The first sensation to return to Michiko was that of mind-numbing cold. The icy air bit into her body even through the thick fabric of her kimono. Pure white was the first thing she saw, and for a moment, she thought she had gone blind. Then she realized that the whiteness was not her own lack of vision, but instead the snow being driven around her by the fierce wind. She lifted up her left arm, holding her sleeve as a shield in front of her face, and looked closely into the driving snow. It almost seemed as though it was falling horizontally.

A few moments later, the intensity of the wind suddenly dropped off, and the snow returned to falling gently down toward the ground, as it was rightfully meant to. Now that she could see more clearly, she could see that she was in a well-lit town square, surrounded by cozy-looking buildings and evergreen trees decorated with Christmas style. There was a handful of people milling about, as well as a few warmly dressed people that she was beginning to recognize as Kafra employees standing nearby.

Directly in front of her was quite possibly the biggest tree she ever saw. It dominated the center of the town square, and was supported by decorated strings of Christmas lights attached to nearby lampposts. She leaned her head back, and back, and back. Approximately halfway up the tree was wrapped a huge banner that read "MERRY CHRISTMAS." She continued to lean her head back, and was almost to the point that she'd fall over when she finally caught sight of the star atop the tree.

"Lutie is referred to by some as Christmas Town," Cresnoble's voice said from beside her. "The town is so far north that it's always covered in snow. Santa Claus is said to live here."

She turned slowly in midair to face the assassin, tightly clutching her kimono to her to preserve her body warmth. She noted with a fair amount of envy that he looked quite warm in his padded clothing. Most of her mind was concentrating on figuring out a way for her to get warm, but she was paying enough attention to Cresnoble to have heard what he said. "Santa...Claus?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

He looked up into the clouds, oblivious of the falling snow, as if seeking an answer. "He's a fairy tale figure. He's known by many names, including Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, and others. The story told by parents to their children is that every year, on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus goes to every single house in the world, delivering Christmas presents to every good child. He flies from house to house on a red sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer, led by a particular red-nosed reindeer called Rudolph."

Unconsciously, Michiko had drifted down and settled upon the snow as Cresnoble had told the story, looking up at him with shining wonder in her eyes like one of the children he had mentioned. It was the first time she had heard of this Santa Claus figure, but she certainly wished that he would stop by and give her a present every year. She smiled happily, imagining over a thousand gifts in her mind that she would love to have.

Cresnoble's voice, when she next heard it, carried a hint of amusement in it. "You certainly look happy at whatever you're thinking, but you also look incredibly cold. I can tell because your nose is turning red."

Blinking, Michiko's hands shot up to cover her nose with her sleeves as the rest of her face turned a matching shade of red. Hearing Cresnoble's laughter in response to her reaction made her blush even harder. She lifted her sleeves higher until they completely covered her face.

Suddenly, she felt a small amount of weight settle around her shoulders. She lowered her arms to her side and looked down to see that he had wrapped his muffler around her and secured it. She had barely felt him place the garment on her; he was obviously very nimble with his hands. She looked up at him questioningly.

"I told you, you look cold," he said with a half-shrug.

Nodding gratefully, she reached up to pull the garment more tightly around her, and felt a stiffness along the bottom that she was sure wasn't a natural part of the fabric. Her confusion growing, she felt around the edges of the unnatural stiffness until she found a carefully hidden flap. Prying it open with her fingers, she looked inside, finding what appeared to be a trading or playing card. She pulled on the card just enough to see the image on its face, and immediately recognized the monster depicted on it. It was a whisper; a ghost that she had seen many times in the village cemetery over the years.

"Oh," she said quietly, putting the card back inside the hidden slot and then reaching her hands up to remove the muffler. Before she could undo the first button, she found her hands pinned against each other by Cresnoble's gloved hands. "But don't you..."

"I can do without it," he answered, then let go of her hands and patted her head. "You're cold, so you keep it on."

She looked down slightly, her cheeks tinged with red. "Arigato..."

His fingers gently took hold of her chin and lifted her face until she met eyes with him. "You're doing it again. Acting like I'm your master and I own you. I'm not and I don't."

She opened her mouth to apologize, then realized that's exactly what he didn't want her to do, and closed her mouth again, looking off to the side as she tried to think of something to say. Then she looked back into his dark eyes. "Then what are we?"

"Traveling companions," he answered. She thought she could see what seemed to be a smile under the mask covering his mouth.

Knowing that nothing more needed to be said, she smiled as well, not knowing why his statement made her so happy.

"Well, let's go," he said, laying a hand on her shoulder for only a moment. Then he stepped forward and walked north.

Still smiling, she lifted herself up and floated after him.

---

Michiko slid back from the animated gift box, her silver dagger flashing as another slash opened up in its side. She quickly dropped prone, easily avoiding the jack-in-the-box style fist that the box used to counterattack. Raising back up into the air, she floated backwards, willing the box to come after her.

It did.

From her right side, a series of sharp spikes shot out of the ground, impaling the box on six of them. The box shuddered once, then let out a burst of air that she was beginning to recognize as the death of the box.

Half a second later, Cresnoble appeared from the origin point of the spikes, folding back the jamadhars against his arms as he stepped forward and began to root around inside the remains of the box. After a moment, he turned away and sat down. Held in his hands were a beat-up looking violet box, a green gem, and a piece of cake. The gem immediately went into his pocket.

Drifting forward, Michiko settled down in front of him, adjusting the skirts of her kimono as she did so. "How do you do that?" she asked, gesturing toward the remnants of the box. "That attack that you do."

"It's a weapon-specific assassin technique," he answered, shaking the violet box near his right ear. He then placed the box in the palm of his left hand, attempting to gauge its weight. "It's called Grimtooth."

She nodded, then turned to look at the machinery of the toy factory around them. She looked up just as a crane in the ceiling passed over, carrying a huge crate filled with wrapped presents. He had explained to her that the factory was used to manufacture all the toys that Santa Claus supposedly delivered to the children of the world on Christmas Eve, but that he did not personally believe in the legend or the figure.

Turning her attention back to her immediate surroundings, she found Cresnoble poking at the sides of the box like a curious child. She blinked repeatedly, then asked, "What are you doing?"

"This is an old violet box," he answered, not taking his eyes off the object in question. "It has some magical properties to it, in that when you open it, you get a random item from it. Sometimes you can even get weapons or equipment."

She blinked in disbelief, leaning forward and staring at the box. "You can get weapons out of that little thing? How do you know what's inside it?"

"You don't. Not until you open it." He turned the box over in his hands, staring down at it.

"Then...what are you going to do with it?" she asked.

He shrugged. "No clue. Don't know whether to open it or sell it."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence for several minutes, then they both heard a low grumbling sound. Michiko blushed immediately and covered her face with her sleeves.

Reaching down to his side, Cresnoble gently picked up the cake piece and held it out to her. "Here. Eat this."

"Thank you," she said warmly, taking the piece of cake and slowly biting into it. The sweetness of it seemed distantly familiar, but she could not, for the life of her, remember the last time she had tasted something like it.

After carefully tucking the violet box into his item pocket, he watched her eat the cake, noticing that she seemed to be savoring every bite. "Never had cake before?"

She paused at his question and looked at him, the lack of focus in her eyes indicating that she was sifting through her memories. After a moment, she shook her head. "I have had something, a long, long time ago, that tasted similar to this, but I can't remember what or where, or when."

She pondered on it for another moment, then smiled wistfully, shook her head, and returned to eating the cake. The expression on her face was nothing less than pure contentment and happiness, and did much to compliment her delicate natural beauty.

And suddenly, as the excruciating volume of the shot began to die out in Cresnoble's ears, he watched her expression change from contentment to extreme pain in a second. The kinetic force of the impact lifted her up off the floor and threw her into the remains of the myst case, where she laid writhing in pain.

Before his brain even connected what was happening, the assassin had already shot to his feet and spun to confront the cruiser that had shot Michiko. His eyes narrowed into hate-filled slits as he flexed his arms, causing his jamadhars to swing forward and lock into their battle positions with a pair of intimidatingly-loud clicks. As soon as those clicks sounded, he shot forward, running directly at the cruiser.

The possessed nutcracker fired again, its ancient musket properly positioned to replace most of the assassin's face with a bloody hole. Unfortunately for the cruiser, Cresnoble had known it would attempt that shot, and was already sidestepping to the left while continuing forward. As a result, the bullet merely sliced across the assassin's right cheek, severing the loops that held his mask in place and allowing it to flop down from covering his mouth.

Not stopping to either fix or remove the mask, Cresnoble skidded to a halt in front of the cruiser, his thick boots screeching across the tiled floor. His left arm lashed out, knocking the nutcracker's rifle aside, and his right hand came across with a flash of silver light.

With a clatter of wood and plastic, the cruiser's left arm, with rifle still in hand, hit the ground and bounced twice before laying still, several meters away. The cruiser looked dumbly at the stump of its arm for a moment, then returned its eyes forward just as Cresnoble placed his jamadhars around its throat in the position of a pair of scissors.

The assassin paused long enough only to give the possessed doll a look filled with so much hate and malice that it would most certainly welcome whatever hell it ended up in. Then he swung his arms inward, the opposing motions causing the blades of his weapons to neatly sever the nutcracker's head.

As it died, Cresnoble wasted no time to savor his victory, or even loot the corpse. He immediately turned back around, folding his katars back across his arms, and ran back toward the remains of the myst case, which were ominously still.

He dropped down to both knees beside Michiko, grabbing her left hand in his own and squeezing tightly as he searched her neck for a pulse with his right hand. One of the things about being an assassin was knowing how to check whether or not your target was dead.

After a few nerve-hammering moments of searching, he found an extremely faint pulse. Breathing out a sigh of relief, he reached into his item pouch and pulled out a preserved butterfly wing, then crushed it in his hand. Scattering the resulting powder in a circle around himself and Michiko, he held the sohee tightly to him as he felt the familiar transportation magic wash over his body.

---

Michiko had no idea what was going on. She remembered happily eating the cake that Cresnoble had given her, remembered a sudden excruciating pain in her chest, and then nothing but darkness.

As suddenly as her sensations had gone from her before, she suddenly found herself witnessing a scene. It was incredibly short, and it seemed to be nothing more than a dream.

She saw, in this dream, a young woman with red eyes like her own, but with long blue hair trailing down her back. This woman was dressed in what she thought could easily be royal clothing, complete with some sort of ornate headpiece.

The woman was surrounded on all sides by what appeared to be bodyguards, or some sort of escort. They were all wearing heavy armor that seemed to be patterned off of samurai armor, yet bearing influences of ancient Roman design as well. Each soldier carried a tower shield and a long spear.

Standing directly behind and to the right of the blue-haired woman was another woman. Her hair was red, and she wore a less-constrictive set of armor consisting of a custom-fitted breastplate and pieces of armor fitted to the most vulnerable areas of her legs. A white bow that looked to be very well-crafted was hung on the back of her breastplate, and by the look of her, she was a personal guard of the blue-haired woman.

Michiko couldn't recognize where the group was; if she was at all accurate in guessing that the woman in the center was royalty, then they were probably in a castle of some kind. It was raining in her dream; a noticeable drizzle that pasted the royal woman's blue hair to the sides of her face as she turned her head skyward, staring up into the clouds and allowing Michiko a deep look into her red eyes.

Who is she? She seems so familiar.

---

It was taking a lot of will power for Cresnoble not to senselessly plead for Michiko to open her eyes. He simply remained kneeling on the ground, her head laid in his lap and her right hand held tightly by his own.

Upon returning to Prontera carrying Michiko's body, he had immediately sought out a priest or equal person in the Church of Prontera that could heal her. Luck had been with him; a black-garbed priestess who had identified herself as Kitty had been standing on the street all day, giving out her healing touch to whomever was in need of it.

So she had immediately agreed to offer her assistance when she laid eyes on the assassin carrying the bleeding, unconscious sohee. Cresnoble had followed all of the priestess' instructions, and now was waiting for Michiko to regain consciousness.

Kitty stood nearby, keeping an eye out for any citizens in need, but also watching and hoping that Michiko would be okay. She had another healing spell on hand, if necessary.

But that proved to be unneeded, as Michiko's dark red eyes fluttered open, glazed at first, and then quickly focusing on Cresnoble. "I... Sir Cresnoble? What happened?"

Realizing she was awake, Cresnoble quickly let go of her hand, intent on preserving his mostly-aloof mannerisms. "A cruiser shot you. I killed it, then brought you back here, where we were fortunate this young priestess was available to heal you." He nodded toward Kitty, who was walking back toward the two.

Michiko sat up, turning her red gaze up toward the black-garbed priestess. Smiling happily, she bowed forward. "Arigato!"

Smiling as well, Kitty leaned forward and patted Michiko on the head. "You're quite welcome, little one. Your master was very worried about you."

Michiko blushed furiously and looked over at Cresnoble in outright shock, noticing for the first time that his mask was half-hanging off his face, and doing nothing to hide the tinge of color on his cheeks.

"I'm not her master," Cresnoble said icily. It was the same voice Michiko had heard him use against the merchant whose cart she had accidentally tipped.

But she wasn't thinking about that.

Did he really worry about me?

Suddenly realizing that he was carefully watching her, Michiko turned her head away from him, blushing even harder, and looked back at Kitty. "No...not my master. He saved my life and I've been traveling with him since then."

An assassin clad in indigo-colored garb, wearing a sakkat and an opera mask, stepped out of an alleyway near Kitty and turned toward Michiko and Cresnoble. He stared at Cresnoble for several long moments, then nodded. "You're the mercenary, right?"

"What of it?" Cresnoble responded coolly. He did not trust many individuals, and of them, he trusted another assassin least of all.

The other assassin shrugged. "I heard you were trying to form your own guild of mercenaries. How's that working?"

"Fair enough."

Michiko watched the exchange between the two assassins with a bit of discomfort. The cold and focused tone that Cresnoble was currently using always scared her. She much preferred the more companionable and friendly Cresnoble that she followed to the dungeons of the world.

"That's good," the newcomer said. He seemed to be a sociable assassin. As far as Michiko was concerned, that just didn't make sense. "I was just asking, because my own guild, Bushido, is interested in helping out everyone, but just for the good of helping out. Now of course, some people might ask us to assassinate someone, or something similar that is against our code. Should that happen, I would gladly defer them to your organization, were our two groups allied."

Cresnoble nodded. "Okay, I'll consider it."

The other assassin nodded. "Good. Oh, and by the way, you're invited to my wedding in a few days." He gestured toward Kitty. "Woman of the cloth and a man of shadows. Odd, to say the least."

Cresnoble shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

Michiko couldn't help but smile at that one. He was correct. Stranger things have happened, at least from her perspective. Strange, that he had saved her life, when all she had heard about him from her fellow sohees was that he was a killer of sohees. Strange, that she had decided to follow him, knowing that he was renowned as a sohee killer. Strange, that he had let her follow him. Strange, that she did not know why, but she felt that she was somehow connected to him in a way that neither of them could understand.

"Yeah, that's true," the other assassin said to Cresnoble. "Well, I'll see you around." With that, he vanished back into the alley.

Taking a slow breath, Cresnoble turned toward Michiko and gave her a little smile, not needing to use any words to tell her that he was glad she survived the cruiser.

Michiko smiled in return, blushing slightly, and then settled down next to him, turning her face up toward the sky in the same way that she had seen the woman do so in her dream.

She looked so familiar... Who was she?

A/N: Bum bum bum! We're still alive, kids! We've moved over to a new server, which I will not name for fear of attracting Gravity's attention to it, and this server is totally different from the last one. Plus:O Real people! And an awesome plot for which you will all turn into goo upon reading the entirety of:D