Trials (An ErasermicXreader Medieval AU)

Chapter5

You nodded off again while waiting for Shouta to come back and when you awoke there was food on the fire again the sky was just beginning to turn orange. The next day was even better, you were able to sit up on your own and your arms didn't feel so weak. By midday you and Hizashi tested your ability to stand, which you were able to accomplish with a tremendous amount of help from him. You got stronger as the day passed and a new one began. By the third day, you could stand and walk around the camp in short, slow bursts and you were eating two full-sized meals without issue. Hizashi even helped you up onto the horse with him to take a ride to the stream in a feeble attempt to satisfy your growing restlessness. It was a short trip, the horses swaying and jostling bruising your still sore and stiffened hips and legs.

Upon arrival back at camp Hizashi had called out to Shouta over your head, a sneeze erupting from his mouth in the middle of his sentence. It was deafening. The horse stirred under you and all the birds in the vicinity scattered into the sky, throwing leaves and twigs behind them as they fled. At first, a very aggressive and painful silence flooded your ears, then a high pitched ringing brought you back to the world of sound. You screwed your eyes shut, the sunlight filtering through the swaying leaves and the deafening ringing making your head spin. You surely couldn't still be that dehydrated? It was just a sneeze.

"Fuck, sorry!" Hizashi yelped, this time it was a normal volume.

Shouta came ducking out from behind some bushes that did a good job of hiding the eastern side of the camp, his eyes glowing red like hot embers. His hair was whipping around as if caught by a violent gust of wind that blew upwards catching the lapel on his tunic. You blinked hard, sure that it was a product of your imagination but as Shouta grew nearer his eyes remained just as bright and red.

He looked over at you and must have recognized your disbelief because in an instant his hair was falling back down around his shoulders in wild waves and his eyes faded back into the dark pupils you'd grown used to seeing.

"Y/n." Shouta held up his hands, palms towards you. "It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you."

You shook your head until words found you. "I d-didn't think you would."

"Okay," Shouta lowered his arms and gave a relieved sigh. "Are you alright?"

You nodded, those bright red fiery eyes still glowing in the back of your mind. He took a step forward and you pulled back on the reins instinctively, the horse taking a few still panicked steps backwards.

Shouta sighed and dropped his head, frustration clearly welling up inside of him. He looked back up at you, clearly trying to keep any form of annoyance off his face. He was wholly unsuccessful. "I can explain."

"We can explain." Hizashi corrected him, clasping a gentle hand on your shoulder. "We're like you, Y/n."

***

You were sipping from a metal mug of god-awful tea that smelled heavily of roses but tasted more of old fruit. Hizashi had been making it every night for the last five days, stating that he'd found it somewhere deep in the recesses of the saddlebags. It tasted terrible but the warmth of the drink was comforting so you spilled away, eyeing the two men and they sat across the fire pit from you.

"Where do you want us to start?" Shouta asked. While he was projecting calm stillness you could see all sorts of nerves stirring behind his eyes. In contrast, Hizashi was jittering all over, his knees were bouncing, his fingers playing with the ties on the sides of his trousers, even his nose twitched every now and then.

"Why do your eyes glow like fire?" You shot at him.

"Not wholly sure, some of us have physical manifestations of our power like that. I can erase someone's power as long as I can look at them, the eyes and hair are a side effect." he answered.