the water.
“It’s way too late,” Jimin yells back. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches violent movement inside one of the houses, and then the gleam of plate armor. Those bastards, he swears, slowing to a halt.
Wordlessly, he draws his arrow and fires into one of the open windows of the house. The shouts of surprised soldiers tell him he missed his target; he curses, but doesn’t chance another shot. He’s already given himself away.
He and Taehyung reach the riverbank before the bulk of the crowd; they share a look of despair after glancing over the few boats tied to the riverbank. These won’t be able to support the fleeing masses , Jimin groans inwardly.
“Jimin! Look!” Taehyung is pointing across the way, Jimin’s eyes quickly find what he’s talking about.
On the opposite side, they see a wet trail through the grass, and another boat dragged halfway up the bank -- Jinyoung has made it to the other side safely. Jimin and Taehyung share another glance.
“I know Jinyoung said only to warn the villagers,” Taehyung starts with a grimace.
“ -- but it’s not like we were actually able to do that,” Jimin adds. Taehyung nods; he jumps off the riverbank and wades towards the boats.
“We have to help them,” he says. Jimin copies his movements -- the water rises up to his thighs -- just as the first people are beginning to stumble down to the water’s edge.
“Here!” he shouts, trying to get their attention. “Women and children first!” Thankfully, the villagers are quick to understand, and in no time they have a system going: one man steers each boat while Jimin and Taehyung load women and children into them.
Soon, there’s a steady stream of people crossing the river, and the numbers on the safe side are growing rapidly. They’re even able to bring over the boat Jinyoung had left on the other side, considerably assisting the pace of the evacuation.
But then, the screaming from the villagers crescendoes impossibly higher, and as Jimin glances behind him, he catches the glint of metal -- off a sword or armor, he can’t tell; but they’ve been found, and that means their time has run out.
One of the civilians beside him makes the same realization a second later. “Go,” he urges. “We can take care of things here.”
“Taehyung!” Jimin calls out, lifting one last woman into the boat. “We need to move!”
Taehyung is occupied with pushing off a full boat. “You go!” he yells back. “I’ll catch up on the next boat!”
Jimin presses his lips into a thin line; it’s dangerous to separate, but he hauls himself into the boat he was just helping to load up after a brief moment of hesitation. “Hurry up!” he yells. “They’re close!” Taehyung’s reply is lost in the shouting.
Once the boat has reached the opposite bank, Jimin leaps out first, arms extended to help the other occupants out, but one of the women in the boat brushes his hands away.
“We can get out fine,” she insists. “You need to get to the cover of the trees; they’ll see you if you don’t, and then we’re all doomed.”
“I -- thank you,” he says, letting his arms fall away. He dips his head in gratitude before climbing up the bank to flat land. Instantly, he drops to his stomach on the ground to hide himself behind the tall grass. He does his best to crawl towards the treeline. Why is it so fucking far away, he complains inwardly. No, trees can’t be close to the water! What an inconvenience that would be.
After what seems like an entire lifetime spent scrabbling in the dirt, Jimin reaches the treeline, rising to his knees and then his feet to run further into the forest. It’s only a few moments later that he realizes Taehyung isn’t right behind him, and he’s turning around to search for him when --
“You idiots , I told you to book it over here!” hisses Jinyoung, who’s practically materialized out of thin air to grab at Jimin’s arm. Jimin is pretty sure he almost pisses himself, he’s so fucking surprised.
“ Gods , Jinyoung!” he yelps, jerking back. “If you hadn’t grabbed my arm I would have fucking shot you!”
“Maybe you should have,” Jinyoung sighs, letting go. “I got us into this mess, after all. Where’s Taehyung? We need to go, now .”
“I -- I don’t know. The boats were too full for him to go with me; he said he’d catch up.” Jimin feels a queasiness in his stomach. “If Taehyung isn’t here yet…”
“...he probably never made it across the fucking river,” Jinyoung finishes for him. “ Damnit , Taehyung! Always gotta play the fucking hero,” he groans, and Jimin feels his heart drop to his feet.
“I’ll go back for him -- ” Jimin says, nocking another arrow and turning in the direction of the river.
“No!” Jinyoung says harshly, and his hand returns to grip Jimin’s arm. “We can’t afford to lose you too.” His eyes are dark with worry and guilt, but Jimin can’t just leave Taehyung.
“I won’t get close!” Jimin says indignantly, shrugging off Jinyoung’s hand. “I have to try and save him. He’s our friend, and Hobi would kill me if I didn’t try.” Jinyoung’s face goes flat at the mention of Hoseok, and Jimin winces. “I’m sorry. That was harsh. Look, I’ll be right back; I’m only going to try and pick off some of the soldiers after him; maybe that can clear a path for him to get over.” When Jinyoung makes a move to follow, Jimin pushes a hand into his chest. “Not you. You stay here until I come back,” he says forcefully. “You’re the mission now. If I take too long, get your ass back to camp; I’ll be back.”
“Jimin,” Jinyoung protests irritably. “You can’t honestly expect me to let you -- ” but by then Jimin is breaking into a run.
“I’m not expecting anything!” Jimin calls back over his shoulder. “I know your big brain will come to its senses on its own!”
“Park Jimin!” howls Jinyoung from behind him, but Jimin doesn’t hear footsteps following his own; which is good, because that means Jinyoung sat his ass down and actually listened .
Wonderful, Jimin thinks to himself. Now let's hope Taehyung is still around for me to save.
He can see the village once more through the trees; the flames have reached the last homes on the riverbank. He flinches as the single unburt house blossoms into flickering oranges and yellows.
“We did this,” Jimin murmurs, slowing to a halt. Please, tell me I'm not out of time to save Taehyung, too.
Once he’s reached the very edge of the treeline, he activates his tracking magic; it’ll help him see more clearly and differentiate between Taehyung and the enemy soldiers.
The world comes into sharper focus suddenly, and even though it’s the middle of the night, and the fire is discoloring everything, Jimin can see colors and hues as though it’s high noon. He can also make out the shapes along the opposite shore --
-- but what he sees makes his heart drop.
Taehyung is on his knees in the mud of the riverbank, surrounded by a ring of enemy soldiers; his sword is nowhere to be seen. There are too many for Jimin to clear away in time -- at least ten -- and some of them are even armed with arrows themselves; who knows whether they might be able to hit Jimin from across the river as well?
As Jimin watches, one of the soldiers shoves Taehyung down so that he’s leaning over the ground, and points his sword at the back of his neck. Jimin feels fury boiling up his throat. Hands off, he thinks angrily; fuck it, if he dies now, because nobody treats his friends, his family like that, and he raises his arrow to fire --
-- and then there are shouts (Jimin’s hearing has been enhanced by his magic as well) from the ring of soldiers, and a different soldier comes forward, arms raised in protest. Jimin quickly trains his arrow on this new enemy, but doesn’t fire right away, because this man is...different.
The soldier on the other bank who’s stepped forward moves towards the soldier pinning down Taehyung and pushes away his sword from where it points at Taehyung’s neck. Jimin can’t discern exactly what he’s saying, but whatever he says convinces the others to back away and leave Taehyung alone in the ring with the second soldier.
Jimin, bow still aimed at the second soldier, watches in confusion as he says something to Taehyung, before taking a rope from one of his comrades, taking Taehyung’s hands behind him, and tying them up almost…. gently.
“What in the name of Livinia..?” Jimin mutters, lips pressed to the arrow’s shaft. The man he sees is perfectly vulnerable, in the middle of that circle. Jimin can see a sliver of skin exposed on the back of his neck, a target he can make easily. Still, he withholds his shot, feeling a strange hesitance about killing this one soldier, like if he does it, he'll live to regret it much later on.
And then the whole troop begins to move away, the soldiers surrounding Taehyung. Jimin probably swears with every expression he's ever heard, because he’s missed an opportunity .
No, scratch that, he corrects. I didn't even fucking see one. Not one that would have helped him.
Only two soldiers remain behind: the one who had threatened Taehyung with his sword and the kinder one who had bound his wrists. They share a short, heated exchange, before the Sword soldier walks up the bank to catch up with the rest of their troop. The Kind soldier remains on the riverbank, and Jimin realizes he still has his bow trained on him, still has a clear shot.
Jimin could shoot him now, possibly, and let him live so that Jimin can drag him across the river and demand to know where they’re taking Taehyung...but it doesn’t feel right . Not after what he just witnessed.
He stands there for a few moments, staring down the Kind soldier down the shaft of the arrow, when suddenly, Kind soldier turns his head towards the treeline --
-- and then they’re staring, right into each other’s eyes. Jimin feels a jolt run down his spine (like the time Jinyoung struck him with a lightning spell on accident). There’s something in the Kind soldier’s gaze that strikes Jimin, and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away. When the soldier tilts his head just the slightest, Jimin feels almost compelled to do the same. As he stares, he lowers his bow and arrow slowly, until it's pointing to the ground in front of him.
Their gazes remain locked for a few moments more, when Jimin comes to his fucking senses and realizes two things: he’s clearly given himself away, which is bad, and this soldier, Kind or not, can easily reveal him to the others with a single cry.
But Kind soldier makes no move to signal his troop or cross the river to Jimin. He just...stands there, staring at him with an absolute fixation, mouth falling slightly open, and the intensity draws Jimin in, makes him hold eye contact for a a few seconds longer.
Jimin is tempted to keep staring back; there’s something about this man’s eyes which speak to him, move something buried at the bottom of his heart, but sense is rapidly overriding desire, and with great effort he tears himself away from the soldier’s eyes, retreating into the trees, heart heavy with guilt, shame, and confusion.
The village still burns behind his back as he flees.