I started to sink under the water, and while instint told me to swim, to save myself, something else was pulling me under. There was also one other thing... It's the middle of the day, but it's pitch black down here. A hand appeared above my face and almost instantly a small house in a village appeared.

My vision went inside to see a blonde woman knitting in her bed in her white nightgown while a cat perched in the window. The woman seemed to sit up straighter as the door opened.

"Mina, I'm home!" a dark haired man called out. The man was wearing pants tucked into his boots and a white shirt covered by a vest and a jacket that fell to his waist with a scarf tied losely around his neck.

"Matthew!" She stated excited to see the man. Who were these people?

"Shouldn't you still be lying down?" Matthew asked her worriedly. "I went to the mage outside town." I watched as he moved to the side of her bed and sat down. "She gave me some medicine. Take it and rest, all right?"

"Thank you, but I feel much stonger today," she told him happily.

"What of your fever?" He pushed back her bangs and leaned his forehead to hers. "You still feel hot!" The cat jumped down from its perch on to the bed next to Mina. "Ugh! Shoo you! Go catch a mouse instaed of lazing about, useless fleabag" Matthew swiped his hand at the cat who hissed at him in responce. "The beast hissed at me! Honestly, that creature likes no one but you." Mina just laughed lightly at him.

"He'd probably like you more if you spoke gently."

"Uh... anyway, I heard a traveling Alchemist has come to town," Matthew told his wife, hope ining every word he spoke. "I'm going to speak with him and see if he can help." Mina looked down into her lap sadly.

"I'm so sorry for putting you through this, darling." He just smiled at her like a man in perfect happiness. I'd seen that smile once before.

"No need to apologize, my love," he told her before taking her hands in his and holding them to his chest. "I knew full well your health was delicate when we married. I'll finish my chores in the field and head into town. So I'll be home later than usual. Say you'll get more rest?" he begged her. She just smiled at him. "I mean it! Rest! No staying up to knit socks or scarves for me!"

"Yes, dear." She grabbed the blanket and pulled it to her chest. "Have a good day." He left and the fluttered onto her pillow. The cat jumped up onto the bed and moved to he was next to her head. "Some days... I wish I had nine lives like you, kitty."

"This is my sin." I looked up at the hand in front of my face and turned to see the owner. "My punishment for taking his love for granted, and for doing nothing." My eyes widened at the woman behind me.

"You...?" Mina, the woman from the vision, was smiling at me sadly. She wore a dark dress with a white apron around her wasit. She wore a scar tied at her chest and her blonde hair flowing around her as well as the blight that I'd seen from before.

"I suppose you could say I'm the... the core of this blight," she told me.

"The core...?"

"He clings to me with all his strength. It's my fault that he's become something to vile," she told me.

"He? This... blob... is him? He's the one who was killing the cats all those years ago? But I thought...?"

"What, that I did it?" She giggled at my words and continued talking before I could answer. "The King of Cats told you it was a man, remember? But, I'm equally guilty, and that's why I'm here." Her giggling face turned to saddness as she stared at me. "Please... for his sake... and for mine..."

"What's going on...?" She placed her hands on my cheeks and whispered in my ear.

"-ka..." I felt cold and started shivering. "Reika!" I cracked my eyes open to see Elias looking down at me as he held my head up.

"H...hey, Elias..." I greeted before rolling to the side and coughing up water.

"I'm sorry to be so late," he told me. How do you feel? Can you breathe?"

"Y... yes..." I coughed.

"What of the one who dropped Reika in the lake?" Elias asked the cats.

"Whoever it was vanished in a flash of light." One of the cats told him.

"I see."

"Did you find anything out?" I asked while Barney jumped on my back and

"A bit," Elias answered as I coughed a bit more.

"I found lingering traces of magic here and there, but the trail led nowhere," he told us. "It seems someone is deliberatley obstructing us. We cannot permit that someone to have their way. I dearly wish there were time for you to rest and recover, Reika," Elias told me helping me stand. "But there isn't. I need you to do something."

"Me?" I asked. "What can I do?"

"That blight must be dealt with swiftly," I looked back at the bubling blackness. "If we renew the seal, the problem is merely postponed, and besides it's currently too active to be restrained by any spell we might cobble together on the spot. Therefore, what we require is a spell of purification. I'm aware you've yet to study formal spellcraft, but I think you can do it. Will you, Reika?" he asked me and I couldn't help but think seriously about it. What would happen, if I failed? But...

"Kill us." How could she say that and be so calm about it? Why... What made it happen? How could two people see seemed to in love turn into that thing?

"I will," I told Elias. He just looked down at me before turning to Molly.

"There yoou have it, your majesty."

"I understand," she told him. "We'll see to it that as few people as possible are nearby to disturb you. Would you two handle that please?"

"Aye, ma'am!" Barney called out as they set upon their tasks.

"Then we'll begin at night, when few humans are about," he told me and I nodded looking back at the blight.

"This cloak was purified in mountain snowmelt. Here, put it on." I did as ordered. "The censer contains frankincense, but I fear we must use a gorse branch for the wand." He also gave me bracelets and anklets with bells on them. "It would be more usual for you to use your own wand and chant, but as you have neither we'll do without."

"But will it still work?" I asked him. "What are they for then?"

"It should be fine," Elias insisted. "They simply make opening the gate easier."

"Gate?"

"Mages can access the world's natural laws through sheer force of will," Elias explained. "Chants and wands are like keys or oil - or a computer password! With them , less effort is required. The way each individual accesses those law caries - much as keyholes do - according to personal style or the school they studied under. Or you can think of it as a computer system's administrative permissions! Mages naturally hold those rights to change the system. Alchemists, meanwhile, are more like hackers." Who knew magic and computers were so similer. "I'll teach you in more detail later."

"Exactly, sweetie. Right now that stuff doesn't matter." I looked at the Ariel in surprise.

"An Ariel!"

"It's been a while hasn't it?" she asked me. It was the same one who tried to get me to go into the Fairy Kingdom when I'd first arrived to Elias' home.

"I might wish it were otherwise, but she is the perfect assistant for this task," Elias told me.

"She is?" I asked as she flew down from his horn to my face.

"You bet!" she told me. "No one's better at purifying or extinguishing things than we are! Water flows just like the air, but it's better for holding ans storing things. If you submerge something in deep, cold water, you can preserve it for a long time." Is that what happened before? Did the cats submerge the curse and try to supress it that way? "But to obliterate it, you want air. Flesh and bone, trees and stone, we wear it all down to dust. So that's why we're best for this job, see?"

"I understand," I told her. "Please guide me well, Neighbor." I offered her a small smile.

"Leave it to me, little pup."

"But," I turned to Elias. "Why am I doing this and not you?"

"Oh, er... Pathetic though it may seem, I'm not terribly gifted at this sort of spell," Elias explained. "My affinity has always been for the shadows. It's not ideal for this." He placed his hand on my cheek and planced his head next to mine. "All will be well, Reika. Simply envision what you want to accomplish. Picture a stong fresh spring breeze that blows away the last remants of winter, and wish for it to carry the blight away too. Do that and the Ariel will guide you the rest of the way."

"Okay." I nodded looking down at the Ariel laying in my hands.

"Reika, you must love the world," Elias told me and I looked up at him confused. "It's true that the world in which you grew up was not kind, but it was not your enemy. There is already a key in the lock that holds you. All you need do now is open it." He pat my head. "Or at least, that's how an acquaintance of mine once put it."

"Love the world, huh?" I asked. "Do you love the world, Elias?" He seemed to think on it for a while.

"Good question." How does he not know? He didn't give me a direct answer, but he seemed certain. He may not have a flesh face, but he says so much with his eyes. I held the censor in front of me and started walking towards the blight, bells ringing as my feet moved. I stopped moving as I got to the water before stepping onto it and continuing towards the blight. Finally, the grass crunched beneath my feet and I was standing in front of the blight.

"Stay calm, sweetie," the Ariel told me as I felt my heart race. "You're doing just fine." I just nodded before walking until I could tough it. It sounded like balloons rubbing together until they couldn't take it anymore and popped. I held the censor in front of me and moved the branch in front of my body between us. Do they really have to die? Is there another way this path could take? Suddenly, someone was holding me from behind and holding a knife to my throat. I gasped and tried moving away from the knife into the girl.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd hold still," she told me.

"It's you...!"

"Sorry kiddo," the girl and I looked at the mysterious voice as he walked up to us. His dark hair was up in a ponytail and he wore a suit ith a long jacket over it. Four scars went across his face, one even going across his nose. "That think's valuable to us. I'm afraid we can't let you get rid of it."

"No wonder the scent was unfamiliar, you used your apprentice to do your dirty work... Renfred."

"Aw, you remember me? I'm touched." Could sarcasm be any louder? "You couldn't be bothered with me before. I supposed it's because of the girl, hmm? She's a valuable little guinea pig to you. Isn't she, Pilum Murale?"

Guinea pig?