Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Sacrifice ❯ Torture ( Chapter 76 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: MellyN

XxXxXx

Sacrifice

By: Melissa Norvell

Chapter 76: Torture

XxXxXx

"Looks like we got found out," Fife looked to the freaked out woman with a calm expression.

"I'm not ready for this," Hiroshima muttered under his breath. They had not been in Shaffon for five minutes before they were instantly spotted. The angel was hoping for a period of rest but he wasn't even able to do that.

"Not again!" Chichiri wanted to rest up after the war with Sumeria and Baklava but now he'd get no rest at all.

"I knew this was a bad idea," the spiky-haired angel stated as he quickly got up from the floor as people swarmed through the doorway with weapons and torches as several voices could be heard.

"Did she say angels?" A man asked in slight confusion. If another angel dared to show its face in their village again, he would make sure that it was eradicated.

"Look! There they are!" A woman from the crowd pointed in Tsurugi and Hiroshima's direction.

"Kill them! Kill the angels!" Another man shouted angrily.

"Fife, get everyone-" Hiroshima began to instruct them as to what to do, but his sentence was cut off by his surprise as Ko ran forward and delivered a harsh spin kick to one of the village men.

"I guess if we're evil here for being with you, then we'll have to hurry and fulfill Vespa's wishes before we get killed," the girl told him with a serious expression. She would stand by him, even if he was a killer. He needed her help, even more so now that she knew that he was dying from his curse.

"Die angel!" One of the village men threw a hand out at Tsurugi, sending a powerful blast of white magic at him. Fife quickly got in front of the angel and drew a green symbol, blocking the attack. The blonde angel thanked him and he smiled and told him that it was not a problem.

Keiji dodged from side to side as a man repetitively tried to stab him with a pitch fork. The green-haired boy managed to successfully dodge it about four times before he had moved just a little too slow.

When he dodged, his arm was slower than the rest of his body and got trapped between the prongs of the pitch fork as it was pinned to the wall. The boy's body jolted as it was stopped in its place. Quickly, Keiji tried to pull on the makeshift weapon to free himself but it was no use. He didn't have enough time before the man pulled out a small hunting knife and tried to stab him. However, the attempt was unsuccessful as a kotatsu (1) was smashed over his head.

Keiji thanked the blonde for saving him as the long-haired man pulled the pitch fork away from his arm with ease.

"No problem!" Chichiri glanced at the pitch fork and smiled. "I already have a new weapon!" He held the pitch fork proudly.

"Crimson Slash!" Hiroshima let his red wave of energy loose on everyone in the inn. He managed to take out a few people with it. One of the village men held out his hand and uttered the phrase 'Eraser Canon' as a large, yellow tinted light was fired at the angel. Tsurugi teleported in front of his lover and summoned up a wind barrier as the light surrounded the blonde angel and he was soon teleported away from sight.

"Tsurugi!" Hiroshima shouted but his words did little to bring the other angel back. 'He teleported…' The green-haired angel's ice blue gaze widened as he turned to his team mates and shouted. "Hey! Stay out of the way of the Eraser Canons! They'll send you away."

A serious expression cropped up on Fife's face. 'This is bad…They'll send whoever they hit with that attack away…no doubt to a trap in waiting.'

Ko punched commoner after commoner, the one of them swung as her. The skilled ninja spun to the side and axe-handled them in the side. "Right."

"Die!" A woman then charged at Hiroshima with a sword in hand. The angel quickly turned and brought the Crimson down to clash with her sword and the two stood there, trying to push each other back with opposing forces.

"Tell me something, lady," Hiroshima spoke to the long-haired woman, who wore a look of hatred towards him.

"What do you want?" She asked callously.

"Why do you hate angels anyway?" It was a legitimate question, since he honestly didn't know and would rather find out by asking then reading her mind.

"An angel has plagued this land and destroyed many lives, taking them without reason. Throughout the ages, ever since angels first descended to Earth, they have been doing nothing but causing destruction. It's bad enough that they despise us and think that we're weak because they have to protect us. Maybe we don't need their help!" The woman raised her sword to strike the angel once more but her sword was blocked with his.

Hiroshima didn't know what to think after hearing what she had said. The angel was very confused at something. 'For once, I'm not sure I know what to say. Why am I feeling bad about this now? It's my fault that the people here are like this now but why should I care now? Those brats…no…my comrades have turned me soft…I'm beginning to remember that I have a heart.' He closed his eyes and smirked to himself. "What in the hell is wrong with me?"

"Not too long ago, an angel came here and destroyed this village, killing half of the population here," the woman continued to explain as her blade clashed with the angel's over and over as they continued to fight. "We used to be a city of divine aspects. We loved angels very much and tried to be the best we could in order to be more like them. Angels were always welcomed here until they betrayed us."

'But I haven't been here. I've never touched this village. It seems they hate angels no matter what I say as a defense.' While the legend seemed similar to his own, it was not he who had caused them to hate angels. Hiroshima wondered who exactly was behind all of this. No doubt it was an angel or someone who possessed angelic wings. "Listen, I can't speak for myself but you can't base everyone's actions off of what a few individuals do. As much as I don't like the white-winged angels, I can tell you that they won't hurt you."

White-winged angels were holy, kind and pure. Their feet didn't even touch the ground, for fear of killing the tiniest organism that God had created, much less hurt any humans or cause this type of damage. Black and gray-winged angels were another story, however and possessed much more destructive and leery tendencies.

"Shut up!" The woman shouted as she charged at him with the sword, threatening to end his life if his body dared to touch the very blade. Thinking quickly, he rolled off of her shoulder and shoved her away. "I can't talk to these people."

From across the room, he heard a scream as Ko was slammed against the wall and pinned there by a man who was twice her size. She tried to struggle against his strong grip but to no avail, the white-haired girl was pinned with no way out.

"Bash her while I hold her down!" The large man instructed as another man nodded and raised a large pipe over his head.

"You're kind of cute. How about we have a little fun?" The large man asked as Ko could feel his hand go up the bottom of her sweater. Panic and dread filled her large, blue eyes as she shouted for him to stop and struggled against him as his hand slowly trailed its way up her stomach.

"Don't be so feisty, You'll end up liking it soon enough," the male promised with dark perversion as his hand neared her bra. Before he could touch anything, Hiroshima was behind him and viciously ripped him off of her.

"Don't touch my friend you sleazy bastard," the angel glared darkly as he roughly jerked the man around by the shoulder and punched him hard across the face, nearly snapping his neck in half.

There was nothing Hiroshima hated more than a rapist or molester. They were both equally disgusting in his book.

The man who was holding Ko quickly fled the scene, not wanting the same punishment as his friend as the white-haired woman seemed in a daze. She just stared at Hiroshima with widened eyes.

Out of all of the people in the entire world, she never would have thought that he would be the one to come to her rescue. Ko would have thought that he would be more apt to help out Keiji or Fife, since that was his circle of friends.

"H-Hiroshima…" She uttered the only thing she knew how at the moment as she stared into the angel's face, trying to read into his cryptic thoughts.

"I might be a killer but I'd never molest anyone," Hiroshima looked her in the eyes with the most sincere and honest look that she'd ever seen.

"Did you just…call me your friend?" Ko was shaken up by the ordeal and still slightly in a daze. Everything seemed surreal to her.

"I guess I did. If you're willing to accept me, despite what I have done," Hiroshima told the girl. He was never really her enemy, they simply had disagreements.

Ko closed her eyes. "You're very kind, Hiroshima."

"What? I am not!" The spiky-haired angel denied. He was hardly kind and didn't need a false label.

"My mother said once that someone who is truly kind will change the subject when they are told so," she smiled at Hiroshima's reaction to her statement. He was so quick to flip out sometimes.

Their friendly conversation was soon interrupted by a man who charged in behind Hiroshima with a wheat cutter (2) and raised it behind him in attempt to cut the angel across the back.

Thinking quickly, Ko picked up the tea pot and chunked it at him. The pot made contact with the man's face and he stumbled forward starting to bend over.

"Excuse me," Ko placed her hand on Hiroshima's shoulders and flipped up, bring her heel down into the man's neck and sending him into the wooden floor face first.

The girl stood up and looked over her shoulder at Hiroshima and smiled. "Now we're even."

"Thanks, Ko-chan," Hiroshima replied.

"Take care of yourself, Hiroshima-san," Ko replied as the two simply stood there, a silent exchange happening between them that only they could understand. "I'll take care of these guys." She finally told him as he headed in another direction to find out what exactly was going on.

The others had their hands full with the populous of the village and tried to fend them off as best as they could. Fife wrote out various symbols and streams of magic, Keiji managed to leg sweep one of the offending villagers and Chichiri bashed another one over the head with his newly acquired pitch fork.

Undine skillfully controlled her streams of water. The long-haired girl managed to send one through several people, either blasting them back or killing them instantly. As one of her streams went through its last victim, a figure in a dark red robe reached out, sending her Eraser Canon at the girl, who looked over her shoulder as her eyes widened in shock and horror.

'This is…' Undine thought as she was blasted and disappeared from sight.

"This isn't good!" Chichiri freaked out at the fact that another one of his team members had just disappeared. "People keep disappearing!"

Ko threw a village woman over her shoulder with a Judo flip and turned to the long-haired blonde. "How are we going to find that object with all of these people on our ass?"

"Good question, actually," Chichiri replied.

Zangetsu was at the opposite end of the room, he flung his bird-like wing out, dispersing several white feathers that pierced many of the people's skin, causing them to scream out in pain.

A man tried to blast him with his Eraser Canon, and seeing no way out of the situation other than a small window. The black-haired ninja jumped through the window as the beam hit the wall, causing it to disappear behind him.

Zangetsu glanced behind him to see that the wall had simply vanished. 'What kind of magic do these people have, anyway? They seem like normal people but they have the power to teleport things and not on a small level either.' The whole situation amazed and interested the black-haired man, but he would not stick around long enough to know any more.

As soon as he turned to try and flee, a woman charged at him with an iron.

"Die!" She shouted as she ran at him.

The ex-Nighthawk ninja backed up against the adjacent wall and dodged as the iron went into the wall.

XxXxXx

Hiroshima ran outside, relentlessly slicing any villager who dared to come at him. If he was caught, then he would be hanging from one of those nooses for sure. This was the only way out. Lives must be shed.

'What I do will make no difference to them. Why? Why have I been so confused lately? Well, all of my life as a matter a fact. I always contradict myself. I'll do something good, then I'll turn around and do something evil. Ever since I became an angel, or rather, knew of my angelic blood, I've been like this. At times, it's hard for me to even trust myself. Is this the curse?…No, I would have known if it was…' The angel mulled over the recent events in his head as he fought villager after villager. He broke out into a sweat as he continued to fight them off. 'I'm alone out here…' Hiroshima glanced around him to find that there was nothing but an empty field where he was. It was an area a distance away from the inn that he had temporarily been at. The only thing present was a wooden frame with chains hanging from it- a standard torture device that you could hang one from by their arms and legs. 'I don't see those humans anywhere.'

After a few more minutes, his body had begun to become tired and hot and his eyes got hazy every now and then. He knew what that meant- he needed blood. Tsurugi was who knows where and he was concentrating too much on the fight at hand to get in touch with him mentally. 'Damn…I'm wearing down, without a blood source; I'm going to be taken down easily.' He looked at his sword for a moment. 'The Crimson, it absorbs blood at a quick rate. If I stop to drink their blood, then I'll be taken down for sure. This is just great.'

There was only one thing to do.

The angel turned and ran back towards the town. If he could make it to the others in time, then Keiji could donate some of his blood, or possibly someone in the group. Going out any further would be a fatal mistake. Damn the vampuric blood that ran through his veins.

'I've got to find someone to get a drink from or I'm screwed.' Hiroshima felt his body become heavy. Every step he took was uneasy and strained. It felt as if he were trying to move quickly underwater or that there was some kind of weight on his legs. 'I know.'

The angel stopped and grabbed one of the villagers by the neck, ripping out their throat as blood gushed fourth from their vital veins and covered his hand. The vampuric angel licked his hand clean from the life-giving source as he felt a little strength returning to him. 'That's a little better but I can't go forever on this. I can't summon my spirit or perform a large attack either. I'll be too weak to even walk.' The rapidly weakening angel's thoughts were interrupted by a large, white blast contacting with his back and sending him flying forward.

It seared his back with burning heat as feathers were forced off of his wings and his weapon released from his hand. "Shit!" He cursed in pain as his body landed on the ground, the abrasive rocks dealing more damage to his already injured back.

The back of his white shirt had been covered in large, dark red splotches and one of his suspenders had also been blasted off. He placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled it back into his view to see that it was soaked in blood.

"There goes all of that blood I just drank," Hiroshima muttered in disappointment. Not only did he have to outrun the villagers, but he was now losing blood faster than he had been. The angel would undoubtedly become weaker at a quicker rate.

"I'll kill you, you winged bastard!" He snapped out of his thoughts as he looked over to see a man with a shovel. The man brought the shovel down with all of his might in an attempt to smash Hiroshima in the face but the angel managed to roll to the side, in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid being hit. However, a villager with a pipe back him up and managed to hit Hiroshima in the back of the head, rendering him unconscious.

XxXxXx

Keiji ran up to Ko, Zangetsu, Fife and Chichiri, who had all assembled in a nearby alley. All of them barely managed to get away from the mod of Shaffon's citizens. Keiji asked if everyone was alright and listened to their various replies.

"I'm a little scuffed up but not bad," Ko was the first to speak.

"I'm tired and someone threw a potato at me but other than that, I'm fine," Chichiri gave him his own personal status report.

"It's a shame that we had to kill all of those people," Zangetsu glanced back at the inn, which had dead bodies lying around but in and outdoors, like sick yard ornaments.

"Where are Tsurugi, Undine and Hiroshima?" Ko noticed the lack of presence from any of the aforementioned people. It felt strange with that much of their group missing.

"They must have been hit with the blast," Keiji deduced. It was the only logical reason that he could see for that many people's disappearance.

"We can't contact Vespa either," Zangetsu noted that Hiroshima had the jewel in his possession and without it, they could not talk to the Red Witch.

"That's right! Hiroshima had that stone!" The realization hit Ko as shock lit up on her features.

"I wonder where their magic sends the people that it touches," Fife thought aloud and stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning back against the alley wall.

"You want to find out?" Chichiri looked at him as if he were crazy. He should have expected it from Fife, but no matter how many times it happened, the vampire always managed to shock him with his answers.

"Well, if we do find out we can find out where they all went, can't we?" The blue-haired vampire replied. To him, it was a good plan.

"We've got to do something," Keiji noted direly. "Between that magical item and our team mates, we're in a pretty bad spot."

"We don't expect you to do this alone," Fife told him, giving the boy a kind look.

"But I'm the leader. Hiroshima appointed me to-" The green-haired boy tried to valiantly defend his position but he was cut off by Ko.

"I don't think he expected you to know everything. It's not like you're used to this. You're just a normal teen boy. You never had to make decisions like these before," the white-haired girl replied. Keiji had too much on his plate and she could tell that even though it was getting over bearing, he refused to step down and share the responsibility with anyone else. He really wanted to make Hiroshima proud.

Zangetsu gave the boy a sympathetic look and decided to speak up. "You probably feel a lot of constant pressure when we're in a bind like this, don't you?"

"Yeah…" Keiji looked down with a bit of a frown. Zangetsu had figured him out one hundred percent. He then felt a hand ruffle his green hair as he looked up to see that it was the black-haired ninja.

Zangetsu leveled the hopeless looking boy with a gentle smile. "Don't try to take it all on yourself. Even you need a break every now and then. We're still a fully-functional team without Undine and the angels."

After all, everyone had proven that fact when they were retrieving the Marchois. They had managed to get it successfully without the aid of the angels, Fife or Undine. Even if they were humans, they were capable of more than they realized.

"But this place hates angels," Keiji spoke the cold, unsettling truth about Shaffon and the fact that Tsurugi and Hiroshima were both missing was something that worried him.

"Hiroshima did say that they'd want to kill us if they knew” ,Chichiri told them about the angel's previous warnings. In a way, it was their fault as well for not taking Hiroshima's advice and going on without he and Tsurugi.

"I hate to say this, but maybe he was right when he said that we'd be better off not being associated with him here," Ko admitted that Hiroshima may not have had the wrong idea concerning the matter.

"Yes but I have a feeling this might have a feeling this might have happened regardless of our circumstances. Just like Azmy's death, if it's destined to happen then not even angels can help that," Zangetsu looked a little sorrowful at his statement. Fate was fate and there was no way to escape it. It was a cruel fact of life that not even the divine powers could not stop.

"We'd better go and hide before we get mobbed again," the white-haired woman told her team mates.

"It will be an opportunity to think at least. We can plot over our next move from there," Fife agreed. After all, it was better to get into a more hidden place then stay out in the open, where anyone could wander down the alleyway and find them.

XxXxXx

Slowly opening his light blue eyes, Hiroshima soon came into focus on what had happened. His neck felt heavy and his weight shifted down. The angel looked over to his arms, which were up above his head and stretched out to either side, suspended by heavy, iron cuffs and chains. He then looked down, past the large spikes of his iron collar to see that his feet were shackled with the same devices. He was suspended in the wooden frame that he had seen out in the field. All around him, people were giving him evil looks and held up torches and various weapons, promising the angel future pain.

His head was fuzzy and a dull pain pounded in the back of his head. Hiroshima was vulnerable and weak, strung before all of the townspeople as a sign of the degrading humiliation that he was about to face.

The angel was silent as the people cleared a path. An old, Chinese man with a long, white beard and mustache, dressed in purple and gold Celtic-style robes walked up to him with a glass orb in his hand that contained a single angel feather. The snide old man wore a look of contentment at the angel's position.

"So, you're the angel that was caught here in Shaffon," the old man stroked his long, hip-length beard and looked Hiroshima up and down. "You don't seem like much." The man turned and waved in dismissal.

"It's all in the eye of the beholder, old man,Hiroshima told him.

"Where are the others who traveled with you?" The man turned and looked over his shoulder, starting to question the angel about the whereabouts of his team mates.

"Haven't caught them yet?" The spiky-haired angel asked. Like hell he was going to tell that old man where the others were. He'd rather die.

"I will get the answer I require," the angel could play this the easy way or the hard way and it would not matter much what the results were. It could be as painless or as painful as he wanted it to be.

"Why do you want them? They are just a bunch of kids," he was the one that they were after, so why not just take him and get it over with? No one else needed to be involved. After all, it was Hiroshima's fault that everyone met and it was his fault that they were in this mess as well.

"We execute anyone with an angel here only non-believers are allowed in this city," the old man replied.

"Are you really that prejudice?" Hiroshima asked only to earn him a strike with a long, leather whip. The single slash put a large rip in his shirt that extended from his right shoulder to his rib cage and snapped the other suspender. It was a good thing that they were only for accessory purposes, though being caught with his pants down was the least of Hiroshima's problems.

"Tell us where they are!" The keeper of the feather demanded. He was tired of Hiroshima's sarcastic comments.

"I don't think so," the angel replied, only to be punched in the stomach viciously. Hiroshima nearly buckled forward from the thrust. The only thing that stopped him was the chains that he was suspended by. He said nothing but winced in pain and clenched his eyes shut for a few seconds.

"Tell us or we'll torture you," the elder male glared at the angel, promising him a world of pain if he didn't reveal the whereabouts of his team mates.

"This situation is all too familiar to me. Do what you want but I'll never tell you where they are. I'd rather die with my secret and save their lives," Hiroshima's own well being had nothing to do with the task at hand. He would sacrifice everything, if need there be, to protect those close to him. The angel's silence would carry with him to his grave.

"Then have it your way!" The man proceeded to beat Hiroshima with the whip. Over and over again the cruel piece of leather assaulted his body, ripping his clothes and causing lacerations that oozed blood, further weakening the angel.

'Please, be safe everyone.' Hiroshima felt strike after strike, cutting into his skin. Stubbornly, the angel refused to cry out in pain. He would not let the sadistic old man have the joy of knowing that he was winning his sick little interrogation game.

"Still no answer?" The white-headed man asked with a smirk on his face as he laid eyes on the angel before him, tattered and bleeding with his head hung before humans, just as he was meant to do.

"I already told you what I'm willing to tell you," Hiroshima said lowly, trying not to show his discomfort and agony. He knew that there was more to come but nothing mattered to him anymore. A few more good strikes and he would be past the breaking point of pain and everything would become numb.

"Fine!" The impatient man replied as he pointed to the green-haired angel. "Break his arms and legs one by one, and then maybe he'll tell us. One way or another, they'll all die."

XxXxXx

Everyone had found an underground room with a single window at ground level beneath an old warehouse. Fife sat on an old, wooden box, Zangetsu stood, leaning against the wall with his wing and arm crossed, while Ko and Keiji stood and Chichiri walked up to them.

"We should be safe in here," Fife looked to the window. "I hope."

Ko's eyes followed the vampire's as a light rain began to fall and patter against the long window.

"Are you sure that no one else is in here?" Zangetsu asked Chichiri, who had just come back from checking for enemies.

"I checked three times. They are all dead," the blonde confirmed as Tsurugi teleported in the middle of the group, looking roughed up and holding the Crimson in his arms.

"Tsurugi!" Ko's face lit up to see that the angel had returned alive.

"What happened to you?" Keiji noticed that the angel had been missing a few feathers and he had rips and tears in his clothes as well as a few minor scratches.

"They tried to beat me up but I managed to get away. Where's Hiro-kun?" The blonde angel glanced around for his mate, but saw no sign of the spiky-haired angel. A slight panic came over him because he didn't find Hiroshima there like he thought he would.

"We don't know," Ko told him the bad news. "We thought he was teleported away."

"I found his sword when I teleported around, looking for you. Is Undine gone as well?" Tsurugi held out the Crimson to show everyone the evidence of his findings.

"Yeah, we don't know where she is but we're guessing that she got zapped too," Ko informed the blonde angel.

"A town close to Shaffon. It took me a while to get around, sorry I'm so late," Tsurugi apologized for the complications and having to teleport around to check his bearings only took more time.

"You're here and that's all that matters," Ko was happy to just see that he was alright and hadn't succumb to any type of torture.

""Now we should concentrate on finding Hiro-kun. He could be in real trouble," Tsurugi's features became serious. It was their top priority to find that other angel, before anything happened to him. Who knew where Hiroshima was or what was happening to him at that very moment.

XxXxXxXx

Blood shot from the angel's back as the last of his wings were mercilessly cut off. Hiroshima was tired, and all of the blood that he lost formed a small patch on the wet dirt below as the gentle rains fell. The blue-eyed angel watched as streams of water mixed with loose dirt and blood.

His vision had been failing him, blurring out and coming back to as he dwindled on the edge of passing out.

"You're losing a lot of blood there. You're sure that you won't tell me?" The old man asked once more. Surely the angel was thinking of giving up now that he couldn't even keep his concentration.

"No…" His answer was weak and low. Hiroshima was prepared to die. He did not fear death and he knew that he didn't have much time with his curse sucking his life away. It would be no different of him to die this way. Granted, it was less dignified then he had wanted his end to be.

"Let me see, we've broken your limbs, cut off your wings, whipped you, beat on you, assaulted you with weapons and electrocuted you…" The man listed off all of the pain that the angel had taken so far. He looked thoughtful as a smile crept to his face. "Ah! Now it's time to stab you!"

"Try all you like. You get nothing from me," the spiky-haired angel was stabbed in a non-lethal area of his shoulder. Hiroshima groaned in pain, too weak to silence himself.

"I'm going to make you look like a pin cushion," the man said as another sword was driven into the angel's body. "I won't kill you. I just want to make you suffer. Next we'll bur you with a hot iron."

Hiroshima coughed as blood ran down the right corner of his mouth.

"Will you tell me now?"

'I've been through all of this before, when I was twelve.' The angel thought about what had happened to him in the past. The feeling of torture didn't scare him. He was all too used to the feeling.

A small, lanky, spiky-haired boy hung limply from shackles and chains, beaten and covered in blood as townspeople were gathered around in what seemed to be more merriment then anything. They laughed and poked fun at the child, whose eyes were filled with so much pain and suffering.

All around him, the child could hear their unforgivable words.

'Monster, you deserve to die!'

'Burn in hell!'

"It's pretty sad, when angels deserve to die," Hiroshima hung his head. There was no escape for him now. No one would come to save him and the only thing that awaited him now was a hot iron.

XxXxXx

The window in the underground room shattered as everyone's gaze quickly turned to see the shattered fragments of glass shower to the floor.

"They found us!" Ko exclaimed.

"Shit!" Chichiri's exclamation followed the white-haired girl's.

"I don't want to do this…but it seems I have no choice," Keiji now knew what he had to do, if they were to escape capture. He didn't want to kill any more people, but he clearly had no choice. It was time to put his humanity aside, for the selfish sake of his team mates.

…To Be Continued…

NOTES:

Kotatsu- a table that's heated underneath.

Wheat Cutter- a scythe-like instrument used to cut wheat and rice.