1 Prologue

Conquer with no fidelity,

Triumph through perfidy,

The land shall be guarded but

A vixen shall paint it red.

His eyes are raging with ecstasy as he makes it rain with blood. With his dark-colored daggers, he paints them with red instead, bloody red. His venomous and foul play makes everyone be on their guard, yet shivering and cowering over his very presence. One, two, three, four, then five opponents. He can either make them cry in agony or beg for mercy.

But amidst his festive rampage,it is put into a sudden stop, his eyes widened and slowly, he slumps over. He looks across the battlefield and he can see the familiar long, braided and pink hair of a woman. Flashes of memories ran over his mind, his eyes fixed on the distant woman whom he may never hold dear again.

He feels a warm liquid starting to cover his chest and make his armor turn scarlet. He gazes at her, dearly. She is holding her gun with shivering hands and her shoulders are quivering as if she's sobbing. A small smile is formed on the edge of his lips as he looks down on the ground as his eyelids slowly close.

"You did it," he says almost out of breath. "Do not be sorry, you only did the right thing."

He also wished she'd stop shedding tears for he is not worth it. He failed to keep her away from the chaos he has created.

His boulder-sized colleague summons a huge wall in between them to stop the advances of the woman from killing their leader.

"Curse you and your selfishness," says the girl with her eyes full of tears and hope. Her grip on her rifle tightens just as her chest starts to pain, feeling like it is about to burst.

                          ***********

Her stealth is way better than him, her abilities have reached another level. Her power is overwhelming him beyond his expectation. Her red-colored eyes make her a stranger to him. Running to the left, then to the right, back and forth, her speed is like that of a lightning.

She shows him her deadly limbs colored in black and green, wanting to kill a man who claims that she is not herself, that she needs to wake up.

Using his sword as a support, he stands adjacent to the ground as he speaks to her. But every word he says is not heard for she is no longer the woman he used to know. A tear falls from his eyes as he remembers how terrible their parting was before. And he feels so damn guilty for not being her savior.

"I'm sorry," is all he could say. "I'm sorry for not showing how much I love you."

"Assassination is my way of missing you," the scarlet-eyed beauty mumbles as her weapon sharpens, her own blood slowly covers her Higanbana, sharpening and covering it with deadly poison.

She jumped and attacked him from midair but the akuma ninja blocked her with his sword. He was able to see her up close. And her eyes looked like nothing like before, they were blank. They lack the passion he once saw before.

"Was this my fault?" he asked himself.

                         ***********

Her sobs and hiccups did not affect him as he stands by the side of a winged, mechanical girl. With Bloom floating beside her, she grits her teeth for she cannot bear to see him with his wand on his hand and does not hesitate to kill. The warriors from the Moniyan Empire and Magical City are no exception from his killing list.

"What have you become?" she asks in between her cries. "Come back to my side."

His amethyst eyes glow in excitement, calculating, counting the numbers of deaths he is about to make that moment. His smirk scared her, he has been changed, not just by a little but by a lot.

Her heart aches when the girl beside him holds his other hand. As she stares at their intertwined hands, her once confident heart slowly shatter. It is like a soft and clear mirror breaking slowly, slowly.

She gazes at his eyes and sees that the emotions she saw back then is now turned into nothing but pure evil. Can she change him back? Will she see the mage who had pulled her into the light?

"Come back," she says once more, "Please, come back to me."