Dark Knight of the Wind

As I write this, I have done something glorious.

In a land of destruction, I have created.

In a land that gives nothing, I have taken.

The fallen monster, one I now recognize to be one of the former immortals of the Bamboo Forest, became my flame. Scavenging in the old village gave me my tools...and a reminder of the pain it brought, my eyes averting from the bloodstains where many a former comrade fell.

Though the pain of loss weighed in my heart like a cold stone, it steeled my arm as I brought the hammer down, sparks like quicksilver flashing upon the blade that I had been given, my lord's personal weapon.

It gave me strength as the weapon took shape beneath my hands, lines of red light radiating out from each blow of the hammer. As I stood over the roaring flames of the immortal's corpse, her self-immolation in death forming an endless, eternal spark of light in this dark world, I felt the pain fade. Never gone, only numbed, it was caught up in a swirl of other emotions, each one ringing out with another fall of the hammer, adding itself to the forge that boiled my soul. Feelings I couldn't admit to, or wouldn't allow myself to admit to, lest I lose myself to their intensity.

Grief for the lost, who knew the end of this undeserved suffering.

Sorrow for the survivors, if any, and the horrible, bleak existence that awaits them.

A faint sense of satisfaction, guilty though it may be, at the knowledge of my former captors' inevitable fates.

Bitterness at what I was forced to do just to survive, to claw out an existence here where once only a beautiful forest stood.

Anger at Ryuujin's failure to live up to the covenant made with the Hakurei, to protect this land in the event that we could not, and then to compound his failure by fleeing.

I felt fear for this twisted, broken shell of a Wonderland, of a world that could corrode even an immortal Phoenix into madness and corruption, fear for what else might be lurking out there.

But in the metal being shaped beneath my hands, I also felt courage, the bravery to face these monsters, to take up with my own hands a means to fight for myself, in place of a dragon god that had failed.

And lastly, as I remembered their smiles, and the treasured belongings they had given me to carry on without them...I felt just a spark of hope flicker within me, that there may yet be a future ahead worth seeing.

These feelings swirled together, heated by the death fires of a phoenix, to create a heat that I had never encountered before. With every strike of my hammer, the fire grew wilder, surging and roaring around the forge, around me, as if...alive, somehow. Yet I did not burn.

Instead it drove me to strike the metal. It told me when, and where my hammer should fall.  It...found something, in me, and I in it, and we...guided one another, I think, something that I was only partially aware of at the time. It burned away all that was left of the scared pup inside me and replaced it with something....someone new, and I repaid it in turn, that intense heat engraving itself into every fiber of the reforged greatsword beneath me.

Fire and metal, sword and bone...two halves of a whole, a weapon and wielder that would never part.

As I write this, I have created. I have stolen back from what had been taken from me. I sit here, staring at it, a blade the length of a grown man, a straight-edged greatsword of black and silver, eerie flames glimpsed within from the corner of my eyes, the edge glowing with an enchanted heat.

Next to it, I see my reflection in the triangular tower shield that matches it, my crest a burning red color on the black surface, edged in shining silver.

I see the segmented, dark steel shell I have forged for myself, a suit of armor reminiscent of the knights of old, rasping with each movement., gleaming dully in the firelight.

Behind my reflection, I can see the flames of the forge, dancing in the cool night winds, the tattered edges of my split cloak rustling as it tugs at them.

I see the dead, black scars beneath my eyes, torn as the phoenix's clawed fingers sought to blind me in our final melee. They will heal in time, but those marks will never leave.

...and I find that I do not care.

The woman that stares grimly back at me is no longer Momiji Inubashiri.

Now and forever more, I truly am...Ventus.

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A/N: Well, it took us like TWO EFFING MONTHS, but at LONG LAST, Ventus is here! This is the turning point in her journals, as written by and marks what is more or less the end of her origin story and transformation from Momiji Inubashiri to Ventus, my CCC tribute to Artorias of the Abyss.

Which you probably should have guessed, considering the armor

On the subject of the armor, I would just like to take a moment to mention that with the possible exception of Deathwave, this is THE single most ridiculously detailed and complex design I have EVER DONE. The original pencil work alone took almost eight hours to complete, but holy hell am I proud of it. I've been working on the actual colors and lineart on and off for the last four days, which is why it took so long. The actual Journal entry here's been done for months now, we just were delayed by me having to find time to work on the actual image. Same for the next few members of Sei Rei's group, including Youmu, so they may be a bit overdue.

For anyone interested in helping out, see my newly opened Patreon for details...and also because the full resolution, 2400x2800 non-watermarked image will be available there for donating patrons. Sorry about that, but I'm trying to start earning a living of of this stuff.

At any rate, with this done, you can probably expect more journals to be released at regular intervals now that we're no longer limited by waiting for the big reveal. Plus, I can take this moment to finally announce that work has begun to convert the CCC Prologue into a fully functional visual novel short story. Granted, we're kinda making it up as we go, since most of us have no idea how to work a VN maker, but we're getting there. The artwork is proceeding pretty smoothly, at least!

That's all for now, see you next time!

Ventus Concept put together by:
Design and art by: Me
Proofreading, assorted fixes and troubleshooting: , and

Collected CCC works found here.