Cardinal Virtue



Cardinal Virtue (風林火山) is one of Lexaeus's axe swords in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

Design
The Cardinal Virtue has a han blue color and has a black and gold semi-circle set in its pommel. The counterweight and blade are separated by a gold cross with a silver border and a red diamond in each of its side arms. The counterweight and blade, when viewed together, resemble a misshapen “X”. The counterweight is quite long and has an indentation halfway down its length. It is black with gold edges, a flat tip, two red semi-circles decorating its lower edge, and a thin red line decorating the upper half. The blade is even longer and has an indentation roughly three-fourths of the way down its length. It too is mostly black with gold edges. It also shares the thin, red line decorating its top half. Its upper edge sports two semi-circular notches, while the tip is flat and flares outward.

The weapon's English name refers to the cardinal virtues of Christianity: Justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude.

Its Japanese name is a reference to a quote from Sun Tzu's The Art of War which was used as a battle standard by the Sengoku period daimyo, Takeda Shingen. In the original passage, the quote reads:

"Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest. In raiding and plundering be like fire, be immovable like a mountain."

Gameplay
The Cardinal Virtue's normal ground combo starts with a one-handed upward diagonal slash and ends with a powerful, two-handed downward slam. The combo can be activated after the first upward slash, and consists of two one-handed upward slashes, the second slower and more powerful than the first, followed by Lexaeus performing a leap and a one-handed downward slam.

The aerial combo consists of a two-handed upward slash followed by a powerful, one-handed downward slam.