"The Second Eye War," Rin said.
Titi, confused, cut in. "So that war with the coalition was the *first* Eye War?"
"Yes, little girl."
Still confused, Titi pressed. "Okay, but how was Gilga— whatever, King Maximillian's grandson — how'd he live that long to lead the first Eye War?"
Rin looked at Wai, a little confused himself at that part.
She exhaled smoke. "Gilgamesh was one of the greatest warriors to ever live. Wore a platinum-white shining Valerian armor, made from a slain vyratth — his red cape cut from its wings. Armor glistened even in the dark, radiating his massive aura, while his troops wore heavy aura-padding and aura mail with light iron plating, at the time that was cutting-edge. Even the suit itself extended Gilgamesh's life by years." She smiled, packing her pipe. "This man was not someone to play with. Only the Chi Emperors ever rivaled him — and only because of their relics and their Viatras. Not off raw power. Not against him."
"Any more questions?"
"Yeah," Rin said. "What did Emperor Urasawa do with souls?"
Wai took a puff, exhaling as she talked. "Nice question." She smiled. "Nobody really knows. Secrets to long life. Weapons of mass destruction. Talking to gods. Divinity. Who knows — all of it's lost to time. But what we do know is this: the Second Eye War destroyed the Great Chi Empire."
The room went quiet, waiting for the next words.
"All the remnant minority clans — the Tokoyami being the majority among them — combined into a new clan. The Nightshade Clan."
*Nightshade Clan,* Rin thought. *That's so familiar.*
"They sent letters to Greater Britannia, to Raji — the unified southern, eastern, and western territories of the Rajputana continent — to a unified Africanus, and to the Tsaria Kingdom courts. Begging for help against their hardships, their enslavement under the Great Chi Empire. Most said no. But Gilgamesh could never resist glory in battle, or the prestige of beating the Chi Empire.
"He mobilized most of Greater Britannia's troops — five hundred thousand men, six thousand ships — and declared war on the Great Chi Empire.
"The Britannia Armada set out for the Lo Deng Sea, Gilgamesh's own ship, the Princess Diana, leading from the front with his personal royal fleet. He stood atop the masthead, red cape flapping, smiling as the Chi continent came into view.
"He felt something was off. No troops on the beach. Water way too calm, nothing like the last invasion.
"Then a black shape launched out of the water at speed, destroying one of the biggest royal ships in a single strike. Gilgamesh's mouth dropped. An Abyssal Serpent — two hundred and eighty feet — slammed back into the sea before anyone could even react. It burst back through the water, ripping the bottom out of another ship, gaining height, slamming down on a third, a massive wave of water flattening ships and throwing everyone into chaos, captains screaming for order as another creature wrapped its tentacles around a hull and started pulling it under.
"'Kraken!' someone screamed, as it dragged the ship down and pulled soldiers off two others at once.
"A three-hundred-foot Abyssal shark's fin ripped through seven royal ships like they were paper, before it launched itself out of the water with one of them caught in its jaws — slammed back down, taking the whole crew with it.
"Another shark lunged up from beneath Gilgamesh's own ship. His right hand, Elias Lockhart, slammed both palms against the hull, encasing it in Koshin, and said, 'This is a Lockhart special. Light Art: Photon Interference.' Later known as Hikari Kanshō. Teleported the King's ship at light speed, reappeared it at a distance — right as Gilgamesh leapt free of it mid-air, catching the shark still airborne from its own lunge. He drew Galgano.
"'Martial Arts: A King's Mittelhau.'
"Cut the three-hundred-foot beast clean in half.
"Every captain who saw it through their periscope roared their crews forward, pushing harder for the beach, readying the Muti cannons mounted beneath the hulls. Gilgamesh jumped from ship to ship, slicing through Abyssal creatures, laughing from pure joy of the fight, rallying his men further as they dodged catapults and mines and pushed for the shore.
"He landed back on his flagship and gave one last speech before the landing.
"'Men. Steady your hearts and souls. We fight the greatest threat to our people, our culture, our country, and all of Margerina. If we don't extinguish this darkness, we will be engulfed by it. Men — raise your steel, overcome this overwhelming moment, and etch yourself into the annals of history.'
"His men roared, ship to ship, drunk on the promise of glory.
"The first royal ships hit the beach. The moment the first troops disembarked, a claw ripped up through the sand and dragged a soldier under, gone completely. Another soldier tried to shout what he'd seen before a claw took him too. Left and right, men vanished into the sand — until a group locked shields and stabbed down together, forcing something to burst up in pain. A twenty-foot crab.
"Before anyone could process it, arrows rained down on the Britannia troops and ships, killing men, catching ships on fire before they'd even fully landed.
"The Great Chi Empire hadn't sat idle all those centuries. They'd always been ahead — in weapons, in mechanisms. Miura's infrastructure projects, like the Celestial Divide. Papermaking and printing. A whole library of accumulated knowledge called Zhīshì bǎokù. Chi's lead navigator had even invented the compass. Junji built temples, and most of Chi's advanced weapons — the Blerian Black Fire bombs, which, once they ignite, burn forever, no substance in Margerina can put them out. Blerian Black Fire straight swords. Max Muti impact mines. And the famous Urasawa Repeating Crossbow, which was about to change warfare in front of Gilgamesh's eyes.
"Arrows kept raining on the disembarking troops as they fought off the colossal crabs. The Repeating Crossbow took only ten seconds to reload, firing Muti-tipped bolts at forty per minute, slaughtering the Britannia troops as they landed.
"When it looked hopeless, Gilgamesh rushed in alone, fighting his way to the middle of the beach, trying to clear a path for his men. Thousands of arrows rained toward him. He cut down hundreds in seconds with pure swordwork, slicing through crabs lunging at him along the way.
"He made it to the center of the beach — and found himself surrounded, nowhere left to go, Chi's soldiers already streaming down off the hill to finish the exhausted Britannia troops already fighting there.
"As they closed in, Gilgamesh finally showed his hand. 'Spirit Muti: Threshold of Iblis.' Hundreds of portals opened overhead, covering most of the beach and part of the hill.
"He raised Galgano. 'Only the most righteous can survive this blessing.'
"He swung it down. 'Rain Heaven!'
"Thousands of swords — relics, the blades of dead soldiers throughout all of history, swords no one alive had ever heard of — launched like projectiles down onto the beach and the hillside, slamming into everything Gilgamesh's will marked as a threat, one massive explosion after another.
"Britannia men fell back as he tore the beach apart. Colossal crab limbs and guts flew with the wreckage of thousands of swords slamming home, leaving craters everywhere. By the time he was done, Lo Deng Beach looked like the surface of our heart-shaped moon.
"Gilgamesh stood in the middle of it all, weighing his two options. Retreat and regroup — the safer, smarter choice, after everything they'd already lost. Or push what was left of his force deep into Chi, all the way to the capital, undersupplied, outnumbered, behind enemy lines, on foreign soil, with almost no information.
"Elias ran up, told him the men were ready for whatever he decided.
"Gilgamesh said, 'Burn the ships. There's no retreat from here. I made an oath to the Nightshade Clan. Any man who wants to leave can leave now — from here on, I need demons with me.'
"Not one man left. They burned the ships. No way home. Only the thought of moving forward."
Wai repacked her pipe.
"What *are* those Abyssal things," Rin asked, "and how did Emperor Urasawa control them?"
Wai smiled, inhaling. "My child — once you know the full power of the Viatras, there's nothing you can't control." She let her left eye shift, revealing a pink Viatra.
That shocked both of them.
"Achieving Stage Four of the Viatras — Ankoku Raigan (暗黒雷眼), what you'd later know as the Dark Thunder Eyes — Emperor Urasawa went beyond the Abyssal Line, ensnared Abyssal sea creatures with the Viatras, and wielded them for war against Greater Britannia."
"Woah," Titi said.
Wai exhaled. "Four hundred thousand Greater Britannia men clashed on Lo Deng Hill against nearly three million Great Chi men. Chi's Purple Rein Cavalry — black-cloaked riders on all-black horses, pulling on purple reins, which is where the name comes from — two hundred thousand horsemen charged down the hill at the Britannia lines. Elias moved his men into a long shield wall to meet it.
"As the horsemen closed at full speed, ready to smash the wall, Elias ordered the Britannia troops into a flexible square-column formation, checkerboard-arranged, so the horses veered into the gaps between the blocks instead of crashing into the line."
Titi frowned. "Why'd the horses not smash into the wall like they were supposed to? Isn't that literally what cavalry do?"
"It mostly does," Rin said. "But Britannia gave the horses a choice, without meaning to — slam into a bristling wall of blades and spears, or run through the open gaps. Self-preservation kicked in. They chose the gaps."
Wai smiled. "Britannia's swordsmen and bowmen cut and shot them down as they poured through, slaughtering thousands of Purple Rein riders and their horses.
"As the main Chi force closed in, a thousand Royal Sun Knight Cavalry, led by Gilgamesh himself, flanked out of a small forest west of the beach — he'd hidden them there for exactly this kind of counterattack — and smashed into the two million Chi infantry, cutting and thrusting their way through, while the Britannia infantry fought toward their King.
"At the same time, in the east, the Nightshade Clan struck Red Dragon Bay with fifty thousand men. Their plan — open the Lukong Water Gates, a massive hundred-foot gate that let Chi's military and commercial ships in and out, with rivers like the Jade and the Green feeding the bay all the way to the capital, especially after the dams had been built to divert the water and power Chi's infrastructure.
"The real force showed up over the horizon — eighty thousand of Britannia's best, led by Osayes Vutor, Gilgamesh's left hand, with July Roses helping him take the bay.
"Chi's stationed troops tried to warn the main force they were fighting a decoy, that the real strike was here, but it was already too late. The Nightshade Clan had made it onto the military base, cutting down anyone they saw til they reached the gate mechanisms. Their soldiers used Shadow Muti to break the interlocks and internal workings, then ripped the gates open by hand — hundreds of them channeling shadow arts at once — and let the Britannia royal ships in.
"Thousands of soldiers disembarked, joined the Nightshade force, made a combined hundred and twenty thousand strong, and turned to flank Emperor Urasawa. By the time he heard the news, it was already too late. Both sides closed in for what became the biggest battle of the war — the Battle of Dōng Xuě.
"Snow fell. Thousands of bodies fell with it, on both sides, turning the snow blood-red, as Greater Britannia claymores met Chi's straight swords. Viatra users against Crown Light wielders. Everything you could imagine happened in that battle — lost techniques resurfacing, causing chaos and ruin, Gilgamesh himself facing down Urasawa's son and general, Fei Shènjī, and beating him, though critically wounded doing it. Legendary summons — the Monkey King Wu, Kurogara, Omagah. Ryōikis of every kind clashing. A dark clan with the power of gods in their eyes against new houses wielding relics left and right. So much destruction it rewrote the Chi continent's landscape, scarred it forever with Muti residue and radiation.
"About two million dead, in that one battle alone. It decided the fate of the war. The rest of Britannia's forces pushed on to the capital, where Emperor Urasawa had already fled mid-battle.
"In his haste, he grabbed every treasure the empire held, gathered it all in the Zhīshì bǎokù — and set it, and himself, alight. Laughing as the great library burned down around him, his magenta Viatras still visible through the flames.
"The war ended there. Gilgamesh died the next day. His final terms broke the Great Chi Empire completely — they lost the west, east, and south territories of Chi, holding only a small strip in the north. Gilgamesh made them formally take the name Black Clan, to set them apart from every other clan. The Scum of the Earth.
"Most of the territory went to the Nightshade Clan — though they'd lose it soon enough, the moment the Britannians went home.
"Gilgamesh's great-great-great-grandson became King Maximillian the Fourth. Made sure every term of the treaty was honored, but he was more worried about getting his men out of the Chi continent. The Nightshade Clan begged him to leave some soldiers behind. He refused. He knew how exhausted his men were, after months of campaign — five hundred thousand men at the start, two hundred thousand left by the end. No way was he leaving a single Britannia soul on Chi soil.
"Before the Empire pulled out, Elias Lockhart held a secret meeting with a smaller, non-ocular clan, left a thousand men behind, and told them they'd stay to help until the country's collapse ran its course. The Soryu Clan took the deal — even started intermarrying their daughters with the soldiers who stayed.
"The moment the Empire left, the Nightshade Empire fell apart. Split into seven warring clans — the Nightshade Clan, the Black Clan, the Viper Clan, the Basilisk Clan, the Zen Clan, the Uzumaki Clan, and the Soryu Clan, the only one without eye abilities — all fighting each other for control of the Chi continent.
"Greater Britannia broke apart too, from the exhaustion of the war — a new king nobody agreed with, sons who never came home, Gilgamesh's death, and a split in ideology. One side wanted to keep controlling Chi, finish off the Black Clan, expand across the world. The other just wanted to focus on the Greater Britannia continent itself. Civil war, out of that.
"The rebels spoke with a thicker, harsher accent, from the Germish region in the west. King Maximillian called them the Germanian rebels. After a few victories, it became the Germania Kingdom. After giving bad losses to Greater Britannia, it became the Germania Empire — and the Greater Britannia Empire just became Britannia. Both nations sharing the same continent, locked in a war that's never really ended."
Wai exhaled a long stream of smoke.
"You youngsters know the rest. One more Eye War. Black Clan purges. Massacres. But now—" she smiled, "—family ties. The one you two have been waiting for."
"*Finally,*" Titi and Rin said, at the same time.
"Okay, okay. Easy." Wai settled. "Rin and I are descended from the original bloodline — goes all the way back to Fatiha. Shènjī last name turned into Kairo over centuries meaning "Conquerer". Rin's grandfather and I were pure Black Clan bloodlines, and our fathers had been planning it since the day we were both born. I had their father at seventeen, Togashi Kairo. Only child, probably for the best. He became clan leader. Made the clan powerful again. Fathered Seizen, Raizo, and Rin.
"Til one day the Germanians came and massacred the clan. Raizo died while retreating with Seizen and Rin.
"Everything, all of it, has been leading to Rin. It was supposed to be his brother, Seizen. But..." She let it hang. "That was a long time ago. Now it's Rin. The Black Heir. The Black Phantom. The Black Dragon. The last Black Clan member to receive the Viatras before the rest of us were slain.
"I remember, when I was a little girl, thinking the Viatras were everywhere. How naïve I was. Now look around — there's probably only four original Viatra users left on this whole planet, and I'm grandmother to two of them.
"When I fled, fighting my way through hordes of soldiers, I got this—" she touched the scar across her eye, "—and left Chun for Janoah. Started a business. Met your grandfather, Titi. We built a family, then a bigger business. He passed not too long ago. He was the second love of my life." She looked at Rin. "I think you would've liked him."
"Probably." Rin paused. "But Baba, you know what I came here for."
Wai stood, walked to the back room. Something clanked around back there for a minute. She came back holding a wrapped blade and handed it to him.
As he unwrapped it, she said, "It's called Chi no Ryōken. The Bloodhound. Good for hunting prey."
Rin looked down at a dark black-and-red tachi, Black Clan engraving running the length of it.
"Old prototype," Wai said. "Never used. Tell me how she bites out there." She smiled, repacking her pipe.
"What are you planning on doing with that tonight?" Titi asked.
"Hush, girl. None of your business. Especially not questioning the Black Clan leader."
"But Grams—"
"*But nothing.*"
Rin asked one more question. "What's beyond the Abyssal Line? What is it?"
Wai exhaled, tucking her pink Viatra away. "That's enough stories for one night, my child."
Rin smiled, stood, and said, "Thanks, Baba. For everything. And it was nice meeting you, cousin. I'll be coming through more often."
He hugged her tight, then turned for the door.
"Remember," Wai said. "You're not the only one moving through the shadows."
Rin paused a moment. Then left.
Titi locked the door behind him.
He walked down Nightweave Row, weapons concealed, stores closing one by one on either side — save for a couple still open, and one in particular he'd meant to make his final stop tonight.
He stopped in front of it, smirking.
*Hollow Thread Atelier.*