Northern Forest of Aomori – Midnight
Snow fell like whispers.
The trees stood like petrified sentinels, silent, unmoving, waiting.
In the stillness of the woods, three figures moved swiftly between shadow and frost.
Asvara at the lead, his steps deliberate.
Kenji, slightly behind, his breath steady, one hand gripping the charm tags along his belt.
Riven, watching the treeline with narrowed eyes, the faint glow of his hourglass pulsing beneath his skin.
"We're close," AIRA's voice echoed from Asvara's comms. "Spiritual density is reaching pre-Gate parameters."
"Anything from the target?" Asvara asked.
"Zakuro has not moved. But he is not alone."
Asvara's eyes narrowed. "Then we're already surrounded."
As if on cue, three figures dropped from the trees ahead, landing silently on the snow.
Black armored beings, faceless, jointed like marionettes, Pawn-class Dustborne.
Their aura twisted the air around them.
Corrupted, hollow, angry.
Kenji stepped forward, drawing a talisman from his coat.
His voice was low but calm:
"Link. 呼び覚ます — Yobisamasu.Awaken."
A ripple of energy burst around him as one of the spiritual seals lit up, and in an instant, the outline of a samurai spirit engulfed him.
Armored. Furious. Roaring.
"Oda Nobukatsu," Kenji said. "Time to stretch."
The possessed Kenji darted forward with a burst of spiritual wind, his blade clashing against the lead Pawn.
The clash cracked the frozen ground, sending tremors through the clearing.
Meanwhile, Riven took a deep breath and extended one hand.
The sand in his hourglass trembled.
"Alright," he said, voice casual. "Let's see whose death still lingers here."
One of the Pawns lunged toward him — claws extended — but it was too slow.
Riven stepped through the snow like it was water, eyes glowing.
His fingers brushed the creature's mask and time fractured.
The Pawn slowed, crumbled mid-air, and collapsed without a sound.
"Fourteen years of stolen life, returned," Riven muttered.
"That's rent paid."
But then the mist parted.
And he appeared.
Zakuro.
Towering. Armored in obsidian.
His face hidden behind a cracked kabuto mask.
A pair of tattered wings — ethereal and rotting — extended from his back like the remains of a fallen angel.
His aura slammed into the clearing like thunder.
Kenji and Riven stopped instantly, heads snapping toward the source.
"He's not like the rest," Kenji muttered.
"No," Asvara said softly. "He's not a monster."
"He's a man who forgot how to be."
Zakuro raised one hand.
The air around him distorted and a blade of black flame formed from the void, humming with cursed echoes.
Then he moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
Kenji barely managed to parry.
The impact launched him back into a tree with a grunt.
Riven threw a ward forward, catching the shockwave with a time ripple, but the sheer pressure cracked the ground beneath him.
Asvara stepped forward slowly.
"He's not trying to kill us," he said aloud.
"He's trying to make us leave."
Zakuro said nothing only stared through his mask.
But his hand trembled.
Asvara's eyes narrowed.
"That sword… it's not his."
"It's devouring him."
AIRA's voice returned, hurried:
"Confirmed. Zakuro's spirit core is fragmenting. Hostile override in progress. Estimated corruption: 84%."
"At this rate, he will become unrecoverable in five minutes."
Then Zakuro turned and ran toward the Gate.
A massive chasm pulsing with purple light sat at the edge of a sunken shrine, the Gate of Aomori.
It looked alive. Breathing. Hungry.
Zakuro dropped to one knee in front of it.
Not out of reverence.
Out of desperation.
Asvara followed slowly.
Riven and Kenji were behind him, battered but alert.
"Asv," Riven called. "What now?"
Asvara said nothing.
He kept walking until he stood directly behind Zakuro.
And there, on the shrine wall, were words etched in fire.
剣心
Kenshin.
Asvara's eyes widened. He stepped closer.
And in a moment of clarity, he remembered Masamune's words.
"Do not strike him with steel. Strike him with 剣心. The Heart of the Sword."
AIRA whispered:
"Katana technique class: Kenshin.Required execution: Tameshigiri — focused spiritual cut targeting the soul core, not the flesh."
"Warning: precision must be absolute. Misalignment can sever the spirit permanently."
Asvara exhaled.
He reached into his Subspace.
And in one fluid, almost reverent motion, Sensō no Uta appeared.
The blade sang a really sad melody for those who can hear it as it was drawn not with noise, but with grief.
A thousand wars. A thousand regrets.
A thousand promises not to kill, but to free.
Asvara stepped behind Zakuro, whose breathing now echoed like a war drum.
His body trembled fighting his own corruption.
Asvara placed his hand gently on the back of Zakuro's shoulder.
"You were once a man."
"I won't let them erase that."
Zakuro didn't resist.
He didn't move.
As if… he was waiting for this.
Asvara raised Sensō no Uta.
Took one breath.
Closed his eyes.
And in a whisper, the blade moved.
A single, pure, precise arc of light — Tameshigiri — clean and without malice.
Not through flesh. Not through armor.
But through the soul.
The mist shattered.
The Gate pulsed once then dimmed.
Zakuro's form staggered.
And then collapsed forward, the black flame around him extinguishing with a soft hiss.
The air went still.
Riven approached cautiously.
"Is he…?"
Asvara nodded.
"Sleeping. Not dead."
"I cut the rot," he said. "Not the root."
Kenji exhaled.
"So that's what Masamune meant."
"You didn't defeat him."
"You forgave him."
Asvara looked to the sky.
Snow still fell. But softer now.
And for a moment, the night did not feel like war.
It felt like peace. But not for long.
Snowflakes drifted gently from the sky, but beneath them, chaos stirred.
The Gate trembled, its edges cracking like shattered glass as unstable pulses rippled across the field.
Sensō no Uta, still humming faintly from the soul-split technique, pulsed once more before he sheathed it back into Subspace.
AIRA's voice buzzed through the comm:
"WARNING. Gate integrity compromised. Core destabilizing due to spiritual dissonance — trigger source: Rook disintegration."
Kenji blinked. "Wait. But Zakuro wasn't destroyed, you said he was sleeping!"
"His corrupted Rook-core was separated, but its connection to the Gate was too deeply embedded."
Riven frowned, glancing at the trembling structure.
"In other words, the Gate thinks it lost its key."
"And now it's about to break."
Suddenly, a high-pitched ping from Lyra's comm.
"Guys, sorry but I think I've bring some problem."
"Device failed. I couldn't override the warding seal Minerva put around Room V. We can't shut it remotely."
AIRA added grimly:
"Projected time to rupture: 3 minutes."
Then a sharp CRACK heard.
The Gate glowed violently.
And from the air itself, a spatial tear widened…
Revealing a figure descending in golden light.
She wore a long white robe embroidered with celestial gold.
Her silver-blonde hair trailed like silk, and behind her fluttered ethereal wings of pale crystal.
To an outsider she looked divine.
But Asvara's jaw clenched as she landed, hovering just above the snow.
Minerva Phallas Promachos.
She clapped slowly, mockingly.
"Ah, Regalia. The eternal tactician himself."
"How quaint."
Her smile turned cruel.
"You've grown since the last time we spoke."
"But I must say… this whole charade of saving corrupted souls?Rather pitiful."
She looked down at Zakuro's still body.
"This… was your plan?"
"What are you, a saint? A priest? A fool?"
Asvara said nothing.
She began to circle him like a lion circling a dying stag.
"Let me guess."
"You thought if you forgave enough people… if you out-strategized enough pawns…"
"You could win this war."
Then she stepped closer, smirking.
"Your title is trash."
"Yes — you are eternal."
"But strategist?"
"Don't make me laugh."
Kenji tensed beside him, eyes beginning to glow with Link energy.
But Asvara didn't even flinch.
Instead… he smiled.
Then chuckled.
Then laughed.
And when he looked up, his eyes were gleaming with something far older than anger.
Something ancient.
Something unshaken.
"You always did love drama."
Minerva's smile faltered but just slightly.
Then Asvara spoke calmly, precisely in Latin:
"Qui cum monstris pugnat, videat ne ipse monstrum fiat."(He who fights monsters should see to it that he does not become one.)
"Et si in abyssum diu intueris…"(And if you gaze long into an abyss…)
"…abyssus quoque te intuebitur."(…the abyss also gazes into you.)
Minerva's wings pulsed, light flickering dark at the edges.
"Quoting Nietzsche?" she said, voice sharp.
"How… academic."
But Asvara stepped forward now toward the unstable Gate.
And behind him, Riven and Kenji both fell into position.
Then Asvara's voice lowered, barely above a whisper.
"You use the name Minerva."
"But you're not wisdom."
"You're Isorropia."
The light flickered again.
Then she laughed, full, regal, twisted.
"Ah… finally."
"Yes. I am Isorropia."
"I am Balance undone. Harmony shattered. I am the goddess you failed to slay, and the idea you could never predict."
"And this Gate?"
"This was always your punishment."
"I let you think you had control. I let you win Zakuro. I even let you quote philosophy like it meant something."
"But it doesn't."
She raised her hand and the Gate pulsed once more, a crack beginning to form at the top.
But then there's a shift in the air.
Snow swirled unnaturally.
The body of Zakuro glowed faintly not in corruption… but in clarity.
Kenji blinked.
"Wait—he's—"
"Alive," Asvara said, still calm.
"Or rather… his soul has found its path."
Kenji stepped forward, and his voice echoed with Link energy:
"Link.魂の絆 – Tamashī no kizuna."(Bond of Souls.)
A burst of spiritual light erupted from his chest.
Zakuro's form floated upward, his spirit core stabilizing and in a flash of resonance, merged with Kenji's body.
But instead of being possessed, they synchronized.
Kenji's armor morphed taking on new traits: raven wings of spirit, shoulder plating resembling ancient clan crests, and Zakuro's helmet forming as a crown.
Asvara smirked.
"Time to return the favor."
Minerva raised her hand, but too late.
Kenji-Zakuro vanished reappearing in front of her with a roar of wind.
His blade clashed against her energy barrier with a sonic boom that shook the Gate structure itself.
"You're not the only one who can wear a mask," Kenji growled, his voice layered with Zakuro's tone.
"And you're not untouchable anymore."
AIRA's voice chimed through the chaos:
"Gate seal can be re-established if the central anchor is struck with a synchronized energy pattern of two or more bonded anomalies."
Asvara turned to Riven.
"You up for one more paradox?"
Riven cracked his neck.
"Make it weird, boss."
Asvara raised his hand, Sensō no Uta once again shimmering into existence — now thrumming with purple flame from the Gate's energy field.
And then — he ran forward.
Kenji followed.
Riven behind them, sand spiraling in a time-twisting arc.
Minerva roared but her expression had cracked.
Because now, she wasn't watching pawns fight back.
She was facing what she feared most.
The convergence of chaos and choice.
And at the center of it, stood Asvara Regalia.
Eternal.
But never alone.
The Gate of Aomori roared.
The forest trembled.
And the battlefield had become a theater for gods and ghosts alike.
Kenji and Riven stood back-to-back, spiritual energy flaring like twin storms.
The fused Kenji-Zakuro form crackled with lightning-like tendrils of soul resonance, while Riven's hourglass sand circled him in spirals of refracted time.
Minerva—or rather, one of Isorropia—stood in the air like a celestial executioner, light folding around her with unnerving calm.
"You think this ends with brute force?" she sneered.
"Even your fancy sword tricks won't save you now, Regalia."
She raised both hands.
The Gate screamed.
The structure began collapsing inward—gravity breaking like shattered glass sucked into a black hole.
Dust. Screams. Fragments of magic.
"Gate is destabilizing!" AIRA's voice rang out.
"Lyra's device failed—"
"Confirmed. Sequence collapsing."
But Asvara?
He was smiling.
Calm.
Irritatingly so.
He didn't even unsheathe Sensō no Uta.
Not yet.
Instead, he took a single step forward and started laughing.
Slow. Low. Echoing across the snowy battlefield.
"Minerva," he said, wiping an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye.
"You're right about one thing."
"That device... was never meant to seal the gate."
Minerva paused. Her aura pulsed dangerously.
"What?"
"Then what—"
"It's an air conditioner."
Beat.
Kenji blinked. "Wait what?"
Riven burst into laughter. "Oh god… he actually did it."
Asvara kept talking, voice clear and sharp.
"It's a custom-built temperature regulator I rigged from a prototype SmartThermo system. Meant to control room climate in spaces with warped chronotemporal fields."
"Specifically, Riven's dorm."
"Because his room... is a mess."
"And you," he pointed toward the sky, "fell for it."
Minerva's face twisted in fury. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Asvara tilted his head. "Then tell me…"
"Why did Lyra's 'device' not work?"
"Why didn't the seal trigger?"
"Why—if you truly understood the strategy—did the gate not open the way you expected?"
He took another step forward, eyes locked onto hers.
"You've been outplayed since the beginning."
The battlefield froze.
Even the wind dared not blow.
"You thought I didn't notice?" he said softly.
"Back at Liberium, when the first Gate appeared in Cikapundung… when the pawn tried to isolate me and Riven in temporal stasis…"
"I recognized the pattern. The spiritual signature. The style."
"You always thought you were subtle, Minerva."
"But true tacticians? We spot fingerprints even in invisible ink."
Riven's voice echoed.
"E4…"
Kenji's eyes widened.
"You mean... the chessboard move?"
Asvara nodded.
"The Queen's Gambit."
"One of the most aggressive opening sacrifices in chess."
"I lured her in from the start."
"Let her think she was controlling the board."
He turned to the floating goddess, whose illusion of control was beginning to crumble.
"And this whole 'Gate implosion' thing?"
He raised a hand.
The sky shimmered.
And the Gate—the one violently collapsing—Flickered.
Then solidified again.
Unbroken.
Untouched.
"That was AIRA," he said.
"A hardlight projected illusion, augmented through Subspace Archive rendering filters."
"Felt real enough to fool even you."
"Did you really think I'd let a key Gate collapse without contingency plans?"
Minerva hissed.
"This… this is impossible—"
"NO!"
Her form flared with violent light.
But Asvara stepped forward, calm as the falling snow.
"It's not impossible."
"It's strategy."
"And you're in my game now."
He reached into Subspace.
Sensō no Uta flashed into existence and looks a bit longer now, the blade gleaming with rich violet aura that pulsed like a heartbeat.
The falling snow crystallized around it.
AIRA's voice rang again and this time, layered with the voice of Masamune Date through spiritual echo:
"Do not strike her with steel.""Strike her with 剣心."
Asvara looked up at Minerva.
Then… smiled.
"Checkmate."
In a single blur of motion, he launched upward.
Faster than light. Faster than thought.
Minerva raised a shield but it cracked under the weight of legacy.
Sensō no Uta passed through it like water.
Asvara didn't aim for her body.
He aimed for her soul.
And he sliced.
One clean arc.
Not rage. Not revenge.
Resolve.
The light inside Minerva faltered.
Crumbled.
Her wings flickered, then shattered like glass.
The celestial form disintegrated revealing a fragmented, hollowed-out spirit.
Riven looked up.
"She wasn't even whole to begin with…"
Kenji stepped forward. "A puppet of an idea."
"Isorropia never needed faces," Asvara said.
"Only hosts."
The remnants of Minerva collapsed.
And the Gate pulsed once and then calmed.
Silent. Restored. Sealed.
Snow began falling again.
AIRA's voice returned.
"Gate secure."
"Distortion levels returning to baseline."
"Operation 'Checkmate at E4'… success."
Asvara stood quietly, Sensō no Uta still humming with soft, purple glow.
Then, in a whisper only the wind heard,
"You can't kill an idea."
"But you can make it irrelevant."