Chapter Text
winter
the voice of the drums
over a field of red snow
echoes in still hearts
The drums of war beat loud and deep.
Their song thundered in the air, through the ground. In the hoof beats of the horses as they carried their masters through fire. Always beating, beating, a slow and steady rhythm.
Was it drums, or the heartbeats of men, that played over the field where the snow was dyed red, steaming in the winter air?
A man awoke to screams.
Blackened vision faded in, and out, and back again. Beneath his chest was that steady thrum. Alive. He was alive.
How was he alive?
A warrior shrieked nearby, all his courage gone now that he saw the end. His hands shook as he pleaded for life. It would not be granted to him. A boot hit the ground near the man's head, steadying it's wearer for a swift plunge of a sword into his heart.
The man let his eyes close. He did not want to see the end someone else had decided for him.
*
The man awoke to pain.
Not the far away, deep pain of the end, but sharp, and fleeting. His heavy eyes wanted to blink, and someone slapped him again.
"Wake up," came the frigid command. "Up."
Vision faded in, and out, and stayed.
"Is he looking? Good. Show him."
With a slam that seemed to reverberate through the man, a head was dropped to the ground in front of him. There was no body.
A hand gripped the man's hair, lifted him to his knees. His eyes watered, but not from the sting of the pull.
Something cold slithered across his neck, something sharp.
"Your lord is finished and your city has fallen," said that same, cold voice. "Your army is no more. We have slaughtered them and left their worthless remains to rot."
The man wanted to close his eyes, now. He longed to. But he dared not look away from the dead eyes they had placed before him. It was the least he could do, as he met the end.
"But you will not be food for the carrion birds," he heard the voice say. A second cut in.
"Sir, we can't leave him alive. This is General Kuroo Tetsurou."
"Was," the cold one said. "But no longer. Now he is nothing. And he shall make that fact known, one way or another."
The steel was drawn back from his throat and thrown upon the floor next to the head of the man he had sworn to die for.
"The choice is yours, General. Return home, inform your emperor that one of his strongholds has fallen, and that you were weak. Or…"
Tetsurou's eyes went to the sword. It was his blade, even naked he knew it, the way the light gleamed off its tempered edge.
The hand in his hair disappeared, only to strike him a heavy blow in the back of the head, and he fell forward, slipping under again. Before he was gone, he heard the voice of the victor, a whispered hiss like a poison serpent.
"Will you let them find your bones protecting nothing but a worthless blade?"
*
The man awoke to darkness. The bitter chill that would have been staved off by lit lanterns and body heat ate at him now, and his limbs were loathe to shift. But slowly, they did.
He did not know what to do. His mind, always tactical, thinking over his move three turns ahead, had stilled. There were no more moves left on the board. His oath was a silent one, lying in pieces before him. The remnants of his army, unburied, left to stiffen and freeze and eventually stink and ripen when warmer weather came, if there was still flesh on the bones of the dead men around him.
He should join them.
There was no merit in showing his face before the emperor. That way lay nothing but disappointment and shame. It was a coward's way, a fool's way, to think he would be welcomed back.
But if they found his famous blade, with his body curled over it, they would say that he had failed, but at least he had loved them enough to die with his men—for his men. Even if it was not the way he would have chosen.
And so he gripped the handle of his sword.
He arranged himself on his knees, in front of the severed head of his lord and master, so that those blind eyes looked into his and seemed to see the devastation there. His sword tip he pressed against his belly, the hilt snug against the ground. All he had to do was fall.
He felt the sharp edge piercing through his flesh, a trickle of wet blood joining the rivulets of dried, frozen ones on his flesh.
"I'm sorry," he said, to the dead men around him, those unseeing eyes.
And as he let go…
"Tetsu?"
The voice, cutting through the cold wind, made him startle, and the blade sliced his stomach shallowly. He cried out, and then the sound of running came to him, and he shouted,
"Stay back!"
He knew the voice. He could not let its owner see the sight before which he kneeled.
The footsteps halted and Tetsurou knocked his sword away, turning to see a small boy standing there, his green eyes widening, first in shock, and then in the terrified grief that came with seeing death for the first time.
"Fa…ther…?"
Tetsurou surged to his feet, crushing the boy to his much larger frame, but it was too late. He felt the small shoulders shake before the sobs began, bone-aching cries that seemed to rip through his own heart, as though he himself were making them.
"I'm sorry," he said again, now that there was someone to hear him. "I'm sorry, Lev."
But the child could not grasp why he was at fault. Tetsurou stared down at the boy. At the height he stood, his head was pressed to the gash where Tetsurou's sword had cut him. His bleeding was steadily staining the boy's silver hair a rust red, like the war torn snow in the ruined courtyard outside.
He had been given two options: bear the shame of returning home, or uphold the duty of ending his failed existence himself. But now he was presented with a third.
He could bring the child back home. He could make sure he was safe.
And then, having fulfilled at least that one small task, he could die.
For now, there were other matters to attend to. Tetsurou closed the boy inside one of the bedrooms with the promise that he would return and picked his way through the burned and ransacked rooms, finding nothing but bodies, or parts of bodies. There were no survivors. Aside from Lev, their enemy had routed the stronghold and surrounding city with brutal efficiency.
In the lord's quarters, he found the rest of the Haiba family. He stayed only long enough to confirm no one had escaped, save Lev. The bodies lay piled in the middle of the room, broken. They would have been corralled together to be executed. He felt nausea scrape at his insides at the sight of a family he had considered as good as his own, all wiped out in the course of a single night.
One day they were one of the preeminent bloodlines in the empire, and the next, all dead save for one, a child who knew nothing of the world. How quickly fortunes changed.
Tetsurou returned to the room where Lev was waiting. The little boy sat on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. He was shivering. Tetsurou sat down next to him.
"Mother hid me," the boy whispered. "But she and father, they didn't hide. Why?"
Tetsurou stared at the opposite wall. "It's important to face death with honor. When that inevitable time comes… you must meet its eyes."
Lev turned his tear streaked face toward the man. "Then, I'm a coward?"
"No," Tetsurou said, putting an arm around him. "It just wasn't your time, yet." Exhaustion began to set in as he leaned back against the wall with his legs splayed out in front of him. He was miraculously uninjured, aside from a few cuts and bruises, and the shallow gash along his belly. But now the weight of a life without meaning—however short it may be—settled upon him.
He needed to rest, as it was, to regain his strength. The smoke rising from the ruined city would draw grounded vultures—thieves, scavengers, roving vagabonds, looking to pick the carcass of the citadel clean. In the morning, when it was no longer too cold and dark to travel, they would need to leave this place behind.
But for now, with Lev a small, warm presence against his side, for now they would sleep. For better or worse, they would begin their new lives with the dawn of a new day, under the rising sun.
*
The horse stables were a sad sight, the stalls either empty or bloodied from the bodies of animals that had resisted unfamiliar handlers. Lev clung to Tetsurou's shirt, hiding his eyes as they picked their way through. It appeared they would be traveling on foot.
The pockets of fire that had blazed the night before throughout the city had simmered to embers or less, after the night had covered them in a blanket of snow. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, making Tetsurou's eyes water and Lev cough uncontrollably. The haze lingered until they were far and away from the razed land.
It was a long road back to the capital. Most people from the city would never even see it during their lifetime. Tetsurou himself had only made the journey a few times since he had joined the army, in the wake of significant victories or monumental occasions. But he knew the way.
The countryside in winter was stark, and colorless. The trees along the roadside were bare like bones, and the sky grey and lifeless. The days were cold and harsh, and wherever they walked, snow crunched beneath their feet. Tetsurou wrapped Lev's small feet in his raised sandals in dry cloth every morning, and even then by midday they were wet through from the snow that had piled high along the roads.
Lev never said a word in complaint. He barely said words at all, just trudged behind Tetsurou, sometimes lagging behind but never stopping, catching up whenever the former general stopped to wait for him. Tetsurou had never known him to be like this, and was far more used to seeing and hearing him excitable and laughing. There was nothing he could say or do about the change, and it would be unkind to try and brush off such profound grief. They both could only wait it out.
During the nights, they stopped to shelter at small inns along the roadside. A few times, they managed to persuade a family with coin to let them sleep on the floor of the home, or in the farmhouse, where the walls were barely protection from the frigid air. Once, after a miscalculation in travel distance on Tetsurou's part, they ended up sheltering in a rundown old building that looked as though they were not the first to do so, judging by the ashy wood and paper fire long grown cold in a corner.
Not even lighting a fire was enough to keep warm. He piled their spare jackets onto Lev, but the boy still shivered through the night. Tetsurou himself worried that he would lose several fingers to the cold before the sun came up, but at last, morning came, and the air warmed the slightest bit. They moved on.
It was a fortnight and some odd days along the road, on an afternoon that was unusually bright, the rays of the sun gleaming too bright off the white fall of snow. The trees around them were tall, and Lev had gone into them to relieve himself after their small lunch with the promise he wouldn't venture far.
Tetsurou stamped out the fire he had used to warm their tea (little more than water with a few leaves and flowers to approximate something like taste), covering it with snow to keep it from sending out smoke.
There was movement in the trees. It was not Lev.
The general continued to clear their break site, not stopping or turning in the direction of the movement. Instead, he watched the shadows.
Footfalls softened by the blanket of snow sounded behind him—heavy, unrefined, eager. They closed upon him and he heard the whistle of metal through air. To face this threat, three swift actions would be all Tetsurou needed.
The first—the drawing of his blade, squaring his feet and pulling it sharply from its sheath, slicing the air in a wide arc in front of himself. This was his warning to his enemy.
The second—warning unheeded, he sidestepped, and his clumsy attacker missed his first swing, his sword whistling by harmlessly.
The third—hands repositioned on the grip of his sword to hold it in reverse, he drove it backwards, feeling it stick deep in flesh. Judging by the height of the man's swing, he had pierced through his stomach and intestines.
Tetsurou withdrew the sword, righted his grip, and flicked the blood sharply off of the end. He had not had to turn around during the exchange.
Now he did. The man he'd stabbed fell to his knees before him, before keeling over, hands scrabbling at his wound. It would be fatal. His cohorts—bandits, it seemed, from their patched clothing—looked on in something like fear. They had expected an easy target and had cornered a beast, instead.
Tetsurou raised his sword in a two-handed grip in front of himself, staring past the blade at them. He could see the instant they looked into his eyes and realized he would kill each one in turn.
Then a shaking voice cried out, "I'll gut him."
And Tetsurou flicked his eyes to the side and saw that it was he, in fact, who was defeated.
One of the bandits held Lev in his grasp, a rough dagger already held to the boy's throat. The bandit was shaking, still afraid of Tetsurou even while he had the upper hand, and the trembling of his arm forced the point into Lev's skin. A thin line of red opened there, before welling over to mark his pale throat red. The small boy's eyes were wide.
Tetsurou had wanted to move fast, to finish them all before the boy could see, but this was worse. No matter how fast he was, he could not be faster than a blade that had already drawn blood. He threw aside his sword.
"Deal with him," the man holding Lev said. The bandits swarmed Tetsurou, searching him for valuables.
"We're poor travelers," Tetsurou told them. "I have nothing to give you, save my body." This last was said with a slight smirk, bravado to hide his fear.
"He's lying," one of them said. "That sword's expensive. His clothes, too. And that's no peasant boy."
"We could sell the child," said another. "Stop marking him up."
Tetsurou's smirk turned to a snarl as he lunged, bare-handed. The man closest to him was caught unaware. The sound it made when Tetsurou broke his neck cracked through the barren trees. This man, too, fell at his feet—already dead as the rest bore down on him.
He almost turned the fight in his favor. Almost. But bare skin could not block blades.
One man's short sword he managed to wrest away from him, driving it upwards between his ribs to finish him, but the effort expended left him vulnerable to the weapons of the rest. He felt a hot pain sizzling into his stomach, deeper and deeper, and he turned his body with enough force to jerk the knife out of his attacker's hands, even as it was still embedded in his abdomen. He yanked it out and jammed it sideways, into the man's throat.
The wound was an inopportune one. Bleeding freely now that he had removed the knife—a poor decision. It would bring his death if not taken care of soon, and was already making his movements sluggish. He used the short sword to parry another blow, stumbling backwards, and another strike lanced into his back. They had surrounded him.
The ground was soft below his knees as he fell. A fist struck him in the face and he felt blood and saliva pour from his mouth. A heavy foot landed against his side, bringing him down fully, and then stomped again on him. He felt the crack of his ribs, air leaving him in a gasp. The snow was cold against his cheek.
He saw Lev, staring down at him, sobbing silently, and felt remorse.
Even this one thing, he could not do.
In the shadows, he saw a sword raised, this time to bring him death. And he could not look away, because he had told Lev it was important, to look it in the eyes. The man poised to kill him stood behind him, but Tetsurou could do as much as to hold Lev's green gaze, to try to show him that even lying in the dirt, it was possible to be brave.
So it was that he saw as the man who held the boy in his grasp suddenly fell, silent and without warning, and his head rolled off his neck into the white snow.
A creature wearing red sprang forward from behind Lev, the glint of sharp steel bright in its hands.
He heard screams around him once more as the remaining bandits were cut down—quick, but not painless. The snow turned the color of their blood.
It was over in mere seconds. There was no fight, only death, swiftly delivered. And then nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees, and the softest sound of snow under light footsteps.
The figure in red came to stand before him, silhouetted against the cold winter sun so all Tetsurou could see were two eyes, catlike and golden, staring down at him from above.
"Kuroo Tetsurou," a low voice said.
Tetsurou tried to raise his head, and failed. He offered up what he thought might, maybe, have been a grin. "I had it under control."
A familiar, merciful darkness overtook him.
*
Hushed, ambient noises—the quiet noise of a kettle bubbling over a fire, footsteps on wood planks, cold wind through trees outside… outside.
Tetsurou's eyes fluttered open. His eyes took a moment to adjust. He was lying on a soft mat in a dimly lit room, the lantern dangling from the ceiling throwing flickering shadows onto its walls, which were wooden and creaked under the force of the wind buffeting them. A small stone fire pit in the center of the floor had been lit under his metal kettle, and the fragrant smell of real tea leaves was already beginning to fill the room.
"Lev?" Tetsurou called, but his voice barely left his throat. He cleared it and tried again, his second attempt hoarse and unpleasant to his own ears. It was loud enough—he heard feet pattering, then the rasp of the paper screen sliding back. Groggily, he turned his head in the other direction.
"Tetsu!" the little boy cried, racing to him to throw tiny arms around his neck. The movement jostled Tetsurou painfully, but he was used to pain, and managed not to show it. Now that his attention had been drawn to it, however, he could feel the deep ache that had settled over his body, dull throughout the whole of it, but throbbing in some places, like his sides and head, and sharp and biting in others, like his stomach and back.
"I'm alright," he said, forcing the words out. Mentally, he took a tally: fractured jaw. Broken ribs. The deep stab wound in his abdomen and the laceration across his back. This would slow him, bring his journey to an irritating halt. "I'm fine."
Lev pulled back, his green eyes wide. "I thought you were definitely dead."
Laughing hurt his throat but he did it anyway. "Thank you for your confidence." He tossed the boy a lopsided, painful grin. He had not done much to earn his confidence. He would not have survived if they had been left out in the snow.
Which meant they had been saved. But, as he could see no one else aside from Lev, it appeared he would have to wait a little while longer to be introduced to their rescuer. For now, they seemed to be safe enough.
"Is the tea ready?"
Lev nodded, and he watched as the boy scrambled to the kettle to pour it out with shaky hands.
"Careful," Tetsurou said, as Lev made his way carefully back with an overfilled cup, eyes nearly crossing as he concentrated on not spilling it. He sat next to Tetsurou on the floor and they were silent for a moment as he blew on the steaming liquid until it was cool enough to drink. He put the cup to Tetsurou's lips, helping him to raise his head, and the general drank, grateful for the taste of strong tea to soothe his dry throat. "Thank you."
The wind howled outside. Inside, it did not reach them.
"Where are we?"
"Not far from the road. There was an inn nearby," Lev said. He leaned in excitedly. "They have a hot springs!"
"And… who brought us here?"
The door slid open again. Tetsurou turned his head to look, and saw him.
He still noticed the clothes this newcomer wore, first. Robes of such length they fell to the floor, sleeves wide and graceful, and tied with a wide sash around his waist. The cloth was the deep color of fresh blood.
The second thing Tetsurou noticed was his hair—darker than a moonless sky, the deep black of ink drawn in swooping, bold lines across white rice paper. And impossibly long, obvious even with it tied back, probably well past his hips.
And then there were his eyes. Yellow-gold and impassive, as if not a whisper of unwanted emotion was allowed to pass through them. They appeared almost uninterested as they watched Tetsurou, but there was an undercurrent of something there, that belied an alternate nature. Not interest so much as a sense of calculation. Like a cat, watching a bird to see which way it will attempt to fly, in order to beat it out of the air.
Tetsurou knew the look very well. It was one he often caught at the edges of his own reflection.
He was younger than Tetsurou, just barely a man, but the general felt distinctly as though he ought to feel small in this boy's presence.
"You should be resting," he said, his voice low and flat.
"What's your name?" Tetsurou asked, without preamble.
The boy's expression didn't change. "Kenma."
"You killed those bandits," Tetsurou recalled. "And brought us here."
"Yes," Kenma said.
They watched each other carefully. Then Tetsurou settled back against the mats he lay upon. "People always said I was lucky in war. I used to tell them I was just lucky all the time."
"It's a well traveled road," the boy said. "They were stupid to attack you there."
"Oh, I don't mean the fact that we were saved," Tetsurou smiled up at the ceiling. "I was referring to how fortunate it was that we were rescued by someone so beautiful."
There was silence.
Suddenly, hands were yanking his robes apart, not gentle in the slightest. He nearly yelped in spite of himself. "We can at least wait until the child goes to sleep!"
Kenma stopped attempting to undress Tetsurou, staring at him levelly. "I need to check your bandages."
Tetsurou blinked. "Oh." He looked down at himself. His torso was heavily wrapped in white cloth. They were clean and dry and for that he was thankful.
"What are you waiting to do 'til after I'm asleep?" Lev asked.
"Nothing," Kenma responded, at the same time Tetsurou said, "You'll find out when you're older."
Kenma shoved a hand beneath his robes and this time Tetsurou did yelp.
"Did you just come in from outside?" he asked. Kenma's hands were like ice against his skin as he felt along the edges of the bandages.
"Does this hurt?" Kenma asked, pressing his hand firmly against Tetsurou's broken ribs. The general grit his teeth.
"Not really," he lied.
"You've been unconscious for two days," Kenma said bluntly. "You nearly died of blood loss, and you can't move any part of your body besides your head, yet." He jerked Tetsurou's robes closed. "I don't think you're going to be doing anything, tonight. With anyone."
He stood, straightening his own robes on his shoulders.
"I'm Kuroo," Tetsurou said.
"Kuroo Tetsurou," Kenma nodded. "Go back to sleep."
He had forgotten the boy already knew his name. He had said it, when Tetsurou was lying nearly dead in the snow.
"How do you know me?"
Kenma paused in the doorway, looking back at them. "We can at least wait until the child goes to sleep," he said, and was gone.
*
Long after the fires in the room had burned low and the edge of the winter chill had nearly returned, after Lev had fallen asleep, Kenma returned. Tetsurou was waiting for him.
Kenma didn't speak, and the only noise he made upon his entrance was the soft brush of cloth over the floor. He seated himself, and opened Tetsurou's robes to check the bandages. They had started to stick to Tetsurou's skin, the sluggish seepage of blood from his wounds finally beginning to wet them through.
Wordlessly, Kenma began to unwrap them. It was a slow, painful process—he had to first turn Tetsurou one way, then the other, in order to free the ends of the cloth. The movement jostled him, and some of the cloth was stuck to his tender flesh where the blood had begun to dry. This was, in some ways, a good sign—it meant he wasn't bleeding so much that they could not stem the tide. He struggled to remember this as the removal of the wrap tugged on the edges of his wounds.
He could not move to help himself. So instead, he watched Kenma work. His face was as impassive as ever, but he was very focused on the task at hand, careful not to put too much pressure on Tetsurou's injured ribs.
Tetsurou was unable to stop himself from shivering the slightest bit as Kenma wrung out a washcloth in a shallow wooden bucket, and began to clean his skin. It was fortunate the water from the springs was warm—the boy's hands were not. But his movements were slow and surprisingly gentle, contrasting with his direct nature, and after awhile, his fingers had warmed to match the water's temperature, and were cool and soothing against Tetsurou's stomach as he drew the washcloth over him.
He could not roll Tetsurou onto his other side to clean his back because of the bruised ribs. Instead, very carefully, he slipped his arms underneath Tetsurou and raised him to a sitting position, leaning him forward so his chin was resting on Kenma's shoulder, with Kenma's arms around him like an embrace. Tetsurou closed his eyes.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?" Kenma asked. He braced one hand against the back of Tetsurou's head, and began to clean the blood from the long gash across his back. He had been lucky in that it was shallow enough not to cripple him. But its healing would be slow.
"Everything," Tetsurou murmured in response, feeling the heaviness behind his eyes despite the sting of his injuries. The hand in his hair was steady and reassuring, and the red, red cloth of Kenma's robes was beautifully soft against his bare chest. "I'm going to get your clothes dirty."
Kenma sighed. "It's too late for that." He laid Tetsurou back down and started the slow process of wrapping fresh bandages around his torso. When he was finished, and had double checked the tightness of the cloth, he sat back satisfied.
"Tea?" Tetsurou suggested.
Kenma blinked. "Are you offering to make it?" He nonetheless stoked the dying fire in the stone pit, checking the water level in the kettle. When it was hot, he poured one cup and sat beside Tetsurou, hands curled around the warmth. After a long silence, he took a small sip, lips curling slightly at the near boiling temperature.
"How do you know me?" Tetsurou asked him.
"I know of you," Kenma responded.
Tetsurou hummed. "What do you want with me?"
Kenma paused with the cup raised halfway to his mouth. He lowered it again. "You owe me something."
This admission did catch Tetsurou off guard. "Have we met before?" That couldn't be; he would have remembered those eyes.
"No," Kenma said. "Or perhaps, many times."
"And what do I owe?"
Kenma put the cup to his lips and helped him drink. It was too hot, but he drank the flavorful tea anyway. He stilled as Kenma put a finger on his throat.
"A life," the boy said.
Tetsurou swallowed, feeling that still cool finger resting against his skin. "Whose?"
"Who else?" Kenma asked. "Yours."
The number of lives Tetsurou had been accountable for over his own—those he'd saved, and those he'd taken—was innumerable. There were so many he was responsible for through his own actions, both his achievements, and his failures. He closed his eyes and remembered the faces of the dead men at the citadel. It did not matter who he had taken from Kenma, whose lost life his death would atone for. The outcome was one they both desired.
"I'll give it to you," he agreed. "After I finish this last thing. Getting the boy home."
Kenma nodded, sipping again at the tea. Tetsurou breathed in the scent of cooling tea, the wood of the inn, let the wail of wind relax him, warm where it could not reach him. A thought occurred to him.
"Why didn't you leave me on the road?" he asked.
Kenma shifted next to him. "That didn't seem fitting."
Tetsurou smiled, his eyes still closed. "You know, I was telling the truth before."
"About?"
"You are very, very beautiful."
A soft snort reached his ears. Kenma finished the rest of the tea without offering him any more. He stayed there, silent, until Tetsurou fell asleep.