They stumbled upon a swarm of Silver-backed Wolves. Beasts with the gleam of a white aura enchanted upon their furs of ash and fangs as long as saber-tooth tigers. They had hardly left one mile past the valley and they met these beasts just shy from the edge of a forest. Most likely, the scent of blood had drawn them.

"Positions everyone!" Albert called out, then coughed. "Except Via, Claire, and Alice, you three. . .you're best just rampaging."

Via chuckled, "Good to finally be noticed."

"Oh? Did we take all your spotlight?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure you couldn't help it," The bunny rolled her eyes.

"We couldn't," Alicia answered.

"Not one bit." Claire aided.

"Damn you cheaters."

A laugh rang from the ice queen's lips, "Then let us cheaters do what we do best. . .be overpowered. Alice, let's go!"

With a wave of her hand, ice spikes shot into the mass of wolves. Blood spluttered and Claire gripped a katana in her hand as she sliced. Alicia nodded at the enthusiasm of her partner and jumped into the field of monsters, hands coated in the squirm of her own blood.

In her eyes, no one was worth her attention but one person. In her eyes, she would be fine if everyone else died so long as one person survived to be with her.

She did not know contact with anyone else but her. To the girl called Alicia, Claire was the first clear memory of a person she had held. That person with the same crimson eyes as her own had reached out a hand and saved her from chains.

More than five hundred years of solitude in darkness had built up to that single moment where a ray of light shined. The past was blurred. The present was clear. And the future was uncertain.

Half a mask covered her face but she still saw the battle as if nothing did. Alicia flapped into a bat, dodging the lung of a beast's fangs. A bolt of an arrow flew by her and struck the head of the creature.

"So why did I not tell her?"

She hadn't been fully honest. She hadn't lied, because she could not bring herself to do something like that to Claire, but she hadn't told the full truth of her returning memories.

She had lived through two visions.

In one, she led an army amidst a battlefield. As far as she could tell, her subordinates were not human. In the other, she lived as a high schooler, popular as a leader amongst her peers, though brash.

". . .but I was male." She grumbled, a fist striking through the head of a beast and a spark igniting an explosion.

In one vision, she was undoubtedly a teenage boy. It might have been blurry, but that part was clear. She had seen herself as a male. That was the part of the story she hadn't told Claire. What would happen if she did? Would they still go on to be partners who lived, slept, and adventured together? Part of her feared rejection, so she had not told her friend that piece of the story.

'I don't want to lose her.'

Strings of blood-red ravaged the chaos of the battlefield. She flapped, turned to a bat, rose into the sky, then came down, a gigantic fist of red smashing against the ground—crushing those unlucky beneath.

Some monsters made to run, but. . .

An explosion of the fist ripped through them. A flash of red brought more red. Her feet met the ground as the blood came back to her from the result of the boom.

A slice of ice slashed through the jaws of fangs that narrowed to reach for her leg. The Silver-backed Wolf died in one stroke.

"You seem a bit distracted?" Claire asked by her side.

The girl called Alicia smirked as her fists struck, two crimson gauntlets clanking together like metal. Merely seeing the face of her partner filled her with elation.

"Not one bit~Just follow my move!"

Claire raised her katana, , "Of course. We are partners, after all."

'Just as I like it.' Alicia smiled, covered in red.

Together, they wrecked the battlefield with the awe of the raid group. All there was were flashes of crimson and azure. Ice and blood. Explosions and precision.