Ikigai

Chapter 1:5

TW: Implied SA

The crew went to work; the ticking clock of death pushing them to work faster than they ever had. They worked tirelessly, heaving massive rocks off the unconscious girl and discarding them onto the floor. Their hands were raw and burned from the fire licked rubble, but they paid no mind, their attention entirely on their mission.

Time was crucial; the longer it took them to get her free, the less time they had to treat her. Their muscles ached and their hands bled. Their backs sore and tense. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

But as they removed more and more, revealing limb after limb, their mild discomfort truly was nothing but dust in the wind. It was nothing compared to the sight that awaited them when they cleared the last piece of rock from on top of the girl, finally seeing all of her injuries together.

The girl was still, so still one would think she were just another corpse if not for her fleeting pulse. Her left cheek was covered by mangled hair, her right, bruised and sliced open, speckled with debris and dirt. Her eye was beaten shut, a bloom of ugly purple overtaking it. A variety of cuts littered the right side of her face, and one could only assume it was the same on the other side. Her right ear lobe was torn open, her earrings having been yanked out. On her neck, a large handprint the same shade as her eye.

To say that this was the least of the damage would be an understatement.

The rest of her body was horrifying.

Her body was propped up, a broken and rusting pole jutted from her left shoulder blade; entering from between her shoulder joints and completely separating her arm from her socket. It looked as if she had the misfortune of falling on it and impaling herself, the bits of the broken ceiling only pushing her further down.

Her left arm was completely shattered and hung limply at her side, a sickening blue crawling up her arm and almost completely covering it. It was littered with deep gashes, down to the bone; a large chunk of flesh missing from her forearm, cut crudely and taken as a memento. Her right arm wasn't in much of a better state, fresh burn marks up to her bicep and littered with large cigar burns.

Her fingers were singed black and bent at disgusting angles; her fingernails ripped off, the raw and dark under flesh embedded with pebbles and splintered wood. Her palms were slashed open, blood pooling at her fingertips and dripping onto the ground.

The gown she was wearing had been torn and shredded, the back and skirt completely gone, exposing her skin to the elements. The burns on her back weren't as bad as her arms, but they still crawled and spiraled on her spine, old and new scars mixing together. Her ribs were caved in, fractured, and splintering. Her hips, marked with multiple handprints.

Her legs splayed out behind her, busted and blue. Her right kneecap smashed and her achilles tendon cut; her thighs bruised and marked, numerous teeth imprints running along her inner leg. Her calves were cut open and serrated; old cane marks littered her ankles.

It was clear the horrors she had to endure were long and unforgiving, the events of the previous night only being the most recent.

It was deathly quiet, only the howling of the wind and the rhythmic splatter of blood breaking through. There was nothing to say; there was nothing they could say. In a situation as hopeless as this, one often finds themselves reflecting on their own mortality.

Robin was the first to speak.

"Oh my god..."

Brutality was nothing new to her. She had lived her life a wanted criminal since she was a child, too 'dangerous' to be kept alive. She had witnessed the complete annihilation of her home and all those she held dear to her. She had witnessed a kingdom in the midst of war on the brink of crumbling. She had witnessed so much, gone through so much.