(A/N, with a different spin on it)

Back with another chapter. I don't know why I decided to do an author's note at the start of pretty much every chapter, but I'm to far into this to stop now. Onto the reviews:

Yanaven26: So glad that you're enjoying the story! I guess that you'll get to see the next chapter now.

GoatSinSparkles: I'm happy you're enjoying the fluff! Sadly, it looks like it's about to end. And on that question about Zephyr-

There's a question about me?

Zephyr? How did you get out of the story? And when did you learn to break the fourth wall.

That doesn't matter. What matters is that this is the fourth time I've heard my name mentioned in a review, and the second time someone's mentioned me being jealous.

Well, while you're here, do you want to answer the question yourself?

I don't see why I should, but I guess I can. I mean, wouldn't anyone be jealous of someone for spending time with the one they've been with for over 3,000 years? As soon as Helbram came into the picture, she became all smiles and giggles, not even wondering how I might feel about him being around so much. She'd often go places with him without even asking if I wanted to go.

Harsh. But I think that GoatSinSparkles was more of asking if you love-

Oh, I think I hear Zinnia calling. I've got to go!

And he's gone.

Well, I guess that's all the questions. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the chapter!

"An Albion? What's that?" I asked Zephyr. While I knew time was of the essence, I needed to know what that thing was if it was going to be dealt with.

No time to explain, he told me hurriedly, gesturing in the direction that most people were moving. We have to get out of here. Even with your training from Harlequin-sama, you're no match for that thing. He started butting his head against my leg, trying to get me to move.

However, no matter how much he pushed, I was stuck in place, my eyes locked on the giant, pure white monster that towered over its surroundings. "What about the townspeople? What about the Sacred Tree? We just got it so that the forest could grow better…"

Not our problem! Zephyr's pushing became more frantic; he was leaning all his weight against my legs, almost causing me to fall over.

"Zephyr-kun is right, Zinnia." Helbram had grabbed my hand. He was worriedly looking at the destruction that was growing closer by the moment. The Albion, tall and thin like a child's rope doll, was slowly walking closer, not seeming to notice the branches that were being torn off the giant tree as it moved. "Delphi-san will take care of it and make sure everyone is safe. This isn't the main Sacred Tree, so it will be fine even if it gets destroyed. All the fairies here can-"

"No!" Tears were streaming from my eyes. "I may have only been here for a bit of time, but this place is important! Akshur is home to so many people - fairies, elves, and humans. There's nowhere else in the world like it! There are good people here. People who have lived here for generations. I can't just let it be destroyed!"

"That may be so, Zinnia, but-" Helbram started, but his eyes widened at the sight before us.

Just then, what appeared to be a giant monster formed of vines and branches seemed to materialize out of thin air and started trying to push the Albion back. It was swiping whip-like arms at the beast, causing it to stagger slightly. Only, I noticed that none of its attacks were leaving any physical marks on the Albion. It wasn't breaking any of the branches above or leaving any destruction underneath it.

A splash of blue flashed through the branches far above our heads, not far from the scene of the fight, signalling Delphi's arrival. The new monster must have been one of his illusions, but that meant that it wouldn't be able to actually fight back. It wouldn't be long before the illusion was shattered, leaving Akshur defenseless.

"We have to help Delphi. We can't leave him to fight this alone!" I pleaded with my friends. How could they be so heartless as to leave the innocent fairy to fight that thing? Sure, we probably wouldn't be able to defeat it, but that shouldn't stop us from trying. It should only push us to fight all the harder - to fight for what needed to be saved.

I let out a deep breath, allowing my wings to reappear, before looking imploringly between the green fairy and the fox shade. "I'm going to fight, whether you want me to or not." Forcing myself not to hesitate, not to change my mind, I pulled my hand from Helbram's grip and flew into the air, toward the creature that could surely kill me with a tiny flick. I could hear Helbram and Zephyr calling out behind me, but I pushed the noises aside, focusing on what was in front of me. Helbram's presence loomed behind me as he tried to follow, but I flew faster, widening the gap between us. Soon enough, it tapered of, so that I was barely aware of his presence at all.

The only thing left for me was the fight between the two monsters in front of my eyes. Delphi's illusion was becoming less effective by the second, and for a moment I even thought I saw the Sacred Tree's leaves flash pink, as though the fairy was losing strength over his illusions. He wouldn't last much longer. It was now or never.

I threw my cloak - which I'd been gripping tightly in my fist since leaving the bakery - in front of my, causing it to flare out as the wind caught it. "Dyrnwyn First Form: Dyrnwyn!" In a flash of light, it transformed into its spear form. I had completely forgotten that it had lost one of its crescent-shaped blades after I'd saved Helbram, so I was shocked for a moment at the sight of it only having one blade, but I quickly shook it off. Now was not the time to think about that.

With a flick of my fingers, I sent the spear at the Albion, focusing around the face, then, when that didn't show any results, round the legs in an attempt to topple it. Still, nothing happened. From my position a good distance away from the beast, I could just barely see scratches on its surface. As though finally taking notice of a fly buzzing around it, the Albion raised one of its long arms, slowly swinging it behind it, before swiping towards me and the town behind me.

"Gah!" I flew backwards, pain shooting throughout my body. Pure destruction lay behind and around me, and I was half-buried in rubble. I could feel blood dripping down my face, and the hair at the edge of my vision was a darker red than I knew it should be. Pushing myself back up through the pain, I flew back into the air. I no longer knew where Helbram and Zephyr were, but I hoped they had gotten to safety.

I lifted my hand again, summoning my spirit spear to me, before flicking my wrist. "Dyrnwyn Third Form: Spider Silk." It transformed immediately into an abundantly long, yet hair-thin length of thread. Before the Albion could raise an arm again, I flung the thread towards it, making it wrap around the gargantuan monster. Even with how long the spider silk was, it only managed to wrap around the Albion's middle twice. I could feel the resistance against Dyrnwyn, so I closed my hand into a fist, tightening the string as far as it would go, but there was barely any visual difference made by this. This wouldn't hold for long. But, a second was all I needed for my planned attack. "Dyrnwyn Eighth Form: Starflower!"

The threads shifted into vines, on which giant, beautiful, white flowers bloomed. Before the Albion could react, though, the flowers exploded as one, causing a cloud of smoke to form. Did it do it? But of course, that would have been too easy. Once the smoke cleared, I could see that, while damage had been done to the Albion's torso, it was still standing there. With an imperceptible shift of its head, it faced me, opened its mouth, and shot some kind of attack at me. It was fast enough that I couldn't tell what it was, nor could I dodge it. So for the second time, I was knocked back, only this time I didn't fall all the way to the ground, catching myself with a frantic flap of my wings.

With each hit, I could feel my energy draining, and my will to fight fading. I only now noticed that Delphi's illusion was long gone. The leaves of the Sacred Tree were their original shade of light pink. He was out of the fight. I summoned Dyrnwyn back to me, as it had already torn from the Albion's body and was lying in a heap of scorched vines on the ground, and allowed it to revert to its spear form. My attacks barely seemed to be having any effect. What was I to do? If only the Sins were here; they could defeat this thing with ease, I was sure. They'd be able to defeat this thing, while I couldn't do anything…

I could feel a shadow falling over my emotions, causing a coldness to sweep through me. It felt similar to that time back during the fighting festival, when I'd been forced to relive my own helplessness. It felt awful… but, it gave me an idea, causing me to perk up and push the unpleasantness away. If I can just-

"Zinnia, there you are!" Helbram rushed to my side. It had seemed like he had appeared out of nowhere, but that had probably been due to my being deep in my own thoughts working on an idea. "We have to get out of here now. The other fairies are helping to evacuate the townsfolk. Delphi-san has let down his illusion, so now the people are able to leave the field. Now might be our only chance to get away safely." He kept shooting glances at the Albion, which was in the middle of opening its mouth for another shot at the town.

I ignored Helbram's pleas for me to leave, instead focusing a serious gaze on him. "Helbram, you'll be my friend no matter what, right?"

He gave me a confused look. "Yes, of course! Why are you asking that right now? We have to go."

"Even if you find out something about me I've never told you?" I urged. "Something terrible?"

Now he stopped trying to get me to move, instead looking at me with surprise in his eyes. "Zinnia, no matter what, we're always going to be friends. I don't care what I find out about you; it won't change how I feel."

"Promise?" It felt just like all those years ago, back when I'd made him promise to take me on an adventure. Only, that was just before he'd disappeared for 700 years.

"Promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that," I threw the words over my shoulder as I flew away from him, back towards the Albion. He reached for me, trying to snag my wrist, but I was already gone.

Now it was time for my plan. Hopefully it went well. "Focus, focus," I whispered under my breath. I tried to grasp that feeling from earlier, that feeling I'd felt at the fighting festival, that feeling that I felt all those years ago when I lost Kay. Darkness flooded my thoughts, but I pushed past it, allowing it to only edge my consciousness. It was overwhelming. It felt like I was drowning, and the only thing that kept me afloat was a sinking raft. The darkness, which I could now feel physically on my skin, inching across my arms, threatened to swallow me.

"Woah, look at that one!" For some reason, Helbram's goofy smile from that night we were watching fireworks above the Boar's Hat flashed through my mind.

I guess that you've gotten too used to me waking you up every day. Zephyr's amused eyes glimmered in my memory.

"They're wings you should be proud of, Zinnia-san." Harlequin's tiny smile appeared for a brief moment.

Little happy memories flashed through my mind, one after another, piling on top of each other, until the dark feeling was almost completely gone. But, as though fighting back, the shadow quickly resurfaced, and I began to lose hope of succeeding in my fight against it.

"I was right." Huh? This wasn't a memory. I blinked open my eyes to find myself in an open field, flowers swaying in the breeze around me. I turned in the direction that the voice had come from, finding a familiar set of blue eyes smiling at me. "Your wings really are the most beautiful."

"Kay?" I reached towards him, but, as quickly as it had appeared, the vision vanished, melting away to be replaced by the sight of the invading Albion. In the moment that it vanished, I also noticed that the darkness I had been trying to push down had vanished with it. Well, mostly. There was still a light tug from it in the back of my mind, but as long as my thoughts didn't linger on it, it appeared that the feeling would remain dormant.

Had it worked? I wasn't sure. I looked down to my arms, to find that thin threads of darkness ran along them, accumulating on my hands to form tiny claws on my fingertips. They looked scarily like Fausse-onee-sama's hands, but I tried to push that memory aside. I glanced over my shoulder in curiosity, risking a look at my wings. They were completely covered in shadow, and looked bigger than before, with longer, more elegant ends. "Huh." I caught sight of one more thing that I could've done without. As yet another reminder of my elder half-sister, I saw that I now had a thin pointed tail made of darkness. I tried to make it go away, but it seemed that I didn't have enough control yet to do that.

Shaking my head, I turned back to the Albion. I could explore this more later. What was important now was the fight in front of me. If my hypothesis was correct, I should be stronger in my current state - hopefully strong enough to defeat this thing. But the question was, how? I fought with my spear. How could my body being strengthened help me fight with my spirit spear? Unless...

I called my spear back once more, allowing it to hover next to me, before resting my hand on it. Closing my eyes and focusing as best I could, I tried to get the darkness to move from my hand onto the spear. After what felt like an eternity, (during which I couldn't help but notice each and every scream and cry for help coming from the town below) I became aware of my arm being void of the dark matter that had previously covered it. I opened my eyes again. Dyrnwyn was now edged in the darkness that still covered one of my arms. It wasn't completely covered, as I had hoped, but it would have to do.

As if on queue, the Albion lifted another arm, ready to swing it like a scythe cutting wheat. Only, this time it was aimed at the Sacred Tree itself. Widening my eyes, I forced Dyrnwyn back into its Spider Silk form and wrapped it around the Albion's legs, causing its swing to falter. I pulled on the pitch-black string tight, yanking it so that the Albion was thrown off balance and its arm to go too high. Instead of cutting the gargantuan tree in half, only some of the upper branches were trimmed off. Still, those branches fell down to the ground, crushing yet more houses and causing more sounds of agony to erupt. I had to hurry this up, before there were too many more casualties.

"Dyrnwyn Second Form: Guardian," I murmured the command, forcing the spear into its hawk-like form. Only now the marbled darkness covering it made it look more like a crow or a raven. The bird-like weapon flew up at the Albion's face, bashing into the monster with all its might. This only caused a slight flinch, but something caught my eye. Wherever Dyrnwyn was clawing the Albion, dark gashes were left behind, swiftly melting away a part of the beast before fading. Looking back at where Dyrnwyn had been wrapped around the Albion's legs, I noticed a tracking of where it had dug into the surface. Does the darkness give Dyrnwyn a corrosive effect? That was what it looked like. If that was so, then perhaps… "Dyrnwyn Fourth Form: Increase." About a hundred small, crescent-shaped blades seemed to explode out from where Dyrnwyn's Guardian had been, each one with just a bit of darkness running along the blade. With a flick of my hand and a twitch of my fingers, I shot them all at the center of the Albion's chest, causing its body to look like a pincushion. After making sure that each blade was fully lodged into place, I opened my hand towards the Albion. "Dyrnwyn Eighth Form: Starflower."

Each blade that had been stuck into the beast bloomed into a dark flower before promptly exploding. This time, however, there was more of an affect. A large hole had been taken out of the Albion's chest, and it was swiftly melting away even further, so that I could now see straight through to the other side. It only took a moment for the corrosion to stop, but the damage had been enough.

Slowly, ever so excruciatingly slowly, the Albion fell backwards, landing in a cloud of dust and pollen in the field that surrounded the damaged Sacred Tree. I waited a heartbeat, then another, to see if it would get back up, but it did not rise.

I smiled. "I did-"

I was falling. Air was rushing past my wings, my hair flying in my face. In my exhaustion, I couldn't even find the strength to catch myself. The ground was rushing closer and closer. Was this really how I would go out? I manage to defeat an Albion, save a town, and grasp just a little of my demon powers, only to die from a fall? What an awful way to go. Everyone would probably laugh at a fairy falling to her death when I reached Necropolis.

Any second now. Any second and I was sure to feel the sudden impact of hitting the earth and rubble beneath me.

But the impact never came.

I forced my eyes open, and slowly my hearing returned. I hadn't even realized it was gone.

"Zinnia!" Helbram was looking at me worriedly. From his stance, I guessed he had managed to catch me with levitation. Was that fear in his eyes? That made sense, he was probably scared, now that he saw that I wasn't really a fairy - now that he saw that I was a half-breed not fit for either species.

I could still feel darkness along the edges of my face and my arm. It was slowly receding, but, sure enough, it was still there, plain as day for Helbram to see. I didn't want him to see me this way, but it was far too late now.

I let out a deep breath and felt the last of the darkness dissipate, before forcing myself to fly on my own once more. I couldn't bring myself to look Helbram in the eyes. "Helbram, I-I'm sorry… I never told you-"

Suddenly, Helbram's warm arms enveloped me. I didn't know what to do, so I froze. "I knew," he whispered. Then, louder. "I've known for a long time." He pulled back so that we could look each other in the eye, and I saw sadness in his smiling eyes. "You aren't as sneaky as you think, Zinnia. Do you know just how often you were worrying about me finding out? You really need to stop forgetting that I can read hearts." He hugged me once again, and this time I leaned into it.

After a moment of that silence, I had to break it. "You really knew?" I whispered. "That I'm-"

"Half demon?" I could feel his nod. He then pulled away again and started looking me up and down, scanning my whole body. "Zinnia, how badly are you hurt?" The worried tone had returned to his voice, and I realized that the fear in his eyes a moment ago wasn't fear of me, but fear for me.

"I think… pretty badly." Actually, I was starting to get dizzy and nauseous, probably from blood loss. The wounds I had received from getting flung into the rubble that first time were still bleeding. "Actually, make that really badly." I was covered in cuts, scrapes, and bruises all over, and I wouldn't be surprised if half my rib cage was broken, with how it was hurting.

Helbram nodded, grabbing hold of my hand. "Let's find you a doctor. Perhaps there are even some fairies with healing magic here." He continued on about what we should do to make sure I didn't lose any more blood, and how we would find someone to help and so on and so forth. It had started to fade out of my perception, turning into a dull drone in the back of my head. The only thing that I could focus my attention on was the fox shade on the ground watching the fairies above him with an unreadable expression.