"Sierra? Kleo? Where are you two?" Toshi called out into the dark corridors. He walked through a pitch-black hallway with the aid of a lighting spell. He at last came to a doorway that led into a huge hall. It was still very dark and the gloom seemed to muffle the ball of light floating in Toshi's open palm.

A grinding sound echoed from behind Toshi and he spun around to see two stone doors shut the portal he had just walked through.

"What the hell?" he muttered to himself. He was just about to go inspect the moving doors when he heard a dripping sound coming from the center of the huge hall. He walked to the center of the room. Every step toward the dripping sound seemed to make Toshi's ball of light weaker until it dissipated completely.

"What is that?" Toshi asked himself while squinting to see an altar of some sort about ten feet in front of him. He walked closer to the altar. Soon he could see that there was a human body on the altar. It was a woman. She had been stripped naked and it appeared that her heart had been ripped out of her chest. A trickle of blood ran from the gaping hole in her chest down the side of the altar and hit the floor with a slow dripping sound.

Toshi caught some of the blood in his hand. It was still warm. Whoever killed this woman had done so recently.

"Makes you hungry, doesn't it?" a voice came from behind Toshi. He spun around to see the silhouette of a man standing a few feet away. How had that person gotten so close without Toshi noticing?

"Blood makes you hungry?" Toshi asked with both curiosity and disgust.

"Blood? No. Pain does. This woman had a most painful. . .and delicious death," the shadowy figure responded.

"What kind of a man are you?" Toshi asked disgustedly.

"Man?" the figure laughed, "Well, I suppose your kind would think me that."

A light appeared between Toshi and the figure just barely bright enough to reveal the figure's features. He wore priest's garments., they were black. His hair went down to his shoulders, it was purple.

Toshi gasped. "The man that Kleo was talking about!" he said aloud.

The black priest chuckled while he slowly raised his head from its bowed position so that Toshi could see his face. His eyes were closed. He had a very friendly smile on his face.

"Greetings," the black priest said in a friendly tone.

"What's going on here?" Toshi demanded the priest, "Where are Kleo and Sierra?"

"Kleo?" the black priest asked innocently, "Hmm, I didn't see her. . .but as for Sierra, well, that's another story completely."

"Where is she?!" Toshi yelled.

"You know. . ." the black priest said, ignoring Toshi's dangerous tone, "That girl Sierra really annoyed me. And she would have caused me a lot of problems. . .just like the other two. . ."

"Other two?" Toshi asked, he honestly had no idea whom the black priest was referring to, "You're not making any sense."

"Oh, come now. You know whom I'm talking about. They were friends of yours. Fortunately for me, they're out of the way now.

Suddenly something about the black priest's attitude seemed horribly familiar to Toshi. "Do I know you?" he slowly asked.

"Know me?" the black priest seemed hurt, "You don't remember me? I feel sad now. . ."

"Then tell me, who are you?" Toshi said.

The black priest smiled even more widely than before. He opened his eyes. Those eyes immediately frightened Toshi. They were dark purple, just like his hair, but the eyes were narrow and slitted like a snake's. Those evil eyes combined with that overly friendly smile seemed to mock the very notion of friendship, kindness, or any such positive state of being. The black priest chuckled for a moment before he responded to Toshi's question:

"Sore wa. . .himitsu desu,"

Toshi was taken aback by the black priest's incredibly abrupt dismissal of his question. Before Toshi could say anything the black priest continued talking.

"Well, I really must be going now. Just let me tell you one last thing. Don't interfere with her,"

"Who is 'her?'" Toshi asked, confused.

"The woman you're looking for. The blind woman with black plate mail,"

The black priest began levitating upwards. His body began to fade away.

"Wait! Stop!" Toshi commanded, "Tell me where Sierra is!"

The priest completely faded away, but Toshi could still hear his voice. "Behind you. . ."

The whole of the great hall suddenly lit up brightly. Toshi rubbed his eyes in pain as they adapted to the sudden brightness. He turned around to look where the black priest had indicated. The only thing there was the altar and the woman atop it. Then he noticed.

The woman with her heart ripped out was Sierra. Toshi's eyes went wide with horror. He backed up a step. The Sierra's face had the most terrifying expression of pain and fear on it. Her long blue hair was matted with blood.

Then the lips of Sierra's mouth began to move. "T. . .Toshi. . ." she called out.

Toshi stood frozen, not knowing how to react.

". . .Toshi. . ." Sierra gasped, her limp arm slowly reached out for Toshi.

Everything seemed to suddenly become blurry. The roomed seemed to spiral around Toshi. The only thing that he could make out was Sierra's pleading call of his name.

Suddenly Toshi was sitting on the ground back at their campsite. Sierra was sitting in front of him. She had buried her face in his chest and was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Toshi. . .Toshi. . ." she cried, "Oh, Toshi! It was awful! I-I felt it. . .I felt what I was like to die. . ."

Toshi put his arms around her in an attempt to comfort her. "It's alright. It was only a dream,"

Sierra kept sobbing. "It hurt. It hurt so much. I couldn't do anything to try to save myself. I was paralyzed by something, I don't know what. Then he came. That black priest. He. . .he tore my heart out of my chest and showed it to me right in front of my face,"

"It's alright now," Toshi said, "It's all over. It was only a nightmare."

Sierra kept sobbing into Toshi chest. Toshi looked down at her, concern for her showing on his face. Sierra was naked.

"W-What?!" Toshi gasped in astonishment.

The smooth skin of her back was pale and deathly cold. Her beautiful blue hair had become a disgusting purplish color from bloodstains. Sierra lifted her head from Toshi's chest to look at him in curiosity.

"What's wrong?" she asked between a few remaining sobs.

Toshi's looked at her chest. There was a gaping hole where her heart should have been. Dried and caked blood was all over her torso. Toshi stared in horror, it hadn't been a dream after all. Toshi looked at Sierra's face. Her eyes were emotionless and blank like those of someone who had been dead for many days.

"What's wrong, Toshi?" Sierra's lips moved to make the sound of the question, but her dead eyes looked past him.

"S-Sierra!" Toshi said in horror.

"Toshi?" Sierra's lips responded.

"Toshi!"

"Toshi!"

"TOSHI! Come on! Wake up, dammit!"

Toshi suddenly sat straight up. He was in his sleeping bag. Cold sweat ran down his face. He panted, out of breath.

Toshi heard Sierra's voice from the a few feet away. "Get up! You sleep in way too much! You're the one who told us to be ready to get up early, don't be so hypocritical!"

Toshi slowly looked up to where Sierra stood, afraid that he might see her naked chest lacking a heart and instead bearing a bloody and gaping hole. He didn't. She was wearing her blue plate mail and robes and standing looking at him impatiently.

"Get up, dammit!" she demanded.

Toshi looked around the camp. Kleo was also up and packing up her belongings. He looked up at the sky. It was still dark out, not even stars showed.

"It's still dark. . ." he commented more to himself than anyone else.

"Yeah," Sierra mused, "I don't know why that is. It's odd, it got dark earlier than usual last night and it's still dark now, but according to our time pieces it's morning and by the fact that I feel rested I wouldn't doubt it."

"How do I know this isn't a dream?" Toshi asked, keeping his guard up.

Sierra walked the few paces it took to get to Toshi. She bent down and pinched him hard on the cheek.

"Ow!"

"See, it's not a dream. Now get up!" Sierra commanded.

Toshi stood up. He yawned and began rolling up his sleeping bag. Sierra and Kleo sat on a log by the ashes of last night's fire while waiting for Toshi to deactivate the runes around the camp's perimeter.

"Was that really a dream?" Toshi asked himself while packing up his belongings, "They seemed so real. But. . .they must have been dreams, Kleo's still here and Sierra is fine. . ."

Toshi stopped for a minute. He pinched his arm. Nothing happened. He pinched harder. Still nothing aside from pain. He dug his fingernails into his arm hard enough to draw a small amount of blood. Nothing; this must not be a dream.

"What are you doing?" Kleo asked, she had been watching him.

"N-Nothing. . ." Toshi said while attempting to hide the cuts on his arm.

"Well, c'mon. You set the runes, you disable them,"

"Okay, okay. . ."

Toshi stood up and walked to the edge of the camp. He spread his arms to the sides and began a chant in a low tone. Small sparks bursted from a few locations along the camp's perimeter.

"Alright, we can leave now," Toshi informed Sierra and Kleo.

"Let's hurry, we need to get that piece of the staff back," Sierra instructed Toshi.

"Oh, so that's what you're after," Kleo said, "You never actually told me what it was. But why is a piece of a staff so important that assassins are after you people?"

Sierra looked bothered by Kleo's talking so lightly of her community's most treasure possession. "It's not a piece of just any old staff. It's a piece of the staff that supports this world in the Sea of Chaos."

"You have no proof--" Toshi began but decided to keep his mouth shut.

"Are you sure that that's what it really is?" Kleo asked while the three returned to their travel along the road that had separated from the main highway. This road seemed rather worn down and it looked as if it hadn't been used in many decades.

"Very sure!" Sierra assured Kleo, "The treasure was given to my people before they became an official order. We started as a small village to the east, then one day a bit more than 80 years ago, a man with silver hair and eyes came to us. He was badly hurt and my ancestors tended to his wounds. While my people tried to help him he gave us words of wisdom to follow by and a stone that he told us was a piece of the staff. He told us to guard the piece with our lives because other wise the world could face imminent danger.

"A few days later my ancestors discovered that he was not in his bed and that a large silver colored dragon was lying on a cliff outside the village. When the people went to go see what was happening the dragon told the people that he had gone there to die in peace. He revealed to them that he was the man they had treated earlier and he was a member of the Ryuzoku race. Having said those words he died. That Ryuzoku was Rekos, the person our community honors with the highest regards."

Both Kleo and Toshi pondered over the tale for a few minutes, but for different reasons. Toshi could've sworn that he recognized that tale from somewhere.

"That's impossible," Sierra told him, "Only the people in our community and the few we've told know about this."

"But I'm sure that I've heard it somewhere. . ." Toshi pondered.

"Is this tale true?" Kleo asked, she seemed a bit worried.

"Yes, why?" Sierra asked.

"Then we have a very serious problem," Kleo said nervously.

"Why?"

"The woman who stole it from you is blind. According to the texts that I've read, Akahoushi Rezo was blind as well, and just like this woman he somehow could sense his way around perfectly. Rezo stole an orihalcon statue containing a piece of the staff you speak of from the sorceress Lina Inverse. He used this piece of the staff to summon one seventh of Shabranigdo to this world. He thought that Shabranigdo would be powerful enough to cure his blindness, but as it turned out, the reason why Rezo was blind in the first place was because Ruby-Eye was sealed in Rezo's eyes,"

"You don't mean--" Sierra said, catching on.

"Yes, if this woman has this odd blindness and wants the piece of the staff, then she might have part of Shabranigdo sealed in her eyes! If she summons Shabranigdo to heal her sight, not only will she die, then Ruby-Eye's fury will be unleashed upon the world!"

"Well, I'm not so sure that I believe any of this Mazoku crap," Toshi said, breaking up the building atmosphere of doom, "but I do agree that we need to get this thing back soon, so let's get moving, shall we?"