The two halves of the hooded figure fell to the ground. Blood, the same color as the red sky, spurted all over the place. I wanted to remove the hood from the figure's head, but the figure suddenly faded into grey ashes and disappeared.
"H-How...how did you...?"
Leonna walked over to where the figure once stood. Her face was filled with complete shock and confusion.
"I don't know." I said.
I was confused myself. Leonna told me before that even though she was a B-Class soldier in the Army of Light, she still wasn't powerful enough to take on the figure that I just sliced in half. She had a battle with the same figure two years ago and was almost killed. If I couldn't beat Leonna in a one-on-one fight without surprising her, then it should've been impossible for me to fight the figure and come out victorious.
"So...what now?" Leonna asked.
I suddenly realized something. If this was the same figure that appeared at that village, then Xylvia must also be here as well.
"We need to get inside," I said to Leonna. "Xylvia might be in there!"
"I-I don't know if that's a good idea." Leonna said.
"Well I say it is!"
I took off running towards the entrance of the castle, ignoring Leonna's doubts. I opened the door and...
"W-What...what the hell is...wha...?"
Blood. Blood was all over the place. It was splattered all over the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
"So...the moat is actually..."
I didn't want to believe it. It couldn't be real. The moat was just water that looks red because of the red sky. It couldn't have been blood. The red stuff that was splattered all over the place was...was just some abstract art. There's no way that it's blood.
"Hiro...wh-what...what is this..."
I turned to see Leonna standing at the doorway. She saw the red liquid splattered all over the place. She was obviously assuming the worst.
"D-Don't worry Leonna," I said trying to reassure her. "I-It's just some abstract art. Yeah...it...it has to be..heh...heh. There's no way that this is all blood."
I wanted to prove it to her. I walked over to a huge pool of the liquid and placed my finger on it. I felt the texture of it and...
"Heh...heh heh. I...I guess I was wrong. It...is b...b...blood...heh..."
This really was blood. Blood from a person. Blood that was spilled from the body of a living person. Blood that a living person needed to live...and it was fresh.
"Aaauugh...uuhhh...AAAAAAAUUUUGGH!!!"
I screamed with everything I had as I realized that the worst really did happen. People were brought here to die. All of there blood was spilled here.
"WHERE ARE THEEEEEEY?!!! THERE BODIES ARE GOOONE!!!! WHERE ARE THEEEEY?!!!"
My entire body was shaking. I placed my hands on my face to stop it from shaking, but that was a mistake. I felt the blood spread all over my face, so I kept screaming.
"GET OOOOOOFF!!! GET AWAY FROM MEEEEE!!!"
Leonna jumped at me and wrapped her arms around me, but this jist freaked me out even more.
"Hiro stop! Please, calm down!"
"LEAVE ME ALONE!!!! THEY'RE ALL DEAD!!! I CAN HEAR IT!!! THERE SCREAMS!!! THEY WON'T STOP SCREAMING!!!! THEY'RE ALL DEAD, BUT THEY WON'T STOP SCREAMING!!!! STOP IIIIIIT!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!"
I screamed so that I could drown out all of the other screams that I kept hearing. Although, I think that the screams that I was hearing were my own.
"...please...stop..."
Leonna kept her arms wrapped around me. I kept screaming. I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to keep screaming, but I suddenly stopped. I stopped because someone's hand was on my mouth. No, it wasn't a hand. My mouth was being covered...by Leonna's lips. The screams stopped. I stopped shaking. The blood didn't freak me out anymore. It was quiet. It was just me and Leonna...sitting in a dark room that was lit by red torches. I just now noticed them all lined up on the walls. I stopped looking around and focused my eyes on Leonna. Her eyes were closed. She kept kissing me for about another minute before she pulled back.
"I know it's hard," she said wrapping her arms around me again. "But you have to stay strong. I...I love you too much, so I can't bear to see you like this. So please...let me protect you."
I could feel the tears streaming down her face. I couldn't help but cry with her.
"Ok," I managed to say through my cries. "I-I...I trust you..."
Leonna and I walked forward for about a few minutes before we stopped in front of a huge, black door.
"What could it be?" Leonna asked.
"There's only one way to find out." I said.
We glanced at each other before we placed our hands on the door. After a brief moment of hesitation, we pushed as hard as we could. The door opened slowly to reveal a girl chained on a pole. I immediately recognized who it was.
"XYLVIA!!"
I ran as fast as I could to her. When I hot to her, I froze. There were nails stabbed on her. I counted at least ten of them.
"...Xylvia?"
Her head twitched. Then, her head moved up to where I could see her face. Her face was just as beautiful as ever.
"...H...Hi...ro...?" she said.
"Yes," I said through my tears. "Yes...it's me."
She smiled when she saw my face.
"Heh...you look like shit." she said.
"And you haven't changed one bit." I said.
I pulled out my sword and swung at the chains. They all broke and released Xylvia. I caught her before she fell to the ground.
"You...you better not call me a Damsel in Distress." she said.
"There's no way in hell that I would even think that." I said.
"Who's she."
Xylvia was pointing at Leonna who stood right behind us.
"She's a member of the Army of Light," I said. "Her name's Leonna."
"I-It's a pleasure to meet you." Leonna said as she got down on one knee and bowed.
Xylvia looked up at me with a concerned look on her face.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Are the nails stabbed into me not that concerning?" she asked.
"Oh...err...s-sorry."
"Don't worry. They don't really hurt that much, but that wasn't what I wanted to say."
"What did you want to say?"
"I was just wondering: She's the mistress right?"
"...Eh?"
"...Eh?"
I looked over at Leonna. Her face was bright red. She was stuttering again. I wanted to say something but I suddenly remembered the kiss that we shared just a few moments ago.
"You didn't have sex with her right?" she asked.
"We...we...didn't do that!" I said.
"That?"
"Wait...I...uhhh..."
Xylvia caught me red-handed. I thought that she was going to yell at me or slap me, but instead she just had a weird smile on her face. I've seen those kinds of smiles before, and they kind of creeped me out.
"Why the smile?" I asked.
"When we get home, I'm going to make sure that you don't get any sleep tonight.
It took me a minute to figure out what she meant by that. My nose had blood dripping out of it.
"Y-You're thinking about that now?" I asked.
"I've been trapped here for days while thinking about you, so I think I deserve a reward."
I didn't know what to say to her. I wasn't thinking about her wanting to have sex with me tonight, I was thinking about how composed she was. She was trapped here for days with most likely nothing to eat or drink, yet she still acted like she always did.
"You're so much stronger than me you know." I said.
"Well, I can't disagree with you about that." she said.
She placed her hand on my cheek and leaned in close to me. Her lips landed on mine. Her lips were so soft and warm.
"WAAAAAAAAHHH!"
I jerked my head back and looked over at Leonna crying.
"W-W-What's the matter?" I asked her
"I-I'm sworry...i-it's just...I...I tend to cry when I see something so heartwarming."
Tears were streaming down her face. I didn't know what to say to her, so I just simply laughed. Xylvia laughed as well.
"Hey...i-it's not funny." Leonna pouted.
As we continued laughing, the doors that led into this room suddenly opened.
"My my, you three are a little rowdy."
A man was standing at the doorway. He looked cool, so it was obvious that he was the bad guy.
"It's Him." Xylvia said.
"Who is he?" I asked.
"I guess I should tell you my name. My name is Gray." he said.
"Are you sure it's not Black." Xylvia said.
I chuckled a little.
"You still have the quips to spare huh," Gray said. "Well, whatever. I'm not here to fight you. I'm just here to see if what the boss said was true."
I pulled my sword out and summoned the dark flame.
"So what she said was true huh?"
"Who is your boss?" I said.
"The boss? Oh, she's the one who had a hood on her head. You know, the one you rudely slashed in half."
"If you know that I killed your boss, than why don't you run away?"
"She was my boss because she had a nice body that I could play with. I'm a thousand times stronger than her, so I could wipe you out in an instant. However, I don't want to do that."
"Why's that?"
"Because if I did, then you wouldn't join our side. Since you're now the new wielder of the Devil's Blade, that means that you now have the power to decide the fate of this world."
"You think that I'll just join your side?"
"Only time will tell my friend. Until that happens, I'll be seeing you later."
He then faded into ashes and disappeared. Just like the hooded figure did. After a few moments, Me, Xylvia, and Leonna were suddenly engulfed in a bright light.