Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Hallelujah ❯ Broken Hallelujah ( Chapter 1 )

 

 

 

There are nights when Cye cries. Most of the time he can handle it on his own, sniffing softly in the solitude of our room, his back turned to me and fighting to keep his breathing even and slow so I wouldn't notice the change. But I always do; what kind of friends would I be if I didn't? Most night he can handle it, but then other nights he'll wake up violently, body shaking and breathing ragged, sobbing as if the world was falling down around him. On those nights, sometimes it's all I can do not to cry with him.

It had been a little over and month and a half since he moved in with me that we first started seeing the eerie indications of the Dynasty. Lights would flicker or a heavy presence would be felt, all subtle signs of something horrible to come.

So, when the first attack came and the Warlords made their move, we banded together at Mia's house. With her help and the use of her grandfather's computer, we were able to discover a little bit more about our armors and their special qualities.

My armor was Hardrock, the armor of earth. It was powerful, crushing and formidable. Cye's was Torrent, the armor of water. His was strong, swift and deadly. It made sense in a cosmic sort of way. Earth and Water go hand in hand in a geological stand point. He was my opposite, my teammate, my partner, my best friend. Together, we all felt like super heroes, each blessed with strange and amazing powers and ecstatic about what our purpose to this world was going to be. We were fearless, indestructible, and headstrong.

But that was before we faced off against the Warlords and discovered what true fear was. Before the grim realization that we may not live to see our families or loved ones again or if we'd even be able to see the next day. At some point, we were faced with the idea that we may not even walk off the battle field one day. That was when our walls began to break. We were tough and deadly, sure, but we were still just children. All of us were still in high school, none of us even old enough to vote and we were fighting against a centuries-old group of samurai who wanted nothing more than to see us each die in the slowest, most agonizing way imaginable.

We all began to develop our own ways of dealing with the world we were now trapped in. Ryo took everything personally and would often seek confidence in Mia or Whiteblaze. Sage and Rowen, being the analytical members of our group, would focus on the problem at hand and nothing else, searching for a solution in a world of questions. And I would get angry and run headfirst into a waiting fight. It was simple and it was how all of us dealt with the things we didn't want to deal with. But Cye wouldn't do any of that. He would never tell us if he was scared or hurt or angry, he would just take the blows as they came. Then, at night, when he thought no one knew, he would cry.

The longer I pondered this bizarre nightly occurrence, the more I realized that Cye never opened up about much of anything. Then one night, like a bolt of lightening, it suddenly hit me. He kept himself closed in for fear of rejection or ridicule for showing weakness. This fear had caused him to live in a tortured silence, hidden by a soft smile and an optimistic outlook.

I remember wondering, shortly after he moved in with me and my family, why he never talked about what had happened to him while at the Katsugara's house. Not that I wanted to bring up bad memories or anything, but I knew that if he opened up and talked about it, it may have a healing effect instead of the adverse. But, then again, the more I thought about it the more the reasons seemed to fall into place. He must have thought I would think of him differently and proceeded to bury that insecurity as deeply as he possibly could.

Those bastards had taken everything from him; his self-respect, his happiness, even his will to live at a certain point. The forced him to believe he was weak and worthless, telling him that no one in their right mind would want anything to do with him. That alone burned a hole deeper than they ever knew into Cye's heart. Every time I thought about what they'd done to him it made my blood boil and I had to fight to keep from breaking a chair or a kid (Hah!! Die Yuli!) or whatever else was nearby.

It's only been recently that Cye's started sleeping with me. The first night it had happened, he'd had a particularly terrifying nightmare and had woken up screaming. It had scared me senseless and I had tried for a good 15 minutes to calm him down but to no avail. His entire body was trembling violently and he was breathing so hard I thought he might hyperventilate. I sat on his bed, rubbing his back and talking softly about things that made no sense as he gripped onto me like a lifeline. Finally, he fell asleep, his hands still tangled in my shirt and tears still sliding down his face. Unable to pry the Cye-ball off of me, I scooted onto the bed and lay down next to him, stroking his hair as he continued to hold onto me. He slept peacefully that night, the first time in many, and I smiled knowing he was getting the comfort he so desperately craved.

Tonight had been quiet so far but I was pretty sure it wouldn't last. Earlier today, we'd seen a newspaper article saying that Shimate Katsugara had killed herself in prison the night before. Takura's request for bail to attend his wife's funeral was considered but denied. When Cye first saw this, his face had paled so dramatically that at first I was worried he would pass out. Instead, he calmly excused himself and ran upstairs to throw up. It took nearly an hour of all of us standing outside the bathroom door trying to coax him out before he finally emerged. He shakily said he was fine and it had just surprised him and left it at that. No one pressed further because he knew that if he needed to talk we'd all be there for him.

I looked over as he began to whimper softly in his sleep, his breathing becoming a little quicker and more shallow. He gasped quietly and curled in on himself, his arms covering his stomach protectively. I took this as my cue and stood slowly, walking quietly over to the bed and placing my hand on his shoulder.

“Cye?”

His sea-green eyes slid open and focused on me tiredly. “Hmm…Kento? Waswrong?”

I smiled softly. “Come on, man. Don't pull that sleepy act on me. You were dreaming again. Let's go to bed, huh?”

He nodded slowly, knowing he couldn't fool me, and followed me back to the other bed.

I pulled back the blankets and let him slide in next to me, his hands wrapping around the hem of my shirt as if to keep me grounded in one spot. I rested my chin against the top of his head and he curled against my chest, his breathing soft and slow.

“So what was the dream about?” I asked quietly, wrapping my arm around his back to reassure him that I wasn't going anywhere.

Cye was quiet for a few minutes, his grip tightening a little. “They got out…and found me…”he answered almost inaudibly. “You guys were gone or something…but they came in and took down Mia and Yuli…then they came for me…”

I hugged him a little tighter and kissed his forehead. “We'll always be here to protect you, Cye. Me most of all.”

He smiled gently and winced, curling into a loose ball. “My stomach hurts.” He whimpered quietly.

I knew exactly what he was talking about. The night I'd rescued him from the Katsugara's house, Takura had stabbed him with a broken beer bottle. It hadn't pierced anything vital but it had left a deep scar in the muscle and an even deeper scar in his heart. It really didn't surprise me that it hurt him whenever he thought about them. That and the throwing up earlier today must have done wonders for him.

I rubbed his back gently and hugged him a little closer. “It's okay, Cye. It's all in your mind. Just go to sleep, okay?”

“What if I have the dream again?” His voice was small and childlike, a sound kind of like a glass bell.

“I won't let them get you. I'll always be here to protect you, buddy.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

Cye smiled and snuggled against me, letting his eyes slip closed and his body relaxing as I held him away from the nightmares. My eyelids began to feel heavy and I squeezed him one last time to reassure him I was there before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep. We were strong, powerful and deadly and we needed each other to survive.

 

 

Yay fluffy angst!! This story was not meant to be yaoi/shonen-ai but if you want to interpret it that way you can! I'm all in favor of it!! Leave me some comments okay? Loves!!! Oh, by the way, I'm not really sure if the title has anything to do with this story, I just thought it was a beautiful phrase so I pegged it with this title.