Yes, I know I should probably do Twenty Warriors before this, but honestly, there's stuff here I want to take care of before I get to that. So without further ado, let's get it on with the next chapter of this epic.

Ike and Fiordiligi find themselves on a strange new land with only a strange man with a horrible burn all over his body to greet them with great hostility and no sign of their friends.

The two adventurers, undaunted by their harsh welcome, decide to continue in the direction they were headed in, finding themselves lost and with no more clues about the locations of their friends than they started with.

As they continue on their road to nowhere, the two of them find a place to rest...

Chapter 2: A Light in the Confusion

Ike sat down by the little pool they had found, taking care to lay Ragnell gently on its side as Fiordiligi sat onto the ground a little less carelessly.

The two of them had been journeying for quite a while when they found themselves arriving at a strange kind of pool by the river. They had decided to stop there as they had seen no traces of day or night pass in their location at all and the mist had not lifted. After what felt like several days of constant walking, the two of them desperately needed rest, food, and water, and all three of these would be met at the spring.

"My goodness," said Fiordiligi, voice hoarse from the lack of useage of her vocal cords and the lack of water. "I really need this..."

"I know," said Ike as he crawled towards the pool. "The fact that we're both still alive is a bit of a miracle."

"It is a miracle," reprimanded Fiordiligi, unabe to summon her harshest personality from lack of use of her voice. "What are you talking about, 'a bit'?"

"True," said Ike as he made it to the pool and cupped his hands inside the waters. "Oh, dear, I really need this."

As Ike was about to bring the handful of water up to his lips, however, he felt a strong burst of wind go right past him, and he could have sworn that he saw the form of a man in a black robe flying over the river that the two of them were looking on. A bewildered Ike looked after the strange sight long after it had dissapeared in the mist, and then he looked at Fiordiligi who had just stared after him as Ike did.

"What was that?" asked Ike.

"Do you think I know?" asked the lady angrily. "I'll be damned if I do."

Ike shook his head and crawled over to the pool again, cupping his hands in the clear fluid again and this time successfully bringing the water to his lips. The taste of water was fresh and tangy in his parched mouth, and he cupped his hands again for several more mouthfuls of water, each handful being all the more invigorating than the last.

When he looked to Fiordiligi, who was also drinking the water with absolute ferocity, he could not help but smile. He knew his friends were most likely not safe wherever they were, but at least with this he knew he had no worries of dying before he found his friends. The mercenary laid back, his arms acting as a pillow for his head as he looked at Fiordiligi drink from the pool.

As soon as Fiordiligi had taken her fill from the pool, she looked to Ike, a small smile on her face as she looked at him with a drunken gaze.

"That felt so good," she said, her voice sounding much more like the voice of the Fiordiligi that Ike was used to. "Jeez, Ike, we really need to rest."

Ike by this point was too tired to reply with words, instead choosing to nod as he closed his eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

He was woken up by Fiordiligi's light nudging.

Groggily, Ike opened his eyes and groaned. He barely had time to register what was happening before Fiordiligi began to tug at his arm, forcing him to stand up sooner than he should have.

"Ike!" whispered Fiordiligi hurriedly as she slapped Ike softly on the cheeks to wake him up. "I think that man with the burn is here!"

The mercenary was woken up by Fiordiligi's little slaps, and when he looked at her briefly with confusion in his eyes.

"What?" asked Ike

"You heard what I said!" exclaimed Fiordiligi nervously. "Now go get Ragnell and let's get out of here before they find us!"

"All right, all right," said Ike, running over to the ground were his orange blade lay and grabbing it quickly.

As he did this, he felt his wrist get taken by Fiordiligi, and he had barely gotten a secure hold on his sword before he felt her pull him in a seemingly random direction. The mercenary made to protest when he saw a wood a short distance away in which the trees were clustered very close together. Seeing this as a hiding place, Fiordiligi quickly ducked into the woods, pulling Ike along by the wrist as she ran deeper into the cluster of trees. Finally, she stopped, panting against a tree as she took a moment to catch her breath.

"That... was close..." said the lady.

"Yeah, but what if that guy finds some way of luring us out?" asked Ike.

"I wouldn't worry about that," replied Fiordiligi as she stood up. "What we need to worry about now is getting any leads on where Maria is."

"Fiordiligi, are you sure?" asked Ike, concern ridden in his eyes as he asked the question again, this time being more thorough.

Before she could reply, a loud hawk call sounded above them, Ike covering his ears as he glared at Fiordiligi.

"I told you!" cried Ike angrily. "Now let's get out of here!"

Without waiting another second, Ike grabbed Fiordiligi's arm roughly before running into the forest as quickly as he could. As he ran, he could not help but find that there was no quick getaway for him at all. The hawk calls still rang throughout the forest loudly, resounding in their ears even as they tried their best to get away from the source. The mercenary was constantly bumping into trees to evade the calls, but not one went unheeded as the two of them ran, their ears losing themselves in the sheer volume of the calls. Due to this dilemma, Ike unwittingly ran out of the forest and into a clearing, the mercenary stopping almost as soon as the bircalls ended as they realized that they were now facing a familiar face.

From above flew a hawk laguz with brown feathers, the man with the burn across his entire body standing a short distance away from Ike and Fiordiligi. As the bird flew down, he transformed into his human state to reveal a hawk laguz with black hair on his head and a strange purple complextion to his skin that was uninviting to the eyes. His eyes were white, carrying a strange color on them that was both unsettling and yet somehow morbidly attractive. On the other side of the burned man stood a young woman with hair the color of grass who wore mage's clothing. She would have looked normal if not for the fact that her throat appeared to be slashed, the blood seemingly frozen as she looked at them with cold auburn eyes.

"We've got you now!" cried the man with the burn overzealously, unable to make any expression with his face burned the way it was. "You can't escape!"

"What the hell are you talking about, escape?" asked Fiordiligi, getting angrier by the moment. "We were never trying to escape!"

"That's what they all say before they get sent down!" said the man with the burn. "Guys, after him!"

Instead of a rush into battle, however, the burned man was met with a groan from the woman to his left, who shook his head and proceeded to walk towards Ike and Fiordiligi.

"I apologize for my friend's behavior," said the woman in a heavy accent. "He is very, very stupid."

"W-what? Agniezska!" cried the man with the burn in a tone of voice that indicated offense, turning to face the woman with his eyes glowing in shock. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Honestly, Andrew," added the hawk laguz on the other side of the man with the burn. "Can't you tell they're not dead yet?"

"Gregor!" asked the man with the burn angrily. "These people are from hell, I can tell!"

"You say that because you cannot read spirit signs right!" said the woman whose name was apparently Agniezska with a slight scoff.

"Hold on a minute!" cried Ike, waving his hands around as Fiordiligi stood there. "What the hell is going on here? Spirit signs? Hell? Dead? What's going on here? And why were you trying to catch us again?"

"Gee, thanks Andrew," said the hawk laguz. "You didn't even tell them where they are?"

"B-but...!" exclaimed the burned man, who stuttered constantly after the fact.

"I apologize for his rash actions towards you," said the grass-haired woman calmly. "This is a very strange case. Your spirit signs indicate that you are alive, yet to be here is strange..."

"Oh, just shut up and get to the point already!" cried Fiordiligi impatiently, pointing at the strangers accusatorily. "Where the hell are we?"

"You, my friends, are in the underworld," said the green-haired woman calmly. "Or, as some would like to call it, the land of the dead."

Ike looked at her confusedly, Fiordiligi simply taking a step back towards Ike to wonder what she had just said.

"The land of the dead?" asked Ike. "So, we're in the afterlife..."

"That is essentially it," said the hawk laguz with a wink.

"Wait a minute..." said Fiordiligi, suddenly noticing the markings on everybody. "So those markings...?"

"Oh, these?" asked the hawk laguz as he indicated his skin, the other man's burn, and the woman's slashed throat. "These are our death-scars. Every inhabitant of this place has one."

"Wait, so however you die is however you get scarred here?" asked Ike, he and Fiordiligi cringing a little as a disturbing thought came to the both of them.

"So that means..." said a slightly flustered Fiordiligi.

"I got poisoned, my friend here got burned alive, and my other friend got her throat slashed?" asked the hawk laguz with a glance. "That's the basic gist of it, yes."

"Oh, dear..." said Ike as a drop of sweat rolled down the side of his face. "I'm don't want to know what my father looks like..."

"But I don't get something," said Fiordiligi with an arm gesture. "Why aren't we absolutely drenched if we're supposed to be dead?"

"Water death?" asked the hawk laguz. "I would not worry about that. For some reason, your spirit sign says that you aren't even dead yet, so that's probably why you have no death scar."

"And there are other things that I do not understand!" added the lady quickly. "Why are we here where people are supposed to be dead? And why did this man try to send us back to hell?"

"It's a long story," said the woman as she walked over to the two living people. "We shall explain once we find a place to camp out."

"All right," said Fiordiligi. "How long before we go anywhere?"

"We wait for however long this guy can come up with an excuse as to why he made us escape base!" cried the hawk laguz, wings flaring behind him as he pointed at the man with the burn.

"B-but I thought they were from hell!" cried the burned man.

"That is why you taking your studies lightly is a bad thing," said the woman. "Anyways, I apologize. We still do not know each other yet, do we?"

"No," said Ike as the group of five walked on into the fog. "I'm Ike, and my friend is Fiordiligi."

"Pleasure to meet you," said the lady as she nodded.

"Same here," said the hawk laguz. "I'm Gregor, the woman is Agniezska, and the guy who tried to capture you here is Andrew."

"I see," said Ike as they walked on into the fog.

As they walked, Ike could not help but get the feeling that soon, he would be seeing his father again.