A/N: Hey, sorry people. My internet got disconnected for a bit. Don't worry, the next chapter will be posted soon. It's already done.

Chapter 8: Escape to Sea

The trio stood at the entrance to the city, Krena. Krena was a large, very clean city that held as much technology as every other city. Like all of the other cities, its parameter had large towers going around it to provide an electrical barrier to ward off shadowstalkers at night. The high brick walls shielded the city from any zombies that happened to be in the area. On the far side of the city was the port since Krena was on the continent's shoreline. People busied themselves in the streets, walking around, talking with friends, doing business or any other similar activities. Krena was the busiest city any of them has ever seen.

"So this is the temple where we'll find that library…" Cassandra was completely breathless at the large white stoned, smoothly surfaced temple that stood in front of them. People were walking by them to and from the temple. The large maple doors were finely crafted with enriched details engraved in the center. The temple, to put it mildly, would make the richest men in Athens roar with jealousy.

"Wow, I didn't realize that it was this beautiful!" Jesse stared in awe.

"Who cares how the temple looks. I'm only interested in the library." Siegfried interrupted his two awe-struck female companions. "Now quit drooling and come on."


"Drive, come here." Conner commanded, tapping his fingers on the arm of his throne.

A shadowy figure cloaked in pure black approached the throne, his face was covered by a mask. "What do you command me to do, my master?"

"Intercept Siegfried in Krena. It seems that he's investigating into Soul Edge." Conner explained.

"Lord Conner," Gilgamesh, who was standing beside Conner, proceeded to ask, "if I may be so bold, but may I ask why it is important that we stop him from researching on Soul Edge? What I mean to say is, if we leave him alone, he'll continue to hunt Raphael and be out of our way. But if we were to piss him off, or even worse, him learning about his missing two years. For is it better for us if he believes that he has been under that sword's spell for seven years instead of nine?"

"Gilgamesh, this is why I keep you as my right hand man. Even if it contradicts what my decisions are, you will voice your opinions or act in a way I forbid to make sure it protects me. But this time you forgot to look at all of the options. If he were to learn the truth about Soul Edge, then he'll kill her. We can't have her killed, at least, not as long as she holds the information as to where the other half is."

"If that is the case, master, may Denote accompany Drive?" Gilgamesh asked the lord of darkness.

"Drive's speed should easily be more than enough to handle Nightmare." Conner explained.

"My lord, though Drive is fast, Nightmare can easily be as agile if he is in his human form and not wearing any armor. Might I add, Nightmare is extremely strong. We'll need someone with great strength to combat him up front. I myself felt like he was going to break my sword when I fought him the other night." Gilgamesh argued.

Taking his right hand man's arguement into consideration, Conner stood up from his throne, "Denote, step forward." He commanded as he opened his hand. A heavily armored twelve foot tall man with a gigantic axe stepped forward and took a kneel. "I want you to go with Drive," Conner quickly closed his open hand into a fist to give a visual on what he wanted, "and crush Nightmare and his companions. If you have too, take that newly acquired prisoner with you to use as bait. Now go!" He ordered as the two men stood up and walked away.

"Gilgamesh, have Serena tell my soldiers to arm themselves and alert my shadowstalkers and undead generals. We're attacking Krena tonight!" Conner sat back onto his throne. "Oh, and before I forget. Have someone bring me my new sword. If Nightmare is in Krena like you predict, then I want to test it on him. Its' power should bring back some old…memories."

"At once my lord." Gilgamesh bowed before turning around to take his leave.

"Gilgamesh, just one minute. I just thought of a special mission for you to do during the raid."


"Found anything yet?" He heard the elder ask through the amulet. The amulet around the knight's neck started to glow, attracting a few onlookers who were at first staring at this strangely armored individual.

"These old books are about as useless as Cassandra." He turned the page as he started to scan the words. Next thing he knew, a large book smack him across the head. Whack! "What the hell did you do that for?" He turned his head around and yelled at the Greek girl.

"I heard your comment. Just be glad I didn't hit you with my shield!" She yelled back.

He turned his attention away from her and went back to his book while grumbling, "Damn short tempered, disrespecting, useless girl."

"You say something?" She eyed him suspiciously.

He jerked his head around, "I said…"

Throughout the hallways, in the rooms and chambers, and on the streets outside the thick walls, people stopped to listen, wondering what kind of person could scream so loud with pain. "OW!"


Walking through the streets was a man wearing a purple jacket, looking around for anything that would seem useful. The sword on his back started to pulse once more.

"Well, if he's here, then it would be rude of me to not check up on him. Now wouldn't?"

Stretching out his arms, Siegfried stood up from the wooden chair and grabbed his cloak and draped it over his shoulders before tying the leather strings at his neck. "Where are you going?" He heard Cassandra's ever suspicious voice.

"I've had nothing to eat in the past two days." He answered as his stomach let out a rumbling growl.

"Fine, then I'm coming with you. Jesse, are you going to join us?" She looked at their brown haired companion who just waved them goodbye while keeping her eyes glued to her book.

Siegfried grabbed his sword and latched it onto his back, "Now let's go. The sooner we eat, the sooner we can return."

The two sat at a table with a plates of steak, bread and a side dish of broccoli. The patio belonging to the small restaurant was clean and painted orange, the music from the violin was soft and slow. It's tune touching everyone who hears it in the heart.

"Your manners are terrible." Cassandra said a bit disgusted as Siegfried quickly ate the steak while from time to time taking a chunk out of his bread.

"Some people aren't used to taking their time to eat because they're always on the move." He said while chewing on a mouthful of bread.

"Ugh, chew and swallow before speaking." She cut a piece of her steak with her knife and stabbed it with her fork.

He swallowed his food and then gulped down his water, "Just be glad that I paid for all of this and quit complaining."

"I was afraid that you'd be forced to work here for the food. Then again, that would be entertaining." She giggled at the thought of him walking around and asking to take people's orders.

"Gold is a universal currency. So it should come to no surprise that it was accepted here, especially since we're in a civilized society." He stated a fact while setting his cup down beside his empty plate.

"Oh, hey there little girl." Cassandra noticed a little girl in dirty, yet finely crafted clothing.

"Huh?" Her male companion said as he started to turn around. "What the…!" Next thing he knew he fell back on the chair and struck the hard ground. His eyes, while still in a daze, noticed that the girl had snatched his old cloak and took off full speed down the road.

Quickly getting back onto his feet, Siegfried grabbed Faust and charged after the girl, "Get back here thief." His voice roared through the streets while pushing through the crowd.

People were screaming at him, threatening to kick his butt or telling him that he's rude as he pushed past them. Soon, he found himself in an ally with the little girl trapped against a wooden fence. "Look, I'm not here to hurt you. So just hand me my cloak and I'll leave you alone." Siegfried explained.

"I'm…I'm sorry. I had no choice or they would kill him." The little girl, who seemed to be about the same height of the average ten year old, said as a strange, psychotic laugh echoed into the ally.

"Good girl." A man on the rooftops appeared. In one hand was a dagger, in the other hand was a little boy who couldn't be much older than the little girl. "You brought him here."

"Please! Leave let him go! I'm your prisoner, not him!" The girl pleaded tearfully.

With an evil smirk, the black haired man said, "Yeah sure." In the blink of an eye, the boy's throat was slit and his body thrown into one of the ally's dumpsters.

"No!" The little girl shriek in terror.

"Nightmare! Who's that man?" Asked a confused Cassandra who had finally caught up.

"Bastard. You'll pay for that." Siegfried growled as he transformed into his demonic alter ego. "If you had a problem with me, then fine. But you could've at least left the children out of it."

"You don't get it, do you? Lord Sekai was planning on killing them anyways when he invades this city tonight. Everyone, women, men, children, dogs, cats…it doesn't matter. All are to die as an example to those who barricade themselves behind walls and barriers and refuse my master's will." The man smirked. Drawing his other dagger, the man charged Siegfried in an attempt to pierce his heart.

"Ugh!" Siegfried, a bit too slow to completely dodge the quick dagger, groaned in pain as it pierced his armor and entered his left shoulder.

"Hurts doesn't it." The man let out a small chuckle as he tried to twist his dagger to cause even more damage. The blade snapped under the pressure, causing the man to lose his balance and fall backwards. "My dagger! But how?"

"A sharp weapon is good. But if it's edge is too sharp for the actual weapon to handle, it'll become brittle and snap when it pierces something hard." Siegfried drew Faust, "Now enough talk! Die!" He swung his mighty zweihander at his smaller opponent. With little effort the smaller man dodged the sword and kicked Siegfried in the chest causing him to stumble backward.

"Your too slow." The man gave an evil grin as he approached Siegfried.

"Then allow me to fix that." Siegfried sheathed Faust and transformed back into his human state.

The small man chuckled, "To deal with me, you'll need what flexibility your field plate offers. But to deal with my friend, you'll need the defense of your full plate and the strength of a demon." As if on command, the right wall in the ally exploded as a huge fully armored man with a gigantic axe on his back came through and punched Siegfried into the other wall.

"Cheap." Siegfried growled as he slowly stepped through the cloud of dust and over the pile of rubble. His armor dirtied from the crash and his pierced wound cover with small debris, blood was dripping from his lip. "Cassandra. Go get Jesse."

"But, what about the girl?" Cassandra started to argue as she quickly readied her sword and shield.

"Girl!" Siegfried fiercely called out. "Go with Cassandra." The shaken little girl looked at Siegfried. "Go! Unless you'd rather I go and you stay and fight these two." Fearful that he was serious, the little girl quickly ran over to Cassandra who had sheathed her sword and grabbed her by the hand and ran out of the ally.

"Denote, go get the girls." The smaller man ordered.

"No. Drive not boss. Denote not listen to Drive." The large man drew his axe and slid the rope off of it and dropped it to the ground. "Denote go after strong man."

Great, my sword is too slow to hit the asshole but if I don't use it, goliath over there will slaughter me. And Nightmare is definitely out of the question because of his lack of speed. Come on Siegfried, think! Siegfried eyed the two men, the smaller one in fully leather armor and the other in a crude form of full plate.

"Fine, I'll get the girls." Drive made a mad dash for the opening to the right of Siegfried. Before he could even realize what was happening, he found himself being cloth lined by Siegfried, the arm harden by the armor knocking the breath out of him. Without even giving him a chance to get back up, Siegfried grabbed him by the collar of his leather vest and ripped him up from the ground and tossed him into the far corner of the ally.

"Denote's turn. Denote kill puny man." The behemoth roared as he raised his axe. Siegfried unsheathed Faust and jumped to the side to dodge the blade. Quickly he countered with his sword and caught the giant in the chest, scratching the armor like a nail scratching iron.

Not good. He mentally cursed his weak human state while slowly backing up. His sword may have been sharp and strong, but this oversized man's armor was simply too much. He could cut through bronze, iron, steel with his sword; hell, limestone and harder types of wood didn't even stand a chance. But this here, it made his sword seem dull. And he knew that if he were to strike it was Nightmare, even if it did cut through, most likely his sword would break, crack or several chip in some manner. Must remember, I'm in another world. Perhaps they have something much stronger than the metals we have on Earth. Or, perhaps this behemoth's armor is just like Nightmare's and uses a rune to make it stronger than normal. He tried to reason with himself on why his sword was deflected while the man readied himself for another swing.

"Puny man die." The man said in his deep voice and swung his axe. Suddenly a red demonic aura surrounded Siegfried's body as his armor and arm changed back into their demonic state. Siegfried raised his sword and as it let out a loud metallic cry of pain, blocked the axe. "Puny man can't resist." Denote smirked as he pushed a little harder, causing his axe to dig into the gigantic sword.

At least his axe isn't very sharp. Though, sharp or not, with his brute strength it doesn't matter. A few more shots and Faust has had it. Siegfried gritted his teeth as he suddenly found himself on one knee while trying to ward off the axe.

Seeing his chance to attack, Drive leaped over Denote with his dagger aimed for the German knight's head. In a split second, a blast of red energy collided with Drive and knocked him away. "Who's the idiot that attacked me?" Drive landed in a handstand and threw himself into the air and somersaulted before landing on his feet.

At the entrance to the ally stood Raphael wielding his Flambert in one hand and Soul Edge in it's long sword form in the other. "Humph, and here I thought you were a powerful demon. Siegfried, surely you can do better than that." Raphael smirked as Drive started to walk toward him.

"Raphael?" Siegfried glanced at the Frenchman before applying some of his demonic energy into his sword to throw Denote back. He wanted to save his demonic energy, but he'd rather spend a little than be out shown by Raphael Sorel.

"What? No thank you? Even peasants have manners." Raphael taunted as he took a stance. Siegfried shot him a nasty glare. "Well, looks like it's two on two. This should be fun."

In a blind rush, Drive charged Raphael and thrust his dagger at blinding speeds. "What the…?" He suddenly stopped as Raphael mysteriously disappeared from his spot.

"Knell you dog!" He heard a voice coming from above. When he looked up, Raphael landed in front of him while swinging Soul Edge. "Pathetic." He spat as Drive fell backwards, causing most of his head and right arm fall off, showing that it was severed at an angel.

"So you're Raphael Sorel." An all too familiar voice appeared behind Denote, a crimson sword in his right hand. Dangling from his neck was a black gem. "That ring on your left hand has the power to greatly increase your speed. That is why you were able to defeat Drive with little difficulty."

"It was given to me a year ago from a priest in Athens who…wait. Who are you? And how do you know about my ring?" Raphael's awareness kicked him, telling him that the man before him was more than meets the eye.

"That sword… No!" Siegfried's eyes shot open as he finally caught sight of the sword in Conner's hand. "It can't be!"

"What?" Raphael looked at Siegfried.

"Soul Edge…" Whispered the knight.

"Soul Edge? What about it? The sword that man holds is clearly an imposter." Raphael boasted with confidence and charged the man.

A smirk appeared on Conner's face as he raised his Soul Edge. With a swipe of the sword, a blast of strong air shot forth and blew Raphael back several feet. "Okay, so it's real." Raphael realized as the sword in Conner's hands and the sword in his hands started to give off a red glow.

"He has the other one." Siegfried explained. "But, that one was destroyed by Sophitia and that one Asian girl."

"That's preposterous!" Raphael looked at Siegfried, "How can there be two Soul Edges?"

"Soul Edge is in actuality twin swords. You hold the male counter part. He holds the female." Answered Siegfried who kept his eye on Conner and Denote.

"Raphael, I think it's about time you hand over your sword." Said Conner while he snapped his fingers.

Gilgamesh appeared in front of Raphael in a blinding light and ripped Soul Edge from his hand. "Typhoon Concussion!" Called out the Crimson Knight as a gust of wind blew Raphael off his feet before he could even react.

"My lord, catch!" Gilgamesh threw Raphael's Soul Edge at Conner.

Siegfried charged Conner, who now had both Soul Edge's in his hands, and summoned some of his demonic energy into his sword. "There is no way I'm going to allow you to take both Soul Edge's into your possession!" Siegfried's sword flared up with fire as electricity flowed into his claw. With his inhuman strength and agility, he leapt high into the air raising his sword overhead, "Earth Divide!"

"Your tricks won't work on me!" Conner readied both swords and leapt into the air, clashing swords with Siegfried. Upon impact, a burst of red light appeared through an explosion of demonic energy.

A smile appeared on Gilgamesh's face as he saw Siegfried flying backwards out of the smoke. "My lord, forgive me but I'm going to take my leave and complete the task you assigned to me." He said before casting a teleportation spell.


"Jesse!" Cassandra called out as she burst into the library.

"Cassandra? What's going on? I heard an explosion outside!" Jesse asked as she stuffed a book into her travel pack.

"It's Nightmare. We were attacked! Come on! He needs our help!" She grabbed her travel pack that was on the table beside Jesse before taking off back through the door she entered.


Explosions rocked the city as the towers and main gate blew up in clouds of smoke and fire. Warriors of the undead, shadowstalkers, and the Black Army stormed the city as everyone started to run for their lives.

"Jesse, what's going on?" Cassandra asked her friend as she quickly drew her sword and readied her shield.

"The city! It's being invaded!" She grabbed her grenade launcher and loaded a shell into it. "Let's go! We have to find Siegfried and get out of here!"


Siegfried skid backwards on the ground, "Ugh. I forgot about him." Slowly he picked himself off of the ground and glared at Denote.

"Denote kill puny men." The giant roared as horns sprouted on his head, "Death be painful. Death be slow." The giant slammed his axe into the ground, "Axe split puny man's head like ground."

"Raphael, you attack left. I'll attack right." Siegfried instructed. The two took off matching speeds and slowly drifting to the walls of the alley to surround the behemoth. Taking the initiative, Siegfried lunged at the giant with his sword ready. Denote quickly turned his direction and swung his axe, knock Faust out of Siegfried's clawed hand.

"Arg!" Denote cried in pain as Raphael pierced the unprotected armpit area with his rapier and disabled the shoulder. Dropping his axe to the ground, Denote grabbed Raphael by his head with his powerful left hand and raised him into the air while trying to crush his skull in his mighty grip.

"Let go you barbaric beast!" Raphael slammed the guard of his rapier to Denote's plated glove.

Siegfried gritted his teeth and watched helplessly while trying to think of a plan to take down their large enemy. Then he saw it. A light of hope for their grim situation. Drive's dagger. Quickly he freed the dagger from Drive's lifeless hand and ran up to Denote. Like a gymnast who rehearsed for hours on end, flipped high into the air over Raphael and landed on the giant's shoulder and clung onto its right horn with his claw. Mercilessly he jammed the dagger into the giant's eye causing it to stumble and drop Raphael. Siegfried calmly jumped off and walked over to his sword and picked it up as the giant fell backwards, its head thrashing about violently for a few moments before its loud cry ceased and all sign of life in its body disappeared.

"As impressed as I am, your futile acts of rebellion are getting quite annoying." Conner stood straight up and lowered brother of his swords. "So allow me to relieve you of the nightmare that has plagued you for so many years.

"Fool," Siegfried swung Faust over his head before taking a stance to give himself more power when he swung his sword, "allow me to show you a true nightmare."

"Humph, you may have Soul Edge, but this is one waltz you can't keep up with." Raphael taunted as he held the rapier in front of him, blade going between his eyes as he glared at the Lord of Darkness.


Cassandra leaned back to dodge a skeleton's blade and countered with her Omega Sword. Two other skeletons jumped at her, one with a spear, the other with a mace. Boom! Both skeletons exploded into bone splinters. "And who says a lady must be delicate when handling her problems?" Jesse cheered while she loaded another impact grenade into her grenade launcher.

"We have to find someplace safe. We can't fight and protect the girl at the same time." Cassandra reminded as she blocked another sword and stabbed its human wielder in the throat.

"I know. I know." Jesse fired another grenade into a group of skeletons and black army soldiers.

"Above you!" The girl warned Cassandra in a loud scream.

With catlike reflexes, Cassandra dove to the side to avoid being struck by a claymore wielding knight. "So, you're the Azure Knight's companion. You are very beautiful." Gilgamesh praised. Instantly, Cassandra readied her shield in front of her to take a defensive stance.

"Whoever you are, you're in the way!" Jesse raised her grenade launcher and pulled the trigger. In a small cloud of smoke and burst of fire, the grenade shot forth and struck Gilgamesh in a small explosion.

"Your weapons are useless against me." Gilgamesh's voice was heard through the smoke. In a matter of seconds, the smoke cleared to reveal a barrier surrounding the Crimson Knight's body.


Clank! Shwink! Swoosh! Siegfried constantly clashed swords with his powerful opponent. Raising his sword overhead, gathered his exhausted body's strength and slammed it down in a devastating chop striking…gravel? Before he could defend himself, Raphael's rapier appeared in front of him and parried a fast approaching Soul Edge with the guard. "I've never fought someone this skilled." Raphael stated as he dodged a thrust from Conner's right sword.

Conner quickly shifted his body to duck a swipe from Siegfried's sword and narrowly dodge Raphael's counter. "Two on one? Haven't you two ever heard of fair play?" Conner taunted as he backed away a bit.

"I got your fair play right here!" Siegfried jumped into the air, charging another Earth Divide. Conner quickly jumped backwards to dodge Faust and watch as it slammed to the ground, but his eyes widen with surprise and fear as he realized that Siegfried had predicted his movement when he shifted his feet and hands to perform a rising thrust after the sword hit. "Got you!"

The tip of the sword lightly pierced his right arm as he attempted to dodge, "You managed to predict my movements. Shows how skilled you truly are." Conner complimented as Raphael dashed at him and made several quick swipes with his rapier followed by a series of short, light thrusts. "Attempting to take control over the situation using your speed? Smart. But too bad your hands aren't as quick as your feet." Conner dodged every swipe and parried every thrust.

"You can't hold out forever. You'll tire soon. Whether human or beast, your body will always have a limit." Raphael thrust his rapier for Conner's heart.

"Yes, and from how tired your friend is, I'm beginning to think he's about to reached his." Conner parried the thrust and swung his other sword.

Raphael ducked the sword and somersaulted backwards and stood beside Siegfried, who he finally noticed was breathing heavily. "Siegfried, you should back down and rest a bit to catch your breath. I'll handle this vermin."

"No, I will not back down. I will defeat Conner and get back Soul Edge." Siegfried growled as he readied his sword while sending large amounts of demonic energy into it.

"I'm not sure you can do that. You see, I know about your body. Your powers have deteriorated greatly. And with every little bit of power you use to attack me, you get weaker and weaker. But the real secret to my victory is that you've been using large amounts of energy just to defend yourself from the mental attacks from the spirit inside of Soul Edge. " Conner smirked as he pointed his recently acquired Soul Edge at Siegfried.

"I can fight the demon inside that sword all day! I won't lose to it! Nor will I lose to you!" He stabbed his sword into the ground, sending a burst of demonic energy forward like it was following a trail of oil.

"You don't get it? Your powers are weak!" Conner canceled Siegfried's energy trail with one sword and shot out a blast of demonic energy from his other sword that knocked both Siegfried and Raphael out of the ally and into the corpse filled street. "I thought you two would be a challenge."


"Watch out!" Jesse's grenade collided with Gilgamesh's fireball.

"How much longer do you two think you can keep it up?" Gilgamesh asked, "Your powers are nothing compared to Nightmare when I fought him the other night."

"Fought him?" Jesse look at him with a confused expression on his face. Cassandra readied her shield in front of her, the little girl right behind her grasping onto the back of her shirt.

"Now allow me to cool you two down to the bone. Freezing bane of ice's touch, chill my enemies and stop their blood. Freezing Wi…ugh!" A large, azure armored knight crashed into him as the air around his left hand started to freeze and become an icy blue spiral.

"That bastard will pay for that." Siegfried spat some blood as he stood up and stuck out a hand to catch a flying Raphael. He dropped his temporary ally and picked up Faust from the ground.

"Siegfried! Look out!" Jesse warned. Siegfried quickly turned his head and cart wheeled away while doing a small twist halfway through the process to avoid a swipe from Gilgamesh's blade and face the attacker.

"Dammit, I don't have time for you!" Siegfried growled after landing in a crouching position.

"You're not my target, so you should have nothing to worry about. That is, if you agree to hand over Cassandra." Siegfried rose up, swinging his sword at Gilgamesh with tremendous force, nicking him in the breastplate as Gilgamesh jumped backwards.

"Gilgamesh, why haven't you got the girl by now?" Conner questioned as he appeared from the fire lit sky and landed in front of Gilgamesh.

"I'm sorry my lord. They appear to be putting up a struggle. But now that Nightmare has arrived, it'll be quite a while before I am able to apprehend her." Gilgamesh answered apologetically.

"If you can't handle a weak demon, then I'll have to take care of it myself." Conner snapped at his subordinate.

"We can't take them both on at once." Raphael looked over his shoulder and at Siegfried who was now knelling to catch his breath.

"What choice do we have?" Siegfried slowly stood up. "It's fight or die. That's how it has always been."

"We could always escape to the docks. There's bound to be a ship attempting to escape. We could board one of those." Jesse said as she stood beside Siegfried.

"Where's the docks?" Asked Siegfried.

"Right down the road behind us. We just gotta outrun these two." She explained while loading up a smoke grenade into her grenade launcher, "Everyone, run!" She fired the grenade at Conner as everyone quickly turned around and made a mad dash down the road as a cloud of smoke engulfed Conner and Gilgamesh.

"You're not getting away from me!" Conner's voice rose with anger as he dashed through the smoke and after his escaping prey.


"Look!" Jesse pointed out a large wooden ship on the verge of leaving as they quickly entered the port, "We won't make it!"

"Raphael, use your ring and grab the little girl." Siegfried instructed as he picked up Jesse with one hand. As the crew started to pull in the ropes that kept the ship from drifting away from the docks, Raphael jumped up and grabbed hold of one with one hand while holding the little girl in his other arm.

"Hey!" Shouted a surprised Jesse. He knew he wasn't as agile and flexible in his demon form, but he could still exert some of his demonic energy to give himself a boost of speed. Quickly he caught up to Cassandra and scoop her into his demonic claw. "We're not going to make it! They've just pulled up their plank."

"Don't worry!" Siegfried, barely able to keep beside the ship, quickly found himself running out of space between him and the ocean.

"We're going to run into the water!" Cassandra screamed.

Like a cat, he leapt high into the air and onto the deck of the ship, some of the sailors staring in awe as he dropped the two girls onto the cold wooden floor. "Hey! Jerk, not so rough!" Cassandra complained.

"You're late." Raphael smirked as he saw Siegfried drop to his knees while reverting back into his human form.

"Late or not, we still made it."

Siegfried's chest heaved in and out rapidly as he tried to catch his breath, "Raphael, answer my one question. Why did you help me back there?"

"Soul Edge suggested that I join you if I wanted to discover whoever destroyed that city." Raphael answered.

"Well you got your answer, so why are you still around?" Questioned the Azure Knight.

"Funny on how circumstances can make a person choose to become allies with his enemy. Now that he has my Soul Edge, I'm afraid there isn't much I can do to fight him alone. I'll require your assistance." Raphael let out a sigh.

"Raphael, Nightmare, Jesse just finished talking with the captain. We'll be docking in Nase. From what she told me, its a city in the lower part of the Kingdom of Syr on the Grethin continent." Cassandra walked over to her two male companions. "Now all we have to do is relax."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Came an all too familiar voice behind them.

Siegfried quickly got onto his feet and turned his head around, "Conner." He gritted his teeth in anger.

"So, there she is. There's my future wife." Conner pointed his sword at Cassandra. "Come with me beautiful."

"Ugh, not your life pal." Cassandra was disgusted with his acquisition.

"Well, if you refuse to come with me willingly. Then I'll have to force you." Conner pointed his left Soul Edge at Cassandra.

The sword started to glow an eerie red as the tip of the sword started to gather demonic energy. Then, in a burst of light, the demonic energy shot forth in a terrifying beam toward the Athens' born warrior. Quickly she raised her shield and closed her eyes, fearing that her shield would fail her and she would fall. In her mind, she prayed that while she was gone that everyone she ever knew and loved would live a happy life without her.

"What!" She heard Conner shout in surprise. Cautiously, she opened her eyes and lowered her shield to see Siegfried standing in front of her, shielding her body with his.

"I swore to myself to protect her. And no one will keep me from keeping my promise. Not you! Not Soul Edge! Not even the Nevarious Crystal!" He transformed once again and started to push through the beam.

"Your energy is exhausted! But…how? How can you be this strong when your exhausted all of your energy?" Conner tried to reason the unreasonable.

"Hey, Conner, hope you can swim!" Shouted Jesse who fired her impact grenade and blew Conner off the ship.

"We did it" A weak Siegfried said as he slowly walked over to the side of the boat and stared at the blazing city.