Driven by Revenge, Tri-Edge Rewrite Vol. 1: Rebirth

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1: How It All Began

"Yoshika! It's time for dinner!" came the call of Sayaka Miyafuji, Yoshika's mother, from the kitchen of their family-owned Miyafuji Clinic in Fuso.

"Coming, mom!" Yoshika, who was at the age of ten, called. She ran to the kitchen where her mother and grandmother, Akimoto Yoshiko, were waiting for her. Tonight's dinner was natto, which was one of Yoshika's favorites.

The family of three sat down at the dining room table. "Thank you for the food!" the three said simultaneously, before Yoshika began eating at a fast pace, while her mother and grandmother ate at a more moderate pace. Interestingly enough, all three finished their dinner at the same time.

That was when somebody knocked on the door, causing Yoshika to jump in fright. She was a timid girl who is scared easily and is also pretty shy. The only ones she acts normally with are her family and her childhood friend, Michiko Yamakawa, who Yoshika likes to call "Micchi."

"I'll get it." Sayaka said, while Akimoto tried to coax Yoshika out from under the table. Walking to the door, Sayaka opened it to reveal an officer in a Fuso uniform.

"Is this the Miyafuji residence?" the officer asked.

"Yes, it is." Sayaka replied.

"I have a delivery for you." The officer said, handing over a letter and an envelope.

Sayaka took them. "Thank you."

The officer nodded, and then left.

Sayaka walked back into the kitchen, to see that Akimoto was successful in coaxing the scared Yoshika out from under the table. "Who was it?" Akimoto asked.

"I'm not sure," Sayaka replied, before looking at the letter. Surprisingly, it was from Ichiro Miyafuji, who was Sayaka's husband and Yoshika's father. "But it seems we've got a letter from Ichiro."

Yoshika perked up at the sound of her father's name. "A letter from dad!"

"Hold on, there. Let me read it first." Sayaka said as she opened the letter and unfolded the paper that was inside. Reading it, she gasped. "It's…it's a death notice!"

Yoshika and Akimoto paled. "No…Daddy can't be dead! He was supposed to come back!" Yoshika wailed.

Akimoto had tears in her eyes. "How…how did this happen…?" she asked.

Yoshika was sobbing helplessly into Akimoto's chest as Sayaka opened the envelope, hoping that the document inside would explain. Looking at the document, Sayaka frowned as nearly all of it was blacked out; the only words that weren't blacked out were "Dr. Ichiro Miyafuji was killed in a laboratory explosion…"

Two hours later, Sayaka and Akimoto put the now sleeping Yoshika on her bad and tucked her in. "She must have fallen asleep due to the stress." Sayaka mused.

"It's not surprising." Akimoto agreed as the two of them walked out the door.

Several minutes later, Yoshika slowly woke up. Deciding to take a look at the document for herself, she sneaked into the kitchen where the document laid on the counter. Grabbing it, she then sneaked out of the house into the backyard garden, where there was a large fountain. Walking towards it, Yoshika felt around on the fountain until she felt a barely noticeable notch in it. Pushing on the notch, the entire fountain moved to the side, revealing a secret passage underneath.

This passage led to an underground shrine that only the Miyafuji family knew about, and inside this shrine were the forbidden twin swords, "Empty Skies", which were currently folded and were on a display rack. (A/N: These are the exact same swords that Azure Flame Kite from .hack/G.U. Vol. 3: Redemption uses. [I don't own that either.] Take a look at those swords if you don't know what they look like.) Walking to a table, Yoshika lit a candle and looked at the document, frowning at how much was blacked out.

'I can easily fix that.' Yoshika thought as her hazel eyes glowed with magical power and her pupils changed shape from a normal round into that of a targeting reticule, indicating that she was using her unique magical ability, "Decryption."

This magical ability allows the user to solve any puzzle in a matter of minutes, and can decode and decrypt any message instantly. This also works on blacked-out documents, like the one Yoshika is using her ability on right now.

Pleased to see that her ability is allowing her to read the whole document, Yoshika began reading it, but quickly felt rage after discovering that someone had purposely set up the lab with a disguised bomb to go off at a certain point in one of Ichiro's experiments. Reading on, she learned that it was Trevor Maloney who ordered the "accident" to occur.

"What are you doing?" a strange voice asked.

Yoshika, not expecting for anybody to be here, immediately hid under the table in pure fright, shivering like a leaf.

The ominous voice chuckled. "Calm yourself, young one. I mean you no harm."

Yoshika slowly crawled out from under the table. "Where are you?" she asked, looking around the entrance.

"Turn around." The voice said.

Yoshika turned, but only saw the folded "Empty Skies." "But the only things I see are the forbidden swords…" Yoshika said, trailing off, before her eyes widened in shock. "You mean that you're…?"

"It seems you figured it out. Yes, I am the forbidden twin swords, Empty Skies." The now revealed Empty Skies introduced itself.

Yoshika was shaking like a leaf. "A-A-Are you going to…steal my soul…?" she asked hesitantly.

Empty Skies snorted. "The only souls I steal are those that are not of the Miyafuji family, because only the Miyafuji's are allowed to wield me. Now, what are you doing down here?" the twin swords asked.

Yoshika sighed. "Can you look into my mind like the legends say?" she asked.

"I can, but only with your consent." Empty Skies answered.

"Then please do so. It would be faster than explaining it to you." Yoshika said, allowing the twin swords to look into her mind.

After a few minutes, Empty Skies receded from her mind. "That BASTARD!" the twin swords shouted, taking Yoshika by surprise. "Nobody kills a Miyafuji and gets away with it! Not if I have anything to say about it!" The swords then calmed down somewhat. "So, what are you going to do, Yoshika Miyafuji?" Empty Skies asked.

Yoshika thought for a minute. "I want revenge." She answered.

Empty Skies mentally grinned. "Then take me with you. I want to make that bastard suffer for what he did. But first, you need to get stronger. And to do that, we need to leave."

Yoshika agreed, and grabbed the two custom sheathes for the twin swords and strapped them to her back in an X-shape. She then removed Empty Skies and placed the blades into their sheaths. "So, what now?" Yoshika asked.

"Leave a letter for your family explaining what you did, but make it short. We then need to get a ship out of Fuso." The swords said.

Grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil, Yoshika wrote a simple letter to her family. After she was finished, she extinguished the candle by blowing it out and walked out of the shrine, making sure to cover the entrance back up with the fountain. Placing the letter on her bed, she then walked out of the house towards the harbor, where she then sneaked onto a ship destined for Imperial Karlsland, which left shortly after.

The next morning at the Miyafuji residence, Sayaka and Akimoto both went to Yoshika's room to wake her up. Opening the door, the two were shocked to see that nobody was in the room, and the two noticed a letter on the bed. Akimoto took the letter and read it, her eyes widening as she did.

"Take a look at this!" Akimoto said to Sayaka, giving her the note.

Looking at it, Sayaka read it aloud. "'My magical ability is 'Decryption.' I'm going after the bastard who killed daddy. I am not alone, for I have Empty Skies with me.'"

"Empty Skies…" Akimoto mused, before her eyes widened in shock. "To the shrine, quickly!"

Sayaka nodded, and the two of them rushed to the backyard fountain, which showed signs of being opened recently if the marks in the surrounding dirt were of any indication. Opening the entrance to the shrine, the two quickly entered, only to see that the forbidden swords were gone.

Two months later, the ship that Yoshika was on arrived at Imperial Karlsland, right next to a research lab where a researcher named Ursula Hartmann was developing a new prototype Striker Unit, which she heard about after overhearing a few sailors. Yoshika sneaked off the ship and into the lab once night had fallen, using the cover of darkness to her advantage. Over the two month voyage, Yoshika became a master of stealth and was able to steal food from the ship's mess hall without anyone noticing the missing food. She also learned how to talk with Empty Skies on a mental level, allowing her to have conversations with the twin swords in complete silence. Her personality had also started to change, thanks to Empty Skies giving her mental training.

'So, where to now?' the twin swords asked its' wielder.

'We are going to steal the prototype Striker Unit.' Yoshika responded. 'I overheard the one known as Ursula say that it can fly far higher and far faster than any other Striker Unit, but the drawback is that it uses up magical power far too quickly for any of the other Witches to use effectively. The test Witches were only able to use it for 8 minutes at the most. I recall Ursula calling it the Me 163 Komet, a Striker Unit that's powered by a magical rocket engine. I believe that it was this engine that gobbled up the test Witches' magical power too quickly.'

'Magical power that you have in spades.' Empty Skies realized.

Yoshika grinned. 'Exactly.'

After making sure that the coast was clear, Yoshika sneaked into the hangar that housed the prototype Komet Striker Unit, opening the hangar doors just enough to allow her to make an emergency take-off that she knew she would have to do. Silently running up to the Komet, Yoshika hopped into the Striker Unit and powered it up, releasing it from its' docking clamps.

This triggered the base alarms, causing the Witches that were on standby to rush to the hangar.

Yoshika quickly took off, shocking Ursula who came to check on the Komet. "The Komet has been stolen!" Ursula called in shock, surprising the other Witches. Who would want to steal that magic guzzler? Shaking off that thought, the Witches hopped into their Striker Units and took off in pursuit, hoping that the thief would run out of magical power quickly.

This would not be the case, because Yoshika had enough magical power to use the Komet for fifteen hours nonstop.

After 12 minutes, and with the thief still in the air flying far faster than them, the Witches gave up the chase.

Two hundred miles away from the base, Yoshika found a cave in a mountain range that would be perfect for a makeshift home. Landing in the cave and powering down the Komet, she hopped out of her stolen Striker Unit and lay down on the moist floor, shivering from the cold. She suddenly felt warm.

'You are cold. I will give you warmth until you are able to make your own bed.' Empty Skies said.

'Thank you…my friend.' Yoshika replied.

This caught Empty Skies off-guard, nobody has ever thanked him before, let alone call him a friend. The twin swords, for the first time since it could remember, felt good on the inside. 'What should your new name be? Because I think if the world knew your real name, they would send you back to your family as soon as they can.' The swords asked.

Yoshika thought for a minute. "I think…since I am wielding two triple-bladed swords…how about…'Tri-Edge'?"

"I like it." Empty Skies said. "I have an idea of a symbol for you."

"What is it?" Yoshika asked. The twin swords sent her the image, and she liked it. "Simple, yet terrifying. I like it." She got up and went to her newly acquired Striker Unit and used her second magical ability, "Color Alteration."

"Color Alteration" is often an underappreciated ability, because not many can see the benefit of changing the colors of an object without using paint. By using this ability, one can change the colors of an object. This is useful if you want to change the colors of an object without using any paint that would eventually flake off. This ability also allows the user to add, change, or remove logos, emblems, and details, and is perfect for pranks. It can also be used on the user to change their coloring to match their surroundings, providing camouflage that is extremely difficult to detect. In addition, the user can also reset the color of any object that this ability was used on to their default coloring.

Using her "Color Alteration" magical ability, Yoshika changed the color scheme to a dark green and black camouflage scheme, and removed the Karlsland emblem while replacing it with a red stylized-"A" like emblem. (A/N#2: Look up "Tri-Edge Symbol" on Google Images. It's the first result.)

"I am now…Tri-Edge." Yoshika, or now Tri-Edge, said.

"We will begin training tomorrow." Empty Skies informed. "So get some sleep."

"Good night." Tri-Edge said, before she fell asleep.