After about two weeks' worth of diligent work, they managed to temper all the weapons and fuse the soul gems. Unfortunately the process had weakened the consciousness of Hayato and the others which limited their ability to interact with Takaru and the team. Ysurill and the former Magia were still fully capable of lending their power to Takaru and the others.

“So this is the extent to which Magia kind has advanced in the time we’ve been away. It's truly amazing to see. So Sentient arms, as you call them, are able to calculate the formula and generate the glyphs automatically at will rather than having to manually scrawl them on a surface to cast spells.” Ysurill said to Takaru.

“Yeah, it is rather impressive to see. Imagine what it's like for someone who has never seen it before. I was like that when I first saw Magia technology as a little boy. I hope this winds up working out favorably.” he replied to her telepathically.

“The biggest advantage is that Sentient arm AI’s can provide tactical information and assistance via telepathic link to the wielder. It also allows the activation of spells and abilities without verbal commands which can provide tactical advantage to the wielder in situations where stealth is required.” Takaru continued as he sat there in bed having been woken up by Ysurill’s abrupt interjection.

“My apologies for waking you. But if nothing less this will leave a decent amount of the morning to allow you some time to adapt to my powers, while the “Barrier armor” as you call it is a serviceable facsimile of my power you and your friends have yet to wield the true power your bloodlines have inherited.” she said to Takaru as he started to get out of bed.

Takaru said “Alright let’s see what we can do.” as he drew the sword from its sheath and made his way out to a training field on the temple grounds that surrounded the shrine. One of the students of the dojo which protected the village.

“The priestess mentioned you and your sword. While you’ve inherited the powers of the great dragon, you need the knowledge of the school we’ve built around her teachings in order to truly use it effectively.” the man said as he drew a sword and began to square off with him

Takaru stood there wondering what spurred this challenge, he worried about using the full extent of his power on someone who seemed to be a normal person, so he decided to start off fighting him sword to sword.

“I’m here to test you, on behalf of the dojo to see if you’re truly worthy of the gift bestowed unto you. I may not look it but I can easily match up to you, even with your advanced technology. All of the progress in the world can’t break the will of the ancient traditions that reside here.” he said calmly as he began to charge at Takaru

They began to trade blows with each other, to Takaru’s surprise it seemed like he was actually severely out matched in terms of swordplay.

“I’ve heard about the powerful techniques you wield but are they backed up by any actual skill or are they just for show?” he said as he parried Takaru’s attacks and quickly got himself into a dominant position with the side of his sword’s blade to Takaru’s throat.

Ysurill began to manifest in spirit form around them.

“Takaru, I can sense your hesitation to fight this young man due to the nature of your apparent power difference so I will lend him my power so you may use your Barrier Armor and not forcibly restrain yourself. But be wary, your raw power won’t win you a fight against a skilled opponent, you need to train to harness the power you have and temper yourself as your blade has been tempered.” she said as her draconic body slithered into the young man and the armor began to form around him.

The young man said a small prayer giving thanks to Ysurill for her gift before letting Takaru return to a standing position so he could call his armor.

Takaru walked over to the opposing side of the ring and raised the sword drawing a circle in the air above him as a portal of light appeared above him and his barrier armor flew through the portal onto him sheathed in light for a few moments before fading to reveal its colors.

----

The fight went back and forth for nearly the whole morning. By this point a large crowd had formed to watch, including several of the higher ranking members of the dojo and the rest of the main team.

It seemed as though between the two of them they could fight nearly forever. Neither of them seemed to show the slightest of fatigue as the midday sun rose over the horizon. The young man raised his sword and said, “Let me show you the power of the great sky dragon.” the blade began to shimmer and it seemed as though it was pulling in light.

For the first time in the fight Takaru finally began to see the young man’s spirit energy begin to seep out into view. Takaru was a strange pressure building in the air, it was like the air around him was getting heavier and the density was making it hard to breath.

The young man turned the blade so that its cutting edge was facing forward and the blade gave off a piercing glint of light as he said “Dragon Fist Hidden Art, RyuuKou Giri!” as he rushed forward with an image of Ysurill in dragon form behind him

When he passed Takaru he slashed across his stomach as a flash of light and spirit energy blinked past him. Takaru felt the wave rip past him with a searing sensation, it knocked him off balance as the young man whipped his sword around and slashed at his back and shoulder before dispelling the remaining spirit energy and allowing the attack to explode as he sheathed his blade.

Takaru fell over and felt his body go limp as the pain began to wash over him. “That’s the power that the great dragon wields in the hands of a true swordsman.” he said as he stepped away from Takaru leaving him to decide how things would go from there.

While Takaru could feel his body giving into exhaustion, he didn’t want to give in. Not out of pride or greed for the power, but simply because he knew he had more to do than lose this fight. His Sentient Arm began to load a few ACS cartridges.

Takaru made his way shakily to his feet as the *chunk* noise came from the magazine and it ejected it before slotting in another one as the Sentient arm continued to cycle cartridges. His body began to glow with a bright and noticeable aura. He locked eyes with the swordsman and said “I know you’re vastly more well trained than I am, that technique was all the show I needed for that. But I seek this power to bring peace back to this world which hasn’t seen it for nearly twenty years. I have to make that next leap and evolve beyond what I am right now to do that, and if the first step to that is defeating you then I will.” but as frustrated as he was with himself inside he took a deep breath and began to calm down as he drew his sword.

“While you have some deeply rooted frustrations, you also seem content in your resolve to succeed. I’m impressed at the calm deliberate motions you’re making.” the young man replied as he studied Takaru’s movements noting the very focused and almost eerily calm way he was moving and pacing himself.

Takaru struck a defensive stance as an amplification glyph formed around his feet. The swordsman stood there reading another of his attacks. “I guess this exchange will decide things since it seems like we’re both at our limit.” he said as Takaru nodded silently acknowledging the challenge.

After a few moments of preparation they dashed at each other blinking out of view as they would have met and appeared on the opposing side of each other as a pair of white flashes blinked between them with gusts of wind flowing around them kicking up dust.

When it had settled they both fell to the ground with no clear winner. Their armors faded and Ysurill returned to Takaru.

Hikari and the others came down and helped the students by taking them to the infirmary. Takaru heard Ysurill beginning to speak in the back of his mind.

“Takaru, I can tell you put more than just those amplification cartridges into that fight. You’d found something in him you hadn’t had a challenge from someone who beat you purely on skill that you couldn’t beat with power alone. While the fight ended evenly, it's clear you need to put some effort into studying here. The vast amounts of raw power you have will only get you so far. You need skills to put that potential to its full use. That final strike you landed seemed to be a reflection of that, you took a brief moment to think over the technique he used and tried to analyze it and make it your own. If you apply that to your training you could learn the true dragon fist with little more than the devotion of time. Do you think you’d concede to at least trying it?” she said. as a visage of him faded into existence in the empty space of his mind.

Takaru nodded and agreed to the advice. “It did seem like that last attack of mine was a lot more clear and decisive. How long do you think the training would take, I’d rather avoid taking too long to find my way to the Admiral’s headquarters because he’s the one that’s been causing all these problems for Valin.” he replied as Ysurill stood there contemplating her response.

“It isn’t for me to tell, that fact depends on you.” she replied stoically. “But you should know that the young man is also of the Inara bloodline. He’s not of the royal line because there was a split many generations ago. But I still see great potential in him and his line. That's one of the few reasons he had any advantage over you. His skill and connection to the Inara bloodline grants him more power than most would have wielding my armor.” she said, letting out a sigh knowing Takaru could use a rest after that fight.

-----

A few months later

Takaru and the team had spent time training with the students of the dojo, Takaru’s experience there was made a bit more interesting by the small rivalry he’d developed with the young man he’d fought.

His name was Hiroshi “Hiro” Inara, he was a skilled swordsman and the leader of the Blue Dragon Dojo. It was believed by most of the village that he would be the one to inherit the power of the Fierce Dragon Blade in the time before Takaru and his party arrived.

During his time training with Hiro, Takaru picked up some more of the history of his family. Including a few things that weren’t mentioned in Hayato’s logs, either due to him not knowing of it or personal choice to omit it.

One of Hiro’s ancestors was in the running to be inducted into the royal house and be made the crowned prince rather than Hayato but family politics intervened and resulted in Hayato begrudgingly taking the role

Hayato himself saw the castle as a prison more than a home, he wanted to be a bigger part of the world than what he could be sitting in the throne room dealing with politics. Hiro’s ancestor blamed the members of Hayato’s side of the family for manipulating the vote.

When Hayato arrived at the village where the Hisanarra clan resided he found that Hiro’s ancestor was in line for the succession for the Fierce Dragon Blade. They both competed for it, and were eventually chosen to be among those who would have communion with Ysurill’s spirit and while they were both found to be worthy successors Ysurill could tell Hiro’s ancestor had burdens of anger and malice in his spirit. While it wasn’t directed toward Hayato, the negative emotions that plagued him were enough to give Ysurill the impression that he lacked the clarity to see beyond petty things that didn’t affect the world at large.

Because of that Hayato was chosen to be the one to wield the sword but it and the other weapons were destroyed in a great battle against a member of the Kosaharra clan who instigated a massive war that swept across the entire planet.

The only weapon that was believed to survive was the Darkness Dragon Blade due to its mysterious disappearance from the village. While Takaru and Hiroshi had come to develop a friendly rivalry they had none of the animosity that plagued their ancestors.

-----

Even with everything that had happened since they’d arrived Takaru and the others knew they had to make their way out from the village to try and find the Separatist headquarters. So after saying their farewells to the villagers the group left knowing it would be a long journey ahead of them.

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Field Journal of Takaru Inara; August 20th 2140 approximately.

We’ve been scouting around trying to find signs of Separatist troops in the area outside the village. So far no luck, We’ve been following word from some of the outlying villages on the outer edge of the rainforest that there are a few base camps nearby on the base of a mountain range they’re mining resources out of.

We’ll be heading there over the next few days on foot so as not to arouse their suspicion. We’ve heard from some of the villagers we’ve run across that the Separatists believe Kouji to be dead. Kouji confirmed that he left an old identifier badge back on Maridia during the evacuation as a means of throwing off suspicion.

Until we make some progress I’ll probably keep these entries brief,

Takaru T.K. Inara

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Field Journal of Takaru Inara; August 31st 2140 approx

Due to some issues navigating the jungle we got stalled on our way to the Separatist base camp but thanks to some help from a simple transformation spell Anya used on me I was able to sneak into the camp posing as a villager from one of the nearby villages. The spell was only necessary due to them likely being aware of what I look like from observations Kouji had taken during his tenure under the Separatists

While in the base I found that much to my surprise the separatists, or at least an entry level troops manning the camp and mining facility weren’t hostile toward the villagers, it seemed like while the war machine as a whole acted as such the individual cogs had started to grind to a halt feeling like the machine was worn out and in need of maintenance or an outright stoppage.

Among the people in the camp I heard whispers of dissention among their ranks. Apparently a large group of the commissioned officers were mercenaries hired at the Admiral’s personal expense to handle quashing any resistance. The foot soldiers were either civilians caught in the crossfire and given the choice of taking up arms or dying at the hands of the army. Most of them chose servitude to the army out of self preservation.

The foot soldiers seem to be getting very weary of what the conflict is doing to Valin but they’re not willing to speak against it due to the threat of being slain by the mercenaries.

When I informed the crew of what allegedly happened to Kouji regarding his supposed death the crew was pretty surprised. They knew the Admiral was capable of doing some monstrous stuff but they were sickened to hear that he’d murdered his own son.

I’ll make a follow up entry after this regarding what I found out about the operations at the camp due to my feelings that its relevance to discuss separately

Takaru Inara.

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Field Journal of Takaru Inara; September 1st 2140 GCY

As a followup to yesterday’s entry this will have to do with the operations of the base camp.

While it seems like the camp is mostly tasked with mining out mineral resources to power the industry behind the conflict. This base was tasked with mining Zoracite and refining it; they were using it as part of a project to synthesize the regenerative capabilities of a race of beings known as Technoparas.

The project wasn’t officially named but it had been in development since shortly after the admiral started to expand out into space. He’d used many of his close associates as a test bed for them.

During my time discussing the projects one of the troops mentioned that the director of one of the facilities that dealt with the human testing was named Haseo Nisaharra. He was apparently a defector from the former high council and based on his family name I could only guess he’s likely Toushi’s father.

Until I get some more in depth information about him I think I’ll avoid mentioning it to Toushi since I know he has some pent up anger toward his biological father. Shortly before we left to board the Arc Evolza his surrogate father Hanjiro, told him everything about the situation involving his father’s betrayal of the council members who they lived with in the refugee camp. Including his biological mother who was taken captive to save Toushi.

I think I’ve covered enough for one entry so I’ll sign off for now.

T.K. Inara

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Journal - Toushi “Dojiro” Nisaharra

Ok, This situation is kinda pissing me off. I finally got the nerve to snoop in TK’s journal and found out that the troops mentioned that bastard I’m forced to call my father. Hikari’s been doing her best to keep me calm but I can tell she’s willing to understand my anger.

I swear, if I ever see that son of a bitch I’ll put a bullet through his head. He has been making people into playthings and trying to play god. Normally I’m not prone to raging like this but being so close to finally having a chance to save my mother after all these years and stop that madman is more than I can stand to bear.

The past few days we’ve been working across a desert biome that developed due to the changes in environmental conditions caused by the Separatists mining and stripping out of the area's natural resources.

It seems like the closer we get to the base where he’s supposedly setting up shop, the more intense my anger gets. Like something inside me is reacting to his presence drawing nearer and nearer.

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Diary, Anya Cardiff Armstrong, September 18th 2140 GCY

I know I’m probably a little old to be keeping this old diary but I think it's still a good outlet. Currently we’re camped out near the perimeter of a Separatist base we believe to be the facility where Toushi’s father has been doing his human experiments.

Unfortunately we had a rather unusual instance a couple of nights ago while we were crossing the desert. Hikari and Toushi had a slight run in with the effects of spirit energy empathy.

Before I get into the details of explaining what happened I should probably explain the concept, Spirit energy and Mana both have an empathic connection to those that can manipulate them. This can cause unusual behaviors from the person's aura and their spirit energy when under extremes of emotional duress.

This includes things like the aura manifesting in physical form around the body of the person usually taking on a form influenced by the elemental affinity of the individual.

Now that I’ve kinda summarized the basics of it. I should probably get on to what happened with Hikari and Toushi.

His anger and frustration in relation to his father has been escalating as a side effect of having seen some of his father’s handiwork in action. We fought some of the Pseudo-paras enhanced soldiers Seeing how the people had lost their humanity in favor of becoming fighting machines caused many of us grief but it disturbed him the most knowing it was his father’s doing.

The night before last after a big battle we set up camp for the night in the remains of a small scrap of a forest on the fringes of the desert we’d been traversing beforehand. I could see Hikari wanted to do something to comfort him but she didn’t know how. Tallia and I came up with the idea of having him vent his frustrations through a “different” course of action.

Hikari had never been the most open about wanting to press her relationship with Toushi to the next stage, they’d been dating off and on since high school but they never went beyond casually making out She’d wanted to save pushing that boundary until they had a chance to settle down, but I brought up the idea that it may be a good idea to engage him like that as a way to take his mind off it.

Yesterday morning when we woke up after leaving them to do what they needed to in order to vent overnight we saw strange billows of steam pouring out of their tent. After a bit of deliberation as to who would be the one to check on them Kouji made his way over and slipped into the tent.

He saw both of them laying there with little more than the sheets they’d tucked into their sleeping bags. But their skin had an unusual coloration to it, Hikari was blue, the same shade as the ocean, and Toushi’s was red with a faint orange tint like a burning flame.

Her cheeks were streaked with the residue of tears and she was clinging to him with what I could certifiably describe as a death grip.and there were clouds of steam billowing between them wherever their skin made direct contact.

When we got them out of the sleeping bag and pulled them apart I could tell what had happened on instinct from it having happened a few times with me and TK. Their spirit energies had been reacting to the intense emotions they were both putting out and hers had taken the form of water trying to quench the flame of fury that was coming off Toushi’s body and within him in his heart.

The two of them were borderline catatonic due to the circumstances and it took me and Takaru using a powerful restoration spell to bring them back to normal.

I know Takaru would probably find the mention of it weird but I’m kinda surprised that Hikari is so conservative all things considered. Looking at her she’s got a decent amount to show, it wouldn’t surprise me if part of this anger Toushi had pent up may be an extension of the sexual tension they have with each other, him being a bit more eager to cross into that territory than she was.

When she recovered later that afternoon I pulled her aside and asked her about it and she said that she had no idea what exactly came over her during the event but she admits the end result felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest.

When I asked Takaru about Dojiro’s reaction he’d said “The last I remember he was sitting in his tent humming an old rock song from back on Earth. His feet were tapping along to the baseline of the chorus and he slipped a few bars worth of lyrics.

Takaru went through a phase shortly after high school where he did some binging on older music and songs like that stuck with him because while he can’t claim any nostalgia for them he admits they have a style you just don’t hear in music nowadays.

But I think that's a good stopping point for now.

TTYL (Talk to you later)

Anya

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