Oboro dies when her lord throws himself off the Great Wall of Suzanoh.

Lying there in the ditch, she wants to do nothing more than scream as she witness's the Fujin Yumi's wielder's last act of defiance, wants to scream and cover her eyes, so she doesn't have to look. She wants to stop him. She wants to join him. She wants to do anything except watch him fall to the earth like a bird with its wings sheared.

But she can't.

As she lies in the blood-soaked ditch, playing dead like a shameful coward and surrounded by the corpses of her comrades, friends, family, Oboro can do nothing, nothing except bite down on her tongue so hard that she chokes on her blood.

Fujin Yumi's wielder died in the attack on the Great Wall of Suzanoh.

And Oboro died with him.

She hides in the ditch for hours on end, virtually baking in the blazing mid-day sun as flies and other carrion feeders buzz gleefully around her, feasting on the carnage. The stench is atrocious, rottenly sweet ichor and death, and she nearly passes out a few times from the sheer smell. The Nohrians hadn't even afforded her fellow countrymen and women a proper burial, seemingly eager to be on their conquest to the capital. In a way, it's a small blessing, since she can pretend to be among one of the dead.

The fact that she owes her life to Nohr and their lack of empathy makes her sick to her stomach.

Oboro thinks while watching the sun set.

She thinks about how utterly wretched she feels, how the sweat from her brow has mixed with the blood from her now useless right eye and by all the Hoshidan deities, does it hurt. She thinks about the rogue who shot her, a pale man with white hair and a sadistic sneer that pulls his lips into a leer. He had been wearing an eye patch as well. That was the last thing she had noticed before everything in her right eye turned white. White, searing pain and agony.

An eye for an eye, she thinks, and the choking rage that fills her throat with bile is enough to distract her from the pain.

She thinks about the spirits of her parents and how she has dishonored their memory. She knows she is a failure and for once, she is glad they are dead and not alive to witness what she has become. She hopes with all her heart, that when she passes from this world and into the next, that she ends up in hell, for there is no possible way she can go to heaven and face their disappointment.

She thinks of how heartbroken they must be, and the suffocating sadness that fills her throat with tears is enough to distract her from the pain.

She thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks until the sun finally sets and the moon takes its place in the sky. She thinks until she passes out from the pain and stench.

But her dreams are the one place where she cannot think and forget.

In her dreams, she sees her lord falling, falling, falling forever.

The moon is still in the sky when she wakes up, and by then, she deems enough time has passed that she can get up safely without being caught.

She can barely stand straight, much less walk, and her missing eye throbs dully, each step an excruciating reminder of what she has lost. But she must walk. She doesn't care where or how far she has to walk. She needs to walk and find her lord. If by some sliver of a chance he survived, she needs to be there, by his side.

And if the opposite is true, she needs to give him at least a proper send-off.

The rational part of her mind calls her a fool, and she's inclined to agree. But the other part imagines him lying somewhere out on the battlefield, cold and alone, spread eagle and broken, with no one else. And that image breaks her heart.

The Nohrians have taken everything from her. But the very least she can do this.

Oboro doesn't find her lord. Instead, she finds her best friend.

She had stepped on him accidentally, thinking that he had been just another faceless corpse, littered across the battlefield and promptly shrieked when the corpse groaned in response.

Panic turned into surprise, then elation when she recognized the familiar ponytail and clothes.

"Hinata!" She falls down on her knees and turns him over. He groans again, and Oboro could cry with how much joy the pained noise brings her. "Thank the gods, oh thank the gods."

His eyes flutter open and his gaze is glassy and unfocused, but he's alive and breathing, and that's all that matters to her. "O-oboro?" His voice is raspy and dry, a desert begging for a cool oasis. But he's alive.

"Right here. I'm right here."

He blinks a few more times. And then he cracks a smile. A small one, but it lights up her chest like the sun when she sees it. "You're a sight for sore eyes- eye," he corrects himself.

And Oboro laughs until she cries.

She fastens a tourniquet out of the pathetic remnants of her skirt and wraps it around the stump of his right hand. Miraculously, the samurai had managed to somehow staunch the bleeding with a vulnerary and sheer force of will, or so he claimed. Knowing him, Oboro can believe it.

That doesn't stop the fever settling in, and despite the risks, she makes a small fire for him when he complains of the numbing chill in his bones. She's forced to strip nearby dead of their belongings just to make fuel for the fire, a task she sets forth with grim determination. She's already slated for hell; defiling the dead is just another sin she has to commit.

Hinata passes in and out of consciousness while mumbling deliriously, but each time he wakes up, he manages a smile for her. A small sun in the darkness.

"Just give me five more minutes mom," he jokes, "and I'll be up in no time."

"You get three," she counters back, "since tomorrow is a school day."

"But mooooooom," he whines and then laughs weakly when she pokes him with her foot. "But mooooom."

"Oh shut up." She tells the sun, laughing in its face. "Go back to sleep."

"Can you stand?"

"Yeah… yeah, I think…" he stops, halfway up and his face twists into a grimace. "O-okay. I think I might maybe need a hand."

Wordlessly, she leans down and offers him her shoulder. He latches on, and the two of them rise slowly. He lets out a low groan.

"It's okay," she reassures him. It's not, but he needs to hear those words, and she needs to believe them. "It's okay. One step at a time. One step."

He glances at her hesitantly, but nods. "One step," he says.

"Right."

Gingerly, he puts a foot forward. She can see the effort it costs him, the pain in eyes and the way sweat beads up on his forehead.

But he voices none of it. Instead, he fixes her with a shaky smile and says, "one step and a whole bunch more."

She readjusts his hand so that he can get a better grip on her shoulder. "And a whole bunch more," she agrees.

They walk silently, somberly, two souls in a sea of silent ones. A low mist has settled in the area, and dark grey clouds have rolled in, giving a cloying, desperate feeling to the battlefield. Hinata shivers uncontrollably, and she tries to press into him as much as possible, to share some warmth, but it's not enough.

He tries to make conversation at first, little jokes and she does her best to continue them. But it soon becomes impossible with how fierce his teeth are chattering and the two fall into silence. Twice he stumbles and once he falls, tripping over the corpse of a lancer, and she waits patiently for him to catch his breath and right himself.

And then the two continue onwards, silently, somberly, two souls in a sea of silent ones.

Two souls ready to join the sea of silence.

Hinata suddenly pauses and then freezes. His eyes widen. "By the gods," he whispers, staring shocked into the distance. Oboro straightens up and looks in his direction.

Her heart slams to a stop when she see's the familiar ponytail in the distance. The same one she and her best friend mimicked from their lord.

"LORD TAKUMI!" She shouts, much too loudly for the silent ones around them but she doesn't care. She can feel the seed of hope taking root in her chest, and it's mixed with joy and relief. There is hope. As long as the three of them are together, there is hope, and that's all she needs, all she wants. "Lord Takumi!"

Hinata lets out an elated whoop and forgoes her shoulder, hobbling as fast as he can to their lord, who's back is still turned to them. He reaches him first, she following shortly behind, and slings an arm around his shoulder.

"I knew it! I knew it!" he crows, and there are tears of joy in his eyes. "I- We both knew you were alive! Thank the gods!" he sniffs and begins to cry. "T-thank the gods."

Their lord remains motionless and silent, his back still turned to them. She slows down, suddenly buffeted by a cold gust, strong enough that both she and Hinata stumble a few steps.

Their lord remains still and silent, unmoving and turned away.

And suddenly, fear blossoms in her chest. Cold, suffocating fear. She opens her mouth to scream out a warning to Hinata, to tell him to run, but nothing comes out.

No, no, no no no.

Hinata frowns and moves closer. "Lord Takumi?"

*sprrch!*

From behind, she sees Hinata's back erupt into a shower of blood, and this time, she does scream.

Her best friend stares down dumbly, eyes wide with disbelief. His lord's hand has gone clean through his chest, impaling him like a sword. "W-wha-…" he pales, and then promptly coughs up a mouthful of blood. "L-Lord Taku…miiiiii…"

And then he falls back, without another word, and she finally see's the monster standing before her.

It has her lord's face and form, but it has none of the life, none of the warmth that made him alive. The eyes are devoid of anything remotely human. They are cold, empty pits, anything remotely human having been snuffed out.

She feels as though she is staring straight into the sea of silence.

The monster with her lord's face pulls back the arm, and she's horrified to see the blood running down the appendage. Hinata's blood. The monster stares at it, tilting its head.

"Be-trayal," it says in a voice that is not his. It comes out dark and distorted, and it makes her skin crawl with how empty it sounds. "Be-trAyed… Betraya… Kill… Kill… C-Corrin… DeATh…"

The monster begins to shamble its way towards her. "Hunger…" it says with the voice of the dead. "HunGer… FEeD… Feed… So HUnGry… Feed…FEED…" The monster puts its hand in its mouth and bites down, lapping on the blood, and she can only watch in horrified paralyzed silence, feeling sick to her very soul.

"HUnngeerr… Hungrrryyy… Be-TRayAl…"

She takes a step back as it continues its advance, all the while lapping on its blood-soaked hands. "N-no!" She finds her voice and wishes it wouldn't waver so. "S-stay back. STAY BACK!"

The monster pauses at her voice, tilts its head to the side, and she thinks maybe something has gotten through to it.

"O…boro…"

She stops dead in her tracks. "W-what?"

"O…boro…" it says again, softer this time, almost a whisper. "Obo…ro… Oboro…" It takes another step towards her, and it's so close, she can smell its scent, a mix of ash and something rotten, but she can't step away. There is something in its eyes now, something that looks almost like him and her heart pounds a painful tattoo in her chest.

She wants desperately to hold on to that sliver of hope in her heart.

"Lord… Takumi?" she whispers, broken. Her last hope.

The monster tilts its head as if wondering what she said.

And then it nods, and she feels that last piece of hope cracks and shatters. Tears begin to fall unbidden from her eyes.

"Taku…mi…" it whispers, and it brushes away the tear. "Takumi… Oboro…Oboro…Oboro…" It moves closer to her, and she can feel the very ice radiating from its being. It raises its hand again.

"Oboro…"

She closes her eyes and prays to the gods for forgiveness.

*schlikt!*

The monster withdraws its hand, looking almost curiously at the dagger embedded in the palm. It looks at it before turning its empty gaze on her. She meets it head on, the tears still falling but the look in her eyes is iron and unflinching.

"…Why…?" it asks with her lord's mouth. "Why…?"

And she says, "You are not the man I loved."

The monster is still for a second. But only a second.

Then its face morphs into what can only be described as hateful, pain and rage incarnate. "BETraYaL! BetRAYAL! TRAITOR TRAITOR TRAITOR TRAITOR!"

With inhuman speed, it lunges at her with clawed hands, snarling and screaming. Oboro stands her ground, staring the monster straight in the eye and steels her heart.

"Forgive me, Lord Takumi."

The first swipe she ducks, the second one she side steps and counters with an open palm to the monster's chest. It simply grabs her arm and then twists, twists until she hears something break with a sickening crunch and she screams.

"KiLL yOU! Kill yOu!" She feels cold hands wrap around her throat and she gags as she is lifted into the air. Her legs kick out futilely against the monster, but the death grip remains locked. All she can do is stare into its rage-filled eyes as her own remaining one edges into darkness. "KILL YOU!"

There's a fleshy thump and a grunt, and suddenly, the ice grip is gone, and she can breathe again. She falls into a pile on the ground, hacking and sputtering as her lungs try to breathe again.

"Hey now… it's too early to be… calling it…q-quits, ya hear?"

Oboro looks up, and her jaw drops as she can't believe what her eyes are showing her. Hinata, deathly pale, face pinched tight in what can only be excruciating agony and a hand over the gaping hole in his stomach. But it's him. He's alive, gods only know how. Maybe there is something to the sheer force of his will.

He cracks a wobbly grin at her before offering her the hand, not over his stomach. "C'mon, Oboro. Up and at 'em."

She takes it, still in disbelief as he lifts her up. "There we go." He puts her against his shoulder, his smile widening before he stumbles. "Sorry," he mumbles weakly, eyes fluttering. "F-feeling really…s-sleepy right…now."

Before she can answer, a bone-chilling howl comes from the side. The monster is on all fours, growling and cursing them with her lord's voice.

"tRaITORS! LiARS! BeTRaYAL KILL! KILL ALL oF YoU!FeED! KIlLL!"

Like that, Hinata's gaze refocuses on the monster. "H-hey now, that's no w-way to treat.. a… lady." He pulls himself up further, staring at the monster. His words are light, like sunbeams, but the look in his eyes is pain mixed with sorrow. Oboro can only imagine how heartbroken he is, how they both are.

But then he looks over at her and smiles sunlight at her. "Hey, Oboro…" He moves closer so that they are both supporting each other. "W-what say we teach… this punk a-a lesson, huh? L-let's get back our Lord Takumi."

Oboro feels the tears leak up in her eye and spill over, yet she manages to return the grin with a sun of her own. "Let's get back our friend."

And with that, the two of them charge forth to meet their fates head on.

In the shadow of the Great Wall of Suzanoh, a monster stalks the blood-soaked plains.

traitORs… they're allllll… trAItors…

kill… killllll… all of… thEm...

and then… Pain will…stop…

beTrayal…CoRRINN… TrAIToR… TrAITORs…"

death…to traitors… betrayal…

i am…betrayed…Hurts… Hurts… It hurts hurts hurtssss…

i'm so sorry

In the shadow of the Great Wall of Suzanoh, a monster stalks the blood-soaked plains.

And it cries.