Yay i managed to update one last story before Thanksgiving! Whoopee! n.n

Oh yeah, and for those who don't read my story A Gift from the Dark, i have a note for you at the bottom. Those who do read it should already know what it is. OKIES, now on with the chapter!

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Zatch Bell. If i did, Brago and Sherry would have appeared again on the anime by now! (steams) NOW THEY SHOULD APPEAR THE SECOND SATURDAY OF FEBRUARY! GRAAAH! (gets held back by strange bystanders. Hey who are they?) NOOO!


Erased

Chapter 5

As the Rain Fell

My eyes caught the blood trickling down from the shorter human's chest. The thick, red liquid splattered onto the tiny dagger he held in his hands as he fell forward, dead.

Damn it! He was the only one left who knew about the one who gave away where we were!

A faint sob drifted to my ears and I turned around only to see tears splashing down Sherry's face. She was holding my book tightly in my arms as she leaned forward with a groan, more tears falling down.

"Why… why did this happen?" she wailed. I was silent. "All this – this death! Why…?" Burying her face into her hands, she finally dropped my book and began to cry harder. It landed onto the ground with a thud and just stayed there. Sherry didn't bother to pick it up again.

I merely just watched as she continued to cry. You could say that I had grown used to this by now… but this time was different. Something… something inside of me… was also hurting. Seeing Sherry this upset made me… unhappy….

The ground where Conner's corpse was lying was stained with his crimson blood. Suddenly, a drop of rain fell onto the grass. Then another and another… and soon it was pouring down rain. Our clothes began to get damp and uncomfortable, but neither of us did nor said anything.

My attention was brought back to Sherry. Her sapphire orbs were fixed on me with a sharp glare. Tears were still rolling down from her eyes but the look in them was different. No longer was it morose… but it was now… sober, and angrier, too.

"You bastard!" she shrieked. Since there was nobody else around (who was alive, anyway) but me, I assumed that I was the only one she was referring to.

"What is it?" I asked, not really caring what the answer would be.

The ningen stood up on her feet, hands clenched tightly together. She pointed with her right hand at me and then said, "How could you just let that man die?" she inquired. "How? He was a living person – and you just let him take his own life away with that blade!"

"Sherry," I said, feeling rather annoyed. "He was going to kill us. Either us die or him."

"I don't care about that!" Sherry shook her head. "Every person has a life – which must be valued and considered as equal as yours or mine! You can't just…. Let him die like that!"

Heh, but I just did, I mused to myself. "Sherry, apparently you can't consider these things very well at the present moment," I said. "Perhaps you should go inside and rest—"

"I don't need any damn rest, thank you!" Her glare increased. "I'm perfectly fine!"

I watched as she closed her eyes and began to shake as she bowed her head to the ground, her golden locks falling over her eyes. She let go of the tension in her fists and collapsed onto the ground, crying once again.

"It's not fair!" she screeched. "Life is not fair! Why do we all have to die? Why do I have to participate in this war?" More tears fell. "WHY!"

It was my decision then to let her be. I turned to go and find all the dead bodies throughout the mansion. Mareo and Conner had said that they did kill off all of Sherry's servants… might as well go find them so that way there wasn't a reeking smell throughout the place.

Sherry continued to cry. Sobs wracked through her shaking body and the hours continued.

And the rain continued to fall…

-o-o-o-o-o-

By the next day, all of the bodies were cleared out of the Belmond grounds and dumped in a river I found outside the mansion in the forest beyond. Sherry had gone back up to her room, my Black Book still with her. I knew that she wouldn't dare burn it, but still I didn't like my list of spells out of sight.

Inside her room, Sherry cried a lot. I could hear her as the hours went by. Damn, how many gallons of water had she released now?

What was strange was that every time I heard her sob, I would keep getting a strange feeling… a tugging feeling inside my chest. It was so… strange… Never had I experienced this feeling before. So foreign… what could it be? Why did I feel so unhappy every time I heard Sherry cry?

What was stranger still was that feeling wouldn't leave me alone. I would try and push it out of my mind but it kept returning – reminding me of how upset Sherry was. Sherry was all I could think of now.

So by the time nightfall fell, I decided to check on the human. It was still raining outside; I had gone out for a bit earlier and heard people talking about how it was supposed to rain for a couple of days nonstop. Just great…

I headed up the stairway that led to my bookkeeper's room. I sensed that she was still in there. That was good. How many hours had it been since she locked herself in?

The beating of the rain was almost like a soft rhythm. It continued on and on and on… Nonstop. Continuously falling…

Finally I reached the doorway into the blonde's room. I found that it was unlocked, so without hesitation I opened up the door and took a step inside. Sherry wasn't on her bed, but over to the side I could see her staring out the window, watching the rain.

"Hi, Brago," she said monotonously. Without turning to look at me, she then said, "Why don't you come over here?"

I said nothing, but headed over to where the woman was. Taking a seat next to her on the window seat, I paid close attention to her facial expression. She was still so… sad.

"So," began the other, "what have you been doing since yesterday?"

At first I was silent, but then I replied quietly, "Cleaning up the dead bodies. Why?"

The other let out a long sigh and shook her head, "Nothing…" I noticed tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes and she wiped them away. "I just hate death, that's all."

Funny, I pondered, she seemed quite attracted to it. She had told me about when she was younger a while ago, before all this started, how she tried to commit suicide. Don't know why she told me… but I'm sure that she would have tried to commit it again after Koko left her. Death always seemed to follow her, I thought, now looking out the window.

It was still raining.

Sherry finally let out a small sob as a tear trickled down her cheek. She closed her eyes for a quick moment and then shook her head. Before any of us could do anything, however, she burst out crying once again.

"It's always so difficult," she started to say, "Why must we all die? We have things to do and we must cherish our lives! It's not fair!" The blonde buried her face in her hands.

This crying was starting to get annoying… And yet that odd feeling was still contained within me.

Why the hell was it there?

My eyes suddenly widened when Sherry rested her head on my shoulder as she closed her eyes with yet another sob. I quickly got up away from her reach and stared at her. The ningen's eyes opened revealing her azure orbs. She gazed at me with a pleading look.

"Brago, please don't go…"

I shook my head. I didn't want to be in here… why was she acting the way she was? Why was I?

"I'm going outside," I said quickly and turned around to head out the door. A depressed sigh emitted from the blonde's mouth. Maybe she just needed to cool off…

Whatever her problem was, though, I didn't care.

Yet…

… Something inside of me did. Almost like I wanted to find out who did this to Sherry, to regain her memory and personality back… So she'd be herself again and no longer upset

To help her.

To do it with her…

Together…

I mentally kicked myself. I would help Sherry, of course, but these other feelings… they were so… different. I wanted to do more than just help her. But …what? Damn emotions. I hate them for every possible reason.

I continued down the hallway of Sherry's mansion and down the stairs. Tomorrow we would head out and train; we needed the spells that we lost after her memories were erased. As for now, I believed that we both required cooling off. I nodded my head silently to myself and continued on my way.

Rain still falling…


Yeah, there's the next chapter! I tried to make it a lil' more angsty this time.. no humor is in it, it is just... this.. yeah. n.n

Anyway, for those who don't already know:

FFnet has a new rule stating that we're not allowed to have responses to reviewers inside of our stories anymore. However, we're able to respond to those who are joined with the site with this special thingamajig. Go to the front page of FFnet to learn more details. But the thing is, i will not be able to respond to you reviewers who are anonymous and not joined with the site. So... sorry. Unless you have email and are willing to put it up for me to respond to you THAT way, i won't be responding to you anymore. Gomen nasai. :-( I won't be answering your reviews in this chapter, either, for fear of getting caught responding one last time and getting in trouble for it. :-/

Yeah... that's all i have to say. For those that ARE joined with the site and have the respond thingamabob thing i'll be responding to you that way:) As soon as i post this chapter i'll be clicking the'reply' button for a bit. XP...OK i'm sick of saying 'respond' so i'm gonna get this over with.

Yep, the good ol' cut n' paste trick. (hey, that'sthe name of a mamodo o.O "cut n' paste") I merely took that from my story AGftD and put in in here. XD

Yeah.. well... as soon as i post this i'm gonna be responding to y'all with that new thingamabob. LATER! HAPPY EARLY THANKSGIVING (again):-)

-Twi