Prologue: Prelude to War

Magic is an art. Magic is a skill. Magic is a tool.

Those were the words branded on Aelius Darejan's right forearm, his only arm, and he could feel them burning through his skin as he climbed a small hill.

"We must be close," he muttered.

The guide, a young man who had just reached the beginnings of adulthood, nodded. "It should be just beyond the hill after this one."

"I see."

They were both leading their horses on foot, and the morning sun behind them casted long shadows that crawled up the slopes like approaching giants. There was a strong wind coming from the north-east, causing Aelius' armless left sleeve to flap ceaselessly, but he felt no discomfort; or rather, he was used to enduring worse.

The sky was scalded free of clouds, and the grass on these hilly lands grew without restraint; at the distance, a low mountain range ran across the horizon. There were no wild animals in sight, and there won't be for a several thousand paces radius as the young guide had told Aelius. It was explainable though; Aelius could feel the density of force in the air.

"The place is haunted," the guide tried explaining again.

"You can leave once we reach there. I won't be returning to your village," Aelius said.

"Er…no, that's not what I mean," the young man said, eyes darting around nervously. "I mean I don't see what you want to do with that place. It's cursed."

Aelius frowned at him, and said nothing for a moment. "You people call everything you don't understand a curse. Perhaps if I told you how I lost my left arm, you would call me a curse too."

The guide immediately froze, and he nodded. "I'm sorry. It's your reason to be here; I intruded by asking. I won't do it again."

Aelius moved past him, scratching his beard. "Then, let us move on. I need to be at Alnus by noon," he said. "I will pay double for your worries."

"Thank you." The guide went back ahead to take the lead.

There was a wide expanse of flat land between the next set of hills, with grass tall enough to hide an army; though, it was not hard to imagine that there was no other person besides Aelius and the guide in the area. Aelius shifted his scabbarded sword so that he was sure it wouldn't bump against the horse as he mounted, which to do so he had to practically jump since having one arm can be pretty inconvenient at times.

The guide led him straight, and it was evident that the man was not too confident of the way, which was expected since members of his village are forbidden by their elders from entering the hill, Alnus. The guide only knew the general direction, for he had been there once before when he was a young rebellious child, and he had an experience that had made him wary of the place ever since.

At the crest of the second hill, the guide stopped, and his face suddenly lost its colour.

"What is this…" he whispered.

Aelius reigned in beside the young man, taking in the view before him. There was a shallow valley ahead, but then the land climbed higher further ahead until it reached the base of the mountain range. However, the most notable thing about the place was that everything was dead. There was only soil; the grass had seemingly withered and turned to dust. Even the wind seemed to have died, for the air felt stale, though at the same time more intense than ever. Boulders and dead wood were littered throughout the ground, promising that nothing could live on the land.

Alnus.

At the far end, at the peak of what seemed to be highest point of land before the mountains, a lone building stood undisturbed. It was rectangular in shape, and had a wide triangle roof supported by circular columns on the perimeter. Its marble texture had faded and was tainted by rough soot, showing its age.

Aelius fished through his saddle bag and pulled out a leather pouch jangling with coins. He added some more coins to it from another pouch and then threw it to the guide.

"You don't need to go further. I can go alone," he said.

The guide stared at him as if he were some crazed man. "What?"

Aelius ignored him. He urged his horse forward, but the beast refused to move, neighing in protest. He dismounted, untying a small yellow bag from the saddle.

"No wait! You can't go!" the guide shouted. "Are you seeing this?" He waved at the desolated land before them. "It wasn't like this when I came before!"

"No, it wasn't," Aelius said, facing the man. "But the other world's magic seeps into this world through the Gate and chokes life. That is why you see nothing grows or lives here in this area anymore."

"Other world? Gate? What are you saying?" The guide had now dismounted as well and he struggled to find any expression on Aelius' face.

Aelius turned his gaze towards to faraway building. "That building over there was built by the ancient Norns long before our time, and the doors has been locked ever since they have disappeared off the face of the continent. I'm sure you know this, every child in Falmart does. But you don't know that it is actually a Gate, or rather, a portal to another world."

"Other world? You mean the realm of the gods?"

Aelius shook his head. "No, it's a different world. A vastly different one from ours. I don't know much of it."

"Then, what do you want with it?" the young man asked.

The frown returned to Aelius' face. "You said that you wouldn't ask again?"

"That was until I saw this. This is beyond us. You'll bring a curse on all of us by tempering with it. The Norns disappeared for a reason, and I suggest we do not mess with whatever that is of them." The guide's hand was at the hilt of his sword now.

Aelius sighed, disliking the nuisance. "Again, what you people don't understand you call a curse."

"It's for good reasons perhaps."

His frown deepened. He had hoped that the young man would have left after being given the money, but now it seemed that he would not until he received some answers. "Fine, I'll tell you then," the one-arm man said, staring straight at the younger man. "I wish to open the Gate."

A moment of silence passed between them. Nothing moved.

"You're mad," whispered the guide. "Utterly fucking mad!" His blade came out the scabbard with a flourish.

He came forward to Aelius, who stood there unflinching in the face of hostility. "You are going to open that building, why? I don't know about another world, but it could very well be Hell waiting on the other side!"

The point of the blade was facing Aelius' chest, though there was still a short distance between them.

"My reasons are my own; I owe them to no man," Aelius said, feeling his patience draw to a limit.

"Fuck you! Here, take back your money." The guide flung the leather pouch back at him and it bounced onto the ground. "I shouldn't have brought you here. I can't let you go now."

"Kill me then."

The young man hesitated at those words, then shook his head. "No, we can both just head back now and forget that this ever happened."

At that moment, Aelius allowed his anger to break free, and he drew his sword. The blade swept up and knocked the guide's sword aside. Caught by unaware, the young man yelped and tried to regain balance, but something grabbed his throat, lifted him into the air, then threw him back down to the ground; his sword clattered somewhere.

With a grunt, Aelius yanked the man up by the tunic with his left hand. The guide's eyes widened at the sight of the new arm, which was not made of flesh, but of a dark translucent matter.

"You're a shadow warrior!" the man whispered. His voice was quivering and fear was running rampart in his eyes. "No, no, no…please! Your master is dead!"

Aelius jerked the man up to the air again, and it was like holding a squirming trout caught by hand. He brought his sword to the man's knees and cut two slashes where he knew the tendons were. Then, his anger dissipated and with it, his left arm as well, and the guide was left to fall to the ground, bellowing and screaming.

"I won't kill you," Aelius said, watching the blood pooled under the man. "That's my mercy."

Under great pain, the guide managed to cried out his thanks. Aelius continued, "But now, you have to do something else for me."

The man made a painful gestured which Aelius took as an assent, and Aelius knelt down next to him, hovering his right hand over the two new wounds. He closed his eyes, muttering in a forgotten language, and the air around began to simmer. Whether it was out of fear or numbing pain, the guide froze and did not move. When Aelius removed his hand, the man's knees had stopped bleeding.

"I have stopped the bleeding," he said. "Though you still won't be able to walk for the rest of your life—that's the price for insulting my master—but you will still be able to ride."

The young man nodded, agony still evident in his face.

"I want you to ride back to your village and explain to them everything I've told you about the Gate, but don't tell them about me, nothing about me. Tell them, the Gate is now open," said Aelius. "Tell them, the dawn of another world is here."

The guide could only stare at him with his teary eyes. "Why?"

A sigh escaped Aelius' mouth. "You still ask questions?" he said, but told the reason anyway, "I want the word to spread, but like with every fire, it would first need a single spark. Even if you weren't here, I would have done it myself. I want the news to reach every city of the Empire; Italica, Bellnahgo, the Capital Sadera, others. I want the great seat of the Emperor himself to know. I want the Senate to know. I want everyone to know. And then—"

Aelius shrugged, "We'll see what happens. It's not every day that we have a new world on our horizon, and the nobles are always greedy for more land. Only the gods know how these events will turn out after."

He stooped down to pick up the guide—his right arm doing the job with as much as ease as his left did—carrying him all the way to the horses. He helped the man mount, who did so with a lot of shouting of pain, then he sent the man on his way.

Once certain that the guide was well away in the distance, Aelius turned back towards Alnus and finished untying the yellow bag from his horse's saddle before hiking down the slope into the shallow valley. Dead lands greeted him, and he made a point that the other world's magic must have been accumulating here for a while now. The words on his right forearm burned greater than ever as he drew closer to the Gate.

After about a thousand paces up the hill, the rectangular building loomed ahead of him, trapping him in its shadows. The doors, the size of a manor hall, were made of an unknown metal set into the stone of the building. Scripts written in Old Norn stretched across the width of the it, and there was a large concave circle that jutted out in the middle of the doors, high above Aelius' head.

Of all the magnificent structures the Norns had left behind after their disappearance, the Gate was, in Aelius' opinion, their crowning achievement. Not even their floating fortress Sereiden, which hovered over the waters of the Blue Sea to the southwest of the continent, could matched the Gate, and Aelius could not help but feel a great satisfaction that he would be the one to open it after all these years.

He rolled up his left sleeve, all the way up the shoulder to where the amputation had been. Then, the dark matter of his left arm began to form, first bubbling before taking firm shape almost immediately. He poured the contents of the yellow bag into the palm of his left hand; silver glittering gems, twelve of them, each of them taking him a lifetime to retrieve. His master may not be here to witness this, but he would have certainly take pride in his servant for continuing his research.

"Twelve for the twelve millenniums since this Gate was built," Aelius muttered, then bit his right thumb so that blood flowed, dropping them on the gems. "The blood of the summoner for payment." He blew his breath onto the left palm. "And the will of one of the Shadows."

With not so much of a grunt, Aelius thrust his left hand forward against the doors of the Gate. Sudden cold engulfed his body, and he struggled not to flinched. He closed his eyes, and began muttering in the forgotten language. His left arm felt a sensation that traveled to his chest and stayed there. Then, it bloomed. The sensation expanded, surged through his body, filled him with power. His eyes snapped open, and they were glowing bright blue like a never ending winter. Images came to him. A sea! The biggest sea that he has ever seen, stretching forth endlessly. The land before was an island, and like the sea, it was the biggest island he has ever seen. Then, he saw the sun, bright and rising out of the horizon like a king ascending his throne, shining gloriously over the land.

How beautiful, Aelius thought, a land of a rising sun.

Then the images ended, as suddenly as they came, as did the cold sensation. Aelius Darejan stepped back, and the Gate slid open.

Author's notes: As you probably already noticed, this fic will have AU elements. This fic will be looking things from the Empire's perspective and also I hope to empower the Empire more so that they stand much of chance to fight back against the JDSF. Magic will be playing a very important role in this fic, as I find that in the original series there really wasn't much of it. Also, a lot of the lore of Falmart, such as the Norns (I totally stole that name off of Guild Wars), will be made up by me since I'm not a very canon-friendly person (yes, I'm that kind of asshole).

Anyway, just to clear any confusion, I will say this now that Aelius Darejan is not the main character. As much fun as I had writing him, he sadly won't be appearing until several chapters later (if I do manage to reach there and not take ten years to update). I'll be posting an outline of what I have planned for this fic in the Military Fiction's Round Table forum, and I will edit this chapter to post the link to that forum.

As for when will the next chapter be out, I don't know. I plan on posting another chapter to another fic of mine first before working on this one. But for the time being, please do go ahead and write a review here; positive or negative. If anything is confusing, tell me and I will fix it.

Well, that's the end of this prologue, be sure to favorite, follow, or review if you want. See ya.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gate Jietai, I just own a broken Economics textbook.

Edit 1: Here's the link to the forum page: topic/188542/149444705/1/Death-March-GATE-Fanfic#149444705

Also, a response to the review by Nonnie: That's a nice thought. You have partly guessed what I have planned for this fic. With the Empire bringing in something to counter against the JDSF, it does increase the likelihood that Japan will ask for other countries for military aid, which is what is going to happen in the later arcs of this story. However, unlike what you said, the other countries are not going to force their way in through Japan because it just makes no sense that the USA would attack an ally, and due to this alliance, Russia and China are not going to attack as well. Although, you are correct to think that if there other countries joining the fray against the Empire, the Empire's chance of survival is almost certainly doomed; I won't say yet whether this will be the case in this fic due to spoilers, but it is definitely the most realistic outcome I could see, dark power or not.