The village burned.

It was a small settlement on the very fringe of civilization, barely having earned the right even call itself a village. The collection of buildings lay in the very deepest part of Keevakor Forest, further west than any settlers had dared to travel for fear of the darkness that had gathered there. A small band of settlers had simply set out from Allariak, the then-westernmost town one day, heading west with no explanation as to why.

Many members of this group had, in previous months, withdrawn from mainstream society. Several rumors had arisen as to the cause of this, ranging from witchcraft to cult activities.

However, nothing was ever proven.

The small band of settlers did, in fact, carry a closely-guarded secret, one that will be explained in relatively short order. They feared that, if discovered, this secret would bring nothing but trouble, violence, and possibly even war to Allariak. These people loved their home, despite the fact that they had all but isolated themselves from it.

And so, thinking of nothing but their city and fellow citizens, the small troupe left for Keevakor Forest, on whose fringe Allariak stands.

The name Keevakor, which translates to 'Green Shadow' in a long-forgotten language, is a title that, pound for pound, the Forest had earned. Children who had wandered from Allariak into the woods had never been recovered in tolerable condition. If they weren't found dead, they simply weren't found. The one exception had actually wandered back into Allariak, turned from an innocent child into a raving lunatic.

To this day, no one knows what the child saw in Keevakor…the boy committed suicide before he learned what the word meant.

Parents who lost their children into Keevakor often dashed headlong into the forest after them…an ill-advised decision, and one that cost Allariak several families. Entire bloodlines had perished in the forest.

And now, beneath that cursed canopy, the village that had been built from the evil wood of that forest was burning to the ground.

*****

The boy came awake slowly, disturbed by a persistent heat on his face. He was distantly aware of someone yelling something. Cracking his eyes open, he stared vacantly ahead of him as reds and oranges and blacks swam before him. As the image slowly came into focus, he shrank back in terror, recoiling from the wall of fire that lay before him.

Twisting his head from side to side, the boy saw that he was lying in an alleyway, between the back wall of his house and the Town Community Building. Scrambling to his feet, he staggered down the alleyway and emerged into the dirt path that served as the settlement's main street. Laying his eyes upon the town that he had called home for nearly ten years, he was struck dumb.

The village was in flames.

The boy's eyes shifted from building to burning building, the horrific image not completely registering. Whether is was from total and complete shock or the choking smoke that filled the air, he fell to his knees, and his vision began to blur once more.

A sudden crash from his right snapped the boy out of his trance. His head snapped to the side as the door to the Community Building collapsed. A man flailed his way out of the open doorway, something that chilled the boy to the bone more than anything else he had ever seen before.

The man, who he later recognized as his own father, was on fire.

As the putrid stench of burning flesh and hair filled his nostrils and traveled down his throat, the boy uttered a shriek of pure terror. The sound cut though the splinter and crackle of the fire, and caused the human torch to turn towards him. A cry of even greater magnitude forced its way out of his father's mouth, and the burning mass of flesh staggered towards him.

Completely consumed by sheer terror, the boy turned tail and ran. He sprinted down the street, trying and failing to ignore the burning in his lungs and the stinging in his eyes. He ran from his father until he could run no more, and collapsed to the ground in a hysterical fit that was equal parts sobbing and coughing.

When the fit subsided, he turned, expecting to see the burning man standing over him, reaching out with one torch-like arm. What greeted his eyes instead was a sight far worse than anything he could have possibly imagined.

The boy's father lay face-down in the dirt, unquestionably dead and yet still burning.

Over his scorched body stood a Dark Knight, a being that struck blind and hysterical terror into the boy's heart. The knight was clad from head to toe in a deep-blue suit of armor, leaving no skin exposed. Arcane designs adorned the armor, weaving themselves into shapes that the boy knew were not possible. A single orange horn protruded from the knight's azure helm, and two beady red stars burned behind his visor. The unholy warrior's most distinguishing feature, and the aspect of his form that would haunt the boy's dreams for years to come, was his right arm, which had been morphed into a grotesque, three-fingered claw.

This beastly appendage grasped an enormous sword, the point of which was buried in his father's back.

Staring at the massive weapon, it seemed to the boy as though the sword was not steel, but instead made of flesh and bone. And as he gazed at the sword, the boy realized, with a growing sense of hysterical horror, that the sword was actually staring back at him.

A jaundiced, bloodshot eye stared out from the core of the blade, swiveling about as though the sword had a life of its own. When it finally fell upon the boy, the knight's head turned towards him as well, and the beady red eyes that stared out from behind the dark visor seemed to flare with the fires of hell itself.

The Azure Knight gave a quick jerk of his monstrous right arm, and the sword came free of its fleshy, burning sheath with a sickening squelch. The warrior and his blade seemed to lock eyes for a split second, and then, slowly but surely, the knight advanced on the boy.

Unable to scream, unable to cry for help, and knowing that no help would come if he did, the boy simply pushed himself backwards. He scooted away from the knight even as the apparition came closer, and closer, until he was so close that another step would put his foot on the boy's throat.

The boy tried to scream for somebody, anybody, but all that he could manage was a terrified squeak.

Staring down at his latest victim, the Azure Knight raised the demonic sword high above his head. It was then that the blue demon spoke, and his voice was an amalgamation of every bad and painful noise the boy had heard in his life. It was both the hollow whisper the wind made as it traveled through the cursed leaves of Keevakor, and the bloodcurdling shriek his father made as fire consumed his flesh.

"Welcome to my Nightmare!"

As the sword fell, the boy wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, to block out the sight of the evil weapon bearing down on him, delivering unto him a most painful death.

However, it was not to be.

A young man, no older than seventeen and seemingly appearing from nowhere, slammed into the knight, knocking the larger warrior to the side and sending his sword blow eschew. The huge weapon slammed into the ground mere inches from the boy, rending the Earth and shattering stone.

The mere concussive force of the strike sent the boy sprawling. He landed hard several feet away, his head making rough contact with a stone. As his vision swam, the boy watched as the Azure Knight, wielding his evil sword of flesh and metal, and the younger fighter, who wielded an icy blue, almost crystalline sword of similar size, clashed in the middle of the burning town.

The boy struggled weakly and mumbled incoherently as the battle faded in and out of focus, slowly getting to his feet as the smaller warrior took the offensive, landing several powerful blows to the knight's upper body. Knocking his opponent backwards with a forceful thrust, the young man turned towards the boy.

"Get out of here!!!" he shouted, struggling to make himself heard over the roar of the fires. "NOW!!!" When the boy didn't move, he opened his mouth to yell again. However, he was cut off when a sudden pain in his chest made itself known. He looked down to see the yellowed eye of the Azure Knight's blade staring up at him.

Staring at the dark sword protruding from his savior's stomach, the boy finally screamed.

The fleshy sword was withdrawn from his torso, and with the last of his strength, the young warrior spun, bringing his large sword around with him in a powerful stabbing attack. His aim couldn't have been better, and the point of his sword dug into the jaundiced eye of his opponent's blade, which had been flying towards his head in an overhand blow.

The Knight's entire body convulsed as an earth-shattering scream erupted from his mouth. Light blasted outwards from the evil sword's eye, outshining the fire and bathing the forest for miles around in an eerie red glow.

The boy was blinded by the intense red light and deafened by the ear-splitting shriek of the Azure Knight; the lethal combination of stimuli proved to be more than he could handle, and the boy collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

*****

He awoke to a light rain. Moving into a sitting position, the boy took in his surroundings. The fires had died, the smoke had made its contribution to the atmosphere, and his home had been utterly destroyed.

A putrid smell reached his nostrils, and the boy turned to see vultures picking at the charred remains of his father, as well as the other burnt corpses that littered the street. The boy was filled with anger at this sight, and, scrambling to his feet, he charged the scavengers, waving his arms wildly and screaming every obscenity he knew.

As the birds scattered, he fell to his knees, sobbing for his father, and his mother, and his

brother.

A groan from somewhere behind him caused the boy to whip around, and he beheld his older brother, sword still in hand, struggling to his feet only to fall back down again.

"Josh!" the boy cried his brother's name as he ran, sliding to the ground next to him.

Getting to his knees, Joshua Smith smiled weakly at his little brother. "Hey, buddy. You okay?"

His brother's smile easing his fears somewhat, the boy still glanced around them worriedly, searching for the knight in the blue armor. "Where'd he go?" he asked, hoping that Josh didn't know.

"Can't say for sure, but he's definitely not here anymore," Josh replied, and winked at his brother. "Guess I scared him off, huh?" He gave a weak laugh that descended into a painful grunt as he doubled over in pain. "That's definitely not good," the older boy muttered, glancing at the gaping hole in his chest.

It was just then that the boy noticed his sibling's grievous wound, his blood-soaked trousers, and the ever-widening crimson puddle that the two of them were kneeling in. "Joshua…you're…"

"What, this? It's just a scratch, don't worry about it." Seeing the near-hysterical look of horror on his brother's face, Joshua dropped the act. "Hey, buddy, do you know who that knight was?" When his brother shook his head, he continued. "That was Soul Edge."

The boy gasped, and then inhaled sharply. Soul Edge…it was all making sense now.

He didn't know much, but what the child was aware of was this: Soul Edge was the root of all evil, and their village had been founded with the intent of protecting the world from its depthless evil. Joshua, along with several other young men, had been trained from a very young age to battle Soul Edge when the time came. The boy himself was in the early stages of his training, which included brutal physical conditioning and hours upon hours of meditation.

"Buddy, listen to me," Joshua continued, the strain becoming evident in his voice. "Everybody in the village is dead. Mom and Dad, Mister Sero, and all the other boys. There's…"

"…nobody left to stop Soul Edge," the boy finished. He stared at the ground, contemplating the meaning of what he had just said. If what his elders had taught him was true, an unopposed Soul Edge spelled disaster for the entire world—entire forests would rot, the sky would go forever dark, and entire nations would burn to the ground.

"Nobody but you."

The boy snapped to attention at this. "…what? Me?"

"Kiddo, I'm running out of time." Josh was still on one knee, but to look at him one would think that he bore a weight ten times his own. Gripping his right hand tight, he lifted his icy blue sword to the boy. "This is Soulcalibur. It was made from a piece of Soul Edge, and is the only weapon capable of stopping it. You have to take it, buddy."

"Josh, I can't…I don't know how to swing a sword yet. You can do it, you have to…I…I just can't," the boy blubbered, tears gathering behind his eyes. "Joshua, you can't die! There's nobody left, you said it yourself! If you die, I'll…I'll be all alone! In the forest!"

Joshua moved to say something, but his knee gave out before he could, and he fell to the ground. "Buddy…I can't stay with you…you'll be fine, though. You can survive, you have to."

The child got down on his stomach beside his brother. He couldn't hold it any longer; the tears gushed forth, cutting silver streams down his cheeks. "Josh, you can't leave me!!!" he sobbed hysterically.

His eyes glazing over, Josh managed a weak smile. "Believe me, buddy…I don't want to…but I don't have a choice in this. Its up to you now, Soul Edge is still out there and you gotta stop him. I know…I know you can handle this…you're way stronger than I was at your age."

"Joshua…" he pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper now, "don't go."

"Buddy…David…I'll see you later…" Leaving those words behind, Joshua Tobias Smith's eyes closed, and he was lost to this world.

He didn't cry, that wouldn't bring his older brother back. He simply lay at his brother's side. The boy, not yet nine years old, lay like a corpse among corpses, among the burnt-out skeletons of his lifelong hometown, among the ashes that lay in the wake of Soul Edge.

Soul Edge…

The boy got to his knees, first staring at his dead brother, and then at the blade he had carried. After several minutes, the child's hand closed around the sword's hilt. "A sword that could stop Soul Edge…"

He buried his brother, and he buried his father, and mother, and all the others that had succumbed to the bloodthirsty wrath of Soul Edge. It took most of the day for him to do it, and when he was finally finished, he just sat next to the large mound of dirt, thinking. When he finally finished, the boy grasped the large, icy blue sword and stared at it.

"Josh…" the boy spoke slowly and deliberately. "I'm not going to stop Soul Edge." His words dripping with a contempt and hatred that he had never before experienced, David Smith turned his back on his home, facing towards the fringe of Keevakor. "I'm going to break him."

He started walking.

Yes, I know my descriptions of the swords are vague. It was intentional, and later chapters will rectify it. I don't own Zelda, but I wish I owned Soulcalibur (the sword, not the games; I already have those). With that in mind, constructive critiscism is greatly appreciated, especially concerning the first few paragraphs; I don't like those.