Armad saw the old man appeared to help Ikenga and it reminded him of his sister Hidáya Wilberforce.

***

1842 After Amri

A little of Armad and his sister.

In the year 1842, Armad was eight, and it was the early days of his initiation.

"Armad, by God, I'm going to beat you! Why don't you pay attention for once?" A young woman who looked very much like Armad shouted at him as they stood on a training ground.

The woman wore a red, voluminous cloak similar to that of the first people. She looked to be around 25 years old. Hanging on her right shoulder was a long, unsheathed sword with a star-shaped hilt. She was a tall woman who stood at two meters, exceedingly calm in her movements and speech which gave her a look of perfection. She was Hidaya Wilberforce, Armad's elder sister.

Armad was dressed in a white T-shirt with a red scarf on his forehead. He looked annoyed and would rather not be there if given the option.

"Alright, if you don't become a Bender then I'll just give up on you. Who will protect you when I'm not around?" Hidaya took a deep breath and shook her head. "You always like to provoke the other children in the village but you don't know how to fight. Let's see what happens if you can't defend yourself against them. Come on, let's go home, and tomorrow we will come back and continue. Do you hear me? You must learn Bending."

Hidaya turned to leave but Armad stood there, his face full of childish scorn.

"Come, let's go..." Hidaya turned and spoke to him.

"Me... my leg hurts." Armad frowned as if he was going to burst into tears.

She sighed and shook her head, clearly aware of what Armad was doing. Usually, when they went out together he would say he couldn't walk and she had to piggyback him.

"It will all be gone if you don't endure the training." With the calmness and compassion of a sibling, she turned to Armad. Whereupon she knelt and picked him up on her back and they set off.

They emerged from the darkness of the yellow guava that surrounded the training ground. Hidaya sighed and continued to show Armad the importance of persevering in his training. It seemed she wouldn't give up on him no matter what she would say.

"I want to teach you all the techniques of Wilberforce descent before it's too late. Just tell me, what do you want?"

Armad was lying on her back, something he did to his sister alone, and he said, "you know what? All I want in life is peace, for everyone to be in peace. If I grow up like you I will get married. I would have three children, all of them will look like you, and when I got older I would die on your laps with my mother and father and my children all surrounding my death bed. And when I die, you will cry and be thinking about me all day long..." he fell silent as if something had occurred to him, and in a childish fear, he raised his head and looked at his sister. "When I die, will you think about me?"

Instead of answering, she just turned around and stared at him in amazement at what he had just said. It was something that she had dreamed of several lifetimes ago.

So she just smiled and nodded "Yeah, I will remember you."

Armad seemed to be pleased with her answer as he tightened his grip on her back as if he was afraid of something that would separate him from her.

She just smiled and kept going, thinking about how she was going to protect her brother who didn't want to learn about Bending at all.

She heard his voice again, "hmmm... you know what? Let's make a promise that whoever dies first will always remember the other."

He slipped his little finger by the side of her ear in a gesture that signified the completion of the oath. She sighed and then grabbed his finger, agreeing.

He was quiet for a while, but then he said, "well if you agreed, get me some of the flowers from that garden." He pointed to a huge garden about a thousand feet from where they stood.

Even from a distance, you could see the dark shadows of the garden formed by some huge black trees. Each tree grew taller than the one before it. The garden was different from the one they'd just left; it was fenced and marked by the symbol of King Hanibal, the King of the third world and one of the five jinzidal Kings.

Hidaya frowned. "Armad, you know everything in that place belongs to Hanibal and he forbade commoners to enter."

"Yes... I know, but we will just fly over the fence and take one flower. No one will know, please, sister, please... please just this once."

She sighed with a shake of her head. "Let's go but don't touch anything."

Armad nodded.

Hidaya jumped into the sky and flew toward the garden like a winged bird. It was known that anyone with over a thousand years of pol could fly without much difficulty. Armad wasn't bothered by the flowers and he just wanted his sister to fly with him. He knew if they were to enter the garden they would have to fly.

As they soared in the sky, Armad folded his right arm around her chest and then released the other one in the air, shouting for joy. He wanted nothing more than that.

"Wuuuuuu...."

Even from a distance, you could hear him shouting at the top of his lungs, happy and excited.

"I know that's what you want. Hold me tight so you don't fall."

They landed in the middle of the garden. As she put him down, she turned to see where the flower was.

"Wait here, there are some over there." She flew toward a core in the garden.

Twenty seconds later she returned with a bouquet. But when she arrived, she saw blood on his hands.

"Who hurt you?" That was just what she asked.

Even before Armad replied, her appearance changed. A stream of golden light flowed from the sword hanging over her shoulder. A black flame burned in her eyes. Suddenly the wind blew harder and hotter and the forest howled desperately. The trees cried for mercy, something they communicated through invisible threads of immortality and longevity, but Hidaya had already plugged her ears. Even the cloak on her body changed to black, at which point she looked like the personification of death itself.

Armad trembled and took a step back. He'd never seen his sister like that. It felt as if the fire in her eyes was going to fry him alive.

He didn't know when his mouth spoke on its own. "It's that thorn." He pointed to a tree near him, shaking.

"So there is someone who can hurt my little brother in my presence... Surely it doesn't matter if you belong to Hanibal. Even you belong to the Lord King on the first world, I will destroy it." She drew her sword, whereupon three ethereal stars appeared around the yellow-colored steel. She flipped her sword and the entire garden caught fire, the same fire burning in her eyes.

Armad fainted immediately after. He didn't know what happened after that and the next time he woke up it was morning and he was in his bed. Hidaya was beside him, tussling his hair.

It was in that year that Armad's grandfather Zaikid and his sister Hidaya went on a mission. He insisted to follow them but they refused to take him with them or even tell him where they were going. Eventually, he gave up and let them go.

Two months after their departure, Professor Zaikid returned by himself. Hidaya wasn't with him but her sword was.

Armad came running and asking where his sister was, but Zaikid said nothing and just handed him the sword. While receiving the sword Armad burst into tears when he saw blood on it.

From that moment on, Armad took up the sword and decided to Bend.