A Short Walk in the Pine Forest

At twilight, the cold winter wind began to lash the bare branches. In the heart of that vast forest, glowing with the fine colour of sunset, a battle was about to begin.

Hiro stood ready to attack the old man. Ryo watched the monster before him and considered how best to deal with it.

He's cautious. His instincts must be warning him not to come any closer. Not that he's afraid. He's deciding which of us to kill first.

After a few seconds, Hiro moved his black right wing, which was made of some substance capable of changing its structure.

The wing reshaped itself into an enormous blade and shot towards Ryo, aiming to tear off his head.

"He's fast. But the attack itself is very simple."

Just before the wing reached him, it changed direction sharply and went for Wendy and Stella.

Ryo was already standing between them and the blade, one hand raised to reverse it.

"As I thought. He understands the difference in strength between us, so he's going after the weaker ones first."

The instant Ryo reversed the wing, Hiro appeared in front of his face. Ryo regretted the fraction of a second in which he had lowered his guard.

Hiro struck him hard enough to break teeth. Ryo tore through several pines before landing nearly a hundred metres away.

Wendy watched Hiro in fear while shielding Stella with her own body. He showed no interest in either of them. His attention remained fixed on Ryo.

So this is fear. Helplessness and dread. The inability to think, the mistakes that follow, the panic and the pain in my stomach, all because someone stronger than me is standing there. What use is a feeling like this? Why should I fear anything when death is the worst that can happen? Through the darkest days of my life and the hardest ordeals I endured, I could not help but remain calm. That is why I'm still alive. I never thought this weakness and shame could touch me.

Ryo rose, wiping blood from his mouth. An immense red light burst from his eyes and lit the whole forest for a second. Before Hiro's instincts could warn him, his own blow came back at twice the force.

It broke his nose.

While Hiro was still airborne, Ryo appeared in front of Wendy again.

"I didn't expect it to be that clever. Is it truly a monster? What do you think, yellow hair?"

Wendy composed herself after seeing what the old man had done and returned to her usual calm.

"I don't know. But I'm fairly certain he won't be as easy to handle as you think."

"So you noticed from the beginning. You understood the difference between us and showed almost no reaction. Am I right?"

She remained silent, as though deliberately ignoring him.

"Then I must be right. One look is enough for you to read everything around you. Some kind of ability, perhaps. Never mind that for now."

"Listen, girl. I want your help dealing with this monster."

"Why would I help you kill my friend?"

The words came out with anger held beneath them, and Wendy did not know where that anger had come from.

"You know this has only just begun, and it won't end well. At best, you won't leave this place alive. Even if I control my power, I doubt that thing cares whether either of you is caught in the fight. I don't like wasting time on a pointless battle. I need three minutes without using my Aka. Give me that long and this will be over."

Wendy knew he was not lying. She had no choice but to agree.

"Then I have one condition. Promise that you won't kill any of us or stand in our way again, and I'll help you."

Ryo smiled and held out one hand. Violent red light poured from it, rose into the sky and dyed the Pine Forest crimson. Flat rings began forming in the air around his hand.

As I thought. He is the real one. The man who led his own people into ruin. The first man of war, who never lost a battle. The one who declared war on every living thing in this world and was thereafter titled the King of War. The one who made the name Akani an ill omen in every corner of the earth. The strongest king.

Ryo, King of the Akani.

The wind tore through the field, and clouds filled the sky, streaked with red lightning. It looked like the beginning of some vast natural disaster. Then Ryo spoke, and everything fell still.

"You have my word. This once, nobody will die here. In return, let me show you something worth watching."

A cascade of red lightning fell over him. It lasted only a moment before going out in a flash that lit the whole field.

Wendy saw the spear planted in the ground and knew at once that Ryo had decided to fight seriously.

"That's one of the Calendar Blades. Twilight at Sunset, the Sword of Summer."

Ryo reached through the rising dust and took the spear. From behind that curtain stepped a man in his early thirties, with long red hair and a bare, unarmoured chest. Both said everything about the way he fought.

He settled his robe over one shoulder, laughed under his breath and said:

"Life as an old man isn't bad. But this is still the best form for a fight."

"So I think I'll enjoy myself a little."

· · ·
Wendy watched him, already understanding what had happened. She began running a simulation in her mind to analyse the situation.

He reversed the way his body aged and returned himself to youth. But ageing doesn't happen quickly. If he had only reversed the time acting upon his body, he would have gone back an hour at most. There are at least thirty years between the man standing there now and the old man from a minute ago.

How far can his reversal reach?

Even so, his power should only affect outside forces. If he could reverse whatever he wished, he wouldn't have needed the Third Level to invert each of us. This must be his King's Authority. Inside it, his power has no limits. With that, reversal could turn a light breeze into a storm.

His victory is already certain. In our condition, he could kill all three of us without lifting a finger. But he's waiting. What is he waiting for?

For some reason, he has two powers. The first is reversal, clearly an ability of the Yin and the Yang. That alone is strange, because he obviously isn't human. He's the King of the Akani. The second power lies underneath it: absorption. Before he used the Third Level against Stella, he absorbed every kind of attack she sent at him. It looked like his usual reversal, except no counterattack followed. And he could reverse attacks without moving, so if both were the same power, he would never have needed to raise his hand to stop them.

He was known as the strongest king in the world. Given what he can actually do, his power is closer to an absolute defence that nothing can penetrate. That means the spear probably gives him an attack nothing can block. I know how this ends.

He hasn't used his Aka, his absorption, since the battle began. He must be preparing a wide-ranging technique that requires an enormous amount of it.

So what is there here for him to absorb?

That was the purpose behind everything he did. The things we lacked, the things we regained inside his Third Level. He wants them for himself.

What a shame. I finally gained a heart, and now I'm being forced to give it up. Well, that is still better than dying here.

While Wendy worked through it, Hiro advanced slowly. His face had already healed.

Then he stopped, and his body began to evolve. Black symbols appeared across him, and a third wing emerged from his right side.

Unlike the first two, this wing was extraordinarily beautiful. It was straight and translucent, with colours shimmering inside it. On its own, it could have stood as a symbol of beauty. On the back of that monster, it looked like an omen of disaster.

Both Wendy and Ryo felt a chill at the sight. Ryo stopped to reconsider before advancing.

A third wing.

I need to be careful, at least until I know what ability he gained with it.

The moment Ryo stepped forward, something hurled him into the sky before he could understand what had happened.

Hiro pressed one hand to the ground. The earth transformed into swords and blades of stone, which he launched at the king suspended overhead. They rained down like arrows, but Ryo reversed every one.

Wendy extended a transparent shield from her hand and closed it around Stella and herself, protecting them from the flying weapons.

Was he hiding that third wing from the beginning, or did his body evolve that quickly? This is bad. I was certain the King of War would win because of the difference in strength, but if Hiro's body is evolving at this rate, we have a serious problem. Everything depends on the ability he gained. Is he drawing those weapons from somewhere, or opening countless gateways? He could have closed the distance and attacked Ryo directly, but he never takes his hand off the ground. Is it some kind of contract? Does the ability require him to touch the earth? But that doesn't make sense. He has been attacking for several minutes, and not one sword has reached the old man.

Wendy looked up at Ryo and saw wounds covering his body.

Impossible. The attacks are reaching him. He's reversing the wounds to restore himself, but how did Hiro get through his ability?

A light breeze passed Wendy, and she understood.

The wind. Of course. His weapon is the wind.

Wendy signalled Ryo to come closer. He abandoned his defensive stance, raised his spear and swung it at Hiro. The strike destroyed the stone weapons and reached Hiro's head. Hiro tried to evade it, but the blade severed his hand. The swords stopped, and he withdrew to let the hand heal.

Ryo returned to Wendy's side.

"That bastard used the visible weapons as a distraction while striking me with invisible ones from different directions. They didn't feel like ordinary attacks. The wounds simply appeared before I understood what was happening. Did you notice anything?"

"Yes. His ability is extremely simple, but the speed at which he shapes and controls it is terrifying. Is he truly one of those monsters? In any case, he can turn anything he touches into his own weapon, and there appears to be no exception. He touched the ground to draw your attention to the weapons below while using his other hand to touch the air and make it his real weapon."

"Anything he touches? Does that include living beings, or only inanimate things?"

"I don't know yet. For now, don't let him touch your weapon. We don't know what might happen."

As Ryo began to advance, Hiro's body stopped healing. Darkness spread across him as he stared at the sky.

An unnatural silence settled over the field. The two of them watched, concern plain on their faces, as a faint breeze moved through the stillness. Then a sound rang out, an echo that split the clouds and startled even those asleep in their graves.

Black fire erupted with the sound, consuming everything around it before slowly contracting beneath Hiro's left wing.

"What just happened?"

Ryo looked at Wendy. Her face had gone pale, and terror was written across it.

"What's wrong? What happened to you? Do you understand what's happening? 

Can you hear me? I'm talking to you."

"A moment ago, you said you would end this battle in three minutes. I still believe you. Right now, that monster cannot compare to your strength, but that will only remain true for a short while. At this moment, you are the strongest one here. In a few minutes, it may be impossible to tell which of you is stronger. Suppose you fail to finish the battle within those three minutes. You need to understand that you will have only one chance. If there is any possibility that attempt might fail, know that this will not end with our deaths alone. It may mean the end of the Forest of Dreams itself."..