"This is E.S. Descerna. Over."

"E.S. Descerna, your request for permission to board has been granted. Welcome back, Lady Akuba."

"It's good to be home..."

The craft guided in smoothly to the ship's docking bay. It was black with markings of dark silver, and in the hand of the colossal machine was a scythe of the machine's stark contrast in color. Shades of ivory, white, and silver blended and wrapped together to create the light colored weapon.

Inside the craft, the pilot let out a sigh of relief. They had not seen 'home' in almost 3 months.

What is 'home' you ask? The daughter ship to the Durandal, the Joyeuse. Both ships appear the same except their coloring. Where as the Durandal is a crimson red, the Joyeuse is a darkened indigo, making it nearly impossible to see against the vastness of space if the 'wings' are in the right alignment. The Joyeuse was commissioned by none other then Gainun Jr. him self after the destruction of the Durandal during the incident with Abel's Ark.

Now however, with Little Master out in search of Lost Jerusalem, control of The Joyeuse was handed over to Mary and Shelly Godwin. Neither saw them self fit for full command of the vessel, and went in search of a former friend of Gainun and Little Master. This is where Akuba comes into play.

Akuba Haruseki, female dancer and reaper. The hired assassin of Dmitri Yuriev and his personal body guard, before the U.R.T.V.'s popped into the picture. One of few surviving victim's a brainjacking incident that was quelled my Yuriev himself. Akuba took up a scythe during the 'Nursing Plant Incident', in which she was present, in order to defend a single child that reminded her of one from her past before the mentally scaring event that erased half of her memory and all but the childs face with it. This is where E.S. Descerna's weaponry inspiration came from. Descerna's coloring however, came from her own.

Her hair was a dark silver with black tips, and her skin a perfect shade of ivory. Her hair was long enough to touch the floor when let from it's tight binds, binds which held it in her trademark three four-way braids. Her eyes however, were the only thing that didn't seem to fit into her complexion. They were a strange, criss-cross almost, of a gory red and a sharp amethyst. There was no pattern to the two colors either.

It was these eyes they gave her the title 'reaper'. Many said that if the Grim Reaper were to be born of flesh and blood, his eyes would mimic her own, and her incident of taking up a scythe against a testament was not the universe's best kept secret.

Akuba was also one of few people that got closed to Dmitri Yuriev, and the only one to come out unharmed and unchanged in anyway.

For now however, Akuba was home. She would stay here for the next 6 months and then she would dart off again for another 2 to 3 months. She had made it her personal mission to find Lost Jerusalem before Little Master. No one really knew why, but she was set on that goal and nothing was stopping her. But now, she had run out of leads as to where the last remnant of Earth was.

Akuba leaped out of her craft and started off to her quarters. She needed to rest for a bit before she went off to socialize with the crew or the sisters on the bridge. She would sleep in what she wore, wake, change, walk around lost in thought for a while, then be off to flit around like a social butterfly and get caught up on everything that has happened. Or she would have followed that routine, had every alarm on The Joyeuse not gone off at the exact moment her head hit the pillow. Akuba knew what was wrong. It was the new sensor system placed in The Joyeuse. It was there to alarm the crew if anything remotely similar to a Gnosis, a Vessel of Anima, an Emulator, or anything of that nature were to be around.

Now this very system was going off.

Akuba had one thought in her head.

They had found it.

They had run across Lost Jerusalem.

Now, she just prayed to whatever higher power may be that she was right...

'Mental note, start working on my land speed.'

I was running toward the bridge, forget the Loop Line, I could run there faster then it could get me there complements of my location. The alarms had started to go crazy as soon as I laid my head on the pillow. I knew them like no other, they were our Ethereal Energy Detection System, or some non-sense name like that.

All I knew at that moment however, was that I was close to my goal. I wanted to beat Little Master there for my own reasons, one of them being I knew who was waiting there. KOS-MOS had been destroyed, but her soul would be there. As would chaos'. I had pulled some strings and gotten KOS-MOS body rebuilt, all I needed was her soul. And as for chaos… I knew his body would still be intact, I just had to get to him.

Most didn't know it but I was in Miltia when the conflict started. I was assigned by Yuriev himself to escort the U.R.T.V.s to their target location. I did just as I was told and watched the entire scene. I could do nothing but stand and watch, I was under orders not to interfere. So I watched as each one became infected, and they turned on me and on their leader. I grabbed Rubedo and ran, he had cut the link and started to walk off so he was now going to come with me. He and I managed to grab Nigredo along the way and we managed to make it out alive. It was then that I met chaos. 'Take the boys and leave me, you can't carry all of us back so take the two that need help.' My exact words I will remember forever… I never saw chaos or Cannan after that. I knew Cannan was dead now, but I could still find and thank chaos.

I finally reached the bridge and bolted off of the elevator to the highest vantage point in the room. What I saw shocked me. I had not found Lost Jerusalem. What I had found was the remnants of KOS-MOS mechanical body. They still held traces of the energies from almost a decade ago…

My head hung low and I grasped the edge of the controls in a death grip.

There went that dream…

"Pull her in and have her placed in a controlled condition room. I want nothing to happen to that body. If I find anyone other then myself, Mary or Shelly in that room, you will face something far worse then Little Master ever could be!"

I spun on my heel and was at the edge of the elevator when a connection came through.

"Hellooo? Everyone still alive?"

I stopped. That voice…

"Yeah we're here Little Master! We just found KOS-MOS body, or what's left of it. We were about to pull it in."

"Great! Do that and follow the detection system to Lost Jerusalem. I can see you from Asher, so floor it!!"

Now, that shocked me. I ran straight to my craft and leaped in, he would not beat me to the surface.

"Open the damn launch gates!! Now!!"

"A-affirmative. E.S. Descerna, you are clear to launch."

Her voice quivered. They knew that if Lost Jerusalem was near by that I would not stop till I was on it, and with it so close, trying to stop me in any effect was suicide because I had a one-inch punch that could crack your skull and snap your neck from the impact with the wall if I delivered it to your gut. I launched and sent a stream of energy into the control systems. Descerna was modified so I could use my own energy to increase performance. In this case, it was to propulsion. She shot off at a speed no other craft could attain and I zipped right by Asher. Rubedo knew why I wanted to get there as fast as possible. He vaguely remembers my telling chaos and Cannan to leave without me, but he knows I did.

I quickly landed on it's surface and ran through the maze like place that was between the nearest E.S. accessible point and where I knew they would be. There were no Gnosis to hinder me surprisingly; I thought the place would be swarming with them. I continued on until I saw a large crack in the wall to my right. I walked through it and onto Rennes-Le-Chateau. My thoughts had been too chaotic to register until I stepped out here. I felt something below me, something malicious. I knew it had to be the sealed dark intensions of the wills that were the Gnosis. I knew they would not break free so I continued on, following a gut instinct that told me where to go. I walked through a grassy path and saw a set of stairs. I walked down them and then through the memorials to the fallen people the original E.S. craft were named for. I continued and walked into the area ahead. I stopped when I saw what was there. I could see KOS-MOS tied to her stone cross, as if asleep and waiting to be awakened. And in front of her, was an open grave. Mary's grave. Sitting against this grave was the person I wished to see.

chaos…

Behind me the entire crew of the Elsa had arrived. I stood there, looking on in awed respect of the two before me. Rubedo had grown now, his merging with Albedo had given him back his ability to grow, so he stood at six inches my superior. He walked up behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. I started to walk forward and stopped. The seal from earlier broke. I saw chaos's head shoot up, as did KOS-MOS', they knew what had happened. KOS-MOS seemed to flicker for a moment before she tore through the wires that held her to the stone cross. The fact that dust flew up from the ground when she landed told me she had somehow retrieved her rebuilt body from The Joyeuse. I was proud of my work only for a moment, because the next a young man in white with black hair walked in, his eyes closed, through a whole that had been busted in the wall to our left. To say the boy was handsome would do him no justice, but I knew that ethereal beauty anywhere…

Lucifel…

As that thought crossed my mind, he opened his eyes to reveal the mimic of my own.

My little brother…