"Hey, hey, hey, I didn't expect to have to come out this early. Well, even I can't predict the future... Unless I wanted to." Dundee said in Taiga's voice.

"Who are you?" Toena steps forward and points her sword at Dundee's throat. Her instincts which would normally be going off right now, completely failed to function at this moment.

"Someone who has nothing to do with the entire situation got involved huh?" Dundee says. Indeed, through Dundee’s influence, her sense of danger had been entirely stripped away, and this was the most dangerous existence she has ever, and will ever come across. Dundee raises his hand. Toena tenses up.

The next moment, Toena's entire body is torn into multiple chunks, blood spiraling outwards in an explosion. A look of defiance still plastered onto her face.

"Uh oh, can't make things too easy for the boy." He mumbles. A second later, time reverses, gluing the body back together like nothing had happened to it in the first place. Toena stumbles back dazed. She pats down her body in a panic making sure it's all still there.

"Next time, don't rely too much on your instincts." Warning signs flashed everywhere as Toena starts to understand the gravity of the situation. As she turns around to run away, Dundee takes a single step forward, within an instant, reality seems to distort, sending Toena running right into Dundee, where he grabs her face.

"I see, so you were the one who started all of this huh?" The hand then phases through her face and rests on her core, her center of being that only a drifter like Dundee could ever detect.

"Huh, how interesting; you’ve successfully managed to suppress your feelings despite committing such a heinous act. Let’s shake things up a bit, I’ll unlock them for you." Dundee says.

Toena's mind overloads as memories upon memories pour into her head. Multiple times more than the average human will accumulate in their lifetime.

"No... stop... stop it..." She whispers

"Why? You were the one who caused all of it you know. A bit unfair if you run away from it."

Toena starts to scream in mental anguish, her voice tearing and becoming raw, she began to claw at her head, tearing off pieces of hair, until finally she stops screaming. Her eyes glaze over as she slumps, no longer conscious .

Dundee smiles inwardly. "Let's see how your story plays out." He thought, as he let go of Toena's head and lets her body drop to the ground. Dundee then turns towards Polly.

Polly felt electricity tear through her body, all of her senses were being pushed to their max giving her a terrifying aura of blood-thirst. Rudeus watched her from the corner of his eye as she pounced. The end result was clear for both of them.

She jumps forward and turns her body like a corkscrew, then explosively unwinding unleashing a vicious, lightning fast diagonal strike. It goes straight through the Dundee's body, slicing it clean in half from shoulder to hip, creating a pinwheel of blood at the tip of her blade.

Polly blinks, and in the span of those couple milliseconds, his body was completely healed, as if she had never done anything in the first place. The next moment Polly felt her ill will towards this being completely disintegrate, her emotions being manipulated just like clay.

A hand rested on her shoulder. It felt familiar, a warm childhood memory that she never thought she would feel again.

"Brother!" She looks up, yes, there was that face again. Every time she saw that face, she knew that everything was going to be alright. But it fades away like a mirage, replaced by the demon and his mask. The one who took it all from her.

She reaches out to empty air, the hollow feeling that had never left her returns, and is replaced by furious and intense rage. She ran at the masked being with all her soul, blindly slashing, screaming in frustration; like an ant trying its best to take down a God.

She slashes and slashes and slashes and slashes, all her years of her single-minded pursuit for revenge. She knew, that none of it had ever mattered. She was fruitlessly trying to defy the will of the world itself. Dundee stood still, none of the slashes affecting him in any way. The blades just went right through him, flesh and bones immediately sealing up afterwards.

"WHY! WHY! WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST STAYED AWAY!" Polly throws her blades to the side and tries to grab his throat, but reaches into empty air. A hand touches the back of her head, she tearfully closes her eyes knowing that it was the end of the road for her.

Dundee rests his hand on top of her head, as she began to cry.

"Why did it have to be brother, why did you have too-" Sobs interrupted her every line. She had completely broken down, all of her ideals and motivations collapsed as she finally faced reality.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me; however, Taiga has nothing to do with what I did." Dundee said.

"Then what am I supposed to do?! How am I supposed to get rid of all these... Feelings!?" Polly yelled, "I want to kill you, I want you to die and suffer, but I know no matter what I do or how long I train, it's just impossible! SO TELL ME!"

Polly twists around and smacks Dundee in the jaw, sending him staggering away.

"Huh? How did I?" She said, confused.

"Ah man that hurt, haven't felt that in a while.”

"Oi... what are you doing? Don't you dare start looking down on me. I know you could have avoided that." Polly angrily realizes that Dundee let her hit him.

Dundee chuckles a bit. "You know, the only way that you're going to get any closure is if I let you. The only reason you're still alive right now is because I'm looking down on you. But, if you aren't satisfied with this..."

Polly felt her limbs constrict and tighten, all her movement had been taken away from her without any effort from Dundee's part. Dundee walks forward and reaches for her face, phasing right through it and letting his hand rest on her core, just like he did with Torika.

"I can always erase all memories of your brother."

"Don't you dare mess with him." Polly growls.

"Then figure out how you want to deal with it yourself." Dundee lightly pushes Polly away. She doesn't resist and stumbles away with her head down.

Dundee turns his head, as Polly silently broods.

"Rudeus! Cmon, don't be a stranger. Let's talk a bit before my time is up. Is everything going well with Taiga?"

"Well... Like you said, he's learning at an astounding rate. Other than what happened with Celestia and this situation, he should be ready to go by the end of the week."

Dundee grabs Rudeus' arms. "Rudeus I cannot thank you enough. It will all be worth it in the end, I promise you."

"Dundee... If you're here right now why can't you have stayed and ended this war by yourself? Why did you have to set up all these situations in a roundabout way?"

"Like I said, I'll have to go sometime soon. I'm already feeling the world trying to cause a drift. The only reason I'm here right now is because I'd been able to hide myself in Taiga. He'll inevitably face the same thing, but he'll have a good 4-5 years before he has to go, unlike me. I can do a lot of things, but I can’t resist against the universe." Dundee says.

A long silence passes.

"Dundee, are you sure Taiga is going to do what we want? I don't know how else to say it, but he's just kinda... selfish."

"This is only the first step, right now, he just needs the confidence to take on challenges in the first place. I know his personality; he'll do wild and reckless things, but is too scared to do anything meaningful. That's what we need to get rid of right now."

"... Alright I'll trust you Dundee."

Taiga's body starts to shiver and wave randomly, as if it were some system error, trying to be erased by the world. "Alright, it's best if I leave now before I accidentally take Taiga’s body with me, but one last thing. Don't tell Taiga that I'm in his body. If he knew, he might try and kill himself to meet me again. I also altered his memories somewhat, so play along to whatever he says." Dundee waves goodbye as the markings on his mask begin to disappear, until all that was left was the same old white mask that Taiga wears.

Rudeus and I stand still as Toena was on the ground unconscious, while Polly held her head down. I clench my fist and lightly pump it, we'd taken a swift and easy victory over these two. I worried way too much about nothing.

"Huh, it looks like I wouldn't of even needed your help."

Rudeus gives me a strange look, and I hear a soft "what?" From under his breath.

"Uh, I was joking of course, they were pretty easy to take down, but I doubt it would have been the same alone."

"Ah- yes of course!"

I tilt my head, "Hm? Is there anything wrong?" I heard the smallest twinge of panic in his voice.

"My bad, I just zoned out for a little bit." He said in a disarming voice.

I give him a weird look for a couple more seconds then decide not to think any deeper into it. I take a look at Toena, squat down and poke at her face.

"Why are there no injuries? What did you to her?" I asked

"There are many ways to knock someone out without leaving any injuries, so don't worry she's safe."

"I guess I should get something to tie her up before she wakes up then huh?" I look at the tree and start walk towards it, I remember seeing a rope hanging off to the side, that may be worth trying-

I hear the whoosh of wind and the sound of ruffling grass from behind, a split second decision runs through my head, I duck my head and back extremely low to the ground and sweep my legs in the opposite direction without looking.

I feel my legs make contact with something and see the shadow of something flying over me. I feel a twinge of relief after making the correct guess, as trying to jump would have definitely gotten me hurt.

I bring my arms up and spread my legs out in in a fighting stance. “Polly, let’s enter a ceasefire for a moment. Like I said, I’ll gladly die if-“

“SHUT UP! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING FROM YOU!”

I stop talking and start concentrating anku, she was angry right now, and had thrown reason out the window, she had none of her weapons on her anymore except for her sling, which I didn’t think she was planning on using. I scrunch my eyebrows; I can’t kill her when she still knows something about my past. An opportunity like this might never come again, so I can’t waste it. I didn’t want to take this route but… I jump forward and throw the first punch, it’s time to hurt her bad.

Polly twists her body around the arm and take hold of it; however, I predict that and preemptively moved all the anku in my body towards that arm. At the exact moment she grabs my arm, I violently jerk it towards the ground cause her to stumble and lose balance. I follow that up a fist to the stomach and watch as she reels over coughing and in pain. I walk forward and hit her again, a fist straight to the cheek. I reel my arm back for a third strike, however a grimace forms on my face.

Why did I just stop? I had no issues hurting other people purely for the sake of fun back on Earth, so why does this feel so wrong?

I clench my teeth and slam my fist into her face a third time.

She starts chuckling, gradually getting louder until it turns into a full blown laugh. Hey mouth was filled with blood, from all the punches, her eyes were bloodshot and wide.

“So this is life huh? Unfair beyond all belief! Why did I even set out on this journey in the first place?” She giggles uncontrollably, probably experiencing the same catharsis I had when I fought Celestia. I hold my fist, uncertain at what she was going to do next.

“What’s wrong? I can’t defend myself! Go on, Keep punchin! I might even tell ya a thing about yourself if you hit hard enough!” She had clearly lost it at this point. I stand still, at a lost for what to do next.

“Go on! You have your chance to get rid of this annoying pest who hates you for no reason!” She seethed, spit flying all over the place.

I stare at my bloodied fist, don’t think this will take me anywhere at this point. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Hey Rudeus, can you go somewhere else for the next couple of minutes?” I look at him, he slowly nods his head, pulls his sword from out of the ground, and walks somewhere else. I bring my hand up to my mask. Every fiber of my body was telling me that I was making a mistake, but I just couldn’t take it any longer.

“Polly, look at me in the eyes.” I speak with dead stillness. I slide my fingers underneath the edge and take it off. All my powers, gone. I then turn around and chuck it like a frisbee all the way into the forest. My heart rate was sky high, sweat broke out all over my body, I felt like I was about to faint. There it was, that fear again. I was now a regular human without any sort of special power or abilities. I now stood at her complete mercy, a girl who wanted dearly for me to die.

“What’s that going to do?” Polly looks at me with an amused look. “If I try to… He’s just going… Nevermind.” Polly shakes her head and takes a big sigh.

“Seriously… why couldn’t you have been a little bit more like him.” Her voice crescendos down as she crumples down to the ground in a sitting position, then pats the grass in front of her.

“Come on, sit down, let's have that talk that you so desperately wanted.”