His heart and head burned. Or perhaps it was the echo of the bruises on his arms, also adorned with several half-healed cuts. Those that kept company to the new ones that were emerging with each thrust. The decorations on the hilt of his sword had been digging into his palm for hours and, although he was sure of the presence of more cuts between his hands, he did not care.
No. He didn't care about anything. Nor did the austere east wind from Karasuno that crept into the city every spring as soon as the stars awoke. Nor could the call of the moon with its almost crystalline and kindly refulgence in the sky convince him to stop, to give up, to leave that corner of the royal garden in which he had been fighting for too long. For although his enemy was a sad lifeless arbutus to which he had granted a privileged pruning session as a last detail, he had been fighting more against his mind and body than against it.
His thoughts wouldn't shut up. They were thunderously entangled, spewing the same questions inside his head over and over again, the pain bouncing around every corner as he found no answers. That pain venting with each slash, the next a greater display of brutality than the last despite the complaints of his arms, legs and the fierce fire climbing up his throat with each unleashed bellow.
Nishinoya silenced it all by cleaving the blade into the dead skin of the sapling and cutting off his own breath with each impact, savoring the sweet silence that did not last a pulse.
And everything activated again as in a never-ending nightmare.
When he took a step back to reposition himself where the grass had been kneeling for hours, drawing the shape of his boots, he saw himself reflected in the dry silhouette of that arbutus tree that the last winter had condemned without warning. Lost. He was so lost.
Feeling his gaze crystallize, he blinked away the tears.
Enough was enough. They always marked the end of the bodily relief and the beginning of a rest that had been giving him little relief lately.
He allowed fatigue to flood his muscles, joining with rage, impotence and fear in a terrible gale that even as an adult crow he was not sure he knew how to get through.
He put his weapon in its scabbard and, knowing he was alone, let out a single frustrated sigh before turning around almost composed.
Not even a thought managed to torment him when he saw the light of the oil lamp carried in one hand by the man waiting for him leaning against a pillar. His gaze and feet flew in his direction almost spellbound despite how heavy his body felt.
For the captain was the only compass in the midst of the storm of those days. The only one who could carry any truth.
Nishinoya greeted him with a short nod which Daichi reciprocated by congratulating him on his effort with a brief smile.
“Any news?” he asked in a gasp, brushing his blond bangs off his sodden forehead.
After eons, here's another WIP of my YakuNoya fic! 🥳
I wonder what's occupying Noya's mind... 🤔
#yakunoya #haikyuu