The middle ground was not what Mizuki had expected.
He thought there would be soldiers all over the land, shooting and killing each other but surprisingly it was quite hard to find the enemy. The middle ground was very very large and he remembered his father telling him that the warriors of Yarisha would be spread over a little everywhere.
However, Mizuki did stumble upon a soldier of Yarisha.
He was on his horse, scouting the area for anyone when he heard grunts and groans and then there was a gunshot that rang through the forest. He waited a few moments before he started to move towards that direction. He stopped when he saw a body on the ground, in a pool of their own blood and he swallowed.
He carefully got down from his horse and when he moved closer he identified the man as a soldier from Yarisha.
He had been shot in the head by Mizuki, presumed one of his own soldiers.
The sight did startle Mizuki but it wasn't the first time he came upon a dead body so he didn't completely lose it. He did feel a tinge of sympathy as he stared at the man, laying on the grass with his eyes still wide open.
Mizuki, despite knowing that the man was an enemy and that he had probably killed many people of Rivania, carefully picked up his body and moved it to an empty and small cave. He raised his hand and gently shut his eyes before getting back up and out of the cave. He did not want the man to be in the middle of nowhere as many other soldiers would have probably trampled on his body sooner or later.
He climbed back on Nico and they trotted away.
It had been three days since he's been out here and he has yet to engage in a fight. Mizuki had thought that his soldiers would stay in groups but according to his father it was better to spread out just as the warriors of Yarisha were doing so they could cover the whole land.
He knew that there were some of his comrades not far away from him and if needed he could easily find one.
Fifteen minutes later, Mizuki once again heard grunts and he could clearly hear a fight going on. This time he did not wait for a gunshot to go off and he started to move towards the sounds.
His eyes widened when he saw Joslyn, a young warrior that he actually had trained with countless times being held down by a man twice her size. He immediately got off his horse and quietly walked towards them.
He saw the man get his knife out but before he could hurt Joslyn, Mizuki took out his own dagger and grabbed the man by the neck and then he slit open his neck as blood splattered around them, mostly onto Joslyn's body.
When the man almost collapsed on Joslyn she pushed him back and he fell with a thud next to her and she got up, dusting her clothes off.
"Thank you, prince Mizuki." She told him with a bow of her head and he nodded at her.
"Are you alright?" He asked her and when he glanced at her body for any injuries he noticed she barely had any scratches but when he looked at the dead man that he had just killed he saw that he was already bleeding from his rib cage by the dark and wet spot on his uniform.
"I'm alright." She assured him. "I do have to go find Rain, she ran away from me."
"Do you need help?" Mizuki asked.
"No, that's alright." Joslyn said. "She would come back to me quicker if it was only me around."
"Ok then, be safe." Mizuki told her and she nodded and then disappeared in the forest.
Mizuki glanced at the man and now that Joslyn was gone and the high of being in danger left his body he could feel bile rise to his throat.
He had just killed someone.
He had just killed someone.
Again.
He told himself there was no need to feel guilty because it was either him or Joslyn. He knew this wouldn't be the last time he had to kill someone but he couldn't shake off the feeling either.
The feeling that he gets when he realized he took someone's life away. He took someone from their family. Maybe this man has a wife or children back home who are expecting him to come back home just as Mizuki has people expecting him to come back.
And yet this man can't go back.
Because he killed him.
Mizuki always thought that the people who act like killing someone doesn't bother them are lying. Because how can it not? How can you not feel an ounce of remorse when you rip someone's life from them?
The number of times he told himself that the people he killed were bad didn't matter. It didn't matter if he told himself that they had probably taken many lives away too.
Because at the end of the day in the eyes of the people of Yarisha he was also bad.
Mizuki and his people were bad in the eyes of thousands of people.
They were also the enemies.
So doesn't that mean that there's no difference between him and the soldiers of Yarisha who killed as well?
Mizuki took a deep breath to calm himself and shake his thoughts off before glancing back at the body. He knew there was no way he would be able to handle picking up this man and bring him somewhere else without feeling even more sick to his stomach and so he decided to leave the body where it was.
Mizuki wondered if this feeling he felt after taking someone's life away would ever vanish? He didn't want to kill more people to find out though.
He grabbed Niko by the reins and decided to walk to the river he saw earlier to get rid of the blood on his dagger and also wash his hands.
As he and Niko both slowed down, since there was no sign of human trace anywhere near Mizuki let himself somewhat relax, that was until he heard a shout.
Or more like a cry for help.
"Cash!" He heard as he slowly moved closer to where the sound was coming from.
Cash?
Mizuki slid off Niko and tied him to a tree before quietly walking over to where he heard the voice. He saw the back of a body and he could tell it was a man.
"Cash, come back!" The man shouted again and Mizuki shook his head in disbelief.
How can this person be so stupid to be yelling out in the middle of a war?
He glanced at his uniform and then his eyes widened. The pattern on the sleeves of his shirt. It was red and yellow. And it had the crown, the crown of Yarisha printed on it.
This person was a member of the royal family of Yarisha.
Cath anyone and I mean anyone from their royal family. We need bait. If you cannot catch them then you must kill them.
His father's words rang in his head and he swallowed. He did not want to kill someone else so soon.
Then I'll have to catch him.
The man kept calling out to Cash who Mizuki figured was probably his horse. Next to him was his bag and Mizuki could see a bow and arrows popping up from it.
Archery.
Mizuki left the bloodied dagger on the floor, hidden from sight and instead grabbed his smaller knife from his bag that he also set on the ground and moved closer and closer to the man until he was right behind him.
Mizuki knew the man could feel his presence because he froze and then he turned around but before he could even think of what to do Mizuki pushed him down on the grass and moved his hands above his head while holding the knife to his throat.
He made sure to push the man's bag away so there was no way he could reach it.
"Don't move." Mizuki ordered.
Mizuki was basically straddling this man's waist to hold him down and when he looked at his face his eyes widened. This man, or rather this boy did not look like he was supposed to be out here. He had a small, round face, freckles dusted upon his cheeks and nose, wild curly chocolate brown hair with big hazel and almost gold eyes that, to Mizuki's surprise, were filled with tears.
"Why-why are you crying?" Mizuki asked with a small hint of unexpected panic.
This boy looked so fragile, so delicate that the tears on his angelic looking face made him falter which was a big mistake because next thing he knew the boy raised his hips, pushing against Mizuki and then he had flipped them over with now him on top.
Hello! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Please leave me your thoughts!
They mettttt!!
-till next time ð¤