I can't believe it. I finally did it. After all these time, I have finally defeated White. And not just that, I beat him during his most dangerous state. Today has just been one of those wonderful days for me to celebrate...But...at what cost...? I've killed one of White's classmate...Violet being absorbed back into The Mikazuki Blade...the shrine maidens were no longer the same shrine maidens I've known...I've lost too much for one victory against White.

White's skeletal draconic form started to fade away after that. He was still breathing. I gently moved him away from me and stood up. Then, I looked around and saw a familiar sighting. Most of the graveyard was destroyed by White and me. There were burning trees and leaves. An army of rotten Yokai was all over the place. It reeks of death. This is exactly like what I felt way back then.

Unsheathing that blade has caused a lot of pain for everyone around and it caused an everlasting suffering to me. I felt like I monster. I looked at White and saw him having the same state as I had back then. He probably stopped and realized that whatever he was trying to do only makes him a worse person. His overpowered strength...had caused him so much. But, at the very end...he managed to stop himself just in time before it was too late.

"I think you are right, White..." I slowly walked to him. "You and I aren't that so different. Now I know..."

I looked upon the chaotic mess that The Chaos Shogun, Kitsuneki had created. I finally see what's going on. The Shogun doesn't realize it but he is becoming the thing he most hates. He is becoming like those selfish humans he was talking about. If there's one thing I could say for this was that he should be more conservative.

White suddenly coughed blood as he finally opens his eyes.

"White, are you alright?"

"What am I doing...?" White's voice was quiet. "I almost tried to kill you...This power that I've obtained...I'm afraid of it. I don't want to hurt anyone with this. Not like this." White was becoming more miserable than I expected.

I sighed and told him, "If there's one thing I know from that Chaos Shogun, is that The Rift of Time is where I can see the ones I've lost. It is still not too late; White...Zenith can be saved..."

"Then what are you waiting for...?" White was too exhausted to get up. "I can't do this on my own, you know?" Even so, he mustered all of his strength to get on his knees.

"I'm surprised you still have some gas left in that tank."

White lightly laughed and said, "Don't underestimate me."

"But I did beat you just now."

"Okay. You did beat me. It's in the record already. I'll take that lost."

"Very well." I looked at what's in front of us and said, "You must have missed Team Stardust, White. I'll ask you one thing right now..."

"Where is this going?"

I smiled and asked, "What's the plan, leader?"

White was a bit surprised but he quickly recovered and said, "I'll distract Kitsuneki while you go inside the Rift and look for Zenith."

"Alright, White. Try to keep up."

"Don't worry about me, you backstabber. I'll show you how monstrous I am."

White's begin unleash a whitish aura around him, his left eye had become a dragon eye but the rest of his body remains the same.

"What did you do?" I asked him.

"I'm only borrowing a little of my dragon's power. I'm not going to give in to the temptation of unlimited power."

White suddenly was able to run as he normally would. He ran toward Kitsuneki as he brought out his dagger and stabbed the Shogun at his abdomen. But it was quickly prevented when a group of rotten Yokai was protecting the Shogun.

Kitsuneki then noticed this and said, "Still alive, boy? I'll just take you out myself!"

White immediately retaliated and used his lightning elemental magic to take out the rotten Yokai. This lightning strike also made the Chaos Shogun accidentally throws away the Mikazuki Blade. But then, The Chaos Beast, Gashadokuro managed to stop the blade from going away as the blade stabs into the skeleton's skull.

"Gashadokuro, eat him up!" Kitsuneki jumps out of the rooftop and left White to fight against the Colossal Skeleton on his own until Ethereal suddenly shows up to help him.

While those two were busy with the Chaos Beast, I quickly made my way to the falling rotten Yokai that was spewing out from the Rift of Time. I jumped off the rooftop and grabbed on to the rotten flesh of the Yokai. I climbed on to the hundreds of Yokai that was slowly falling like a waterfall. This only made me realize of what I'm actually representing.

I'm just like the Koi Dragon and right now I am climbing through this waterfall of Yokai. Once I finally reached the top, I immediately jumped into the Rift of Time. I braced for impact and safely landed on a concrete floor. Inside of the rift, I notice that I have been transported somewhere in Nihon. It was night and the moon phase was that of a crescent moon.

This place...it's the Shrine of The Mikazuki before it was destroyed. I casually walked around the shrine and saw the shrine maiden was doing the ritual to praise the moon. But I know better, what I saw wasn't real and it was just a memory that I had as I saw little old me running through the crowd and caused a mess to the ritual.

Little Yumiko was such a bright girl. She's always curious and wonders about the things she doesn't understand. I hide inside one of the trees as I observed Little Yumiko helping out the shrine maiden. I watched her listening in the young and proud shrine maiden arguing with their elderly. I saw her grab on to The Mikazuki Blade and unsheathe its madness as the moon shines brightly at the night sky. I looked at her crying all alone until the remaining watery energy manifests itself into the Violet I know today.

"I can't replace the past...But I still can do something about the present."

I moved on as I found a sea of death people slowly being swallowed up by a whirlpool. I looked around and finally saw the familiar silver colour. I jumped into the sea and swam through the hundreds of people struggling to get out from being swallowed by the whirlpool.

Everything that dies in Nihon will first be sent to the Sea of The Dead as they try to escape from being swallowed by death itself. Those that survived will forever be rotten inside The Rift of Time. In the end, they will voluntarily jump back into the sea. I won't let that happen to Zenith. Not when she's still clean.

I know I'm being selfish to the likes of these other people that were struggling but as Kitsuneki said, humans are selfish creature and that is unescapable. It is in our instinct. I forcibly pushed through the sea of struggling corpses as I finally reached Zenith who was confused of what's happening.

"Zenith!" I called for her.

"Yumiko? What are you doing here?"

"There's no time! Take my hand?"

"Why should I trust you? You lied to me several hours ago."

"Please, Zenith! I didn't lie to you when I said we should fall back from the graveyard! I tried to prevent that but you didn't listen! I'm sorry for lying to you and White!"

Zenith's eye started to tear up as she told me, "I'm sorry as well, Yumiko...I shouldn't have been stubborn and fully focused on just White."

Wait...what? What are we talking about again?

Zenith continued, "There's more stuff out there than just White. I want to go outside and enjoy it with everyone and not just White!"

And here I thought I was trying to play cupid on these two but now things are just getting worse thanks to whatever I said. Nice, Yumiko...

I snapped back to reality and said, "Now's not the time! Come on, let's get out of here!"

She nodded and grab onto my hand. I used a teleportation bullet to create a small portal that leads us just outside of the Sea of The Dead. The small portal quickly fades away as I carried Zenith by her shoulder.

"Everything will be alright, Zen..."

"And there you go...You're already being influenced by White."

I lightly laughed and said, "He's freaking contagious."

"I know right?" Zenith was never this happy then what I remembered.

She was a lot different. Too different. Maybe it was because of the Snow Phoenix no longer cursing her. Maybe that was what was going on. We pulled ourselves together as we finally reached the entrance of The Rift of Time that was ripped apart by The Chaos Shogun.

"Yumiko!" I heard White's voice calling for me as we got out of the rift.

I looked around the place and noticed that we barely scratched the surface to Kitsuneki's plan. Now is the time to turn the tide.

TO BE CONTINUED