Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: The Ice Reaper

Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: The Ice Reaper is a manga that takes place around nine years before the events of Final Fantasy Type-0. It follows the story Kurasame Susaya during his time as a student of Akademeia and as a member of the Four Champions of Rubrum. It is drawn by Takatoshi Shiozawa and published in Shonen Gangan along with the game's manga version.
Western manga distribution company Yen Press has licensed the manga for an English release, beginning with the release of the first volume in July 2015.http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-03-02/yen-press-licenses-horimiya-rose-guns-days-season-one-final-fantasy-type-0-side-story/.85528 Yen Press originally referred to it under the working title Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: The Reaper of the Icy Blade
==Characters==
*Kurasame () - The main protagonist, the Agito Cadet from Class Third and one of the Four Champions of Rubrum.
*Miwa () - The leader of the Four Champions of Rubrum, and the female member in the group.
*Guren () - The mood maker of the class.
*Kotetsu () - The brain of the Four Champions.
*Emina Hanaharu () - Said to be one of the most beautiful cadets. She seems to suffer from loneliness, but is a close friend to Kurasame and Kazusa.
*Kazusa Futahito () - Nicknamed "Four Eyes Fruitcake" . Despite being a weird person, he has a strong friendship with Kurasame and Emina.
*Sayo () - A member of Class Third. Guren's love interest.
==Story==
Kurasame is a member of Class Third at Akademeia, but thinks his classmates are weak, immature, and unfit to be Agito Cadets. He strives to get promoted to Class First, the class of top tier cadets, and the only class that frequently partakes in military missions. With Kazusa's advice, Kurasame tries to be more friendly with the others, and befriends Miwa, Guren, and Oruto.
One day, Class Third has a test of courage at a cave in Rubrum territory. A couple of mysterious Concordian outlaws wipe out the class except for five survivors: Kurasame, Miwa, Guren, Kotetsu, and Oruto, who defeat the Concordians and return to Akademeia. Unfortunately, Oruto dies shortly after their return.
Akademia authorities decide to cover up the incident and treat it as an accident where Class Third was attacked by monsters. It is a political decision to maintain the relationship between Rubrum and Concordia, as they already have enough issues with the Militesi Empire as their enemy.
Several weeks after the incident, The Cadetmaster orders the four survivors to take on a mission in Concordia territory, as a formal request from the royal family of Concordia. The four cadets don't want to take the mission at first since they still hold a grudge against the Concordians, but they change their mind as it might be an opportunity to get promoted to Class First.
Kurasame and Guren fly to the Dragon Sanctuary on a Rubrumite airship. Miwa chooses to stay, as she blames herself for coming up with the test of courage game that led to her classmates' deaths, and for being unable to use healing magics to save any of them. Kotetsu chooses to stay with Miwa, but Takatsugu, commander of Class First, encourages Miwa to fight for her living friends, and Miwa and Kotetsu follow Kurasame and Guren to Concordia.
In Concordia, Kurasame and Guren meet an old Concordian woman who lives with a tonberry in an old cabin in the forest. The old lady changes Guren's attitude about Concordian people being evil, and tell him that Agito Cadets are not fighting only for Rubrumites, but need to lead all of Orience to happiness.
Kurasame and Guren arrive in the town of Amiter, where Kurasame is later lured out alone to the forest. Yumemi, an Akademeia reject, ambushes Kurasame and stabs him in the stomach. She reveals herself as a Rubrumite living in Concordia who can still use magic with the power of the Vermilion Bird Crystal. Yumemi spots the old lady's cabin and attacks her. Kurasame tries to save her, but his wound is too severe. Miwa arrives and defeats Yumemi, but the old lady dies in the burning cabin. Miwa heals Kurasame's wound with magic that she learned after the cave incident.
Meanwhile, Kotetsu arrives in Amiter, where the false mayor tries to mislead him, but Kotetsu exposes them. Guren returns to help Kotetsu, but they are outnumbered by criminals who fled Rubrum to live in Concordia, able to use the power of both Vermilion Bird Crystal and Azure Dragon Crystal, allowing them to use magic and to control monsters. Parts of Amiter are burnt down.
Miwa arrives in the town with Kurasame. She declares they are "The Four Champions of Rubrum" and the four defeat the criminals and rescue the real mayor. The citizens thank the cadets and promise to remember the name "Four Champions of Rubrum" that would be passed on for generations of Concordians. The old lady's tonberry tags along with Kurasame, becoming his faithful sidekick. The four cadets return to Akademeia, and as the result of the successful mission, Kurasame and Guren are promoted to Class First.
Two years later, the Four Champions are now Rubrum's strongest cadets, being called "The faces of the Dominion", and said to be the strongest forces in all of Orience. One day, they are invited to a party where Kurasame meets Aoi Tomoshibi, the daughter of the Deputy Prime Liaison Fuyou Tomoshibi. An imperial assassin attempts to assassinate the dominion leader, but is caught by Kurasame. The assassin says that he's "not the only one" before committing suicide.
The assassin's Knowing Tag proves that the man was a Rubrumite-born citizen who betrayed the dominion and worked for the empire. Commander Takatsugu orders the Four Champions to investigate the case and search for more traitors hiding in the dominion. Takatsugu assigns Guren and Kotetsu to accompany the Deputy Prime Liaison to Meroë while Kurasame and Miwa are deployed to protect Lady Aoi to attend a ceremony in Mi-Go.
A group of imperial men ambushes Lady Aoi's entourage in the forest and captures her. Miwa decides to fight alone and tells Kurasame to go after Aoi. Kurasame rescues Aoi and gets out of the forest safely and they fall in love. The night after the forest incident, with help from Miwa, Kurasame confesses his feelings to Aoi on the terrace of the east tower at Akademeia and the two kiss.
Kurasame is appointed as Aoi's personal bodyguard to protect her from assassination attempts. Matin, another traitor in Akademeia, ambushes them in the Ready Room, but Kurasame and Kotetsu arrest him. The traitor is later executed leading to the Consortium of Eight to strengthen the security in Akademeia by organizing a new intelligence committee to secretly spy on Akademeia's own people. Kurasame opposes the plan, believing that doubting their friends would tear the dominion apart. Commander Takatsugu disagrees, and warns Kurasame against trusting his allies too much.
The imperial spies abduct half of the dominion researchers, including Kazusa's parents. Kurasame heads to Milites alone without an official assignment and entrusts his duty as Aoi's bodyguard to Instructor Urushi. The other Champions accompany him and meet Qator Bashtar on the way to Anson Stronghold. Qator is a Militesi and pilots a prototype Magitek Armor, the newest weapon of the empire, but he loses to the Four Champions.
After Qator retreats from the battlefield, Kurasame wonders how he knew of their movement. He deducts someone from the dominion had leaked the information to the empire, and suspects Instructor Urushi. Kurasame and the other Champions return to the dominion to check on Aoi, but she is already back in Akademeia after Commander Takatsugu and his squad rescued her from the traitor Urushi. Takatsugu was taken by the empire while the others in his squad were killed.
Kurasame is arrested for acting on his own and disobeying the orders and is placed in house arrest. Guren pays him a visit and tells him about the plan to rescue the researchers from Milites, but helping Takatsugu is not part of it since his capture was an anomaly and it would be too risky to change the plan. Kurasame asks Guren to release him so he can go to Milites to rescue Takatsugu by himself. Before leaving, Kurasame tells Aoi of his plans. Aoi doesn't want Kurasame to leave her again, but Kurasame claims he is the only one who can save Takatsugu, and would regret abandoning him for the rest of his life.
Miwa, Guren, and Kotetsu lead the Rubrumite forces, now joined by the Lorican Alliance army who want to rescue the Lorican hostages from the empire, to engage the imperial troops in the front line. Meanwhile, Kurasame sneaks in the stronghold and releases Takatsugu from the underground base.
On their way out they are surrounded by a group of imperial soldiers, led by a general who has a new weapon invented to nullify Rubrumite magic. Being outnumbered, out of a weapon, and unable to use magic, Kurasame surrenders. The imperial general offers Kurasame to join the empire to get his and Takatsugu's lives spared. Takatsugu tells Kurasame not to even think about it. The general executes Takatsugu on the spot and Kurasame unleashes his power as the Ice Reaper, conjuring a sword out of ice and slaughtering the imperial forces. Kurasame brings Takatsugu's body back to Akademeia.
Kurasame becomes even more famous, people now calling him "The Ice Reaper". He and Aoi conclude that despite their love for each other, their paths are too different. Aoi wishes Kurasame the best before parting ways.
The Four Champions continue fighting the imperial troops. Kurasame encounters a powerful enemy, Morse, the former hero of the Milites who got his name erased from Milites' history after betraying his homeland. Kurasame acknowledges how strong Morse is, but after crossing their swords several times, Morse tells Kurasame that they are the same before retreating.
Weeks later, Morse appears in Rubrum territory and attacks Class Sixth members during their field exam. Kurasame saves them and cuts Morse's right arm off leaving him no choice but to retreat again.
The Cadetmaster summons Kurasame, Miwa, and Kotetsu to inform them that Guren has betrayed the dominion by stealing top secret documents from the Intelligence department. She issues an order for Guren's arrest on charges of espionage, and authorizes his termination. The three of the Four Champions doubt that Guren would betray the dominion and decide to find him before anyone else. Meanwhile, the Cadetmaster also assigns them another important mission: to assassinate Marshal Cid Aulstyne of the Militesi Empire to stop his plan to mass produce a new type of Magitek Armor.
Kurasame, Miwa, and Kotetsu, accompanied by Naghi's squad from Class Ninth—a newly formed class specialized in spying, collecting information, and assassination—head to Militesi territory to assassinate the head of the imperial army. Guren appears and ruins their plan by casting Firaga to expose their positions. Guren doesn't tell Kurasame about his situation, but says that "some things are more important than the Champions' mission". Guren retreats, and Kurasame's squad is forced to flee back to Rubrum.
Akademeia has to reschedule the assassination plan. Kurasame, Miwa, and Kotetsu separately leave Akademeia on chocobos, but Morse, now with a mechanical right arm, attacks Kurasame again. After a long fight Kurasame destroys the mechanical arm and decides to stop, since Kurasame thinks Morse is just a delusional person living in the past, trying to make him end up a failure like him.
Kurasame realizes that he's way behind the schedule, he's injured, and also lost his chocobo.
Kurasame later arrives at the Imperial Hendon Stronghold, only to find out that this whole mission is a trap set up by both the empire and the Cadetmaster. The Cadetmaster agreed to trade off the Four Champions' lives for the information of the empire's newest superweapon.
Kurasame and Miwa successfully escape the stronghold but Kotetsu attacks them. Kotetsu reveals that he accepted a secret mission from the Cadetmaster; to eliminate his Four Champions friends and then take his own life, in order to save the Dominion's future from the empire's weapon. Kotetsu stabs Miwa and then manages to kill Guren who came back to help Kurasame.
Kurasame also got stabbed but he uses an ice spell to seal his wound in order to fight a little longer. He finally kills Kotetsu on a one on one duel but he also received a burnt wound on his face and starts losing blood from the wound.
Miwa crawls to Murasame and use her last magic power to heal him. Kurasame regains his consciousness and find out that Miwa decided to heal him instead of herself. Kurasame asks why would she does that for him, Miwa replies "Because I love you" and dies in Kurasame's arms. Kurasame writes down all of his memories about Miwa and the other Four Champions on the ground with his blood before the crystal erase his memories.
After returning to the Akademeia, Kurasame confronts the Cadetmaster. He wants her arrested and to tell the truth about her attempt to sell her own countrymen to the empire, which is a violation to the rules of the dominion but he doesn't want to tear the dominion apart with this incident so he asks the Cadetmaster to commit suicide so the memories about the case will be forgotten. The Cadetmaster ends her own life that night.
Kurasame is appointed a commanding officer by the Chancellor. He starts covering his wound on the face with a mask since.
Years later, Kurasame is a commanding officer of Class Zero and sacrifices his life for Lady Caetuna to summon the Verboten Eidolon Alexander. In his afterlife, he reunites with his Class Third friends and the other Four Champions of Rubrum.
===Extra Chapter: "If Only..."===
Similar to the "What If..." scenario in Final Fantasy Type-0, the extra chapter is a parallel timeline where there is no war. The Akademeia is holding a school festival where the students from other schools including the Militesi Academy are coming to enjoy the event. All the characters are not dead in this timeline. Kurasame and Miwa seem to start falling in love while they're paired up on the dance floor.
The young Class Zero members from the main game made an appearance as the newly joined Akademeia students. Tono Kagerohi (Tiz), Lean Hampelmann (Joker), and Miyu Kagirohi are also joined the Akademeia.
==List of chapters==
Volume	Chapter	Japanese title	English title
1 	1 	 	Agito Cadets
1 	2 	 	In the Darkness
1 	3 	 	Lost and Forgotten
1 	4 	 	Varied Emotions
2 	5 	 	Chance Encounters
2 	6 	 	At the End of Life
2 	7 	 	The Four Champions of Rubrum
2 	8 	 	Escort
3 	9 	 	Where Feelings Go
3 	10 	 	Ideals and Reality
3 	11 	 	Decisions
3 	12 	 	What is Right
3 	13 	 	The Ice Reaper (1)
4 	14 	 	The Ice Reaper (2)
4 	15 	 	Another Hero
4 	16 	 	Betrayal
4 	17 	 	Unconveyed Feelings
4 	18 	 	The Fallen Hero
5 	19 	 	Between Friends and the Mission
5 	20 	 	A Crumbling World
5 	21 	 	Into Fading Emotions...
5 	22 	 	Past and Future
5 	Extra 	 	If Only...
==Production credits==
Artist 	Takatoshi Shiozawa
Story Writer 	Sara Okabe
Character Designer	Tetsuya Nomura
Translators 	Alethea and Athena Nibley
Letterer 	Katie and Lys Blakeslee
==Gallery==
Final Fantasy type-0 Icy Blad of Death book 1 cover.jpeg‎|Japanese volume 1 cover.
TheIceReaper02-cover.jpg|English volume 2 cover.
Final Fantasy type-0 Icy Blad of Death book 2 cover.jpeg|Japanese volume 2 cover.
TheIceReaper03-cover.jpg|English volume 3 cover.
Final Fantasy type-0 Icy Blade of Death book 3 cover.jpg‎|Japanese volume 3 cover.
TheIceReaper04-cover.jpg|English volume 4 cover.
Final Fantasy type-0 Icy Blade of Death book 4 cover.jpg‎|Japanese volume 4 cover.
TheIceReaper05-cover.jpg|English volume 5 cover.
Final Fantasy type-0 Icy Blade of Death book 5 cover.jpg|Japanese volume 5 cover.
FFT0 Gaiden Four Champions of Rubrum.jpg|The Four Champions of Rubrum in an advertisement for the French release.
==External links==
*Official Website (Japanese)
*On Amazon Japan (Japanese version): Vol.1 2 3 4 5
*Free-to-read volume 1 (Japanese)
*On Amazon Kindle store (English, physical/digital): Vol.1 2 3 4 5
==Citations==
ru:Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: The Ice Reaper
Category:Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: The Reaper of the Icy Blade
Category:Manga in the Type series