The Gray Prince-- Kagehina

Chapter 7: Royalty

When Hinata opened his he saw the bright warm light of the sun against his sagging wooden house. He tensed as he realized that he remembered this exact day. A couple months younger Hinata was standing on his small wooden porch, watching as a legionnaire took Noya by the arm. The boy on the porch was filled with an flaming rage in the moment and jumped off the side of the porch. Hinata tried to move his feet to stop himself in that moment long ago, but he couldn't move. The boy tackled the legionnaire and sat on top of him. He tried to get up but Hinata held his hand to his neck. The legionnaire screamed in pain as his hand left a bright red mark on his throat. "Run Noya!" He had screamed.

"No," He whispered looking down. "I can't run from this." Noya's words echoed in his mind as the legionnaire got back up and practically ran from the sagging house. A dark shadow followed haunting after Noya on terrible dark wings. The world spinned around him, and then he was falling.

A new world materialized around him, forming a shadowed landscape of smoke and ash. The DZ. He had never been there, but has heard enough to imagine it. The land was flat, pocketed with craters from a thousand falling bombs. Soldiers in stained gray uniforms hide in each of them, like water overflowing the edge of a cup. He floats past them all, searching the faces, looking for the friend he lost to smoke and shrapnel. Noya waits at the front of the line, beyond even the bravest of warriors. He stands on top of a ridge without any regard for the bombs, guns, or the enemies waiting on the other side. He even has the gall to smile at them. I can only watch when the ground beneath his feet explodes, destroying him in a plume of fire and ash. "Stop!" Hinata managed to scream, reaching for the smoke that was once his friend. The ash took shape, re-forming into the shadow. It engulfed him in darkness, until another wave of memories overtook him. The shadow dragged him through a parade of memories, all raw wounds still healing. Some of them are dreams. No, they are nightmares. His worst nightmares.

Noya's conscription. His father coming home half-dead. His sister struggling to hold the whole family on her shoulders. They blurred together, swirling colors that hurt his eyes. Hinata knew something wasn't natural about the memories. The memories move backward through the years, like he was watching his life in reverse. There are events he couldn't possibly remember: learning to speak, to walk, holding his sister for the first time. This was impossible. "Impossible?" The shadow says to him. The voice is so sharp, he feared it might crack his skull. He fell to his knees, colliding with what felt like concrete. And then they were gone. His parents, his sister, his friend, his memories, his nightmares, gone. Concrete and steel bars rose around him, creating a cruel and unforgiving cage without a lock or door. He struggled to his feet to face the blurry figure that stared at him through the metal bars. His head pounded and he could barely make out the young woman on the other side. She was extremely pale and had bright blue eyes. She was wearing a long silver dress that was covered with what looked like thousands of small needles. Hinata wondered how anyone could walk next to her without being jabbed by her dress. He fought the urge to vomit and reach out to grab the bars to help him stand up. His fists clenched around cold steel. "What did you do to me?" He growled in pain.

"Not much anymore. But this—" She reached through the bars to touch his temple. The pain tripled underneath her fingers, and he fell against the bars, barely conscious enough to hold on. "This is to keep you from doing anything stupid."

"Like what?"

"Like burn something," The memory flashed across his mind. The vine burning in his hands, everyone's shocked faces, running through large and empty halls... And Kageyama's eye's. Filled with pity and lies. "Your skin and blood is gray, and yet you have powers. You are impossible and yet, possible."