| “ | I'll keep moving forward and do what I believe is right up until the bitter end.
— Rean Schwarzer
|
” |
Rean Schwarzer was born as the child of Giliath Osborne, a commoner in the Erebonian Empire who rose to power in the military. Some nobles, not a fan of this, burned down Osborne's house, with his wife and child inside. Osborn, heartbroken, decides to heed the calls of Ishmelga, an evil divine robot thingie. Doing so makes him immortal, so he rips out his heart and shoves it inside his five-year-old child's chest. This somehow causes no medical problems, and saves Rean's life. He is then given to one of Osborne's friends, Baron Teo Schwarzer, who raises him as his own.
A few years later, Rean's transplanted heart creates problems of the supernatural kind. Due to it linking him to Osborne, the Erebonian Curse manifests strongly within Rean. This drives him to violent insanity whenever his adoptive family, especially his adoptive younger sister, is threatened. He trains in the Eight Leaves One Blade sword style to try and control it, learning directly at the feet of its founder, Yun Ka-fai. He later enrolls in Thors Military Academy, placed in the experimental Class VII that mixed nobles and commoners for the first time in the school's history.
After some wacky anime hijinks he gets to know his class fairly well. Their instructor, Sara Valestein, has them take on various assignments at regular intervals, having them act as pseudo-Bracers to get them to know the Empire in which they live as well as its troubles. They solve cases, grow closer, and be teenage idiots until a civil war erupts within the Empire as the noble class grows dissatisfied with the increasing prominence of commoners. He finds that one of his classmates, Crow Armbrust, is actually the leader of a terrorist group aligned with the Noble Faction, though with his own goals of revenge on Osborne, now the Imperial Chancellor.
Shortly after discovering this, he finds that he's been called to pilot his very own magic mecha, the Divine Knight Valimar. While he uses this to great effect against the Noble Faction's secret Panzer Soldats, less magical mecha, he is quickly overwhelmed by Crow in his own Divine Knight, Ordine. The rest of the class becomes secondary contractors to Valimar, and force the Ashen Knight to dip while they hold Crow off.
He crashes in the mountains near his home, and recovers over a few months with the aid of Valimar and Celine, his classmate Emma's cat familiar. He reunites with his classmates during the civil war, and helps Prince Olivert in stopping the chaos. While the chaos is stopped, he ends up failing to accomplish any of his secondary goals due to the death of Crow. He is then forced to assist Osborne and the Imperial Military in their conquests, coming into conflict with the Special Support Section during Erebonia's annexation of Crossbell.
He continues Class VII's legacy by becoming an instructor at the Thors Military Academy Branch Campus. He and his new students, as well as his old classmates and teacher, find themselves embroiled in Osborne's plots to conquer the continent of Zemuria, spreading the Erebonian Curse. They manage to foil his plot, with the Special Support Section, Estelle and Joshua Bright, and many others providing vital assistance. After the war, he finally shakes his self-sacrifice addition while helping to foil yet another occupation of Crossbell, a city he had come to grow fond of.
Battle vs Clive Rosfield (by Leolab)[]
Rean confidently strides out of an elevator, one of the many he has taken in the Tuatha de Danann while navigating the floating fortress. He glances behind him, eyes widening as there’s suddenly nothing there. No elevator, nor his classmates, nor his students, instead a blank wall. He looks around the room, concentrating on his link to Valimar.
He feels the Divine Knight’s presence as he sees a mesh of grey stone and a pristine white substance that looked like a blend of ceramic and metal. Pillars, broken and whole, litter the room seemingly at random. His connection to his friends hadn’t faded, either, and he breathes a sigh of relief before hearing a voice rapidly approaching from the other side of the room.
“Fucking Fallen and their fucking ruiiiiins!” a large, well-built man yells as he descends from the high ceiling, rolling to break his fall. Clive looks up, as if expecting to see another follow him, and curses again when he sees the ceiling is now solid stone. The man, dressed in black cloth and red leather with metal armor on his limbs, takes a glance around the room. His eyes eventually fall on Rean, appraising the younger man, white hair contrasting with the black fabric of his coat and pants, an oddly-curved sword on his hip.
“A fellow explorer?” Clive mutters as Rean stares at him. The thinner swordsman narrows his eyes at the newcomer, every fiber of his being warning of impending danger. He clears his mind, intending to get a good look at the visitor with the Unclouded Eye. His hand drifts to his sword hilt in alarm; the man had more than just some of the Beyond in him. His entire body was suffused with some form of supernatural energy. Its distinct menace reminded him of McBurn, and he suddenly realizes his tachi is drawn.
Clive sighs, reaching behind him to draw his own sword, thicker and longer than the other man’s. If it wasn’t the ruins themselves, it was some greedy looters. He dashes forward, body wreathed in fire and weapon at the ready. The boy parried his blade, but a burst of flame from his palm caught his foe unaware. He grasps with his hand, and a talon of wind shoots forth to grab his foe and toss him in the air behind him.
He spins as he summons a staff to his free hand, time seeming to slow as he aims and launches a cluster of lightning orbs. As they arc towards his foe, he sheathes his blade and brings his arms together. A pair of greenish wings manifests on his back as a massive laser of magic shoots forth and engulfs his foe, the force practically holding him in the air. He re-draws his sword as he extends his free hand, another grasping claw shooting out to seize his foe.
Clive raises his sword to strike as Rean twists in the air, angling his tachi to slice through his foe’s neck. The burlier swordsman shimmers purple, the blade passing through him as Rean sails past. The younger man rolls, passing under a broken pillar before springing up and channeling orbal energy through his ARCUS II. He leaps to his feet and runs behind an intact pillar as a group of clocks manifest around him, speeding up his actions. He dashes farther away, gaining enough distance to cast Tearal to heal his wounds.
He takes a second to consider his options as his foe’s thundering footsteps close in on his location. Arts were too slow, but surviving the previous onslaught had given him more than enough juice to pull out Crafts. Spirit Unification was a gamble; if he couldn’t win with the initial burst he would be attacking uncontrollably. A death sentence against someone this skilled. The footsteps round the pillar, showing him he’s out of time.
He strikes out with a yell, though Clive grows wings and floats out of the way of the slash. Rean’s follow up strikes are similarly dodged, and not even completing True Helix with a spiral of flame brought his foe back in range. The Rosarrian man twists in the air, dismissing his wings as a blast of light rises near the ceiling, raining down upon them. Rean dodges and parries the falling magic as his foe closes in, swinging.
He parries an overhead blow, twisting his sword to aim at Clive’s neck as he passes. The larger man leans back, the blade skimming a centimeter off the top of his nose, and twists as he passes, kicking his foe in the back to stagger him. The move almost works, as Rean is barely able to stumble away from the follow-up swipe. The Erebonian sheathes his blade and turns, creating some distance. He clears his mind and draws, sending a wave of air at his foe. The other man slams his fist into the ground, wreathed in fire, and leaps into the air, slashing with his sword. Each cut sends another line of fire forwards, causing the floor to glow with its heat.
A blade clangs against Clive’s shin, the armor turning the strike from his foe. He twists as he lands, facing the silver-haired swordsman as he spins to look at him, sword sheathed but hand still on the hilt. Clive brings his free arm up, fist vertical, as his foe draws and slices, a mass of stone encasing it. His foe’s strike clangs off it, and the Rosarrian prince grins viciously.
“Ora ora oraoraora!” he yells as a rocks coalesce into smaller fists, dashing forward and striking his foe in the chest several dozen times. He winds his fist back up as the last one fires off, covering it in stone before slamming it forward and sending Rean flying back, bruised and battered. The Erebonian swordsman rises, throwing his hand into the air and shouting.
“Heed my call... Valimar, the Ashen Knight!”
A mass of blue light shimmers behind him, eventually resolving into a 7-meter tall grey robot, which rises from a kneeling position and draws a massive white, blue, and gold sword, seemingly from nowhere. Clive’s eyes widen as he sees the sword, eerily similar in color to Fallen materials, and glares at his foe anew.
“Oh no you don’t!” he yells, summoning Ramuh’s staff to his free hand and extending it forward. Lightning shoots down from the ceiling, a few seconds too late as Rean had already dissolved into blue light, streaking towards the robot’s chest.
The robot lights up, swinging its sword in a massive arc that wrecks even more pillars. Clive ducks under it and wreathes his body in fire, dashing forwards outside the rubble. He leaps as it tries to kick him, sending forth a tether of wind to swing up and around, getting behind it. He covers his sword in fire while in the air, slamming down into the robot’s shoulder. As Valimar flails to recover, he manifests a shawl on his shoulders, smiling as the chill reminds him of his beloved. He raises his sword and stabs down, unleashing a wave of frost that warps and cracks the heated metal. He does so again, driving the giant robot to its knees.
He leaps, again channeling his flames into his sword, and aims for the robot’s bowed neck. He is met, however, by Valimar’s sword. A simple flick of the massive blade sends him careening into a pillar. The massive mech glows, its wounds healing as Clive drops to the floor, landing lightly. He shivers as Valimar turns to him, its cold blue eyes radiating anger.
It charges him, swinging its sword in an arc. The Divine Knight continues its assault relentlessly, giving the Rosarrian Prince barely a chance to breathe. He uses another tether on the swinging sword, hoping to get enough height to repeat his maneuver, only to get struck by a fist in midair and sent flying again, rolling on the floor.
“If that’s how you want to play it,” he mutters, rising as Valimar turns and speeds towards him, “then COME TO ME, IFRIT!”
A massive pillar of fire erupts, bathing the room in its light. Valimar charges in, spinning its sword in a diagonal slash through it. A monstrous hand grabs the sword from within the pillar before it explodes outwards, scattering embers through the room. Valimar looks up at the monstrosity that emerged, a massive horned beast aglow with fire. Ifrit looks down at the robot, which barely comes to its shoulders, and roars.
The Eikon spins, throwing the Divine Knight against a pillar. It rises shakily, looking at the beast before it. It places its sword at its hip, as if it were sheathed, taking a defensive stance as its foe erupts in fire and speeds towards it. Valimar focuses its consciousness on the onrushing monster, ignoring the pillars igniting in its wake. The robot ducks out and away from the punch, which lands on the pillar behind it. The stone ignites, as if doused in oil, as Valimar’s blade comes down on Ifrit’s arm, slicing it off before returning to its stance.
The Eikon turns, unphased as its arm regrows, and launches another punch. The robot leaps back and in, slicing only to be met with a wall of fire. It explodes outwards, again throwing the robot back and igniting the pillars caught in the blast. The robot looks around it in concern as the blazing pillars fill the room with heat and flickering light. The beast of flame was expanding its domain. The Divine Knight shakes off a feeling of foreboding as it settles back into a combat stance, only to see a massive orb of fire forming above the Eikon’s head.
Ifrit holds the ball of flame in the air, its heat igniting the strange pillars throughout the room. As whirls of fire rise, seemingly piercing through the ceiling to seek the sky, Ifrit looks down at its foe, seemingly frozen in fear. It was time to end this.
The Eikon slams the burning sphere down, engulfing the robot as hellfire explodes in the chamber, the hungry flames devouring the robot, the man within, and the very fuel needed for the pillars to burn. Clive returns to normal, the room suddenly as quiet and dim as when he had arrived. He looks around, trying to find a way out, when the floor opens beneath him.
“Not this shit again,” he growls, instants before he descends farther.
Expert’s Opinion[]
While Clive and Rean were equally matched in pure skill, Clive had several advantages in his favor. One was that his super mode, Limit Break, didn’t come with any major drawbacks, unlike Spirit Unification. The other was that his big attacks were only tied to cooldowns rather than a resource he had to build up. And, while Valimar was marginally more impressive in its capabilities, it was ultimately not quite enough to overcome Ifrit.