A/N: I'm quite surprised I'm still sane after writing this. Not only was I using every experience I had from playing chess with Darth Tyronnius Shoelaces but I also had to go into the mind of a certain genocidal maniac. But there are consolation prizes: my fans won't have to yell at me because this chapter features the aspects I talked about in my story summary AND this is the last chapter of Book I. (YAY!) Kudos points go to the one can spot where I got the title of this chapter from. (Hint: It's the chapter title from another vampire Manga.) And as a bonus there's also going to references from a certain black Manga that has ties with chess and, of course, Code Geass. This chapter pays host to the Enemy of the World himself. Aaaaannnnd here it is: the final chapter of the first book of TBR! BTW Many thanks to Christa McGinn and and fellow Abel/Esther writer Elly3981 for reading over this chapter ;) I hope you all enjoy this. ~_^ And this chapter is for you Candy-sama.

Epilogue: Storm on the Chessboard
But helpless pieces of the game he plays
Upon his chequer-bord of Nights and Days
Hither and thither moves, and checks and slays
- "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," Translated by Edward Fitz Gerald 1859

Chess. It was such an amusing game. In many ways Chess was the absolute symbol of the endless struggle between pride and life. Not only does it symbolize such a struggle, it also symbolizes my own struggle against the world. To have my opponents fall into the palm of my hands, it is the perfect game for one such as I.

I, who is the Enemy of the World.

I am not a mere chess piece on the board that is the battlefield against my opponent and my opposition. No, I am not the king, I am the one playing the game with humanity, both Terran and Methuselah, are at my disposal against my opposition and my opponent, until I emerge as the victor.

There are differences between chess and the world. In the "game" of chess, the player must follow the rules in order to succeed; however, in life as I often does, the player must break the rules in order to win. It is also true the pawns in the player's own game could hold the possibility of betrayal and, before betrayal can get out of hand, the player must take down his own pawns in order to survive.

In order for me to both survive and to succeed, I must bring about the end of the one who opposes me.

My opposition, my own brother, my twin, Abel. How I wished that he was on my side once more. He should be beside me as I play this game against my opponent, the world.

This world has tormented me enough. It was evident in my life when I used to live on this miserable planet when I was oh, so young. Created to be "perfection" by humans who desired what I had. They wanted what I possessed and hated me because of it. However, I hid my discontent and anger towards this foul world and those fools who dwelt upon it, under smiles that the humans shared amongst one another. Never seeing the darkness in me, and only seeing my beauty, the humans were all too happy to believe they had successfully created the "perfect being." However, I wanted more than just perfection, I wanted a future, a future that I could mold and shape to be whatever I wanted it to be.

As such, I made an enemy of the world. In order for me to have this glorious future I desire, I must bathe it in flames and blood so my New World Order can rise from the ashes from this fallen world. This world is stained, stagnated, unclean, unnecessary and unfruitful. I shall destroy it and then I shall rebuild in my own desire. Then I shall be truly a being who is in need of nothing, while at the same time a being who is in need of everything.

My brother shared both my hatred of this world and my desire for a future. We shared everything, and during the Terran-Methuselah War he was my knight in many regards. However, that woman interfered and turned him.

That woman had the audacity to love the world I hated; she took my brother from me, deluded him and betrayed us. She was in my way, and therefore she had to die. I killed her under the coax of desiring a truce and presented Abel her decapitated head, as a reminder of what our true goal was and what she truly was; a disgusting existence that was contaminating him. Afterwards he and that annoying brat of a sister threw me out an airlock and into the planet's atmosphere and I was reduced to a state where I was neither alive nor dead.

He, too, had sided with the world that I so hate. In the end, those who have sided with my enemy, even Abel, must die.

As such, even Abel has become a piece upon this chessboard where I shall decide the fate of this world.

I make my moves, each one in order to determine what Abel is going to do. Strangely though, he had made his move before the game even began, when I made my first strike against the White Queen.

The White Queen... That girl... Esther. She hasn't left my mind since I first laid eyes on her.

I remember that day when she walked in on our brotherly spat. Abel never lost his focus on an enemy he was hell bent on destroying, but the moment she came in, he hesitated, his scythe inches from my neck. The expression on his visage was similar to the look on his face when he was in the midst of a fight and she caught him the act. Knowing what I was going to do to him wouldn't have been permanent; I dealt my own blow against him.

I heard him whisper her name with his last breath before he collapsed; how could I have not?

What surprised me beyond belief was her reaction.

Her sorrow and tears eventually brought her to her knees. No human had ever done that for Crusnik. Humans would normally hate us, fear us even, but mourn over us and shed tears for us? That was indeed a rarity. When I had turned to look at her, I could see why Abel would have thought he was with that woman, the girl's hair was exactly that same shade of flaming red. I found it intriguing at the time. I left her there to cry. Why should I have to comfort a human when I had lost something that I had desired? I smiled at the thought as I left her.

As much as that previous memory held dominance in my mind, I could never forget when I had laid my eyes on her for the last time. That memory of her has been burned into my very psyche, how could I have forgotten it? I decided that I would merge myself with Abel so we could return to our original state as one being and she was there in his place of rest, defending him from me. Her, a fragile, weak, helpless Terran, and she was defending a being far stronger than herself from me.

There was nothing she could have done to stop me, yet she had engaged in verbal warfare against me. I decided to humor her and tell her my intentions. When I came so close to becoming one with Abel, when she looked at me, her eyes were so intoxicatingly, so beautifully, filled with fear and terror of me that my blood then boiled for the first time, in the longest time, in lust... for her.

A new game began once Abel had awakened. His body had fused 100% with the Crusnik, challenging me with his blood shaded eyes to the fight that was previously denied to us. I called upon those within me as well to take up his challenge.

The battle ended with us nearly destroying each other. I came close to death when I had fallen back to the world like an angel into the abyss. I was so close once more into having my desire fulfilled and once more both the world and my brother had prevented me from it.

After our battle, I had to return to my regeneration and it has taken me two years to fully recover. It could have been worse. The last time Abel and I had such a brawl was over nine hundred years ago. It had taken me that much time to recover and gather those who shared my desire of purging this world with flame. Now that I have returned, I seek to finish the game that Abel, the Black King, started and now a new piece has joined him on the chessboard, Esther... the White Queen of Albion.

While in that dark state of comatose once again, thoughts of her had taken dominance within my mind. I had often dreamed of her, some of these dreams were of out last encounter, others were of her groveling before me, and quite frequently, of my pleasureable possesion of her body with those betwitching eyes looking upon me in the thores of passion.

Afterwards I would wonder how I could use her in my game against my brother and answer came to me in a vision of my brother in his Crusnik form, his black wings streached out, enfolding a redheaded figure clad in white to him, wrapped in his embrace. I had thought it was her but the figure was too small and then realized it was the girl that had laid a claim to my being.

I had two options concerning her before me, once I had sensed this realization of my brother's possible feelings for the woman. I could kill her and banish this carnality from my mind and end this torment of desiring her, and thus bring torment to he who betrayed me. Or I could take her and claim her and bring true anguish to him, knowing I had taken what he had desired.

And so did my game with Albion begin. It was a perfect test for Abel. If he did not care for her, he would continue his persuit of me and leave her. However, if he did care for her, he would abandon his quest and attempt to protect her from me. Either way, I would find a way to determine her fate as either an enemy to be vanquished or as my consort who would aid me in setting the world on fire and as my paramour.

My pawns were sent out to kill her, it was just oh, so easy to make allies out of that extremist group of purists known as the Tudor Knights. Yet before they made their strike Abel, the Black King, had anticipated my move and the Queen made her counterstrike nearly wiping them out, save for three remaining pawns.

My next move was to send out the last of the pawns along with my secondary Knight. They made their attack and not only did the Queen and her forces obliterate them, the King himself had joined her in her counterstrike.

First Abel anticipated my move, then he not only made a fierce counterstrike, he also summoned the Crusnik to aid him, all in order to protect the Queen.

This game was becoming ever so more fascinating, and even more so, now that I know now the Black King's sweet desposition towards the girl.

I have finally decided the White Queen's fate: I will make her mine and the thought brings a great pleasure to me, more powerful that the Crusnik itself.

And I now see before me the final outcome where all my desires shall fall into my hand...

All of them.

I see him now.

The Firstborn of the Nightlords.

The First to take in the abomination that is the Crusnik Nanomachines.

I've seen them before.

They who had possessed many a host they deemed worthy to possess. They who had destroyed many a planet. They who had ended billions, countless life forms throughout the Universe.

And now they run though the blood of the Angel of Death.

Cain Nightlord. The Contra Mundi.

He let them take possession of his mind and body and all that is left of him is the darkness of his soul. Now a shadow of his former self, with the Crusnik backing every dark thought that passes through his mind. Their desire to see the death of worlds combined with his own anger and hatred he had once kept concealed toward this world.

True, this world is nothing more than a shadow of the world God had intended it to become, but God's plans for this planet have not yet come into fruition and the end of this shadowed world must come only by His hand. When He shall call all of His children to Him.

However, his choice to see this world burn, to cast off his human origins, to embrace the darkness, to become like them, has made him like the True Enemy.

The Morning Star, the Light Bearer, Lucifer the Fallen One.

Oh Cain, how far hast thou fallen? Ye that have become like thine murderous predecessor, and now, ye are guilty of the sin that had accursed him in the earliest days of this world.

Thou who once was the beloved brother of the Dark Angel.

Now thou art the one who hath betrayed him, when ye hath ended the life of the Nia Sancta, Lilith Sahl, his lost loved one. Ye hath thought he would embrace the darkness with thee once more when she hath perished.

Now thou art the most hated being he wishes to destroy, yet... not for vengeance, but for justice, and to protect the Star of Hope... his new love.

Yet... in thine envy... thy need to spite thy brother for the false sin of betraying thee... and in thine lust toward the Star shalt be thine undoing.

I see thee now. Ye are indulging in these sinful... evil thoughts with the Crusnik encouraging this madness.

How I wish to cleanse thee of this evil, yet how can this come to pass when it was thine own free will to continue their habitation of thine body?

Yet, even though ye hath committed all these detriments and let the darknees lay dominance thine soul, I can hear a cry from within thee for the same thing the Dark Angel cried for. It is a small call, but the intensity is strident.

Freedom.

A/N: Anyway, this chapter was written LONG before the Starz mini-series The White Queen came out. So, no, this was NOT inspired from that show, but AFTER having written this chapter I watched it and now, I'm hooked. The song I had on while writing this chapter was E Nomine's song "Opus Magnum." Inspiration for this Cain chapter came from smcandy's Trinity Blood War Continuum and Christa McGinn's Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen. I couldn't help having Cain have an obession over Esther. I love it when a HOT villian has a love obession for the heroine (i.e. Prince Diamond from Sailor Moon, and Ihope you guys got the Sailor Moon manga referance I snuck in there ;) ) I hope you guys enjoyed the Kuroshitsuji/ Black Butler references. Thank you all for your support for this fledging writer. ^^ And be on the lookout for TBR II: Twilight of the Caplital.

Also please note: I'm going to be gone for a while from this fanfiction, so I can work on my other fanfictions for fandoms and catch up on college work and further my cosplay skills. Please don't hate me for this, but I need a break from writing a lot of chapters worth of Trinity Blood content. But, I will work on TBR II just for the sake of my fans while I'm gone so I can get a head start on the next book. So this is a temporary hiatus, not a complete hiatus in which one abandons their fanfictions completely, I will come back to this one once I have time to write again and actually have written the part of the series completely.

Mysteriously yours,

ObsidianEmpress