#caius van ordus

[kuro-me]

Desperate Measures

Warning for implied rape!

The pain in his leg was excruciating, but it was nothing next to the damage done to his pride.

Ordus had just met with the Crown Prince, his direct superior, who was displeased with his progress. The fact Ordus was alive was a miracle in itself, knowing what the prince did to those he perceived as failures, but the ultimatum presented had the Tribunus at his wits end.

One month. One short month, that was all he had left to attain the asset he had promised Prince Zenos, or else he would meet the fate of the Praefectus who had died for his failures in Gyr Abania. It wasn’t enough time, there was no way he was going to be able to break the man on time, which meant a new approach was needed.

“But what?” He mused aloud, limping his way down the halls of the palace in Ala Mhigo with a cane firmly gripped in his right hand.

He had been making decent progress on getting into in the beautiful boy’s head again, if he only had more time he was sure he could have broken him. Now he needed to change tactics, but he was loathe to admit that there was only one way he could think of to lure him in quickly. Ordus needed to make the boy angry, but the anger was…

A shudder ran down his spine, stopping dead while his free hand planted against the wall, breathing laboured. Ordus recalled the uprising, that masked figure that had cut its way through countless loyal Garlean soldiers, he had barely survived several ambushes by the one the Domans in northern Yanxia had called Kuro-Me. Deep down he knew it was luck, only luck, he was no skilled warrior.

But he was a keen strategist, he could come up with something.

“Breathe…” He hissed, gasping in breaths as he got over the mild panic attack that had hit him at the memory of that masked demon. “Think.”

What would incur his anger enough to lure him in?

Well, there was the Xaela and her children. He knew of them, a niece and nephew, a sister, that could do the trick. But she was well protected, rarely ventured out alone and when she did venture out there were many other Xaela with her, including that violent savage she called a wife. No, that would be more trouble than it was worth, he didn’t have the time for that.

If only he hadn’t slain the Maeda boy, he could have used his last true surviving clan member to lure him, but now that calculated move was wasted. His fist hit the wall as he slammed the door to his chambers within the palace behind him, all that hard work wasted because the idiot prince was impatient. No, no he couldn’t go thinking of Zenos that way, he feared he’d somehow hear it even if the thought remained solely in his own head.

Finally his thoughts turned to the two encounters he’d had with the beauty since he’d arrived in Eorzea, there was a constant there, something that had caught his ire both times in varying degrees of anger. The girl, yes that was the key he was sure of it, his beauty loved her or was at least very attached to her. No, no it was definitely love, nobody reacted that strongly without their heart being a major contributing factor.

“Hiina Kusakari,” he mused, limping over to a chair in his chambers and groaning slightly as he sat upon it, relief washing over him as he felt the pressure taken entirely off his leg.

She was a kunoichi, skilled enough to have drawn the boy’s attention- ironic how Ordus thought that strength of arms was all that would draw Yoshiro in- but not quite on his level. If he could corner her somehow, she would make easy prey for a few squads of soldiers lying in wait, the trouble was that since his failed assault on the refugee camp she rarely left Ul’dah alone.

Besides, taking her when he couldn’t see would be counter to what Ordus wanted, he needed the boy to be seething- that thought sent a small shudder through his spine but he pressed on- and wanting to chase Ordus down. So he should take the girl when the boy was there to see, make sure he knew he had failed to keep her from his enemy’s clutches, that would cut deeply and Ordus was nothing if not petty toward the beauty who’d escaped him.

“He cuts down squads too easily…” Ordus mused aloud again, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair slowly. “I need something more.”

A colossus perhaps? Plus an entire century of soldiers, it had taken him five seconds to cut through his men and injure Ordus last time, but after that he seemed to have slowed down which was intriguing to say the least. To think he could somehow transfer the energy of the eye to his other eye too by regulating his flow of chi, what an industrious little beauty he was.

Ordus was going to crush the life out of him when this was over, take the eye fully formed, break the boy again the way he had before and then force him to watch as the girl was taken too. He hissed in a sharp breath suddenly, he couldn’t take the girl like that while Kuro-Me was free, it would be too much. Too far. He would never survive the wrath of that demon baring down on him, not this time.

Fear clutched his chest, seized at it for a moment, his breathing becoming laboured again as he slammed his fist hard into the arm of the chair. He would not falter, he would show the girl every hospitality short of taking her, soon as he had the boy he could force them to watch the other taken.

“Ha..” He chuckled, amused at his own sick machinations.

But he was getting ahead of himself and his mind was slipping off course, he had to focus on the task at hand for now. The two would inevitably leave Ul’dah together eventually, whether it be for training as Ordus had caught them before, or for some other reason all he had to do was keep a century at the ready to move the instant his spies informed him they were in the open.

The girl would be caged like a bird, in the very cage he had kept the demon in before, this would end at home for the both of them. He would need every soldier available to him to ensure the boy’s capture when he came, surely he would bring allies of some kind with him, there was no chance he’d come alone. Not this time.

“Not long now, Lord Yamauchi..” He whispered, smiling coldly to himself. “You and your little girl will both be mine.”

He shook slightly in anticipation, but the anticipation turned at once to a lingering fear, he was going to intentionally anger the boy. The boy might become the demon again, the thing that Ordus saw in his nightmares. But it was alright, he would use the one thing the demon cared about as a shield, and if he became too dangerous then he would break him by other means.

If the worst happened, he’d snuff out the girl’s life in front of him, all to drain the last vestiges of his resolve. His hubris of wanting both might well be his undoing, but it was just far too tempting.

“At least they’ll suffer together.” He said, a sick smile curling across his face as his tongue ran steadily over his top lip. “I’ll might even bury them together at the end…”

My, but wasn’t he benevolent?

[kuro-me]

Garlean Hospitality

Fair warning!!! This one gets messed up, warnings for implied rape and definite abuse!

“You’re finally awake.”

The voice pierced into Hisao’s consciousness, tearing him back to reality with a low groan of aching pain. Naturally his right eye opened instantly, not needing to take the time to focus it danced about to take in his surroundings. Architecture was definitely Garlean, all metal and without a single window, not to mention those lights that shone down on him which seemed magitek in origin. He was strapped into a metal chair, which was far colder than it should be, though the answer quickly came as his eyes went down and realised he was naked.

Well that just made this a whole lot worse than he’d already thought, because not only was he naked and cuffed to a steel chair, but the man before him was one he knew well. He had encountered him several times throughout the uprising, a Tribunus who had effectively become his self-proclaimed nemesis on account of the victories Hisao and his clan had cost the man. Now he had a vendetta, so it stood to reason he must have had some involvement with the burning of the village.

Wait, the village.

The memories of what had happened came rushing back all at once, he had been shot, he should be dead he was sure of it. Looking down he saw the truth of his fate, there were small scars across his torso where the bullets had found their mark.

“Yes, you should be dead, but my healers managed to keep you alive.” The Tribunus said, a note of triumph in his tone.

“Why?” Hisao asked, his throat dry and voice hoarse.

Caius van Ordus wasn’t of a mind to answer, his calm voice bit harshly into Hisao as he gave the order for the chair to be laid back. Suddenly, the metal chair he was on adjusted itself, going quickly from chair to table and it was now he realised that he wasn’t in an interrogation room like he’d first thought. No, this was a laboratory. Able to see things he couldn’t before on account of positioning, he saw many different pieces of magitek equipment the function of which he had no idea.

“What are you doing?!” He demanded, and for the first time he felt panic because there were people in the room with them he hadn’t seen before, “stop!”

Hisao’s eyes had gone wide because his bindings had tightened, and above him a trio of masked Garleans were looking down at him, it was the one nearest his head that he’d reacted to most though because he was holding some clawed device that was nearing Hisao’s right eye. He tried to shut the eye only for the three to try and force it open again, when that failed Caius himself slammed an armoured fist into his gut and caused him eye to fly open.

The claw grasped his eyeball and it was pulled from the socket, though not out entirely it was still connected to him, he could still see through it. It was a horrible thing to experience, to literally had his eye torn from his head and held above the socket, while it still seemed to try and observe everything by itself. They seemed to be running tested on it, Hisao’s heart beat hard in his chest, fearful he was about to have the eye taken from him. What would he even be without it?

“Stop!” He cried, terror gripping him in a way he’d never felt before. “Please, stop!”

The fear of losing yourself wasn’t one Hisao had ever considered before, at the time of the uprising he’d killed many Garleans in cold blood, and then before the uprising many of his fellow Domans too. Shinobi were first and foremost assassins, killing was in their veins and yet now he found himself alone, without the support of his friends and family and suddenly he felt like that eye he’d always hated was the one thing tethering him on the edge of an abyss. Now he thought it was going to be taken from him, and the mere thought of that caused tears to spring forth and cries of anguish as he tried and failed to struggle.

“I never expected you to be this weak,” Caius said quietly, a note of disappointment in his voice, “somehow I imagined more.”

“Tribunus, we cannot remove the eye.”

“Why?” He asked, his composure briefly faltering.

Caius kept his composure as the man informed him how the eye was bound by aether to the marking on the right side of Hisao’s face, apparently it was laced with aether that the eye was steadily absorbing. According to the doctor, the eye was incomplete and was still growing, this was news to Hisao as much as it was to Caius who seemed irritated to find out there was no way of knowing when the eye would have finished absorbing the aether from the mark.

If having your eye pulled from its socket was a disturbing and uncomfortable sensation, having it shoved back in was even worse and elicited a cry of pain. It was such a horrible thing to experience that Hisao passed out again, it was lucky he did because when he woke he found himself on the floor in a cell and everything ached. Really ached in fact, more than it had in the chair or on the table it had become, it was then that it dawned on him and his eyes widened.

The ache came from one place specifically. Hisao’s jaw set and locked, tears stinging the corner of his eyes, the right had settled back into its socket like it’d never left at this point. It didn’t take much to realise he’d been defiled in his unconscious state, his blood ran cold as he forced himself to sit up and breathed shakily to hold back the tears. He wondered if it’d been done before his waking properly, but that thought turned quickly into blind anger as he slammed his fist into the cold metal floor.

What was strange was that it wasn’t anger at Caius that hit him, but anger at himself for feeling like it didn’t matter. Somehow he’d let go of himself, still saw himself as dead, living on borrowed time. Caius wouldn’t let him go and once the eye was complete, whatever that actually meant, he’d surely extract what he needed and kill Hisao. So why should he care if he’d been defiled? He was already dead, and with that thought he fell backward and threw an arm over his face, a quiet sob echoing in the room.

“I hear that in your culture, fair skin is a sign of beauty.” Caius said, looking at a broken Hisao who was huddled in a corner.

When no reply came, the Tribunus let out a sharp breath through his nostrils, he’d just fastened his armour but he wasn’t above having the “famous” Kuro-Me again if he had to just to loosen his tongue. But the man remained calm, and just regarded the broken, naked figure in front of him through cold, icy blue eyes. It had been roughly two months now since Hisao had come around, and Caius visited him at least twice a week, more if he was stress and so the Doman had bruises from beatings, as well as bites apparently across his body.

“If that’s true, does that make you beautiful to your people?” Caius mused, regarding the figure in the corner again. “You are a very pretty young man, I could see where the notion came from, perhaps it something to do with being pampered and regularly in the shade Lord Yamauchi?”

Being called that stung. Hisao was was the heir to the clan, and so in a technical sense it was his true title, but he didn’t like it and nor did he want it. Lord Yamauchi wouldn’t be defiled on the floor like he was, bruised and beaten, the wetness of Caius’ ministrations still felt on his skin. Besides, there was no clan to rule anymore and so the title was defunct and pointless, he was lord of nothing and not did he want to be. All he wanted was for the eye to be finished, then he could die.

Then he could be with his clan again.

“Well,” Caius continued, seeming irritated by Hisao’s lack of answers, “I’ll be seeing you and your beauty again soon, I have to go and see to some of your clan, Lord Yamauchi.”

He left and Hisao’s eyes widened. Caius had clearly said it in his frustration at Hisao’s silence to try and get a rise out of him, but it had done more than that, it had breathed life into him too. In the darkness of his own mind a single ray of light had pierced through and given him a purpose, if he could just get out he could free them, together they could potentially break out and flee into the wilderness. Perhaps try and cross the sea to Kugane, or worst case scenario make for the Steppe.

Hisao began eating again after that to properly regain his strength, the flame of purpose lit in him again. He’d receive many more visits from Caius over the three months that it took for his strength to properly return to him, but he bit his tongue and performed the mudra sequences he knew in his head until it was over, succumbing only to tears once the Tribunus was gone and he was left lying once more in the dark. He was going to kill that man one day, he swore that to himself. For his clan, for Doma, and for his own honour.

When the time finally came it was the witless guard who brought him dinner that was the first to die, Hisao had to grab him around the throat and squeeze until he suffocated, hand over his mouth and nose to make sure no sound was heard. Once he went down, Hisao stripped the man and pulled on his uniform, stepping outside and quickly closing the door behind him. Caius hadn’t been there for three days, which meant Hisao had been given a chance for the aches and pains to fade some.

Finding his way through the complex wasn’t difficult, the good thing about Garlean helmets were they covered the top part of the face and thus, so long as he didn’t get too close to anyone nobody saw the single black eye paired with the blue. Finding his way to where his clan were being held was difficult, apparently there were no cells at the facility as it wasn’t a prison at all. It was a research complex, meant to produce magitek and other strange Garlean abominations.

That thought hit him all of a sudden. If there were members of his clan in the complex, and this wasn’t a prison then he had to wonder why they were there. He wished he had never found out, but as he reached that door in the bowels of the complex he heard a sound that was very out of place. It sounded like someone hitting a mattress, or perhaps just falling against one in some way, but that didn’t make any sense at all. Prickles of consciousness hit him, and suddenly…

Yoshiro opened his eyes slowly to the darkness, taking a moment to let the grog settle before he got his bearings. He was laying on a tatami mat beneath the admittedly very comfortable kotatsu blanket, his legs buried under the table itself. For a moment he wondered why he was there, especially as there was a pillow under his head, but then he heard a stir from beyond the screens and recalled.

Well, that might go a way to explain why he hadn’t woken from that dream in a cold sweat panting for breath at least, still he didn’t relish having the dream in the first place. A trip down memory lane had been on the menu every night since Caius had cornered him in the forest, at least he’d managed to send his tormentor a message when he’d killed half of his retinue while they fled from his anger.

Since he was comfortable and also knew that he was in the presence of the pretty Doman girl he’d fallen for, and trusted implicitly, he opted to doze off and try to sleep some more. That had been the plan anyway, until a voice cut through the darkness of the room, and his eyes opened again as he barely contained a short sigh. Apparently sleeping more wasn’t on the table anymore, or under it.

“Yoshi?”

He remained silent initially, pondering the fact he’d kissed her while she slept, and feeling a small pang of guilt for that. Yoshiro resolved to make it up to her, even though she had no idea he’d actually done it.

“I’m here, Hiina.” He replied quietly.

There was a short silence in response before he heard he reply.

“Are you dressed?” She asked.

Okay, he took it back. He was going to tease her relentlessly for that question, as if he would go about naked when he knew she was there with him. What had been a pang of guilt suddenly turned to mischief, and the idea of telling her that yes, he was in fact naked and not at all still wearing his pants from the night before. That’d teach her.

[kuro-me]

Coincidence and Fate

What Hisao had been met with beyond that door had shattered him completely. Where once he had again found the resolve to survive, now he felt a sickening twist in the pit of his stomach that wormed its way into his very being. It had been difficult to identify what remained as any part of his clan, but some small trinkets lay scattered amidst the viscera and blood. Ones that he could not deny belonging to people he had once known, people who he had been meant to protect.

Now his failure as a leader was complete, in his mind, none remained to console or tell him otherwise. But despite being shattered by what he beheld, a new knot grew the join the sickening twist of shame and grief, one that spoke only of vengeance. So he had fled the complex, nothing driving him but the desire to one day avenge those he’d failed, even if it took him the rest of his meager life to do it. He ran and he ran, using all that he head learned and practiced to avoid Garlean patrols.

With his lungs burning in the chill of the night air, worsened still by the wet cold that clung to him after his swim across the river to reach wider Yanxia, he finally found his way into the ruins of a village since abandoned by its occupants. The home he took shelter in had no roof anymore and he could hear the patrols passing by, still searching for Caius van Ordus’ prize. At least they seemed fool enough to assume he wouldn’t duck into the ruined village, perhaps they thought it too obvious a hiding spot.

Incompetence certainly did benefit him at times like these.

Once he’d regained his breath and found some worth huddled under the remains of old blankets that looked as though they had at one time been quite pretty, he took in his surroundings a little more. Hisao wondered who might have lived there, his eyes briefly went to a far corner where sat a rack of katanas, so this had been the home of samurai before as the common folk were not allowed to carry such weapons unless loaned to them by samurai specifically for battle.

Pulling himself toward the rack he looked closer at it, removing a the shorter of the collection of weapons and slipping it slightly from its scabbard, the wakizashi was finely sharpened, though the blade had not been treated recently and so had some minor imperfections across its surface. Still, it would suffice for a weapon until he could get something else, something more his usual style. To be sure, he also picked up the small red scabbard tanto that had sat beside it.

“To whomever lived here, be you alive or dead,” he began aloud, kneeling and placing his hands together in prayer. “I thank and honour you for the gift of these weapons, that I might defend myself.”

As he went to return to the blankets he paused, spotting something on the floor which his foot nudged as he passed. Reaching down to pick it up, he lifted what seemed to be the shape of a bird, it was soft to the touch and clearly a child’s toy. Briefly he brushed some of the dust off it, it was hard to make out what kind of bird the toy had been on account of it being lightly charred in places; no doubt when the Garleans had put the home to the torch and destroyed the roof.

“Could be… a wren?” He mused, smiling sadly at the toy for a moment and hoping whoever it had belonged to had escaped the razing. “Or a finch.”

For a moment he looked at it, then carefully placed it on the remains of what seemed like it had been a small set of drawers. As he moved to sit and pull the blankets about himself, he stared at the toy in silence, somehow drawing in on it as if to take his mind off all else that went on around him.

“Oh!” He exclaimed quietly, not wanting to go alerting potential Garleans to him though he was quite sure they’d long passed by now. “Maybe it’s a sparrow.”

Quite pleased with his figuring it out, or assuming he had figured it out anyway based on the fact there were a fair few sparrows that lived in the region, he found himself falling slowly out of consciousness. He really did need to sleep, it’d been so long since he managed it without Ordus arriving and waking him for another attempt at breaking his will entirely, well the truth was of course that he’d managed just that. But Hisao would continue on, he’d cling to the knot of revenge in his stomach all he could.

The sleep was interrupted by the light of morning, and the sound of nearby footsteps that had started to grow closer, another patrol. Hisao cursed under his breath and quickly shook the grog of waking from his mind, he had to be alert or else he was surely doomed. Quickly he tucked the wakizashi and tanto into his belt, then slipped from the building while keeping to the shadows as best he could. As much as that knot in his stomach might have wanted him to, he had to stay his weapons for now, killing patrols would only alert Ordus as to the direction he was headed.

The journey to the west and to the ruins of what had been Yamanoie was a quiet one at least, Ordus no doubt had already sent patrols back to his hometown in case he went there but Hisao had to go back, to try and salvage at least some small part of his clan. He arrived early evening, the sun hanging lower in the sky but still with at least a couple of hours remaining for daylight. Sure enough he located the patrols sent as a precaution and likely ordered to wait him out just in case, dispatching them was easy he’d slain many Garleans like them.

It was sad though, slaying them while done in anger didn’t feel even a little satisfying, not like it had during the uprising when it was for the freedom of Doma. For now he decided to ignore the empty feeling and went walking through his hometown, or the husk of it that remained since the fires had long burned out. There still lay the charred remains of people he had once known, so he took to the grim work of gathering them and via the use of ninjutsu taught by those who lived in the mountains, moved the earth enough to bury them as was respectful.

Kneeling before the grave he had made, he prayed, called out to his ancestors and to the kami for the peaceful rest of those lost, but there was no answer as he had come to expect by now. Rising to his feet, night had long since come and so all that lit his way was the torch he had made from the remains of some timber and wrapped in charred cloth before lighting it up. He proceeded now into the town once more, toward what had been the Yamauchi estate, home to his parents and himself.

The building itself still stood, the fires hadn’t touched it much if at all though there were marks on its walls that indicated it’d come under barrage from Garlean firearms. Inside there was a mess, the Garleans had clearly looted the place but likely hadn’t found what they wanted, if anything. Hisao was just glad not to be walking in to see the corpses of his mother and father, no doubt they had been removed due to their position, likely presented to the Garlean whose army had destroyed Doma.

As he stood there in the square of the estate, he briefly clapped his free hand over his mouth and fought back a sob, hit by a surge of inevitable emotion at the sight of what had become of the place where he had lived and grown up. Memories of his parents filled his mind, his father the large but lovable brute of a man who despite his size and brawn, was far more intelligent and wise than those outside Yamanoie gave him credit for. His mother too, kind and patient, ever the gentle hand who had guided him and his father, the home keeper who came across as deceptively meek until you caught her ire.

The tears welled in his eyes but he fought them back, instead pushing on into the estate to find what he had come for, secrets only he knew to look for. Carefully he slipped aside the stand there his father’s armour had once sat, taken clearly to be worn in defence of the town at the end, then he slipped aside the painting behind it that depicted Yamanoie in the morning sunrise. Behind, he found the lever that opened the nearby bookcase, because it wouldn’t be a shinobi clan’s estate if things weren’t needlessly obtuse.

Hisao chuckled at the thought and the debates he’d had with his father on that very subject.

Behind the bookcase wasn’t a secret room however, only a secret compartment wherein lay three old but well kept scrolls, written on slats of wood bound together rather than paper which was a proper indication of their age. Hisao frowned, there were meant to be four scrolls but one was missing, how strange. But nobody had gone into the compartment, at least nobody who shouldn’t have, or else why not just take all of them? Why take one and leave the other three?

“Perhaps father or mother hid it…” He mused aloud, taking the three scroll and sipping them into an old looking satchel that had belonged to his mother for her herb collecting.

He question was; where? He had no idea why or where they might hide the fourth scroll, it seemed to him that it was one of the few things his father hadn’t confided in him, a secret perhaps meant for the lord of the Yamauchi that he could now no longer pass on. The thought hit him with a keen sorrow, as well as a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach as the thought of being lord of the Yamauchi clan reminded him far too easily of the things Ordus had said and done to him.

Pushing the thoughts aside best he could, he slipped from the estate and made once more for the forest surrounding the town, lingering there wouldn’t do. He had buried his people, and collected what he knew his parents would have had him taken, including his ceremonial armour and blades which he had carefully packed away into their chest and slipped into the satchel which now bulged with all the things forced into it. He’d make now for the Ruby Sea to try and get passage to Kugane, from there he could flee Othard for now and then…

Well, he would figure that out later.

Hisao slept in a cave deep within the forest that night, knowing what routes the Garlean patrols would take if they went to check on their now dead comrades, he felt safe enough to do so. The next day he set off again, heading southeast toward the Ruby Sea where he could try and get passage to the city of Kugane where the Garleans would not be able to touch him due to the strict laws, and where he could try and get passage from sympathetic souls who hated the Garleans to elsewhere. Thavnair perhaps, or even Eorzea.

The weight of leaving home under those circumstances was hard to bare, so much so that his shoulders dropped with each step he took, until the cold acceptance of the fact he would likely never be able to return set in. He swallowed a lump that formed in his throat, he would not shed tears over this, he had sworn in his prayers over the bodies of his clan that he would not grieve until they were avenged. Not truly, anyway. No, the tears for them would have to wait until he stood over Ordus’ body, then and only then could he let go.

Journeying to the Ruby Sea was easy enough, gaining passage to Kugane was just as easy, there were still some among the Confederacy that sympathized with Domans who were displaced by the uprising. But Kugane itself was overwhelming, he was a young man from the mountains and the forests, the town of Yamanoie was decent in size but it was no city. The sounds and the lights were near blinding and deafening at first, he had to take a moment to orient himself, especially with his right eye flitting every direction as if with a mind of its own.

“Breathe…” He told himself, inhaling deeply through his nose and exhaling through his mouth in several controlled breaths.

He felt vulnerable, he’d used the wakizashi to bartner his passage, partially because it was a fine blade but also because if he was caught carrying the weapon of a samurai when he himself was not he would be in serious trouble in Kugane. The tanto remained on his person however, carefully tucked away inside his short where it would remain hidden from all, just in case. There were also the ceremonial blades in his satchel, but there were not meant for general use, they were special and not to be wielded casually.

Once he’d gotten himself oriented again, Hisao made his way toward the first establishment he came across, the Shiokaze Hostelry where he found himself bombarded with a myriad of different languages he couldn’t understand. But garnering passage on a ship proved far easier than he’d expected, though he wasn’t entirely sure he liked the look of the crew that would be granting him passage. They spoke the language, told him that it was a merchant vessel, but he was no fool and was sure there was more to these people that they were letting on.

Still, despite that he didn’t find them to be dishonest per say, and they claimed to be ferrying Doman refugees for free to Limsa Lominsa on the continent of Eorzea. Well, if it turned out to be a trap then they’d be in for a nasty surprise, he came across as just another poor and destitute Doman survivor- which technically he was- but he was far more than that and he wouldn’t be taken advantage of so easily. It was his good fortune though, that despite these people being pirates, they were very much Limsan pirates through and through, and thus he would not become a victim of some trick.

The journey was silent for his part however, he spent much of it locked up in his cabin where he tried to bring some order to the chaos in his mind, perhaps reach for a spark of the old Hisao deep down. He had no family, no clan, no money, and no possessions with a damn save the few he’d managed to salvage. He was the lord of nothing, but he had his name, Hisao Yamauchi, that would be enough for him.

It would have to be.

Funny really, how several years later he finally felt some semblance of his old self coming back to him, yet the name was gone. Yoshiro lay silently staring at the ceiling in the dark, it wasn’t that he couldn’t sleep and the warmth of Hiina’s body beside him made it more than comfortable for him to do so, his mind was just occupied by so many things that he was trying to figure out. Her presence always made figuring them out easier, so really laying awake while she slept soundly against him was when he did his best thinking these days.

When he had arrived in Eorzea, he had been an empty shell of himself, but since meeting her that shell had steadily filled out again. As each shattered piece was pushed back into place, he found himself feeling more and more as he once had, confident and self-assured. But there was a piece that he knew she couldn’t put back into place, it wasn’t that her love wasn’t enough, or that he didn’t love her enough. It was that the final piece lay in the hands of another, or more specifically, it wrested upon the death of another. One day Ordus would fall at his hand, and he knew she would be there beside him, possibly even helping him to hold the knife that ended it.

Soon things were going to come to a head, and once it was over he could let out all that he’d held back, just a little while longer. His arms around Hiina unconsciously tightened a little as his head leaned toward hers, shutting his eyes so that he could finally allow sleep to take him.

Not long now.