-18 years ago-
Φ I remember that day more than any other. I remember that day when I first laid eyes on the beauty that descended from the heavens. Her wings were wondrous, her skin was supple, her eyes encapsulated all the beauty in the world, and her long, light pink hair made my soul shudder. As the flames of my home burned around me, my young mind forgot about it all.
My family, my friends, my dreams, the war itself, they all vanished from my mind as I knew the point of my existence was cemented, for her eyes to look at me more than any other in this world.
I trained, I studied, I perfected each skill I needed to stand out in Gevurah, always living a life of beauty to make it so that her eyes would never be disappointed in what they saw. I became a man who would make anyone who saw him bow down in respect. I became one of the 7 Miracles, a warrior who could never be touched.
Yet her eyes stopped staring at me the more I progressed, and soon after that, they stopped staring at anything else. She sat in her palace in the sky with her eyes covered and her wings withdrawn, unable to even muster the strength to keep moving forward. Like the world all around her had nothing that could entertain her heart, like the will to live within all creatures that soar through the sky had left her body, and seeing this all I could do was cry and wallow in my despair at the sight of such a beautiful creature unable to find joy.
Yet her eyes peered out her window again one day, they peered west from her towers, and all who knew her wondered what she looked at, wondered what could revive her soul. I stood watching her each day, her every movement, that's why I knew the words her lips reflective moved to as she looked onwards with joy, that's why I knew what she said was, "It seems a rather amusing Nightfall roams these lands."
-Present-
Φ Walking through his Bonfire, Raro faces Siegrund, and with a scowl across his face, he says, "What a disgusting way you do combat. Constantly trying to force the best out of your opponent, before you kill them, drawing out their pain and making it so that at the end of their lives they know without a doubt they are inferior to you."
The smile on Siegrund wanes as his eyes move downwards, and a melancholy look overtakes his face. "You're right that the way I wield this sword doesn't slay flesh but cleaves souls. Still, I warned you of the disgusting beast I was before this battle began; the responsibility of this falls squarely on your own head. Especially since you've gotten your men killed over your ignorance!"
"Ignorance? Don't make me laugh, I could do what you did hundreds of times over, the only reason you still stand before me is that I allow you to."
"Yet your allies' corpses lie across the ground?"
"It takes harsh trials to grow, and they simply failed to meet that standard. It's good they were weeded out of the 7 Miracles before they polluted our name on a more consequential battle."
"Simply, because you have both a Legacy and a Regalia doesn't give you the right to speak ill of warriors who bore their all on the battlefield."
"Oh shut your mouth! I care not for any rule or principle a ugly monster like you has, all I care for is showing true elegance wherever I go." Raro rips off five of his finger nails and flings them upwards, then says, "Though I do admit that ending your life will give me a greater opportunity to showcase my graceful self, so steel yourself, you brute, as your judgement is coming."
The finger nails turn into Bonfires, and from them a giant mass of cloth descends downwards enough to cover a small lake, and as it touches his body like an angel descending from heaven, he says, "ADVENT!" and soon his legacy acts all over it with his Advent taking on a maskless version.
The cloth wraps around his body tightly forming a dense armour, yet enough remains to cover the area they stand, and as Raro's Legacy acts all over it, the giant beast takes control, and goes to hunt Siegrund, shifting and reshapping it form in whatever way it can.
Siegrund slams his blade into the ground, sending fragments of the earth all around them, and says, "Drachenkämpfer Battle Arts, Ultimate Art; Dragon Slaying Fissure!"
His spirit energy moves from his blade, using the tiny fragment of earth sent into the sky to pass his spirit energy through, forming large whips of spirit energy all around his blade, and in an instant, he swings it, slashing and serving giant amounts of the cloth, disconnecting it from physical contact with Raro, deactivating the Legacy.
Yet the cloth quickly reconnects, causing Siegrund to say, "A Cursed Weapon!"
"Correct!" Raro says as his body covered in cloth lunges towards Siegrund.
As they struggle with their arms against one another, Siegrund says, "Any cloth served will reconnect itself to the main body!"
"Deception is a valid tactic, but as if you could craft such a large Cursed Weapon."
Spikes form all around Raro's body from the cloth piercing and forcing Siegrund back, causing Siegrund to whip around his sword, trying to break up the large swats of cloth heading towards him.
And as he does, he smashes the rocks that make up the spirit whips against each other slightly, creating little sparkles until his blade is lit ablaze, and he says, "Drachenkämpfer Battle Arts; Sword Blaze!"
He slashes his sword into the cloth, setting it ablaze, continuing this pattern as he clashes with Raro, yet the giant waves of cloth quickly smoother the flames, but his speed doesn't give in as he continues around the area slashing into everything as he fights Raro.
The Legacy's Regalia, Great Beast automatically hunts down the target, constantly adapting and changing its battle patterns towards what will be the most efficient to crush the enemy. At Raro's level, his Legacy even perfectly controls his spirit energy, completely taking the burden of Raro. Yet the Great Beast doesn't defend as well as it attacks, causing Raro to manually put out the flames, and in those brief moments, Siegrund rushes around wherever he can find a foot, lighting the cloth ablaze one after the other.
Seeing this, a series of thoughts move through Raro's mind on how to handle it, and the decision he comes to is to pay it no mind. He rushes the cloth forward, and instead of putting out the flames, he uses the strong wind pressure and speed of his attacks to smother them, yet it is an imperfect measure, making flames grow in other areas as the ones he notices fade. A dangerous bet, but seeing the tattered man in front of him who has burnt through his spirit energy, Raro comes to the conclusion that overwhelming him with force is the best way forward.
The overwhelming mass of attacks rains down from every position towards Siegrund, who barely holds on as he swings his sword at full power, knocking each blow he can away using the whips and flames all he can to reduce the flurry, and in that mass of attacks, he watches as a humanoid figure wrapped from head to toe in cloth moves around waiting to pounce.
Needing to break the flurry of attacks sent towards him, he shouts, "DRACHENKÄMPFER BATTLE ARTS; DRAGON SLAYING VOID!"
As he grapples against the vacuum beside his body, as he lunges forward towards the figure, and with all the strength he can muster, he says, "Drachenkämpfer Battle Arts; Dragon Slaying Twin Pressure."
Gathering all the strength in his body, Siegrund releases two vibrating blows against the figure, forcing it to explode on itself, yet as he sees the cloth disperse, shock fills his face, seeing no flesh within it.
Then, turning his head, he sees the cloth has started to surround him like a ball. He quickly realises his situation, and Raro, outside on top of the ball, says, "Too late!"
In that moment, Siegrund found himself in a deadly trap due to a series of actions. First Raro reduce the air in the ball by using his cloth as a guide slowly but surly, second he created a puppet out of cloth and efficiently spread spirit energy within it making Siegrund in his exhausted state perceive it as him, third he waited for Siegrund to us Void, and used it to instantly force all of the remaining air out, and fourth he created a series of bonfires that allowed him to quickly wrap the cloth into a ball without Siegrund noticing.
Trapped inside the ball with no air to breathe, Siegrund quickly rushes towards the edge of the ball and releases Dragon Slaying Smother against the side of the wall, yet the amount of cloth against it is far too much for him to remove in his weakened state.
So he quickly activates his Legacy, burning through the remaining embers of his spirit energy as he forces his body to operate on less oxygen than it normally does, yet even with such a thing, the near absence of it around him is mere moments away from killing him.
Gathering all the strength he can, he racks his brain looking for a way out, but soon he sees the entire sphere start to shake, and outside it, Raro says, "You should know what that sound is, nature hates vacuums. So let the wind crush you."
In an instant, the air pressure forces itself against the outside walls of the sphere, forcing the cloth to strain rapidly till it crushes whatever remains inside, and seeing the walls coming in against him, Siegrund stares at his blade that slashes its edge against the palm of his hand.
Moments later, the sphere quickly shrinks at high speed as Raro laughs all the way above it, and holding his hand to the sky, he says, "Watch this my angel, as I will show you the elegant sight of a dead foo-."
Raro's body crushes and implodes as all the muscles, bones, and blood within his body burst out, leaving nothing but a sack of flesh that falls to the ground, and as his Legacy deactivates, Siegrund cuts out of the cloth, taking a deep breath as he frees himself.
And with one foot after the other, he walks over towards Captivant, who looks at him with frightened eyes, as he says, "The Sieg Bisumod have 7 heroic Cursed Weapons that have been passed down before Nightmares were named. The relics of the Hugr. I assume that's one of them."
With a stern expression devoid of the joy he has had, Siegrund says, "The Sword of Pursuit Hrunting. It can make a spiritual body of a foe it has clashed with enough in the last 24 hours appear, and any wound inflicted on that body is inflicted on my foe."
Staring down, Captivant slams his fist against the ground and says, "Those weapons are only given to those who have a chance of becoming the next head. Marital gods who stand at the pinnacle of combat, people whom the trash you see every day should never lay eyes upon. Were you mocking me all those days we were training, and rewarding me for my progress? Was this just some elaborate joke so you could one day tear me dow-."
Siegrund slams his fist into Captivant's face, sending the boy to the ground as he slips in and out of consciousness. "I have no patience for your whining. Your actions have caused far too much trouble for your bitching to continue. Besides, he needs to die first."
As they both look behind Siegrund, they see Raro, who has used the cloth to stitch together his destroyed body, barely maintaining what can be called life, as he lets out unintelligible screams of rage.
Seeing this, Siegrund says, "Sorry, it's my fault for not giving you a warrior's death, now let's bring this to an end."
Location: Holy Nation Gevurah; ???
As her eyes stare out into the battlefield in her own lands, from her gentle lips she says, "Raro, you sought beauty that didn't exist. You yearned for a rusted blade instead of refining your own. You were entranced by a Legacy forbidden from being touched by you, and now, as one of the swords promised to me long ago, cleave at your flesh, I hope, I pray, I wonder if the aspects of your soul were ever truly felt by anyone. Yet that is merely the faith of those who are devoured by the Legacy of Lux."