Onze appears to be the oldest demi-human to wield the binary stars, possessing liver spots on his head and sword arm in addition to the grey whiskers they all share. Nonetheless, he was the one vassal of Queen Marigga to achieve recognition as a master swordsman; even the skill for his peers’ blades is named after him. So far to the extreme did he take his Star-Lined Sword, he discovered the truth of the binary stars they sought — and it was destruction. Indeed, stars following the same path are inevitably destined for collision. By chaining so many stars to the same link, their flow would naturally lead to an even more catastrophic end, causing untold collateral damage. That was the path every demi-human swordsman unknowingly walked, and by the time those “knights” to Marigga made the discovery for her, it might be too late to stop the destruction they unleashed. Onze, at least, came to the realization before that point. The swordmaster’s technique was so dangerous, he chose to enter Belurat Gaol farthest from his tribe on the north end in order to seal it away.

One might question that point of his self-imposed exile when he could just give up the sword, but abandoning duty was never the intention. As we can witness during our boss battle, Onze has further refined his blade whilst in prison, learning from the cold underground how to draw out the chill of the distant stars as he performs dozens of slashes in a single swing. His very blade inflicts frostbite regardless, showcasing the fruits of his deep immersion in the arcane cosmos with a demi-human’s intelligence. And we see how he tests that blades on others, presumably responsible for the skeletons and corpses surrounding him in the boss room before becoming hostile to us. Onze has been practicing his sword against everyone in the gaol, captive or visitor. The wise master planned to continue honing the destructive power in his hands, hence why he needed a safe and isolated location to contain it. To train without fear of the damage blowing back on his people, he journeyed to the bottom of the Hornsent’s deepest jail.

Joining him was his pupil, Yosh, despite Onze’s insistence against it. Like classic samurai, the student stubbornly refused to leave his teacher’s side even after already mastering the blade himself. When written in kanji, onji (オンジ) can be rendered as “distant will” (遠志) implicating Onze’s longstanding resolve to imprisonment, contrast to yoshi (ヨシ) which can be written as “righteous” (義) to encapsulate Yosh’s fealty to the master. The bond with his pupil was something even the swordmaster couldn’t easily sever. And so, Onze had to accept having Yosh there during training for the rest of the swordsman’s life. It wasn’t a long life, as we receive Yosh’s ashes with Onze’s defeat, proving the wisdom in the master’s words. Perhaps Onze saw it as a waste of the demi-human’s potential, but he kept Yosh’s ashes to mourn as he moved onto new training partners. In a way, they too were binary stars, and their colliding served as Onze’s reminder of the truth he so dutifully explores.

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