Chapter Text
There was blood on his hands.
Not only in the metaphorical sense, that he’d made a terrible decision and now had to pay for it. Not only in the psychological sense, that he was overwhelmed with regret and shame because of what he’d done. No, there was actual, human blood on his hands, sticking tacky between his fingers, dripping from his fingertips, glinting in the low light on the edge of his sword and running down its hilt. Blood marked the rest of him, too, with guilt, startlingly red where it stained his sailcloth and the rest of his clothes, dark and itchy where it clung to his bare skin, drying and cooling in tandem with that puddle he’d impiously spilled across the cobbled street of the alley.
Sky stared down at his trembling hands with eyes wide. He rubbed his fingers together experimentally. The blood between them was both slicker and stickier than he thought it’d be, all at the same time. Similar to monster blood, in its composition and appearance, but the knowledge of where it’d come from—who it’d come from—made him ill.
Suddenly, Sky’s already churning stomach clenched. He braced a hand against the alley wall, leaned over, and vomited. Sick splashes his boots, joining the growing puddle of blood on the cool stones of the alley.
A weak groan sounded out.
Sky wiped his mouth with a shaky arm, straightening as best as he could manage. The sound had come from the… bodies in the alley. One, two, three of them lay in managed positions, their arms and legs awkwardly askew. The one furthest from him, obscured in shadow, shifted. Sky caught a glimpse of that signature blue scarf, made dark with blood.
The Captain was alive. Somehow, he was still alive.
Sky dropped the Master Sword and staggered over to him on shaking legs. He dropped to his knees in the puddle of blood underneath him, his hands hovering. He couldn’t focus on just one wound. His arms, his face, his neck were all marked with the assassin’s daggers, but each wound bled sluggishly, like there was no blood left in his body to lose. Warrior peered blearily up at Sky with his one functioning eye, the other sealed shut behind a purple bruise. “Go, get—” he coughed, his voice rasping, “go get help, Sky.”
“No, what if they come back, I’m not leaving y—”
“Sky.” Warrior had the audacity to reach up and take Sky’s shaking hands. To comfort him. “I’ll be okay, Go,” he whispered. “Get the others.”
So Sky stood, and he fled towards the inn, leaving both Warrior and the Master Sword lying in the alley behind him.