Previously on Heart of the Melting Blood RELOADED…

Slow and silent as it was, Jinju "May" Lee walked out of her hiding spot looked at the robot-in-leave. "Damn you…!" She quickly rushed into the fighting hall and approached Kim. "Master Kim! Keep yourself together! Master Kim!" Kim barely opened his eyes and stared at his student. "Master Kim! Are you alright? Master Kim!"

"May Lee…" Kim weakly called out her name. "Mark 2… must… defeat… before…"

May Lee quickly seized his hand and nodded in approval. "Don't worry, Master Kim. I'll avenge your defeat, I will," she promised, her eyes burning in passionate anger. "I will avenge you."

x-x

Hiko turned around and looked at the dancing duo of Robo-Ky and Sumomo. He grinned at their excitement and turned around, heading back to the pottery house. "It's been a while since I met someone as cheerful and as unpredictable as he is. Heh, maybe I should choose him as the next candidate to inherit this cape," he spoke and took the sake bottle, taking a gulp of the beverage. "But then, will he be able to raise his sword to protect the people? He's still got a long road to face, I fear."

x-x

Alex stared at the two newcomers who were busy arguing with each other. He noticed the sword one of them held and scowled. "That's Thunderseal…!" Without notice, he jumped toward the newcomers and attacked one owner of the sword, much to his surprise.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing!?" Alex ignored the question and stepped backward. He glowered at the man wearing the white-blue uniform similar to him and pointed the kodachi at him. "What's up with you anyway?"

"Finally, Ky Kiske," Alex pronounced. "I've finally found you."

x-x-x-x-x

Guilty Gear
Heart of the Melting Blood RELOADED
Written and conceived by: Lone Wolf NEO

Lone Wolf NEO does not own any of all the games or anime or manga featured in this story, but he owns the copyright to all his original ideas in this fiction. Lone Wolf would really appreciate it if readers do not plagiaries everything inside this story without his knowledge.

Chronological Note: Heart of the Melting Blood RELOADED takes place scarcely half a year after Guilty Gear versus SNK 2: Battle Revolution, and currently runs roughly in parallel with Guilty Gear: The World Within and Without written and owned by Sheo Darren. The featured battle music for this chapter is Pillars of the Underworld from Guilty Gear XX#RELOAD Korean Version.

Dedication: for Nik Hasta, who has been anticipating to see the battle of the knights.

Chapter 13
Pride and Glory: When the Knights Collide

The atmosphere was disturbingly silent. Neither of the spectators dared to speak out, and all they could do was to watch. The subject they were watching were two men wearing the Holy Knights uniform in two contrasting colours of white and black. The first knight, bearing the name Ky Kiske, was holding Thunderseal in a defensive while the second knight, or the fallen soldier by the name of Alexander Hahn, was staring at him while holding his kodachi in a backhand position. Neither of them also spoke, and just stared at each other in deep silence.

"Hey! Just what is going on here?" Sion exclaimed, thus breaking the silence with an annoyed cry of hers. She approached Alex and deeply glowered at her. "What are you trying to do? Why are you attacking him? What's the meaning of all this? Alex!" she demanded.

"Please step aside, Miss Sion," Alex insisted and stepped forward. "This is a personal matter between two knights of the holy orders. We wish for no one to interfere."

"But I want explanation!" Sion shouted again. "Somebody, anybody, please tell me what's going on!"

"What do you mean by that?" Ky demanded. "I have no idea of what you're talking about."

Alex grinned. "What, don't you even recognize your own comrade of the Holy Orders? I pity you for that."

"Have we met before?" Ky asked.

"Ask yourself."

Ky frowned. His memory was trying to remember what was meant by 'comrade'. It was not long before he regained what he thought he had forgotten.

"There was once a story of a knight serving the Holy Orders who betrayed the orders and turned his back away from humankind in favour of the most dangerous enemy the earth had ever faced. The knight was called…"

"The Black Feather! You're the lone wolf of Holy Orders!" Ky exclaimed in utter shock. "I can't believe I'd meet you in place like this!"

Alex responded to the nickname with a grim laughter. "So, what is your next plan, Holy Knight Ky Kiske? I bet that after meeting the humankind's most unaccepted traitor, you want to punish me. Isn't that right?"

"You!" Ky shouted and pointed Thunderseal straight at his face. "You, who had betrayed the Holy Orders and turned his back against humanity in favour of the Gears! I shall punish you by the name of God!"

Alex laughed again and ran his fingers through his black hair. "Just as I expected. The grudge the Orders held against me still lingered up till today. Very well." He lowered his hand and entered his battle stance. "Let's finish this matter today, Ky."

"Shut up." Ky clenched the hilt of Thunderseal and dashed toward Alex, entering a recognizable startup pose. Alex pushed Sion to the side and dashed toward Ky, also executing startup move of an attack. Sion tried to stop them from attacking each other but they were already engaged in their duel before she could do anything. She was caught in confusion; why they would fight against each other, and what was the significant reason behind it?

"Missy! Get out of there!" Sion was startled by Rock's alarm and quickly left the battle zone and approached the spectators. "What the hell you think you're doing? You could've been killed!" the son of Geese scolded.

"I'm sorry," she apologizing, frowning in embarrassment.

Confused by the battle of will and hearts happening before her eyes, Kirika turned to Elde, wanting to ask what they should do. To her surprise, the Wanderer was not there. "Elde-san?"

(Battle music: Pillars of the Underworld from GGXX#R Korean)

Ky immediately took the first step of the battle and slid on the ground, trying to hit Alex with Stun Dipper. Nimbly Alex evaded the attack and jumped over Ky. Ky braked the move with False Roman Cancel and home-jumped toward Alex. "VAPOR THRUST!" A heavy-hitting Vapor Thrust was executed and it hit Alex. To the knight's surprise, it was parried!

"Have you forgotten something?" Alex insisted and pushed Ky away from him. "A kodachi user has advantage in defensive tactics. In term of defence, we're at top notch!" With that declared, he air-dashed toward Ky and landed a flying kick on his face, sending him back on the ground. Alex landed not far from him and spun the kodachi in his hand, before returning it into its position. Ky got back on his feet, only to see a technique so unknown to him that he had no idea of who or what he was facing.

Alex's body split into several images and moved away from his spot. The images encircled around Ky in speed only the trained eyes can follow. Ky got panicked and frantically attacked all the shadows, missing all of them. He tried to jump over, yet the blurry images kept on following him.

"Ky, above you!"

Responding to Rock's yell, he looked overhead and saw Alex lunging toward him. It was too late for him to react, because he was grabbed on his neck and was tossed back to the ground. "What on… earth was that?" he demanded after he crashed.

The images landed and fused into one single entity. Alex breathed out and eased off his stance. "Shadow Trigger. A technique I adapted from Ryuusui no Oguki or Water Flow Technique, taught by my sensei. The technique I had shown you earlier is one of its four branches, Snatch. With it, I can deceive my opponent while surprising them with a grapple attack." He grinned and again opened his stance. "Shall we continue?"

x-x

"Sensei, please teach me!"

"Alex, I have told you, I cannot and will not teach you any of the kodachi nitou-ryuu techniques. This is the rules we the Oniwabanshu group have to abide."

"But then what am I supposed to do? You've promised to teach me something before Master Kliff took me back to the orders. I need to prove the knights that I'm also worthy of joining them. Sensei, I beg of you! Onegaishimasu!"

"Alex, I can see that you're very eager of protecting justice and people. However, you're still too young and inexperienced of becoming a warrior. I'm afraid that your soul will soon be stained with bloodshed and gores."

"I don't care! Please, sensei! I need to!"

At a certain temple back, a man in brown gi opened his eyes and stared up at the blue yonder. "So, the Black Feather has finally taken his steps," he whispered and closed his eyes. "Whatever you're doing, please think of yourself first, Alex."

Silent as he was, he later sighed and opened his eyes. "Kliff, were you doing the right thing of adapting him as a knight? He's still too young of killing people and such. I'm afraid… his very fragile soul has been darkened already."

x-x-x-x-x

Kiev.

Lone Wolf NEO was checking the documents sent to him by Zero. He was also waiting for Elde's reports from Cairo regarding the Black Feather, as well as reports from Jellyfish Pirates on the emergence of the new Robo-Ky unit. Several minutes earlier, he had contacted Slayer and asked him to bring the Black Feather back to Kiev, as to avoid confrontations that the man might trigger. Occasionally taking a sip of the tea served by Hisui (in which he appreciated the housemaid for her service), he browsed through the files and tapped his fingers on the table.

"Lone Wolf-san," Hibiki called him as she entered the conference hall. "You have visitors." Lone Wolf nodded and followed the iaijitsu woman to the outside, where he was surprised to meet the visitors: a certain American guy whose sword was nothing more than an oversized cigarette lighter, and a young girl who innocently and cutely hugged his arm.

"What do you know," the author spoke. "Hey, Mister Badguy! What's up? I haven't seen you for, like, ages!"

Sol grumbled and plunged the Fireseal on the ground. "Pretty much the same, Mister Wolf. Listening to Queen and Darkness, enjoying the boring everyday life, kicking people's ass when they try to mess with Kagura- hey! Stop hugging my arm!"

Kagura whined and clung onto him very tightly. "Sol-kun was protecting me all the time, why can't I hang around my protector?" the piggy girl shyly insisted. "Lone Wolf-kun, you should see him PWNING the people back there. He's very kawaii when he's in Dragon Install."

Lone Wolf could only shake his head in surprise. Everybody in the world knows that the Corrupted Flame is scary when he is Dragon Installed, yet the fact that a girl from Fruits Basket who claims that he looks cute in the powerup overdrive was both surprising and scary. The lone wolf, as well as Hibiki, looked at Sol who was pissed off by Kagura's dreamy reaction to his annoyance and silently laughed.

"Hey, Sol," Lone Wolf called him. "I've heard from Hibiki that you counselled her. Was that true, or it's just a silly rumour I heard?"

Sol stopped shaking his arm and glanced at the scion of Takane Clan. He just smirked when she frowned, trying to conceal her flushing face. "It's been a while since I last talked with Hibiki. Well, it's not really important when the two of us are to have a talk." He later broke into his badass, if somewhat rare to see, laughter. "You should see how she reacted when I gave her my advices while you're away. She cried like a baby," and then mumbled under his breath, "and I hate crybaby. Sheesh."

"Mou, Sol-san," Hibiki begged, cupping her burning cheeks. "Stop teasing me. Yamete."

"That's a surprise from the man who doesn't like think of other people," Lone Wolf commented. Both of the men laughed, ignoring Hibiki who helplessly begged them to stop being a teaser.

Sol stopped laughing. "Right, I was about to ask you something."

Lone Wolf stopped laughing as well and stared at him. "Spit it out. It better be something important."

Sol breathed out. "The black feather. Can you tell what the hell is going on? Just before we arrived here, I saw a huge flock of ravens flying over the lake. What's that supposed to mean?"

Lone Wolf sighed. "So, even the Guilty Gear is concerned of this black feather. Well, you're not the only one who's been bugged by this matter."

Sol grumbled. "I don't care of that, but what the hell does the black feather stand for? Some kind of warning? Don't tell me it's going to be the same like what I faced in Battle Revolution." The author just breathed out in response, much to his dismay. "Hey! You didn't answer me."

"My apology," Lone Wolf apologized. "But I'm afraid… we're facing something we never expect to happen before. It's certainly not going to be another Battle Revolution; it's far more complicated than the tournament."

Sol grumbled as usual and shook his head. "Whatever, I don't think I will be messing around with this matter," he spoke.

Lone Wolf just grinned as to hear the response. "As expected from the Guilty Gear himself. Go figure."

"Yare, yare, daze…"

x-x-x-x-x

The battle continued, as if there was no second chance given to the fighters to submit. Ky was overrun by Alex due to his lack of agility, yet he managed to keep the battle on its edge thanks to his lightning force. Despite the elemental advantage, he was no match to the newcomer, who proved to be too much for him alone to handle.

"What… what are we going to do?" Dizzy asked in concern. "Ky can't keep up with the challenger, and…"

"Rock, what should we do?" Hotaru asked her husband in worry. "Ky-san can't fight the man, he…"

"RIDE THE LIGHTNING!!!!"

All the spectators watched at the battle cry and saw Ky attacking Alex with the overdrive. The challenger in black uniform was hit and was pushed as far as the Ride The Lightning went and was knocked off the ground. Ky halted and waited, as Alex tried to get up.

"Alexander Hahn, one of the most trusted knight in the Holy Orders, whose skills is feared and respected," Ky pronounced, "yet in the end he betrayed humanity and turned his back toward the Gears. Your existence is nothing but a threat."

"Betrayal? You said I betrayed the orders?" Alex exclaimed between his gasps. "You have no idea of the truth! You know nothing of everything!"

"Silence!" Ky demanded. "You had betrayed the Holy Orders, and you had betrayed the humankind! And you're telling me that I know nothing?"

"But it was for a cause!" Alex replied. "You just don't understand everything! Have you ever thought of how hard I have to deal with everything in these 10 years? Have you ever thought of how hard I have to face the fact that the people are ignoring me? Have you?"

"Alex…" Sion whispered, a feeling of sympathy emerged from inside of her. "Nande…?" Why?

"Damn it!" Alex cried and brought the kodachi in an unusual position. "Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, shall blame me on everything! And that includes you!"

"The one who should be blamed are you," Ky spoke and channelled lightning force into Thunderseal. "Although I no longer serve the Holy Orders, I will and I shall again use my authority to punish traitors who have denied the teachings."

Alex frowned. He trembled in anger and clenched the hilt of the kodachi very tightly. "So be it." Slowly he reached the iron cross he was wearing and held it. "My Lord, if this is the judgment, please let me accomplish my task first." He lifted his head and glowered at Ky, by now entering his Instant Kill pose. "Forgive me, My Lord, but I will again spill blood on this piece of land…" The fallen soldier dashed toward Ky and emitted a loud battle cry, lifting the kodachi straight in the open. Ky responded by thrusting Thunderseal forward, directing the concentrated lightning force toward the ex-knight.

"RISING…"

"Dust to dust."

"Now, now, gentlemen. I suggest you two to stop fighting before somebody get hurt." A red cape materialized from nowhere and appeared between the knights, repelling both the attacks and knocking both Ky and Alex from their course. From the cape, walked out a man who merely laughed at the knights. "Well, what you say?"

"Slayer! You… why did you interfere?" Ky demanded, glowering at the Nightwalker in anger.

Slayer coughed and corrected his necktie. "My apology, Sir Knight, but I have been told by my acquaintance to bring the Black Feather back to Kiev. I'm very sure that you've been informed about this, haven't you?" Ky snarled in anger at the response and turned away from the vampire. Slayer laughed and turned his sight at Alex. "The Black Feather, Alexander Hahn, I believe."

"How did you know my name? And who are you?" Alex asked.

"From my observations, of course," Slayer told him. "Now, Mister Hahn, I want you to lower your weapon and follow me back to Kiev."

"But…" He glared at Ky, who angrily stared at him in return. "But what about…"

The ex-leader of the Assassin Guild grinned. "After my acquaintance finishes questioning you, you are free to do whatever you want to do. That, I can promise you."

Alex slowly put back the kodachi into its sheath and breathed out. "Fine. But don't expect me to cooperate with you or anybody else."

Slayer laughed again and made a taunt. "If you feel like you want to challenge me, I will gladly become your opponent anytime." Alex could only nod in agreement and walked toward Slayer, before Ky called him out loud.

"I won't let you traitor get away the next time!" the ex-IPF commander declared. "This fight hasn't ended yet! You must remember that!"

Alex grimly nodded. "And I shall finish you the next time we meet again."

x-x-x-x-x

"Justine?" asked Athena, noticing that her Boss buddy was staring at the open sky. "Something bothering your mind?"

Justice shrugged and breathed out in concern. "I don't know. Maybe it was my imagination," the humanoid Gear spoke.

Athena giggled and gave her a Coke. "Here, I've bought this for you."

"Thanks, Athena," Justine replied.

"No big deal. We're friends, right?" the singing goddess said, smiling at her. Justine nodded and gazed at the open sky, whilst her close friend of the most unexpected origin began to babble of things.

"Was it me… or something has been taking place?"

To be continued…

x-x-x-x-x

Next on Heart of the Melting Blood RELOADED…

Alex is taken to the Kiev to be interrogated by the lone wolf of author's universe regarding the purpose of his existence. Ky is not satisfied by Slayer's interference and has to wait for another opportunity to punish the so-called traitor. The Oniwabanshu captain is concerned of his past, where he was introduced to a young boy who would inherit his fighting styles, and decides to set up a journey and find the now grown-up disciple.

Next chapter: Nothing Else Matters: The Unknown Past