Chapter Text
^.^
Kira could hear the crowd roaring, the sound was being amplified by the tunnels. It did not shake him or set him hopping from foot to foot. Kira only rolled his shoulders - once, twice.
And he waited.
The noise barreled through the grimy halls, flooding the prep room. This underground warren was run by Gilbert Durandal, a mob boss who forced men, women, and children to fight in bloodied pits for profit.
It didn’t matter who his opponent was tonight. Kira intended to win. They were all the same—either underground thrill-seekers or those like him, forced to fight to pay their debts.
The problem wasn’t the fighting itself. It was the atmosphere. Inside the cage, everything changed. There were no rules. Fighters could bring whatever weapons they pleased, with only one intention—kill or be killed. Swords, daggers, axes—he had seen them all.
Kira never objected when Gilbert assigned him a fight. It was a delicate balance he walked with the dark-haired mobster. He fought to keep questions about his loyalty at bay, to earn his freedom. He had only one rule: never risk Cagalli’s life.
These fights were for her after all. Every one of them.
Three years had passed since Kira joined the underground organization known as The Destiny League of Assassins—the same day he had "proven" himself to Gilbert Durandal. He and Cagalli had been fifteen when their parents were murdered in Orb. He knew that much. But the details of that night—how they escaped, how they ended up on the run—were a blur, swallowed by the haze of fractured memories.
All he knew for certain was that Cagalli had been sick and wounded, and he had done everything in his power to keep her safe. He believed they had fled into the streets, desperation driving him to find help. But before he could get them out of the damp alley, Gilbert found them. The man had been impressed by Kira’s tenacity and promised them refuge.
Only, that refuge came with a price.
To pay for Cagalli’s medical aid, Kira had taken on a debt—a debt he hadn’t realized the weight of until it was too late. With no money to pay it off, he was forced to fight. Until his debt was cleared, he wouldn’t be allowed to see her.
A voice echoed down the hall, pulling Kira from his thoughts. The match emcee was announcing the fight. He exhaled slowly as he walked forward.
The titles didn’t matter. Neither did the inked marks slashing down his shoulder blades—twenty-seven in total.
Undefeated.
A guard swung open the door, unleashing the full force of the crowd’s roar. Kira squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and stepped into the ring.
Let the bloodying begin.
^.^
He limped back to his quarters, every ounce of focus spent keeping his hands steady as he fumbled for his keys and slid them into the lock.
Three sentries flanked him, their presence a silent warning—weakness would not go unnoticed. He couldn’t afford to falter. Not until the damned door was shut and he had a moment to breathe.
The fight had dragged on too long. His opponent hadn’t been skilled, but he was big—twice Kira’s weight. And when desperation set in, the man’s blows had landed hard. Kira had endured worse, but the sword wound he’d taken halfway through the match was deep, slicing through skin and muscle. In the ring, he hadn’t let himself think about it. Now, with every step, the pain gnawed at him.
But he’d won. Not by brute strength, but because he was smarter. When the injuries started piling up and the sword lodged in his leg, he had turned his opponent’s size against him, using physics and agility where brute force failed.
It was how he survived. Kira was flexible, precise—his style built on endurance rather than raw power. And unlike the others, he never killed. He won by beating his opponents into submission, forcing them to yield rather than ending their lives.
His opponents, however, never showed him the same mercy. Because in the ring, to kill meant walking away debt-free.
Kira had never killed in the ring—he refused to. No matter how brutal the fight became, he always stopped just short, beating his challengers into submission rather than taking their lives. The thought of killing made something deep inside him recoil, though he couldn't quite explain why. Perhaps it was instinct, or maybe a lingering piece of himself he refused to let the ring take. His opponents, however, never showed him the same mercy. For them, killing meant walking away debt-free, and desperation often made them ruthless.
He finally unlocked the damned door and stumbled inside, shutting it behind him with a quiet click. His quarters were little more than a glorified cell—a single room in the underground slums, his prison. A stove, a bathroom, and a bed. That was all he had. All he needed. At least, that’s what he told himself.
In the dim light, he moved toward the loose floorboard beneath his bed, kneeling with a pained grunt. His makeshift first-aid kit lay hidden there, cobbled together over time from whatever he could scavenge—cloth ripped from fallen opponents’ uniforms, flasks of alcohol smuggled from the ring, and needles and thread pilfered from wherever he could find them.
His fingers trembled as he pried open a flask, the faint scent of liquor burning his nose. Gritting his teeth, he peeled off his tattered, blood-soaked pants, revealing the gash across his thigh. It was deep—too deep. He knew it needed proper stitches, but medical treatment meant debt, and debt was another chain he refused to bear.
With a sharp inhale, he tilted the flask over his wound.
The alcohol hit raw flesh like fire. His muscles locked up, breath shuddering as he clenched his jaw to keep from crying out. White-hot pain seared through him, sweat beading on his brow as he rode out the agony.
No choice but to stitch it up himself.
With painstaking care, he sterilized a needle over the small flame of his stove, his hands unsteady as he threaded it with shaking fingers. He forced himself to slow down—rushing would only make it worse. Holding his breath, he positioned the needle over the torn skin.
The first puncture sent a jolt through his leg, his vision swimming as he exhaled shakily. He kept going, stitch by agonizing stitch, pulling the wound closed with untrained but practiced hands. His fingers cramped from the effort, sweat dripping from his temple as he worked through the pain. Every pull of the thread felt like he was tearing himself apart just to piece himself back together.
By the time he finished, his body was wrung out, his skin clammy with exhaustion. He tied off the stitches with a strip of cloth, but when he cinched it tight, a sharp pain ripped through him, and a strangled yelp escaped his lips before he could swallow it down.
Breathing hard, he wiped his forehead, forcing himself to move. He pulled on a pair of clean shorts and leaned back against the bed, his leg still pulsing with pain. The alcohol would have to be enough to keep infection at bay.
With any luck, by morning, he’d still have his leg.
Kira groaned through the pain as he propped himself up, eyes squinting against the haze that clouded his thoughts. The sharp ache in his leg made it hard to focus, but he couldn't ignore the presence of someone in the doorway. He didn't know how long Gilbert Durandal had been standing there, but it didn’t matter. Gilbert had a way of appearing when least expected.
"I see you've suffered an injury," Gilbert said coolly, stepping inside without waiting for permission. His gaze flicked over Kira's bloodied leg with a raised eyebrow. "Looks pretty bad."
"It’s not," Kira gritted his teeth, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "What do you want? I won the fight tonight."
Gilbert smirked, clearly amused. "Yes, you most certainly did. I'm not surprised. You bludgeoned him with the hilt of your sword so badly, he might never fully heal."
Kira let out a breath, looking away. It was true, but it wasn't his problem anymore. His fight, his survival—that was all that mattered.
Gilbert, however, wasn’t here to talk about the fight. "I have a new assignment for you," he said with a sly grin. "And I think you’ll be quite intrigued by it."
Kira tensed, already bracing for the worst. "I’m not killing anyone."
Gilbert chuckled, a cold smile curling on his lips. "Oh, I have a feeling once you hear the terms, you might just want to kill your target. I'm even willing to give you freedom—and your sister’s—if you do."
Kira’s pulse quickened, a mix of disbelief and caution clouding his thoughts. Gilbert had never offered him this kind of deal before. The truth was, having Kira fight in the ring—bringing in money, keeping him under control—had always been the better deal for Gilbert. Why else would he have kept him alive all this time, fighting every night, increasing his debts, but never quite enough to break him? The system had always been one of profit for Gilbert. Every fight, every blow Kira landed, filled Gilbert’s pockets.
This... this felt different. And Kira could smell the trap, but the possibility of freedom—true freedom for both him and his sister—made the air around him feel tight, suffocating.
"You've never offered this before," Kira muttered, trying to piece it together. "Why now?"
Gilbert's smile widened, almost predatory. "Because your value in the ring is diminishing, Kira, and I’m not a fool. There's something else, something far more valuable than what you bring in here. The mission I'm offering you... it pays far better than your blood ever could."
The words hung in the air, heavy with implication. Kira knew better than to trust Gilbert, this was a different kind of offer—a chance to erase everything, every debt, with one act. It was dangerous. It was risky. However, the alternative—staying trapped in this cycle of violence and debt—was something he couldn’t stomach anymore.
Kira’s stomach dropped. He looked up at Gilbert, his face pale, unable to shake the nagging feeling that this offer was too good to be true. He didn’t believe it for a second. Not when he knew exactly how much money he brought in for the ring. There was no way Gilbert would let him go that easily.
Gilbert leaned forward, eyes gleaming with cruel satisfaction. "Yes, you heard me correctly. Isn't that what you've been fighting for all this time? Your freedom? I’m offering it to you—if you succeed."
Kira swallowed, carefully choosing his words, his voice hoarse. "And if I don’t?"
Gilbert’s smile never wavered, there was an edge to his voice. "Well, that's simple. You fail, and you die. Your sister, on the other hand... well, I’m sure you can guess what happens to her. So, the question is, Kira: are you willing to take the risk?"
The threat wasn’t empty, not in the least. Kira could feel the weight of it settle on him, cold and suffocating. The thought of Cagalli, of what she might endure if he failed, was more than he could bear. He knew exactly what Gilbert meant: Madam Kullinae’s brothel.
He'd heard the rumors. The brothel wasn’t just a place for selling flesh; it was a cage, a trap. Women and girls forced into servitude, used and discarded by those with power and money. And Cagalli—his sister, who had never known anything but the life he’d fought to protect her from—would be thrown into that pit if he didn’t succeed.
Even as the image of that nightmare gripped his mind, Kira knew something else. He didn’t know for certain that Cagalli was safe, not yet, he knew Gilbert. The man never broke a deal. If Gilbert had said there would be consequences, Kira had no doubt that those consequences would be carried out. No matter how much Kira hated the thought, the cold certainty in Gilbert’s voice told him that failure meant exactly what he’d been warned.
That fact, horrifying as it was, was the only thing that made the weight of the threat feel real. And it was the one thing that made Kira realize that, as much as he wanted to resist, he had no choice. He had to succeed. Failure wasn’t an option—not if he wanted to keep his sister out of that hell.
Kira’s breath caught in his throat, his heart slamming against his ribcage. His hands trembled, his fists clenching as the image of his sister being dragged into that nightmare consumed his thoughts.
"No," he whispered, barely a breath. "You can’t... You can’t do that to her."
Gilbert’s eyes gleamed with a cold satisfaction, watching Kira’s fear unfold. He raised a hand, almost dismissively, as if the consequences were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
"I won’t go to those measures unless you fail," he said, his tone mocking, like he was explaining a simple fact of life. "But there is a catch."
Kira’s pulse quickened, a mix of anger and panic rising in his chest. He couldn’t afford to fail—not now, not with Cagalli’s fate on the line. There had to be another way. There had to be something he could do to avoid this nightmare.
Gilbert’s gaze darkened, his voice dropping lower. "You are to leave for this mission tonight. Enlist in the ZAFT Military Academy."
Kira blinked, his mind still reeling from the thought of his sister being sold to that brothel. The words didn’t register immediately. Military? ZAFT?
"Military Academy?" Kira finally managed to say, confusion and disbelief lacing his voice. "Why?"
Gilbert eyed him like a predator savoring the moment before the kill. "Yes. Because after you finish there, you will ascend into the Prince’s Guard."
Kira’s brain stuttered, trying to process the information. The Prince's Guard? He had heard of the royal families, they were a distant, almost mythical concept to him—figures from a world he would never have access to. The Zala family was one name he remembered vaguely from his childhood, whispers from the border between Orb and the PLANTS. His father had taken him there when he was just twelve, during the last throes of the war. The memory was faint, clouded by the chaos of that time, but the sounds of battle, the sharpness of the swords clashing, stayed with him. The Zala family had been rumored to be nearby, he had never actually seen them.
But now, Gilbert’s words brought it all crashing back.
"The man you’ve been hired to kill is the Crown Prince, Athrun Zala. Do that, and you have your freedom."
Kira’s mind whirled. The Crown Prince? The Zala family? What did Gilbert want with him? What had this all been leading to?
He wanted to argue, to refuse. All he could see was Cagalli’s face, haunted by the idea of her being dragged into the horrors of that brothel. That was the deal: success meant his freedom and hers. Failure meant her being trapped in a living hell. Kira didn’t know what was more terrifying—the mission itself or the thought of her being lost to that fate.
His options were slim. He could risk it all for a chance at freedom or live in the nightmare Gilbert had threatened. And in that moment, Kira realized—no matter how impossible it seemed, he didn’t have a choice.
^.^