Location: Somewhere along the Narshian Trail
Date: Fourteen Days into Escort
Format: Private Journals
Perspective: Anna, Riya, Elric, Gideon, and Lily, Leander, Alice
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[Anna's Journal – Entry Title: "Laugh, or You Break"]
I used to think illusions were the safest kind of magic.
They don't kill. They don't wound. They just… show people what isn't real.
Like theater.
Like jokes.
But today, Nitsuo burned seven mercenaries down.
And I didn't flinch.
Is that normal?
Riya didn't speak the rest of that night.
Leander looked older, somehow. Tired. Less sparkle in his dumb smile.
Alice didn't blink. Lily didn't either.
And Nitsuo?
He sat by the fire, eating dried jerky like nothing had happened.
> "They chose this," he said.
"We didn't get to choose."
I smiled. I even cracked a joke.
But later, when I lay down in my bedroll… I whispered to the darkness:
> "If I keep laughing, will I stay human?"
---
[Riya's Journal – Entry Title: "Clean Fire Still Burns"]
I used to think fire was always ugly.
Destruction. Chaos. Hunger. Powerfull.
But the way Nitsuo burns things…
It's clean. Cold. Calculated.
No rage. Just judgment.
He didn't hesitate. I saw it.
When he moved, he didn't pause like I did. He didn't freeze like Anna did.
He knew. It was kill or be killed.
But why didn't it shake him?
Am I wrong for fearing that?
I asked Elric, quietly, if something was wrong with me.
He smiled and said:
> "No, Riya. It means you haven't forgotten what peace feels like."
But peace feels distant now.
And when I see Nitsuo's eyes — those unreadable, still eyes —
I wonder if he's forgotten.
---
[Elric's Journal – Entry Title: "Wounds Without Blood"]
Gideon didn't speak again tonight. He's good at hiding things. Better than I am.
Anna's jokes are shorter now. Her laughter too sharp.
Riya's quiet, but watching everything. Like a sunflower turned toward firelight.
And Nitsuo?
He's changing.
Not faster. Not colder.
Just… quieter.
> "We don't have time to bury them," he said.
I agreed. It was practical. But practical doesn't stop the ghosts.
Even if we burn them cleanly.
I've treated wounds before.
Some bleed.
Others never do.
And I fear we're all walking with wounds we haven't named.
Especially him.
---
[Gideon's Journal – Entry Title: "Weight Carried in Silence"]
No one asked if I was okay.
That's fine. I'm not the one they're worried about.
They're worried about Nitsuo.
He's always quiet.
Always calculating.
But now his silence feels different.
He doesn't even register the kills.
Leander told me once — back when we were training —
"If I ever take a life, I hope I never stop caring."
But Nitsuo didn't even blink.
I've seen soldiers like him. I've read their names off tombstones.
Still… I trust him.
More than anyone.
But trust doesn't mean comfort.
---
[Lily's Journal – Entry Title: "What the Moon Cannot Burn"]
He burns them because someone has to.
He doesn't pause because someone has to walk first.
They don't understand him yet.
Not fully.
But I do.
The first time I saw him fight, I thought — this boy is more shadow than man.
Now, I wonder if he's forgotten how to bleed.
And still…
I follow him.
I trust him.
Not because he's right.
But because I believe he still wants to be.
That's enough for now.
---
[Leander's Journal – Entry Title: "Ashes and Mirrors"]
I killed three.
And I hesitated before the first.
But I didn't before the third.
That… that's what frightens me.
The first time, my hands shook.
The second, they gripped tighter.
By the third, I wasn't even angry. Just… focused.
> Nitsuo once said, "Good men can't protect everything."
"Be better. Not good."
I heard him.
I believed him.
But it doesn't stop me from missing who I used to be.
That reckless, arrogant idiot who thought jokes could stop war.
That boy who laughed too loud and loved too easily.
He's still in here. I know he is.
But today… he didn't speak.
Not even once.
---
[Alice's Journal – Entry Title: "Fading Ink"]
He's slipping.
No, not from us. Not yet.
From himself.
Seven dead. And he didn't flinch.
Not because he's cruel.
But because he believes he has to be.
When I asked, "Are you okay?"
He didn't even lie.
He just looked at me and said,
> "I did what was needed."
Not wrong.
But not right, either.
I know what it means — the first time your blade takes more than blood.
I've seen it change people. Harden them until even kindness feels foreign.
He burns them after battle. He calls it mercy. Final respect.
But I worry it's not mercy for them.
It's for him.
Because if he treats it like ritual — maybe it won't feel like murder.
I feed on him.
But I'd give anything to stop the part of him from starving.
---
> "The burden of command is not knowing who will fall — it's knowing you may have to be the one who pushes forward first."