Hey guys,

Wow is this another monster chapter. I guess Xenolith's story treads just need longer chapters to explain or just do things for the chapter. I guess that's fitting though since he's the first arc's villain. I just really hope he comes off as threatening, because if you ever asked me my least favorite part about Gash Bell's first arc, I would tell you it was Zofis because in the end he was nothing but a pathetic coward. This is why like Zofis, Xenolith is pretty hyped up, but unlike Zofis, this guy will be threatening and actually manage to hold his own.

The other crazy thing is this is the second time, in a row nonetheless, when I get to address Tsumi's past and well, I'm looking forward to it. But yes, if you actually like our two protagonists, get ready, because we're about to take a nice little trip into their psyches!

I hope you enjoy the chapter, I hope to see you all soon!

xKiha

Kimiko felt her breathing become restricted with fear, clutching her spellbook tightly in her hands with eyes darting around. Everybody else was stories below them, which meant they couldn't help. Why did Icarus have to go? He could have lent a hand thanks to his wings, but he was no more.

Tsumi could practically taste the fear his bookreader was going through, looking up at her mortified face with a nervous swallow. His own heart was practically beating out of his small chest, but he forced himself to put on a brave face. You're never supposed to show your enemy your fear, but knowing Xenolith, he already knew what was going through the heads of the poison duo.

"Why so frightened, blossom?" The red headed demon asked, his hands on his hips, sharp teeth curved into a psychotic smile. "Surely you expected this to be the outcome we would wind up in. After all, your friends all planned on this fight belonging to you from the get go." He could see Kimiko tightening her fists, the obvious upset in her eyes.

It was delicious.

"This was always your fight, because you were the two I wanted. You were the two that caused all that trouble for your friends by meeting them. This was on your shoulders because you were pitiful and unlucky enough to open that spellbook and partner up with my gem."

Her grip on her book tightened, pages flying as it was forcibly opened, hazel eyes searching for a specific spell. "Rokuryo!"

Tsumi felt the poison shuriken appear in his hand, purple eyes narrowing with hate as he threw it with what he hoped to be perfect accuracy, acid dripping from the flying spikes and burning into the floor as the poison gas began to fill the air.

Xenolith only smiled.

"Seiyoki!" Yuu shouted as his own book opened. Xenolith holding out one hand, that smile seeming to intensify as a sudden slash ran through the air, the Rokuryo shuriken hitting the ground in multiple pieces.

"N-No…" Kimiko's eyes widened as she watched this, her already shaking body beginning to get worse. This wasn't your average enemy, this one could actually kill them. She wouldn't put it past him, but then again if he wanted them so badly then he wasn't going to do that. In fact, their chance of ending up brainwashed slaves was high.

That was probably going to be their fate.

"I-I don't want to become a puppet." The freshmen couldn't help but feel her eyes mist thanks to fear, not sure what exactly she could rely on right now.

"Now now, who said anything about becoming a puppet?" That cold voice coming from their enemy again, she could feel his amusement with the situation. "If you comply, you won't have to become another play thing. You should know that by now. I am a fair man, blossom; you just haven't given me a fair opportunity to make my own case. You've just allowed yourself to believe what your fear would tell you in the event of facing something you didn't understand." He held out an open palm towards her. "You should know that we could easily become true friends if you wouldn't allow yourself to just believe what one person says."

"Rachido!"

The poison gas began to leave Tsumi's mouth, Kimiko shaking her head with fury. "I would never be weak enough to hand myself over to you!"

"Haroki!" Yuu could be heard choking on his own breath as the poison gas surrounded them, Xenolith's cold grey eyes staring at Tsumi in an unending flirtatious glare. He raised a hand once more, a dark energy glowing around his palm as what seemed to be a dome formed around him and Yuu and blocked out all of the poison gas, Kimiko having to cover her own mouth to make sure she wouldn't end up breathing any of it in.

Tsumi couldn't escape Xenolith's glare, shaking with his own fury. "Y-You're a coward…aren't you?"

By now the Rachido had faded into nothing, the dome Puppet Master had created suddenly shattering into shards of dark energy. Xenolith's eyes leaving the mocking glare and turning into one of hate, suddenly shooting at the poison child.

"Rerano!"

Their spinning shield suddenly appeared, the darkness shards shooting at it with top speed. Kimiko clutching their book close to her chest and praying to god that their spell would hold up against this.

It didn't.

Xenolith's glare intensified, the shards pressing harder as the poison duo's Rerano spell erupted in a burst of acidic and dark energy, Kimiko and Tsumi being sent flying back thanks to the power alone.

"Do you really think I would have done all of this if I was a coward?" Puppet Master hissed, getting closer to the trying to recover and standing Tsumi. "No coward could attempt what I have done."

Tsumi felt his own skin beginning to burn thanks to his acid; even he wasn't immune to its hazardous effects. His chest nervously rising and falling as he tried to straighten his back. "Then why hide behind other demons? Why use them to fight instead of yourself? Why couldn't you just come after us in the first place?"

"Because, I was training you." Xenolith simply said.

"T-Training us?" Tsumi blinking as Kimiko stood up, covered in her own burns but grateful for the perfect health of their book. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, come now. We spoke about your sixth spell, didn't we?" Xenolith's smile returning to his face. "Do you really think I would take control of you when you only had one useless spell to offer? I've been waiting until you have gotten far enough to be appealing. After all, why else would I take control of your friend while in this castle? For shits and giggles isn't the answer, my darling. I did it to pry another spell out of that book, because now that you've racked up five, there's only a matter of time until that sixth one emerges ripe for my picking. Ever since your partner opened that book, you've been playing my waiting game."

Kimiko clenched her book again, shaking her head. "Did you plan all of this?"

He smiled. "Not the making friends part, but most everything else I had a hand in doing. And I adapted to anything I hadn't done, which more or less means I did decide and control your fate."

Kimiko and Tsumi didn't need to look at each other to know what emotions were surfacing from one another, hands clenched into fists and a purple spellbook glowing brightly. "Our fate is something we decide." Tsumi said forcefully as Kimiko nodded, trying to swallow all of her fear and let what she didn't know to be bravery take control. "The fourth spell! Zunsapen!"

Tsumi's mouth opened wide, eyes holding so much resentment as a powerful snake composed of poison and acid fled his mouth and headed for Xenolith who glared it down. "Yuu, if you would." His voice remarkably calm for somebody having quite the killer spell headed right for him.

"Seiyoki!"

Once again, Xenolith held out one of his hands, a powerful slash of energy sending itself through Zunsapen, his eyes widening when he noticed the two halves of the beast continue on ahead. "N-No kidding…" The two halves of the poison shake lunging at him with acidic spit foaming from its molded mouth.

Zunsapen and Xenolith collided with a powerful hiss of poison and acid and yet no sounds were heard from their enemy. Kimiko and Tsumi watching the floor begin to slightly melt on the top as Xenolith emerged from the mess, his own pale skin beginning to burn and bubble over in a scarlet, blood dribbling from the burns. He looked like he just might foam at the mouth, sharp teeth never seeming so menacing. "You're trying my patience." He snapped burnt and bleeding fingers. "Yuu, if you would be a kind man."

"Naturally." His partner replied, flipping through the pages of his book. His own eyes devious as they scanned the spells, the grown man seeming to smirk as his fingertip stroked the spell he wanted. His voice grew low and devious as he spoke the name of their move. "Youpawa."

Kimiko immediately felt restricted, grabbing at her neck which suddenly felt like it was being bound with a thin and invisible string, her hands suddenly being pulled away from her neck as if bound by the same types of strings. She felt her vision beginning to flicker, Xenolith's laughter filling her ears. "X-Xenolith…" She whispered, stumbling back as she felt what seemed to be strings pulling against her body.

"K-Kimi?" Tsumi watching his partner in shock as he suddenly felt the strings grab onto his own neck, releasing a shocked grunt as he tried to pry off the non-existent strings binding him. "W-What is this!?" His voice a low cry as his own vision began to blur, Xenolith's stone cold laughter beginning to fill his own ears while the invisible strings pulled on his restricted body.

"Welcome to what my victims go through, but this time, instead of having to fight we are going to take a little trip. How about we visit your psyche, shall we?"

.

.

.

Kimiko suddenly gasped for air, finding herself surrounded by darkness with eyes frantically darting around in fear. She moved her body around, sighing with relief when she found it fully operational. But, where was she?

"H-Hello?" Her voice wavering as she began to walk through the darkness. "Is anybody there?"

Laughter.

It sounded like the laughter of her peers, the laughter she would hear when she did something they deemed pathetic. How she feared their laughter and ridicule, covering her ears but finding that didn't help at all. The laughter was in her head, unable to go away.

"S-Stop it!" She screamed, holding her hands tightly to her ears even though this didn't help at all. "Stop laughing!" Tears brimming in her eyes as she ran through the darkness.

This didn't make sense, but with her heart pounding out of her chest and laughter blaring in her ears, she didn't care. She just needed a sense of reassurance, panting with widened hazel eyes as she suddenly saw a light in the distance.

Naturally she ran in the direction of the light, desperate for anything as she found the closer she got to the light, the quieter and farther away the laughter became. This of course was ideal as the freshmen continued to bolt in the direction of the light.

Inside the light were all of her friends.

"Y-You guys!" Kimiko panted with excitement, feelings slight tears well up in her eyes just by being with people she cared about. They made her feel safe, or rather they did until she got a proper look at them.

Everybody had cold hateful eyes, glaring at her as if she had killed somebody. Everybody had an angry aura about them as they stared her down, causing Kimiko to recoil in fear, her voice nervously wavering. "A-Are you guys o-okay?"

"No, Kimiko, we are not." Kenja's voice shockingly cold, his azure eyes contorted into something too hateful for Kimiko to understand. "We are trying to comprehend why we ever considered trusting you with such an important battle."

Her voice wavered, not sure why Kenja was suddenly being so cruel to her. "W-What do you mean? I haven't lost yet."

"Really?" This was Michael. "Have you gone blind as well as weak?" His hand motioning to something feet away. Kimiko's eyes widening with shock as she recognized just what it was.

Her purple spellbook being eaten away by flames.

"N-No…that isn't possible." She whispered, taking a step back. "Our book wasn't burned."

"You look surprised, like you never imagined you would crack under pressure against Xenolith." Aislinn said coldly, seeming a lot more hateful than she had ever been towards Kimiko. "You were the only one that ever really believed in yourself and even then, we had to convince you that you believed in yourself. It's pathetic."

"Y-You guys don't believe in me?" The poison bookreader asked, looking from one face to another. "K-Kyo?"

She desperately looked into his light green eyes, only finding hate as he smirked. "We needed a warm up for him, to make him cocky in his own abilities. All we needed to do was convince you had a chance and push you into the fight."

"N-No…" Tears were now beginning to fall as she took another step back, unable to find anywhere or anyone to look at to find comfort or reassurance.

"Say it with me now, Kimiko, you're good enough, you're good enough." Yukio Kincad's face contorted into a horrible smile as everybody began to take steps closer to Kimiko. She was surrounded, trying to back up only to trip over her own back peddling feet and land on her back. The laughter of her peers began once more as the members of her alliance began to get closer and closer.

"P-Please, stop!" She cried out, tears streaming down her face. "S-Stop it!"

And suddenly, it did.

"You really are the most pathetic human I have laid my eyes on."

Kimiko forced her eyes open, tears making her face light up as she looked up to see Xenolith standing before her. It was just him and her, the bookreader desperately wiping her face.

"You fear something as simple as rejection, abandonment, ridicule and inadequacy." Xenolith shaking his head, giving a slight 'tsk' sound. "No wonder you're a pathetic human. Unable to handle not being anything useful to your excuse for society. It shows me just how easy I can break you, because of how fragile you really are on the inside."

Kimiko continued to tremble, looking up at him, legs feeling too weak to stand up as their eyes met. She breathed in the cold air of the nothing they were trapped in. She couldn't find her words, sniffling weakly.

"I might as well break your pathetic excuse for a spirit right now." Xenolith took a step closer to her, his hand reaching to take her chin. "After all, then I won't ever need to worry about accidently killing you when you suddenly decide you have a chance."

He then took her chin, smirking as he bent down so they could be eye level. "Dear blossom, so frightened and unsure of herself. How can somebody like you function?"

She sniffled, trying to be strong. "Because…I-I have people to rely on and help me when I need it!"

"You mean these people?" With a simple flick of the wrist, the hateful and cold eyed alliance returned and began glaring her down. Kimiko flinched, down casting her eyes thanks to the onset of tears. "Come now, blossom, why are you getting so distraught?"

"Those aren't my friends…" She whispered.

Xenolith forcefully pulled at her chin so she'd look at him properly. "And who's to say they aren't? You have no idea what goes on behind you back, so how can you be so sure that this isn't what happens when you aren't around? What's to stop them from meeting up as a group without your knowledge?"

He had a point, Kimiko looking up and around to see all of the faces of the alliance. The hate and cruelty in their faces was something she had never seen before and it was all directed towards her. She lowered her head, trying to escape their glares just by not looking, but that didn't work.

"You really are pathetic." Kenja said.

"So desperate for friends that you'd fall right into our little trap." This was Flynn.

Kyo took a step closer, smirking. "Was it worth it, Kimiko? Were we truly worth the trouble? All that time you spent trying to build us up and become a leader, only to learn your true potential as the worthless decoy. You even fell for me, didn't you? How does it feel to know you were lied to the entire time? To know everything you thought was good about this was nothing but another lie by a person who never cared for you."

She had tears running down her face and her hands clenched into fists. "You're not Kyo Yakage!" She slowly got to her feet. "And you're not Kenja Sedai or Flynn Fukisa! You're not Aislinn Akihira or Michael Whatley! Nobody here is Setsuna Yuuki or Yukio Kincad! You're all fakes because my friends would never betray me like this!

"You don't understand it Xenolith, but I brought all of those people together; I visited Kenja in the hospital to make friends and I spent all my time at school trying to help Aislinn remember who I was. Everybody in that group was brought together by me or the friends I made, because we all could understand each other and developed the common goal of wanting to kill you! My friends would never betray me, because nobody would come all the way out to a possibly deadly castle to fight a villain if they didn't have a reason! And they all came because they wanted to destroy you to help me and Tsumi!

"Those aren't my friends, Xenolith and you could never trick me otherwise because unlike them, I know the rest of the alliance cares about me." Tears were streaming out of her eyes and down her face, but she smiled all the while, knowing she was right.

But just as she got excited, her world erupted into black.

.

.

.

Tsumi was surrounded by darkness, but he knew one thing and that was that somehow, he suddenly felt so much smaller. He could see light in the distance, some deep sense of familiarity filling his body as he headed towards the bright and inviting light, a smile spreading across his face and growing in size the closer he got.

But when he reached the light, the entire scene changed on him.

Suddenly he found himself a lot shorter than before, walking through a town composed completely of hazy shadows for buildings and people. He was holding the hand of a taller figure, but like the rest of the town, he was nothing but shadows.

"Now, Tsumi, you'll always be a big boy, right?" This discorded voice left what the poison demon figured to be the larger shadow's mouth. But he wasn't sure why he was seeing this, but it almost felt familiar in a way.

"Y-Yeah~" He found himself unwillingly saying, as if this was some memory where he was forced to stick to the script.

"That's my boy. But you need to remember this no matter what, because I've gotta have you stay with some nice demons for a while without me."

Tsumi immediately felt saddened, looking up at this shadow almost desperately. "Where are you gonna stay?"

"I've just got some work to do."

They walked for a while longer before reaching what seemed to be a building, the larger shadow ringing what sounded like a door bell before beginning to walk away. "You stay there, Tsumi and remember, you have to be a big boy."

Watching that shadow leave was killing Tsumi on the inside and he didn't know why, suddenly feeling heartbroken and lost.

"Such a shame isn't it? To have a father abandon his own son when he was merely two."

Tsumi jerked, seeing Xenolith suddenly form as the only thing that wasn't a shadow in this town. The psychotic smile spread across his face as always. "It's funny what little repressed tidbits you can discover from somebody's early childhood that wound up hidden way in the back. You were such a tiny little thing that the memory's barely intact, but it was still a good enough show not to keep it to myself."

"Y-You mean…that happened to me?" Tsumi whispered. "My father…he abandoned me?"

"Yes he did. Threw you away like garbage." Xenolith smirked. "You must have been a truly disappointing son to warrant that treatment. Maybe you `were born into a wealthy or high class family and your strength or abilities were a disappointment to everybody in that family. Or maybe you were a horribly ungrateful child, or your father decided he wanted to move on to greater things and that you would only ruin everything for him."

Tsumi lowered his head. Could it be possible that his father, maybe even both of his parents, weren't dead? "I-I can't believe it…"

"You better, because that man never comes back. He's not in a single memory after that, repressed or not."

The poison demon shook his head. "W-Why would he do something like that? I-I don't understand."

"Maybe he was disappointed by your so called abilities; after all, you've yet to deal any real damage. You have spells, but it's obvious that none of them are useful enough for you to be considered powerful." Xenolith then took a step closer to him, smirking all the while. "But, if you would allow me to help you, I could introduce you to your real power."

He held out his hand to the young poison demon, who recoiled just at the sight of long and pointed fingernails. "Come now, my purple gem, no need to be afraid of a demon who only wants to make you into the strong beast I know you would desire to be."

Tsumi looked up at him, finding himself actually thinking this over for a moment before shaking his head. "N-No, Xenolith."

"What was that?" Puppet Master's voice growing spiteful as his cold silver eyes glared down the poison demon.

"I said no, Xenolith." Tsumi's voice growing a bit more forceful as his meager confidence began to build. "I might have been abandoned by my father for God knows why…but maybe it was for the best. Who knows why he did what he did, maybe he was some kind of mess who couldn't take care of a child. But even know, I have a family of my own. I have a bookreader, a partner who helps me become as strong as possible because she believes in me.

"I don't need you to try and make me stronger because I already am!" He boldly said. "I have people to rely on who know full well that I am more than capable of kicking your ass with the strength I have!"

Xenolith smirked. "Oh my poor gem, we'll see." His body beginning to fade as the entire world of his suddenly seemed to break into pure darkness.

.

.

.

Not many people had broken through what Xenolith had begun to nickname 'The Slaughtering of Psyche', in fact the poison duo were the first to do it, Kimiko moving her hands and neck as if breaking the invisible strings binding her. Her hazel eyes narrowed into a hateful stare. "Game over, Xenolith. You can't hurt us anymore."

"And who decides that?" Puppet Master smirked.

Tsumi clenched his grey skinned hands into tight fists. "We do, because if that's truly the best you got, then we know we can take you on."

Kimiko nodded as she opened up her spellbook, hazel eyes locking into his with her own serious glare. "You can't play into my fears anymore, Xenolith, because now that I know where my true fears are, I know that I don't need to worry about being afraid of you."