The heat in Purasia did not just bake the skin; it rotted the spirit.
In the sterile, shadowless infirmary, the medic—the man who had bought a soul for the price of a few bandages—sneered down at the bed.
He didn't see a legendary warrior in Jafar; he saw a nuisance
. With a sudden, vicious movement, the medic swung his heavy boot, slamming it directly into Jafar's freshly treated side.
"Gah!" Jafar doubled over, the white linen of his bandages instantly blooming with a fresh, wet crimson.
"Get up, you pathetic dog," the medic hissed, his eyes glinting with a petty, bureaucratic malice. "I sent my 'new slave' to the palace hours ago for processing, and he hasn't returned.
Go out there and bring him back. If he's slacking, tell him I'll add another decade to his contract."
He grabbed Jafar by the collar and hurled him out of the back door. Jafar hit the sand hard. The ground was like a bed of glowing coals. Barefoot and broken, the former War Lord struggled to his feet.
The desert sun beat down on his head like a physical hammer, but he began to walk, his eyes fixed on the distant execution square where a massive crowd had gathered.
The crowd was a sea of noise—jeers, laughter, and the wet thud of stones hitting something heavy. Jafar pushed through the throng, his breath coming in shallow, agonizing hitches.
"Outcast-lover!" a woman screamed, throwing a handful of filth.
"Traitor's friend!" a man roared, brandishing a heavy club.
Jafar reached the front of the circle and froze. His heart didn't just stop; it felt as though it had been pierced by an icicle.
There, suspended from a towering wooden pole in the center of the square, was the shopkeeper.
He was unrecognizable. His body had been flayed by the whip, his bones broken by the "interrogators" of the King's Guard. He had been tortured for hours before the rope was finally tightened around his neck.
But even now, with his life extinguished and his body being used as a target for the mob's stones, the shopkeeper's face was turned toward the sun.
He was smiling.
A memory, vivid and sharp as a blade, sliced through Jafar's mind.
"I will pay you back," Jafar had whispered in the infirmary, his voice trembling with shame.
The shopkeeper had laughed—a loud, boisterous sound that defied the surrounding darkness.
He had leaned in close, his eyes twinkling with a strange, hidden light. "It's not mercy, Jafar. Don't forget: we are men. And a man never kneels. Not to kings, and certainly not to fate."
"I believe in you," the shopkeeper had said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Be strong."
Jafar's vision blurred. The shopkeeper had died so that a "traitor" could live. He had been tortured to reveal Jafar's secrets, yet he had died with a smile, his last goodbye written in the curve of his lips.
A roar of pure, unadulterated grief erupted from Jafar's throat. It wasn't the sound of a man; it was the sound of a falling mountain.
He lunged toward a nearby woodcutter's stall, snatching up a heavy, blunt wooden axe. The crowd recoiled, sensing the sudden eruption of a killing intent so dense it made the air feel like liquid.
They moved out of his way, terrified by the look in his eyes—the eyes of a War Lord who had found his reason to fight.
Jafar didn't attack the people. He ignored the stones that pelted his back and the wooden sticks the soldiers swung at his legs. He reached the base of the pole and began to swing.
CRACK.
The wood splintered. Jafar's body was covered in blood—his own and the shopkeeper's dripping from above—but he didn't stop. He swung again and again, his muscles screaming, his bandages unraveling in the wind.
"Stop him!" a soldier yelled, slamming a mace into Jafar's shoulder. Jafar didn't even flinch. He only wanted to give his friend a proper rest. He wanted to take him away from this place of filth.
Suddenly, the square went silent. The stones stopped flying. The soldiers stepped back, their spears lowered in salute.
Lady Mikasa arrived, her blue dress fluttering like a captured piece of the sky. She stared at the hanging corpse, her face turning a ghostly shade of white. Then, she looked at Jafar, who was weeping as he hacked at the wood.
"Lord Former Commander Jafar," Mikasa said, her voice trembling with a mix of authority and sorrow. "You know this is against the law. If you continue to break the pole, I... I will have to stop you."
Jafar stopped swinging. He turned to her, and for the first time in her life, Mikasa felt true fear. It wasn't because of his strength, but because of his brokenness.
"Please," Jafar rasped, his voice cracking. He did the one thing the shopkeeper told him never to do. He dropped to his knees in the hot sand, bowing his head before her.
"Please, Mikasa... just give me the corpse of this man. Let me take him."
Mikasa gasped. She looked at Jafar—the man who had once commanded the entire Purasian Vanguard, the man who had saved her life during the Siege of the Red Dunes—kneeling for a nameless shopkeeper.
"I am breaking the rules," Mikasa whispered, her hand tightening on her golden sword. "But once, you were a War Lord. You saved my life.
Now... we are even. Take him and go before the King's Guard arrives."
Jafar didn't say thank you. He couldn't. He climbed the pole, cut the rope, and gathered the broken body of the shopkeeper into his arms.
He walked out of the square, a ghost carrying a saint.
On the outskirts of the city, where the desert met the jagged foothills, lay the Field of Fallen Will. It was the hallowed ground where the elite army of Purasia was buried.
Mikasa found Jafar there an hour later. He had finished digging the grave with his bare hands. He had placed the shopkeeper in a plot reserved for Generals, surrounded by the white stone markers of heroes.
"Why?" Mikasa asked calmly, standing at the edge of the grave. "Why bury him here, Jafar? This is the ground of warriors. He was just a merchant."
Jafar stood up, his face caked with dust and dried tears. "In my life, I have seen thousands of soldiers die for land, for gold, and for kings," he said, his voice echoing with a terrible clarity.
"But I have never seen a man die for a stranger. Even if he was weak in body, he was the bravest person I have seen in my entire life. He belongs among the kings."
At that exact moment, the peace of the Purasian evening was shattered.
Inside The Scorpion's Sting, Yanto was mid-laugh, holding a glass of amber liquid. He never saw the movement.
Kaito didn't draw his sword. He didn't even stand up. He simply infused his Void Will into his right leg, turning the limb into a conceptual battering ram. He swung his leg in a wide, low arc.
BOOM.
The impact didn't just break bones; it broke physics. Yanto was launched backward with the force of a falling star.
He smashed through the stone wall of the bar, then through the adjacent spice shop, then through a brick residential unit, finally tumbling into the main street five hundred meters away.
Yurata lunged forward, his katana half-drawn, but Kaito was already there. Kaito's hand shot out, his fingers locking around Yurata's throat like a vice of cold iron.
"You think you can hide in the sun?" Kaito whispered, his eyes glowing with that terrifying, translucent gray light.
Kaito infused his palm with the Nihil Fade energy and hurled Yurata after his partner. The swordsman sailed through the air like a ragdoll. When he collided with Yanto's prone form in the street, the combined kinetic energy and Will-residue detonated.
A massive, obsidian-colored explosion rocked the district. A pillar of black dust and golden sparks shot into the sky, visible from every corner of the city.
In the Royal Castle, the King stood up from his balcony, his eyes narrowing.
On the highway, Blake and his team saw the black pillar and kicked their horses into a gallop.
"He's started," Blake muttered.
The Meeting of Wills
Kaito walked out of the ruins of the bar. Every step he took didn't just touch the ground; it pulverized it. Cracks spider-webbed out from his boots, the stones turning to fine powder beneath his feet.
He moved with a slow, predatory rhythm toward the center of the street where Yanto and Yurata lay in a smoking crater.
Suddenly, two figures blocked his path.
Mikasa and Jafar had arrived, drawn by the explosion. Mikasa stood at the front, her summer dress shredded by the shockwave, her golden sword finally drawn and humming with a brilliant, white light. Beside her, Jafar stood tall, his eyes wide as he recognized the man approaching them.
Kaito stopped. He looked at them, his gaze lingering on Jafar's bandages and Mikasa's sword.
"Mikasa... the Vice Commander of Purasia," Kaito said, his voice a low, vibrating hum that made the nearby windows rattle.
"And Jafar... the former War Lord and the true Commander of the Vanguard."
Mikasa didn't hesitate. She exhaled, and suddenly, the temperature in the street plummeted. A massive, golden-white aura erupted from her body—the Warrior's Will.
It wasn't just pressure; it was a physical weight of killing intent that felt like being stared down by a thousand lions.
"So," Mikasa said, a fierce, excited grin splitting her face as she leveled her blade at Kaito's heart.
"You're the Shadow Fang. I've been waiting to see if you're as dark as the stories say."
Kaito looked at her, then at the glowing sword. He didn't flinch. He didn't reach for his weapon. He simply let a sliver of the Void leak from his skin.
"Yes," Kaito replied calmly. "I am. And I must say, Mikasa... that is a very dense warrior's will, you have there. It's almost a shame that I have to erase it."