The King of War

November 28th

The dense pine forest near Gowa village. Warm sunlight filtered through the bare branches.

Hiro walked with Stella and Wendy toward the First King's territory, looking for somewhere to sleep off a very long day.

They walked far enough apart to make it obvious that there was no connection between them, and that small gap in the road was enough to build a wall of silence, which worried all three of them.

Wendy was looking around at the trees. Then she got bored and tired of it and decided to break the wall, so she moved closer to Hiro, hooked her foot under his, and nearly sent him to the ground. She caught him on the way down.

Hiro came up with anger plain in his eyes.

"What is wrong with you? Why did you do that?"

Wendy whispered near his ear.

"Are you going to talk to her at some point? A while ago you were so desperate to talk to somebody like you that your face was funny. But you're taking so long that I'm getting bored."

"I can't believe you noticed something like that. Was it that obvious?"

"Yes. And watching you get nervous was quite funny."

He could see she was doing it on purpose, and being made to show that pathetic side of himself embarrassed him.

"Even if you say that, I don't know what to talk to her about. I don't know anything except her name. Starting a conversation about nothing would just make me look strange."

The look she gave him needed no words: What are you talking about? Are you stupid?

That made him angrier.

"What's with that look? You're genuinely irritating. Just leave me alone."

She had started to think his personality was a little irritating too.

"You really aren't nice."

"Shut up."

She moved up the road fast, over to Stella.

"Stella, isn't it? I haven't introduced myself. I'm Wendy. I work as a courier for the First King's army."

Stella had no idea what to do with that. She nodded and said:

"G-good to meet you."

"I hear you're one of the Phoenix, is that right? What happened to your wings? Did you lose them in an accident?"

Stella saw the questions coming with that sly smile behind them and cut them off before they arrived.

"Why don't you have a mark on your head? Is that where this is going?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know either. Everybody I've ever met wants to work out what I am, and they all ask the same question. Who are you? And when I say I'm one of the Phoenix, they start laughing as if I'd told a joke. Then they say the most awful things without caring that I can hear them."

"You asked first. Am I in the wrong for telling the truth?"

Her expression darkened with every sentence.

Wendy said it softly, with a quiet smile.

"I believe you."

Was she lying, or just going along with it out of sympathy? Stella could not tell. She had not expected to hear that so quickly, and for a moment she was speechless.

Wendy looked at her face and could not stop herself laughing out loud, which left Stella confused by the strange exchange.

"What? What's funny?"

"Nothing. Your reaction is exactly the same as the one on Hiro's face at the time."

"Huh? I don't understand."

Wendy did not explain any of it and continued with words neither of them understood.

"No, never mind. I was only thinking that we're all the same here. Nothing holding us, no place we belong. Outcasts."

Hiro heard it and could not place it, and it made him wonder who this girl actually was.

Stella was looking her over as they walked.

Wendy closed the distance and asked her.

"It's been on my mind since the first time I saw you, and now I'm sure. That staff you're carrying."

"Isn't it one of the Calendar Blades?"

"Huh? You're right, but how did you know?"

"Nothing important. I read a book about those weapons once. It isn't as if I know everything about them. I know their power rankings and some of the names."

Stella hesitated, because she was bad at communicating.

"I see. You know a lot, then."

"Never mind that. Tell me which class your staff is. Could it be one of the Four Seasons?"

"As if that could happen. Anyone who knows the Calendar Blades knows the Four Seasons, and everyone knows each one of those is carried by a king. Even you. Isn't that right?"

"Yes. I only wanted to say it."

Stella let a little of the tension out of her chest, and when she started speaking openly she realised Wendy was the one who had taken down the wall that frightened her.

"This staff is one of the Days of the Week. It's called Tuesday."

Wendy was caught slightly off guard by the name.

"That's genuinely impressive. The Days of the Week aren't far below the Four Seasons at all. That isn't ordinary, especially when its bearer is one of the Three Swords of Light."

Stella had never expected a sentence like that to make her happy. She turned her face away to hide it and said, quietly, with a small honest smile:

"It isn't anything to be impressed by. But thank you."

Hiro was listening to all of it and understanding none of it, so he chose to stay out and keep quiet.

"Can I hold it for a moment?"

Wendy put her hand out toward the staff. Stella pulled it back.

"Are you an idiot? Do you not know what happens to you if you hold it?"

"I want to try something. Let me touch it, just for a second."

Her hand went in, and before her fingers touched it, a bolt came out of the staff and hit her. The force of it blew her hand back.

She held her injured hand, burned and bleeding across the palm. Hiro panicked, because he had no idea what he had just watched.

"What is going on? Are you all right?"

Stella was furious and shouted at her.

"Are you insane? Do you realise you could have lost your hand?"

Wendy smiled through the pain, looking at it.

"Ah, I know. I wanted to check for myself. And the story was true. The moment a weapon chooses its bearer, it never betrays them. It's genuinely incredible. Weapons with a will of their own. That's insane."

The way Hiro and Stella looked at her changed. She had been making them uneasy, and now they had seen her eyes, and it was enough to understand how different this girl was from anyone either of them had met.

Stella said it with fear in it, and caution.

"You really are insane."

Wendy smiled back at her, warmly.

"You might be right."

They kept going, and the space between them opened up again, and the silence came back and stayed long enough that none of them could speak.

Then they came out into a place in the middle of the forest with no trees in it, a wide red field full of flowers. Standing in the middle of them was an elderly man in a long red robe trimmed with feathers along the top and the hem.

His luxurious clothes showed his high status. Under the terrible red hair, the black horns were the part of him that put fear into a person.

Stella and Wendy both stopped where they stood, frozen, eyes fixed on him, worry coming up in both faces. Hiro had no idea what was happening, so he looked at the man properly, and finally noticed the red lines coming out of his shoulders and running up into the sky, where they formed a circle covered in symbols across the whole of it.

Then the lines began to disappear, as if they were going back into his body. He let the flower he was holding fall out of his hand and started talking to himself.

"As I thought. The barrier around this forest is gone. Are these children the reason?"

Then he focused on them, and what he saw in Hiro's appearance genuinely surprised him.

"Is that boy..."

Hiro was still trying to get the two girls to move when he looked back at the old man and found him already standing in front of him. The distance had not been small. To Hiro it looked as if the man had simply appeared directly in front of him. And when he looked into his eyes, he understood why the two of them could not move, and the fear started going through his own body.

"You have horns, but you aren't one of the Akani."

"You have an unusual body. Could you be one of the Exiled?"

Hiro did not understand any of it, and could not answer or speak at all. The old man raised a hand to touch him, and in that moment Stella moved the staff, fast, and an enormous bolt of lightning hit him.

"Are you all right?"

"Get up, quickly, we have to run."

That won't do anything to him. We need to get out of here before he...

She was moving toward Hiro. The old man was already standing behind her, with no burn and no mark on him.

"That's dangerous. Don't you realise a bolt like that could kill an old man? Go a little easier on me."

Wearing that mocking smile, he kicked her in the stomach and sent her flying hard enough to hit one of the enormous pines and drop unconscious at the foot of it.

Hiro moved fast, ignoring the fear that had taken hold of him, and threw a fire-covered punch at the old man, who caught the fist easily and put out the flames around it.

"I don't see any trace of Aka on your body. And you have no wings, and you aren't from that family. And yet your body produces this fire. That is interesting, boy."

"But this fire of yours is very weak."

He drove Hiro into the ground with one punch and knocked him out on the spot.

"Those horns don't suit you."

Then he looked at Wendy, who was standing exactly where she had been.

"And you? Aren't you going to attack, or are you slightly smarter than they are?"

The tension was all over her face when she answered.

"I'm not stupid enough to fight one of the kings without preparing for it."

"So you're saying you would fight if you were prepared? Interesting."

He closed his eyes and opened them slowly. The right one had gone completely black, and an unsettling mark appeared inside the pupil. The moment Wendy saw the eye, she understood what it meant.

Meanwhile Stella was getting up, unsteady, taking hold of her staff, and pointing it at the man from a long way off. She moved it a little and an enormous arrow of fire appeared beside her, and she sent it at him.

Before it reached him it hit something like a wall and went out.

An instant later, an arrow of fire appeared in front of the old man and came at her, faster and larger than the one she had thrown. She did not have time to understand that her own technique was coming back at her. Her body moved on its own, and she barely escaped the edge of the flames.

Did he use the exact skill I just used? Is that his power, or does he have something that copies abilities? But how did he stop that attack without lifting a finger? No. There's no time to think. I need to make an opening so we can get out of here.

While Wendy was carrying the unconscious Hiro away from the fight, the old man was still trying to understand what he had seen.

"That girl isn't human, but she doesn't look like she belongs to any other race either. Could she be one of the Exiled as well?"

Stella was holding her ground when Wendy shouted, loud enough to reach her:

"His power is reversal. If you try to hit him directly, the hit comes back at you harder. Throw him off balance before you try to land anything."

She had no time to think it over. She went at him and started attacking on the assumption that Wendy was right.

She struck the staff on the ground and five spheres of water came out and surrounded him from every side.

The spheres began firing water in tight streams, moving fast enough and hard enough to go through rock.

This girl has extraordinary control. Those jets would go through my head if I took one directly. And the ground under me has gone soft. One careless step and I'm in the mud. First fire, then lightning, now water and earth. How many abilities can this child use, and all at once? What exactly is she?

But she isn't trying to hit me at all. She's pulling my attention off the line of the strike so I can't reverse it. How did that girl read my power that easily? Did I make a mistake? No, that can't happen. These children are not ordinary people. And to find out what they are, I think I'll have to put in a little effort here.

One of the water jets grazed his face and cut it.

Stella intensified the barrage, made two birds out of fire above her, and sent them straight at him. He raised a hand toward them and absorbed the attack without taking any damage from it. He did the same with the water spheres, which went into his palm and disappeared as if he had taken them into his body.

Stella was not surprised. She knew who she was fighting and she was expecting anything. On the other side Wendy was surprised, and it made her focus harder on the man.

Did he just absorb that? Wasn't his power reversal? No, that isn't what happened with the eye. That isn't a Yang ability. Is that his Aka technique? It's very possible, and if it is, we are in serious trouble. If this fight goes on much longer, we all die here.

The old man smiled a little and raised his voice for both of them.

"You're the Exiled, aren't you? If that's true, then it seems someone wanted us gathered here for a reason. I've been held in this place for a while, until you arrived. I don't know what the point of it was, but I should thank whoever did it if I ever meet him. Because of him, I can begin working toward my goal."

Held him here? Somebody has the power to keep the King of War in one place for that long? I have a very bad feeling about this.

The shape of the black eye changed. He closed it for a few seconds and opened it slowly, saying:

"Third Level. The Surface of the Lake."