A Special Mage (Ike x OC)

Chapter 17 - Mastery of War

A very firm knocking sound jolted me awake. After quickly fixing my slightly messed up hair, I opened the door to see that familiar handsome face. "Are we leaving soon?" I asked stupidly.

"Relatively," Ike said. "Most of us are done with our training and just need to mentally prepare."

I rubbed my eyes tiredly and yawned. "What should I do, sir?"

Ike raised an eyebrow. "You're coming to the boardroom with me."

"For what?"

"You'll see."

Luckily, the boardroom wasn't very far from my room, so we didn't have to walk much to get there. And thankfully, there weren't masses of people in there like I had expected, so it was just the two of us still.

Once I entered the room, Ike closed the door behind us and then took a seat across from me at the long table in the middle.

"You'll need this," he said, handing me some food wrapped crudely in cloth.

I kindly thanked him before ravenously digging into it. But as I bit into a juicy apple, Ike started to talk, so I made sure to chew as quietly as possible so I could listen.

He reminded me that I was going to be partnered with him for today's battle since both of our partners were still too weak to fight. As such, there was a desperate need for us to discuss our strategy before the first wave of Daein soldiers arrived. Thanks to the pressure of time and our strategic minds, we were able to come up with a viable course of action in just a few minutes of brainstorming. It all started with Ike mentioning something about how my fighting style was similar to Soren's, so I figured we wouldn't actually have to change much at all. Thus, our master plan was to fight like normal, except I would have to work extra hard to follow his direction and stay close by; something that had greatly challenged me up until that point.

After making sure we both understood what was expected of us, we were as ready as we could be, and we exited the boardroom.

Upon exiting the small fort, the bright light of the morning nearly blinded me, but I made sure that I didn't lose track of Ike as I followed him through the masses of people around us. Some were still eating, some were laughing, but most were clearly focused on the impending battle. Their faces were stone cold beneath their gleaming white and gold helmets, and their valiant postures masked their fears.

Finally, we positioned ourselves in front of a pathway that passed through the trees, and the rest of the soldiers gathered behind us. Everything felt so pleasant and serene, it was almost unbelievable that an army of enemy soldiers was just around the corner from where we were. Just thinking about it was enough to make me tremble a little.

Ranulf's confidence and cheerfulness would have helped me out so much, but thinking of him only made me feel worse. And...oh shoot, how could I forget that I was about to partake in a battle that would decide the fate of an entire country and all its people? And I was going to be on the frontlines of all places, alongside THE General Ike, probably the greatest general in all of Tellius.

How the hell did this happen? I thought to myself with wide eyes staring straight ahead.

As I continued to lose myself in my own head, Titania and some other semi-familiar people joined us near the front and stood at attention. Then, Ike turned around to face them all and addressed them in an authoritative tone, commanding the attention of everyone, including my very distracted self.

"Alright, everyone," he shouted. "This is it! Let's give it all we've got and bring us to victory, together!"

The army cheered fiercely just like they did earlier that morning, and they raised their weapons in the air.