[HARUKI]
"Sire!!" A familiar voice in a red helmet cut through the endless clash of swords and the fog that had long formed.
The battlefield was busy. Men dying around them, swords meeting flesh, and black shields hitting the ground faster than the spears and arrows ever would.
It was nothing new, just like the voice that had been heard by the ones closest to the owner.
"What do we do?"
"He's not listening to us…"
"We are going to be bested."
The worried warriors in red helmets mingled with the chaos on the battlefield, where they had been for over fifteen hours. It had been easy, just like the other times they had gathered on any battlefield.
Get in. fight. Eliminate. Go home.
That had been their routine.
And the man they were staring at, the man who was holding their hope in his hand and their lives at his mercy, was not even paying attention to them. Or maybe he was hearing them, and he just didn't care enough to turn to his warriors.
After all, the outcome had never changed, right?
"The masked warrior is here," another added grimly as he drove his sword into the belly of the man in a black helmet before him. He ripped the blade free and swung it across the man's waist, cutting through as if he were cutting a piece of paper.
"Maybe we should run to him," one suggested.
"And do what, when we are on a battlefield?"
"You know how he hates that."
"He will strangle us before we get close. His spiritual power is out of this world; u know it too."
"Wait… maybe you should go to him," the warrior said to one of them who was busy with three enemies at a time.
The man was holding his own well and clearly didn't need a distraction, but was it distracting when he was headed their way, and there was a chance they could fix this before it got bad?
"That's a really good idea. He listens to you, Saito… you go tell him the masked warrior is here," the warriors pushed knowingly.
Saito just laughed like they had to be joking.
Surely, they had to be.
"Great, sacrifice me to the Sondra Dynamite, will ya?? Besides, he knows how many breaths we take when we sleep. You think he doesn't know that the masked warrior is here?
"Get on with your fights, we need to finish this and get warm batters back home," Saito said dismissively, and the warriors groaned, each with their blades wet with thick blood.
But perhaps Saito was right.
The man in question was not someone they could easily attune anything to.
No one knew him any better.
He was always closed, always away from everyone, only ever responding to calls. And whenever he stepped into a battlefield, no one was ever left standing save for the army that he came with.
"Do you think Mei will look at me this time?" one of the warriors before asked, as he swung his sword hard against the nearest warrior, cutting the man's head off cleanly.
"You're thinking about your crush when we are literally fighting the army that refuses to die with ease? Are you nuts?"
"Can't a man be fighting for what he loves in peace?"
"You mean someone who you have a massive crush on and yet won't even lift a spoon in her direction?"
"He is hopeless… anyway, whoever was asking if the general saw the masked man, there is your answer," Saito said casually.
He then pointed in the direction of the man they had all been too horrified to even step closer, despite the fact that they were a team.
He looked calm, even as the masked warrior ripped through his army like they were nothing but ash for him to step on as he made his way to the one hero of every war:
The Sondra Dynamite.
A lethal middle-aged man who was excellent in the art of war, the Sondra Dynamite was not just a man in name. He was the man whom kings were terrified of. Who had burned kingdoms to the ground just because he was bored...
…or so they had been told.
His targets never went home. His enemies never lived long after meeting him.
On normal days, he was a man who carried two swords like the clothes on his back; one that didn't have a tassel, and another with a crimson tassel.
The warriors had long noticed that the crimson tassel sword was never unsheathed, despite Sondra Dynamite carrying it to war every single time, just like today.
Many assumed it was his good luck charm. Others whispered it was the sword of a ghost that kept him sane.
Yet the Sondra Dynamite never once said anything to defend himself, even when the rumors sometimes got so out of hand that his king stepped up. Even then, he remained unbothered, just like he was right now on this bloody battlefield.
"YAAA!!!" Warriors in black helmets rushed toward the Sondra Dynamite. He was standing on a small mountain of their fellow warriors, dead by his hands, and he was telling them that this is what he did.
He stared as they ran to him, watching with boredom written all over his face, like this was not how he had planned to drag the battlefield this long.
'You can't always fight your battles alone… well, you can, and you will win, but sharing in the horrors doesn't sound like a bad thing when you have an army,' his king had once told him.
Back when he was tearing through kingdoms alone and without any help.
Frankly, if he had been doing this alone, he would have long flattened this battlefield, but maybe it wasn't so bad to have others be involved in the horrors he was creating for everyone.
"Kill him!!" the enemies shouted before they started swinging at the Sondra Dynamite.
Each swing never landed, no matter how close they were to the man. And it wasn't because he was using his spiritual energy. But because he was faster than them all.
Everyone who sprang at him ended up dead before a complete swing, with his blade: either their heart, chest, or their heads coming off.
"People really never learn from the rumors, do they?" Saito sighed exaggeratedly as he ducked under a swinging blade, fighting alongside his comrades.
They were looking at the Sondra Dynamite and the messy warriors who had fallen the moment they tried to come at the man.
"Some people like to learn from their experiences," another said in amusement, and they all just laughed sadly before focusing.
In the near distance, they saw the masked warrior pressing forward still. The distance between him and Sondra Dynamite was growing smaller and faster.
Many of the warriors held their breaths; both friends and foes. Because this was the one thing that they didn't know how to anticipate. And like clockwork, the battlefield slowed.
Black helmets and red helmets casually stopped clashing. Their eyes focused on the Sondra Dynamite and the masked warrior known to only appear in gruesome battlefields.
"Do you think we will make it home today?" a back helmet asked.
"It would be a miracle if we survive their collision," a red helmet added.
They knew.
They could feel it. What was coming?
Perhaps that was why the dying were left to die, and the injured slowly pushed themselves far back from the space where the masked warrior and the Sondra Dynamite were bound to meet.
Even the black helmets that had been fighting the Sondra Dynamite had learned to fall back. Maybe because the masked warrior was one of them, or maybe because they, too, knew that hell and high water would finally meet.
What were the chances, though?
The Sondra Dynamite did not wait for the masked warrior to reach him. He went toward him. One foot in front of the other, his eyes sharp and his grip on his sword so tight.
Hell, the Sondra Dynamite had spent years waiting for this day, sharpening his sword for this particular moment. And he wouldn't wait. He wouldn't hesitate anymore, so he charged.
Ran towards the man when he realized his steps were too slow for him.
And the masked warrior didn't stop either.
He ran toward the Sondra Dynamite, their swords meeting with a harsh clang of steel. Sparks flew around aimlessly, but even then, neither of them yielded, holding their swords so tightly that they swung to the side.
The masked warrior pulled an extra blade, his grip on the sword never leaving, and he swung it at the Sondra Dynamite, something that didn't faze the dynamite.
The Sondra Dynamite had known the warrior over the years, even if just through the rumors, and the way that the man fought was dirty. And the dynamite had been ready for that.
So he pulled himself back, fast, before the blade even had a chance to graze him.
The masked warrior didn't stop.
He kept swinging.
A blade on one hand, a sword on the other.
The Sondra Dynamite swung at him. His waist. His arm. His chest. His helmet. Each swing had the masked warriors defending themselves with the kind of precision that no one had ever seen before.
"They are really going to kill each other."
"They are a match made in hell."
"Shut up."
The conversations never stopped. Not even the whispers whenever the masked warrior swung too close to Sondra Dynamite's head, or even the grass when Sondra Dynamite's sword grazed the masked warrior's black armor.
It was an unwinnable fight, but someone had to win.
And the Sondra Dynamite was determined.
He could feel the hate in the way that the masked warrior was fighting, and if he was being honest, that didn't matter to him. He had not come here for hugs anyway.
And so they fought.
Until Sondra Dynamite finally found an opening. One that allowed him to swing even harder at the masked man's helmet.
He was determined to let the world know the face of the masked man.
Determined to be reminded that it was he who amused the great masked warrior.
But when the masked warrior's helmet fell…
So did the Sondra Dynamite's sword.
And it wasn't because the masked warrior had bested him.