Kazuki wandered aimlessly through the city when suddenly a poorly dressed boy leapt onto him.

  “Ah! What are you doing?! Get off me!” Kazuki shouted, both startled and annoyed.

  “What’s this? You don’t even have a single bronze coin in your pocket! You’re even poorer than I am,” the boy scoffed and was about to walk away.

  But Kazuki grabbed his arm.

  The moment he touched the boy, that wave of foreign memories, thoughts, and pain hit him again, they weren’t his own. The pain struck like lightning. Gasping, he collapsed.

  “Ah! That hurts! Please stop… ah, my back…”

  The agony that flooded him was so intense, he lost consciousness.

  When Kazuki opened his eyes, he was lying on a pile of hay in an old, dusty warehouse. The same boy from earlier stood over him.

  “Well, finally awake?” the boy asked with crossed arms, tossing him a piece of old bread with obvious reluctance.

  Kazuki, whose stomach had been empty for hours, immediately bit into it, only to choke on it.

  “Ow! Are you seriously telling me this is bread?! This is a cannonball!”

  The boy grimaced. “Go die! I give you some of my food and you complain?! You’re really ungrateful!”

  “How can I not complain when you throw something this hard at my head?! I could’ve died!” Kazuki replied, clearly annoyed.

  “Then give it back,” the boy growled and reached for the bread.

  Kazuki pulled back. “No, it’s fine! I’ll eat it… somehow.”

  “See? That’s more like it.”

  The tone stayed rough, but it wasn’t truly hostile, more like tough street friendliness.

  “I’m Sebastian. Fifteen. That’s all you need to know for now. And you?”

  “Kazuki Hoshikawa. Seventeen. I’m from… a faraway land. But that doesn’t matter.”

  Sebastian furrowed his brow. “Hey… why did you scream earlier when you touched me? And throw yourself to the ground? What was that about?”

  Kazuki remembered. The pain. The images. Without warning, his stomach turned again. He bent over and vomited.

  “Hey! Are you nuts?! You’re wasting all the bread, you idiot!” Sebastian shouted in horror.

  “Shut up, you moron. My head…” Kazuki groaned, trying to gather himself. The memories were still there, foreign, cruel, disturbing.

  “What did you say?! You’re the idiot!” Sebastian snapped and reached into his jacket.

  Kazuki raised his hands in peace. “Hey! Think! Don’t do anything rash, okay?”

  Sebastian only pulled out a piece of cloth, nothing dangerous. Kazuki sighed in relief.

  “But seriously… what are you doing alone in the alleys at night? Are you crazy? You should be glad you ran into me, it could’ve been a lot worse.”

  Kazuki was about to reply, but then he was hit by another wave of foreign memories. Blood, beatings, screams, a dark shadow, a murder. Images from Sebastian’s life, or someone else’s. His body twitched, his skin turned pale.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet. You okay?” Sebastian asked, now genuinely concerned.

  “I’m fine,” Kazuki lied quickly.

  Sebastian seemed doubtful but didn’t press further. Instead, he changed the subject.

  “But seriously… what are you doing in this country that’s on the brink of collapse?”

  Kazuki was about to answer when a new memory flashed: burning cities, desperate soldiers, the banner of Estana torn by the wind. War.

  “I honestly don’t really know…” Kazuki murmured. “But I want to travel the land. Somehow… I feel like I have to.”

  “You’re crazy. No clue about anything, and off on a journey. And broke, too. Tch.”

  “So, how can I thank you?” Kazuki asked.

  Sebastian scratched his head. “Well… it’s not like you can pay me. But… wait… I’ve got it!”

  “What?” Kazuki asked, curious.

  “Just take me with you. On your big journey,” Sebastian suggested, half-jokingly.

  Kazuki grinned. “Deal!”

  “All right… but now go to sleep. We leave tomorrow.”

  Kazuki nodded and curled back into the hay. But sleep didn’t come easy. Thoughts swirled in his head: What are these foreign memories? Why does he feel their pain so clearly? And… whose voice is whispering in his dreams?

  In his dream, Kazuki saw himself, but not as he was. He saw himself in a female form, with pitch-black eyes that pierced through him.

  “What will you do?” she whispered.

  Kazuki stepped back. “Who… who are you?! Why are you whispering these strange things to me?!”

  “Beware. War brings destruction. I don’t want you to be taken from me…”

  “Hey! I want answers!” Kazuki shouted desperately. But she vanished into the mist.

  When Kazuki blinked, it was morning.

  Sebastian was already awake and grinning.

  “Come on, dumbass! Let’s get moving!”

  “Yeah yeah, wait up… I’m hurrying,” Kazuki muttered sleepily.

  They set off. Kazuki’s goal was to leave the kingdom. Their first destination: Velbrunn, a village near the border to Astrye, still within Estana.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  But before they could even leave the capital, they were ambushed in a dark alley.

  A large, ragged man with wild hair and a crazed look stepped out in front of them. “Stop right there, you little rats! Hand over everything you’ve got!” he roared, drawing a rusty knife.

  Kazuki instinctively backed away, almost stumbling. What do I do?! What do I do?! His hands trembled. His breath quickened. This wasn’t a video game. Not a schoolyard fight. This was real.

  “Damn it…” Sebastian growled, pulling a dagger from his jacket in a flash. Without hesitation, he charged small, but fast like an arrow.

  The dagger flashed as he dodged the homeless man’s first strike with ease.

  “Kazuki! Get back!”

  “Kazuki! Get back!” Sebastian shouted again, delivering a swift kick to the attacker’s knee. The man stumbled, cursed, and swung wildly too slow. Sebastian ducked, rolled, and came up behind him. Then, without pause, he stabbed.

  A piercing scream cut through the night as the blade sank into the man’s side. Blood dripped onto the dirty ground. But the guy was tough he grabbed Sebastian by the collar and lifted him off the ground.

  “You little bastard! I’ll rip your head off!”

  “Let him go!!” Kazuki shouted without thinking his body moved on its own. He grabbed a broken piece of wood nearby, ran forward, and struck. Not very hard, but enough to throw the man off balance.

  Sebastian seized the moment. With a wild cry, he plunged the dagger into the homeless man’s body a second time, this time deep into his shoulder. The man screamed, staggered back, and collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. Wounded, but alive.

  Sebastian stood there, panting. Blood clung to his weapon, his eyes wide, adrenaline surging through his veins. Kazuki stared at him in shock, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  "You... you really did it..." he stammered.

  Sebastian looked down at the dagger in his hand. It trembled slightly, but his face remained expressionless.

  "If I hadn’t done it, we’d be dead right now."

  The homeless man lay on the ground, wheezing. Maybe he would survive, maybe not, it didn’t matter in that moment. The flickering light of a nearby streetlamp cast long, distorted shadows over the alleyway.

  "Welcome to the reality of this world, Kazuki," Sebastian said in a hoarse voice. "Here, you kill, or you get killed."

  He turned away, took a deep breath, and added quietly, "So stop crying, it won’t help you."

  Kazuki stayed silent. His fingers trembled. But before they could move on, he knelt beside the wounded man. He wanted to say goodbye, or maybe just understand. His hand touched the man’s cold skin, and then it happened again.

  A storm of foreign emotions crashed down on him. Guilt, remorse, fear, despair, not his own suffering, but that of another. But this time, it wasn’t just pain. It was a deep, crushing sense of guilt. As if he himself had dozens of lives on his conscience.

  Kazuki cried out and collapsed forward, right into the pool of blood. The adrenaline wore off, and suddenly he felt everything. The cold, the fear, the weight of what had happened.

  He couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  Like a child, he began to sob and scream uncontrollably.

  Later, once Kazuki had calmed down, the two continued on their way. The next safe place was three days’ march away. They barely spoke a word to each other.

  In the days that followed, they encountered no one, neither friend nor foe. It was as if the world itself had pulled away for a moment. But the calm was deceptive.

  Because on the final night before their arrival, it returned the voice.

  Kazuki dreamed.

  He stood in an empty world, surrounded by mist. And there it was, the mysterious being that had haunted him before. A female silhouette, floating in the haze.

  "So you really want it?" Her voice was gentle, but sad. "You know a war demands many sacrifices."

  "What are you talking about?! What am I even supposed to want?" Kazuki shouted. "Why don’t you explain what all of this means, these dreams, these voices, this feeling of being someone else!"

  "You’ll understand," she replied softly. "When the time is right."

  Then she vanished. And Kazuki awoke.

  The sun had already risen. The final day of their journey began quietly, almost too quietly.

  By the time they reached the village, it was evening. The two boys found shelter in an old, abandoned barn and fell asleep at once, exhausted from the road.

  But in the middle of the night, Kazuki was rudely awakened.

  "Hey... wake up." Sebastian’s voice sounded alarmed. "I smell blood."

  Thanks so much for reading Chapter 2 – Two Paths, One Beginning. I really enjoyed writing this one because it’s the first time Kazuki truly connects with someone in this strange new world. Sebastian might seem rough around the edges, but there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye (and yes, that bread was criminally hard ??).