As Hiro, his teeth gritted and his eyes ablaze with reckless courage, charged towards the soldiers while piercing his skin with the nail. But still, the transformation that had visited him in the forest did not come. No scales, no talon, no awakening of the power that lay dormant within him. The soldiers noticing the approaching boy readied their weapon to lay waste to him.
But as Hiro drew closer, Kanji shouted '' No!'' his voice was a desperate plea, but his words fell on deaf ears. Hiro wasn't ready to lose the only person he had known as his father. With a primal cry that tore from the depths of his soul, Hiro launched himself into the air like a vengeful spirit, his feet finding their mark upon the back of one of the soldiers. As the man crumpled beneath the force of the blow, Hiro's nail pierced the soldier's eye in a blur of violent rage, the pain and desperation of his situation coursing through his veins like molten lava.
Hiro's actions, driven by the desperation that surpassed the bounds of rationality, saw him repeatedly plunging the nail into the eye of the first soldier, the metallic shriek of the nail mingling with the soldiers' screams. In that moment of chaotic brutality, the second soldier, his rage mounting as he witnessed the death of his comrade, lunged toward Hiro with a swift and heavy swing of his sword. The pommel of the sword connected with Hiro's skull, sending him crashing to the ground, unconscious and bleeding.
The agony of watching Hiro fall, bloodied and motionless, ignited within Kanji a pain so fierce that sang through his veins like a banshee's wail. His heart thundering with the ferocity of a tempestuous sea, he once again seized his sword in a white-knuckled grip, the blade a feral extension of his wrath. As he readied himself to face the onslaught of soldiers, a chilling sight met his gaze: a throng of uniformed figures materializing from the shadows of the burning village, their numbers swelling with each heartbeat.
In the heart of the chaos, Kanji's mind's eye turned inwards, casting itself back in time to that fateful moment when he had encountered the veiled old woman, her enigmatic words a haunting refrain that echoed through his psyche: '' Before your departure...''
As the realization of his destiny dawned upon him, a smile, wistful and bittersweet, spread across Kanji's features. With a widespread farewell to Hiro, the boy who had been his purpose in life, he charged into battle, his sword a blazing streak of silver amid the smoldering ruins of the village.
The clang of metal and the sounds of the dying filled the air as Kanji's blade began to strike the soldiers' steel. However, Kanji's power diminished with each blow, the onslaught battering and bloodying his body.
Sensing victory, the soldiers advanced, their blades creating a killing whirlwind. In a scene of unimaginable violence, one soldier cleaved Kanji's head off his body with a ferocious arc of his sword, his face distorted with vicious joy.
As Kanji's lifeless head rolled across the ground, a voice emerged from the ranks of the soldiers, its cadence a command to be obeyed. '' pick it up.'' the general ordered, the authority of his position conveyed in the very syllables he uttered. One soldier, his eyes fixed upon the gruesome prize, moved to retrieve the severed head. '' What about the child?'' another soldier inquired, a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
The general's expression was a chilling portrait of apathy '' bring him along'' he said with a commanding tone. With the body of Kanji retrieved, the soldiers began to march back to the kingdom, their footsteps a rhythmic death march in the night. Admits the solemn procession, one soldier carries the unconscious form of Hiro, his bloodied body limp in his arms.
The silence of the night was broken by the distant wails of women and children, the last vestiges of life flickering in the village's ashes. The only light in the darkness was the fire that continued to consume the remnants of what had once been a peaceful place.
As the dawn broke over the horizon, its rays illuminated the distant spires of the camp that awaited them. Amid the gathering, the general rode his horse ahead of the soldiers, his countenance a, mask of authority, a fearsome figure to behold. '' Drop the boy in the dungeon, '' he commanded his words a cold and decisive decree. '' Send a message to the king, His request has been granted.''
As one of the soldiers carried Hiro away, the flicker of life within him burned dim and unsteady like a flame buffeted by the winds of fate. He was deposited into the depths of the dungeon. In the dungeon, Hiro's senses began to drift in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep, his senses dulled by the weight of unconsciousness, and a vision pierced the veil of his slumber.
Before him stood a dragon, its form immense and terrible, its scales like molten steel upon its frame. With a roar that shook the very foundation of Hiro's being, the dragon exhaled a torrent of flame, the inferno scorching Hiro's soul with its heat.
And then, as quickly as the vision had appeared, it vanished, making Hiro regain his consciousness once again. Hiro awoke to the dark, fetid air of his prison. The cell, its wall scored with the scars of countless skulls of prisoners before him, casts a shadow upon his soul. And in the stillness of the dungeon, Hiro rose, his eyes adjusting to the dim light that filtered through the bars of the prison, he began to rove the walls, searching for any weakness, any crack through which he might escape.
His hands pressed against the cold, unforgiving stone, his fingers tracing the contours of the walls in a desperate bid for freedom. As Hiro stood, his focus fixed upon the stony walls of the prison, the silence of the dungeon was shattered by the skittering sound of footsteps, a haunting melody of malice that sent a shiver down his spine.
And then through the shadows of the prison, a ghost-like image emerged. A lone figure, its face obscured by a heavy cloak, moved towards him with a deliberate and measured pace, the blade of a sword scraping against the stone floor in its wake, casting a cascade of sparks in its path.
'' Who is there?'' Hiro demanded, his voice echoing through the darkness.