Blood. Blood was the first thing she noticed as she returned to something resembling full consciousness. It dripped from the shaft of the scythe in the Knight's left hand, ran in thin streams from the claws jutting out from the fingers of her right. It decorated the interior of the Archon's bridge in streaks and splashes, forming puddles under bodies, not all intact. It warmed her face and matted her red-black hair, giving her Knight's Armor a grisly pattern.

She slowly looked around, retracting her weapons into her fingers with a wet metal sound. Everything had fallen silent, and she stood alone, everyone and everything else dead. At least, she hoped so.

Her left hand, revealed by damage to her Armor, came up to rub at the bare metal of her right arm, also revealed, the metal on metal sound snapping her completely into the present, and she doubled over, fighting to keep from vomiting, moving the hand to her mouth. Some of the bodies around her were her friends, her comrades, men and women she'd worked with almost intimately for months at the absolute shortest, some she'd known for nearly a decade, more than half her still-young life. And some, slowly liquefying into black puddles, were the monsters who'd butchered them, who'd made her become the Black Princess again.

"Focus, master." Her Intelligent Device's soft, feminine voice sounded in her head. "I don't mean to sound cold or rude, but there are more incoming. You have minutes at most."

She just continued to look around, stunned and overwhelmed.

"Focus. Stand firm, and focus. Now is not the time. I hate to say this, but you must mourn them later." Another voice—her Lord's (her Mother's) voice—in her mind snapped her out of the near-catatonia, and she felt herself detaching from the situation. It was still there, of course, but felt more like it was happening to someone else.

"Yeah… Yeah. Okay." She spoke aloud, her voice shaking as she straightened up. "I.."

"Center command console is still functional. FTL Communications are still online." Her Device spoke up again. She staggered over to it, leaning on the console for support.

"Just… Tell me what I need to do."

"Already working… Done. Channel open, urgent distress frequency." She straightened up again, noticing the holograms spring into being above the console. Directly in front of her, they read [Channel Open—Transmitting].

A deep breath, then;

"This is the TSAB Battleship Archon to anyone on this frequency, over." She didn't know what else to say. Her training hadn't covered this. None of the things she'd been taught applied here and now.

The reply took several seconds.

"Archon, this is Admiral Harlaown of the TSAB Claudia. Authenticate, your vessel is flagged as lost, presumed destroyed." A familiar voice responded. She latched onto it, needing the stability familiarity provided.

"Chrono, it's me, it's Haruka. I don't… I don't have the codes. Everyone's dead, it's just me left." She partially collapsed onto the console, causing the holograms to flicker. Her voice was hollow, she noticed in her detached state.

"Haruka!? By the Saint King, I thought you were dead, we all did! Where are you, where's the Archon?"

"I don't…" "Rosenkreuz, where are we?" The question was addressed to her Device, still in her scythe configuration.

"Unknown. While I have determined our location in our current system, I do not recognize the system, nor am I aware of precisely where this system is. General coordinates only, sending now."

"That's—" Chrono was cut off by an explosion behind Haruka. "What was that?"

"Mariage units encountering a few obstacles of the explosive sort." Rosenkreuz spoke up, aloud this time. "We're running out of time."

"Mariage? Shit." Chrono, quite uncharacteristically, swore. "Here, too…"

"Yeah." Haruka pushed herself off the console and tapped a few of the holographic buttons, attempting to open up a visual communication line. The computer beeped at her, informing her the equipment was too damaged to do so. "We were attacked from… I don't know where. Engineering went silent, then the Living Quarters, and then they hit the Bridge. Captain and XO died quick, those of us who survived took what we could from the Armory and what was left of the LQ, then barricaded ourselves in Medical about the same time the ship made a Dimensional Jump. After we felt the ship drop out of the Sea, we made an attempt to take back the Bridge. Given I'm talking to you right now…"

"You succeeded. But there's still Mariage onboard." Chrono's tone indicated that he didn't like where this was going.

"Yeah. And I can't fight them all off on my own."

"Haruka?" Chrono sounded both worried and confused. "What are you—" Haruka cut him off. She knew what she needed to do.

"Admiral Harlaown, as the last living member of the Archon's crew, I'm requesting permission to scuttle the ship."

A few seconds of silence passed, before another explosion sounded, closer this time.

"How?" Chrono's voice dropped to a near whisper.

"There's a planet nearby that seems to possess a natural AMF, and I'm going to crash the Archon into it. Hopefully the impact'll kill the all the Mariage, and even if not, there won't be a ship for them to take anymore."

"Haruka, you do realize that means—"

"I know." There was a brief pause.

"Saint King protect you." Chrono told her in Belkan, sighed, and spoke again. "You know the system won't allow non-officers to helm the ship under lockdown?"

"I was about to ask you how to deactivate it." Haruka admitted.

"You'd have to be a Lieutenant Commander or higher to do so. No, I've got a better idea."

"Chrono?"

"Knight Nakajima Haruka of the Saint Church of Belka." Chrono stated, using her full name and rank. "I am here by field commissioning you as an officer of the Time-Space Administration Bureau Dimensional Navy, at the Rank of Second Lieutenant. The command codes appropriate to your rank are being uploaded to your Device through this terminal now."

"Received." Rosenkreuz's red 'eye' at the top of her shaft flashed twice as the Device spoke aloud for the first time.

"Thank you, Admiral." Haruka turned as a third explosion sounded, very close this time. She pushed herself off of the console, staggered over to and sat in the Captain's chair, pulling up the holographic controls and setting a course onto the planet. The ship rumbled deeply as the engines activated. "Do me one last favor, please?"

"Name it." Came the immediate response.

"Say goodbye to everyone for me. And tell Cinque… Tell her…" Haruka trailed off, hoping Chrono would understand what she was trying to say.

"I will. I promise."

"Thank you." Haruka took a deep breath, steeling herself. "This is goodbye, then. I'll see you in the next life."

"Godspeed, Haruka—"

The comm cut out as the Archon entered the planet's AMF, the wards damaged from the battles onboard and unable to protect the ship. The sound of straining metal reached Haruka's ears as the damaged sections of the ship began to fail under the stress of orbital reentry. She reinforced her Knight's Armor, repairing the damaged sections and replacing destroyed layers.

"Sorry, Rosenkreuz. Didn't think we'd go out like this."

"I don't regret a thing, Master."

Haruka smiled, and converted Rosenkreuz to her storage form: a tiny metal cross with a single round, blood red gem in the center of where the arms met. Hopefully, the more compact form would cause the Device to be damaged less by the impact. She clipped Rosenkreuz to her armor, and looked back up, setting her hands in her lap.

She didn't have long to wait.

The impact threw her from the Captain's chair into the bloodstained ceiling, and everything went black.