"That princess will pay for what she's done." Grape rose and took Mary's hair clip from the ground. She handed it to Paul. "Take this. Put it on the memorial. I have some unfinished business I need to accomplish before I can do anything else."

"Madame Grape, are you crying?"

"No."

She went to her room and looked at the fallen vanity. The mirror had been shattered so many times, just like her fragile heart. She pushed it back up and put a piece of glass on the desk of the vanity.

"There's no going back. This is what Fate wanted." She picked up another piece of glass. "But why did she want things this way? Why couldn't I just be happy? Why couldn't I just be loved?"

She stabbed the shard into the back frame of the mirror, clutching her side as she thought about Siren. She gripped the shard as if it were her last thread of sanity, ignoring the pain as it cut through her fingers. Blood dripped down her hand to the vanity as she slowly fell to her knees and cried.

"I need to go back to the Mushroom Kingdom and teach that Princess a lesson she'll never forget."

She looked at her hand. She'd only actually bled once, when her Darkle was blocked during her imprisonment in another world. She wondered why it bled again. The dripping red stained the wood, and the white of her gloves. She clenched her fist to hide it and went to her closet. The last time she'd been through there was when she found a gift from Tobias; a little music box that changed her whole life forever.

She slid the door open and grabbed a first aid kit. She always kept it with her, in case if something happened to one of her Sour Bunch. She tried to look out for them as much as she could.

She grabbed the gauze and began wrapping her hand with it in order to stop the blood flow. She put it all back and pulled out her scepter. She opened a portal to the Mushroom Kingdom and went on without her Sour Bunch. She, of course not being heartless, left the portal open; as she mainly wanted to do this alone but wanted them to find her if they needed her.

Except, this wasn't the Mushroom Kingdom.

Well, it was, but it was far from the castle, which was hidden by trees. Grape looked around and only saw tall mushroom platforms and strange creatures wandering around.

"Where am I? Is this not the Mushroom Kingdom?"

She tried to open a new portal, to take her directly to the castle, but a pain surged through her injured hand and more blood stained the gauze. Small sparks came from the cut.

"Is the injury messing with my magic?"

"Hello there, weary traveler!"

Grape went to the voice. The short person's face was blocked, with a large friendly grin as the only thing visible.

"Who are you?"

"A traveling merchant. I come from other worlds to offer you the chance of a lifetime!"

"That sounds wonderous, and curious. What do you have in stock?"

"I have a few potions. I bet a young woman such as yourself will be interested in one like this."

He held up a bottle, about the same size and shape as a bottle of nail polish. He swirled the deep blue liquid around inside, and watched with pleasure as Grape stared at the mesmerizing drink.

"What...does it do?"

"You want to go the kingdom, right? Well, if you're a witch, you can't go in looking like that. This will disguise you, so you wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb." He held it out to her. "And you can take it for free, if you want. It'll be a bonus for being my first customer. What do you say?"

Grape took it from him. "I will take this, but not because I need it. It's only because it looks pretty."

"Why don't you try it? If you feel terrible, the kingdom is right through this pipe here."

"Terrible?"

"It's a powerful disguising spell and it may drain your magic a bit. Most people can't use magic, and if you do around them, they're going to find out it's you. So it'll temporarily block your magic to help hide you."

"This seems risky."

"Does it? I've tried it myself and it was perfectly safe."

"Well, it's only so risky because magic is all I am. And I've gotten my magic blocked before and I went a little...coocoo?"

"This will be fine, trust me on this! As a fellow magic born myself, I know the ins-and-outs of blocking magic. I've gone a little crazy too, before when testing this. But I made it perfect so that won't be a worry."

"You seem to know a lot about me."

"Of course I know you, famous Grape! I aspire to be like you, a great leader!"

She blushed a bit and covered her mouth with her hand. "Aww, thank you. I don't think I'm that great at it, but I do try my hardest!"

"Do you trust me?"

"Oh, when you put it that way-" She looked at the bottle. "I...don't know. Every time I've trusted a person, they've always betrayed me. Rex, Flick, my Sour Bunch...It seems unavoidable at this point."

"Don't worry, you'll get something incredible from this. But either way, I must be on my way." He tucked his gloved hands back into his coat and started off. "I have another place to be. I like you, Madame Grape. You need to stop putting yourself down if you want to be a good leader. Stop holding yourself back."

He vanished into the bushes, leaving Grape in her lonesome. She looked at the potion and removed the cork.

"If I start feeling terrible, I can ask my Sour Bunch for help. Or, I could go through the pipe and wait for help too. Let's see how bad this will feel."

She hesitated, then lifted it to her mask. She froze again, thinking that she could be making a mistake. But if Fate wanted her to meet that man then...

She tilted her head back and tapped it to her semi-visible core. It was always uncomfortable to eat or drink, because she had to force her core to materialize against its will, and she never actually knew if she needed to eat or not. She never had a feeling she would die if she didn't but she never felt she would live either. She was always too scared for her health to try and starve herself in a test.

She dumped the potion onto her core and waited for it to completely be absorbed before tilting her head back down. She choked. The flavor was so shocking, so rancid, that it took a second to realize that it was the potion and not a rotting corpse. She coughed, blood coming from the bottom of her mask. Her hand begun bleeding again as well, and she started to feel a bit dizzy.

"Why did I...trust him? I just said I couldn't trust anyone! Now he's killed me! Gone in my prime!" She coughed again, Darkle now streaming down with her blood.

She staggered to the pipe and leaned against the wall inside it. She looked at her hand again. Her vison blurred and she felt faint. She groped the wall to continue going forward. She did nearly faint, and then started pulling herself forward with her uninjured hand.

"I don't care if it's Peach who helps me...But I mustn't die. My Sour Bunch will have no leader, and then I really would be a disappointment."

She grabbed her head as her racing heart echoed quietly in the tunnel. She gripped at the ground in an attempt to find a handhold to get her mind off the pain, but found nothing except smooth surfaces. She forced herself to look up, so she could see the face of death. The shadow of a figure started running towards her as she slowly lost consciousness.

"Tell my Sour Bunch that...I love them..."