This would be my first time traveling through the forest. Well, consciously, at least. Jane said that they had found me in a lake before taking me back to their mansion, so of course I wanted to go there and see if I could dig up any clues about my past.

However, communicating that was a little hard to my companion, who was wielding an axe that was seemingly too big for her body. I was six feet tall, and the axe was about half of my height.

“You know, my days normally start when I go to get firewood for grandma. She says that she could just hire someone, but I think it’s a waste of money to pay someone for what you can already do yourself. Plus, this way I feel like I’m more helpful to her… at least, a little bit anyway.” Bella’s mood darkened as she finished her sentence, leading me to question what exactly she said.

However, if I had to take a guess then it would be that her mood was caused by what had happened with her grandmother the night before. It must have been painful to be abused by someone you cared so much fo-

---

I stared at her, indifference displayed on my stoic face. “I could because you also wanted it. You wanted a partner that was mature and could nurture your talents. Let me tell you Alison, what you were looking for wasn’t a lover, but a father.”

Alison’s eyes widened in shock, and she quickly averted her line of sight from my own.

“I’m sorry you have to find out this way, but...” I sent a dirty look to Lena and Jessica, “they made sure to tell you in the middle of our mission. Now come on Alison, Maria, Rob. We can’t wait anymore. If Armando needs her for his plans then we can’t give Lena to him.”

I could tell that my smile sent shivers down the spines of the Lena and Jessica, who in turn took a stance behind Alison. Unsteadily, the crying girl got to her feet with the help of Maria before distancing herself and staring at me.

“No, I’m glad they told me now.” Alison furrowed her brows and held her hand out to Maria, who hesitated. “Come on Maria.”

I cocked my head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. I thought you were better than that Alison.” Unfortunately, I was wrong. She soon gave up any notion of a peaceful settlement and held daggers up to her chest in a fighting stance...

---

My eyes widened in shock as a past experience shook me like a stab in the back. I… I was just like Jane. I had Isolated this “Alison” and in the process I victimized someone I cared about.

However… I only did so because I believed that to be the right answer at the time. We had a mission, and that always came first. I couldn’t allow her to let Lena go!

... Whoever Lena was, anyway. Still, I think maybe… maybe I unfairly judged Jane for what she did to her granddaughter. Sure, she physically and emotionally battered Bella, but she only chose to do so because she was informed about all things in their situation. Despite the fact that seeing Bella cry gave me a heartache, I couldn’t help but feel a camaraderie with the wise woman.

“Leon, are you alright?” I reacted more to the hand being placed on my shoulder then my own name and looked up to see Bella staring at me in worry. I smiled and removed her hand to show I was fine, but she still had a pained expression on her face when she turned around and continued down the trail.

Sighing, I followed her after a few moments and really took in the sight of Bella Clairborne as I looked at the back of her figure. She was tall, and had a sporty body that emphasized how athletic she was. Her muscles seemed out of place in her patchwork dress, but beautiful as well in an exotic way.

After relaxing from my earlier flashback, I thought about the strange power I had used on Jane the night before. I could feel my rage building towards the woman as she aggressively went in on Bella. After that, my head went blank as I felt a shift in… something. Then, Jane had disappeared from the dinner table, and I lost consciousness soon after.

On second thought, I was feeling the most emotionally unstable since waking up when those powers activated. The more I thought about it the more I was certain: this might be the key to unlocking all of my memories and emotions.

---

“Here we are!” Bella shouted something and pointed to a grove that had several large trees with pitch-black bark and thick trunks. She walked up to the one of the behemoths and positioned the axe with the head resting on her shoulder, blade facing outwards and both hands at eye level.

“Haah!” with a loud shout she swung the axe again and again, each time resetting it on her shoulder and swinging again with just as much gusto as the first swing and made a sizeable dent in the tree.

I was entranced by her movement, as well as her strength that seemed so out of place in her small body. However, since Jane had explained to me that they had demon blood in them, I suspend my disbelief and took the freakish display of strength in stride.

Pulling a towel from off her shoulders, she wiped her sweaty face as well as the chips of wood off her bare arms and legs. Smiling, she handed the axe to me. “Here, take it Leon. Show me what you can do.”

Cautiously, I took the handle off the axe, which had become slick with her sweat, and pointed to the towel around her shoulders.

“This? Oh, you can use it when you’re done.” She said something, but refused to give it to me. What an airhead, she couldn’t even see that I needed it to use the axe properly.

Sighing, I walked up to her and took the multicolored towel into my left hand. “Hey, what are you doing!?” She yelled and walked closer, but stopped in her tracks as I lifted the axe with my right hand and began to wipe down the shaft of the tool.

Realizing what he was doing, she immediately clammed up and blushed furiously. “Sorry about that. I- I’m used to always being alone, so I never realized that my own sweat on the axe would inconvenience you…” her voice lost strength towards the end of her sentence, but I took what I thought was her apologizing to heart and patted her back to let her know everything was alright.

I placed the towel back over her shoulders and gave her a smile before turning my back to her and facing towards the tree. I looked at the axe in my right hand. I felt like I was used to weilding a weapon, but the axe just felt wrong.

No balance between the shaft and the head, combined with the fact that it was top heavy to make swings more impactful made it a terrible weapon choice in my opinion. If only it was longer, had less mass and sharper, then maybe… hm? Maybe I was a weaponsmith before losing my memories?

I shook my head. Given the fact that I even knew how bad the axe was at taking lives, I doubt I was a mere spectator. However, worrying about who I was wouldn’t get me any closer to discovering that very thing.

“Come on, hurry up!” Bella yelled from behind me and I turned around to see her gesturing with her hands, something I interpreted as her telling me to hurry up. I turned back around to face my steadfast enemy, another tree like the one Bella had felled, and hoisted the axe in the same position I had seen Bella swing from.

I swung fast and firm, notching a good dent in the trunk of the tree on my first attempt, which seemed to have impressed my overseer.

“Oh, nice swing! Maybe you’ve done this before in your past life?” All I could do was scratch my head to her unintelligible nonsense. I really had to start learning Azurian when I got back to the Clairborne mansion. However, I knew I couldn’t just stop at one dent, and continued hitting the tree, fast and hard, angling in-between both halves of the trees to strike at its weakest point. I was about to hit the final blow, when my mind went blank and I stopped moving.

---

Ten feet. The beast stuck its head out into the light, and it’s black wings seemed to tear the cave’s very darkness out with it.

Five feet. I used the void to sense the creature, and prepared for when it was right on top of me.

Zero. My rotation stopped and I applied the force straight into the oncoming Rotwing. It’s head split open at the beak, and tore halfway down its neck until both the upper and lower half of its head fell off.

The creature screamed in agony as the misshapen head of a Temptation worked its way up through the neck’s discolored flesh.

---

I crouched down and held my hand over my mouth, a physical gesture to stop the bile that was quickly rising in my throat. The very sight of that bird… Rotwing, and the sudden surge of bloodlust that came over me from the flashback had me nearly spilling my guts all over the tree. Thankfully, I swallowed it down and quickly ran towards the stream to the left of the grove to rinse my mouth out.

“Leon, are you alright!?” Bella came running up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulders, comforting me by rubbing it back and forth. I sat down and rinsed my mouth out with the clear water before lying back and covering my face with my arm. I needed some time to process these emotions, but as luck would have it, I wouldn’t get that chance until we got back to the mansion.

“Over here, this is where the sound came from!” A man dressed in copper armor appeared on a ridge looking over the grove and Bella pulled my hand as we both took cover inside a patch of tall flowers.

“Fuck! I forgot but Grandma did say there were Viridian bandits around here! Those filthy outlanders!” I looked on at her as she continued to rattle off what I could only assume were insults, before realizing that she was still holding my hand.

She let go after blushing once more, and instead reached for her axe. “Listen Leon, I want you to-” she started speaking, but stopped as she apparently realized that aside from my own name, I didn’t understand a word she said.

“They must be down there somewhere, spread out and search!” The man in bronze armor shouted something once more, and droves of dirty looking men and women flooded the grove. Assuming he was their leader, he needed to go first, hopefully causing a panic and dissention amongst the threatening people and forcing them to turn back.

Bella started to stand, but I held her down with one hand, which must have come as a shock to her. “Hey, what are you-”

I cut her off as I took the axed from her. It was crude, lacked balance, and was top heavy, but it was sharp, and would get the job done. I pointed to her, then lay down myself and pointed in the flowers we were taking cover in.

She looked exasperated, but eventually sighed and lay down to the ground, making her near-invisible from a spectator standpoint.

I stood up and crouched low to the ground, making use of my small frame to hide in-between the trees and the brush as I made my way up the hill towards the leader. It was his mistake trying to aim for my safety, and I’d make sure he, and every person under him soon came to that same realization.