"It feels so cold here. I'm shivering. It's so dark. I can't see. Why am I here? Where is here?" Sierra thought more than said aloud. She felt incredibly cold and strangely naked in this place.

There were no walls, nor ceiling, nor floor. All was black as far as the eye could see. Sierra took a step forward, her foot landing on nothingness but still supporting her weight. That nothingness was so cold to Sierra's bare foot that she drew it back for a moment before deciding to put it down again.

"It is the iciness of non-existence. This place is empty because it is reserved for the others once they return to Her," a voice behind Sierra commented, "Once they return it will be warm here, but will it be happy? Something tells me the depression of Her damned existence will continue no matter what happens to this realm."

"Who's there?!" Sierra asked in surprise while shivering visibly.

"Just the reflection of someone long past, the physical incarnation of a woman who has been trapped within the barriers of Her soul,"

Sierra looked through the darkness and gloom to see another woman standing not too far away. The woman was slightly shorter than Sierra. Her eyes had red iris, but her long hair was pale white. The woman Sierra stared at looked somewhat like herself, similar facial features, same build, the white-haired woman looked only about ten years older. The only large difference was height and the colors of their eyes and hair.

"Who are you?" Sierra asked.

"Someone who knows all just like She does, but can see nothing. I curse my existence here. This is true Hell, knowing everything, but seeing nothing. I track the progress of my child's life, and I am saddened to know that I outlive him. Even worse is the fact that I will outlive my grandchild, and ever her grandchild, and her grandchild's grandchild,"

"What is your name?" Sierra asked.

"I was once called Lina Inverse. Some still call me that, but they are mistaken if they think there is any real difference between me and Her anymore,"

"Lina Inverse. . ." Sierra whispered, but in the emptiness of this place, it seemed reasonably loud, "You're my grandmother. . ."

"In some respect, yes," Lina replied, "But my humanity has dwindled in those times long past. I can barely remember the days long past when Gourry, Zel, Amelia, and I would be off doing some odd job or another. I never though about how happy I was back then until I was united with Her. But now those days are gone, the memories of my friends and lover fade, and I am forever locked with the recesses of this purgatory."

Sierra slowly walked towards Lina. "How are you here? What are you? Who is this 'She' you refer to?"

"'She' is the Lord of Nightmares. The one I am now eternally bound to. She is lonely. She desires destruction to bring the souls of her creations back to her just as I am now. She believes that will cure her loneliness, but she is a goddess of both wisdom and ignorance. She knows that will not cure her loneliness, yet she refuses to believe her own knowledge,"

"How does she plan to bring about the destruction of everything?" Sierra asked.

"Mazoku," Lina explained, "They are her children just as are the Ryuzoku. Two sides of the same coin, both oppose each other no matter the situation. One fights for destruction, one of Her wishes, and the other fights for creation, another one of Her wishes."

"What about you? How can you possibly be here?" Sierra asked as she was standing about a foot away from the apparition of her grandmother.

"In the battle with the last seventh of Shabranigdo, I summoned the Lord of Nightmares in the form of the Giga Slave. It shattered the Mazoku Lord, but the price was my symbiosis with Her. It is a painful price, for my being here is the greatest torture I know. But knowing that I managed to help humanity makes is worth that horrible price,"

"Grandmother. . ." Sierra whispered.

"What?"

Sierra hugged Lina. The white-haired woman seemed surprised at first, but then a smile slowly crept across her morbid expressions.

"You're cold," Lina commented about Sierra, which surprised her because the same thought just crossed through her mind about Lina.

"I've always wanted to see you with my own eyes. I know everything there is to know about you, Sierra," Lina told her, "I know you wishes, I know your desires, and I know your secrets. But none of that means anything unless I've seen your face. Now that I have actually seen my beautiful granddaughter, I am happy."

"What will happen, grandmother?" Sierra asked, "What will happen to our world?"

"That is up to you," Lina said, "What choice you make is what will dictate your future. The entire world is in your hands."

Sierra backed a few steps away from Lina.

"There are three options available to you, Sierra," Lina instructed, "The first is to not face the Ruby-Eye, but I think you know that will mean the destruction of this world."

Sierra nodded her head.

"The second option is to try to reseal him somewhere within this world. The advantage to that option is that it is the easiest way to dispose of the Mazoku Lord for the time being, but be forewarned: if you seal him, he will emerge again. The only questions are 'when?' and 'will there be anyone to stop him?'"

"If that is so, I don't think that's an option I am willing to take," Sierra commented.

"You think like I do," Lina smiled, "That leaves the only option: to kill the Mazoku Lord."

"But how? He has your blood as well as his. He's going to enact the complete resurrection. There is no way I can stop him even if I do have help from my allies,"

"You are wrong," Lina informed her, "He does not have my blood, he has your blood."

"What's the difference? Won't either one will work for his purposes?"

"No, if he had my blood it would work. If he had your blood, but you grandfather was not Gourry Gabriev then it would work. But since your grandfather is Gourry, it will not work,"

"Why?" Sierra asked confused.

"Because Gourry was partially elven. That elven blood passed down to you, and elves cannot be used in rituals of the Mazoku,"

"I'm. . .an elf?" Sierra asked in amazement.

"Not completely. In fact, you're approximately 1/16 elf. It's not enough to give you any of the physical properties of an elf, but the presence of elven blood in you veins in enough to make Shabranigdo's complete resurrection fail,"

"So. . .it is possible to defeat him?"

"Yes, albeit, difficult,"

"What must I do?" Sierra asked.

"I shall show you," Lina instructed, "Though be forewarned, if Shabranigdo is killed completely as you are about to do, this world will see a dramatic change."

"I doesn't matter to me," Sierra sorrowfully said, "Change or not, I'm going to lose Terra and Toshi either way."

The desert moon was high overhead, barely illuminating the sands beneath and causing eerie shadows upon the dunes. The sand seemed to be a bluish color in the moonlight and the four figures that stood in that moonlight did not have good intentions.

"You two go on ahead, I'll take care of this," Kleo whispered to Zelgadis and Rekos. They nodded their heads and ran up the slope towards the top of the cliff.

"Running from me?" Elayne amusedly asked.

"Wait! I'm the one you'll fight!" Kleo informed her.

"You? Ahh, I remember you," Elayne said, "You're the one who bound me so those bandits could get their dirty hands on me. I'll make you pay for that!"

Elayne charged Kleo. She had completely regenerated from her last encounter with Rekos and Sierra. Her clawed hand slashed at Kleo who threw herself to the side in an attempt to dodge. She landed roughly face-first in the desert sand but rolled to the side just in time to avoid the barbed tentacles that flailed at her.

When she a ways away, Kleo stood again and fired her gun at Elayne. Normally the bullet would have done little against a Mazoku, but Kleo had doused the weapon in holy water beforehand. The bullet pierced through Elayne's shoulder causing her to scream in agony. Elayne suddenly blurred and disappeared, but Kleo knew enough to know what was coming next.

Kleo's only miscalculation about Mazoku teleportation was how fast it went. Even with the knowledge that Elayne was about to appear right behind her, she was unable to dodge fast enough. Elayne's clawed hand tore through Kleo shirt and slashed her back badly. Kleo managed to back off while firing a few more bullets into her opponent.

"I suppose a few more scars there isn't going to make any difference," Kleo taunted.

There was an odd pause. Elayne had teleported, but she had yet to reappear. Kleo grew nervous and turned around every few seconds expecting Elayne to reappear. She kept waiting; nothing seemed to happen aside from the sand beneath her feet growing wet with blood.

"Come out, coward!" Kleo shouted, "You damn Mazoku are responsible for my brother's death! I'll get my revenge!"

Suddenly the attack came. It came from directly above Kleo seeing as Elayne reappeared in the air levitating above. Elayne whipped her tentacled arm downward. Kleo noticed it just in time to dodge and avoid serious injury, but the barbs along the tentacle did create multiple scrapes along her legs.

"I have to do something. . .she's getting the upper hand. . ." Kleo whispered to herself.

The general pattern of battle continued for some time, Elayne teleporting a scoring some reasonably serious wounds again Kleo, who only was nicking the Mazoku with her bullets.

As Kleo was contemplating a possible new tactic to use, Elayne appeared right in front of her, something she was not in the least expecting. Elayne's tentacled arm wrapped around Kleo and began constricting.

"I'll kill you slowly and painfully. . .it's so much more enjoyable that way," Elayne said, "Aren't you going to scream? Aren't you going to reveal to me just how much pain you are in?"

"Go. . .to. . .hell. . ." Kleo managed to gasp amid the pain of being both crushed and stabbed by the barbs at the same time. The tentacles had Kleo's arms bound pretty well, she didn't see what she could do about the situation.

"I will, Kleo. Don't worry about that. But I'm going to make sure I bring you with me," Elayne constricted harder, yet Kleo managed to keep her mouth shut and not let her foe have pleasure in her pain.

"I'll deal with you later, Rekos. The one I want right now is Zelgadis," Xellos informed the two of them.

The three men stood on a reasonably steep rock path the lead to the top of the cliff-side, the steepness combined with the darkness of night and the only illumination being the moon made tripping on rocks along the path a serious possibility. Zelgadis drew his sword.

"It's been a long time since I've killed someone with my sword," Zelgadis noted, "It's thirsty for blood."

"I've heard you say that before," Xellos commented, "In the dragon-train, no?"

"I didn't think you were there," Zelgadis replied.

"Never assume anything about me,"

"Well, it's good to see you two are having a happy reunion. I think I'll go pay a visit to 'Little-Miss-Mazoku Lord' if that's okay," Rekos said.

"Go ahead," Xellos commented, "He'll slaughter you. In the mean time, Zelgadis and I will be settling a decades old score."

Rekos bowed mockingly to the two of them and continued up the rocky path towards the cliff top. Zelgadis stared with absolute hatred at the Mazoku priest who stood before him. Xellos held out his right hand and his ruby-headed staff appeared in his hand and the long blade he used earlier grew from the end. Zelgadis enchanted his sword with an Astral Vine.

"I'll get my revenge," Zelgadis told his long-time adversary, "You killed Amelia! I know you did! The history books say she was assassinated by bandits, but I know you're the one responsible!"

"And why do you think I did it?" Xellos admitted, "It's because you and she took someone important to me away from me."

Zelgadis scoffed, "Don't give me this shit about you Mazoku being able to feel love. I know all you desire is pain and destruction."

"That is so," Xellos replied, "But let me ask you this: what is 'love' really? Isn't it when you find something about someone else that leads you to respect him or her and wish to be with him or her?"

Zelgadis began to sidestep with his sword in ready position. Xellos began stepping as well in the same direction and the actions of the two created a moving circle of two opponents ready to rip each other apart at the sound of a coin falling. Zelgadis remained silent.

"I see you have no objections to that definition?" Xellos asked, "In that case, Beastmaster Zelas Metallium fit the definition of someone I love. Because of you, Amelia, and that damned lizard who just went past, Mother is dead and will never be reborn."

"Considering what you as a Mazoku have done to countless others in this world, the loss of one person is nothing to be complaining about!" Zelgadis shouted as he broke the circle and lunged.

Xellos parried the attack and countered by slashing back with his bladed staff. Zelgadis leapt backwards to avoid the blade and threw a dagger on his belt. Xellos teleported behind Zelgadis as a method of both dodging the dagger and getting his next attack off. Zelgadis crouched low to the ground as the staff went flying over his head.

"Do you really think that you can defeat me, Zel my friend?" Xellos asked, "I'm much more powerful now than when we last met. I now have the powers I did before in addition to the ones I've inherited from the old Beastmaster. I am now the Neo-Beastmaster."

"Don't think I've spent all these years sitting by idly without researching a way to kill Mazoku," Zelgadis countered.

Xellos slashed again and again Zelgadis dodged.

"What do you plan to do, Zelgadis? Use magic against me? Sounds like fun, I think I'll do that too. . ." Xellos stabbed the hilt of his staff into the rock ground. A moment later high-force jets of black and red gas sprouted from the ground and moved like arms that attempted to consume the chimera.

Zelgadis held his sword near his face and whispered a chant to replace the Astral Vine. The sword became a bright white that pierced the darkness of night. As the arms of black and red gases approached Zelgadis he slashed them with his enchanted sword. The arms dissolved into the night air as the sword touched them.

"Oh? Amusing. . ." Xellos commented, "You've done research into the lost Holy Magics, I see? That must be what the enchantment on you sword is."

"That's correct. I've become quite proficient in Holy Magic over all these years. Holy Magic and Shamanistic Magic. . .the only two forms of sorcery that are extremely effective against high-level Mazoku. Don't think I'll be losing so easily, Xellos."

"This should make the battle much more interesting, don't you think?" Xellos nonchalantly said as black conical spikes materialized in the air above him.

The conical spikes were suddenly gone, but Zelgadis noticed that they were now behind him and had blood on them. He looked down at his body and saw that the stone skin he possessed had been cut by the spikes and he now bled; however, the wounds were incredibly small, almost like the scratch of a cat to a normal human.

"What's that supposed to prove?" Zelgadis asked confidently as he slashed the spikes and they disintegrated, despite his confidence in tone, Zelgadis remained cautious.

"It's a nice little tactic I used against our lizard friend Val all those years ago. Many small wounds can accumulate to be quite damaging over time," as if to prove Xellos's word, dozens more of the spikes appeared and began their attack runs against Zelgadis.

Zelgadis slashed at them and managed to destroy a few, but the small scratches from the spikes were beginning to hurt quite a bit.

Xellos just stood by laughing at the pathetic plight of his opponent who was being scraped to death. However, Xellos's jesting stopped as he heard Zelgadis chanting.

"Nova Flash!" the incantation commanded. A bright column of white surrounded Zelgadis and when it vanished after a few seconds, all the conical spikes were nowhere to be seen. Zelgadis now was in a much better position than before; however, he had dozens of tiny bleeding scratches all over his tattered cloak and a few wounds that were actually considerable in size.

"I'm going to end this," Zelgadis told Xellos angrily, "I'm going to make you feel the suffering that you gave to Amelia and Gourry! I'm going to make you feel the agony of all the humans whose pain you fed off of!"

Zelgadis began chanting another spell. Xellos recognized that Holy Magic could be quite devastating to his physical and perhaps even Astral body so he decided the best defense was a good offense and lunged at the chimera.

A split-second before Xellos was within attacking reach of the chimera; the spell was completed

"Flame Breath!" an explosion of light flooded the dueling battlefield.

When the light faded and Zelgadis's light-sensitive eyes adapted to the darkness again, Xellos was kneeling in pain a few meters away.

"I see you have indeed become quite powerful over the years," Xellos said, his eyes that always seemed to be closed were now open and their sinister slitted pupils stared angrily at Zelgadis.

"I think it is time to show you what I am capable of now that I the Neo-Beastmaster. . ."

Zelgadis now knew that the easy part was over.

"Bleed! Scream! Let me drink the pleasures of your pain!"

"I suppose there isn't much I can do about the bleeding part, but I refuse to scream for the sake of sating your sadistic desires," Kleo told Elayne.

"You'll die anyway, why not let me have a little more fun in the process?" Elayne simply asked.

The barbed tentacles bound tighter around Kleo. Her skin was bleeding in multiple places due to the barbs and she felt as if every bone in her torso was about to snap.

"I refuse to lose to you! I will avenge Stein!" Kleo shouted as she struggled to free her right arm from the binding grasp.

Kleo struggled more, and the barbs dug into her skin more. Elayne simply smiled wickedly and watched her prey attempt to free itself. With a sudden scream of pain, Kleo managed to free her right arm from the barbed grasp.

"What?!" Elayne asked with shock.

Kleo aimed the gun in her right arm at the place where Elayne's heart would be positioned. She fired. There was a pause.

"Did that not do it?" Kleo asked herself worriedly.

As if to respond to her question, Elayne's grasp weakened. Kleo fell loose of the bind and Elayne sank to her knees. Elayne was still alive but she didn't move aside from her eyes following Kleo as she slowly walked right up next to Elayne.

"Even though you are partially Mazoku now, you are still partially human," Kleo said. Elayne gritted her teeth, but then loosened her tenseness with a fit of coughs.

Kleo put the nozzle of the gun against Elayne's skin right between her eyes.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now. Why shouldn't I purge the world of one of you fiends who brought about Stein's death?" Kleo asked the question, but Elayne was silent, "Well? Tell me, dammit!"

Kleo stooped to her knees and put he face in Elayne's face. Elayne's one good eye stared at the ground while the scarred one remained closed.

"TELL ME! I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T!" Kleo shouted.

"It's because you're a pacifist," Elayne muttered.

All the rage and anger that Kleo felt suddenly seemed to disappear leaving an incredibly empty feeling in her stomach. It was true. Kleo had always hated violence and death. Why, then, did she now fight so?

"W-what?" Kleo asked shakily.

"You're a pacifist. . ." Elayne said again, "This isn't you, Kleo. You despise killing and violence, yet you've changed. Now you're going to kill me."

"I'm a pacifist," Kleo muttered, "What am I doing? I-I've let anger control me. I don't want to kill. I don't want to see people killed."

"I know you don't, Kleo. But you don't have any choice in the matter,"

"Yes I do! I don't have to kill you! You can remedy your ways and become a human again!"

"No, I can't. There is no turning back now. Please kill me, Kleo. If you don't, I will kill you. . ." Elayne told Kleo sorrowfully.

"No, I refuse," Kleo responded.

"Kleo, this isn't a murder. This is a mercy killing. I hate my existence as I am know. I was once a priestess; a healer. Yet now I must use violence and destruction as my bread and water. I originally wanted this existence to get my revenge just like you want revenge for Stein, but now I understand that vengeance doesn't get you anything aside from more sorrows. Don't repeat my mistake. Kill me, please. . ."

"I. . .I. . ." Kleo stammered.

Elayne smiled, "You're doing the right thing. Just promise me that you'll never kill again after this."

Kleo finger tensed on the gun's trigger.

"I'm so sorry. . ." she whispered.

Kleo sat in the moonlit sand staring at the detestable gun in her hand. Footsteps approached from her left, but she paid it no heed. She just kept staring at that horrible item as if it had betrayed her. Had she really turned into a murderer for the sake of Stein's vengeance? Or was that all a nightmare? No, there was no way that could've been a dream. She had forgotten her pacifistic philosophy and had lusted for another's blood.

"Kleo, are you okay?" the voice of the person asked, "You look like you've been hurt badly!"

"No, I'm okay," Kleo told the visitor whom she knew from the voice to be Sierra.

"C'mon, you've been hurt, you need healing!" Sierra urged.

"I said I'm fine," Kleo stated flatly, "But I'm glad to know that you're okay now."

"Yes I feel much better. . .the High Priest told me what happened. I'm sorry about Stein--"

"Don't talk to me about it!" Kleo commanded harshly. After an awkward pause she continued, "They need your help up at the cliff. You'd better go."

"Alright, I will," Sierra said.

Sierra left and Kleo remained. She stared off into the distance. What had she been doing? How could she have let the desire for violence overtake her? Kleo just sat pondering about how to remove the empty sensation in her heart.