Davi held his hand out and watched in awe as a flake of snow fell upon his palm. He looked at it and then toward the sea of white that was around him.
As far as the eye could see. The forest had changed. Gone was the green and brown, replaced only with clumps of white snow. The trees above were painted, and each step he took caused the ground to dent and break. His foot would sink, and a strange chill he had never felt before would flow through his flesh.
Off to the side, his brother Sieg watched him, the young twelve-year-old looking amused. "Davi," Sieg called out to his little brother, watching as the ten-year-old became stuck. "What are you doing?"
Davi collapsed onto the snow and began to open and close his arms rapidly, forming a shape on the ground. He remained silent and kept at it.
"Is it the first time he's ever seen snow?" Noble asked, equally as amused as Sieg.
"Well, it very rarely snows out here." Sieg hummed and looked up, allowing the soft flakes to rain down upon his face. He stuck his tongue out and caught one, then swallowed it. "A tropical island like ours tends to never get snow. This kind of thing only happens when the novels across the sea perform their celebration. The day of winter, when they freeze the sky and cause it to rain shards of ice down upon the nation."
Noble nodded her head. "Do you know why they do that?"
"Are you asking me if I know why they freeze the sky every five years?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
Sieg shrugged. "To be honest, I've never really thought about it."
She smiled at him and stepped forward, lifting her hand slowly into the air. She muttered a spell, and water formed, rapidly turning into a blade. In only a matter of seconds, she held a finely made katana.
Noble swung the blade, splitting apart the snow around her and causing a tree to collapse, a perfect cut running right through it. Once that was done, she began to speak.
"The first Spell Sword was the Shogun. Lord Oda created the fine art of swordsmanship that we all study. He created the concept of a Core Mask and invented the Mask Core, which we all use. He created the three embodiments. The Behmoth, the Leviathan, and the Ziz. He impressed many, from the Knights across the sea to the Lords of Iron above and even the mighty dragons. However, Lord Oda was unable to defeat one foe. The great beast of blood. The Hydra of the Red Sea."
Sieg gulped, and for a moment the image of the Hydra came to his mind. An ancient monster that corrupted the land. It had an open dungeon around it, one that spilled out an infinite amount of blood and coated the ocean it resided in with a permanent layer of red.
Noble continued.
"Every year, come the time of great winter, there is a special event that is held." She turned to him and pointed her water sword out toward his heart. "Long ago, when Oda died, his remains were hidden away, along with the famous Blossom Blade, which he crafted. There exists a legend. A prophecy that states that when the time is right, a grand warrior will wield this blade. A powerful being who will slay the crimson tyrant and plunge their sword into their heart. And so, every five years, come winter, the current Shogun will freeze the sky, causing the ocean itself to become hard, allowing someone to walk upon it, in the hopes that when the day is right, the warrior of the prophecy will slay the hydra."
"And who's the warrior?" Sieg asked. "How do we know it'll be them? Is it because they wield Oda's sword?"
Noble shook her head. "A being of unquestionable might will rise and reclaim the sword that was once lost. He will plunge the lost sword into the heart of the crimson tyrant and end the day of the great cold. Humanity will usher him, and he will lift to the skies with his scarlet wings. And thus will fly the hawk with red wings."
"Hawk with red wings?" Sieg rubbed the back of his neck. "So that's the prophecy."
Noble giggled. "Yep. Pretty much. Though, personally, I don't believe in things like that." She stretched her arms up, letting out a satisfied sigh when her back finally popped. "Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it… Those sort of things don't concern me. I personally believe that we forge our own path."
"I don't really care what the future holds," Sieg hummed. "Maybe we have control, or maybe we don't; either way, it doesn't concern me." He walked forward and stood directly over his brother. "Davi. What did you make?" He placed his hands on his hips and smiled. "You're going to catch a cold."
Davi was still buried in the snow, flat on his back, looking up with a blank face. He had his arms outstretched and had waved them up and down, the snow twisting until it almost looked like a pair of wings.
Sieg shook his head. "Having fun?"
"Yeah."
"Want to stop?"
"No."
"Fair enough. Just don't come crying to me when you're sneezing up a storm."
"Okay."
Sieg sighed and rolled his eyes. "That was sarcasm, Davi. If you get sick, come running to me and I'll-"
"Look out below!" A voice cried from above just in time for a sea of crimson and gore to splatter down as dozens of dead deer rained from the sky.
Noble let out a loud screech when one of the deer hit the ground hard enough to erupt in a shower of bones and guts, some of which got on her.
Sieg dodged out of the way of the bodies as they kept dropping, and soon, most of the forest was painted red and white. While he did that, Davi remained on his back, seemingly unbothered by what was going on.
"Arch!" Noble screamed in rage.
Laughter burst out of the treetops, and Arch jumped down, landing on the remains of one of the deer. He held a bow, and on his back was an empty quiver. He also had a large shit-eating grin on his face.
"You should have seen your faces." Arch chuckled and wiped a blood-covered hand through his messy hair.
"Dude." Sieg's face scrunched up. "What the hell? What did you do?"
"I went hunting." Arch pointed a thumb at his empty quiver. "Spent all day getting these little bastards, but turns out your dad already beat me to it and got plenty of meat to bring back to the entire village."
"So you decided to drop these on us instead of bringing them back for future storage?" Noble asked flatly.
"Yep!" Arch beamed. "Created a large ice bridge and went up as high as I could. You should have seen the look on your faces when it started raining deer!"
"Who does that, you freaking psycho?" Sieg shook his head.
Arch just laughed again. "I do. That was freaking funny."
"You're an asshole." Noble's frown grew.
"And you're covered in gore." Arch stuck his tongue out at her.
Sieg huffed and turned away. "Davi, are you okay-" He stopped. "Davi?"
The rain of gore had miraculously not touched Davi. He remained clean. The red was all around him, however. In fact, most of it had splashed down onto the wings he had formed in the snow.
Davi stared up at his brother, a pair of red wings behind him.
Sieg shook his head and forced his thoughts away. A smile returned to his face, and he held his hand out. "Come on. Let's head back."
Davi reached up and took the hand and allowed his brother to drag him back to his feet. Together, along with Noble and Arch, the four of them began to head out of the woods and returned to their village.
"So," Sieg squeezed his brother's hand. "Did you like the snow?"
"Yeah. It was cold, though."
Noble laughed. "Well, snow is cold? Did you not know that?"
Davi shook his head. "I don't like the cold."
"But you liked the snow?"
"Yeah."
Noble gave a nod. "Yeah. I think I'd also like snow a lot more if it wasn't as cold."
"Nah." Arch shook his head. "Warm snow just means someone pissed on it."
"You're gross."
"Again, says the person covered in gore."
That caused Arch and Noble to break out into an argument. Sieg just shook his head once more and let out another sigh. He glanced down at his younger brother and noticed Davi was looking back at the snow-covered woods.
Davi stared at the sea of white. "I liked the snow."
"That's good." Sieg's lips curled back into a smile. "Maybe the snow will be a good memory for you?"
***
Chrysanthemum Village was destroyed.
Davi took a hollow, slow step forward. His foot burned, and his flesh ached as it sank into the cold snow. All around him, as far as the eye could see, all he saw was white.
The fire that had burned Chrysanthemum to the ground was no longer present. The cold had engulfed and swallowed it. Snow rained down in a constant stream, and as he walked through the remains of his village, Davi felt a sense of despair in the pit of his stomach.
Buildings were in ruins. Some were completely collapsed or scorched; others were ripped apart or flattened by claws. Not a single one was left standing.
He couldn't find his home. He had no clue where it was in the pile of rubble, but he knew that it was gone.
Jagged swords were impaled into the ground. Each sword was different, and each one had been wielded bravely by its owner till the very end. Some of the blades he recognized. They had belonged to people whom he had often seen in the village. Other swords were melted down or shattered, making it impossible to tell what they might have been like in their complete state.
He didn't see his father's sword. His dad often used two different blades. One was a standard katana that all Spell Swords had, and the other was a thick claymore. Neither was anywhere to be found, and Davi was a bit glad of that fact. Seeing the swords would have made it all a little too real.
Besides the swords and the buildings, there were also bodies. So, so many bodies. Men, women, children. They were frozen over, ice coating them, leaving them suspended in place, the last bit of horror frozen on their feature.
He saw Noble.
Her body had been split in half, her legs completely removed. She was well past being dead. He could still recall the way her hands had grasped toward him and how she begged for him to save her, but he didn't. He had kept walking. He had left her. Left them all.
Her skin was a nasty shade of blue, and her eyes had half popped out of her skull, trapped behind a layer of ice. Jagged spikes of frost jutted from sections of her flesh, and her neck was cracked, her head almost snapping off.
Davi nearly vomited, but by some miracle he managed to keep his food down. He quickly grabbed a rug from one of the piles of former houses and threw it over her.
"I'm sorry." He said weakly. His face stung as his tears froze before they could fall from his eyes.
"I'm so sorry."
He didn't find his dad's body, nor did he find his mom's. He also didn't see the remains of anyone else he recognized. None of the teachers or Arch. But he had seen Noble. He had seen her when she was dying, and now he had seen her when she was dead. In both cases, he left her.
Davi walked around the village. He didn't know why he had come back. He didn't even really understand what was going on.
One moment he and his brother were walking through the snow, about to die, and then the next he woke up alone, stranded in the cold. Strangely though, it didn't seem to bother him as much as it used to.
He absentmindedly rubbed at his chest and winced in mild pain as his heart began to beat. His blood started to boil, and he almost cried out. His knees buckled, and the world began to spin. His heart ached worse and worse, and he was forced to stop, sitting down at the ruined remains of a destroyed set of stairs.
Davi breathed in and out, greedily sucking in oxygen. As he did, he couldn't help but look at all the corpses. He forced his eyes away and stared upwards at the black sky.
"Sieg… Where are you… I'm scared." Davi curled up and let out a weak sniffle. "Why can't I wake up from this nightmare?"
He remained there. He didn't move; he didn't try to escape the cold, and eventually he didn't even cry. He just sat there, motionless. Maybe he was waiting to die, or maybe he was waiting for someone to come save him. Not even he fully knew.
Slowly, his eyes shut and he drifted off into a slumber. And so, Davi slumbered. And as he slumbered, he dreamed.
He dreamed of a warm field with bright green grass and a blazing sun. He dreamed that he was surrounded by friends and people who cared about him. He dreamed that he had a life worth living for. He dreamed of dreams.
But all things come to an end.
"-ello?"
Davi felt something touch his skin. It was sharp and pointed.
"Hello?"
The pointy thing pressed harder into his flesh.
"Hello!"
Davi blinked, sleep slowly fading from him as he stirred awake. Someone was poking his face with a particularly pointy stick. He glanced up, confused, and found the face of a young girl staring back at him.
She was maybe a year older than he was, fourteen or fifteen at the most, and she had long silver hair and a pair of brightly colored eyes that almost looked like twin moons. She dressed in a heavy white winter cloak, and the stick she was holding was some twisted branch with various gems and metal circles on it.
"Oh!" Her eyes lit up and met his. "You're alive! Cool! Hey! We got a live one!"
"Ms. Lunar!" Suddenly, the girl was dragged away by a large man in heavy bronze armor. "Don't mess with one of these bodies. Who knows if this thing is covered in radiation or not."
"Yeah." Off to the side was another man, this one in bright red armor. He was holding some strange metal box that was making a bizarre series of clicking sounds, and he glanced around, waving it left and right. "The readings are going off the chart. That 'thing' is here somewhere."
The girl hummed, and she glanced back at Davi. "Hello, young boy! I have a question for you!"
Davi blinked again and sat up a bit more. The two armored men looked uncomfortable, and one of them placed a hand on a sword that hung from their belt. "Ms. Lunar." The bronze man said again. "Please refrain from speaking to him. He could be another one of those 'creatures'."
The silver-haired girl ignored the man and stepped forward toward Davi. "Have you happened to have spotted a being from another world?"
Davi tilted his head, feeling completely confused. Who the hell were these people? "A being from another world? Do you mean like a monster?"
The girl clicked her tongue. "Well, you'd likely think it was a monster, but no. This thing didn't used to be human, nor does it come from the other side. It is something else. A twisted being from a world that isn't our own. In fact, it comes from a truly spectacular world. It is not an inhabitant of a dungeon."
Davi's face scrunched up. "No? I haven't seen anything like that. Who are you, people? Why are you in my village?"
"Your village?" This time it was the girl's turn to blink. "Oh my. How old are you? When I saw you weren't a corpse or another one of those plant abominations, I thought you were some orphan, but if this is your village, it explains a lot more. After all, your soul seems super old. And you haven't died from the radiation?"
"Radiation? What's that?"
"It's something deadly to most people." The girl explained. "I'm immune thanks to my magic type, as it involves radiation. You don't strike me as a Lunar, yet the radiation hasn't killed you? Either you're also immune to radiation like me, or something is shielding you." The girl hummed and rubbed her chin.
"Ms. Lunar!" The bronze knight growled. "You might be a vat noble from a higher family than my own, but you're still just a Squire. Do not forget, Father placed me in charge of this mission. That means you are to do as I say. Understood."
The girl rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."
The man growled again. "Kill him." He turned away. "I don't know what's up with that freak, but put him down."
"Do I have to?" The girl whined.
"Yes. He's Mordheim scum."
"Okay." The girl sighed and then glanced back at Davi. "Welp, sorry about this." She raised her staff up and grinned. "Don't worry! It'll be painless! Vil Moonlit-"
Before she could fully cast the spell, the metal box the red-armored man held suddenly began to shake. It beeped louder and louder, and smoke started to flow from it. The man cursed and dropped the device as it caught on fire.
"Shit! The Lord's here-"
The ground exploded, a hail of ice, debris, and frozen dead bodies, scattering in all directions. A loud, feminine laughter filled the air, and Davi's eyes widened when he saw green.
Thick vines and thorns jutted out of the ground, coming from beneath a pile of rubble. More and more kept coming, and then, from beneath the snow, a large rose shoved its way out of the ground.
The thorns of the rose went deep beneath the ground, and the flower was nearly as big as a tree. Coming out the top of the flower, the upper half of a woman rose up. She was big, easily twenty feet tall, and well endowed. Her skin looked to be made up of grass and vines, with various flowers growing along the woman's body, and she had long, flowing pink hair. It was truly like looking at a goddess.
The strange flowery being was laughing. "Oh my~ It didn't take long for this planet to discover me."
The silver-haired girl smirked as she looked up at the flower monster. "So, you're the Prettiest Flower." She raised her staff. "It's good to come face to face with you, Lord of the Land and Life. Die." A spell formed, and the girl fired.
The Prettiest Flower laughed even louder, and thorns exploded out of the ground, and an entire tree formed into the shape of a sword in her hand, which she swung out.
Davi watched in shock as the two sides began to do battle with one another.