FIORE X558
Ryu maneuvered through the ruined walls of Crocus. The mighty stood tall in the distance. At worst, a few of the homes were destroyed. They'd, thankfully, evacuated long before the battle had even started.
The warrior wizard shivered. He tightened the strap of his breastplate just a little bit but kept his sword tight in his hand. Few remained on the battlefield. All of them were wounded. Nurses and healing wizards hadn't quite made it this far in yet. They were still near the site of the cataclysm, where Akinari slew Uvo, the Last Yami.
The thought of it forced a shiver through Ryu. Uvo, the towering beast made of violet shadow, had at last fallen to the almighty power of the sun. But Akinari hadn't been seen since. All the soldiers in Ryu's army, recruited or guild volunteers like Ryu, scoured the battleground for him. But something else drew Ryu's attention.
Another massive beast lay against the wall. One Ryu had seen terrorizing the battlefield, and armies of Ishgar, moments before Uvo and Akinari found one another. A Vulcan, one of the mountain creatures from the south near Magnolia. Most of them were rather mindless, simply large ape-like creatures.
Uvo had some success in getting them to become quite the opposite. Especially this one, Hihari. Ryu stopped just short of the creature. Their arms were limp at their side, broken and twisted.
The creature snarled at the sight of Ryu, but was too exhausted to move. Ryu scoffed and spat.
"What'll you do, monster?" Ryu asked.
Hihari shifted, but Ryu didn't even flinch. "Wizard." He coughed and spat, then tried to beat his chest with shattered arms. It didn't work. "You really think you've won?"
"Oh, here we go. The great fall-back plan of Uvo. How he'll rise again, how he can never be defeated." Ryu showed Hihari the blood of his comrades, the stains of shadow on his blade. "I find it hard to believe. You've lost, monster, so what will you do? Surrender, or use your last gasps on your pathetic cause?"
"Our cause is more righteous than any wizard's," Hihari said. "We were going to balance the world. We had to. The natural order is lost. Wizards now claim too much power." He leaned his head back. "You horde all the magic for yourselves, and leave none for the rest."
"You're a magical being."
"Precisely," Hihari said. "You think I haven't noticed the suction of ethernano away from my people?" He grimaced from the pain. "You think Uvo would have ended the world? No, he would have balanced it. Ishgar had to fall for the world to rise."
Ryu understood. Dragnof, Alvarez, and Guilitina all had experienced similar wars and battles. Uvo was but one of many Yami, and his brothers all tried, and failed to some degree, to attack those nations. Hell, his oldest brother fell to the dragons, and sparked their civil war two hundred years ago. Ishgar was the continent that struggled most against the Yami.
The looming presence of Crocus filled Ryu with pride. But Fiore rose up. Xavi Fiore, the first king of the country, took hold of his rightful lands from Bosco, Minstrel, and Stella, and led a nigh-unstoppable army against Uvo, turning the tide.
Ryu had been at the forefront of that. Well, he thought, not necessarily the forefront. That lay with Akinari, the Sun Wizard, the most powerful wizard in all Ishgar. King Fiore was not far behind. Both employed their own forms of Lost Magic.
Hihari stiffened and caught Ryu's attention. "But it will come. If not by our hand then someone else. Zeref, perhaps." He chuckled. "Another damned wizard."
"Zeref is gone. Uvo is gone. You are gone." Ryu stepped closer, a bit dangerously. "What did Uvo want with Crocus?"
Hihari glared. Ryu had overheard from Akinari's own mouth that Uvo's turn to Crocus was an abrupt one. It seemed, as all evidence pointed, his goal was Stella, was to kill King Animus. But he took a hard turn toward the new capital of Fiore.
"He wanted to return. So he could do this!"
Hihari's arms snapped back into place. An illusion? No. Just that last gasp. Hihari's massive Vulcan muscles tensed.
Ryu crossed his arms. "Binding Magic: Beast to Stone!"
The wall behind Hihari trembled, then, Hihari froze in place. The wall lurched, Hihari flung back, and the two collided. Hihari struggled, but Ryu held a single hand up, keeping the magic in place.
"You were saying, about his return?"
"I won't talk, wizard."
"I'll bind the truth right out of you."
"You can't."
"And if I can?"
Hihari snarled, and hesitated. Ryu held him in place, suspended against the stone wall. He heard the movement of plate armor behind him. Hihari's fearful eyes swiveled about. In just a few moments, he'd be surrounded.
"The R-System." Hihari said, with a long breathe. "He wanted to use the R-System. Uvo suspected something was in Crocus, thought it was that, and wanted to use it in the event he would die." Hihari paused again. "He failed."
"Clearly." Ryu released the bind and Hihari dropped, prideless, to the ground. Ryu sheathed his sword.
"Good work, boy," a powerful voice said behind him. Now it was Ryu's turn to freeze in place.
A tall, powerful figure moved into his peripheral. He wore silver armor with jade lining and a golden cloak and crown. He had no weapons, and his plate was all magic. He had a mighty beard, and, above all, a royal presence.
"Your highness," Ryu muttered.
"I suspected it was something to do with one of Zeref's creations," King Fiore said. "Though I wouldn't have thought Uvo unwise enough to share it with one of his brutes."
"I am general of the Vulcan legion," Hihari said. "I slaughtered countless wizards, I-!"
"Shall soon meet my Executioner's Squad," Fiore said. "Trust me, they live up to their name."
Fiore patted Ryu on the shoulder and turned him away from the defeated beast. They walked in silence for a while, heading back toward the sullen battlefield. Fiore seemed to be either breathing heavily, or would begin to say something but stop short. Then he would just chuckle to himself.
At last, he spoke, when they stood in an open area with relatively few signs of strife. "Where were you, boy, for most of the fight?"
"With the wall defense," Ryu said. "They thought my magic would be best used there.'
"Binding magic is quite rare these days," Fiore said. "And yours is quite different. Most Binding wizards I see aren't capable of manipulating people to objects."
"It takes a toll after a while," Ryu said. "And I've had a ton of time to get used to it. There are still some techniques I haven't fully mastered." He bowed. "Your Highness."
"Please, we're all soldiers this day." Fiore breathed in, then out. "This glorious, victorious day! Long have I waited for it. Three years we struggled. Three years. Did you serve all that time?"
"No, I've only been fighting for one year. My guild only decided to join the fight recently, even though I'd been wanting to get involved from the start."
Fiore took a moment, again, and then nodded. "We're just glad, and fortunate, to have you in our services. Hopefully, things can return to normal for you in...Magnolia."
Ryu raised an eyebrow. "Magnolia? How'd you know I was from there?"
"A lucky guess." Fiore shrugged. "We needed all the help we could get. I honestly didn't think this would be the end, but, then again, the end is difficult to see coming. We sacrificed so much. And all for what? The R-System? A myth?"
"A myth?"
"Things from the book of Zeref are hard to actually consider real. His demons, his spells, his works? How much of it do we consider fact? If it were all true, most people would be in hysteria. And, again, if it were, now wouldn't be the time to confirm it. The people need to settle down after this. Let the historians settle these matters. Leave it to the Magic Council."
"If Zeref were to strike, though, wouldn't now be the time?"
"But strike and do what?" King Fiore just shook his head. "I don't know what his goal is. Nobody does. But I know one thing. If Akinari were to come face-to-face with Zeref, the Black Wizard wouldn't know what hit him. Look."
He pointed toward the castle. Ryu hadn't noticed it before, but a massive ray of sunlight beamed down upon it, illuminating the entire thing. Akinari.
"Nobody knows where he is, but we know that he still stands alongside us," Fiore said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, my boy, I have a rather concerned queen to attend to."
Fiore strode through his city's gates with nothing but pride emblazoned upon his spirit. He left Ryu behind to stand there alone, amidst the ruins of battle. The rest of the city remained untouched, thanks to the efforts of Ryu, his guildmates, and some other soldiers. There weren't too many of them left.
The King did fight valiantly throughout the battle. His Lost Magic-Ryu didn't know the name-was absolutely brilliant, and made him all but unstoppable compared to Uvo's forces. Mightiest forces, Ryu remembered. Uvo didn't focus the bulk of his numbers but his power on the Crocus gambit, leaving the majority of his army to head south, as if they were going to take Hargeon, the port city, and cut off Fiore's accessible help from Stella.
Surprisingly, it was all Fiore's forces that fended off Uvo. That probably played into Ryu's exhaustion. The battle itself lasted for a day and a half, of each army dwindling down against Uvo's nonstop advance until the beast, at last, reached the walls of Crocus, where he broke like waves on the shore. A dark part of Ryu wondered if that was the plan all along. In open combat, Uvo was unbeatable. He won every field battle, but, a pattern began to emerge. Against guarded cities, he faltered. Not enough to stop him in some cases, but sometimes, just enough.
Was the plan, then, to drain the bulk of his power until this tactic caught up to him? Ryu certainly hoped not. If so, the plan barely worked and cost so many good lives and wizards.
Ryu gazed back at the brilliant, glowing castle. He almost let out a sigh of relief, when the hairs on the back of his neck stood. Another presence.
He turned. A woman, this time, with long black hair and a white headband. She removed a mask from her face, one Ryu recognized. She hadn't taken part in the battle, but was there, watching. She stopped a few feet from him. On top of some tight-fitted dress she had a dark blue cloak.
"Xavi is a good king," she said.
"Why didn't you take part in the battle?" Ryu asked.
"I had to merely be a watcher, until now. I saw you, though. Binding magic? Incredibly rare. I can't think of a wizard I'm from who uses it."
"And where are you from?"
"A place not far, but, you'll never see it."
Ryu furrowed his brow. "Today's not the day for riddles, miss."
"I'm on your side, if that's what you're really getting after." She waved him off. "But because of the direness of the situation, I must speak with the king."
"The king is busy," Ryu said. "And if you were truly on our side, why didn't you help?"
"You must not have heard me, because I already explained myself."
"Not enough."
"I don't have time for this."
Ryu tensed. The woman glowered at him, then let a little grin creep across her lips.
"What do you want from us?"
"I want to help save Fiore from certain doom. Dark, twisted forces are in motion that cannot be undone except for my own hand, the hand of the king, and…" She rolled her eyes. "Someone else. Good enough? No, probably not. What if I told you I knew all about the dragon tomb beneath the Dormus Flau?"
Even Ryu wasn't supposed to know about that. In fact, to him, those had been a myth, like the R-system.
"What about the R-System?"
"I, unfortunately, know too much about that monstrosity."
Ryu stepped forward, this time more curiosity in his step than anger. "Who are you?"
The woman kept her mask at her side. "Ultear Milkovich. Friend to Fiore."
A/N: I promised this would be out during the same week as the Prologue and I missed it! Gah! Dang, but, at least it's out. There should be another chapter soon, the latest by the end of the week, so stay tuned, as we've only just begun!