The Loser Is the War Commander

The iron gates of Willowbrook Cemetery groaned as they swung open, their rusted hinges protesting against three years of neglect. Darius Kane stepped through, his military boots crunching against the gravel path. Behind him, Aria Stormveil moved with the practiced silence of a shadow, her hand never straying far from the blade at her hip.

The cemetery sprawled before them—overgrown, forgotten, much like the memories Darius had tried to bury alongside his family.

"Master," Aria murmured, her voice barely above a whisper, "the Kane family plot should be just ahead."

Darius nodded, his jaw set in a hard line. Three years. Three years of blood, sweat, and warfare. Three years of clawing his way from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of military glory. And now, finally, he has returned.

But as they rounded the corner toward his family's resting place, Darius froze.

Five men surrounded the Kane family graves, their hands gripping sledgehammers and crowbars. At the center of the chaos stood a young woman, no more than twenty, her slender frame positioned protectively before two weathered tombstones. Her clothes were tattered, her face smudged with dirt, but her eyes blazed with defiance.

"I said back off!" the girl shouted, her voice cracking with desperation.

The leader of the group, a pot-bellied man with a scarred face, laughed—a sound like grinding metal. "Listen to this little rat squeaking! You think you can stop us, girl? You're nothing but dirt under our boots!"

"Yeah!" another thug chimed in, spitting on the ground. "You've been living here like some cemetery dog, protecting these worthless stones. What are you, too stupid to know when you're beaten?"

The girl's fists clenched at her sides, but she didn't move. "These graves belong to the Kane family. I won't let you touch them!"

"The Kane family?" The scarred leader threw his head back and roared with laughter. "That family of dead losers? They've been rotting in the ground for three years! Nobody cares about them anymore. They were nothing but worms, and now they're feeding worms!"

His companions joined in the mockery, their voices overlapping in a chorus of cruelty.

"Their son ran away like a coward!"

"Probably died in some ditch somewhere!"

"The Kanes were always trash. They deserved what they got!"

Something cold and terrible settled in Darius's chest. His hand moved to the hilt of his sword, but before he could take a step forward, Aria's voice cut through the air like a blade.

"Master, allow me."

Darius glanced at her, saw the controlled fury in her eyes, and nodded once. "Handle it."

Aria moved.

One moment she was at Darius's side; the next, she was among the thugs like a wolf among sheep. Her first strike was a blur—the pommel of her blade crashing into the nearest man's temple. He crumpled without a sound.

"What the—" The scarred leader barely got the words out before Aria's boot connected with his knee. The crack echoed through the cemetery like a gunshot.

"You dare!" another thug screamed, swinging his crowbar wildly.

Aria caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted, and sent him sprawling into a gravestone. "Dare? You speak of daring while desecrating the dead?"

The remaining thugs backed away, their earlier bravado evaporating like morning mist.

"Do you know who I am?" the scarred leader howled from the ground, clutching his shattered knee. "I work for the Reksar family! Young Master Reksar sent us! You're dead! You're all dead!"

"The Reksar family?" Aria's voice was ice. "Then you're exactly the trash we expected to find here."

The young woman who'd been guarding the graves stood frozen, her eyes wide with shock. Then, slowly, her gaze shifted to Darius. Recognition dawned across her features like sunrise breaking through storm clouds.

"Y-You..." Her voice trembled. "Young Master?"

Darius stepped forward into the light, allowing her to see his face clearly. The girl's knees buckled, and tears began streaming down her cheeks.

"Young Master Darius! You're alive! You came back!"

"Alessia?" Darius studied her face, matching it against memories three years old. "You're... Steward Lenoard's daughter?"

"Yes!" Alessia sobbed, rushing forward but stopping just short of him, suddenly aware of the vast distance that had grown between the girl he'd left behind and the woman she'd become. "I—I stayed! I stayed to guard your family's graves! I promised myself I wouldn't let anyone harm them!"

Darius felt something twist in his chest—an unfamiliar sensation after years of hardening his heart on the battlefield. "You've been here alone all this time?"

"Someone had to!" Alessia wiped at her tears furiously. "After what happened, everyone scattered. But I couldn't... I couldn't just leave them. Your mother was always kind to me. Your father saved my father's life. I owe them everything!"

The scarred leader, still writhing on the ground, let out a bark of bitter laughter. "How touching! The little cemetery rat and the supposedly dead heir! This is even better than I thought!"

Darius's gaze slowly descended to the man. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

"You have something to say?"

The thug's laughter died in his throat, but pride—or perhaps stupidity—made him press on. "You think you're someone special? You're nothing! The Reksar family destroyed your pathetic clan like stepping on ants! And when Young Master Reksar hears you're back, he'll finish what he started!"

"Is that so?" Darius's voice was soft, almost gentle. "Then you should call him."

The scarred leader blinked. "What?"

"Call for reinforcements." Darius checked his watch with deliberate slowness. "You have one minute. I suggest you use it wisely."

"You—You're insane!" The thug fumbled for his phone, his hands shaking with pain and rage. "You have no idea what you've just done! The Reksar family is B-rank nobility! They have connections, power, soldiers! You're just one man!"

"Fifty seconds," Darius said calmly.

The other thugs scrambled for their phones as well, their fingers flying across screens as they barked urgent messages into their devices.

"Boss! Boss, we need backup at Willowbrook Cemetery!"

"Some crazy bastard is challenging us! Send everyone!"

"He says he's... wait, he says he's Darius Kane! The one who—"

"Thirty seconds," Darius announced.