AN: Sorry for the late update. Apparently Dark Souls 1 is a fuck ton harder than Dark Souls 2. Nevertheless, i completed it in 40 hours. Now, I feel like shit because there are no games worth playing anymore. Mass Effect has never been any more boring. I actually wish I had amnesia so that I could experience Dark Souls again. *Sigh* but now I have a ton of free time I could devote to this fic. Don't mind the chapter length, it's sort of an interlude.

Please review.

Tiffania woke up for the second time in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar company. She was in a yet another cozy room in the company of yet another woman, a noble by the look of it, who was using her water magic to heal her.

The room looked luxurious, which seconded the fact that it was a noble's abode. The windows were big, the furniture, which included a small but elegant table and chair looked very expensive and a huge portrait of the mage was hung in one of the walls.

She peered down to see that her entire body was covered in bandages with a potent sent of ointment coming from the said bindings.

Now, this kind of episodes commonly happened with a headache, phantom pains in several parts of the body and an absolute confusion on how one ended up there. Tiffania felt the headache, a skull shattering migraine that made her want to pinch the bridge of her nose. However, she couldn't move her body in the slightest, her head being the only exception. She didn't feel pain in her body but didn't doubt for a second that the only thing between herself and intense agony was the water mage's constant healing. Contrary to the cool sensation of healing water on her body, the water mage's vacant eyes and mechanical movements was something she had seen before, quite disturbingly recently. However, she was getting healed and so, had no complaints.

That only left how she got there, something she seemed to recall perfectly. Fortunately, it didn't involve her sister, her 18th birthday, and a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, she wished it had been the former.

She recalled everything. Everything as in, the color of the sky when she was strangling Louise, the speck of dust on Agnès's face when she was remodeling the knight's armor, the housefly on Colbert's head while she was handing back her friend's backsides on a silver platter. She remembered every single detail of that fight as well as the one with the red haired boy and she had a feeling that the memory would never fade away. Personally, she'd rather have the pain.

Saito would surely forgive her, right? Surely unintentionally strangling Louise wouldn't count as a strike in his book? There wasn't any notion of Agnès forgiving her and Kirche…

Screwed didn't begin to describe her situation. To add insult to injury, she was a hostage, again. And this time she didn't have the benefit of the doubt. Her eyes started to tear up, no doubt in as entire revelation of how she might have lost what little friends she had. They would surely think this to be some elf thing and attack her the next chance they get. She should never have left her orphanage.

The silent weeping went unnoticed by the mage, who'd look as if she wouldn't bat an eyelash if a mass genocide were to take place in front of her.

Abruptly, the only door of the room opened and the moon-eyed boy walked in. He glanced at her sobbing state and looked distraught for once. It was as if he had no idea what to do. The awkwardness was only emancipated by the silent cries. Similar to what he did before, the boy merely glanced at the water mage and she silently exited the room. The boy schooled his features again into the emotionless mask and placed a loft of bread beside Tiffania's bed. He sat down on the chair and unrolled a parchment on the table and started to draw strange symbols on it using a brush and ink.

Tiffania didn't say anything. She didn't know why she was still a hostage, neither did she know how she was going to eat the food given to her with her body so uncooperative. Nevertheless, she wouldn't eat even if she could move. She lacked the stomach to contain any food with all the grief lingering about.

"I don't know how to remove the runes", Tiffania said softly, yet she knew it that the boy heard it. In fact, she expected the boy to already know this.

No reply came. Surely the boy knew that she had no knowledge on how to remove the runes, why would he still keep her hostage? A time when her sister was warning her of how men could commit several acts of depravity filled her thoughts. But, the boy didn't in any ways strike her as such a person. Why indeed.

"Why are you keeping me here?", she asked, her heart too filled with hurt to even be scared of the monster before her.

Still no answer. The boy seemed like he was ignoring her, with his back turned to her and all. Deliberately concentrating on the various strokes of his brush. There was no use talking to someone who was ignoring you. She reckoned him to keep stroking even if she fell off the bed.

Little did she know that in his line of occupation, ignorance to even a slightest hint was nothing short of asking for death. He couldn't ignore her even if he wanted to.

Sighing in agony, she voiced out a soft "What do you want?". Something she was sure he would ignore, but he said something. Something in his own language, probably voicing out his thought to himself. Nonetheless, Tiffania understood it.

"I don't know"

In the large halls of the Cathedral, one Japanese native paced around in contemplation of what had happened the day before.

Saito was perplexed at what to do after the explosion. It was grand, yet contained, pinpoint to be exact. There was no way anyone could have survived that. The others were far from the reach of the explosion and relatively safe and he had thought that Tiffania would go back to normal. However, when the dust had cleared, Tiffania was standing where she was, left eye closed, unmoving and poker-faced. It wasn't over yet, but that didn't stop Saito from calling out to her.

"Tiffa, are you alright?"

She didn't reply, but only faced the epicenter of the explosion in that same calculating focus. Then she eyed everyone with her now natural blue eye until her sight landed on him.

"Tiffa?", Saito asked again, hoping her to suddenly turn back to normal.

She didn't answer him. Rather, she turned around to leave.

"He's not dead", she finally spoke in monotone. "He'll be back, I suggest you leave this place"

Then she disappeared. Just like that, she had disappeared into nothingness again. Not that Saito was imagining things, but he was sure that there was concern hidden in those words. He had to believe it. Thinking otherwise would be saying Tiffa was dead inside. And from then till now, he never doubted Tiffa to be lost. His review of the prior event was abruptly halted by an unnaturally pale Germanian.

Strangely so, Kirche just had to adjust her hair slightly and voilà

,

her hair never looked like it was slash by a sword. The face however, didn't have her usual seductive smirk. It looked defeated.

"Tabitha is going to be alright, so is Louise and Guiche but…" she enunciated the last word as if she was implying there to be bad news. "Julio won't be waking up"

"What?" Saito blanched. Sure he didn't like Julio, but that didn't mean he'd want anything bad to happen to the priest.

"He's alive, but he just won't wake up. It's like he's in some sort of nightmare", Kirche said in exasperation.

The two made their way to the sick bay and strangely so, the priest was tossing and turning in his sleep. It was as if he was stuck in a nightmare which he couldn't wake up from. Saito shuddered from the implication. Montmorency showed up at that moment with a potion in hand. Perhaps a remedy for Julio's grievous situation he reckoned.

"What's that?", Kirche questioned with a raised eyebrow. The water mage in question lowered her head in what looked like shame.

"It's a love potion"

"What?", the Gandálfr exclaimed in bewilderment. The trouble the little concoction brewed was still fresh on his mind and he had no intention of letting anyone taste the colorful liquid.

"I-It's not like I wanted to make it", Montmorency quickly replied. "His holiness personally asked me to make it. It's for Julio. The special properties of the potion will force his mind to think of love"

Saito glanced at the downed priest. It really looked like he'd need any distraction he could find from his nightmares.

"We'll give him an antidote when he wakes up", Montmorency finished with her arms crossed and condescending like the noble she was.

"That's okay, but what about Tiffania?", Saito questioned. "What are we going to do?"

"We…", a voice unmistakably of the Pope came from behind him. "…are going to focus on Gallia's next move"

True enough, the Pope along with Queen Henrietta, Agnès and Louise was behind him.

"What about Tiffa, and the Moon-eyes? We can't let him get away with this", Saito demanded in frustration. He looked at the two girls beside the Pope who would definitely support him. Unfortunately, neither Henrietta nor Louise said anything.

The Pope gave a weary smile. "The founder's mirror was stolen by Gallian agents when everyone was after Miss Tiffania. I don't know if Joseph had a hand in everything that has happened, but what I do know is that he's planning something big"

He glanced at Julio's prone state and sighed. "I feel the same way Saito. This boy has caused us all a great deal of pain, but it doesn't mean we should forget everything else and seek revenge. Joseph can attack any day and Romalia has to prepare for the worst. We can't afford to make any other endeavors and ignore the safety of Romalia. Julio wouldn't have approved"

"But…", Saito was speechless. Not only was he stuck between the problems of finding one of his friends, he was also stuck between a budding war.

"I'm sorry, but sacrifices have to be made", the Pope concluded and motioned for Montmorency to feed Julio the potion. The twisted expression on his face vanished the moment the container of potion was emptied. Seeing the burdens of his familiar lessen, the Pope excused himself from the room, no doubt for his work.

"Don't worry Saito", Queen Henrietta reassured. "I've sent for help, Tristian's Special Forces will be searching for Tiffania"

This didn't seem to reassure the Chevalier and he ran his fingers through his hair in obvious frustration. This seemed to piss Louise off as she quickly made her irritation known.

"Stupid Saito, her highness just said…"

"Not now Louise", Saito cut her off. His world was or rather, his other world was crashing down around him and he didn't need to hear Louise's scolding now.

"How dare you…", the said mage started to shout too but was quickly silenced by her familiar yet again.

"I SAID NOT NOW", he shouted in anger. "Just leave me be"

Half the people in the room was expecting an explosion but Louise just kicked Saito in the shins and ran away in tears. "Stupid Saito…"

The Gandálfr didn't even react to the kick and just lean on the windowpane, obviously in his own world. Nobody spoke a word as they'd never seen this side of the black haired boy before. Most were even startled at this and quietly left the room clearly realizing that he didn't want to talk right then. In the end, the only occupants in the room was the unconscious priest and the crestfallen Gandálfr.

'Sacrifices have to be made'

Julio could clearly make some, but he didn't think he could make any.

He was angry at what had happened. It wasn't his defeat he was angry at, moreover it was what happened after that infuriated him. He was blasted to oblivion and yet he still lived or rather, remained to see this day. This only cemented the fact that he wasn't normal. It was one thing to see his cut close itself. It was a whole different experience to see his whole body reform itself from scratch.

It was the first time he had failed a mission, and quite frankly he didn't give a flying fuck. All he cared about was proving his existence and now, he knew that the god damn voices in his head were true. He should be dead, yet he was not.

When he came back empty handed, the woman was quite surprised. It was as if she was a 100% sure that he could carry out his mission to the letter. He remembered what she said to her that time. He remembered what he said to her that time.

He told her who he was. He told her what he was and what she was to him. It was the only thing he could think of that made sense. It was that only thing he had to cling on to.

"You seem different today. Did you…" she paused, unsure of what to say. "…remember?"

Yes he had. Him remembering anything was either a boon or a curse for her. But be that as it may, he answered truthfully for he had no reason to hide it.

"Yes"

She had perked up at the answer, her cool expression changing for a split second but he could read her like an open book. Unfortunately, she couldn't do the same. A pity, he remembered someone who could, but not anymore.

"Sheffield"

It was the first and the last time he would ever call her by her name, for soon, she wouldn't be known as such.

"Take me to the morgue"

She looked surprised and quickly hid it. It was also the first time he had asked anything which did not concern himself. That was what he saw on her face, however she couldn't be any more wrong. Without a question she had directed him to his destination. Only when they were truly alone from any prying eyes and ears except for the ones without life did she ask.

"What did you remember?"

He quenched his anger and took out a rose from his cloak. A rose made of paper that will never die. In a blink of an eye, he was in front of her. The close proximity made her take a step back. He didn't care. He knew that her heart belonged to someone else but it had to be her and no one else. He placed the rose atop her hair and gently stroked her head. Right then, she could have asked a thousand different questions, each one about his actions, however the one question that she did ask banish all doubts of his decision to make her his angel.

"Who are you?"

He smiled. In a room filled with corpses, it lost its appeal and his uncanny eyes only made the picture more frightening. She however stood her ground as he expected, for she was the only one permitted to not fear him.

"I am Pain", he said with unfocused eyes, his mind clearly in someplace else.

…

"I am God"

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