The battlefield was quiet,
not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind that comes after screams die down, after steel meets steel, after bodies fall and stop moving. Smoke still hung heavy in the air, ash drifting where flags once waved. A lone crow called somewhere in the distance, but Kazuya Minami didn't answer,
he stood still, katana in hand, trapped in a trance-like state, unsure if the war had really ended.
"The war is over," the commanders shouted from afar.
Kazuya fought for The Verdict, a faction claiming to bring order and protection to cities torn apart by chaos. They wore disciplined armor and carried their swords with precision, believing their strict hierarchy could save the world from destruction,
Their enemies, The Shroud, fought for freedom and truth, striking from the shadows, hunting members of The Verdict. To The Verdict, The Shroud were rebels and traitors. To The Shroud, The Verdict were oppressors hiding dark secrets behind their promises of peace,
The battle had lasted only hours, but the damage felt like a lifetime,
The Verdict had won, the enemy pushed back, The Shroud scattered into the night. Another decisive victory for order and protection,
but victory tasted bitter,
Kazuya stared at his blade, blood staining the edge, some his, most of it not. The weight wasn't in his arms, but deep in his chest, around him, soldiers celebrated, some cheered, some wept, some stayed silent like him. One man sat down and didn't get back up,
"It's over, huh?"
Kazuya whispered to himself before turning away quietly, a medic rushed past without a word. Kazuya walked on, passing rows of makeshift tents.
Later that night, beneath a sky too pale to offer comfort, Kazuya lay down and closed his eyes.
He dreamed of nothing.
When Kazuya opened his eyes, everything was wrong,
He was lying on a stiff bed, not his own, the cracked ceiling above him was unfamiliar, and the air smelled different, it was dusty and stale, he looked down at his hands, but to his shock they weren't his, they were pale, older and calloused in the wrong places, he sat up too fast and dizziness spun him around,
he staggered towards the mirror that stood across the room, the face staring back was a man in his thirties, half-covered in bandages, missing an arm from the shoulder,
panic came first, then memories of the man whose body he was inhabiting flooded his mind,
he knew this man, where he'd grown up, the battles he'd fought, the friends lost yesterday on the very battlefield Kazuya had stood on,
he dropped to his knees,
"Who am I?"
He breathed, like the words themselves were unfit to be heard.