Author's Notes & Polling Segment
Back with a new chapter segment, everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the story so far.
Before we jump right back into the action, I thought we would revisit the community polls once more, but with a slightly restructured format to make things easier to vote on:
1. Should Roy marry Lissa later in the story?
A: YES
B: NO
If your answer is no: Who should Roy marry?
A: Sumia
B: Sully
C: Cordelia
D: Tharja
E: Maribelle
G: Say'ri
H: Other (write-in suggestion)
I: Cordelia (Alternative)
2. Should Robin marry Khanna later in the story?
A: YES
B: NO
If your answer was no: Who should Robin marry?
A: Sumia
B: Sully
C: Cordelia
D: Tharja
E: Tiki
F: Flavia
G: Severa/Selena
H: Other (write-in suggestion)
3. Should Khanna marry Robin?
A: YES
B: NO
If no: Who should Khanna marry?
A: Stahl
B: Frederick
C: Gaius
D: Donnel
E: Vaike
F: Libra
G: Gregor
H: Henry
I: Other (write-in suggestion)
Those are the character pairing polls for now! Please feel free to PM me or leave a comment detailing who you think should end up with Robin, Roy, and Khanna. If you'd like, you can even include your reasoning based on what you've learned of their personalities so far in the story.
Now then, without further ado...
(P.S.: I do not own Fire Emblem, Black Clover, the Tales series, DBZ, or any of the aforementioned franchises and their respective characters. I only own the original characters created for this story.)
Chapter III: Shepherds and... More Risen?!
The Shepherds' Garrison sat a short walk from the grand palace walls—close enough to matter, yet far enough to breathe. It was a practical, unpretentious building, plainly maintained, carrying the distinct, lived-in atmosphere of a place shared by individuals whose primary concern was functional utility rather than superficial appearance. Lissa led her new companions through the heavy double doors with the proprietary enthusiasm of someone proudly presenting something they genuinely cherished, her arms spread wide.
"Well, here we are. The Garrison," she announced, turning to face them with a satisfied grin. "Go on—make yourselves at home."
The group spread out slightly, taking in the interior. It was simple, spare, and entirely utilitarian—the kind of space that retained the invisible memory of countless meals eaten in a rush and far too many nights of sleep cut short by duty.
Sarai turned in a slow, deliberate circle, her eyes scanning the rough-hewn walls, the heavy timber beams, and the worn surfaces of the communal tables. Something in her posture visibly settled. "It's comfortable," she said, and meant it as a genuine compliment.
"Feels like something from home," Odyn agreed, a quiet truth lingering in his tone that the others caught instantly without needing any further explanation.
"What do you think, Robin?" Roy asked, glancing toward the tactician.
Robin was still looking around with the sharp, methodical expression of a man taking careful physical and logistical inventory. "It's—"
"Lissa, my precious treasure!"
The booming voice arrived well before its owner, carrying enough theatrical emotion to fill several rooms at once. A young woman with immaculate blonde hair swept up into elaborate, curled pigtails descended upon Lissa from the direction of the far corridor. Her pink-sleeved arms gestured dramatically, and her pristine white parasol was tucked securely under one arm with the absolute authority of a woman who had never once questioned whether a parasol was appropriate footwear and attire for a military garrison. She was fair-skinned, impeccably presented, and currently expressing her profound distress at maximum volume.
"Are you completely out of your mind? I have been beside myself with worry! I must have sprouted at least fourteen gray hairs fretting over you, and I am far too young for that sort of premature aging!"
Lissa's face broke into an enormous, unapologetic grin. "Maribelle! Hey!"
Maribelle stopped dead in her tracks. Her posture communicated, with terrifying precision, that a casual "hey" was entirely insufficient compensation for the emotional toll she had endured.
"'Oh, hey' yourself," she retorted, dripping with the controlled indignation of a woman who had weighed several blistering retorts and selected the most devastating one. "I have spent the last twenty-four hours vividly imagining every horrific catastrophe that could have befallen you out there in the wilds, and all you have to offer by way of greeting is a flippant oh, hey?"
"Well, I didn't die," Lissa offered helpfully.
"That is the absolute minimum baseline requirement the situation called for, Lissa, and well you know it!" Maribelle straightened her posture, forcibly reassembling her composure in the manner of a duchess buttoning a winter coat, and finally cast her sharp, evaluative gaze over the newcomers standing behind her friend. "Ah. I see you've brought stray company."
"There's also this!" chimed a second voice—loud, broad, and entirely comfortable with its own volume.
Vaike materialized from another direction entirely with the casual, boisterous confidence of a man who assumed he owned every room he walked into, or at least intended to. Built like a brick fortress for the heavy weight class of an axe-fighter, he was dressed accordingly, carrying a swagger that suggested most obstacles in life had underestimated him at least once and regretted it. His grin was wide and immediate.
"Squirt! You made it back in one single piece—good. Where's Chrom? Bet he had a rough go out there without ol' Teach and his trusty axe to watch his blind spots."
Lissa's grin sharpened instantly with the malicious delight of a younger sibling handed a silver-platter setup. "Oh, so it's 'Teach' now, is it? Hee hee. And here I thought people were just born with lacking wits. You're telling me it can actually be taught?"
"Ha! Never doubt the Vaike! Wait—was that an insult?"
"I don't know, Teach. You'll have to decide that for yourself."
The third newcomer appeared quietly at Vaike's shoulder, entirely devoid of his booming volume. She was a young woman with long, flowing brown hair, dark, expressive eyes, and the kind of delicate, fine-featured face that portrait artists attempted to capture and rarely managed. She wore bright lavender armor that suited her gentle disposition far better than the intensely anxious expression she was currently wearing. She moved with a cautious, almost obsessive attention to her own footing that suggested she had learned through long, painful experience not to trust gravity implicitly.
"Um," she murmured softly. "I—I don't mean to interrupt. But... might anyone happen to know when the Captain is scheduled to return?"
Maribelle's expression softened instantly into a blend of fond sympathy and thinly veiled amusement. "Poor Sumia. She has been staring out at the horizon all morning like a lovelorn sentinel. Her pegasus training sessions were—shall we say—uniquely creative in the complete absence of his attention."
"I was not staring at the horizon," Sumia protested immediately, adopting the defensive tone of someone trying desperately to correct the historical record while simultaneously confirming every word of it. "I was merely—he is the Captain. And the Prince. Of course I would naturally—"
"Of course," Maribelle agreed smoothly, with a warmth that was entirely, devastatingly unconvincing.
Sumia's cheeks flushed a bright, luminous pink, prompting her to stare intensely at a neutral patch of floorboards instead.
"Sounds startlingly like someone else I know," Lissa remarked, tilting her head toward Sarai with the precision-timed innocence of a professional instigator.
Sarai, who had been standing off to the side with the calm, detached composure of someone entirely uninvolved, suddenly found herself very much involved. "Oh—no. Absolutely not. My concern is rooted strictly in the fact that he is reckless. That is entirely different."
"Sure it is, sis," Lissa chirped.
"I mean it. Do you have any earthly idea how many times he left his back wide open during that skirmish yesterday? I kept count. On one hand, Lissa."
"Mm-hm."
"That has nothing to do with—" Sarai abruptly cut herself off. She pressed her lips into a thin line, clamped her eyes shut, and looked away. "The point is simply that somebody needs to ensure he doesn't get himself pointlessly killed, and apparently Frederick can only shoulder so much of the burden."
"Uh-huh," Lissa said, smiling sweetly at a blank wall.
Sarai decided the wall was vastly beneath her dignity and refused to dignify it with further debate.
It was Vaike who shattered the tense atmosphere, doing what he did best by simply remaining entirely oblivious to it. His sharp eyes had finally landed on the unfamiliar group standing behind Lissa.
"So who are the new strangers? Don't think I've ever seen them around the capital before."
"Nobody is a stranger compared to you, Vaike," Lissa shot back reflexively. "But since you asked—everyone, meet Robin, Odyn, Roy, Sarai, and Khanna. They've officially joined the Shepherds. Chrom just appointed Robin as our brand-new tactician, and honestly, you really ought to see what these four can do in the middle of a real brawl. It's utterly incredible."
"Oh yeah?" Vaike's grin instantly twisted into a fierce, competitive smirk. He drew in a massive chest full of air, braced his stance, and produced a belch of staggering duration and window-rattling volume.
The newcomers received this acoustic display in varying gradients of stunned silence. A few long moments ticked by in the echoing garrison room.
"I am thoroughly convinced I have much to learn in the fine arts of flatulence," Robin noted finally, maintaining the solemn, unblinking gravity of a man who had decided this bizarre display was simply the baseline culture of his new environment. "It is an absolute pleasure to meet you."
Odyn, executing the formal, measured courtesy instilled in him since childhood to always find a polite phrasing in every social disaster, offered a stiff nod. "Likewise. We're very glad to be here."
"Abhorrent," Maribelle announced, enunciating every syllable like a judge handing down a capital sentence. She took one immaculate step backward, glaring at the space occupied by Vaike as though she were standing downwind of a toxic chemical spill. "Must these baseborn oafs insist on polluting even the communal air with their crude buffoonery? And you, sir"—she whipped her head around to glare at Robin—"do not encourage him with your sarcasm. I had sincerely hoped you were cut from a much finer cloth."
With that, she spun on her heel with breathtaking precision and swept out of the room.
The heavy silence she left behind was broken gently by Sumia, who wore the empathetic expression of someone desperately waiting for the social smoke to clear.
"Please... please don't take her outburst to heart," Sumia offered, looking at the newcomers with genuine, fluttering apology. "Maribelle does warm up to people over time. It just... takes a considerable amount of patience."
"Or spontaneous combustion," Lissa added cheerfully. "Either way, she'll come around eventually. Just give her a little breathing room."
At that exact moment, the heavy wooden door swung open again, and Chrom strode into the room.
The psychological effect on the garrison was instantaneous. Sumia instantly snapped her spine straight. Her face underwent a complex, internal diplomatic negotiation that ultimately failed, leaving her looking precisely like a nervous person trying desperately to look like a completely calm person. She took an eager step forward.
"Ah! Captain, you've returned safely! I was—we were all so dreadfully—"
Her boot caught squarely on nothing at all, sending her pitching forward into a thoroughly ungraceful descent.
The wet, solid thud of the impact was completely definitive.
Several members of the new group winced in unison, their bodies jerking slightly at the sheer violence of the tumble.
"...Noted," Roy muttered quietly after a beat.
"Same," Odyn agreed in an identical, hushed register.
Sarai opened her mouth to speak, but Khanna's steady hand settled firmly onto her shoulder.
"Just give it a moment," Khanna advised softly.
Sumia picked herself up off the floor with the practiced, agonizing dignity of someone who possessed far too much lived experience with this exact routine and had made a grim peace with it. She furiously brushed the dust off her lavender greaves without daring to meet a single pair of eyes in the room.
"Sumia?" Chrom had already crossed the distance, dropping down beside her with genuine, unmasked concern—because Chrom's primary biological reaction to anyone potentially injuring themselves was immediate, unguarded panic. "Are you alright? Is it those cursed boots again?"
Sarai stared blankly up at the vaulted ceiling beams.
Gods above, she thought, her soul weeping quietly. He is completely, irredeemably hopeless.
Khanna, reading her cousin's micro-expressions with the terrifying accuracy of lifelong familiarity, gave her shoulder a comforting pat.
"You have to give him credit," Khanna murmured. "At least he's trying."
"He's trying, yes," Sarai repeated in the flat, monotone voice of a woman carefully placing a dangerous word on a table to examine its toxicity.
"Well, it's something."
Sarai exhaled a long, suffering breath. "Fine. You're right."
Sumia had finally recovered enough breath to locate her voice, though her composure remained scattered to the winds. "N-No, I am—yes. Quite alright, thank you so much, Captain." She deliberately chose not to elaborate on the treacherous nature of her footwear.
Chrom stood up, dusted off his hands, and cast his gaze around the room. His expression instantly shifted into that sharp, focused intensity he reserved for matters of state and survival.
"Alright, listen up, everyone. Tomorrow morning at dawn, we march north to Regna Ferox."
Robin immediately raised his head, his tactical mind clicking into gear. "Regna Ferox?"
"A vast, unified kingdom situated directly to Ylisse's northern borders," Sumia supplied eagerly, the immense relief of having something useful to contribute helping her regain her footing. "It's inhabited almost entirely by hardened warriors. Exceptionally formidable ones, at that."
"Warriors," Chrom confirmed grimly. "And we desperately need their alliance. Ordinarily, the Exalt would issue this kind of diplomatic request in person—but given our current volatile climate, with Risen continuously spawning across the countryside and public nerves already fraying, having Emmeryn suddenly depart the safety of the capital would only trigger widespread panic. Therefore, the task falls to us."
He paused, his blue eyes sweeping over the gathered faces. "I want to be entirely clear—this mission is strictly voluntary. If any of you would prefer to stay behind and rest—"
"I volunteer!" Lissa's hand shot straight up into the air before the sentence had even fully registered.
"Teach is already locked in," Vaike announced proudly, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "Can't trust a delicate diplomatic mission like this to just any amateur."
"I'll accompany the vanguard as well," a quiet voice added from the side.
The voice belonged to Kellam, who was standing directly sandwiched between three people who all jumped simultaneously, registering his presence with the startled shock of individuals who were entirely certain he hadn't been occupying that exact space a microsecond prior.
"We're coming too," Odyn stated firmly, speaking on behalf of the four travelers without a moment of hesitation, knowing the silent consensus had already been reached behind their eyes the second Chrom finished talking.
"Though," Roy added, casting a sidelong, knowing glance at his brother, "I don't think Sarai was going to let him march out of the capital without us tagging along anyway."
Sarai shifted her gaze back to Chrom. Her look was cool, precise, and carried the heavy, persistent memory of every single time he had carelessly left his blind spot exposed. "You will watch your spacing this time, Captain." She let a heavy beat hang in the air. "Or else we will thoroughly revisit our earlier conversation."
Something flickered across Chrom's face that closely resembled genuine apprehension. He had known this formidable woman for barely forty-eight hours, yet she had already mastered the exact combination of vocal tone and deadpan stare that completely bypassed every instinct he possessed as a military commander, replacing them with a powerful urge to simply nod and obey.
"Noted," Chrom conceded quietly.
"Good," Sarai replied smoothly.
"We've got your back as well, Captain," Khanna added, her voice radiating the comfortable, unshakeable warmth of someone who meant it down to her bones without needing to overdramatize it. "All of us."
Sumia, who had been listening to the entire exchange with a complex cocktail of deep admiration and the quiet panic of someone trying desperately to piece together a puzzle, cleared her throat nervously.
"I, um..." She hesitated, which was her default emotional state at the threshold of any sentence. "I'm... I'm not entirely certain I'm quite ready for a proper deployment just yet. I would probably only—I mean, I'm afraid I might just get in the way, and—"
"You won't," Chrom cut in gently, offering an encouraging smile. "Though the final decision is entirely yours. If it helps ease your mind—I am not asking you to throw yourself into the vanguard. Just to observe, ride along, and learn. Some battlefield lessons only ever click when you're standing on a real field."
Sumia opened her mouth to argue, closed it just as fast, and her wide eyes drifted upward to meet Chrom's face with an expression of pure, unadulterated devotion that she was entirely too flustered to conceal before she hastily dropped her gaze back to the floorboards.
"If—if that is what you truly think is best, Captain."
"Just stick close to the formation," he instructed with easy, casual warmth, utterly oblivious to the profound emotional turbulence he had just caused, "and you'll do just fine."
"Oh. Yes. I mean—yes, sir!"
Sarai shot a sharp, telling look toward Khanna and offered zero verbal commentary, which managed to communicate an entire essay's worth of thoughts. Khanna mirrored her silence, which completely confirmed it.
As the assembled group began to slowly filter toward the exit to prepare for the long march ahead, Sumia drifted hesitantly alongside Khanna, lowering her voice to a discreet, conspiratorial whisper.
"Forgive me for prying, but... did something unusual happen between Miss Sarai and the Captain? Before I arrived at the garrison today, I mean."
Khanna glanced briefly up at the ceiling beams, calculating the precise amount of chaotic backstory she was willing to unpack. "I'll explain the whole thing on the road," she whispered back with a dry smile. "Trust me—it's quite a long story."
---
They departed the very next morning at first light.
The wide fields stretching just outside the capital walls were vast and green beneath a pale morning sky, the air carrying the crisp, mild chill of a day that hadn't yet decided what personality it wanted to wear. The assembled party was compact enough to move with tactical speed, yet varied enough to make for an interesting procession: Chrom led the vanguard, with Frederick's imposing silhouette anchoring his right shoulder; Robin walked a half-step behind them, a thick leather-bound tome already tucked securely under his arm; the four siblings and Khanna followed closely in stride; and trailing right behind them were Lissa and Vaike, trading loud, animated commentary at a volume that thoroughly shattered any pretense of a silent, disciplined march.
They had almost reached the main northern road when a sharp voice echoed from behind them.
"Wait! Hold up!"
The entire company halted and turned.
A young man clad in bright green armor was sprinting toward them at full tilt from the direction of the Garrison. He moved with the desperate, burning urgency of someone who had just discovered he was left off an important memo and had attempted to bridge the time difference entirely through sheer leg speed. He slowed to a brisk jog as he finally caught up, breathing just a fraction harder than his carefully maintained composure wanted to admit.
"Stahl?" Chrom blinked, surprised.
"Would someone mind explaining," Stahl began, catching his breath with the measured reasonableness of a man who preferred to approach potential injustice with polite calm, "why I am seemingly the last person in the entire garrison to hear about an unauthorized expedition heading north to Regna Ferox?"
Several heavy gazes immediately shifted toward Vaike.
Vaike, to his absolute credit, met the accusatory stares head-on. "The Vaike never forgets a thing. I just... well, I don't always remember to pass the message along."
"He was specifically supposed to tell you last night," Lissa chimed in helpfully, adding another piece of damning evidence to a legal case that was already airtight.
"That only happened once before," Vaike protested defensively. "Maybe twice. But garrison training doesn't even count!"
"Do you at least have your primary axe?" Lissa asked, narrowing her eyes. The question carried a very specific tactical weight.
Vaike reached back over his massive shoulder, slapped the broad iron head of his weapon, and grinned with the pride of a man executing a routine task. "Loaded, primed, and ready to rumble. Though I'm glad you could scramble and join us, Stahl, buddy."
"I'm just glad someone around here has their priorities straight," Stahl sighed good-naturedly. He possessed the easygoing expression of a man who had long since made peace with the universe's recurring logistical inconveniences. He dusted off his greaves and finally let his eyes land on the unfamiliar faces standing within the group, his expression instantly shifting from annoyance to friendly interest. "Ah, right. Miriel mentioned yesterday that we had picked up some new recruits. I should probably introduce myself—"
"We actually already heard your name," Roy said politely. "Stahl. It's a rather peculiar moniker."
"Says the guy literally named Roy," Stahl shot back instantly, completely without malice.
Roy chuckled softly. "Fair point."
"I suppose that tells you quite a lot about how uncomfortably far we are from home," Odyn remarked, his voice steady with the calm detachment of someone who had grown far more comfortable viewing their bizarre circumstances with detached curiosity rather than despair.
"Well, I suppose that makes us all equally strange to one another, then," Stahl reasoned, appearing to find that conclusion perfectly satisfactory. He scanned the multinational group with genuine curiosity. "We've got a long, grueling march ahead of us. Would any of you be willing to humor a guy and tell me a bit about where you're from? I'd love to hear it."
He paused, his stomach letting out a low, mournful rumble.
"I missed breakfast in the rush," Stahl added, his voice dropping into a tone of profound, reflective loss. "So at the very least, some good conversation would help keep my mind off my empty stomach."
He stared wistfully into the middle distance. "There were blueberry muffins in the mess hall. And honey cakes. I'll tell you all about what you missed once we hit the trail."
Roy glanced sideways at Lissa, sharing a silent, knowing look.
This one, the look said clearly, is definitely going to fit right in.
"Alright," Roy agreed with a small smile. "We certainly have enough time."
With that, the ranks fell smoothly into step. The open road stretched out wide before them, bathed in the morning light, and their journey truly began.
---
The morning sun had climbed well into the pale sky when Chrom's fist suddenly shot up into the air—the universal, silent signal for the column to halt. The entire marching group slowed to a stop.
They had stepped out into a wide, overgrown clearing, and they quickly discovered they were not alone.
The Risen were already moving when the scouting vanguard spotted them. There was a substantial horde of the undead—far more than the scattered handful that had violently torn through the sky-wound back in the forest—slouching and threading between the gnarled trees at the far edge of the clearing with that horrific, jerky gait that looked distressingly human and yet fundamentally wrong, their glowing red eyes instantly tracking the living.
"Gods," Chrom muttered quietly, the single word carrying a heavy mix of grim resolve that wasn't quite dismay and wasn't quite surprise. "Already? Have they really spread this far north already?"
"'Risen?'" Robin repeated aloud, his tactical mind cataloging the term as his eyes darted between Chrom and Frederick.
"The capital's council required a designation for them," Frederick explained, his hand already resting on the pommel of his heavy silver sword. "That is the name they have been given."
"Everyone—remember what we're up against," Chrom instructed sharply, sweeping his hand out and drawing the gleaming blade of Falchion with a clean ring of steel. "We still have very limited intelligence on their physiology, and—"
"My axe!"
The sudden, frantic exclamation broke the tension entirely. Vaike's hand had shot backward over his shoulder. Then it patted his hip. Then both hands began frantically slapping at various pouches and straps in rapid sequence, his eyes going wide with escalating panic. "Where is it? I just had it with me!"
A heavy, stunned silence settled over the group for a long, awkward moment.
Chrom closed his eyes for a brief, suffering second, letting out a slow breath before speaking in the tone of a captain who had been thoroughly prepared for this exact brand of incompetence by his entire military career. "Vaike. Fall to the rear immediately. Find your weapon. Quickly."
"I swear on my mother's grave it was—"
"Rear, Vaike."
Muttering under his breath, Vaike turned tail and began frantically retracing his steps down the trail. The rest of the Shepherds watched him retreat in profound disbelief.
Sarai crossed her arms, shaking her head as she stared into the middle distance. "How," she asked softly to no one in particular, "is any human being that utterly oblivious?"
No one had a satisfying answer for her.
---
The Risen came in a sudden, violent wave.
Khanna went first—which was technically not part of the plan, provided a plan had ever actually existed, but the Risen were already in motion and so was Khanna, her heavy warhammer clearing its protective cloth wrapping before Chrom had even finished forming the first syllable of wait. She hit the leading edge of the undead advance like a granite boulder thrown into still water, scattering the front cluster wide with the sheer force of her impact, and then she was straight through them and deep into the rotted press.
Odyn watched this unfold for approximately one second. Then he let out a long, long sigh—the definitive sigh of a man who had been watching his family pull reckless stunts for years and was still not entirely accustomed to it—and moved in right behind her.
"Shepherds, forward!" Chrom bellowed, the command instantly transforming from a tactical order into a simple, accurate description of what was already happening.
The field erupted into a blur of frantic, high-speed motion.
Khanna drove through the heavy weight of the Risen advance with the practical aggression of someone who understood that momentum, properly maintained, is infinitely more efficient than careful finesse. She deflected a sweeping strike that would have dropped a lighter fighter simply by refusing to be stopped by it, her warhammer swinging in controlled, devastating arcs that broke enemy formations rather than getting bogged down by single targets. When two heavily armored Risen closed in from opposite flanks—carrying the extended-reach lances and interlocking shields that made direct engagement tedious—she instantly read the geometry of the trap, tossed her warhammer straight up into the air, and closed the distance.
She caught the heavy weapon at the absolute peak of its arcing descent with the iron head already primed.
"Falling Storm!"
The pillar of localized wind that erupted from the ground-shaking impact was narrow, howling, and devastatingly thorough. The Risen caught inside it were blasted upward like chaff and rained down in broken pieces. What remained of the nearest attacker she finished off with a single, measured sweep of the hammer head, smoothly pivoting to locate her next target.
Odyn had claimed the right flank, clearing the dangerous space between the main Risen advance and the Shepherds' less combat-oriented members with the unhurried efficiency of an expert who was exceptionally good at his trade and had decided to simply get it done. He flowed between enemy attacks rather than absorbing them head-on, letting the heavy, uncoordinated momentum of the Risen work directly against their own strikes, redirecting rather than resisting.
Three rotting monstrosities converged on him simultaneously. He let them close the trap.
"Ghost Wolf!"
The spatial displacement happened in the tiny, invisible gap between one heartbeat and the next—he was standing in one spot, and then he was a dozen paces past the gap he had just carved out, the technique's clean blade-cut having already slashed the first Risen twice before the creature's slow nervous system even registered that its target had vanished. The dark smoke swirled and dissipated into the morning air. He spun around to find the second and third Risen clumsily adjusting their footing, meeting them with the straightforward, no-nonsense focus of a man who had thoroughly run out of patience.
"Reigning Slash!"
Loose earth and debris lifted violently from the ground. The Risen cleaved apart cleanly at the center, dissolved into dark ash, and were gone.
Roy had quickly found his rhythm on the left side of the clearing, operating with the efficient, laser-precise style that had always felt far more natural to him than his brother's heavy, power-first approach. An archer-variant among the Risen had managed to scale a rocky outcropping at a distance and was turning into a considerable nuisance, a reality Roy evaluated for approximately four seconds before deciding to permanently resolve it.
"Sword Rain: Alpha!"
The flashing stabs arrived faster than the human eye could individually track—the technique living purely in the micro-spaces between perceptible movements, every single strike placed with surgical accuracy. The Risen archer dissolved into nothingness before it could finish its defensive reaction, and Roy was already pivoting toward the next threat.
A second archer drew its bow from even further back—a deeply annoying development. Roy squared his shoulders.
"Demonic Chaos!"
Cascading bolts of raw energy surged from his blade in overlapping arcs that reinforced one another, the final wave carrying so much electrical weight that the distant archer didn't even have time to dissolve before simply collapsing into static. He rolled his stiff shoulder and pressed forward.
Not far away, Robin operated with the focused, quiet concentration of a man who had discovered, somewhat to his own genuine surprise, that the chaotic language of combat made a strange, legible kind of sense to him. Spells deployed precisely where the tactical map demanded them—Elthunder cutting clean angles whenever the geometric openings presented themselves, his steel sword seamlessly taking over when the lines closed. His eyes darted continuously across the chaos, logging enemy positions, reading the shifting patterns of the skirmish, and predicting where the enemy pressure would pool before it actually arrived.
When a squad of Risen suddenly angled toward Frederick's flank without the veteran knight realizing the blind spot, Robin was already shouting across the din.
"Frederick—your left flank!"
"Seen." The knight's heavy lance swept around in a calculated, sweeping arc that knocked the oncoming Risen completely off their feet with the flat edge, finishing the motion with the effortless control of a warrior who had been fighting so long it looked like mere choreography. He neutralized the threat and was already advancing before Robin had even finished blinking.
Closer to the rear, Lissa worked the edges of the active skirmish—keeping a safe distance from the dense core of the melee, casting healing mended light wherever it was needed, her staff glowing softly as it tended to shaken townsfolk and bruised Shepherds with the calm efficiency of someone who managed her own battlefield terror by keeping her hands productively occupied.
Roy suddenly materialized at her shoulder without a sound.
"Keep moving," he instructed, his tone brisk but entirely devoid of harshness. "I've got the ones trying to flank your position."
She gave a quick nod, wisely bypassing any wasted breath on a thank-you because there simply wasn't time, and Roy understood that completely.
From her saddle at the clearing's upper ridge, Sumia watched the unfolding battle from her pegasus. What riveted her attention weren't just the flashy, impossible techniques—extraordinary as they undoubtedly were—but the strange, synchronized way the four foreign siblings and their cousin moved in relation to the Ylissean soldiers around them. They weren't just fighting at the enemy problem; they were fighting around the Shepherds. They plugged dangerous gaps, intercepted hidden threats, and aggressively carved out the breathing room the others desperately needed. They had only been part of the army for two days, yet they moved like veterans who had spent a lifetime covering each other's six.
Frederick nudged his armored horse over to trot alongside her, letting the observation settle into the air for a quiet beat before speaking.
"Your time will come," Frederick said, his deep voice carrying no empty consolation, but rather the heavy weight of absolute truth. "Their combat instincts were forged through cruel circumstances none of them ever chose. Yours will find you when it is ready."
"I know," Sumia murmured, clutching her reins tighter. "I just..." She watched Sarai slice across the open field, the terrifying, effortless grace of her movements nearly impossible to look away from. "I know."
Sarai had finally reached that familiar threshold in the engagement where tactical containment was no longer practical and she had simply stopped pretending otherwise.
The diverse enemy variants were crowding together now—lancers, heavy axe-bearers, and archers forming a dense cluster that was closing in from three separate directions at once. She carved through the mass methodically for another minute, neutralizing the immediate pressure and keeping the remainder off-balance, until she hit the exact mathematical tipping point where only one comprehensive answer would suffice, and she let the fire take over completely.
The hilt grew burning hot against her bare palm. Not the superficial warmth of an external spell, but something deep, radiating outward from the absolute core of the blade. She moved, and conscious calculation vanished, replaced by the instinctual, absolute knowledge of every enemy position on the field.
"Explosive Ring!"
The glowing emblem flared brilliantly across her back, and in a blink, she vanished from her spot.
The sequence of events that followed defied linear description, because it was a continuous, unbroken storm of fire. Her flame-charged slashes answered enemy threats before the Risen could even finish mounting their attacks—the shield-bearing lancers lost their iron defenses to the sheer heat before they realized what was happening, their weapons shattering on the rebound. The axe-wielding brutes were disarmed and thrown off balance simultaneously. She approached the backline archers last, the rolling wave of fire arriving ahead of her, and then she launched herself upward into the air.
"Rising Phoenix!"
The massive, winged shape of pure fire that plunged down from the sky with her was immense and unmistakable. When she finally impacted the earth, the shockwave rolled outward in a violent, scorching ring that decisively finished what the technique had started, plunging the entire clearing into absolute, smoking silence.
Roy strolled over, casually extending a hand. Sarai met it halfway.
Their high-five was crisp, sharp, and entirely decisive.
"Nice work, sis."
"Same to you, Roy."
Sully, who had spent the last thirty seconds standing with her cavalry lance poised and ready without actually finding a single Risen left to poke, stared blankly at the two siblings. Then she scanned the empty clearing, confirming that not a single target remained that required her attention. Then she looked back down at the pair of them.
"Right then," Sully grunted, turning her horse around. "Guess I'll go find something else to kill."
---
When the last of the dissolving Risen had completely vanished into thin air, leaving the clearing to go back to simply being a quiet patch of wilderness, the party gathered near its center with that familiar, subdued hush that settles in immediately after a violent skirmish—not the roaring, triumphant kind, but the quiet sort where everyone quietly checks their gear, counts heads, and breathes a sigh of relief upon discovering that all the numbers still add up.
Robin exhaled a long, measured breath, staring down at his own hands before casting his gaze across the trampled grass. In the quiet theater of his mind, the battle was still replaying scene by scene—he could vividly map out where the enemy pressure points had peaked, where the timing had dangerously tightened, and where a slightly different tactical positioning could have yielded an even cleaner result. With a mental click, he neatly filed the observations away.
"'Risen,'" Robin muttered aloud, testing the harsh syllables on his tongue. "It's a rather uncomfortable name to say."
"It's an uncomfortable thing to fight," Chrom replied grimly. He was watching the final, wispy tendrils of purple smoke dissolve into the midday breeze, wearing that heavy, contemplative expression he always put on when he was wrestling with a problem he hadn't yet solved. "Still, we've dealt with them before, and we will undoubtedly face them again. Standing around here isn't going to shorten the road to Ferox."
"According to the maps, we shouldn't have much further to march now," Frederick added, adjusting his greaves.
The company reformed their ranks and pressed forward. Conversation gradually returned in the calm wake of the battle, the Shepherds effortlessly settling back into their familiar marching rhythms. Stahl had somehow managed to unearth a stash of dried fruit from his provision pack during the aftermath and was now cheerfully distributing handfuls with the generous, easygoing equanimity of a man who firmly believed that feeding people was the correct universal response to nearly every situation.
"Here," Stahl offered, holding out a small portion to Robin with the warm certainty of someone who knew a little kindness and some sugar went a long way. "You handled yourself quite well back there."
"Thank you, Stahl," Robin said, accepting the fruit with a slight nod. "Though I'm still not entirely convinced I contributed much."
"You warned Frederick about that flanking Risen," Odyn noted, chiming in from a few paces ahead. He had caught the exchange effortlessly without ever breaking his stride. "Granted, Frederick likely would have spotted it himself in another second, but your warning arrived first, and it cost you nothing to give it. That is precisely what a tactician is supposed to do. You did it without even having to think twice."
Robin paused, looking up to study the older man for a moment. "You tend to notice quite a bit, don't you?"
"It's a useful habit," Odyn replied simply, turning his gaze back to the path ahead.
A few steps away, Roy smoothly fell in beside Lissa, effortlessly matching her stride. "Are you holding up alright?"
"Fine," she murmured. Her voice sounded steady, a cue Roy readily accepted at face value. She walked in silence for a brief stretch before speaking again, completely without transition: "They're truly terrifying, aren't they? The Risen."
"They are," Roy agreed quietly.
"It's the way they look at you," she continued, her fingers tightening around the polished wood of her staff. "As though there's nobody left inside the shell at all. I keep catching myself wondering who they were... before all of this happened."
Roy didn't offer an immediate platitude. He knew better than to fill a heavy silence with empty words that only sounded comforting on the surface. Instead, he simply kept pace beside her, letting her hold the difficult thought without forcing her to rush past it.
After a quiet moment, Lissa glanced up at him, her expression shifting as she mentally packed the heavy thought away. "By the way... thank you. For earlier."
"Any time," Roy said softly.
---
The mild warmth that had occasionally broken through the morning weather had entirely departed by the time Regna Ferox finally loomed large upon the horizon. The surrounding landscape had shifted to starkly reflect the unforgiving temperament of the northern kingdom: the air was harder, colder, and the frozen ground felt more honest about what it was actually made of. Ahead, the massive fortress walls loomed—massive blocks of ancient, weather-beaten stone built to the strictly practical specifications of a people who had been attacked plenty of times before and intended to make any future attempts aggressively expensive.
A solitary guard abruptly appeared on the stone parapet above the gates as their party approached.
"Halt right there! State your business, travelers."
Chrom stepped forward, keeping Falchion firmly sheathed to deliberately emphasize his peaceful intent. "I am Prince Chrom of Ylisse. We seek a formal audience with the Khan."
A heavy, echoing pause hung in the freezing air.
"*Sure you are,*y" the guard captain called back, her laughter carrying the flat, humorless quality of someone who had heard every pathetic lie in the book. "And I'm the supreme emperor of Valm. Look, we've quite had enough of your kind crossing our northern border with completely fake credentials and trumped-up titles."
Frederick instantly urged his horse forward, his hand dropping to his sword hilt. "We can easily provide official—"
The sharp, deadly whistles of incoming javelins instantly cut him off.
Multiple iron spears arced off the fortress battlements simultaneously, their tight trajectories converging directly on the party with malicious intent.
Sarai was already moving before the weapons had cleared the parapet edge.
"Blazing Shield!"
A brilliant half-ring of intense fire erupted from the earth in front of Chrom's position, meeting the incoming javelins mid-air. The sheer thermal intensity was staggering—the iron spears literally dissolved from the thermal shock before they could reach their target, and massive clouds of hissing steam billowed out where the supernatural fire met the freezing air, throwing a thick, dense fog across the disputed ground between the visitors and the fortress walls.
When the steam finally cleared, Chrom was standing precisely where he had started, completely unharmed, staring at Sarai with a look of profound, unadulterated sincerity.
"That was—"
"Entirely necessary," Sarai cut in flatly, not looking at him. "Don't make a regular habit of requiring it, Captain."
"Shepherds!" Odyn's voice rang out across the frozen clearing with the sharp, focused authority of a man who had surveyed a deteriorating tactical situation and instantly reached the correct conclusion. "Verbal diplomacy has failed. We'll need to demonstrate our terms another way."
With a heavy, echoing groan, the massive fortress gates swung wide open.
Pouring through the threshold came a disciplined wave of Feroxi warriors—a substantial, battle-hardened force marching in the proud martial tradition of a realm that selected its military representatives using the straightforward criterion of who was still standing upright at the end of the day. Their weapons, however, carried a distinct modification: they were heavily wrapped, blunted, or swapped out for staves. This was clearly intended as a rigorous border test rather than an outright execution.
"They aren't trying to kill us," Roy observed aloud, electric blue sparks already dancing along the edge of his drawn blade. "They're measuring our strength. Keep your attacks controlled—do not severely injure anyone."
"Agreed," Chrom called out, drawing his sword with a clean ring. "Shepherds—show them what Ylisse is made of, but keep it strictly clean! These people are our potential allies."
The Feroxi vanguard slammed into their line, and the formation held fast.
Frederick's armored horse cut gracefully through the charging ranks using only the flat side of his heavy lance, sweeping opponents aside to create tactical disruption without inflicting lasting harm. Vaike—who had successfully managed to relocate his missing axe somewhere along the march—flung himself into the thick of the Feroxi fighters with the cheerful, roaring aggression of someone who found this to be an entirely reasonable way to spend a cold morning, expertly pulling back his heavy swings just enough to communicate that he could smash armor to splinters if he really wanted to. Khanna moved fluidly right beside him, her light-channeling strikes scattering the forming enemy lines and punching wide gaps for Vaike to exploit.
Above the fray, Sumia circled smoothly on her pegasus. Catching a subtle signal from Sarai—a sharp, upward glance and a slight toss of her head toward an organizing Feroxi phalanx forming on the left flank—Sumia banked her mount hard, executing a low, disruptive pass that shattered the phalanx's concentration before it could consolidate its formation.
Down on the snow-covered earth, Chrom and Sarai had instinctively drifted back to each other's blind spots once again—a subconscious habit that kept happening in every skirmish without either of them ever formally discussing it. When a massive Feroxi warrior wielding a heavy warhammer charged them with the confident swagger of a veteran fighter, they didn't waste a breath coordinating. Sarai dropped smoothly to one knee, her blade held perfectly horizontal, the blazing fire along its edge creating an instant thermal wall that forced the brute to alter his momentum. Taking immediate advantage of the opening, Chrom vaulted cleanly over her shoulder, bringing the flat face of Falchion down in a controlled, measured arc that deposited the warrior face-first into the snowbank—far more surprised than he was physically hurt.
"Total show-offs," Roy muttered dryly as he parried a wooden practice blow nearby.
Up on the stone wall, the guard captain had completely stopped laughing within the first two minutes of the engagement. She watched the unfolding skirmish in dead silence—the specific, calculating silence of a veteran soldier actively revising a set of tactical conclusions she had prematurely jumped to.
The nature of their restraint was every bit as telling as their raw martial prowess. These weren't ordinary brigands looking for easy plunder. Bandits didn't pull their strikes, didn't read their opponents' complex combat techniques on the fly, and certainly didn't fight with the deliberate intent to subdue and demonstrate rather than maim and kill.
She drew in a breath and raised her voice.
"Your Grace!" The guard captain's shout carried an entirely different register now—stripped of mockery, replaced instead by the formal, respectful address of a soldier acknowledging true strength. "If you truly are the Prince of Ylisse, prove it with your own blade! Face me here, in single combat!"
Before Chrom could even take a step forward, Sarai's hand shot out and caught his arm.
The physical touch was remarkably brief, but the look that accompanied it spoke volumes. It encapsulated everything she chose not to say aloud—a silent, mental tally of every close call she had catalogged over the last two days, carrying the heavy, weary concern of someone who cared far too much about a stubborn man's safety to pretend otherwise. Then, just as quickly, she let go of his arm, fully aware that some arguments existed not to be won, but simply to be made.
"Be careful," she said quietly.
Chrom covered the space where her hand had rested for a brief second before turning away. "I happen to have a remarkably rigorous teacher when it comes to not being recklessly foolish," he said, offering a faint, reassuring smile. "I'll try my best to do her justice."
She stood back and watched him walk out into the open snow, her expression shifting through a complex series of emotions—none of which she ever committed to words.
Chrom faced the formidable guard captain across the clear expanse of the snow-dusted battlefield. Falchion caught the harsh winter light, and the duel that followed was a masterclass in controlled, decisive movement—ending swiftly with the pristine tip of his blade held at a measured, respectful distance from the captain's throat, leaving neither of them with so much as a scratch.
The captain looked up at him from the snow, exhaled a cloud of white vapor, and gave a sharp, definitive nod.
"Well fought," she said, her voice ringing clear across the courtyard. "Your Grace."
And this time, the title was entirely without a shred of irony.
---
The guard captain introduced herself as Raimi, and she escorted the newly arrived party through the massive fortress gates with the breezy, unbothered demeanor of a professional soldier who had rapidly revised her tactical assessment of a situation and saw absolutely no reason to feel embarrassed about it.
The interior of the stronghold was precisely what the austere exterior promised: built entirely for raw function, decorated with the subtle, battle-scarred evidence of past sieges, and lit for clear visibility rather than cozy atmosphere. Still, it was undeniably warm after the biting chill of the northern wind, a luxury the entire group appreciated regardless of the tense circumstances that had preceded their entry.
"You'll want an audience with Khan Flavia straight away," Raimi explained as she led them down a wide, stone-paved corridor. "Though I should probably prepare you in advance—the political reality regarding what she is actually in a position to offer you right now is somewhat more complicated than you might expect."
"Complicated in what way?" Frederick inquired, his professional vigilance instantly kicking in.
"She can explain the details herself," Raimi replied, her expression remaining carefully, professionally neutral. "I will simply say this much: the timing of your arrival today is... remarkably notable."
They finally arrived at a set of heavy wooden doors built to the thick, reinforced specifications of a structure designed to withstand battering rams. Raimi pushed them open without an ounce of ceremonial preamble.
The audience hall beyond was vast and imposing. At the far end, seated atop what could generously be described as a throne—though it looked far more like a rugged military command chair that had been pressed into ceremonial duties somewhat against its better nature—sat a striking, dark-skinned woman clad in practical warrior's gear. She possessed the sharp, piercing eyes of someone who made rapid, dead-accurate assessments of people and had been doing so long enough that the habit was entirely automatic.
"Well, well, well," Khan Flavia's voice rang out across the cavernous hall with the effortless projection of a woman who was entirely accustomed to commanding a room. "The Prince of Ylisse himself, coming all this way to call upon us. You certainly know how to make an entrance." Her dark gaze swept slowly across the varied group with the unhurried curiosity of a veteran leader who had seen a great many strange things and was thoroughly amused to see a few more. "Tell me, young man—how do you happen to feel about martial tournaments?"
The four siblings exchanged a quick, silent glance. The shared look communicated an entire paragraph of thoughts, none of which required a single spoken word.
Chrom took a steadying breath and stepped firmly forward.
---
"And right there," Khan Flavia said, spreading her hands in a wide gesture that managed to express an equal measure of genuine frustration and a certain dark enjoyment of the political chaos, "is precisely your problem. The supreme authority you need to formally commit all of Ferox's military strength to your cause rests solely with whoever currently holds absolute sovereignty. And right now, that happens to be my esteemed colleague in the west." She paused for dramatic effect. "Basilio."
"Let me make sure I understand this correctly," Chrom said carefully, processing the political hurdle. "The national sovereignty rotates based purely on a martial tournament?"
"Once a year, without fail. Champions are selected by each Khan, competing fiercely for the right to speak for all of Ferox," Flavia explained, her expression taking on the characteristic smile of someone who had lived inside an imperfect, brutal system long enough to find it deeply entertaining rather than merely maddening. "And as fortune—or perhaps fate itself—would have it, the grand tournament begins tomorrow morning."
"Of course it does," Robin muttered quietly to himself, staring at the stone floor.
"I'll need exceptionally strong champions, Prince of Ylisse," Flavia continued, fixing her dark gaze directly upon him. "The Shepherds, as I understand it through field reports, are reasonably formidable. I've heard good things. Would you be willing to fight for Ferox's East Khan?"
Before Chrom could formulate an answer—and before Frederick could voice the measured, necessary caution that was clearly bubbling up on his face—Sarai stepped forward.
"We need this alliance," she said, her voice carrying the plain, unargued certainty of someone who had already done the cold tactical accounting. "Ylisse desperately needs it. Whatever the cost of securing it, that price is well worth paying."
Frederick looked sharply at her, then turned his gaze to Chrom.
Chrom gave a firm, resolute nod. "We'll do it, Khan Flavia. The Shepherds will proudly serve as your champions."
"Excellent," Flavia said, settling back against her command chair with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had expected this outcome all along and was pleased to see it confirmed. "Though I should probably mention—Basilio's champion from the last tournament was a remarkably formidable fighter. I've heard rumors they'll be competing again." Something subtle shifted in her expression. "As a matter of fact..."
The heavy side doors swung open with a slow, echoing creak.
The figure who stepped into the hall shared the exact same height, the same build, and the same distinct economy of movement as the last time any of them had laid eyes on them. The dark butterfly mask caught the flickering torchlight along the stone walls. The silver-and-gold hilt of the sword resting at their hip caught the glow as well.
The shock of recognition hit the Shepherds across the group at completely different speeds. Chrom's hand immediately drifted toward the hilt of Falchion on pure instinct. Sumia's eyes went wide. Lissa's mouth dropped open in surprise.
Odyn, Roy, Khanna, and Sarai, however, went utterly still—all four of them reacting in the exact same moment, displaying the precise composure of people who had anticipated this exact arrival and were carefully managing their emotional responses to it.
"Marth," Chrom breathed out, the name slipping past his lips before he could stop it.
The masked figure paused mid-stride. The head turned slowly toward the assembled group with the deliberate, calculated care of someone calibrating their reaction. For just a single fleeting moment—the space of a single breath held and released in the cold hall—something invisible passed between the mysterious warrior and the four foreign siblings, an unspoken current too quick to name and far too specific to be mere coincidence.
"Oh?" Khan Flavia asked, her tone shifting to that of someone who had just found her evening considerably more interesting. "You happen to know this warrior?"
"We've crossed paths before," Chrom said, his eyes locked on the mask. "I honestly didn't expect to find you here, of all places."
"The tournament grounds are precisely where I need to be," Marth replied. The voice was low, controlled, and carried a complex undercurrent beneath the careful discipline—something that wasn't quite pain and wasn't quite determination, but clearly lived in the neighborhood of both. "When we finally meet upon the field, Prince of Ylisse, it will be in official combat."
Chrom studied the figure intensely—the stance, the bearing, and the sword whose hilt sat at an unusual angle that he found himself staring at for reasons he couldn't immediately articulate. Something in the warrior's posture felt agonizingly familiar, like a memory viewed from the wrong angle that you hadn't yet learned how to properly align.
"I look forward to it," Chrom said, intending it as a straightforward statement of respect rather than an aggressive challenge.
Marth turned without a single word of further ceremony, walking steadily down the side corridor indicated by Raimi, leaving the heavy silence of what they had left behind hanging thick in the air.
Roy shifted his weight slightly and cast a sidelong glance toward Sarai. The look asked a silent, burning question.
"Not yet," she murmured quietly back. "Some things simply have to come to light in their own time. We can't force this hand."
Roy instantly accepted her judgment. Odyn, standing a half-step away, offered no indication of disagreement. Khanna's expression remained perfectly thoughtful and still.
"You all know something about them, don't you?" Sumia asked softly, materializing quietly at Sarai's shoulder. "Every single one of you."
Sarai turned to look at her for a long moment. "What we know, and when it is actually right to share it—those are two entirely different questions." She held Sumia's steady gaze, her eyes carrying a depth that the immediate situation didn't fully explain. "What truly matters right now is the tournament. Winning it, and securing the alliance." She paused briefly. "Everything else will find its proper moment."
Sumia looked at her, then glanced back toward the empty doorway through which Marth had vanished, before returning her gaze to Sarai.
"Alright," Sumia said softly.
Khan Flavia's rich voice cut sharply across the hall, effortlessly pulling the room back to its immediate business. "Proper quarters will be arranged for your group to rest tonight. The arena gates open at dawn." She looked directly at Chrom with the appraising, hard-edged directness of a veteran leader who had been selecting champions long enough to know the real deal when she saw it. "Get some solid rest, Prince of Ylisse. You're going to want to be exceptionally sharp tomorrow."
---
The assigned quarters were sparse, strictly functional, but blessedly warm. The group settled into them with the quiet ease of travelers who had learned, over the course of a thoroughly exhausting few days, to accept comfort whenever it presented itself without asking too many unnecessary questions.
As the evening wore on, the general chatter naturally quieted down—not fading entirely, but settling into that comfortable, subdued hush that takes over when a day has been long enough that people can simply exist in each other's company without needing to perform the energy of it. Frederick took a final turn patrolling the stone corridor outside. Lissa found a narrow window, resting her chin in her hands as she quietly gazed up at the strange, unfamiliar stars glittering in the northern sky. Stahl, drawing from an internal reserve of rations that seemed genuinely inexhaustible, produced a small quantity of dried provisions and distributed them equitably among the lingering group.
Robin sat quietly at a wooden table with a thick tactical tome open across his knees, though he wasn't actually reading the pages. Instead, his mind was actively reviewing the day's engagements—the brutal Risen skirmish, the tense fortress confrontation at the gates, and the abrupt, startling appearance of Marth in the throne hall—neatly organizing the disparate events into the mental architecture where his thoughts naturally lived, the quiet space where hidden patterns eventually revealed themselves if given enough breathing room.
Chrom, Robin reflected critically, fights like a man who has spent a great deal of time training entirely alone and not nearly enough time coordinating with a team, though he doesn't entirely realize it yet. That is something we can change, given sufficient time and the right people. He has the raw instincts. He just needs to build better habits.
And Marth? Marth fought like someone who had spent a very long time training under the direct tutelage of one specific person—someone whose signature style was deeply, almost uncomfortably familiar.
Robin silently filed that particular observation away alongside the rest of the puzzle pieces he didn't yet have enough information to solve. With a soft thump, he closed the tome, deciding that the patterns would patiently wait for him in the morning.
A short distance away down the stone corridor, Sarai sat alone with her back resting firmly against the cold masonry, her knees pulled up to her chest as her eyes drifted blankly into the middle distance. Her thoughts were entirely consumed by the masked warrior who moved with the exact cadence of someone she had known her entire life—someone who had tumbled through the exact same impossible sky-wound that had unceremoniously dumped her, her brothers, and Khanna into a field in Ylisse. Someone who had whispered those haunting words out in the dark behind the trees: I was in time.
She possessed nearly the complete picture now. She was deliberately letting herself approach the final, missing piece of the puzzle slowly, because she knew that certain realizations, when understood all at once, fundamentally changed the way a person breathed.
Some truths need to be discovered in their own time.
She had just told Sumari that very thing earlier. She could still hear the echo of her own voice saying it. It was the absolute truth.
Sarai pressed her forehead gently against her knees, closed her eyes, and quietly waited for the dawn.
Tomorrow, the tournament field would inevitably hold answers to questions that tonight only offered as shadows.
To be continued...
Next Chapter: Chapter 4: Mirror Image — Ferox Tournament vs. the Mysterious "Marth"