THE MAKING OF ARCHFIELD!
Archfield rose from blood and resolve. Five months after the battlefield where Gaal and Isse fell 125 years ago, the Hakusari clan, who was led by Mizuto Hakusari, put the last of their strength into Gaal's final wish. They named the city for the warrior spirit it would soon be home too: Archfield, a bastion meant to hold back whatever darkness the world might throw at Azunne.
Its districts told the story of that purpose…
Miama, the first district, was a marketplace and living museum: travelers could buy woven armor, trade battle-song memories, and speak with OMEN veterans who would teach them a fragment of the order's history.
Kyama, the second district, was the heart, housing barracks, training rings, ritual halls, and the private lanes of the order. Only OMEN warriors moved freely there.
Above Kyama rose Skeoma, OMEN's third district. It has only one building, a single obsidian tower, the Pinnacle Lookout, capped with a statue of the first Warden of OMEN who had fallen decades ago… Mizuto himself.
From that tower the eye of Azunne watched the continent's slumber and wake; it was where missions were given and oaths were weighed. And around all of it? The Hakusari left their last gift: The Living Wall. A gigantic wooden wall grown with Hakusari-wood. Wounds on it would stitch closed as if the wall itself were a living being. Archfield was not merely a city, it was a vow made to the land, a vow that would soon be tested…
The morning came faster than the initiates would've liked, light slipping between the shutters and cutting the barracks into beautiful squares. Grim'Lok woke to the sound of the busy day ahead of him. Oh and the rustling of Rengetsu arranging his feathers on the window sill.
For a breath he let the ordinary sounds consume him, the creak of a bunk, a distant clatter of tools, the hum of a city that had not yet learned how to be smaller for its losses.
He sat up and rubbed his shoulder where the new vest met skin, then felt the armband against his bicep like a quiet reminder of the oath. The armband's oath: all who wore it were tied to the Order, and to each other.
The OMEN sigil (crescent and blade) was stamped into the armband, a flag and a promise both.
Around the barracks other bands caught light as new Operatives moved through their morning. Rengetsu hopped down like a shadow with glossy wings and tilted his head as if to ask if the boy beneath the vest was ready for what the day might hold.
Grim'Lok let the raven be his first witness, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and dressing fast.
The initiation's adrenaline had not yet drained from Grim'Lok, the taste of yesterday's ritual lingered like plaque on his teeth. He tugged the Armband higher and made his way to the Pinnacle Lookout.
Nay was waiting at the base of the Pinnacle steps, leaning on the rails like a person leaned on a good joke. Juzu and Mizaka were already there chatting up a storm. When Grim'Lok climbed up they gave him that light, hard look friends give when they mean to be steady
.
"Did you sleep at all?" Nay asked, eyes flicking to the mark on his shoulder, not unkindly.
"Enough to dream of sweets," Grim'Lok answered, forcing a grin that landed somewhere between humor and sarcasm. It felt better than none.
They walked together and Archfield unrolled beneath their boots, streets tidy as a new map, banners fluttering. OMEN armbands were not the only insignia the city wore.
The Living Wall rose like a stitched spine around the city. Beyond it, the scarred rim of Gomen lay like a dark bruise on the horizon: a ring of blackened trunks and the dark seam where the Sacred Forest had been harmed. Even from here the place smelled of char, and Grim'Lok felt the mark at his shoulder preach like a bell in a chapel.
Pinnacle Lookout sat above the city like a silent, watchful thing. Its glassed rooms and stone balconies had seen messages born and died, and this morning the Watchers, and council were gathered; Tenki Buza at one end, her stillness a kind of pressure; Orion Sepeti like a rock of beard and scowl; Kaido and Quincy murmuring in a low register. The Council's robes brushed the stone as they leaned into the wind.
Their armbands glinted, a river of emblems across the railings, OMEN's history visible in braided metal and cloth.
Erik waited at the lookout's edge, his silhouette carved against the scar. He turned as the squad approached, and for once his expression was a shuttered thing… something practiced and not quite whole. Even in the soft morning his presence pulled the air into a harder place.
"Sit," he said without preamble, and when they obeyed it was like obeying an older law.
For a moment the world held its breath with them; guarded, waiting. Erik's hands were folded, and his eyes went to the distant black line of trees as if he were reading the burnt edges like a ledger.
When he spoke his voice was the sound of work: precise, not cruel, not kind.
"Risaki Payne did not come back," he said. The sentence struck like a lightning bolt. Around him the Watchers' faces did not twist into shock; there had been enough of the world to carve them that way. But the silence that followed was full-bodied.
Nay's hand flew to her mouth. Juzu's jaw tightened into a line. Mizaka's eyes went very small—calm that was a cord pulled taut.
Grim'Lok felt, suddenly, that the earth had changed its tilt. "What do you mean- Risaki?" The word left him too small in his throat.
"He held the seal in Gomen," Erik said. "He held it as long as he could. He paid the price most guardians do when the work grows too heavy for one pair of shoulders. He is gone."
The Watchers around the lookout exchanged looks with a language of old habits—a tilt of the chin, a tightening at the mouth.
Tenki stepped forward, not as if to contradict but to set the degree of truth. "The seal has been weakened," she said. Her voice was a scalpel. "Not destroyed. Not yet. But it falters. The Tree-whatever it truly is-has taken a wound."
Rengetsu gave a single, too-loud caw, as if to underline a point no one wanted to voice. Grim'Lok's chest contracted; the Mark of Uken at his shoulder thrummed in a way that felt less like a warning and more like an accusation.
"How do you know?" Juzu asked, but his voice was careful. He had been with Risaki in training; respect softened the angle of the question.
Erik unrolled a map, fingers pressing along the inked ring of forest like reading tally marks. "A scroll Rengetsu delivered. A trio with Noctis masks—strange signatures, coordinated, precise. Risaki stayed behind to contain the breach. That he did so alone was his choice. That he did so and did not return is our loss."
Mizaka's hand found Grim'Lok's shoulder and squeezed—no words, only contact. Nay's eyes found him with a gravity that stripped away the teasing barbs she wore like armor.
"We will hold a funeral," Orion said quietly, a bone-true gravity. "Public. For the city to grieve and for OMEN to show the cost."
"Public grief will show them we remain," Tenki added, but her voice carried an edge—concern threaded under ceremonial policy. "We must also move. Reinforce the Gomen perimeter. If the seal is truly wounded, it will bleed outward."
Grim'Lok's fingers curled tight around the edge of the stone bench until the leather of his armband creaked. He thought of the Dipea-Kicho dojo where Risaki had taught him to keep his feet, the soft scraping of a broom on the rug, Rengetsu's way of settling on an old shoulder. The idea that those rooms were a memory now landed like a stone in water, and the ripple of it, he understood with a clarity that was almost a physical thing, would touch everything.
"Is there-" he began, but the words came out as a broken line. He had no map for grief, only a muscle trained to answer. "What do you need of me?"
Erik's gaze cut to him, slow and precise. "You will go to the Dojo tonight. There are things he left behind–marks only a student might read. The Council will hold the public rites this afternoon. For now: ready yourselves. Be watchful. The Shattered Oath begins."
The phrase settled like a second weight. Around them the armbands blinked in the pale sun, simple circles hugging arms that would soon have to carry more than cloth. Grim'Lok swallowed and felt, for the first time since the ceremony, the taste of what being an OMEN operative would demand of him—not valor, but endurance.
He let Rengetsu nestle into his collar and drew breath. The lookout felt suddenly too small and vast at once—an edge of the world where vows are flung outward and the echo sometimes comes back as ruin.
Nay looked at Grim'Lok for a moment; long enough to see the light drain from his eyes.
"Yes sir." Grim'Lok said nothing more, turning to the door and exiting the room. His footsteps echo down the hallway.
Erik sighs whilst looking at the group in front of him. "Dismissed." The Watchers around all disperse into clouds of smoke leaving Nay, Juzu, Mizaka and the council all to hear his next words.
"Juzu," He starts, "I want you to lead Grim'Lok to Risaki's Dojo tonight," Juzu nods upon hearing the orders, steam exiting from the openings in his hood involuntarily."
"Nay, you and Mizaka will be on their squad."
The memory of Risaki teaching her how to perform the Chikara gauntlet technique comes forth to Nay's mind as she starts to fully process the situation. "As you wish, Stormbreaker."
Nay turns towards the door beginning her departure–Erik continues on, "This mission determines Grim'Lok's rank. His ascend to sentinel was premature so if he cannot collect this relic then he will lose his rank and be an initiate like Nay."
The council stare at Erik with uncertainty before Orion speaks up, "With all due respect Stormbreaker that would directly go against Risaki's final wishes."
"Risaki's final wishes have been respected, but the wolfshire still jumped 2 ranks and we haven't seen him in battle once, his mind has not been tested in a real battle. Imagine how the rest of our warriors feel about that?" Erik's voice was calm, but the room crackled with electricity that made Nay stop at the door.
Orion tries to speak again but Mizaka holds her hand up to silence him, "And what if the enemy is waiting for us there?"
The electricity in the rooms grows more intense as Erik grabs a scroll from under the desk. "If you cannot defeat this enemy then use this scroll."
Juzu grabs the Scroll, analyzing its design. "A Seijuza Scroll? You plan on having us alert the Watchers and Wardens then?"
Erik shakes his head no. "This is merely a basic Seijuza scroll, it will alert all OMEN in the Area to your position using a sound only recognizable to OMEN."
Juzu attaches the scroll to his utility belt, before turning to Mizaka and Nay. "Rank of the mission we're going on?"
Erik grins as a thunderbolt hits the peak of the pinnacle lookout, "A-rank Mission."
Both Juzu and Mizaka grin before heading to the door, walking out with Nay to the outside of the Pinnacle Lookout. Grim'Lok leans on the railing, hearing the door slam behind him doesn't make him turn around.. Instead it makes him grit his teeth.
'Why did he have to fight them alone…' his thoughts rang like church bells inside his head.
Nay walked toward him, stopping a few inches away. "Grim?" She says reaching out but Grim'Lok waves her off.
. Juzu looks down at Kyama then at Grim'Lok. "Get it together." He grabs Grim'Loks arm as he's waving. "We have a mission tonight, and a funeral to attend this afternoon." His voice was scolding-like making Grim'Lok grit his teeth.
Grim'Lok says nothing, simply walking down the stairs. Nay quickly follows after him. Miazaka shrugs before leaping off the down to Kyama, Juzu stares at Grim'Lok and sighs, as he does a small bit of steam comes out. "He's hurting, I can tell." He says before following Mizaka.
Nay catches up to Grim'Lok, "Grim'Lok!" She says his full name which makes him stop, then turn around.
"Nayara." He says her full name which makes her blush from frustration.
"You will talk to me like an adult!" Her voice is loud enough to shatter Grim'Loks eardrums. He covers her mouth to shut her up before taking a step back.
"Unfortunately I'm not an-"
"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN GRIM'LOK!!!"
This completely shatters his sadness as he bursts into laughter, Nayara stomps her feet. "Okay fine, fine." He says as straightens up, looking off into the distance. "It's just… Why did he choose to fight them alone? Why did he choose this fate? I'm frustrated, Nay—sad, and confused."
"And you think I'm not?" Her voice is softer this time.
The two teens stare at each other for a moment before Grim'Lok looks at the sun in the sky.
"The one thing I want the most is… Revenge." They meet eyes. "I'm gonna go get ready for the funeral." He says dashing down the stairs to the bottom of the pinnacle lookout.
Back inside the pinnacle lookout Erik and the council discuss funeral procedures.
"The O.M.E.G.A Alliance will be gathered for Risaki's funeral. This marks the first time any member of the alliance has fallen in battle in the last 2 years…" Tenki mutters while staring at Risaki's Dossier.
'Former Eclipse Division'. The words pop out to her like bold lettering.
"Risaki used to be a part of the Eclipse Division?" She looks up at Erik who smiles, "Yes, in fact he was almost the leader of OMEN but decided to re-open his masters dojo and guard the seal."
Erik sets the scroll that contains Risaki's last wish on his desk, on top of the single piece of paper that still sits there.
He unrolls the scroll; the wording on it has high level encryptions made so those who are not OMEN cannot read. The council gathers around the desk.
"He gathered all this information during his fight." Yulan says with a shocked expression, Reinhart's eyes narrow reading it.
"Dargus." The name sends a shudder through the council; A man who OMEN has been searching for, for a decade.
"And it seems he's located one of his labs. We need to investigate this now." She walks past Erik towards the roster of OMEN. Her fingers find 4 dossiers. "Team Stormrider–Kuro Weaver, Salim Dort, Meko–and Daiko."
The council murmurs at her the people she chose. Erik looks at the dossiers and grins, "We'll call this operation, Spearhead." The words echo through the room, resonating with those inside it.
Grim'Lok stares at his shirtless body in the mirror; scars from his village's attack scatter around his body and his ribs although healed seems to have a huge scar.
"I don't remember Risaki saying he healed me. Who did…"
His eyes drift to the Mark of Uken on his shoulder. "I'm different… Not only am I the last Wolfshire, but I'm the only person with this Mark."
He looks back at the mirror staring himself in the eyes. "I'll avenge you master, and I'll complete this mission. Your oath won't be shattered again."
The entire city of Archfield prepares for Risaki's funeral; Unbeknownst to them, a masked figure stares down at the city from the mountaintops nearby. Robe flowing in the wind.