Rejection. Brutality. Powerlessness.

Thousand curses on the soul who brought upon me all of those things. No. Thousand curses on Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. Those insufferable fools had handed me the ultimate disrespect… and smarter everything I had done for that stupid Belladonna.

"RAH!" I yelled, breaking the surface of the fast moving river. My mind was spinning, my body was barely able to move, and water burned the sword wound that had found its way through my body.

How dare they.

"AGH!" I yelled as I slammed into a rock, which spun my barely alive body on top of the surface of the horrid water. It burned more than just the wound, but my entire body.

"Failure… Failure is not an option. Taurus. And you...have failed." A nondescript voice spoke in a wobbly voice, overshadowed by the rotating river around me. I wish it would just stop roaring, I wished everything would just stop. Hadn't I endured enough pain? Enough suffering?

Hadn't I done enough?

From there, my blurred vision had faded to nothing. The roaring of the river, no not just the river, but the whole world had been silenced. The burning sensation filling my body had emptied itself completely. There was nothing left inside, or outside, of me but that nothingness. That calmness. That serenity. The gods had answered my call, finally...I had peace.

"At what cost have you earned this peace Adam?" A disembodied male voice asked me.

"What does it matter, the path justifies the goal." I spoke to the darkness, though I couldn't even hear the sound of my own voice.

"Is that the truth you stick by?"

"Of course I stick by it! It's gotten me here hasn't it?" I shouted out to the voice. It sounded as if it were judging me.

"Then you aren't ready Adam. You still have much to learn." The voice spoke once again, and then I felt it's presence disappear. Slowly, light began to fill the darkness I had found myself in. The roaring of the river, though slightly quieter this time, had returned to my ears, and slowly but surely, the blue sky too filled my vision.

"So, you're awake?" A voice asked beside me, and I began to realize I was no longer in the water, and I was no longer moving, but I was on a beach, lying in sand. I tried to look up, but I could barely even raise my head. Despite this, I was able to see just a little bit of everything around me.

I was on a beach, on the edge of an endless body of water, with a cliff to my side and a campfire directly in front of me. The sun was getting closer to the horizon, shooting the beginnings of the sunset colors into the atmosphere. The person who had spoken was to my right, and it was a woman I had never met once in my life.

"Who are you?" I spat, trying to raise my head a little more, but failing once again.

"Don't strain so much. You might hurt yourself."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" I spat out, trying to look at the person, but I just couldn't. My guts felt as if they were burning, and blood flew from my mouth as I yelled. I still wasn't healthy, how long had passed? I fell back down onto the sand, and gripped it with my free hand. The grains flew freely from my hand, falling through the cracks just as I had.

"Is that any way to talk to the person who saved you?" The woman asked in a soft tone, as heat began to build in front of me.

"You call this saving me? Really?" I questioned, with a gurgling in my throat. I could feel myself slipping again, slipping into the darkness...slipping into the madness of my failure.

"I'm doing my best okay, you could at least try to be grateful." The woman said, in a complaining sort of tone. I heard her walking next to me, the sand moving ever so slightly as she walked around to my side. The only thing I saw were her boots, which were pure black in color. I saw her bend down, and instantly a pure freezing cold took over my back, sending pain flowing through my body.

"What are you doing?!" I growled in pain, not able to do anything but lay there and suffer.

"You've lost more blood than your body can produce, you can't clot this wound. I'm going to freeze it closed for now. Just enough so you can regain your aura." She spoke, her voice now sounding more urgent.

"Don't say that word again." I spat.

"What word?"

"Aura." I growled. That was one of the names of the people that had made a fool out of me. In fact...there were a lot of people who had the pleasure of being on that list.

"O-okay. Tell me your name, just so I know what to put on your gravestone if you don't...make it." She spoke, her voice cracking. I hadn't come to terms with my mortality in a long while. The fact that this could be the end of my story...the fact that this could be all I had to offer this world made me sick. I had tried so hard to do what I believed was right, to fight for what I thought was important, but it wasn't enough. It simply wasn't.

What did I have to lose by giving my name? I was already at my end? Wasn't I?

"Adam Taurus." I stated weakly, I could hear just how weak my voice was getting.

"Adam Taurus? You're the one who-"

"Don't speak anymore. Not about that." I said, trying to push my head up to see who was trying to save me. They certainly wouldn't try any longer, they knew who I was.

And who I saw sealed my fate even further. It was a human, the people I had fought against this entire time. She had soft features, with black eyes, offset by powder white skin, and hair as white as the very same company that had ruined my life. Anger filled my heart, and my mind.

"Schnee. You dare touch me." I spat, though weakly. Her eyes widened in confusion, but then in worry.

"I think you have the wrong person, I'm not a Schnee. My name is Ria Arkari." She said quickly, glancing over the campfire. That when I saw a huge scar on her neck, a scar that I knew to be a sword wound. "Now stay still, I need to grab more medicine."

"Why are you helping me, you know who I am don't you? I've killed so many of your kind." I questioned, watching her walk behind the fire and bend down. She was wearing black jeans, with a white battle coat, with a shirt I could only barely see. I noticed her hair was long, going all the way to her lower back.

"My kind?" She spoke softly, stopping her rummaging. "What do you mean by my kind?"

"Humanity? Humans?" I questioned, she must have been stupid.

"They are not my kind. You assume too much." She spoke, standing up then walking over with a bottle of mystery liquid in her hand with a hurt look on her face.

"What are you-"

"I know you expect me to say something cliche, like people hurt me, or that I'm not human to begin with…" She spoke, closing her eyes and sighing deeply. She then opened her eyes, a serious look in her black eyes. Eyes that reminded me of...her. "But I have no intention of doing any of that. I'll watch over you until you get better Adam, you have no reason to be afraid here."

"I don't understand." I said, my anger fading for some reason. She then bent down over me, her hair falling into my face and blocking my one eye. I felt my mouth being opened, then the very same liquid being poured down my throat. It tasted horrible, bitter and sweet at the same time, making me want to gag, but I had no energy left to do so.

"Sleep." I heard her voice say, then I felt my body fall away from me, a lightness taking over my soul as my pain faded. I felt calm once again, and everything around me stopped.

My bliss had returned.