Ha, I can actually do stuff when I put my mind on it xD I've written another chapter so I can upload this one now! :D

-LightandDarkHeart: Thanks for the review and believe me, Claire only thinks that who they are ;3 she hasn't even met them yet. So yeah, it is something to look forth to.

Let's get going with this.


Chapter Thirty-Three

Letter to the Lords


"I was truly expecting something more out of these days." The redhead that spoke to herself before a mirror pouted while she picked up her short scarlet hair into a stout ponytail. Her bright ruby eyes shone in the mirror and the grin that spread onto her lips ignited her whole savage look. But just as soon as she remembered the matter she had been debating to herself, she slouched. "Really, Angele said he would be with that brat by now." She stopped in her monologue and cringed her face in disgust. "Not like I would accept anybody else."

"Envier-sama!" The doors of her chambers burst open to show one of the girl's messengers coming in with an envelope in hand. The woman came in panting and held onto her knees while she bent down to catch her breath. After a few moments, she reached out her hand to show the girl the letter. "I-It's here."

"About time!" the girl exclaimed and snatched the letter from the woman and tore it open to read. As her eyes scanned through it, her expression changed radically. "What?!" Her yell was heard practically all over the estate. In her chambers, she fumed while uncontrollably pacing around the room. "This is outrageous! A Mark of Mastery exam? Really!? To a snobby brat that knows nothing of us! Is he out of his ever loving mind?! Like hell am I going!"

"B-But Envier-sama! You must go!" the woman proclaimed, very worried about the girl and her rash decision.

"No! I am not—"

"Cut the crap." The deep baritone voice that she heard was accompanied by the sudden smack to the back of the head that she received that quieted her instantly. A man over his twenties stood over the girl with a cigarette in his mouth and a grown beard. His black hair was up to his nape and his dark eyes narrowed at the girl. "You're the Fire Lord and you have to go. No buts. Now, like I said, cut the crap and get on packing."

"Like hell..." Envier murmured while holding the back of her head in pain.

"You said you'd become to the Fire Lord and reign in the same wisdom and peace as your Grandfather did before you. Now is that the way your Grand Pabbie would have acted?"

Envier opened her mouth to reply but when she couldn't think of anything smart to say she closed it immediately. Instantly, she groaned and stalked off towards her room to begin packing.

The man sighed and blew out a puff of smoke before the woman beside him chuckled. "I'm glad we still have you here, Mr. Hunter. We wouldn't know how to deal with Envier-sama otherwise."

"She's just a brat. Give her a couple of years and she'll understand the meaning of her position." Kujo Hunter took out his cigarette and lit it off on the nearby ash tray. "By the time I come to retire, any attendant will be able to deal with her. At least that's how I see it."

"True but for now this is who she is," the woman agreed then sighed again. "Hopefully, she isn't as hard as she claims with the daughter of the Sage. It's been over a century since the Court last had an actual leader."

"Angele sees potential. If not, we wouldn't have been called in the first place," Hunter said and cracked his neck twice before he began heading towards his own chambers to ready his luggage for the journey.


"Come on, Vessalius! Get up!"

At my taunting Oz rose once more, panting and the hand with his sword shaking. He chuckled before answering, "W-Well, you weren't kidding about being merciless."

Blowing of his attempt at being cute, I swung Radiant Dawn over my shoulders. "I've pushed you down to yours knees for the twentieth time now. Thought you'd notice I was serious after the third."

Oz blew away a deep breath before asking, "I can't wrap around my head how you survived this training from Break."

"Easy," Claire confessed with a nonchalance that amazed him to no end. To his surprise, she launched forward and caught him by surprise. He barely had time to skirt the length of her sword and escape unscathed only to be pounded on the back by the hilt of her sword. The hit itself took the air out of his lungs and plunged him down to the floor. "Don't evade, block!"

"W-What part of this is easy?" he asked out of breath.

"You need a reason to fight."

Those words brought a light to his eyes that she recognized. He was thinking her words through. "A reason?"

"The reason you fight; why you are still here, enduring this hell," she repeated this time standing still for a few minutes to explain it to him. "At first I was much like you during his training, but the more I gave in the more he kept telling me to stand back up. He said that all of us are forced through hardship because of a personal reason. That reason is what we fight for, and what gives us the strength to get up even when we fall down." Her expression suddenly sullen when she brought her hand up to her face. "I won't let anybody else I care about die in vain; that's why I fight." Oz stared baffled and awed at her strength. Returning to her former state, she grinned at the boy and brandished her sword again. "Don't give me that look, Vessalius. Now get up and fight!"

On the far of end of the East Courtyard, Alice stood by the shade watching the ass whooping that Oz was getting. She slid down a nearby pillar and continued watching them. She'd been there since the beginning and it amazed her how many times Oz had already been succumbed into submission by Claire. This time for sure he won't get up, she thought and grimaced when she was proven wrong.

"Why?" She knew that he didn't stand a chance against the Chronos girl and she was pretty sure he knew that too. But regardless of those things, he still stood up and fought. Somewhere deep down a small hatred for Claire started harboring itself on her chest. Claire was teaching Oz how to fight for himself. She was granting him power. And if he became stronger he would have no use for her. The Chain, B-Rabbit, was the a strength that kid had. But now with this, it wouldn't be the only one. If he kept getting stronger then, soon enough, she would be—

"Are you afraid of what's happening?"

Alice jumped, startled, and turned to glare at Angele who had snuck up on her from behind. A smile crept on the man's face that sent chills down her spine. That same menacing aura that the clown had was present on this man.

"Of Oz-kun finding a new strength, that is," Angele chuckled to himself for a little and then gazed at Alice. Then it traveled towards the two that trained out in the courtyard. "Now that Clarice is teaching him, he does seem to be learning quite much. He's becoming strong if little by little. Soon, he'll have no need for you."

"What are you talking about?" she snarled.

"Oz-kun's only attribute are his smarts," he commented with a snicker. "When he attained you, he gained power. But now even that's being left behind. Soon you will be left behind as well. You will become useless to him."

"I don't believe that!" Her sudden exclamation took him a bit by surprise. She stood proud but it was clear to see the tears that were prickling at the corners of her eyes. "He would never do that! I know him and trust that he'll never leave me behind. Even if I don't get my memories back and remember nothing, I'm fine with that. At least—" she sniffed the tears back that threatened to spill. "I'll have the memories I made with him."

"She's right." Both turned to see Oz and Claire there, the former having spoken. He pulled a handkerchief from his vest pocket and placed it against Alice's nose. As if nothing, Alice blew her nose loudly and cleaned her tears away. He smiled at this and turned towards Angele with a serious face. "Alice just needs to remain as Alice. We'll find your memories eventually. And don't worry, I'll never leave you. That's the reason why I fight; for Alice and everyone else." His eyes suddenly glared and the air around him turned menacing, "Don't try to convince her otherwise."

"Stop playing around with them, Angele," Claire called with an irritated sigh, one of her hands on her hips. "And don't try that on Gil either. He'll be the same. I chose them as witnesses for a reason. They're people I know will be truthful and dead honest."

"I see that now," he replied and gazed over at the sunset before yawning. "Well, children, it's getting rather late. I'll be going to sleep now and so should you." Oz and Claire glanced at each other vexed by his words. It was barely the late afternoon. How much could one person sleep?

"Oz, I'm hungry! I want meat!" Alice burst out with her exuberance back.

Both laughed at that and Oz looked over his shoulder to answer. "Yeah, I need some rest too. Let me shower and then we'll go eat."

"Count me out."

"Where are you going?" he asked her when she started heading towards where Angele had gone.

She skipped and turned back while still keeping her course. "I need to talk to him about something. I'll see you later." And with that she left.


Inside his study, Angele sat behind his desk while gazing out at the sunset that quickly hid under the horizon. His somber expression reflected upon the window pane once the evening night fell and darkness consumed all. He could see from his floor the countless of Pandora agents that began lighting the courtyards with oil lanterns.

"You seem vexed." Angele closed his eyes in patience and took a long breath before opening them. At doing so, he saw the shade that slithering alone the window glass and stood on the one to his far right. "Is something the matter?" It was his Chain, Willow, talking through the projection she made upon the glass.

"Nothing much," he called with a scoff. "Just that urge I have keeps coming."

"Again? I thought you had already dealt with that past."

"It's not that simple, Will." And lying he wasn't.

After all...his whole family was dead because of what Edea had done. He was but a young lad back those days and yet his features were still the same porcelain beauty that evolved to his current form. His parents, grandfather, brother and sister's deaths were caused by the Sage's selfishness. The Massacre was what they called it. The day that the Elders found out about Edea's children. They ordered a mass killing of children. But the idiots hadn't known anything about the kids. Only that they would have blue eyes. And so the massacre ensued. Children, nephews and nieces, babies and toddlers, and the loved ones that protected them; they were all murdered in cold blood because of a nonsensical order.

Not long after it was given, his family was attacked. His older brother, parents, and grandfather answered the door. When they saw the order, his grandfather ran to his sister and him who where on the other room. He told them to hide. His sister hid in the closet but with all his nervousness he thought of no better place to hide than among his sister's collection of porcelain dolls that lay on a corner.

He heard the screams of anguish of his parents and of his brother. He squinted his eyes closed hearing the cry of his grandfather when he died. With his heart in his throat, he opened his eyes to see the men coming in through the door of the room. They rummaged through the place and found his sister easily. She pleaded for them to not kill her but her words remained unheeded. The men seeing as there was no one else, left. And the little boy that was born with the beauty and grace of a porcelain doll was spared to live through that hellish scene...alone.

"You were left all alone because of it." Willow was a non-sentient Chain that attempted to appear sentient. She had already used her powers to look into his past. Now that he had full control of her, she only used her powers when ordered to. But that didn't stop her from using the information she already had to state a fact. "A death penalty in life."

"Not helping here," he admitted with a sour grimace. He pulled out from inside his coat the dagger he kept inside and began twirling it around. "I'm the Lord of the Dead, I shouldn't be bothered by this anymore. Nor do I need these feeble emotions." He plunged the dagger down on the desk where it stood still. When a pair of knocks were heard upon his door, he called for the person to come in after pulling the dagger out of the desk.

And in came that girl. The one that was causing those memories and that delicious sense of vengeance to rise in him. Faking a smile like he always had, he stood up to greet her. "Am I interrupting you?" she asked when she saw the dagger in his hand.

"Not at all. I am surprised, though, that you're here this late. Can I do something for you?"

"Well, first of all I wanted to apologize," she said sheepishly while closing the door behind her.

"Apologize?"

"For sounding so rude to you these past days, I've been dealing with...a lot lately," she confessed.

Try over sixty years of dealing with things.

She sighed and walked past him to watch the courtyard from the windows of his rooms. "I never really expected these things from my past to come haunt me. At least, not so soon anyway."

"Those...things?"

"My mother's legacy, I suppose. I thought all were dead...because of the massacre. Even if some were still alive, I doubted that they would want anything with me because of the treason my mother did."

He thought it a bit odd that she knew of something that only his people knew of but didn't question her on it. Right now in his mind was something else completely. "Treason, you say."

"What she committed by having Cloude and I." She heaved a long sigh before sullenly lowering her gaze. "I've been a real nuisance to a lot of people."

A nuisance indeed. But regardless of his thoughts, he reached a hand to grasp her shoulder. "You must have realized something to be thinking such way."

"My parents died protecting us, my brother died trying to do the same, and the idiot I love died trying to protect us all." She wiped away at her eyes; possibly stray tears that spilled from her eyes. "It's just unfair."

"It is unfair," he finally said, voicing the thoughts he had. His other hand gripped tightly around the hilt of the dagger he still held. "It's unfair how many deaths were caused because of your mere existence."

"I know, and I'm sorry."

You think a mere, mundane apology will suffice for all the pain you have caused?

"It's not enough," he murmured slowly bringing the dagger up; she completely oblivious with her gaze down on her feet.

"I'm aware of that too. But it would be wrong to apologize for being alive too when so many people have wished for me to be here. And all that those people have given up for me. It would be rejecting all their efforts. And I don't intend to do that. They all were forced to follow a path but it was the choices they made that counted. It was their own choice. And..." she took a deep breath. "I wish to them that I'll have the strength to follow my own when the time comes."

"The strength to follow..."

The only path you will follow will be the one to the Underworld.

"My free will."

Everything happened at once when the grandfather clock resounded inside the room. The sound of it startled her and the sound of metal clanking upon the floor made her spin to look behind her. There Angele had fallen on his back with a face of bewilderment. Then he spoke with the most astonished voice she'd ever heard from him.

"I can't do it."

Claire's gaze fell upon the dagger that had fallen a few inches away from her feet. All at once she understood. "You..."

"It was your birth that caused the death of my family. It was because of you that I ended up alone. So why...why couldn't I—"

"Because you posses what Miss Clarice speaks of: free will. You knew that killing her would not achieve anything. It wouldn't bring them back." Willow's sudden voice guided his eyes to her shadow standing on the mirror of the room. "You saw yourself in her."

"In me?"

"People think it's hell which we find when we die. But it's not on that other side. It's here and only the few damned live in it." Angele scoff and locked eyes with Claire, "You and I are the same. We have faced this world alone. No matter who there is, if it is not the people we love then it is just as solitary." He scoffed and Claire would have sworn she heard him sob. But that thought went away when she saw him stand back up with little trouble. A small smile crept to his lips and this one, she noticed, didn't seem forced like all the others. "Can you ever forgive me for my actions, my Sage?"

"Someone once told me that things have to go bad in order for them to go well. So I have no hard feelings, really." She snorted a bit before saying, "By the way, that last 'sage' thing was why I came here in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

"I wish to resign my place as the leader of the Court; as the White Sage," she proclaimed earnestly.

"But without a leader—"

"I resign leadership to become the sixth Lord of the Court and call for a vote."

"Vote?" Angele asked.

"To choose our next leader. Not a sage, not a soothsayer; someone who will guide our people in peace and to liberty. I want to announce it after the test. I want a fair judgment and for you all to choose depending on who you see as me and not who you think I am."

Angele thought about it and at last smiled. "Very well, you will take the place of your mother as the Lord of Life."

"Nice, corny stuff for the win," she jokes.

"You should rest," he suggested while picking up the dagger and setting it aside. "Your exam is sometime in the morrow. You need all the rest you can get."

"I will, thanks." She started heading for the door but stopped before opening the door to turn to him. "The reason I'm doing this is because I want to do what I feel is right. I want to show that even no matter what, hope is always stronger than fear." With that said, she left and closed the door behind her.

He scoffed at her simplistic mindset but accepted it as her own. Angele slouched down on his chair and breathed out a sigh of relief. But then another thought hit him. "Willow."

"Yes?"

"Did you create that illusion I saw on the window?"

"I'm not allowed to use my powers without your explicit order. That is what I have memorized."

"I see." There was a silence before Willow broke it.

"Is there a reason to that question?"

"None. I must have seen a hallucination."

I must be going crazy too. But he kept that thought to himself and of what he had seen. "I wonder who that boy was..."

He looked so much like her...


"Talis-sama!" a girl called running into the old castle. It spooked the girl to no end but the message had to be given. She turned all ways trying to find her mistress but found nothing. It wasn't until she faced forward that she saw one of the many entities that made that castle their home.

A young girl's laugh echoed through the empty, rotted stone walls. The former girl looked up to see her mistress falling from the upper floor into the main lobby. Her mossy, green hair was tied up into two buns at either side of her head. Her emerald eyes gazed, amazed at the other and jumped down.

"Hey, what's so urgent? We were playing."

The ghost snickered at the choice of words of its playmate before disappearing and leaving the two alone. "I-It's Angele-sama. His letter has arrived."


A set of arrows flew across the bland dessert training arena that held countless of practice targets and galloping trainer camps. A youth of orange, blonde hair stood over fifteen feet away from his target while looking through a pair of orange colored goggles. He let the arrow fly and saw it hit its mark.

He grinned at his triumph.

From the small, sometimes nomadic, village a woman came up to him with a letter in hand. "Lord Derek."

At hearing his name, he gazed at his side to find her and lowered his bow. "Is it here?"

The woman nodded and handed the envelope to him. A wide grin spread across his face as he pushed his goggles down to his neck showing off his golden eyes. "Perfect."


"Lord Arbel!" A woman ran through the hallways of the underwater city searching desperately. In her hands she had an envelope that had traveled far and wide to find the man it addressed in that area.

"Oh Alicia!" she called to one of the attending maids.

"Yes?"

"Have you seen Lord Arbel anywhere?"

"Mm, last I heard, he and Cade were jamming."

"Seriously!?"


"Oh, how boring." The girl cooed in response to the tedious task they were given. Her clothes were quite Eastern and her blonde hair was left down to meet her ankles. Her brown eyes searched about everywhere except where she needed to see. "How much longer is this going to take you, Mei?"

"Not much longer." The other woman that was beside the girl had short bobbed, black hair and green eyes and was dressed the same style as the girl. They stood before a great oak tree of an abandoned mansion where their objective was. "Why aren't we using the other boy, Kein? The one that died a few days past?"

"It's not within my capabilities," Kein answered and sighed while working her powers. "If they're not in the Underworld, they're out of my reach." It took her a couple of minutes before she accomplished what she had set as her goal. She saw the earth mold up to form the general shape of a body. The earth hardened into clay. The girl tiptoed to tick off with her fingernail the clay around the face. At seeing what was underneath it, she sneered. "But this is all we will need. Don't you agree—" Red eyes shone inside the darkness of the clay casket. "Cloude-san?"


Dun-dun-dun! Leaving you guys with a huge cliffhanger xD sorry cx

Since I'm currently working on three other stories, I'm a little off on writing for this one but I will try to keep my uploads flowing c:

Hoped you liked it. Stayed tuned for the next chapter :D