We'll be starting off with a scene from Ergatis. Where it goes from there is up to my wandering mind.

POV: 3rd Person

"Dr. Lamia. It's a pleasure to see you again. How have things been for you?"

"Cordial as always, General Dux. Things have been going well over here. I see you've brought some soldiers with you. Might I ask what you need us for?" Dr. Lamia replied.

The head scientist of Ergatis and the supreme commander of Liberi saw eye to eye in one particular area. Results. For the both of them, the method didn't necessarily matter so much as the results did, which was why it was easy for Liberi and Ergatis to strike an alliance. While Lucca and Lucian had been the initial ambassadors, negotiations had opened up rather quickly once both nations found that they could benefit from said alliance.

"The orbit path of Ergatis is predicted to arrive near Meeden, correct? We'll be needing some of your trion soldiers and perhaps some extra assistance in retrieving one of our black triggers."

"Hmm. What do you plan to give in exchange for this, General? You know the negotiations that our nations have. If we help you with something, you'll help us with something as well."

"I think you'll find what we have to offer quite satisfactory." Auriel said, indicating a package that he had a few soldiers bring over. "The last time Aftokrator attacked us, they left behind something by accident. We managed to disable it for studying. As long as you can reverse-engineer it, it's all yours. We just need two."

Dr. Lamia looked inside the rather large container, her jaw almost dropping when she finally realized what it was. She finally managed to shift her expression into a devilish grin.

"You know, I believe we have a deal, General Dux." She said, already relishing the idea of getting to work on a rabbit, Aftokrator's strongest known trion soldier.

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca Dux

Watching Rei mope was not my idea of socializing. I couldn't really blame her though. After all, they just had a rather depressing loss in the ranked wars against Suzunari-1. I will be honest, I didn't really expect anyone else to win that battle. Having the No. 4 Attacker in Border on your team is somewhat overpowered. Granted, the slight lack of skill in the rest of the squad made up for it somewhat, but Murakami is strong, especially with that side effect of his. I think the best way to describe it would be a somewhat weaker version of the observational portion of my side effect, which is still really strong.

"Lucca, how would you beat Murakami?" Rei asked.

I could have answered her instantly, but Kitora told me that taking my time makes me seem more normal to everyone. Well, if it keeps people from staring at me in the grocery store, I'll take it.

"Hmm. If I were to use your squad to defeat Murakami, I'd probably use Kumagai to keep him busy while you and Akane-chan focus fire on him. He's good, but like all attackers, if he can't get close he loses a lot of power. There's are exceptions to this rule, but Murakami doesn't use senku, so he's not an exception."

"And the rest of the squad?"

I shook my head. "Too much variability for a solid idea. The best course of action is to block them off from Murakami. Your squad could probably handle that, though you have to be careful of the other squads as well. You might be able to keep him at bay if you kept on the move by running along the walls, as Murakami isn't as proficient as you in moving along the buildings, though your chances of beating him by yourself are pretty small. Raygust is about as effective as a regular shield, if not stronger, because of its sturdiness. Though honestly, it'd probably be more effective to have someone else take him on."

"Who in B-rank is strong enough though?"

"Probably Yuma." I guessed. Yuma's learned a lot from his father, Yugo. And Yugo is easily one of the strongest guys I have ever met in my entire life.

"You mean Yuma Kuga? You two are friends, right? Which means he's a Neighbor?" Rei asked.

I shrugged. "Pretty much, yes. I didn't even know he was here until I was told about it by the leader of Calvaria, which was where Yuma was before he came to Meeden. No idea what he's doing here, though I can guess."

"Out of curiosity, when are you going to start using actual honorifics?" Rei asked.

"Probably the day when I finally figure out if I address Kitora as someone younger than me because of her age, or as a teacher or senior because I learned a lot of stuff from her." I muttered under my breath. That is still a point of confusion for me to this day.

"That seems like quite the dilemma." Rei had a small smile on her face.

I chuckled. "You have no idea. That aside though, do you want to do some ranked battles for practicing?"

"Are you sure? Does it not affect your Difand oath?" Rei asked.

I shrugged. "It's just simulated battles. We'll be fine, seeing as it doesn't actually hurt you. Besides, I need to practice with a shooter that doesn't instantly panic when I shoot a birdcage (birdcage is where the shooter directs trion bullets to cover all angles) at them."

"Alright then, I'll take you up on that offer." Rei said with a smile.

POV Change: 1st Person, Rei Nasu

I. Hate. Lucca.

Alright, I don't really hate him. But seriously, causing all the buildings in my immediate vicinity to collapse so I couldn't scale buildings like I normally do? That was rude. Granted, there's rubble that provides cover, but it's nothing like what buildings can provide.

My thoughts were cut off as I saw another round of trion bullets do a sharp turn in my direction. As I dodged back, I noticed a couple of them do a sharp 90 degree turn away from me while the rest did a 45 degree turn towards me. Probably Lucca trying to calculate the potential angles where I might dodge.

A rain of trion bullets from above caught my attention. I couldn't help but sigh. Of course Lucca would try to prevent an opportunity for a counterattack. He wasn't hidden from the radar, so I had a good idea of where he was, but he was relentless in his attack. After shielding those bullets, I finally managed to shoot a round of vipers at him. Predicting the angle isn't particularly difficult, but Lucca could probably shield against that. I managed to get vision of where he was, cubes of trion floating around him as he tried to figure out what to do next. Probably a good time to get an attack in.

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

Dammit. Rei didn't fall for the asteroid trap. I would have shot a birdcage at her right after, but she got a counterattack in, so I had to dodge that.

There was a trigger that I was trying to design that would help immensely with this fight, but it's still in the workings, as I haven't figured out how to make it efficient. If I did finish it though, it would make shooters that much more dangerous.

Oh, Rei just shot some more- OH CRAP THOSE ARE TOMAHAWKS.

I barely managed to jump out of the way in time as the place where I was camping before blew up in a glorious blaze of flames. I've never seen Rei use meteor and viper in tandem before. She must have been saving it for the ranked wars.

I sighed. This is going to be a long battle. And it was still the first one.

POV Change: 3rd Person

"So how are things going along, Dr. Lamia?" Auriel asked.

"It's fascinating, really. Aftokrator's technology is leaps and bounds above almost every other nation out there, though this particular trion soldier is clearly less efficient in trion usage than many others out there."

"Will that be a problem though?"

Dr. Lamia smirked. "Not at all. I've managed to make it much more efficient. Afto may be heads and shoulders above many other nations when it comes to fighting strength, but when it comes to trion soldiers, we're still heads and shoulders above them. We have one in particular that is much stronger than the rabits."

"Are you talking about your humanoid trion soldier that you've been developing? Your little Goddess of Destruction?" Auriel asked.

Dr. Lamia almost dropped the tool that she had in her hands. "How do you know about that? It's supposed to be a national secret."

It was Auriel's turn to smirk. "Despite my son's… intense dislike of me, he still reported directly to me when it came to gathering information. And he was very good at it. Good enough to know when something was being hidden."

He still remembered Lucca's report about it. A humanoid trion soldier that would be able to imitate human emotion on the battlefield and lull the enemy into a false sense of security because of it/her apparent innocence at first glance. A true masterpiece if he ever saw one. The only flaw to it being its combat mode. While it was destructive in every sense of the word, it was extremely inefficient, guzzling trion at a rate far faster than any other trion soldier in existence. Its codename: Lilith.

"I see. You are correct in your assumption. That trion soldier is my greatest project to date. She can easily destroy armies when supplied with enough trion."

"Fascinating. Would you mind showing me her capabilities?"

"After indulging me for so long, I think you deserve to see at least see her, if nothing else." Dr. Lamia said, leaving the rabit that she was working on to go show Auriel her finest creation. At the very least, he didn't know about her other one.

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca Dux

"Well that took a while."

"You pull out a round of tomahawks on me and that's all you have to say?"

"This coming from the guy who destroyed every single building within five hundred meters?"

"Alright, fine. I deserved that."

Well look at the two of you, bickering like an old couple.

"Oh, shut up, Aria. I could have said the same thing about you and Lupin."

We were not like that at all. And why didn't you ever take my side when we argued? Lupin's arguments were so illogical that even one statement would have been enough to blow it up.

"Hey, I wasn't about to incite Lupin's wrath. He's freaking huge. The only reason he went easy on you was because you were stuck in bed. I still remember the time when he got pissed off at Alessio and tried to beat him up."

Lucca, literally all of your guard swore the Difand oath to you. Lupin included. They would never do anything to hurt you.

"For your information, Aria, Lupin was the last one to swear the oath. Your arguments with him happened before he swore the oath. I was not about to try and mess around with that workout nut."

I was currently carrying Rei on my back because she was tired. After all those ranked battles, the score ended up being four ties, three wins and three losses. I might have won had I used kogetsu, but we had agreed to strictly a shooter-only battle. Now, we were on the way back to her home. Come to think of it, I've been there quite a few times recently.

"Hey, Lucca?" Rei asked.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know what Difand was like?"

I frowned. "The most we have are stories of Difand. We don't even know what's true about those stories, seeing as every nation in the Neighborhood has a different variation to it. The only thing that all the stories agree on is that Difand became the first black trigger."

"Huh? So he isn't native to Liberi?"

I shook my head. "There are stories about how all the stars in the Neighborhood were originally one single planet, until a cataclysm occurred that resulted in the creation of the nations that we know today. During that time, there were a bunch of kingdoms that existed. One of the kingdoms was home to Difand, who was a common guard. The stories vary from there, but our variation on it says that Difand caught the notice of the princess of the kingdom during an assassination attempt on her life. According to the story, he jumped in the way of an arrow that would have killed the princess, nearly losing his life to save hers. After the assassination was thwarted, the princess personally attended to Difand's wounds, later asking him to be her personal guard. Difand was so honored by the princess that he swore the oath that now bears his name."

"And the kisses on the forehead?" Rei asked.

I smiled. Rei's inquisitiveness is really something to behold. "From what I've read about it, the princess's father, the king, would often make promises to the princess and seal it with a kiss to a forehead. She asked Difand to kiss her forehead to keep the promise, the same way her father would keep promises. Difand, eager to honor his oath to her, kissed her forehead twice to say the oath was stronger than any promise she ever had before. Elated, the princess kissed his forehead back, promising that she would honor his oath for as long as fate would let them."

"That seems really romantic of the two of them." Rei said. She might have been thinking about something else, but as I was carrying her on my back, I had no idea what she might have been thinking about.

I shook my head. "Hate to disappoint you, but this story doesn't end that well for Difand. One day, another assassination attempt was carried out by an opposing kingdom. Difand was mortally wounded during that attempt, and the princess was still in danger. Desiring to save the princess, Difand began converting his body into a trigger."

"People knew how to do that? Even back then?" Rei asked, surprised.

We still don't know all of the details regarding how triggers were used back then. There are some reports that point to this type of conversion being used mainly to sustain the planet, though we're not sure how. What we do know is that those triggers were referred to as world triggers, which were the only triggers at the time before Difand became the first black trigger. Aria commented.

"That's pretty much all we know about it." I confirmed. "Difand managed to convert himself into a trigger, which the princess then managed to use it to defend herself from the assassins. In that way, he was able to keep his oath to the princess until the day the princess died. The creation of Difand's trigger was what triggered (no pun intended) the other nations to try and create their own triggers. None of them came close, though the development of these triggers was what eventually led to the modern day triggers that we know."

Uhh, Lucca? Rei's nodding off.

"Wh- no I'm not." Rei murmured, clearly tired.

I smiled. "That's fine. We're almost at your home. And I'm already done with the story as well."

"Aww, what a shame. I really wanted to hear more. It sounded like a really good story." A new (and familiar) voice said.

I nearly dropped Rei in surprise before checking my surroundings to see if there was any signs that Kumagai had been there before. To my utter chagrin, there were tons, from the long shadow behind me to the light footsteps I had been hearing for a while. I must have really been into telling the story for me to not even notice that.

"Story aside, is it official between you two yet?" Kumagai asked.

I blinked. "Is what official?"

Rei's squad member sighed before explaining. "Is it official that the two of you are dating yet?"

"No!"

POV Change: 1st Person, Yuko Kumagai

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! No need to give me the death glares." I said, holding back the laughter.

Synchronized responses again. Is it just because I asked same question or because they're really that in sync? Not to mention that Lucca's carrying Nasu-senpai on his back, something that you don't rather often. I guess I'll leave it alone for now. I was going to our squad leader's place, after all.

"So did you want something?" Lucca asked.

I nodded. "Our next opponents are Suzunari-1 and Tamakoma-2. Kuga had a duel with Murakami and I managed to get the recording of it. I just came here to tell Nasu-senpai that."

"Wait, don't the two of you live together?"

"When my parents are out. It's easier for me that way. I'll look at the data later tonight." Nasu-senpai said.

"Oh no you don't." Lucca instantly cut off my squad leader. "You are getting your rest when you get home, not exacerbating your condition."

"… Oh, fine."

I swear, they might as well be dating. Next thing we know, Lucca will be bringing flowers without any prompting from Arashiyama Squad.

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

"So, how's the design for the trigger coming along?" Arashiyama asked the next day.

I frowned. "Not that well, unfortunately. I've talked with the engineers and we've managed to get a working prototype, but it's still really brittle."

The trigger I had in mind was a variation on the lead bullet, except that instead of creating a heavy weight when it made contact with a trion body, it would instead create a link from directly opposite the point of contact to the closest object. In other words, if a person was next to a wall and hit by this trigger from the opposite side, then the person would be pinned to the wall. Only problem was, the link was too weak still, so it was easy to break out of.

"Hey, the engineers will figure it out eventually. And besides, once it works, it'll be significantly faster than the lead bullet."

"It'd probably work best with hound and viper. Just mix it in and let it rain down so it can pin the person to the ground."

You know, Lucca, I just had a brilliant idea. Aria said.

"How about no?" I said.

What, why?

"Last time you told me you had a brilliant idea, I ended up having to swim to a distant island just to get the herbs you wanted."

But it was a really good herb!

"I got sick afterwards!"

This isn't that kind of idea! I can't even eat for crying out loud!

"Oh. Fair point. What were you thinking?" I asked.

I can modify Armatus to have a long range mode. How does that sound?

I was surprised, to say the least. It's been a while since my black trigger came up as a topic. "I thought there were only three forms for Armatus. You're telling me you can make more forms?"

Well, yeah.

"And you only discovered this now?" Kitora expressed her surprise.

Umm… it didn't really cross my mind until now.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my sister.

So yeah, there you have it. I decided to put my own twist on the meaning of the title. Compared to the other parts, I wanted to focus more on the whole story of Difand that I made. It's a nice way to make connections instead of putting out random stuff. I like how it turned out, at the very least.

Next chapter: Ranked Wars, Day 3. That'll probably encompass most of the chapter.