Blackwell vs. Merlin (commander vs. commander).
[A opening]
The forest pulsed with silence.
At the center of the clearing stood Merlin, cloak dripping with fog, one hand against the machine gun like it were a shrine. Alone.
Blackwell's boots struck the soil. His blade gleamed in the half-light. His voice cut through the mist.
"Merlin… Commander of the Wolves. Your hunt ends here."
Her lips curved. Not a smile something sharper. "Wolf? Human? Commander? Names don't matter. Only the storm matters."
She moved first.
From inside her cloak came the short rifle, black and scarred. The barrel flashed
but Blackwell's sword split the bullet with a cry that shook the clearing. Sparks scattered into the mist, fading into silence.
From the haze behind, two figures ran. Daria and Lady Gaga. They had heard the shot, heard the silence that followed, and returned.
Their eyes widened as they saw the duel already burning at the center.
Lady Gaga leapt, gun in hand, charging at Merlin with desperate fury. Her jeweled eyes burned as she closed the distance
But Merlin pivoted, raising her rifle again. The shot cracked.
Lady Gaga's cry pierced the mist as blood traced from her eye. She fell back, clutching her face, her gun clattering to the ground.
"Gaga!" Daria's voice shook. She dropped low into the grasses, rolling onto her side. Her hands steadied Jon Snow's old rifle the one she had taken earlier. She didn't aim for Merlin's chest, didn't aim to kill.
She aimed at Merlin's hand.
The shot rang. Steel shattered. Merlin's short rifle spun from her grip, scattering into the mist.
For the first time, Merlin's smile flickered.
Then her other hand moved.
From beneath her coat came a blade black, curved, a predator's fang.
Blackwell roared and charged, commander's blade raised high. Steel met steel. The clearing erupted in sparks.
It was no measured duel. No honor. No restraint.
It was survival.
A panda sword fight wild, brutal, without pattern.
Each clash rang like thunder. Each strike threatened to tear the ground itself apart.
Merlin laughed. A high, jagged sound, the kind of laugh that could only belong in nightmares and anime madness. Her grin stretched wide, eyes alive with frenzy.
"This is fun! This is real! Don't you love it, Commander? Don't you love the storm?"
Her words tangled with her laughter, nonsense wrapped in insanity. Blackwell gave no answer, only steel.
Again and again, their blades collided like lightning in the fog.
Then, suddenly Merlin dropped her sword.
She leapt back, coat flaring as her hand yanked at something hidden inside.
Blackwell froze. Daria's breath caught. Gaga's wounded eyes widened in pain and fear.
A rope.
A pin.
Grenade.
"Playtime's over."
The coat tore. The grenade flew.
The blast swallowed the clearing in fire and thunder. Soil ripped open, mist shredded, the shockwave throwing the three to the ground.
And when the smoke cleared
Merlin was gone.
Only silence remained.
Only the machine gun stood, cold and untouched.
The grenade had been unlike any they had seen. Not the old-day bombs with wires and cranks. No this was something else. Something far more dangerous.
Blackwell's blade trembled in his hand, its edge scorched.
Daria pulled herself up, shaking.
Lady Gaga clutched her eye, blood trickling through her fingers.
The phantom had vanished.
But her laughter lingered in the mist.
The forest still burned with echoes of the blast.
Lady Gaga, clutching her wounded eye.
Daria, dirt-stained, her rifle trembling in her grip.
Commander Blackwell, his blade blackened from deflecting death.
They stared at the fading smoke. Not at Merlin she was gone but at the mark she had left behind.
A grenade unlike anything they knew.
Their world had only known the bombs of the old wars the crude ones you armed by hand, set with wires, and fled before the spark claimed it. But this? No wires. No delay. A weapon out of their time.
Blackwell's jaw tightened. "No complaints. We move. We find the others… before she does."
The fog swirled, swallowing their silhouettes.
Far from the clearing, water thundered.
Zero ran with Aria in his arms, carrying her as though she were made of glass. His expression did not shift. No smile. No anger. Just silence.
They broke through the trees, reaching a waterfall's edge. Mist rose around them, a veil of silver. For a moment, it felt as if they had escaped.
But then they weren't alone.
Two figures waited at the water's edge. A girl stood tall, a long rifle strapped across her back. Beside her, a boy sat calmly, coat draped over his shoulders like a wolf's pelt.
Neither bore the crest of any kingdom.
Only the mark of the Wolves.
The rifle on the girl's back gleamed, long and sleek. A design unlike anything Zero had seen before except in the hands of Twilight and Jon Snow.
Zero's eyes lingered on it for only a moment.
Then, without a word, he moved.
He threw Aria.
Her cry echoed as she splashed into the water, body carried by the current. She struggled, arms reaching back toward him. "Zero!"
The two Wolves laughed.
"What a fool," the girl sneered, her voice sharp as a knife. "It could have been two against two. Now it's just you, against us."
The boy chuckled low, shaking his head.
But Zero said nothing. His face remained still, unreadable. No smile. No laugh.
Only silence.
The girl's smirk faltered. The boy's laugh died.
Their pride cracked under his emptiness, and so they straightened, voices rising.
"Remember our names."
The girl struck her chest. "Anna rifle of the Wolves."
The boy stood, his eyes narrowing. "Jack the blade."
The waterfall roared behind them, a wall of sound to witness the clash that was about to unfold.
Zero's shadow stretched on the stone.
Anna's rifle gleamed.
Jack's blade shimmered.
The hunt was far from over.
Anna moved first.
Her hands snapped to the rifle with reflexes sharp as lightning. The barrel gleamed as she dragged it up, finger curling
The shot cracked.
Zero moved.
Even he could not explain how. Even he could not remember why. His memory was a shattered mirror, but his body reacted faster than thought. The bullet screamed past, scraping his arm as he raised his short blade, charging straight for her head.
Anna laughed, firing again. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Each shot forced him back, sparks scattering as steel deflected lead. He darted to the side, slamming into a tree, hiding behind its thick trunk.
Anna's smile widened. "Do you think a tree can save you?"
She fired. Bark splintered, wood bursting around him.
Zero's hand brushed the ground. He grabbed a branch, snapped it clean, and hurled it wide. A distraction.
The bullet tore it apart midair.
Smoke. Silence. The clearing breathed.
Anna and Jack turned
And Zero was gone.
A shadow fell from above.
Zero dropped from the treetops, blade flashing downward. Anna's reflexes faltered too slow, too late. Jack surged forward, both hands on his sword, steel clashing against Zero's short blade.
The impact rang like thunder. Sparks burst. Both boys rolled back.
Anna fired again, each bullet striking stone, soil, air.
Zero slipped between them, moving not with grace but with raw, mechanical instinct.
Every shot.
Every clash.
Every spark
triggered something in him.
A face.
A voice.
A little girl with long yellow hair.
Her eyes swollen with tears.
Her voice breaking as she screamed
"Come back! Come back! Come back!"
The memory tore into him, jagged and unyielding.
Zero's blade wavered. His stance shifted. His face did not change no smile, no grimace but something bled out of him.
Not expression.
Not voice.
Something heavier.
An emptiness so sharp it carried hatred, grief, and a hollow pain that others could feel, even if he could not.
Jack stepped back, his sword trembling.
Anna's laughter broke into silence, her smile fading.
For the first time, the Wolves hesitated.
Zero stood between them, blood dripping faintly from the scrape on his arm, his blade steady, his eyes unfocused yet burning with something nameless.
He wanted to get back to Aria.
But he also wanted to know the truth behind the face he had just seen.
The duel had changed.
It was no longer man versus Wolves.
It was memory versus oblivion.
And Zero's silence spoke louder than any war cry.
The river was merciless.
Aria's body tumbled in the current, swallowed by waves and spray. The cold bit into her skin like knives, each breath stolen before it could fill her lungs.
She fought to keep her head above the surface. Arms thrashing, legs kicking against the pull. But the water was strong, stronger than her thin frame, and it dragged her farther and farther from the shore.
Her vision blurred with spray. The roar of the waterfall thundered behind her.
"Zero!"
Her voice cracked, breaking against the current. She clawed at the water, reaching as if she could still grab him.
But he had not followed.
He had thrown her here. Like a burden.
Like a sacrifice.
Her chest burned. Her limbs weakened. Each second in the river felt like the hands of death pulling her down.
The current slammed her against a jagged rock. Pain shot through her side, but her fingers clung to it, desperate, refusing to let go. She coughed, spitting water, her lungs aching for air.
The river wanted her.
The river wanted to drag her away, to swallow her whole.
Her body trembled. Her mind screamed.
But inside, beneath the panic, was something else.
Anger.
Confusion.
And a sharp, cutting ache.
Why, Zero?
Why did you throw me?
Why didn't you fight for me?
Why did your face look so empty when you let me fall?
Her grip slipped.
The current tore her free.
Aria's body spun as the river carried her deeper into the misty gorge. Her breath faltered. Her vision darkened.
But even as her body weakened, her heart screamed louder than the water.
"Don't leave me…!"
Her voice was lost to the river, swallowed by the thunder of rushing waves.
And then
Darkness.
The sound of the river bled into the clash of steel and gunfire.
Aria's voice had already vanished beneath the roar. Her body was sinking, limbs growing limp, eyes half-closed as the current dragged her deeper into the abyss.
Zero saw it.
He did not move at first.
His blade hung at his side, his face still as stone.
But something cracked inside him.
Not memory.
Not words.
Something raw. Something silent.
Something that turned the emptiness in his eyes into a storm.
Anna aimed her rifle.
But her hands shook.
Her mind screamed: Shoot. Kill. End it.
And yet, she couldn't pull the trigger.
This boy this thing was not like the others. They had burned villages, slaughtered children, silenced cries without flinching. They had faced men who begged, women who fought, warriors who raged.
But this…
This was different.
An enemy with no laugh, no smile, no plea. Not even love for the girl he was trying to save.
Just emptiness.
Just silence.
And it was terrifying.
Anna's finger froze on the trigger.
"Anna!" Jack's roar cut through the haze. His blade flashed as he charged. "Don't falter! We are Wolves we never break!"
Zero dropped his sword.
Jack's eyes widened as the steel fell uselessly into the dirt. Then
A fist crashed into his stomach.
The air left his lungs in a single choking gasp. His knees buckled. His eyes rolled.
And he collapsed unconscious at Zero's feet.
Anna trembled. Her rifle rose, her breath ragged. She would shoot. She had to.
But Zero never looked at her.
His gaze was fixed on the river.
On Aria.
Without hesitation, he turned his back to Anna, sprinting toward the water. His boots pounded against stone, each step a silent vow.
Anna froze, fear locking her in place. She had never seen a man move like that. Never seen such cold resolve wrapped around something she couldn't understand.
Her rifle lowered against her will.
Aria's body sank deeper and deeper, her chest refusing breath, her eyes drifting shut. The river swallowed her like the earth itself.
Then arms cut through the water.
Zero's hands caught her just as the current dragged them both toward the edge.
The waterfall roared below, a white wall of death.
They fell.
Together.
The water tore them into the abyss, away from the Wolves, away from their team, away from everything.
Carried by the fury of the river, the commander of silence and the girl who clung to life vanished into the unknown.