Ryu journeyed down to the storage quarters stowed deep beneath the fort. He was greeted with a series of lines.

Men and women in ragged gear were led to different tables set out in front of the storage warehouse doors, signing papers and answering questions delivered by the tired, monotone voices of the quartermaster’s clerks.

He sighed. Bureaucracy, humanity’s great, necessary evil. His eyes tracked the patterns in the stone ceiling above, the dull gray room as interesting as its occupants. No, he told himself, that wasn’t fair. They were just men and women doing their job. Right.

Looking around the stone hall, he wondered how big the storage rooms past the large doors could be. Not very. With storage rings and bags, an army wouldn’t need a ton of baggage. He dismissed the idle thoughts after a moment. No use in wondering.

After some time, a woman in a smart, dark blue uniform greeted him. “Here for a requisition, sir? The quartermaster’s corps will also pay for any treasures received from the Bugs or Bug-related Quests.”

He rubbed his unkept beard. Probably looked like a vagabond in the ill-fitting robe he had received from Jinn. “Yes, my name is Ishida Ryu. I was wondering if I could receive a set of armor and a good axe or blade.” The attendant bowed low enough her forehead greeted the stone floor, and Ryu muttered a curse under his breath. “There’s no need for that. A simple yes or no will do.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said, standing with a smile. “Right this way.”

She led him past a line of soldiers and to a table where he signed a few forms. Then she handed him off to a tall, bearded man in a blue and silver robe. He looked Ryu up and down, the light of a Skill flashing in his eyes.

“Just taking your measurements, my lord,” he said in a low rumble, bowing deeply. “Alright, then. I am Quartermaster Hideyoshi. What does Heaven’s Butcher Ishida need today?”

Ryu held back a snort at the title. “Some armor and a weapon strong enough to withstand strength greater than Mid-Monarch cultivation.”

The man paled and muttered a word to one of his attendants, who ran out of the hall. “Sorry for the delay, my lord. We will have to access the House’s treasures, and authorization must come from Lord Ishida, alone.”

“That’s perfectly-”

“Ryu!” a voice called.

He sighed. “Fell,” he said, turning to see his blonde companion.

Fell, a Master Classer with almost as much potential as one of the Big Seven, dropped to his knees before Ryu. “I failed you, martial brother. I know you think me a dramatic, glory-driven fool, and perhaps I am. But I am also a man of my word. I promised that together we would conquer this world, and instead… Instead I was nowhere to be found when my aid was needed.”

Ryu nodded. Alone. He had thought himself alone and abandoned to the Bugs, yet here he stood a man soon to be a father and maybe one day a husband, his martial brother, half-sister, and adopted father all at his side. It was a strangely full moment, one made all the more bittersweet by the emptiness in his heart. A disappointment of a man, Ryu and his heart were forged in the twisted chambers of madness and war. Perhaps happiness was not for him, yet he knew more than ever he would fight so the people he loved could have it.

“You are forgiven, martial brother,” Ryu said, clapping Fell’s armored shoulder. “Not on the wall?”

“On rest,” Fell said with a weary smile.

Ryu looked the man over, and his eyes noticed the tremble in his legs, the new scar that marred the skin of his neck, and the tensing in his hands. “Rest then, and do not worry for me. After this is all over, we need to talk, though. I want to know more about you and where you want to go. Fair enough?”

“Fair,” he said, turning towards the barracks to no doubt pass out. Ryu’s frowning face watched him go. He suspected their conversation would be long coming.

The quartermaster’s attendant returned a moment later, handing a slip of paper to his boss. The large man’s face grew pale, and he looked up to Ryu and then down again.

After a moment, he spoke. “My lord, Lord Ishida has given you clearance to a fine suit of armor I will have pulled from storage immediately, but for your arms, well…” He worked his jaw. “Perhaps it's best you read it.”

Face expressionless, Ryu accepted the slip of paper. A strong sense of suspicion had him in its grasp, but he could do nothing but read.

For the weapon, a choice. A plain, lower-tier axe unmarked by the House’s forge, the cleaver sword he used during the Contest, or a Bound Blade of the House. He’ll know.

- Lord Ishida

Ryu’s face remained stony. Politics, politics. Odd, how he had once thought Haru above such things, hungry for the battlefield alone. No, Haru enjoyed winning more than anything, and for that reason, he played both at politics and war. His latest target? Ryu, the son who escaped his web. And now he wanted him to return.

A choice, then. The axe to remain unaffiliated, the cleaver sword to ally with the house, or the Bound Blade to take his place in House Ishida. The six houses of the Red Sun Faction each had three branches: the Lord, who commanded affairs both internal and external; the Elders, who offered counsel, kept records, and mediated disputes; and the Sword, who defended the house’s honor and in case of dishonorable action, killed the lord. At least, that was the common conception. In the shadows of the house resided the fourth branch, the Bound.

In the same way a Soulbound weapon was tied to a user, a Bound weapon was tied to a faction. Every major faction had a few, and as the faction grew stronger, so did the Bound weapon. In other words, it was perhaps the most powerful weapon Ryu could receive. It was also one that tied him to House Ishida.

His gaze travelled to his hands. The blood of innocents stained them. His mouth tasted the stale, burnt-flesh smell of the dim warehouse. His eyes saw the dark spot on the stone floor where Fifty-Two incinerated their corpses. His skin felt the kiss of the stone floor, the crunch of his opponents’ bones, and the splatter of blood, and his ears heard their haunting cries and pleas.

A monster cloaked in human flesh. What was hate for a cruel, selfish man in the face of that? What was the anger over an absent father? What was the distaste for a force that sheltered the love of his life, their unborn child, and his adopted family? They were nothing. Meaningless. The strength to build a better future was the only thing that mattered, else his misdeeds would have been for nothing. He would save his hate for the Bugs and his contempt for the gods.

House Ishida? A name, nothing more. Power. It was all that mattered in the end. It alone stood above name, loyalty, and oath. It alone forced the world to peace. It alone… It alone could make the stain on his hands worth it. His only atonement. Purpose. He had one thing to thank the Bugs for, and it was a new purpose.

All this and more passed through Ryu’s head in a moment, the thoughts soon dispersed by the finality of decision. “The Blade,” he said, handing the slip of paper to the quartermaster.

The man paled, bowed, and swept a hand towards the doors to the storage rooms. “The Bonding must be done in private, my lord.”

“I understand.” A Bound weapon in House Ishida could only be granted under the agreement of lord, Sword, and the elders. In times of war, the houses had forgiven greater, but breaking tradition was simply not done in public.

The quartermaster led him through the wooden doors, past a series of enchanted stone doors, and into a long, low room that had the look of a remodeled crypt and the feel of an office.

Polished gargoyle statues leaned out of the smooth granite wall, hovering close above wooden chests. In the back of the room, papers flitted in and out of files and between ink-smeared fingers, as each removed buckle, bag, and boot joined the tally of supplies. Attendants bustled about, reaching into marked chests and pulling out cloth bags of armor, weapons, boots, shaving kits, and all the necessities of a soldier’s life.

“Had to have a builder expand the room when Lord Ishida deployed us here,” the quartermaster said, leading Ryu past his busy employees.

Ryu shook his head, his foul mood giving way to curiosity. “How do you keep up with all of this?”

“Skills help,” the quartermaster said. “But everything goes down on paper. Everything. Without logistics and supplies, there is no war, even with storage items. Perhaps it's not as glamorous as battle, but it’s a satisfying business. Every item has a place, as does every number. Many of my employees are nothing short of genius, wielding numbers and the pen like a warrior might a sword. And that’s without their Skills, my lord.”

They stopped before a door that branched off from the room, and the quartermaster unlocked it with a key, ushering Ryu past the guard outside and into a small office. He gestured for Ryu to take one of the plush leather seats, settling into the high-backed chair behind the desk.

“Now, for the Blade,” he said.