Chapter Text
Krais stared absently at the dark void hanging in the sky.
A strange habit, formed in just two days. Every time he stepped outside, his gaze would pull itself toward that spot before he even realized what he was doing.
It was still there.
Two days ago, the sky had torn open like fabric split by an invisible blade. No sound, no warning flash, just one moment the sky was whole, and the next it wasn't. A black gash exposed itself against the ordinary sky around it, like a hole punched through a painting to reveal the darkness behind the canvas. The strange part was that nothing followed. Nothing, that is, if we agreed to set aside the tear itself.
On the first day, the entire camp erupted, boots pounding in every direction, voices shouting over one another. But because nothing resembling an actual apocalypse materialized, no rain of fire, no splitting earth, no death knell ringing out, people settled down quickly enough. On the surface, at least. What lay beneath, Krais couldn't say. He understood better than most that the distance between a person's face and their heart was sometimes longer than any battlefield.
He exhaled slowly, breath dissolving into a thin thread of mist in the morning air. Because of that thing in the sky, the assignment of a new squad leader to Squad 4, Platoon 4, Company 4- affectionately known as Squad 444, the most troublesome unit in the entire camp, his unit- would likely be postponed indefinitely.
He wasn't sure whether to be glad or not.
How many has it been now? Krais wondered.
Had they hit 20 yet? Or had that number passed long ago without his noticing?
Somewhere around the 15, even someone as careful as Krais had lost the will to count. Not because he didn't care, but because at some point, numbers stopped carrying any weight.
Some lasted three weeks at most. Others vanished the same day they were assigned, before the ink on their orders had dried. Nobody put down roots in this squad any longer than necessary. The list of former squad leaders kept growing, growing, growing, long enough to become a joke around camp, and eventually, even the joke stopped being funny.
He let the thought go. Word was that both sides had quietly agreed to hold off on engagements for now, for reasons everyone understood and no one said aloud. Nobody wanted to thin their ranks while the sky was gaping open with an inexplicable hole. Survival instinct had a way of dissolving enemy lines.
He needed to make the most of this lull while it lasted.
The road ahead had grown unstable enough that he no longer felt like staying, not out of fear, but because he'd been in this business long enough to recognize when the ground beneath his feet was starting to shift.
"The others are probably thinking the same thing." Krais muttered to no one in particular, then turned and walked back into the tent.
Sachsen was nowhere to be found, as usual. The man had a rare gift for vanishing without a trace. He practically lived outside the camp more than in it. Nobody knew where he went. Nobody asked. As long as he made it back before a mission, that was enough.
Ragna had burrowed himself under his blanket, pulled up past his head as though declaring personal war on daylight. Krais rarely caught him in a state of full wakefulness, not because Ragna drank or took anything, but simply because he seemed to exist perpetually somewhere between sleep and consciousness, like a creature that had learned to ration its own presence.
Audin sat in the corner, back against the tent wall, fingers closed around the chain at his neck, thumb tracing slow circles over a cross worn smooth by years of handling. From the way he carried himself in conversation, Krais had always suspected he'd been a priest once, or at least someone with ties to a temple. The strange thing was that for all the religious iconography he kept on his person, Krais had never once seen him pray.
Rem was also nowhere to be found. Probably off starting trouble somewhere, the safest assumption, because with Rem, the odds of "currently causing a problem" always ran higher than any other possibility.
Then a crackling sound tore through the quiet.
Not wind. Not machinery. Not anything that could be readily explained, somewhere between a broken broadcast and white noise, both near and far at once, resonating from all directions as though the air itself had decided to become a membrane.
Even Ragna lifted his head from the pillow, eyes half-shut, staring vaguely outward with the expression of someone who hadn't yet decided whether this was worth getting up for.
Krais stepped outside. A shuffle behind him told him Audin had followed.
In the sky, the black gash had turned white, not the blazing, radiant light people tended to imagine when they pictured divine manifestation, but the dull white of old paper, of fog, of something that hadn't yet decided what it was. And through it, sound began to pour out, clearer now, no longer static, but voices.
Many voices.
["Still haven't chosen? Hurry up." The first voice rang out with an unnatural quality, though it carried unmistakable authority.
"I've been saying, just start broadcasting from when the game begins." A second voice, indifferent.
"No, that's too abrupt. We need something by way of introduction." A third, pushing back.
"You lot are insufferable. Get on with it, the connection's already live." The first voice again.]
An argument.
Not a divine proclamation. Not a sonorous voice rolling down from the sacred beyond. Just a group of people (or gods, perhaps?) bickering over sequence and procedure, the way bureaucrats squabble over meeting minutes.
The corner of Krais's eye twitched.
For the past few days, all manner of speculation had swept through camp, divine wrath, apocalyptic omens, punishment from on high. Most people were convinced the tear had been made by the gods, which was, after all, the most reasonable answer available when no answer was truly reasonable.
But if those voices belonged to gods, they were rather... not what anyone had in mind.
Before anyone had fully processed the strange argument that had just broadcast itself from the sky, the tear suddenly blazed with light, as though someone had flung open a door leading straight into the sun.
White light poured down over the camp, and thousands of soldiers squinted in unison, many throwing up their hands on reflex.
Krais tilted his head and raised an arm to block the glare.
"Damn..."
The light was overwhelming.
When it finally settled, what appeared inside the tear was no longer blankness. It was a scene.
Not the hazy suggestion of clouds or diffused light, but something rendered with such clarity it felt like looking through an enormous window.
It took Krais less than a second to recognize the familiar flags snapping in the wind, the evenly spaced rows of tents, the allied insignia on the armor.
Camp Naurilia.
Of all the places in the world, what appeared in the gash across the sky was Camp Naurilia.
He couldn't help but grimace.
Why here? He didn't know what was happening, didn't know who was operating it or to what end, but if something from some other plane of existence had the power to tear a hole in the sky and project images through it, the least it could have done was choose a more interesting view. A great battle. A colossal monster. The apocalypse, even. Anything else.
Krais muttered a quiet curse, low enough for only himself to hear, and quietly reinforced his resolve to move on. Uncertain future or not, staying in this camp was clearly not going to be the finest decision of his life.
Then he saw two figures walking through the frame.
One he recognized immediately - the Platoon 4 commander, gait familiar enough that Krais could have identified him from a distance without ever seeing his face. The other was a complete stranger. Dark hair, straight posture, unhurried steps trailing behind the commander with an air of composure. The camp had no shortage of people, and yet Krais found it impossible not to register a certain impression of the young man.
["You're lucky, you know. A low-ranking soldier getting a squad leader position." Platoon 4's commander said.
"Yes." The dark-haired young man answered, expression not particularly engaged.
But his gaze drifted slightly to the side, the look of someone turning something over in their mind.
A passing thought. If it could be put into words, it might have sounded something like: Acting like I haven't heard the rumors about Squad 4.
Squad leader of Squad 4.
Sounds fine, on paper. But everyone in Camp Naurilia knows the truth.
If people weren't refusing to take the position anymore... how would it have ever come down to someone like me? ]
Krais's eyes went wide.
'Wait... that's the new squad leader? And what's showing up there is... the future?'
The thought had barely finished forming before the image in the tear moved on, not waiting for him to catch up.
["Alright, go introduce yourself to your squad."
The commander stopped in front of Squad 4's tent. Just stopped, didn't step forward, the distance between his feet and the entrance holding steady as though some invisible force had braced itself against him. Then he turned, faster than necessary, and walked away at the precise speed of someone trying very hard to look normal while, in fact, fleeing.
"Good luck," he called back over his shoulder, without looking.
The dark-haired young man stood before the tent entrance and watched the commander's retreating figure until it disappeared entirely. His expression gave nothing away, no surprise, no anxiety, no irritation. He simply watched. Then he let out a breath, small enough that only he could hear it, pulled aside the tent flap, and stepped inside.
He paused just inside the entrance to take in the room.
On the bed nearest the corner, set noticeably apart from the others, as though its occupant had pulled it there deliberately, a brown-red-haired young man sat upright and offered a polite smile when their eyes met.
On the rug spread across the floor, a large man sat cross-legged, looking up with an expression of such uncomplicated warmth it seemed almost out of place.
On the bed beside him, a blond-haired youth was still asleep, hair falling across most of his face, breathing slow and entirely undisturbed by the new arrival.
Closer to the exit, a well-groomed young man who had apparently been counting coins, and had apparently stopped counting, sat with several krona pinched between motionless fingers, eyes fixed on the figure who'd just walked in.
And on the bed nearest the entrance, the one who had been watching him from the very first moment he'd lifted the tent flap, unblinking, angle unchanged, the steady gaze of something assessing its prey.
"I'm Enkrid. Your new squad leader, effective now." He said it flat and clear. "Let's get along."
The grey-haired one broke into a wide grin, as though he'd just heard something genuinely entertaining.
"Get along? Sure, let's get along, squad leader." He announced, then, without anyone's invitation, launched into introductions on everyone else's behalf as though it were simply his right.
"I'm Rem."
"The one sleeping like a pig over there is Ragna. The guy next to his bed is Audin."
Audin gave a single nod. Brief. Polite.
"The stray cat in the corner is Sachsen."
Enkrid caught Sachsen's smile falter for just a moment, quick but visible, before it smoothed back into place as though nothing had happened.
Stray cat? A term of affection between comrades, or Rem's way of welcoming a new face by showing them exactly how well he read people? ]
"Fu haha, the new squad leader's got an interesting mind."
Krais turned left at the familiar voice. Rem had materialized beside him at some point, axe in hand, mouth still curled with amusement. Krais ran a quick glance over him. No blood, no obvious signs of recent impact. No casualties today, then. Good.
He gave a small nod at Rem's remark. The new squad leader did seem interesting, he'd give him that. Maybe he'd break the three-week record.
But, had there really been someone like that here? Krais knew nearly every soldier in this camp, and no matter how thoroughly he searched his memory, he couldn't place Enkrid anywhere.
Strange.
Transferred in from somewhere else? But that didn't quite add up either.
The quiet unease settled in his chest and refused to dissolve.
"What exactly are we watching?" he muttered.
The scene in the sky kept moving.
[Enkrid's early days in Squad 444 unspooled quickly, like fragments of memory stitched together. Not grand battles or earth-shaking spectacles, just small cross-sections of ordinary camp life.
Living with them, he started to see it: the men of Squad 444 weren't as bad as the rumors made them out to be.
They just picked fights, disobeyed orders, caused damage, had no discipline, and couldn't work together, that's all. ]
Across the camp, a great many soldiers furrowed their brows in unison.
"Hey, hey..."
Are you serious when you say those things aren't bad?
More than a few muttered quiet complaints, though no one said anything aloud, partly because they weren't sure whether whatever was broadcasting up there could hear them, and partly because they were too busy being astonished.
Rem laughed louder than before, satisfaction plain on his face. "See? He's a perfect fit for us."
Audin smiled. "Our new squad leader brother truly has a generous heart."
Words like that, coming from anyone else, would have carried a barb. But the voice of Enkrid's thoughts had been too level, too sincere, so matter-of-fact that no one quite knew how to respond.
As though he genuinely believed that was... not bad, by any reasonable standard.
[Living together for a few days, Enkrid came to understand why they'd been kept on despite an attitude toward authority that couldn't, by any standard, be called respectful.
They were strong.
Terrifyingly so, in the way that made the word "strong" feel insufficient. Monsters wearing human skin.
And monsters like that rarely listened to anyone weaker than themselves. That was a law older than military discipline.
So Enkrid didn't expect them to listen to him.
Squad leader was a generous title for what he actually did, which was closer to a messenger relay for mission briefings. Daily chores rotated between cooking and washing up, a system Enkrid had put in place, one that included himself, no exemptions, everyone equal.
On the battlefield, each of them scattered in their own direction, formation an irrelevant concept, then drifted back afterward with no prompting and no need for command.
And every time they fought, Enkrid was the one who struggled most. He'd never seen any of them take a wound, not a minor one, not any kind, as though enemy blades naturally found somewhere else to be. Krais went without saying; he always disappeared at the start of a battle, then reappeared afterward as though nothing had happened.
Aside from the fact that they started trouble three times a day, Enkrid had no real complaints. They listened to him, after a fashion. The clearest proof was that one word from him was enough to stop them mid-fight.
That counted as listening. ]
The soldiers watching across the camp stared. Then went quiet.
The logic behind Enkrid's "not bad" was suddenly, uncomfortably clear.
More than a few exchanged glances. Was it their imagination, or had that pack of lunatics somehow become... better behaved? Not quite the right word, it fit badly. But that strange sense of coherence, the rhythm of daily life that was simultaneously chaotic and oddly functional, that was real.
These were the men who had driven over twenty squad leaders to abandon their posts. And yet this person named Enkrid was sitting down to eat with them, assigning dish duty as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and they were going along with it.
When the next scene came into view, more than a few people winced at Enkrid's method of breaking up a fight. Stepping between two men who were already swinging weapons at each other was one thing. But the way he did it, no shouting, no orders, just planting himself in between, came across as equal parts composed and completely crazy.
Who wouldn't stop at the sight of that. Whether it was instinct or something closer to respect, no one watching could tell. Perhaps even those involved didn't know.
That's what you call listening to him?
Nobody said it out loud. The question just hung there in the air.
[Enkrid knew they were strong. Between himself and any one of them lay a gap that couldn't honestly be called a gap, it was a chasm.
He didn't lie to himself about that.
So with a hunger to grow stronger that had never once gone cold, he began asking, one by one.
Laughable, maybe, a squad leader asking his subordinates to teach him. But Enkrid didn't find it funny. If getting stronger meant accepting help from others, there was nothing shameful in that. Simple arithmetic.
And so, every few days, Enkrid asked them how to become stronger.
Sachsen ignored him completely, looked the other way with perfect indifference, as though the question hadn't reached him at all.
Ragna occasionally tossed out a sentence or two about swordsmanship, pitifully sparse, and worded so poorly that Enkrid had to stand there a while just to reassemble the words into something coherent.
Audin and Rem were the best of the lot. At least they didn't wave him off, and sometimes offered something genuinely useful.
"Hey, squad leader, how come you've never asked me to teach you anything?"
Krais propped his chin on his hand, watching Enkrid work through solo drills alone in the moonlight, wearing an expression of faint injury. Behind him, the tent was quiet, only the wind, and the steady rhythm of a blade cutting air.
Enkrid didn't stop. He just glanced at Krais once.
His eyes said nothing in particular, but the meaning came through clearly enough.
What exactly would you teach me.
Krais exhaled and accepted his own inadequacy with the expression of a man freshly abandoned:"I feel pain too, you know, squad leader." ]
They hadn't exchanged a single word with him directly, but the brief scenes were enough for Rem and Audin to take measure.
Their squad leader was weak. Roughly middle-rank at best. Against anyone in the squad, the distance wasn't even worth comparing.
Audin said nothing, but something in his gaze settled downward. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the kid died on a battlefield. Not from lack of will or effort, watching Enkrid practice every night made that perfectly clear. But because his actual ability hadn't caught up to what the battlefield demanded.
That thought had barely finished forming when the image shifted without warning.
[One moment, Enkrid was drilling alone under the moon. The next, a battlefield.
Chaos in the truest sense of the word. The clash of steel, voices, dust and smoke and unceasing movement from every direction. Enkrid was in the middle of it, struggling to dodge and strike back on instinct, eyes tracking what was in front of him, but not everything.
No warning. An Aspen soldier closed in from behind, not running, just walking, fast and silent, blade already raised before Enkrid knew the man existed.
Enkrid turned.
A beat too late.
The sword drove through his throat.]
The tear went dark again.
"What in the hell." Rem kicked at the dirt with sharp irritation. He hadn't expected the scene to turn that fast.
He headed back into the tent in a foul mood, already reorganizing in his head.
At least he won't die to something that small. He didn't say it out loud. Just thought it.
Sachsen clicked his tongue, gaze lingering a moment on where the tear had gone dark. Then quietly decided that this time, at least, he'd give the squad leader a few pointers. Not many. Just a few sentences. The right ones were enough.
Audin exhaled slowly. The squad leader's reaction time was too slow.
'Needs more physical conditioning.' Audin thought, turning to follow Rem inside.
Krais sighed quietly. Enkrid was genuinely a good squad leader, easy to be around in a way Krais didn't encounter often. He'd need to think about how to improve the man's odds of surviving. And when, exactly, would he actually arrive.
He rubbed the back of his neck and walked into the tent, thoughts still turning.
Inside, all three found that Ragna had been awake for some time. He was leaning back on both hands, head tilted up toward the ceiling.
Following his gaze, the three of them looked up.
One corner of the tent canvas had gone transparent at some point, unnoticed until now, as though the fabric there had been replaced by invisible glass. Through it, the sky showed clear.
This hadn't been there two days ago. Perhaps it was connected to the tear broadcasting images today, something that had spread outward in ways no one had accounted for.
"Fundamentally wrong," Ragna murmured, voice low and unhurried, the voice of someone talking to themselves just after waking. "If there's time, he should rebuild from the ground up."
No one answered. But no one disagreed.
And none of them- not Rem, not Audin, not Krais, not Sachsen, not Ragna still tilted back watching the sky - noticed that they were already thinking of Enkrid as though he'd always been here. As though his place in the squad was something that had never required discussion.
None of them noticed. Because when something happens naturally enough, people rarely realize it's happening at all.