THREE DAYS HAD PASSED since these swords, henceforth referred to as the Fabled Swords for the sake of simplicity and brevity, had been forged. The majority of battles between that day and the upcoming events being described were naval battles near the location where the Haiman Bridge would later be constructed to allow easier access between Medikai and Aotoshi. The most devastating of these was the Battle of Huisaegure Bay, which led to mass casualties, including three high-ranking Akuni admirals. General Abrams was standing on the bay, awaiting the possibility of Medikai landing, but their vessel’s artillery had fired into his fleet, killing him and several of his men. Either way, Oji and Kawata had their period off to do as they pleased, but could not test their weapons out in a combat setting. Within those three days, the two men acclimated to the Fabled Swords and their unwieldy size. On the fourth day, their fleet with General Hammond was directed to head toward Heiya Fields in Shinku, a small village in Akuni. At last, Oji and Kawata had an opportunity to test out their new skills.

The general battle plan had General Hammond’s fleet taking Medikai’s premiere military led by General Brandle. Hammond only had five hundred men at his disposal, while Brandle had one-thousand seven-hundred fifty, according to surviving testimony and documentation. This army, however, was a decoy, while Akuni’s top general, Linus Hodson, took two-thousand five-hundred men to surround the Medikai capital of Arcfield and force Emperor Doglib’s surrender.

After three hours, Hammond’s forces arrived at Heiya Fields. Before they could catch a good sight of the Medikai forces, however, a volley of arrows whistled through the sky and came down upon their regimen. Their forces were able to react quick enough to raise their shields and block a majority of the arrows. This was not a perfect protective formation, as thirteen men were hit and later died. The surviving four-hundred eighty-seven men charged toward the Medikai army as fast as they could to prevent another volley. Although a few volleys were fired, none were as effective as the first, only adding six more new casualties. Before a sixth volley could be fired, the allied forces of Akuni and Aotoshi had reached the range for close combat against Brandle’s men. Those present on the battlefield that day could only describe it as hell breaking loose upon the plains.

Oji and Kawata were not troubled. Finally, they had the opportunity to put the Fabled Swords to good use. Of the casualties of the battle, the first to be felled by either Fabled Sword was a Medikai marksman, whose shoulder the Omega Blade had cleaved off. When the man collapsed, blood began to pool from his arm in the spot he lay, the weeds of the field itching his exposed flesh.

Not too far from this sight, one could easily see Zero acting as a medic as he tended to the wounds of the fallen troops. Maila, as previously mentioned, have a much stronger sense of innate magic use and, as a result, Zero was able to tap into that reservoir much easier, making him a valuable force on the field in many regards. While Zero wasn’t tending to the wounds of Akuni and Aotoshi’s troops, he let his attention shift to Oji and Kawata as he tried to figure out the abilities granted by the Fabled Swords.

Upon seeing the two soldiers carving a sizable dent into their forces, eight soldiers from Medikai tried to gang up on the two juggernauts, with four men on each. Oji sustained a noticeable amount of damage, although it was not too detrimental toward him, while Kawata had seemed entirely unscathed during the encounter. Using this display as reference, he inferred that Kawata was impervious to any physical attacks on account of the Alpha Blade.

A few more minutes passed. Akuni & Aotoshi had been whittled down to roughly two-hundred seventy men, while Medikai still had about one-thousand three-hundred troops remaining. Zero looked out to the corpses of the men that Oji had slain. Beside each one, a bush of karlek roses had begun to sprout, each one seeming to be nearly identical to one-another. As he was observing this, an object flew across his field of view before appearing in the hands of a Medikai soldier. Zero recognized it as the Kaesu Dagger, a weapon he had previously forged for Aotoshi’s use. Unfortunately, it had since been obtained by Medikai and had been used to impale an Aotoshi troop, the sharp blade running through the man’s chest. The man holding the blade threw the Kaesu dagger once again, this time toward Kawata. He had tried to dodge out of the way of the attack, but was not able to prevent the blade from making a deep laceration against his left arm.

The sight confused Zero for a moment. Had the Alpha Blade not made Kawata immune to any physical damage? That was when he realized the missing variable that allowed the Kaesu Dagger to work against Kawata where other weapons had failed: garnium.

When Zero finally put this together, the Medikai army had begun to overpower Oji and Kawata. Only one-hundred and eighty men remained between Akuni and Aotoshi, while Medikai still had at least a thousand. Many men on Akuni and Aotoshi’s side had not yet perished, however, and so Zero went over to heal one of their axmen. Just as he was starting to do so, Oji had been flung back toward Zero.

“Touch them with your rock already, dammit!” he yelled out to his comrade.

“I can’t!” Zero replied. “I used it all to make your weapons!”

Zero realized that taking a passive position in this battle was no longer feasible. He unsheathed his claymore from his back, a weapon which he had not intended to draw during his time on the mainland of Crenon, and began to fight back against Medikai alongside Zero and Kawata. The rest of the troops in Akuni and Aotoshi had been able to knock down the number of men in Medikai’s ranks fairly well. During this time, General Hammond had seen that his men had been whittled down all the way to a mere fifty-two men. There were rumors that they had been considering retreating at this time, with the situation looking as dire as it was, but a saving grace came when General Brandle caught news of General Hodson’s raid on Arcfield, deploying four-hundred of his men to retreat and assist those in the city. In that moment, the situation had become only slightly less dire, and only after receiving a message from Hodson to press onward did Hammond decide to continue fighting. The remaining Medikai troops, numbering just over five-hundred men, circled around the last few men of their opponents, slowly closing in on them. Oji and Kawata, bracing for their deaths, closed their eyes, flinching as the yells of the troops had reached their peak.

Just before the two would have been impaled however, something changed about them. Their eyes had thrown themselves open, revealing that Oji’s eyes had turned a shade of pure white and no visible pupils. Kawata’s eyes, although also lacking any pupils, had become the inverse, a deep shade of black. The two put all of their force to create an opening and allow their fellow men an escape route. Finally, they had plowed through a tight grouping of about fifty men to create an entrance as wings appeared on their backs. Oji’s wings resembled that of a dove, while Kawata’s was more evocative of a raven.

The two men had been revitalized, fighting even harder than previously. They seemed to have healed themselves of all of their injuries that they had sustained in combat. Zero ushered the remaining thirty-six men out from the encirclement, allowing them to retreat. Arrows were shot toward the retreating fleet, but they would not hit on account of the remaining shield wall that provided constant shelter toward the rest of the troops. About two-hundred of those troops began to give chase, while the other two-hundred fifty men stayed to take on Oji and Kawata.

Zero stood on the sidelines, fighting off the occasional troop that tried to attack him, all the while witnessing the hell that Oji and Kawata rained down upon their enemies. It had become difficult for Zero to even track their movements across the plains.

“This strength!” he remarked. “This speed! Such a caliber of power had never been possessed by man before. They have become more.”

Zero has since described this state of power as “Suornha”, which derives itself from a term in the maila language roughly translating to “divinity”.

At nearly the same time, six hours after the Battle of Heiya Fields began, both General Brandle and Lieutenant Commander Hadnag Rendeley, who was taking charge of the men in Arcfield, surrendered to their forces. As the last one-hundred ninety-six men from Medikai retreated, Zero turned to Kawata, bewildered by their success despite the odds being stacked so heavily against them. What he saw only added to his bewilderment.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Kawata joked as the flesh on his left arm fell onto the tall prairie grass, creating a soft thud, not much louder than a footstep.

“Kawata!” Zero exclaimed in horror. “Your skin is melting off!”

Kawata looked toward his left arm and deactivated Suornha. All of the tissue that had previously fallen off of his body rejoined to him, spreading from as far as Zero’s eyes could see in each direction of the plains. The only part that had not regenerated was the large gash on his left arm from where the Kaesu Dagger had hit him.

“That’s just disgusting,” Zero remarked, trying his best to keep himself from vomiting at the thought of grass being permanently stuck under Kawata’s skin.

To Zero’s left, Oji gave a slight chuckle, having already deactivated Suornha. Oji, Kawata, and Zero then went back to their barracks to meet back up with the rest of their regimen.

A few hours after the three of them arrived back in Jidi, the news had traveled across Crenon. Emperor Christopher Doglib of Medikai had officially surrendered, thus ending the Great Trifecta War on November 18th, 1966. Peace negotiations between Emperor Alexander Kral of Aotoshi and King Maximus Okibo of Akuni were currently underway, taking place in Juatong, Aotoshi at the Brass Gate Inn. After five grueling years, the conflict had finally been put to an end.

Within their respective nations, Oji Kenshi and Kawata Mujihina were hailed as war heroes for their incredible combat prowess and undeniable courage displayed during their time in the war, most notably in the Battle of Heiya Fields. The authenticity of their claims about growing wings and gaining immense power, however, fell under scrutiny from several historians who had not been present. No evidence of these events taking place had been captured, save eyewitness testimony and the documentations of Zeronius Kantoku III in his journal, but the story had been widely considered a tall tale since that day.

❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎

A few months after the treaties had been signed, Oji, Kawata, and Zero arranged a meeting with one another to hang out once again. They decided to meet at Carlin John’s, a steakhouse in the Akuni capital of Acophis. Zero ordered a ribeye, medium well, while Oji and Kawata ordered Beijuken steak, a variety of beef known for being especially fatty and having a richer taste than common cattle. The two veterans dug into their meal.

“I have to admit,” Oji remarked with a piece of meat still in his mouth, “Beijuken steak makes my heart melt.”

“So do dudes,” Kawata snidely added. Just as he said this, he and Oji both caught sight of a woman, seeming to be in her early-to-mid twenties. The lady wore her light brown hair in a bob, only one of her silver eyes peeking out from the left side. She wore a lavender dress with large, off-shoulder sleeves. She sat alone at a table nearby. The two men blushed at the sight of her, enamored by her beauty. Zero, however, saw the two men’s expression and knew what was to come. He tried his hardest to focus solely on his meal to ignore his friends forgetting about the prophecy they had told him of.

“Kawata,” Oji said as he turned toward his accomplice. “Do you see what I see?”

“Something better than Beijuken steak…” Kawata nodded as they walked over to her table.

Zero, knowing that the die had been cast, put his face in his hand with a sound that seemed to be a mix of a sigh and a groan before finishing his meal and leaving, giving a tip of about a thousand Akuni Haukens.

The two men sat across from the lady as she looked at her menu, her eyes darting across the page to find something enticing to eat. A few seconds passed before she noticed the two men.

“Oh!” she said, responding to their presence. “Hello.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” Oji began, “but we couldn’t resist coming over to chat with you. I’m Oji.”

“And I’m Kawata,” his friend interjected in his usual flamboyant style, “brave soldier of the Aotoshi army.”

His cockiness caused the lady to let out a giggle.

“Nice to meet you, gentlemen,” she replied. “I’m Seyun Wakeru, formerly of Medikai, now of Akuni. I couldn’t stand Doglib, to be honest with you. Once the sieges began, I knew I wanted to be anywhere but under his thumb.” She paused for a moment before turning to the two men.

“I hope those remarks didn’t catch you off guard. A lot of people back in Jesswood didn’t really like it when I talked about politics.”

“No, it’s alright with us,” Oji stated. “I’m from Akuni, so I could care less what you say about the Emperor of Medikai.”

“We’re just glad to have been of assurance to someone of your stature,” Kawata added.

By this time, Zero had returned to his room in Murasakino, Akuni. After the Great Trifecta War ended, King Okibo enlisted him to work as the leading commander of the Akuni military. He opened up his journal once again and began to write, continuing his documentations of the events during his stay in Crenon.

“I know that those two heroes, the two of which are the focus of this part of my journal, have fallen for this woman. I also know that this love triangle will end with the death of their friendship. Maybe the prophecy wasn’t a lie. The best I can do now is wait until destiny forces itself upon us. Who knows what may happen from this point onward?

“I had promised them on the night that I forged the Fabled Swords that I would not allow any wielder of the weapon to have too much power over another. Because of this, I have elected to donate the other two weapons forged that night, Brildingjr and the Nukenai Bow, to an honest man from Kimura named Kashikoi Masuta. I trust that he will decide the best course of action for these weapons. As for the Kaesu Dagger, I am confident that I need not donate it to him, as it was destroyed during the Battle of Heiya Fields, rendering it impossible for a Kenshi or a Mujihina to use.”

He closed the journal before placing it in the top left drawer of his desk. He turned out the light in his room, sitting in the darkness for a brief moment. He lit the fireplace, providing a bit of warmth on that chilly February night before walking over to his bed and going to sleep should he be needed for the next day.