Akundae looked at Zero not with mercy—but with fury, tightly leashed by honor. His fists trembled, but it did not rise. To strike now would be cowardice. Desecration. Weakness .

“I will not crush a cripple, but you will not deny me my glory. I will return. I will find you again..”

His words ...

"Wait, hunting who?" Zero asked, snapping the book shut and dashing out behind his friend and his sprite.

"Most of what I know I learned while learning the ways of the blade from our Cursed Flame. But I'm a quick study."

Zero already stood up and leaped to the second floor of the Atelier, running his hands along the shelves separated by location. He found a single book on the Forest of Resonance and ...

"Thunderer?" Zero asked, perking up a bit more at the sound of a new nickname he assumed was his to wear. It had a ring to it, a certain flair, an appreciation for his character that only a rumor could build. If only Zero could feel embarrassment for being dragged from the site of an explosions, he ...

Dragged from the face of destruction and jaws of defeat, Zero's thoughts were a blank canvas. He didn't know exactly what happened in that last moment, remembering a flash and the wave of crimson-grey energy engulfing them, but then darkness. For a second, he thought he had died. The normal way his ...

Zero watched his strike arc through the ground and hit its target, or get damn near to it before being parried with their opponent's weapon, though it seemed to be a direct hit. The vicious slice bounced off the burning rod without recoiling them in the least bit. The currents around them were ...

Zero watched Zeik disappear like a ghost out of his shocking shield. His woven web crackled against the bombardment of the charged petals, dissolving them into a fine mist around him. The bombardment seemed to slow down, giving Zero a split moment to shift gears behind his partner’s advancing ...

“No thanks,” Zero said, stepping out of his handstand into a cartwheel weaving a number of hand seals as he rose back to his feet. He placed himself directly behind Zeik with his hands coated in purple electricity. He paused for just a moment, taking note of a strange change in the current flowing ...

"Lethal force? Or you wanna 'save' this weapon?"

He asked while adjusting his grip on his katana. He could already feel the answer clawing at the back of his mind, demanding release.

He bared his teeth in a grin.


“Let’s avoid unnecessary casualty. I wanna be able to sleep tonight.“

This ...

Zeik turned away, his voice quieter now. "You're lying again."

Zeik kept his gaze fixed ahead, unwilling to meet his eyes or waiting for a reply. Beneath the anger, beneath the betrayal, something deeper festered—something worse. Hurt.

Zero’s lie wasn’t just about the barrier. It was about ...