Hello everyone, your kindly writer again. Sorry I haven't been updating, life has gotten busy but I am moving back into the story itself. Thank you all so much for your favorites and reviews! They are what keep me pressing on and coming back to this story. I hope you all enjoy this, a bit short, of a chapter. And I will see you all in chapter ten!

Nova

Chapter Nine: Resolution

Death and life are equivalent

"Ragna!" That voice...a shudder rushes through me as I stare at her. White hair and that one red eye, the eye patch blocking the other. She rushes towards me with arms open and for a moment I'm frozen. The voice...the face. Ripping at me like a blade in my midsection. I knock her to the side.

"Awww..." She pulls herself off the ground, her face fallen as she stares at me. "Do you not like me like this, Ragna? I have a voice just so I can talk to you...a-and a body too."

"Just shut up!" My blade is out of it's sheath and pointed at her. That voice, that god damn voice!

"But I'm here for you Ragna...I'm yours." My eyes narrow and I'm quaking, quaking with a fury that I can't suppress. I swipe head long at her but she simply hops out of the way, her feet barely touching the floor. "You're just like me Ragna! You want to kill things, you want to destroy everything, destroy this whole world!"

"Shut up!" Another swipe, and she simply jumps out of the way. "I don't want to destroy this world, just you..."

"Aww...so you're just here to kill me again." There is a crash as the large weapons unit drops and from the dust she emerges in her weaponry.

"Come Ragna...let me hold you in my arms."

I can feel sweat through my glove as my hand tightens around the handle of my blade. I had to destroy her, destroy every fucking bit of her. I shout in rage like a damn animal and I rush at her. She stops me a damn portal slowing me down and she's on me. Her arms wrapping around me before a blade cuts into my side. She throws me off, and I'm only becoming more enraged. She is coming towards me now, those arms open and that damn metal scraping across the ground..

"Dead spike!" The blackness lurches upwards and hits her sending her reeling, but all she does is laugh. Blood leaving a trail along the floor as my body lowers to rush. I'll crush her, I'll fucking crush her.

My blade connects and I feel it scraping against her armored torso. Again she laughs my hands grabbing for her, but she hits me from behind. She can portal those damn blades . She's hitting me now, slices of the blades hitting my arms and legs as I desperately try to block them. My own blood spilling on the floor.

"We can fight until the end of time Ragna!" Her mad laughter echoes off the wall and I flinch at it. "You're meant for me Ragna! You and me, only you and me!" My blade smacks into her and she's clawing at me now. Her gloved fingers digging into my flesh before she slams against me knocking me backward.

"Fucking psycho bitch! I'll destroy you! I'll kill you!" I slam into her again, cutting into her. My hands in a flurry of motions as I slam against her armor again and again. Then I find the weakness, the connector on her arm. My blade slams into it and blood spurts hitting against me and falling sickly against the ground. It's hot and I wipe it off. That's when she moves dragging me with her as another series of blows sends my head reeling. I hit my blade against her head and she releases me. I tumble to the ground. The harsh metal grating of the floor shoving against my jacket as I roll away from her. A series of blades ripping across the floor meets me and I feel it slice into my skin.

A cry of pain rebounds off the wall, inhuman...it doesn't register until I pant for breath that it is my own. "You can't deny your feelings..." that voice...I fucking hate that voice. I'm on my feet again and I can feel the breath ripping through my lungs. Her arm is still bleeding, but it doesn't stop her from raising it and sending the chain of blades at her back toward me. They slice into me but I dodge most of them. A cut along my cheek flaring to life.

"Come to me Ragna..." Her voice is filled with rapture, and it breaks into that laugh. My body kneels down, and it is time to end it. A flurry of slashes crush into her and pieces of her armor fall away. She's crying as she stumbles backwards. It's over, her body shivering as those red eyes stare into me. I raise my blade, a final blow...it'll be over.

Her arm raises and a blade shoots forward and it hits my shoulder. I fall backwards and she is raisin,g laughing. "You can't get away from me Ragna..." Her voice quivering and that damn smile on her face. "I'm all yours, I was made for you..."

"I'm not.." Another blade cuts into me and pain rips a scream from my throat. "I don't...want...you." Her eyebrows narrow as she moves forward, her hands coming to touch my face.

"But Ragna...we were meant to be together."

Another blade slides from it's holster and connects. I'm pinned like some freakish doll and I struggle against it trying to will my hand to pull it out. "Let's go Ragna...let's destroy this horrible excuse for a world."

The large blade comes forward and I feel like I've seen it before...seen this before. It'll pierce through me, and then we fall into the Cauldron. Why have I felt this before? She comes forward with it and I wait for the impact...

It never comes. A sickening noise greets my ears and my eyes open. The sound of a blade pierced through flesh, and the shuddering noise that leaves the lungs with it. It never met with me, and her eyes open and stare into mine. Those ruby red eyes. Her blonde hair is fluttering the ends of it covered in her own gore. Stained red...red as those eyes.

"R-rachel..." My body moves and I feel the blades fall away from my shoulders. My hands coming to grab onto her face.

"Y-you can defeat her...Ragna..." My hands are pushing away her hair touching her face, touching the wound. I can hear the screams of rage from that doll but I don't care about her now. Why? Why the hell did she do that?! Her eyes are half closed and her brow knotted together in what I can only take for pain, still she doesn't scream or cry out. She just sits there the blade shoved through her midsection and glinting with her blood. The doll kicks her and she slides off the blade falling into me, my arms wrapping around her form. She's so small...so broken. A small coughing sound as blood drips down the corner of her mouth and those red eyes...so clouded.

"Why...why the hell did you do that..Rachel.."I'm shaking and her fingers touch my face, touching along my cheeks. Blood smearing with tears, I'm sobbing...crying, clinging her to me. I prop her up trying to shove her towards my neck. She's a vampire, maybe...

"Stop her...Ragna."

"Quiet...j-just shut up you stupid rabbit." I can feel the slick wet of blood against my torso and I can hear it falling against the ground...but I won't believe it...it's some sick dream. The Murakumo unit reaches down trying to wrench her out of my arms but I kick the damn doll away.

"Please Ragna...don't let your...hate...destroy." I shove my lips against her, but their cold now, her eyes distant staring open at nothing. She's limp in my arms, and I'm screaming.

"Shiit...shit...." Sobs, screams, I can hear the communicator screaming my own and hers as her body slides to the floor. Cut open...broken...dead.

"Why does she matter to you...Ragna?" That damn doll, her eyes wide open and afraid. Trying to figure out something she can't, and she pulls the blade upwards still red with a vampire's blood. "I'm the only one who can satisfy you! I'm the only one who can make it right!"

"Shut up." I get to my feet and my blade pierces into her, that small doll figure her eyes wide with fright.

Then...she smiles and her arms reach forward grabbing onto my hands. She pulls herself along my sword and I can hear it grating against what's left her armor another down pour of blood hitting against the grate. "Let's go destroy it."

My eyes see Rachel one last time as we fall back and tip into the cauldron. I don't want to fucking live anymore anyway...she's gone. She's dead...and so the rest of the world might as well be.

"Until next time...Rachel." The flames of the cauldron lick at my flesh, and unconsciousness swallows me whole.

Once upon a time...

There was a girl.

Not an ordinary girl, but a princess. Her parents were wonderful, and her life happy.

But like all wonderful things, it had to end. A great black beast came, and swallowed all of her happiness away. Her father and his friends battled the black beast, at last defeating it.

But at a terrible cost.

After it was defeated the king went to the girl, and spoke to her these words:

"You must keep time safe, my little one," he said "for without you...time itself will stop."

And he locked her away in a castle, on another plane of existence...and then he died.

Leaving her alone...forever.