In the Main Hart Duchy
The Hart Household mansion was built from polished blackstone, and its gothic architecture cast long shadows across the grounds.
Between obsidian pillars, cyan banners hung proudly and each was embroidered with the Hart family crest
A fountain stood before the main gate, where water flowed steadily from a lion-head spout into a circular basin below.
On the right was a compact training ground with a roof made of slate tiles sloped steeply to shed snow and rain and supported by carved obsidian pillars etched with, again, the Hart family crest.
This ground trained five generations of Hart swordsmen.
Now, Zach and Zack faced each other beneath that legacy.
"Being weak must be really annoying, Zack."
Zack said with a wide grin stretched across his face.
He stood relaxed, feet shoulder-width apart, and arms raised behind his head with a wooden sword resting across his shoulders. His hands loosely gripped the ends of the wooden sword with elbows jutting and bent outward.
His head was slightly tilted forward.
"Shut the hell up, bastard. Don't mistake coincidence for strength."
Zack replied, scratching his neck aggressively.
He stood with a forward-leaning posture, knees bent, and muscles coiled like a predator ready to hunt. His wooden sword was clutched in a white-knuckled grip, held diagonally as if frozen mid-swing.
Sweat dripped from his messy hair into narrowed blue eyes.
Each ragged breath lifted his chest, his expression twisted into a manic snarl with jaw clenched and lips curled, as if radiating a raw aggression.
Despite their opposite personalities, Zach and Zack fought like mirror images twisted by intent where one moved with arrogance and the other surged with fury.
But.
Their swords sang the same song as if composed from the same breath.
Slash!
Zack lunged.
His foot drove off the ground with force and kicked up loose dust as he surged forward. The wooden sword whipped through the air in a low and rising arc aimed directly at Zach's ribs.
Zach sidestepped just inches out of reach to dodge, turned his shoulder with elegant ease, and parried with a sharp upward twist of his sword.
Clang!
The clash of wood echoed across the training yard like metal.
Cla— Clang!
They disengaged, only to crash again. If one were to look at them, they would see two bodies in rhythm, moving with speed and precision that made them look less like twins and more like reflections bound in eternal combat.
Zack grunted as he also pivoted low and swept his sword at Zach's knee.
Zach jumped back and landed light on his toes before lunging forward with a swift counter-strike aiming for Zack's shoulder.
The strike landed.
Crack!
Zack's sword splintered slightly near the hilt every time he infused zaen on it, and cracks crawled along its length like veins of rot.
Dust flaked from the fissures as if the weapon was slowly turning to ash.
It was where his neck-scratching habit came from: the stress of his every weapon crumbled everytime he infused them with zaen.
But.
Zach's every parry would restore the cracks.
Fwoosh.
A pulse, faint but visible, would surge from every impact and the cracks sealed in an instant thus making the sword reform back to its original form.
Simply put, Zack's zaen was all about destruction while Zach's indicated restoration.
Slash!
Zack swung the wooden sword overhead with both hands, aiming to break through Zach's guard.
Zach blocked, barely.
Their swords locked midair. Muscles strained. Sweat dripped from their eyebrows. Both grunted. Teeth clenched.
Wood ground against wood in a bitter deadlock.
Zack twisted his hips, shifted his weight, and shoved forward.
Zach stumbled a step back but used the momentum. He spun on his heel and dragged his sword low in a full arc, catching Zack's ankle.
Zack cursed and hopped back to evade.
But.
"Told you, Zack. You're too slow."
Smack.
The blow landed.
Zack's foot skidded, and his body nearly toppled.
Cra— Crack!
Another crack bloomed across Zack's sword, webbing its surface like fractured glass as evident by the sword reaching its limit.
Slash!
A flurry of rapid slashes followed— high, low, diagonal— and strikes so fast they blurred. Zach weaved through them, countering only when necessary with a calm expression but strained.
Clash. Clack. Thud. Crackle.
Every time Zack struck, his sword eroded further.
Yet every time Zach landed a blow, the sword mended itself as if fed by the clash, like it drank from the violence.
Their breathing ragged, and their footwork left shallow traces into the floor of the training ground.
Still, neither yielded.
They trained not for victory nor for the sake of training, but to prove who bore the strongest twin.
Clang! Cla—
But all of a sudden, Zach froze.
His stance faltered mid-parry, and the edge of his wooden sword hovered just inches from Zack's temple with widened eyes.
Recognition.
Disbelief.
As if he had just seen a dead person come back to life.
The carefully composed grin that never left his face and his calm and mask-like confidence now fractured completely.
His mouth parted slightly, but he said nothing.
Zack blinked in confusion.
"The hell are you—?"
But Zach was not looking at him anymore.
After all, his arms slowly dropped to his side and the sword thudded softly against the floor.
Then, wordlessly, Zach raised one trembling hand and pointed toward the mansion's gates visible from their position.
Zack followed his gaze.
Near the lion-shaped fountain, where water still poured from the carved maw into a perfect ripple, two figures strode through the main path beneath the banners.
One led with calm and almost unaware grace. A boy with dark brown hair tousled by the breeze.
Next to him, a second figure walked close just slightly behind. His hair was jet-black, clothes too, with a posture tall and unbothered.
"It can't be…"
Zach mumbled as he looked at Zack straight in his eyes
"...The youngest?"
He did not move nor dared to speak again. His entire body remained locked in place and eyes still glued to the boy beyond the training grounds as if looking would make him vanish again.
"Shut up. The hell did you just say?"
Zack snapped.
He clenched his jaw and stepped forward, grabbing his brother by the collar.
"You saw what I saw that day. The youngest is dead. He wasn't breathing. His body was—"
He stopped himself as the memories clawed too close to the surface.
Zach still did not answer as his hand remained frozen mid-air, pointing.
Zack turned to look again.
The boy's gait, his shape, even the way he walked in a calm, soft-stepping, slightly to the left like he always did looked just like Seven.
Too much like him.
"...No."
Zack's grip loosened.
"No way in hell. That's just some damn lookalike. Just some…"
Denial.
The brain's first shield against trauma.
Against impossible returns.
Because accepting what he saw back then would mean rewriting everything he believed and everything he buried.
Haah…
Zack exhaled hard and finally let go of Zach's collar.
Just like him, Zach also took a deep breath and calmed himself down. He stepped back and picked up his fallen wooden training sword.
Step.
"We're done for today."