So, obviously this story isn't on indefinite hiatus or anything. I decided to put some time into an original manuscript, so I took a lengthy break from the site.

That being said, this story will reach completion, as has always been the plan. I've got no intention of leaving it hanging.

And as we continue, you may notice that the story is homing in on less characters. That's because one of the biggest barriers to me writing this is trying to figure out what to do with so many characters. So instead of keeping up with literally everyone, things will probably focus more on the groups you've seen thus far. Of course everyone will still have an appearance, but I've decided against trying to extrapolate a plot for every one of them. This will just make things easier for all of us.

Amy was getting a little taller. Cyril could tell because, during the weeks since their mishap at the cave, the young redhead had come just slightly closer to Cyril's shoulder. In fact, Cyril thought that Amy was going through a growth spurt in general, as she was growing a little in general. With an analytical eye over the sixteen days since his fight with the aerial lizard, Cyril had noticed that Amy's body had been growing a little more womanly as well. Of course, the slightly fuller shape of her figure truly was minor. Were Cyril not such an attentive individual, it was unlikely that he would have even noticed any difference at all.

Then again, even if he had been oblivious, it would have at least been obvious that Amy herself was pleased with her growth, probably because it had been a surprise. From her rather extensive knowledge on these things thanks to her long stints of solitude in her father's library, it was Amy's understanding that girls did not grow too terribly much after fourteen or fifteen. Now that she had a man on her mind, she had been a little insecure about her body, but maybe she wasn't done growing just yet? If she were lucky she still had a decent road ahead of her.

Still, as she stared at Cyril's back from a few steps behind him, Amy acknowledged that she may not have had to worry about her looks so much. Cyril had told her already that he enjoyed her company and presence. He liked her personality, if nothing else. Even so, a little more feminine growth wouldn't hurt...

Regardless, Amy had time to worry about that later. She figured that she was still a bit too young for a serious romance with her companion, even if her feelings had grown both potent and true. Her affections were beyond mere infatuation, but it was too soon to act on those feelings. Amy's maturity may have made her more understanding of what real love was, but that didn't change her age. She didn't think Cyril would be comfortable with reciprocating her affections at the present, so for now all she could do was wait.

That was agonizing in itself, but it was a torture Amy was willing to endure. For now she was just happy to be near the man she had developed such strong feelings for.

That being said, she had been very pleased to watch Cyril recover from his Gungnir wound over the past two weeks. By now his flesh had finally healed over, leaving only small traces of his injury. There were still some light burns crisscrossing his arm, but for the most part he had finally healed, and he had told Amy already that his pain had subsided to nearly imperceptible levels, which was all the redhead wanted to hear.

As for their travels in and of themselves, they had been surprisingly uneventful since the battle with the corrupted reptile. They had been chasing wisps and traces of dark energy, most of them turning up little more than individuals Amy recognized as malfested like herself. Of course none of them had been in possession of some powerful evil item that could have been the Catalyst, but the multiple malfested encounters had been very suspicious to Amy, who was herself malfested.

It had occurred to her the very first time Cyril's tracking abilities had lead them to a malfested individual: what if the Catalyst was Soul Edge? Cyril had said it could be literally anything, but if there was some object that was going to bring about the end of the world, wouldn't it probably be some great evil like the Cursed Sword? Besides, Cyril's energy traces had lead them to several malfested people, so it seemed like a probable conclusion...

Yet at the same time it didn't. If Cyril was tracing Soul Edge's power over any similar dark energies, then why hadn't he said anything to Amy? Her malfestation was not very strong: she had been malfested second-hand from exposure to Raphael, rather than directly. In fact, with the exception of her eyes, which had changed colors after her exposure, Amy's malfestation had barely affected her at all, at least in any way she could discern. But even so, Cyril had proven capable of tracking weak energy signatures from a distance, so there was no way he couldn't sense Amy's malfestation when she was right next to him all the time.

Also, if he could track such weak signatures, why couldn't he home in on Soul Edge directly? It was obviously the most powerful source of malfestation there was, so he should have been able to track it from a great distance.

These points made Amy doubt her idea regarding Soul Edge as the Catalyst, so she hadn't suggested it to Cyril just yet, instead choosing to wait until she had more definite support for her theory. So for now she was simply following Cyril's lead, which, for the moment, happened to be across an expansive plain of grass somewhere in the uncivilized southern reaches of the Holy Roman Empire. They had left France's borders behind a few days ago, and it was not lost on Cyril that he was heading in the rough direction of Saxony, his home as a mortal. He briefly recalled that Tira had been a Saxon native as well, but banished the thought since it had no relevance to his current situation.

A gentle breeze allowed the duo to experience a pleasant trek through these fields of grass, especially since Amy had made a point of no longer complaining about travel of any length or difficulty. That was mostly thanks to her new perspective on this journey, but it was also because she had grown a little more used to the physical exertion demanded of her. Despite her skills in combat, she had never been a particularly robust individual, so Amy had been developing quite a bit of stamina with all of the walking she had been doing at Cyril's side.

Unfortunately this newfound ability to last on the road meant Amy had less and less opportunities to be carried by her companion, but that was the price she paid for competency.

Her mood slightly dampened by the thought of it, Amy sought to get it off her mind with conversation as her slender legs parted the tall grass that was in her way. "Cyril? I have a question."

Ever the stoic man when on the move, Cyril didn't take his eyes off the horizon even as he acknowledged Amy's words. "That being?"

"You said before that the Catalyst could be anything: but just to be clear, did you mean literally anything? Anything at all? Could the Catalyst be something as negligible as a blade of grass or some fish swimming about the depths of the ocean?"

With an amused chuckle, Cyril shrugged. "On a technicality, it very well could be something like that. However, the likelihood that the Catalyst is something of that nature is infinitesimal. The Catalyst is called such because it is the trigger for Armageddon: and while it could very well be something ludicrous, its identity is usually that of a person or a powerful object. Of course, though I say as much, there were times when the apocalypse originated from the most unlikely of sources..."

Silently thankful that they probably wouldn't have to scour the world's billions of forms of vegetation to stop Armageddon, Amy decided to question Cyril's vague description of a ludicrous origin. "And what was this unlikely source?"

"Freedom."

Amy stopped in her tracks to eye the man before her. "Alright, how on earth did freedom destroy the world? That can't be right."

Seeing that she had stopped for the moment, Cyril turned to face the girl he was traveling with. "Well before I can explain it I must explain the Cycle to some extent. As you know, the apocalypse has been a repeated occurrence since the dawn of time. Each time humanity is destroyed, but after each Cycle humanity is reborn again. Does this make sense to you?"

Truly it didn't, but even so Amy could grasp the concept. She could fathom some endless circle of life and death for all humankind, but she could at least understand the concept of something being torn down only to be built back up again. "I suppose it does. Why?"

Cyril nodded to himself. "Alright, so humanity restarts from nothing every time the Cycle begins again. And since the Cycle does not operate on a specific time frame, the human race may get more or less time to develop than the last Cycle. I'm telling you this because, in the Cycle where clumsiness ended up destroying the world, human society was far more advanced than this one; they possessed weapons of incredible destructive force, capable of leveling entire cities in a flash and poisoning the world around it."

Amy couldn't possibly imagine a weapon of such magnitude, and couldn't understand how Cyril could either. "Hold on, how would you know? Obviously you weren't there, and we don't have anything like that in this world."

"The Four survive every Cycle, since they are beyond the mortal realm, and they document every Consummation so that their Sentinel's may study them, that we may more easily hunt the Catalyst at any given time. I do not know anything about these destructive weapons I mentioned other than what the Four recorded about them. As you said, I have never witnessed them personally, nor can I fathom their design and power. I only know they existed in humanity's arsenal at some point in time."

Finding this needlessly complicated, Amy sighed, trying to reroute the conversation. "OK, so they have these very powerful weapons that destroy cities and whatnot. That doesn't answer how freedom destroyed the world."

"Well, these weapons were obviously very dangerous, and many countries around the world possessed them. Because of their destructive power, everyone was afraid to use these weapons lest their enemies use them as well, and ensure everyone's death."

"I'm still confused as to how the world was destroyed."

Cyril held a hand up. "Hold on, I'm trying to explain a society from an entirely different eon here. Anyway, one of the countries that possessed these weapons operated under a democratic system. It's people were allowed to vote on a leader rather than rely on bloodline succession."

"OK..."

"And since the people were free to choose, they were free to choose poorly. At some point they chose a terribly ill-suited man to be their leader. I do not recall much about him other than the fact that he had terrible hair, but this man eventually used the aforementioned weapons on his enemies, who in turn used theirs on him, resulting in mutual annihilation, and thanks to the poisonous nature of the weapons, death for all mankind."

Amy couldn't help the incredulous look on her face. "OK, hold on. By that logic, wouldn't the Catalyst have been that man in particular, or even the person who invented these terrible weapons in the first place?"

Cyril shook his head. "The weapons themselves never would have led to Armageddon in the hands of responsible leaders. As for the man, he never would have been in a position to use said weapons had he not been chosen as the leader for his people."

"Then whoever established this country you speak of as a democracy would be the Catalyst, right?"

"On a technicality those people only established their nation as a democracy because of a desire to be free, so in a roundabout way freedom still caused the End."

Amy placed her hands on her hips. "Wait, so according to you freedom should be responsible for ending the world in every Cycle!"

"I did not say that. That particular chain of events only happened once in the many Cycles there have been. Obviously there have been democratic societies in other Cycles that did not bring about the world's destruction. It was just that one time."

"Alright, but even then, you're telling me that it may already be too late! That the Catalyst in this Cycle could have been some form of government institutionalized a hundred years ago, and if that's the case we have no chance of stopping anything!"

Cyril folded his arms. "Nonsense. My fellow Sentinels and I could easily decimate an entire country if we needed to."

"That's not the point, you can't destroy an idea! It's impossible to stamp out an ideal like freedom without slaughtering the entire human race, and that would obviously be counter-productive!"

The Sentinel in front of Amy thought on this for a moment. "Fair enough. In that case I must admit, some Cycles are impossible to prevent. It depends on what the Catalyst is... if it some natural phenomenon or some deeply ingrained aspect of human nature, then their may be no salvation for that particular Cycle. We can only hope that the Catalyst in this Cycle is some physical object or particular person that can be destroyed."

This unexpectedly cryptic talk of possible hopelessness only served to scare the redhead beside Cyril. "H-hold on, so if it isn't one of those things, are we all just going to die? N-no matter what?"

Not immediately catching on to Amy's insecurity in this matter, Cyril merely shrugged. "Everyone dies eventually Amy. Even Sentinels do not last forever."

"That's not what I meant you blithering oaf! Dying of old age or sickness is one thing, but I don't want to be obliterated by some... some worldwide catastrophe that kills everyone! Isn't is obvious that the thought of something like that is terrifying?!"

Cyril was going to intervene, but Amy wasn't done yet, seeing as how Cyril had unwittingly driven her into a state of panic.

"And what does that mean for you anyway?! If the world ends, do you just go back home and watch everyone die?! That's horrible! That would be-"

Deciding to put it to rest as quickly as possible, Cyril interrupted the girl here. "Amy. The Four know when a Cycle can and cannot be stopped. If this Cycle's Catalyst was something that could not be destroyed, they would not have sent us in the first place. That said, even if destruction were inevitable... I would not abandon you to face it alone. I'd stay with you until the end."

While he had expected this to earn some sort of affection from the girl, Amy merely folded her arms and stared at her companion incredulously. "That would be stupid. I wouldn't want you to die with me you know."

"I appreciate the thought, but believe me, I have no desire to go back to Valhalla for the next few millenia. Ten years in that place nearly drove me insane, I could not survive thousands. Besides, I'd much rather die alongside someone important to me as opposed to a slow, agonizing wait for Valhalla's energy to no longer sustain me."

This time Amy seemed affected by Cyril's words, but in the end she simply shook her head. "All of these people in the world are looking for the key to immortality, and here you are saying you'd rather die young... what a fool."

"Well, I didn't say I wanted to die young. I don't want to live a thousand years, but I would still like to live a decently long life beside people I love..."

Under normal circumstances such words may have flustered Amy, but she was well aware that Cyril was not referring to the kind of love she desired. At the most she was probably like a little sister... hopefully. There was always a chance that he loved her like a daughter, but that would have been both strange and highly unfortunate. Having Raphael was already enough for her, and Amy had no desire to struggle through such an awkward association in the first place.

"Fair enough I suppose... anyway, I believe we've taken a long enough rest, don't you? There's still no end to these plains in sight, so we should keep moving."

With a nod, Cyril turned back towards the direction he had initially been walking, though this time he made a point of walking beside Amy instead of ahead of her. As small of a notion as it was, the young redhead found herself glad to be beside the man yet again.

Roughly two weeks after she had decided to head home, Tira was filled with various emotions when she finally laid eyes on it after so many years of absence. The relatively large city of Dresden had not really changed at all since Tira had last seen it. The ruins of Dohna castle could still be seen, its walls having been destroyed centuries ago. The rest of the city was in its usual element of gradual expansion, with people milling around as they went about their business. As for construction, Tira could only spot one or two new stone buildings. She couldn't tell what they were supposed to be, but it was obvious that the population of Dresden had not grown much since she left, though, to be fair, Tira had only been absent for three years.

Either way, Tira was unsure of how she felt about being here. On one hand, she felt a certain nostalgia to seeing the streets of Dresden once again. It had been her home for fourteen years, even if some of those years had been spent on the streets. On the other hand this place was filled with a lot of painful memories: she had spent several years under the Birds of Passage here, and though she had once counted that guild as her family, those memories included the pain of losing them when the Evil Seed fell.

But even so, Tira had taken the time to get here, so she wasn't going to just turn around and leave. With the cloak she had acquired from her merchant victim two weeks ago still around her shoulders, Tira wasted no time in stepping into Dresden's outskirts, having abandoned the transportation she had used to get here. What she didn't do was take the time to hide her ring blade. Normally she would, if she were looking to avoid conflict, but Tira knew for a fact that no one would bother her about her weapon. After all, she wasn't really a full on stranger here in Dresden.

The Birds of Passage had always been secretive: they had to be, considering that they were a guild of assassins. But the people of Dresden had always been aware of their killer shadows, aware of the protection they offered. The Birds had been far from a noble organization, but for the most part they had always protected the people of Dresden, both for their own interests and to satisfy their own need to protect their home, since most of the assassins had been Dresden residents themselves. People who had lived in Dresden for more than a few days soon learned to fear dark alleys and low rooftops more than the actual guards: serious criminals were almost always found dead before they could be thrown in a dungeon somewhere.

Ironically, the Birds had killed many murderers themselves in retribution for their acts. Tira had always found it ironic that bad people were punishing other bad people, but she supposed that even evil individuals had something they wanted to protect, and in the case of the Birds of Passage, that something had been Dresden itself. Of course, it wasn't like this protection came free of charge. The Birds may have protected the people out of some twisted sense of societal camaraderie, but they also did it to secure safety from the town guard and the lord of the land. With the Birds maintaining peace in Dresden at least, the authorities usually turned a blind eye.

Of course, all of that was in the past now, since Tira's old comrades were all dead or scattered, thanks to the Evil Seed. The Birds of Passage were extinct, but even so Tira knew she would not go unrecognized by many of the people around here. After all, she had always been a unique fighter, and she had assassinated quite a few criminals within Dresden herself. The few people that had ever laid eyes on her grace during an execution had ever forgotten it.

So she didn't care about the presence of Eiserne Drossel on her shoulder. Nobody would accost her over it. If anything, the few people who recognized the weapon would simply spread rumors that one of the Birds was still around. Hopefully nobody would expect her to pick up the vigilante role again.

As she silently ghosted through the streets of Dresden, Tira managed to avoid attention for the most part. However, as she had expected, there were a few people who recognized her weapon, and therefore the girl who carried it. None of them dared approach her, but Tira could hear them excitedly whispering about her presence, and she caught more than a few awe-inspired glances.

Tira didn't really know why they maintained distance: if there was any group of people Tira would take absolutely no pleasure in killing, it was the innocent inhabitants of her hometown. Even her dark side considered the idea nearly unfathomable, likely because the Birds of Passage had made such an effort to ingrain the notion of protecting their own city in their members. Of course, Tira wasn't in the mood to socialize, so perhaps the distance of her admirers was for the best.

While she made a point of wandering aimlessly about her old hometown for quite some time, it was not lost on either half of Tira's psyche that she was gradually drifting towards one location in particular. This did not surprise her really, since the place she was heading was the most powerful association Tira had with an idea of 'home.'

Sure, she had lived in other places for extended periods of time, and during those times she had considered those places home, but as Tira looked up at the steeple of a defunct chapel, she realized that the place before her would likely always be what she truly considered home. And while the sight of the once occupied Lutheran church filled Tira with some level of nostalgia, it also caused her to feel a fair amount of trepidation. Home or not, this place held many bad memories for her, none of which she really wanted to relive in detail.

But on a practical level she figured it would have been a huge waste of time to come all the way to Dresden only to avoid revisiting this place. Scowling, Tira decided to simply get it all over with, and stepped into the building that had concealed the headquarters for the Birds of Passage.

Years ago she never would have walked through the front door, but seeing as how the place was now deserted, Tira had no issue with pushing the creaking wooden doors out of her way. Despite her time of absence and the now decrepit nature of the church, Tira found that it was not much different from the way she remembered it. Most of the pews were still in place, even if they were crooked and occasionally rotted. The stone walls were mostly in one piece, with only a few breaches that allowed a glance into the outside world. Even the lectern looked mostly intact, though it did seem much rougher and splintered than Tira remembered.

All of that aside, Tira ignored her immediate surroundings, instead heading for one of the staircases at the back of the church, which would lead her to a storage cellar in the basement. Even years after abandonment, the small room was filled with crates and barrels, though by now most of these containers were empty. It didn't matter really, since Tira had no interest in any of these particular objects. No, what she wanted was the means to access the earthen halls hidden behind one of the stone walls.

Of course, this cellar had been used by people other than the Birds many times, so the secret switch they had used obviously had to be better hidden than just on a wall somewhere. That being the case, the ceiling was the obvious choice. Granted, anyone could get up there by standing on one of the wooden crates around the room, but who would search the entire ceiling for anomalies while going about their usual daily business? Years of service had proven the answer to be no one, as the assassin's had never been discovered.

While she could have leaped high enough to press the fake stone switch that she needed to activate, Tira simply grabbed a chunk of broken stone from the ground and launched it upwards with a flick of her wrist, impacting the desired location with enough force to activate the mechanisms she needed.

Following the logic of the switch's placement, the trap door that revealed itself was not on the floor or the walls, but on the ceiling as well. it was barely two and a half feet in both width and length, but the small square hole that had been revealed when a section of the ceiling slid away was more than large enough to accommodate Tira's slender body.

Jumping to the height she needed with ease, Tira wasted no time in pressing a switch within the tunnel to conceal the entrance behind her: a useless gesture perhaps, but one that she performed out of habit if nothing else. During normal operation the tunnel Tira found herself in would have been lit with oil lanterns, but for obvious reasons there were no such niceties available at the moment, leaving the young girl in complete darkness.

Of course, this did nothing to stop or even hinder her progress: Tira had made use of this passage so many times in the past that she could navigate it blindly with ease.

That being the case, the young assassin crawled, shimmied, and scooted through various nooks and crannies during her foray into the tunnel. Not once did she come across a section that felt unfamiliar. To the last, every twist and turn she took brought nothing but nostalgia and a gradually growing sense of trepidation.

Nevertheless, she pushed towards her destination, eventually spotting a very faint splotch of light that marked the end of her short journey. It was always difficult to tell time in locations with no light, but at best Tira had probably only spent a little under ten minutes working her way to this point.

The source of the light she had spotted turned out to be different than Tira remembered. What was once a clearly defined square opening was now a collapsed crack: broken pieces of stone from above had somehow managed to clutter the entrance with rubble. Still, it clearly wasn't too much of an obstacle, seeing as how there was visible light coming through. So Tira simply shoved any of the rubble aside that she could. Noe of it was particularly large, so that proved easy enough, and the dark-haired girl was quickly greeted by an opening just wide enough to squeeze her slender frame through.

This was followed by what would have been a hefty drop for a normal person, but for an acrobat like Tira, the resulting fifteen foot drop was literally nothing. With her light feet making almost no sound on the stone floor she landed on, Tira was hesitant to actually look up at her surroundings.

On the inside, she knew the place would be in ruins. After the Evil Seed, the Birds of Passage had fallen apart, leaving their headquarters to fall into disrepair fairly quickly, considering that there was literally no one else who knew about it. Still, Tira wasn't eager to see her original home in ruins... but there was really no choice. She couldn't just keep her eyes down forever...

With that in mind, Tira raised her amethyst gaze to the stone pillars around her. The Birds' Mausoleum had originally been some kind of ancient tomb, but the old graves and skeletons had long since been removed: unfortunately, they were now full of new corpses, new being a relative term considering that it had been a few years since the Birds had imploded under Soul Edge's influence.

Considering that passage of time, Tira was mildly curious as to the source of the low ambient light pervading the area, but a quick glance skyward answered her query. The Mausoleum was just half a dozen feet beneath the surface of Dresden. Apparently some force, whether it was natural shifting of the earth or the weight of Dresden's buildings, had created cracks that allowed he sun to breach the darkness below ever so slightly. It really wasn't much light at all really: were anyone else in the Mausoleum, it was unlikely that they would be able to see Tira even at a close distance. She had only even seen the difference in light levels before because the darkness had been so complete: and maybe because she had some level of night vision thanks to her malfestation.

Either way, as Tira returned her gaze to the Mausoleum itself, she was struck with nostalgia: most of it unpleasant. She did not have a lot of fond memories of this place, especially as she recalled her most recent one from the day of the Evil Seed itself. When Soul Edge's wretched influence had first descended on the Birds of Passage, the people that had been affected appeared to be totally random. Or at least, the extent to which people were affected may have been. Tira had been struggling with some level of madness even before the Evil Seed, but surprisingly the influence of Soul Edge had not been an overly powerful catalyst for her descent into insanity, at least not at the time.

Dozens of assassins had been driven into a state of bloodlust the moment the Seed had washed over them, yet many others had been seemingly unaffected, left to fight against their former comrades. Tira had been one of these unaffected people, though she could recall feeling slightly more unstable after the Seed. Either way, the Mausoleum had quickly turned into a chaotic battleground, with the new insane members of the Birds turned against their former allies. Tira had found this situation particularly troublesome, because she had always been taught by her elders to never harm her assassin brethren. To strike them down seemed completely twisted and wrong to Tira.

Of course, she had also been taught by her Mother Bird to always kill someone who was trying to kill you, so Tira had managed to kill her attackers all the same. In fact some of the corpses that Tira could see lying around right now were assassins she had killed herself.

Even the guild's Elders had become her enemies, though Tira had possessed far less qualms about killing them, since she had always blamed them for the death of her Mother. When all was said and done, the Birds had torn themselves apart, with the insane struck down and the remainder of the guild in tatters. The assassins that had survived the inner massacre were too few in number to maintain the guild as it used to be, and without the Elders there was no one to turn to for guidance or orders. All that was left for them was to go their separate ways and live their own lives as they saw fit.

For Tira that had been just another step towards her current state of mental affairs, but that was a set of memories she didn't want to dive into right now. It was better just to focus on what surrounded her now. With that in mind, Tira slowly walked around the ruins of her old home, noting with dismay the level of disarray it had fallen into. Mold and fungus had encroached on several patches of the wall, as well as the large pillars that supported the entire chamber. It was a level of filth the Mausoleum never would have seen in the old days.

Regardless, there was little of interest in the Mausoleum aside from corpses, as the place had always spartan even when still occupied. Tira ignored most of the massive chamber in favor of proceeding towards one of the hallways in the wall. It would lead her to the living quarters, where the Birds could rest if they chose to rather than maintain a false identity on the outside. Tira's own room was down that hallway, and that was where she was heading. It had always been a place of solace for her, and right now Tira needed some comfort.

Stalking past all of the rooms that were not her own, Tira quickly came to a stop before a nearly identical chamber to all of the last. It was exactly the same as all of the other rooms, but nevertheless Tira knew it was hers. Stepping into the small stone room devoid of anything except a bed, Tira took a moment to absorb the nostalgic feel of simply being back in this place once more. The air was now stale and musty, and time had made its mark on the walls of stone, but this was her room. This was where she had spent many nights tending to the various cuts and gashes from her training with Eiserne Drossel. This was also where she had cried herself to sleep the night she had been forced to kill her mentor and mother.

The thought of it nearly brought the girl to tears, but Tira managed to maintain her composure for the time being. But still, she had very little motivation to continue revisiting her memories of this place. So with no will to investigate further, Tira simply sat on the now dusty sheets of her bed, and laid down to rest in comfort for the first time in many years.

If there was one thing Xandra was not, it was forgiving. Generally speaking second chances did not sit well with her. She preferred to punish transgression and wrongdoing immediately, rather than allow the sinner to potentially change their ways. That said, she was not sure why she had left Chrysaor to his own devices with that mortal girl. Xandra had perceived the child as a threat, yet she had let Chrysaor have his way and spared her life. What had spurred her to make this decision was still a mystery: after all, she doubted that it had anything to do with Chrysaor's point on keeping the nature around them intact. Perhaps it was just his determination to fight Xandra if he had to. It had been admirable in its own way.

Nevertheless, Xandra was somewhat disappointed in her lack of resolve as she silently trekked through the forests of the somewhat civilized European world. Needless to say, her Hylian companion moved just slightly louder than she did, unable to move with the grace of a mistress of wind itself, even if he was a warrior of finesse.

Despite his misgivings about staying idle, Link had done as Xandra had requested of him before her departure and stayed put, allowing the semi-immortal woman to reunite with him with ease. Since then there had been little conversation: Xandra had briefly summarized her short adventure to sate Link's curiosity, and even then she had not been overly detail-oriented about it. That said, Link had been able to tell from the start that Xandra was displeased about something, so he had not bothered her with small talk since they had started moving again.

Truth be told, Xandra was not sure why she had returned to the Hylian's side. She had ridiculed Chrysaor for taking a mortal companion, yet here she was coming back to one herself. Had she no shame? She was above petty human needs such as companionship, wasn't she?

Then again, perhaps she was not. Xandra had never been one to indulge in human society, but she had never truly isolated herself completely. Whether it was the creatures of the forest in an age long forgotten or Demeter in Valhalla, Xandra had always desired companionship as well... preferably companionship that shared her passions.

That was definitely one of the main reasons she allowed Link to travel with her. After all, short of that, she didn't really care for much else about him. Especially since he had that annoying baggage Navi with him. Other than that, Xandra's relationship with Link was one of tolerance more than anything else. Whether or not the Hylian understood that, she had no idea.

Xandra was not sure if she had ever had 'friends.' Not human ones, at any rate. But she also did not care for friends, so her lack thereof had never bothered her. That said, she did wonder if she was missing out on something, but since it had not proven overly detrimental to her life so far, she did not care enough to rectify her icy disposition.

Unfortunately that disposition did nothing to quiet the fairy that trailed behind her alongside Link, who has rambling incessantly about anything and everything it could think of. Not for the first time, Xandra contemplated crushing the thing in the palm of her hand. But as much as the fantasy appealed to her, the Sentinel of Wind's restraint won out.

So she stayed silent as Link held what Xandra saw as a pointless conversation with his fairy companion. All she could do was retreat within the corners of her own mind as she stalked in the general direction of the dark energy that pervaded the world.

This left Link to his own devices, which included more than just talking mindlessly with Navi. He had been wracking his brain for a likely identity for the Catalyst, based on what he had experienced during his last foray into this world.

With that in mind, Link decided to stay silent, certain that he would just be bothering his nearly immortal companion. Besides, he for one found Navi's topic on the nature of squirrels quite intriguing.

Being someone in sync with nature on a certain level, Talim had always been somewhat aware of fluctuations that signaled disasters in the world. But they were usually too far off for her to do anything about them.

This time, she had been one of the victims of a catastrophe, but as terrible as the experience had been, at least she had been able to help this way. Days after the tidal wave that had claimed so many lives, Talim was finally able to rest completely, with no one coming to her in need of healing. For now she was simply resting, courtesy of one of the villagers she had been helping since her arrival here. Seong-Mina had been doing her best to help Talim in any way she could, but it was mostly just encouragement.

Even that was mostly fruitless by now, as things had been less than great lately. Of course there had been people Talim had not been able to save: some injuries had been too severe even for her. Moreover, Hwang was still missing. His body hadn't been found yet or anything, so there was no absolute guarantee that he was dead, but the situation certainly seemed bleaker than ever.

Mina had repeatedly told her that Hwang could have simply been carried somewhere further away from them. After all, the magnitude of the wave that had hit them was massive, and everything it had hit could have been carried to a wide area. While Talim knew this was true, her usual optimism nevertheless failed her.

The thought of losing one of her friends had given Talim reason to cry many times in the past few days, but right now she was far too tired to shed tears. All she had the will to do right now was lay down and think as she stared at the wooden ceiling above her.

So many things were going wrong with the world. Evil was encroaching everywhere, catastrophes were claiming countless lives, and people Talim cared for personally were in danger. Needless to say life was much more stressful than it had been a few years ago, when the only thing Talim had to worry about was protecting her village and fulfilling her role as a Priestess.

Nowadays, aside from the danger, there was just more confusion in general. Talim was now aware of supernatural beings waging some sort of war against darkness and evil in an attempt to save the world from ultimate destruction. That certainly wasn't something Talim had held knowledge of before. Scarier than that was that she now knew the world was on the edge of obliteration. Sure, Cyril had said that they had time, but not how much time. A week? A month? Ten years? With such a variable time-frame, how could anyone live comfortably?

Then again, apparently Mina was alright. Or at least, she didn't seem to be as worried by Armageddon as Talim was, if her outside demeanor was anything to go by. Maybe it was just a facade, but Talim at least appreciated the effort if that was the case. Mina was the only person of comfort Talim had right now, so it was good that she was staying strong when Talim wasn't.

But she still couldn't stop worrying about Hwang, not to mention Yun-Seong. Both were missing and in potentially dangerous situations. They could be dead. In fact, with the way things were, the chances that they were dead was incredibly high.

But Talim didn't want to think about that. Instead, she needed to figure out what she was to do now that she had finally taken care of everyone that needed aid. Where should she go? What should she do? Looking for Hwang was basically out of the question, as he could have been nearly anywhere by now, and maybe not even alive besides. Furthermore, now that they were without a ship, searching for Yun-Seong like they had been was nearly impossible.

Should she go after Soul Edge again? She didn't know if it was the Catalyst Cyril and his allies were looking for, but surely there was no harm in taking down a being of evil. It may have even been something helpful for the Sentinels. But it would be one heck of a long hike to reach the sword yet again...

Contemplating how long it would take to reach Ostreihnsburg from her current location, Talim was snapped out of her thoughts by Mina stepping into the house they were borrowing. The couple who owned it had given them open access after they had proved themselves a trustworthy duo. Mina wasted no time in speaking as soon as she saw that Talim was awake.

"So, have you figured out what we should do next?"

Not for the first time, Talim wished that Mina wasn't so blunt and straightforward about things. After all, she didn't really have an answer to the Korean's girl's question. "I don't know... I really wish we could find out what happened to Hwang, but there's no reasonable way to track him down... or even know if he's alive..."

Seeing that Talim was already heading towards the deep end of depression, Mina made to counter her. "Come on Talim, you know as well as I do how tough Hwang is. He even stood up to that metal guy on the ship... well, kind of."

The mention of Cyril made Talim wonder about him. He had left her quite some time ago. "That's right... I sure hope he's alright..."

"What? There's no need to worry about him, he's crazy strong and stuff, right? Though it is just like you to worry about everyone, even strangers..."

Thinking back on how Cyril had aided her, Talim felt the need to clarify that he was not really that alien to her anymore. "Well I wouldn't really call him a stranger..."

"Why not? You only met him for a few hours..."

"Oh, did I really forget to tell you? Cyril is the one who saved me out there!"

For some reason this news struck Mina as surprising. "Wait, you actually know his name now? When and how did this happen? What exactly did I miss? Tell me everything!"

Talim was about to happily launch into her tale of what had happened, but at that moment she remembered exactly what had transpired between her and Cyril in their last encounter: namely the part about her being naked in his arms. And unfortunately for her, Mina was not the kind of person to take no for an answer once she got curious.

Nightmare held a firm grip on Soul Edge as he gazed out over the land surrounding Ostreihnsburg. Things had been a little annoying of late. His servants were either getting lost or failing their tasks, and Wolfkrone was getting on his nerves, despite the fact that their offensive a short while ago had never even made it close to his castle.

But he wanted to crush them for it anyway, especially since there were plenty of souls to take and he was sure that Wolfkrone would eventually act against him anyway.

But this time he'd want to do it personally. After all, not only had the last excursion failed, but he had lost his most useful servant. Tira was the only person who had not returned after the attack. While her loss did not affect the Azure Knight personally, it was unfortunate that one of his more capable tools had been lost. That said, he could certainly stand to gain a few more servants...

Turning back towards the main castle and his throne, Nightmare nodded to himself in satisfaction. He had an army to muster.

And there we have a reason to have something cool happen again in the next installment. Man, about time! I'm not sure when we last had some action not involving our Sentinels. And that means we can have some more fair engagements that don't include superhuman beings. Fun!