First, I must thank u/Haos51 for putting the idea for this theory into my head. So, here it goes:

The Conqueror Who Betrays Guljin:

I theorize that the next hero skin will be a Conqueror who is secretly an inside man, an interloper inside the arena, hired by either old man gryph or the mysterious "Stranger" to free Astrea.

Part 1 of the short story, along with the first week of S3's lore, would introduce this Conqueror and establish his background, his connection to gryph or the Stranger or even Vortiger if they want to be bold with the lore, and how he managed to infiltrate Guljin's forces. The second week would then shift the focus to Astrea: her imprisonment, how she is freed, and what she has endured while being held captive.

Then, in the third week, we would get the big development: old man gryph and Astrea form an alliance of convenience against Guljin and combine their forces. Neither of them necessarily has to forgive the other or suddenly become friends; they simply realize that Guljin is a greater threat and that they need each other to bring her down. And that is where S3's narrative ends, since TU2 is going to be another collab.

At first, I didn't think much of them bringing back the Rise of the Warmongers event for the third week of TYM, I thought it is mealy a teaser, to say that one of the Knight skins of S3 is for Wm. But as u/Haos51 pointed out, that it could be preparation for Astrea's return to the lore, and the more I think about it, the more suspicious the timing becomes.

I don't think they would add new lore to TYM or actually have Astrea break out during the event. Rather, I think the event would serve as a reminder of exactly what Astrea and Warmongers in general were capable of before she returns to the story. Because in Rise of the Warmongers, you're not fighting the Warmonger we have today; you're fighting pre-nerf Warmonger. Yes, she will have the Day 1 corruption feats.

If they are really bringing Astrea back to the lore, what better way to remind everyone why she was such a terrifying villain in the first place?

p.s: I couldn't find a good Conq pic, so enjoy the Y4S2 season art instead.

Never Enough

A Tale from the World of Heathmoor

PRELUDE

Gaki has spent her life fighting. Against Samurai, against hunger, against a world that never wanted her. Hired to spy on the Dokuja house, she expects an easy job. Instead, she uncovers an alliance that could wipe out everything she and her fellow Arakure depend on to survive. When a terrifying oni turns the stronghold into a bloodbath, Gaki is forced to confront a hard truth: strength alone isn't enough. Weeks later, with her gang starving and hunted, Gaki risks everything on a midnight robbery that spirals into chaos. Outnumbered, the Arakure must fight, adapt, and outthink their enemies - or die in the dirt.

PART I

"Filthy imposter!" the plump steward screamed, holding his limp elbow that bent in reverse like a broken hinge. "How did the guards miss her lowborn stench?!" he whimpered in pain, frantically looking at the confused servants scattered around the storage room. Suddenly, a wooden crate lid flew and collided with his forehead.

"I'll break your damn nose, fat ass!" Gaki shouted, lowering her hood to reveal her defiant scowl. "The hell are you looking at?" she hollered at the flinching servants. They stared at her vicious mohawk as she postured like a tiger ready to pounce. Despite wearing the same robes as the other house servants, this brazen thug had no legitimate business at the Dokuja stronghold.

"Nobody moves, or you end up like him! And try not to piss yourselves, I'll be gone in a minute," Gaki assured them as she rifled through one of the open crates. The House of Kizan had hired her to learn why their Dokuja rivals were suddenly rife with supply shipments. The Kizan daimyo expected that she would slip in unnoticed, identify the players, take stock of the goods, and sneak out without a peep. But he should have known better. Subtlety was not Gaki's style.

"What the..." Gaki blurted in confusion. She dug through one crate after another, baffled by their contents. "Where's the Steel? Weapons... Armor... Something!" she growled, shattering fine dishware as she cast it aside. "Typical Samurai bastards. Anything to make them feel superior," she clicked her tongue in disgust, holding an embroidered tablecloth at arm's length like a soiled diaper. "Well? What's it all for?!"

"Th-the banquet for the Khatun," the servant stuttered while attending to the injured steward.

"That's it? A damned party?!" Gaki spat in disbelief.

"Yes! To celebrate their alliance. To cleanse the Myre. To rid our streets of... your kind---" the servant replied with an air of dignity and almost immediately regretted it.

"Get bent!" Gaki blasted the servant's jaw with her fist. She then wound up another punch to vent her frustration at the mere mention of the Mongols. They had turned the Myre upside-down, wiping out black markets and dirty jobs that Gaki's gang relied on for survival. That's why she had insisted on taking this job tonight - even at a discount rate - hoping that whatever she learned could help her gang stay one step ahead.

Suddenly, an injured Kensei warrior interrupted the scuffle. He quickly stumbled through the threshold and landed on his back, flailing his arms in shock. Missing both hands, his open wrists sprayed the walls with fresh blood.

"Aaaaahhhh!!" the pale Samurai's hysterical scream resounded throughout the storage room. "D-demon! It's... it's a monster!" the handless warrior cried. Despite his suffering, Gaki's stomach knotted with disdainful resentment. He was a stranger, but that did not stop her from hating him.

Decades ago, a Kensei killed her older brother, Suiichi, during a failed heist. Now, her only family was her fellow Arakure because of men like this. Men who clung to antiquated codes of honor - who considered classless outlaws like her less than human.

Gaki suppressed the memory, unsettled by the silence. After the Kensei's final breaths had faded, Gaki caught her reflection in the blood pooling around him. Slowly, it rippled under distant and heavy footsteps. Perhaps she was not the only uninvited guest tonight...

PART II

"How much is enough? We got nothin' left to give," Gaki sneered, looking up at the chiseled, expressionless mask of Guljin. She had followed the echoing steps along the corridor, but the oppressive stone statue in a small interior garden had drawn her ire. A banquet was one thing, but Gaki couldn't help but scoff in dismay at this little tribute, doubtless erected to honor the alliance. This was, unfortunately, exactly what she had been hired to find out - she just hadn't expected to have any skin in the game. If the Dokuja house and Mongols cleaned up the Myre, the criminal underbelly she and her gang of Arakure relied on for survival would cease to exist. She could not let this happen.

"Wanna look down on me?!" Gaki roared. Every muscle in her body swelled in a wave of bitterness as her temper flared. She cracked her knuckles then released a deep exhale as she welcomed her wooden tonfas into a tight grip. With two strikes to crack and one to sever the neck, Guljin's stone head toppled to the ground and Gaki spat on it. "Now I'm lookin' down on you."

"W-what can we do?! It will surely kill us too!" two Orochi guards scrambled down the corridor, jerking their necks to look behind them as if trying to outrun something.

"Another monster?" the other wondered as he caught sight of the beheaded statue.

"Nothing so sinister," the other Samurai assured him, while sizing up Gaki. "Just a lowly Arakure. A stray dog sniffing for scraps," he continued as they both drew their katanas.

Gaki smirked and cocked her neck, then quickly hopped in place and rolled her shoulders like an athlete warming up before a competition.

"Yeah, you think so, dumbass? You're the only bitches I see," she snarled, effortlessly spinning her tonfas. In a flash, their katanas sliced down. Tucking and weaving between their blades, Gaki bounced between her two assailants with technique honed from years of brawls in tight alleys and grungy taverns.

"Hnnnngh!!" one of the poor Orochi squirmed as Gaki fired a cruel kick into his groin. He nauseously sunk to his knees, and Gaki twirled around to fend off the other Samurai, who erupted in offense at her dirty tactics.

"Such dishonor... Impudent brat!" He flew at her, but Gaki's evasion was imperfect this time, and the katana's sharp tip grazed her shoulder. She was distracted by a cacophony of swelling, terrified cries.

"Get out!"

"Run!"

"How do we get out?!"

Gaki and her opponents twirled around to watch as a sea of guests and servants spilled into the corridor and hurried towards them in fear.

"I'll have your head!" the Orochi scolded a guest who pushed past him, and suddenly the entire hall was bursting with desperate people seeking an exit. He raised his head above the crowd in vain, but Gaki had already disappeared in the shuffle. Hiding in the garden, she waited to emerge until silence fell, then halted abruptly at a twisted vision. At the end of the hall, her gaze locked on two blazing red eyes. Perhaps it was once human, but now... All that remained was a demon.

PART III

Gaki instantly recognized the fabled Aka mask. It was deeply buried in a memory of one of Suiichi's bedtime stories that inevitably kept her up all night. The tale told of an insane warrior who slayed a hundred victims, and now he was standing right in front of her. From the neck down, she wagered he was a formidable Sohei warrior. The collected arsenal of seven unique weapons. The rigid posture that harkened to a monk's lifestyle long abandoned. But that oni mask... The folklore claimed that it was originally pure white - and only stained red by the blood of his victims.

"I'm not with the Dokuja," Gaki declared without thinking. The oni gave no reply as it ambled towards her. "And I'm not running!"

The oni retrieved his tetsubo and clapped it into his palm. Gaki knew there was nothing left to say. This wasn't personal, so why waste her breath? Just shut up and make a move, Gaki thought, before the oni suddenly swatted her with the iron club and sent her flying through a shoji panel into an adjacent room. She groaned in pain, lying in a heap of broken wood and torn rice paper. She was now in some sort of candlelit archive lined with shelves of books and scrolls. Flustered, Gaki watched the oni retrieve his kumade with his other hand, the sharp raked claw reflected in the flickering light.

"Just an overgrown child. Nothing without your toys..." she remarked bitterly, bolting back up onto her feet. The oni took a wide swipe at Gaki, but she promptly slid aside and latched on to his forearm, attempting to dislocate his shoulder. As she strained and tugged, she failed to gain suitable leverage, allowing the oni to hoist her up off her feet and run straight into the wall, crushing her ribs. She gasped to fill her empty lungs and blinked hard to see the oni silently looking down at her, about to end her life. Yet even through excruciating pain, Gaki rose once again.

"I'm on your side... Idiot! Or at least... Not on theirs," she huffed, scanning her surroundings for anything to buy her time. She didn't need to kill him. She didn't even need to win. She just needed to survive. Aside from a low flimsy table, there was nothing she could use - except a small burning oil lamp lending a feeble light to their pitched battle. Gaki lunged and hurled it into the shelf of scrolls, shattering the ceramic vessel. The paper was immediately engulfed in oily fire, spreading up the wall and dripping onto the floor.

"I don't care why you cut up all those Dokuja," Gaki huffed, trying to bide time for the fire to spread. "Won't change anything..." she coughed and spat as a smoke screen divided them. "They only care about themselves," she called, when suddenly, the wooden shoji frames burned through, and the entire roof collapsed between them. Gaki watched the oni's red eyes meld with the flames until they dimmed. Until everything was swallowed in black.

EPILOGUE

It was midnight at the granary, and the doors were wide open.

"Screw you, assholes!" Gaki shouted at the Samurai guards bearing down on her gang. She was throwing angry strikes, pissed off that a patrol closed-in faster than expected. Pissed off that this is what it took for outsiders like them to survive. But that's what she trained the Arakure to do. No matter what, they survived.

"Lucky bastard---" Honoka coughed up blood in a messy spatter. One of the Kensei had cut deep under the young Arakure's rib, and Gaki suddenly thought the price of four bags of rice never felt so high. She spun up both tonfas and swung across the Kensei's helmet with swift vengeance.

"Time to go!" Gaki announced, taking Honoka's arm over her shoulder. Her eyes darted around at the endless shelves of grain, desperate for an exit. But there was none. Gaki cursed under her breath, when suddenly an Orochi katana swung down and ruptured her bag of rice, spilling out into the dirt.

"Looks like more wanna party..." Touri, another Arakure, called. She looked deflated as two more Orochi reinforcements arrived. "What's the plan?!"

Gaki remembered the oni's red eyes flickering in the flames. She was disgusted by the outcome that night but later considered survival a victory. It didn't pay to be careless. She had to be resourceful.

"Put something between us - hit those ropes!" she pointed at the suspended pallets stacked with heavy bags. Touri dove to the cranks and hammered on them until they released. The Samurai had little chance to react once gravity brought the stacks plummeting down on them. "Hurry up. I'm starving."

Later, when the sun crept awake, Gaki, Touri, and Honoka gathered around a precious flame in a dirty alley. Gaki raised a single sad bowl of steaming rice in the cold air. Peering at it in disbelief, Honoka released a slow, pained laugh.

"I got stabbed for that?! Come on... I lost enough blood for at least two bowls," she winced and touched her bandaged rib.

"Damned Khatun don't need it anymore. Haven't seen one in weeks," Gaki muttered, savoring the notion.

"You think the Kizan will try to squash the Dokuja while they're still picking up the pieces? That's what I'd do," Touri paced, punching her palm. "I say we hit those assholes head-on next time!"

"I have a better idea," Gaki mused, taking a bite and passing the bowl along. "Next time we don't get caught."

here's the link to the short story:
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/for-honor/news-updates/Mf7VRmO67cYDlXIbC7Lb5/never-enough

there it is, the bombshell of TU1.

Is there anyone who still believe Ayu is alive, or has faked her own death?

We are dealing with lore writers who collectively have a room temp iq.