Disclaimer: Everything that is obviously not mine, I don't own. Stay away from Majandra, Kaerion, Mikhail, and the Maru's!

A/N: Thus we arrive at chapter six. Who liked the first five chapters? Well, stuff starts getting crazy starting now, so hang on tight! Oh yeah, I hope you do the review thing too.

LFK

Majandra's Room, Halls of Justice

The week following the attack passed with agonizing tediousness for Majandra and the Maru's. Being locked up upon their return to the Temple of Tyr - in the exact same room even - after risking their lives fighting off the real enemies was a real blow to Majandra's pride, and she vented her frustration every chance she had with her reluctant guards.

"This is so bloody stupid," Majandra growled as she threw one of the healing potions she'd requested from the temple store next to the ten or so others laid out on the covers of her lumpy mattress. "Orc shit! I slay scores of little monsters - who ruined my night and killed my friend, by the way - and I'm rewarded with another 'request' to stay in the temple! Bloody hypocrites… I bet Kaerion got a bleeding five star inn…." Her angry mutters continued unabated as she laid first her sword belt containing the sheathed Maru's, and then Shade's scuffed, black leather belt on the bed next to her pile of potions.

Looks like you're well prepared to play battle slave to the elf and her Tyran friends, Demon-girl. Rekkei-maru's "voice" had been a wearing, sarcastic presence in Majandra's mind ever since she lost control back at the academy, and the crimson entity hadn't once let her forget how much she'd enjoyed the rush of power. I thought you had enough of that, after what our last master did to you. Majandra's eyes flashed at the pain that particular memory brought back, but she otherwise ignored the cruel words of her… could she even call Rekkei a friend anymore? The crimson blade hadn't been this volatile since their time in the Abyss, nor had she deliberately provoked Majandra's wrath to such an extent that she actually lost control in its entirety.

For the last time, Rekkei! Tekkei-maru complained impotently, voice less tangible than her counterpart's. Let Majandra alone, at least until we know what's to become of us.

Stop whining, you blithering idiot! Rekkei snarled in reply. We already know what Nasher and his pawns plan on doing to us. They'll use us until they get what they want, their precious cure, and then they'll get rid of us. You know what those of the Tyran faith like to do to ones such as us!

Majandra winced and held her head for a second before pressing down on her ears and screaming, "Would the both of you PLEASE shut up!"

Touchy. Rekkei remarked a second later.

Through no small thanks to you, Tekkei added right on her heels.

"Damn, stupid things," Majandra muttered as she began stuffing the potions into a small bag of holding. "Why can't you give me a moment's peace?"

Come into your head and we'll show you. Rekkei replied slyly. You know how to do it, you're just too much of a coward to do so.

"Fine!" Majandra snapped as she roughly picked up her twin wakizashi and sat down against the foot of the bed. "But, just as a warning, I fully intend to hit you, if not kill you, if you show your ugly face."

The last thing she heard before sinking into the light trance was Rekkei's parting, "you mean, your ugly face…"

When Majandra next opened her eyes, she found herself seated upon the spire of a tall mountain. To the one side there was a forest that looked identical to the Nurikabe of her childhood, from the mist that blanketed the ground to the hazy shields that blocked the unwary traveler. On the other side of the massive dreamscape was a recreation of her worst nightmares: the Abyss.

"Took you long enough to venture here once again," Majandra turned to the right at the sound of that husky, seductive voice to see a clone of herself step out of the roiling chaos of the Abyss. "And here I was thinking you didn't like us anymore." Rekkei-maru's avatar was bathed in a faint crimson light that seemed to emanate from her glowing eyes, and her demonic qualities were even more apparent than Majandra's. The tips of her horns curled back a good foot, her eyes were slit like a cat's, and a pair of ragged, black wings hung from her shoulder blades.

"Much has changed, since you last sought the void, Majandra." Another clone, this one covered in a weakly flickering, golden light, appeared from the forest. Tekkei's avatar was nearly transparent compared to Rekkei's, and her benevolent voice wasn't nearly as strong as her counterpart's spiteful tone. Unlike the other, Tekkei looked like a normal elven woman but for the pair of white wings trailing feathers to her feet.

"That's easy to believe," Majandra replied sarcastically as she hopped off her pedestal and turned to the grinning Demon. "Oh, and Rekkei?" She cocked her fist back and ruthlessly punched her in the jaw. Pain exploded in her own face at the contact, and Majandra was thrown back a step.

"Oww, dammit! What was that for?" Rekkei scowled at her, left cheek already darkening in a colorful bruise.

"Because I wanted to!" Majandra snapped in reply, caressing her own hurt cheek. "Besides, it answers one of my questions about this damn link of ours. What happened to change it from simple telepathic communication?"

"I actually have a theory for that," Tekkei replied, interrupting the death-glares being sent and received between the two hot-tempered women. "But you aren't going to like it."

"What do you mean I'm not going to like it?" Majandra growled as she turned her back on her fuming double. "I'm already not liking very much, you two included! Just tell me already."

"You have the plague. Well, curse." Tekkei's simple words stunned Majandra into silence. "We've seen evidence of its effects in how the people of the city are acting, and the way it taints their blood. Well, since we DID, um, ingest some of it accidentally, we got some of the dark magic in our body as well. Simply, the curse is designed to sap all the positive feelings from the host, along with their strength and vitality, until they're left as shells of themselves. That's when they die."

"What!" Majandra and Rekkei exclaimed a second later, voices blending into one. The crimson twin shut her mouth with a snap at the angry glare Majandra sent her way.

"First of all, there is no "our" body here. It's just ME. Secondly, what does any of that have to do with this?" she waved her hand between the three of them. "My problem is that you and you are getting a little too liberal with my body for sentient swords."

"Pfft," Rekkei snorted a second later. "Neutral girl still doesn't get it."

"Look, Majandra," Tekkei said gently. On second thought, her voice was always gentle anyhow. "I've given this a lot of thought, and I think I know what's been happening lately."

"Ah, shoot." Majandra sighed as she resumed her seat on the boulder. "It's obvious I won't be leaving until this is resolved."

"Well," Tekkei continued. "It seems that your father was a more devious man than we thought he was. I'm not saying he was evil or wrong," she added hurriedly, seeing the red seep into Majandra's eyes like floodtide. "Just that he was taking better care of us – you – than we thought."

"Just get to the point, Tekkei." Rekkei grumbled from where she stood a few meters away, closest of the three of them to the Abyss. "We really haven't got all day."

Tekkei nodded and continued, white wings fluttering nervously. "Well, to put it bluntly, Rekkei and I aren't just consciousnesses grafted into your blades. Your father, our father, found that as you were growing, you had a tendency to fluctuate from either ends of the alignment spectrum, and all because of your mixed blood. You had the capacity to do good, but, all too often, your evil side would take over. As a last resort, after seeing his efforts in controlling your wild nature were in vain, he separated your… personality, I suppose, into three parts. Rekkei is the evil, Tekkei the good, and then you. Majandra, you are the neutral entity, and thus the foremost in control of our body."

"Looks like daddy wasn't such a saint after all, Maggie-poo." Rekkei sneered as Majandra's face fell and then hardened.

"So, what you're basically saying is that you're my alter egos?" she said stiffly, refusing to look in Rekkei's direction.

"That's right," Tekkei replied. "And the plague is slowly changing the balance in us. You probably caught the disease the moment you set foot in the city, but drinking the blood of those infected guards has only sped up the process. All too soon, I fear, the good in you will be drowned out as you and Rekkei slowly begin to think more and more alike until you are one."

The three of them sat in silence for a long while, each caught up in their own individual thoughts. Rekkei saw their curse as an opportunity to finally be freed of her mind-prison, and able to become the person she was sure Majandra as a whole was meant to be. Majandra was shocked, torn between anger at her father for toying with her mind in such a fashion and grief that he wasn't the one to finally tell her this. Tekkei, on the other hand, had already accepted her place as least of the three, and was worrying about how the cards would finally fall into place, hoping desperately for Majandra to be the final victor.

"I think I need a nap," Majandra said suddenly, and, without warning, the dreamscape collapsed in an explosion of blinding light as Majandra keeled over in a dead faint.

A/N: ok, so this turned into a little bit of a Majandra interval, but I swear I'm still writing! This is just to tide you guys over until the end of SOL/Finals week. I'll have something new out by the weekend. By the way, did you like it?