#meanwhile Okita suffers in queue because she won't complain

[nobuverse]

Fight willing to die, and you shall live. Fight wishing to survive and you will surely meet death.

Kagetora had held many titles, many names in her lifetime. The Invincible General. The Dragon of Echigo. The God of War. This Buddhist who lead armies from the front lines, never once meeting defeat in her over seventy major battles. Her confidence so unshakable, her faith so powerful that it would inspire all who surrounded her. The avatar of Bishamoten who united all of Echigo.

Her own men, her own allies had cowered from her in life - not in the battlefield, but off of it. Many said she'd held eyes of a monster without a soul. Her unwavering, haunting smile and her complete indifference towards injury and pain terrified them. In life, she'd been considered something completely inhuman; a creature completely incapable of feeling sorrow or fear.

Yet, she'd spent all her life attempting to protect these frail and weak humans. Not because she understood their anguishes and sufferings - but because she knew it was right. Her God and her horse, Houshou Tsukige, being her only true friends in the world.

Her own body betrays her at the very end. Urtine cancer finally takes her life right before she can face the self-proclaimed demon king of the sixth heaven.

One does not engage in battle for self-gain. But should your reasons be just, all shall aid in your cause.

At her funeral, even her enemies weep. They speak of her as a hero- someone who would rather give food and salt to starving cities than wait out sieges. An honorable rival, only taking up blades against the cruel and unreasonable. In life, she was feared, but in death she was loved. She never would come to know of this, of course.

She'd never left the throne of heroes once she'd entered it. Not out of arrogance, but a lack of desire for the grail itself. She had never believed in gaining things through wishes - if she wanted something, she'd rather gain it herself.

Fate is decreed by the heavens.

Something tugs at her soul. A call from a distant world, something which could have easily been ignored. Were it not for the fact that she had found no other master suitable to resonate with her, she might have done so. But the lancer reaches for it, letting the thread of fate lead her to places unknown. She's too fascinated by it - the idea of someone who would accept a monster fighting for the name of justice.

Armor is strengthened by the heart.

These aren't the ley lines back on the earth she knows. Maybe it's a lack of faith - maybe the magic was worlds apart from her own. The runes glow, they hum- but there is no grand flash of light as her body manifests. Instead, her soul slowly leaks into this new world; golden dust dissipating into the wind. As she begins to see - spirit form allowing her to observe from between the land of living and dead, she sees him for the first time.

This young man, so bruised and disheveled- exhausted to the very bone. Arm torn from his body, digging at the dirt clumsily. It makes her wonder if it's not his dominant hand.

She knew she should be horrified by the sight. Expectedly, however, she feels nothing. She does not know this man. She doesn't understand his pain or his sorrow. Why is she here? Why her when there were so many spirits that would have more easily answered the call of such a battered soul?

The gun is raised as she watches him, not understanding his desire to keep digging in such a deplorable state.

It's when the gun is raised that she finally understands that he's digging his own grave.

And glory is gained on foot!

It's not a moment too soon for her to be able to manifest. Without hesitation she grabs the gun as it's fired, it's barrel forcibly pointing towards the air.

"Ha....ahahaha!! "

That shrill laugh is closer to a shriek - and she smiles. She's held this expression for so long that she's forgotten how make any other face, tearing the gun from its wielder.

"You humans - are so vile! No, I don't understand you at all!"

The weapon is tossed away, useless as far as she's concerned. It's no use relying on something that can miss. Her own spear manifests in her hands. It's pointed as a threat - not at the terrified man in front of her, now disarmed and helpless, but at those beyond who are still armed.

"Enough men to form an army, and you're too scared to approach a single man? Pathetic! You must instead starve him to his bare bones, mutilate his body and humiliate for your own satisfaction? I'll not take your lives unless you make me, but I know that the deepest pits of hell awaits for men like you!"

Even if they were to shoot, she knew the bullets would not hit her. Nothing ever did as long as her faith remained strong. They would curve around her- miss her in inexicpliable ways. She only takes care to move next to her master as she speaks, to serve as his invincible shield if needed.

She turns - making eye contact with the man who had terrified kings. Even if she cannot understand the gaze in his eyes, she is determined to do what is just.

Her glare fades, the Dragon's eyes soften.

"Come. I think you've spent too much time here already, don't you agree?"

An armored hand reaches out to him - inviting him to step out of his grave.

@nobuverse

It was like dark magic. The warships blotted out the sky, the black hulls like thunderclouds. The hum of their motors a thousand shrieking voices. None of his tactics had prepared for him. Dozens of warships. And they shelled the entire forest for three days. All the vanguard camps were wiped in a flash. Months of victory after victory. Of careful concealment, of keeping guarded to maintain their fight. In a flash, it was gone.

All the burned corpses of the men and women fighting under his command. All of the groundsmen he’d taught to read and write, who’d never seen a doctor in their lives until he’d arrived with one in their troop, volunteering upon learning what hope they meant to bring. Gone. He was fortunate to have survived the shelling. His position was not targeted, but he had an idea why. It was as if he had been explicitly not hit to see the damage.

It was his failure for believing in him, his old friend. It was his fault for desperately wanting to believe he wouldn’t be betrayed.

A scouting party followed, marching directly to his tent. So it was true. A man stepped forward, where he sat in front of a fire boiling water. He wanted to make a last cup of coffee and smoke one last bowl of tobacco from his pipe before they arrived. They wouldn’t even allow him that.

“Mister Otxo, I’d like to speak with you.”

“No one intimidates me.”

It was three weeks of torture. All forms that gave the capacity to leave him intact, without a sign of damage, to make certain it wasn't revealed exactly what they did to him. Electrocution, being forced to stay awake, simulated drowning, left naked in the blistering sun for hours with no water. Starvation. Everything to get him to sell out the remaining vanguards, his subcommander. He never once spoke a word.

He spent three days chained to the wall of a former rural clinic’s examination room. A peasant girl from a neighboring village fed him. Pottage and water, one meal a day. She looked at him with curious eyes. Fear and anxiousness in her face, seeing this disheveled man. It was clear that she wondered of the danger he posed that an entire Empire’s fleet would come to snuff him out.

“I heard you’re here to kill us.”

“I’m here to help you. No longer having to live like this.”

His eyes stared at the medical charts and informational posters on the walls, tattered and torn from years in disrepair. Of course, he didn’t mean her specifically. This wasn’t her village. The ones who lived here had fled long before.

His left arm had been shorn. A punishment by the Sao monarchy against all who committed treason against the crown. He was kept in chains for as long as they could decide what to do with him. Finally, word came from the Council, wire through the lines, that he was to be executed.

It was told that he was considered too great of a threat to be taken back alive to the capital. The Empire’s greatest enemy, officiated and signed with the execution sentence. Too dangerous to live, starved and chained to a wall, dirty faced. His last meal was simply a pipe of tobacco.

He was forced to dig his own grave. One-handed, struggling with all the strength he could muster. Beaten, battered, bruised. Deep enough to just cover him in enough dirt to hide him away. Shallow enough that the wild animals could dig his body up and tear him apart.

In the process, a strange circle was unearthed. His left hand palmed its center with his bleeding calluses, but he thought nothing of it. All his thoughts were about back home, in his little townhouse. All the work yet to be finished. All the friends yet to welcome him back.

Despair. Hopelessness. He knew that once they finished with him, they were certain to turn their attention to Yarima. To stamp out Anacaona. To murder the flower princess.

He was made to stand over the grave he had dug. He felt a cold steel pressed against the back of his head. It was shaking, unsure of what it was doing.

"You know what you're meant to do, coward. Steady your arm and aim carefully. You'll only be killing one man."

What were meant to be his last words, facing the junta that had decided his worth was a shallow, unmarked grave. He looked to them with pure disgust, laughing at his words while a kid was forced to hold the gun. He felt the muzzle steadied. He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Neither history nor death will separate us. Farewell.