Disclaimer: Legend of Mana and all of its properties isn't mine obviously.

So, this is the update of the story~ yeah, I'm on roll at this and all~ blame the game for my first game ever. Anyway, I'm on the time where I write a lot of gaming fanfic rather than my major fandom (Vocaloid), so expect more update on this rather than my other story from major fandom. I'm not so sorry about that, I just lost my interest. :D

Okay, so let's get on this chapter and I want to ask for forgiveness if my English suck. English isn't my native nor my second language or anything like that. With that in mind, would you please leave some Review in the end?

Io walked out of the Jungle after her long and tiring journey. It took her 5 days to reach the place where the Artifact landed and it really tires her out.

At least now she had reached the entrance of the said eerie place, and she just knew it that now she stood quite near from the famous Macabre Tombstone. Io remembered about a far away story about dragon that she used to hear from someone. This tombstone was built in memory of the war that happened even before the war of Human and Fairies, and it now had been forgotten by the people.

Iolite could sense the emptiness of the graveyard as she stepped inside it. Well, the only present tomb was the big menacing tombstone, but Io thought that because this place had a tombstone so this was a graveyard, used to, at least.

Io looked all over the graveyard after she felt better after a brief rest, but she couldn't see anything that looked like an entrance to the world of dead. She started to feel depressed, and guess that story would always remain as a story. She intended to leave the place and do another journey to, maybe, get some new Artifact.

But, Io just couldn't do that when all of sudden, a flickering pale blue flame passed her. As it passed, Io could feel the soul of living inside of it, and spontaneously she spun her body just to see the flame disappeared when it touched the tombstone.

'It might be the way…' Io thought to herself as she took a step towards the flame path.

When Io stood right in front of the tombstone, she hesitated. The fact was that Underworld was the world of dead being. It made her thought if she still remained as human she couldn't enter the place as the entry only given to the dead.

Io swallowed her hesitance and touched the tombstone. She waited a second… ten second… but nothing happened. Then she sighed when suddenly, she felt a strong presence right behind her.

She wanted to spin her body so she could see who it was when she felt a strong hit on the back of her neck and her control over her body vanished. She still sensed the cold earth below her and a hazy vision of her surroundings. Before the darkness claimed her, she saw a shadow of someone. A sad and pained individual that never failed to make her hearts twitched.

Somehow she felt that her journey would take much longer than she ever thought before…

Io was dreaming again. But, different from her usual dream about the calling of Mana Goddess, now she dreamt about a war. It was a war of a far distant past. It was the war of dragon, the Mana Dragon, to be exact. Io ever read about this war on one of her history book, but because this war was an inner war of dragon against a dragon, not much information Io got from it.

Io floated on the sky as a watcher when a dragon struck her, but since this was a dream, of course the dragon actually went pass her like she wasn't there in the first place. Io threw her glance over the direction that the dragon went off and followed it.

Io followed the dragon somehow when it lead her to one area she never saw before. There, reside a human shaped dragon with fiery red armor and an Axe on the dragon right hand. Io's interest was picked on as the dragon break through the other dragon with a never ending stamina.

Io was stunned at the dragon power when he fought with his axe. The dragon defeated its enemy easily as if they were a kid toy. Io then hovered nearer to the said dragon and found it was a male dragon, but it's not like Io thought that somehow the dragon was female, of course.

Io wanted to speak to the dragon but couldn't see a way to do it. She wanted to ask his name, so she could call him one day. Io hovered beside him until a woman, or more like, Female Dragon, approached the dragon she spotted first. The dragon that came near her had the color of strong red, and with a first glance, Io knew that the dragon was a Dragon of Fire Tiamat, one of the Sacred Mana Dragon. A sudden knowledge struck her that the male dragon she followed for awhile was a Dragoon, a loyal servant of a Mana Dragon.

The two dragons spoke in some ancient language that she didn't know of before they looked to one direction. Io couldn't help but follow their gazes and found that she was looking to the sky. The sky was desolate of living being but the sky was blue. Then she waited for what would come from the sky.

It was a long waiting, and she could feel that her presence inside the dream was waning. Soon, very soon, she would come back to her own reality and left the dream for the next time she might see it. When Io started fading from the dream world, the sky changed its color. No, it's not like it would rain, but the sky was covered by dragon. Not just a normal dragon but complete five Mana Dragons, each of them was being followed by their own Dragon.

They landed not too far from the place Io stood at, and the Dragon changed its appearance into a human look alike. Then they moved closer to Io's place, and to Io surprise, they circled her fading existence as if they knew she was there.

A dragon with the color of blue, like the water, took a step towards her with a gaze that focused to her very being. Io felt that she was absorbed into her deep gaze and felt that it made her drown into an invisible sea. She knew right now she would come back to her body.

Right before she completely disappeared, Io heard a voice, "Choose the path you believe in no matter how wrong it was, Mana Children," the voice said.

Io could feel her strength coming back to her body as she came back from the long dream she experienced. She tried to open her heavy eyelids so she could see what exactly happened to her before she blacked out. It was quite easy after a while to open her eyes, but when she did however, she found herself in a dim lighted room made from stone that didn't exist in the living world.

A sudden realization hit her as she realized that the room she was in didn't resemble any living world as long as she remembered and just by that she knew she was inside the Underworld. She forced herself to awake from her sleeping position while enduring the aching inside her head.

'What happened back then… and how come I'm inside the Underworld? So, does it mean that I was dead already?' a thousand question flooded inside her still aching head as she forced herself to move.

Before Io even got an answer for her question, she felt a presence coming to her. Used to suspicious being, Io stood back on her feet with her spear in her grasp. She eyed one corner suspiciously as the being came closer and closer to her direction. Io only hoped that it wasn't a Shadole.

But, before the being even came to her eyesight, it said, "Drop your guard, living being. I'm not your enemy," the being said with a stern voice.

Io could feel her hands twitched at the command but didn't drop her guards… yet. The being sighed before it stepped into the light. And when it does, Iolite knew that the being won't hurt her, because she knew who the being was.

Stood in front of her was a male human-like dragon. It had the color of fiery red and spiky long violet hairs. His blazing eyes had the color of dark purple and he never failed to amaze her just by being there. The being that stood in front of her, indeed, the same Dragoon she saw before.

It was like an eternity for Io to wait for him to speak. The dim-light of the room made the Dragoon color stood out like a jewel inside a basket of stone, and it entrance her in a way she never felt before.

Even when she faced the Lapis Lazuli Knight or the former Holy Knight, she never felt herself being drawn like this. She felt a deep sympathy and shared a deep feeling for the Jumi Knight because he was a Jumi, no more no less. The reason why she even could shed a tear for Jumi and made a Teardrop Crystal was because she shared the sadness of the Mana Goddess. And for the former Holy Knight, she only felt pissed by his blockhead personality and his self-right justice. For the good of Fa'diel, Iolite didn't hesitate to kill that kind of man as it was the hope of the Goddess too.

But, this Dragoon was different. Even just by standing, he struck her as a pure fighter. His loyalty couldn't be doubted as he shared his life as one with his Dragon master. That whatever he would choose to walk, his decision was firm and if she tried to walk beside him on the same path, she would see more that what she would see just by herself.

Iolite tried to open her mouth and speak something. When she was faced by the Dragoon that seemed to wait for her to speak, she wanted to ask him the question she longed to ask since their meeting inside the dream.

"Who…" a small voice escaped her mouth, but she knew it was too wide of a question and she continued her question.

"Who are you?"

So, the time for our destined meeting has come~ dum duru du dum~ and moving on, we have a teaser for chapter 2~ oh yeah, better get on with it and I guess a review should be appreciated~

Teaser for Chapter 2

"Who are you?"

A question escaped the mouth of the silent Mana Children which was directed to the only remotely looking like a living being in the Underworld with a form of a Human Dragon. The Dragon looked down for a while, before scanned her from the tip of her shoes until the last strands of her hairs.

It surely sent Iolite a shiver as she stayed quiet under his sharp watchful eyes. Of course she wanted her question to be answered fast, but she saw it as an unlikely seeing how the Dragon, or more correctly, Dragoon eyeing her physical body. She did wonder what he had been seeing for the whole time from her. She was not a real beauty or anything with that definition. She was a pretty normal girl with some attitude problem. At least she never found herself interesting except the fact that she was the last of Mana Clan, not that she boasted about it.