Darren’s perspective

I swung the Daito as the familiar cracking whip-like sound of the blade slicing through the air violently repeated. It was actually a sound that was starting to cause a comforting feeling to fill my body. I didn't know what that said about me, but I didn't want to think about it.

Finding comfort in the strange and ethereal training ground was a herculean feat, so I would take it anyway.

Kirin Edo reappeared with a smug smirk plastered across his face.

He looked at both of us and then shrugged after a moment.

I caught Anna’s eye and we exchanged a look of shared irritation. It was a look that spoke volumes without uttering a single word. A look of a promise and silent agreement to give the Sword God Emperor the absolute coldest shoulder we could muster. Jessa, ever perceptive, caught on quickly, her amethyst eyes began mirroring our own deadpan expressions.

We all turned to him with the same dead-eyed deadpan expression at the same time.

Kirin paused and his smirk twitched in what was clearly discomfort.

We continued swinging our swords while looking at him with empty eyes and irritation.

His smile seemed to cramp on his face.

"Goddamn! you're being creepy as all hell! Stop that!" He demanded.

The silence stretched, thick and heavy, punctuated only by the rhythmic swish of my wooden blade.

Kirin Edo continued to stare at our dead eyed deadpan.

Then he walked away while pretending to be oblivious or simply choosing to ignore our collective disapproval.

A few minutes later he returned to observe our training with an air of detached amusement.

It was infuriating.

He had assumed the worst of Anna and I.

He had jumped to conclusions and now acted as if nothing had happened. As if our shared pain, our sacrifices, were something to joke about while pretending like the pair of us kissing meant we would get up to anything else.

I scowled until my mind started to wander.

The memory of the prank we pulled on one of the orphanages matrons, the hostile one, swirled through my mind.

I crept down the creaking stairs in the dead of night with Jessa and Anna close behind me.

“You bring the dastardly device, Jessa?” I whispered as my voice barely reached above the rhythmic chirping of crickets outside.

“You bet!” Jessa hissed back quietly with a mischievous glint in her amethyst eyes. “Let’s dye the town pink! Or, by that I mean, let’s spread this dye-glitter bomb box all around Shugu’s office! That bitch has it coming!”

Anna frowned, her violet hair shimmering faintly in the windswept moonlight filtering through the grimy window. “You know, I like my hair, and just knowing Darren thinks it’s pretty is enough. Do we have to?”

I scowled and playfully poked her cheek. “No one insults my Divine General of Purpose, Anna! So, if a matron does it, we should be just as ruthless. No one can badmouth your hair or anything else about you.”

Anna pouted, but a small blush lit up her face. When I turned, I noted that a small smile played at the corners of her lips. “Fine, but if this goes badly, you better save me!”

“Of course,” I called quietly behind myself just loud enough that Anna could hear. “I could never not save my Divine General!”

A few steps and passed rooms later, we approached the matron’s offices.

I examined a row of identical doors lining the dimly lit hallway. We stopped at the third door, the one with a small, tarnished brass nameplate that read “Shugu.”

“I’ll be the distraction and breach,” I whispered with a smirk as my hand rested on the doorknob. “Jessa, you gotta plant the big badabooms of glitter and dye. Anna, I’m trusting you to press the button!” I handed her a small, crudely fashioned button connected to a tangle of wires. I knew that electrical engineering program was worth it, even if I dropped out of that one, too.

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“Why does it say ‘Nut’ on it?”

“I might tell you later!”

I took a deep breath and then slammed my shoulder against the door, sending the cheap wood crashing inward. Matron Shugu startled awake and let out a shriek that could curdle milk into cottage cheese and then make it rot. She scrambled out of bed with her face visibly contorted in rage. “If I find out which one of you that was, you’ll regret ever being born!” she screeched as her voice echoed through the hallway.

I bolted, Matron Shugu hot on my heels, her curses echoing behind me. I could hear Jessa and Anna scrambling behind me, their muffled giggles a welcome counterpoint to the matron’s furious shouts. I led her on a merry chase through the darkened hallways, dodging furniture and narrowly avoiding collisions with startled orphans who had been awakened by the commotion.

I was almost cornered, trapped between a suit of armor and a grandfather clock, when Jessa, ever resourceful, tossed a small firecracker down the hallway.

The loud voice of a modulated version of my voice calling out the largest call of “NUT BUTTON!” Echoed a few moments after the firecracker popping sounded.

The loud bang and sudden flash of light startled Matron Shugu, giving me the precious seconds I needed to escape.

Hours later, we would discover that Matron Shugu’s office was covered in a thick layer of pink dye and glitter. We were never found out and our successful prank had become legend. But more importantly, it was fun and my divine generals of Wrath and Purpose both laughed happily. “to our unwavering bond!” I called out, as they repeated and we drank some fruit juice we stole from the pantry like returning warriors.

Our shared laughter and mischievous spirit would bind us together through the trials and tribulations to come.

But it always got complicated.

Kirin Edo’s fingers snapped, sharp and sudden, right in front of my face. The sound, amplified in the strange acoustics of the dreamscape, jolted me back to the present. “Ey, Mr. Flashback,” his voice, laced with a sardonic amusement, grated on my nerves. “Five thousand swings is excessive, even for a soul-form. Breaking it is counterproductive.”

I glanced down at my arms, shimmering and translucent in the ethereal light of the training ground. They were swollen, distended, throbbing with a dull ache that resonated even within this incorporeal form. Jessa and Anna exchanged a worried glance, their concern a tangible weight in the air. I grimaced, shame and frustration churning within me. “Sorry,” I muttered, the word barely a breath against the backdrop of the echoing chamber.

Kirin Edo simply nodded, his expression unreadable. “It’s time for weapon selection. Then it’s off to loop number five for you. You died too many times in succession, so you’ll be waking up outside the walls.”

He led me over to a display of katana that had their blades gleaming with an otherworldly luminescence. A daisho, the traditional pairing of a longer Daito and a shorter Shoto, rested on a velvet cushion, their hilts beckoning. Beside the Daito, a single shoto which was slightly shorter than the wakizashi that Jessa carried pulsed with an inner light that flowed outwards from the exposed blade.

“Alright,” Kirin Edo said, his voice regaining its usual authoritative tone. “You’ve done enough swings with a daito, and a shoto is a necessary addition for a proper daisho. Pick a set that calls to you.”

The blades shimmered with energy as their surfaces seemed to ripple as if they were alive.

Their whispers began echoing in my mind.

Each set one sang a different song. One set sang of conquest, one of battle, one that emanded to take the world. One to teach every person how to wield a blade with grace.

Each one sang a chorus of a different tale of battles fought and victories won.

The daisho, elegant and balanced.

This kind of pairing spoke of precision and control with ferocity.

They all vied for my attention, their voices a chorus of whispers and promises of power and potential.

But one set, the daisho, called to me with a resonance that echoed deep within my soul.

It was the first one I saw.

They spoke of a gentle embrace of protection. Love to counter and rebuff all woes. The will to work through diplomacy along with chosen partners in administration and combat both.

I moved towards the velvet cushion.

Their blades, forged from a darkly glowing obsidian-like metal that seemed to move. As it pulsed with an inner purple fire and gave the feeling of a calm ocean of redirecting force-.

These were mine.

Their hilts were wrapped in Golden leather that gave the feeling of the sun and a coldly sure ocean of purple leather that neared pink.

The strange thing is that the hilts seemed to shift and move so that every time I looked away the hilts on the shoto and daito impossibly swapped with each other.

They felt warm and familiar in my grasp.

They could never be simply weapons; they were extensions of my own will.

They shoved my own determination to protect those I loved into the power of my strikes, I could tell.

“The ‘Steadfast Loyalty of a Lady on Each Arm’ set?” Kirin Edo’s voice broke my reverie by chuckling. I turned to see his eyes glittering full with unending amusement. “Well, no one said you had to be unpredictable. Take ‘em, loverboy.”

I took the katana without protest.

I felt their weight settling comfortably in my hands.

I don't care what Kirin thinks.

I knew what I was about.

I was about Anna and Jessa.

I turned to the blades and examined them.

These blades were not simply tools of destruction; they were symbols of my commitment, my promise to Anna and Jessa, my vow to protect them, to fight for them, to rewrite our shared destiny. And with these blades in hand, I felt a surge of power, a renewed sense of purpose, a burning determination to face the trials ahead. The weight of the world rested on my shoulders, but I was ready.

I was the Sword God Emperor’s Successor.

I would not be denied.

"I feel like you just thought something highly egotistical." Jessa declared with a deadpan look spread across her face.

"You're too damn perceptive."