"I know what I have to do now… if I want to save him."

Making her way back from the sewers, Litchi returned to her clinic in Orient Town to clarify what she had just pieced together. Lotte still had a small part of his old self left inside what had become known as Arakune. He had spoken in coherent words and sentences unlike every other time before the last. A part of her thought that maybe it was just a coincidence when he managed to say her name but now she was sure he was still in there. If that much of him was left inside his body, she knew there was a chance to save him.

She gathered Lotte's former notes as well as her own research one more time, applying her newfound knowledge of the Boundary to make sure she had come to the right conclusion. Too many events had occurred in the past few weeks surrounding Ragna the Bloodedge, the NOL and the Azure Grimoire. Everything appeared to be connected in some way.

"Everything fits" she uttered. "Before any of this happened to him, he probably came to the same conclusion. The Azure Grimoire." She questioned how far into his corruption Lotte was if he had figured it out. He could have discovered the truth mere moments before he became Arakune or it could have been weeks beforehand and realized he couldn't make a difference to his condition.

Litchi set the papers down and tried to recall how long it took for Lotte to begin losing parts of his memory. It was hard to tell. He often locked himself in to his lab to focus on his research and experiments. All she knew about the memory loss stage was that t it could start happening at any given time and it was possible that she wouldn't even realize it happening to her. If she still wanted to save Lotte, she saw only one other option.

She had to join the NOL for their knowledge and resources.

Finished with the papers she was looking through, she gathered them and put them back in their original places. "Do I really want to join the NOL though?" she thought. "What would everyone think of me then?" Litchi turned to the closest window. The people of Orient Town had made their dislike of the NOL clear. What would it mean for her if they found out she left them to join the organization they hated just to satisfy her own desires?

"No. If I stay and continue working on a way to cure him, I could end up like him. The best thing I can do for them is leave and protect them from… myself" Her voice weakened at the image that came to mind: her body degrading into one like Arakune's.

She always knew there was a chance of it happening but the closer it came, the more it haunted her. Losing her memories and then her body was something she had had nightmares about ever since she started drawing power from the Boundary. She would wake up with tears in her eyes and examine herself to make sure she was still retaining her form. Trying to sleep again afterwards proved near impossible. Once it had entered her mind, the thought remained for some time. Whatever she chose to do, leave for the NOL or stay in Orient Town, she vowed to do all she could to prevent her nightmares from becoming reality.

She still had one way to truly avoid that fate: giving herself up to Kokonoe and Sector Seven. She gave the offer careful thought. If she left to join the NOL, there would be no going back. Kokonoe's patience with her was already wearing thin and the act would be the last straw. After betraying her trust like that, Litchi didn't know what to expect from her.

On the other hand, she considered what would happen if she did decide to return to Sector Seven. She wouldn't have to worry about her corruption. She wouldn't have to spend countless hours trying to find him or trawl through page upon page of everything she could gather about the Boundary. Her life would return to normal. She truly wanted to take that path if it weren't for the immediate problems she saw: everything she had done so far would be a waste and Arakune would continue to wander around with no interference from her. Her theories had been the cause of the creation of Arakune. She was responsible for his actions. She had to be the one to stop him.

Slow and steady progress was being made towards a cure yet it always seemed so far out of reach. Kokonoe had made it clear that she would not help and from what she had been told, even if Kokonoe were to help her, there would be no way to turn Arakune back into the man he once was. With almost everything against her, returning to Kokonoe may well have been the safest and most rational choice to make however she shook her head at the thought. Her own words from years past returned to the front of her mind.

"I'll stay by your side."

If she gave up now, she would be breaking that promise and no matter how small of a chance she had, there was still a chance of saving him. He was in there somewhere and she would save him.

"I've come too far to stop now. If I succeed, everything will go back to the way it was and if I fail… I lose him and myself forever." As much as it pained her to do it, she stood, took Mantenbo with her and prepared to leave. She couldn't tell anyone about what she was doing. It would only make her feel worse.

"Everyone, I'm so sorry but… I have to do this." With a heavy heart, she left her clinic and didn't turn back.

Hazama sat on a chair against the wall in the NOL Headquarters. He held a book in his hands and skimmed his way through a few pages. The book was his way of passing the time until a visitor arrived which he assumed would be in a few moments. He propped his hat up with a finger when he heard footsteps approaching and smirked knowing he was right to expect his visitor and to his assumption of their time of arrival.

"Ah, Litchi Faye-Ling, you showed up after all" Hazama removed his fedora and bowed. "I was beginning to think you were going to let the information I gave you go to waste. So, did you find out what you needed to find out?"

"Yes" Litchi replied after a pause. As usual, he knew more than he should. Why else would he have been sitting there waiting? As cryptic as it was to find that he knew almost exactly what it was that she was doing, she needed information, which she knew he could provide. "You have the azure too don't you? The Blazblue."

Hazama gave a slow clap. "Not a bad job there, figuring that out. Well, kind of anyway. This is just a copy of the original, which is pretty damn impressive to say the least."

"So he does have it and he seems to know a lot about it too" she thought. "How do you know so much about it?"

"Oh come now, that's not really important. Can't you just accept that there aren't a lot of things I don't know? I gave you some nice information about your little friend and that sure came in handy for you, didn't it?" Despite not being happy with his answer, Litchi backed off of the subject. He wasn't going to tell her anything directly. "Well then, I'd say that's enough beating around the bush" Hazama continued. "If you're here, then I assume you've made up your mind."

Litchi nodded. "I don't know what you intended to do by leading me to this decision but I'm running out of time and other options."

Ignoring what she had said, Hazama stepped forward and extended a gloved hand out to her. "So, what do you say? Pals, colleagues, acquaintances? Anyone of 'em is good." Litchi looked down at his hand, hesitant to take it.

"I don't have much choice anymore" she told herself. "I don't trust him at all but… what else can I do? I… have to do this." As she slowly reached out to slip her hand into his gesture, a sharp and sudden pain in her head caused her to pull her hand back.

Hazama didn't appear to react at all to her pain and spoke further. "Oh dear, your head hurts again? Guess you are short on time after all."

"Ugh, it hurts" Litchi ignored what Hazama had said and kept to her thoughts. "Is this like the other times when I was near the Azure?" The pain didn't subside until her vision faded.

When her vision returned, she noticed that she was in an unfamiliar place. She had never seen anywhere like it in Kagutsuchi before. A large spire stood some distance before her with no other points of interest. Just in front of her, Hazama stood lacking his hat with his hair spiked. She would have questioned where she was and what was happening if Hazama hadn't started speaking first.

"I was gettin' a little bored there. Thanks, lady. Now I feel all energized" Hazama turned and faced the spire.

"High concentration of seithr? Are you trying to resurrect the Black Beast?" 'Litchi' questioned.

"It's just like before" she thought. The words she had said aloud hadn't even crossed her mind, she was still trying to make sense of the situation. "This is another 'me'. I'm viewing another possibility but… how is this even possible?" From what she could tell, she couldn't interfere with this 'reality'.

"The Black Beast? What the hell would I want with that failed experiment?" Hazama looked at her as if she had offended him.

"Failed experiment?" she repeated. How could the Black Beast, the cause of the Dark War, be considered a failure?

"The way he spoke about it… then that means…!"

"Well, yeah. Didn't I say that? A huge failure" he confirmed. A smirk formed on his face as he continued. "But that black trash heap you're in love with? Even bigger failure."

"What do you think you know about him!?" Her vision turned white as her other self finished. Hazama continued speaking but his words remained unheard by her.

Litchi let go of her head once her vision returned. "Feeling a little better?" Hazama leaned to the side to reach her eye level.

She kept to her thoughts and didn't respond to him. "Was that really a vision of another reality like the others or did he make this one happen to me?" She assumed it was a possibility since her first vision of sinking into the azure also occurred when he was nearby. "But, if he did it on purpose, why would he show me that? He talked about the Black Beast and him and called them his failed experiments. Just what are these visions?"

"Hello?" Hazama waved a hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Ah, that's better. You kinda spaced out there." Litchi said nothing and adjusted her glasses. "Now then, back to business. You gonna give our little deal a thumbs up?"

Litchi remained silent, still questioning what had just happened. She allowed a few seconds to pass before giving a response.

"No."