Children once laughed beneath the sun, trading promises and bruises, falling in love and breaking hearts as though life had all the time in the world. They kept at the back of their minds the slow, certain thing called adulthood — a day the games end and responsibility begins.
Never did I expect an age to be born that must learn the fathers' wars before its bones finished forming. Never did I imagine boys and girls would sharpen their youth into blades for people who might never look back.
King Logunard sat at the war table like a mountain grown small with grief. The maps before him were stained with ash and names; the weight of a ruined kingdom bent his shoulders inward. He stared at the marked lines as if willing new roads into being.
Shiro watched him quietly for a long moment, eyes the color of old ink. When he spoke it was not disrespect but a calm that made the room colder.
"If children fight men's wars," Shiro said, voice even and slow, "what becomes of those who never learned to fight? Are they noble to pray for a savior, or simply blind and broken, waiting to be saved while the world burns?"
The king drew breath, about to answer, but Shiro's gaze did not waver. "There are no saviors at the end of any tunnel," he continued. "Only those who take a torch and light their own way. The dead do not return to crown you; the living must stand. If a king dies, the people fall. But if you give us hope — a single command — we will carry it into the dark and come back with it."
Logunard's fingers tightened around the rim of his cup. The old man had known loss enough to taste it on his tongue every morning. He rose then, slow, regal and raw, and fixed the students with a look that held the whole of his failing kingdom.
"Then go," he said, voice cracking like a battle-axe. "Come back alive. Bring me a reason to bury hope with honor, not grief."
Shiro inclined his head once. The students filed past the war chamber into the raw light, armor clinking, faces set. Each knew their station. Each carried more than a weapon: a shard of someone's last promise.
Shiro's teams moved like shadows around them, unseen hands slotting into place. He had stationed his people at every hinge the expedition might turn — messengers by the gates, watchmen on the ridges, whisperers in the lanes. Where he stood, eyes turned; where he pointed, blades moved. The network did not shout. It threaded.
They split according to the plan. Arthur took the south, sword like a sun; Rika took the west, her warding spells humming like thin silver; Muichiro led the east, measured and lethal; Lancaster, Kiyo and Sayo moved north, a triad of strength tempered with restraint. Shiro remained with the stronghold, his cloaked aides melting into the dim to relay and to listen.
Arthur arrived on his front to a land that had forgotten laughter. Bodies lay half-buried in mud, smoke a permanent bruise on the sky. Men and boys staggered, clutching wounds that no salve could touch; others tried to smile on the edge of breaking. Arthur's voice rose, raw and steady.
"Do not let fear take you," he called. "We trained for this. We will not die without answering for it. Hold your line—have courage—and we will walk out of this together."
The words spread through cramped earpieces and field whispers. For a moment the ruin breathed a little less like a grave and more like a forge. Courage flared where it had almost gone out.
Meanwhile — in the Abyss
Darkness has a sound here — not silence, but the grinding of the world's teeth. The abyss is a mouth that never closes. Its sky is stitched to void, its air bitter with old sorrow.
Yuta crawled through that endless black, body battered, shirt torn away to bare his scarred torso. His flesh was marked with gashes and bruises, streaked by veins of abyssal light that pulsed faintly beneath the skin. His sword — the last fragile promise he clutched — dripped with something too dark to be blood.
Luna knelt beside him, her hands trembling as she pressed against wounds that refused to close.
"We can't win this if we're already at death's door," she whispered, her voice as fragile as a moth's wing.
Yuta smiled — not in joy, not in despair, but in something crueler, something that unsettled even the abyss guardian looming above them.
The guardian's voice was a tombstone dragged across stone.
"What are you?"
Yuta raised his head, abyssal light flickering in his eyes.
"An anomaly," he breathed. "A mistake made into a sacrifice. I was never meant to walk this world… but here I am. And I will carve my own path. I will cut my way out of this hell."
He stood. Every movement was a war, yet his presence grew heavier, as though the abyss itself recoiled. His body was ruined yet unbroken — a man who should have fallen, and yet did not.
The guardian laughed — contempt rolling like thunder.
"Foolish child."
And then the world tore.
Pain ripped Yuta apart, a wound that was both a heartbeat and a century. The guardian's strike severed him — upper from lower, life from flesh. For an instant everything went white. His mouth filled with the iron taste of blood and the sweetness of death.
The guardian cackled, turning away.
"Experiment 1007. Another failure. You are not ready."
But something shifted.
Behind him, the air cracked. The sound of breath — sharp, unnatural. Yuta's eyes, dim and lifeless a moment ago, flashed with terrible light.
A blur split past the guardian's ear, faster than thought. His heart froze. He turned, and the figure he had struck down was rising again — wounds knitting, bones setting, flesh twisting as if death itself had been denied.
The guardian's lips parted, stuttering despite himself.
"Wh–what are you?"
The figure looked up, shadows coiling like a crown. It was no longer Yuta. His voice carried the weight of graves and collapsing stars.
"I am the God-Slayer. The Judge. The shadow you cannot escape."
The abyss trembled as he spoke his name.
"I am Itarim — God of Darkness."
The guardian staggered back, instinct pulling him into a stance of battle. Yet his hands shook.
Itarim sighed, voice laced with venomous boredom.
"You're beneath me. A speck of filth in a pit of rot. And you dare stand in my way?"
He lifted his blade, abyssal light spilling across the void.
"I have no time for insects."