The Valley of Regret lived up to its name—a graveyard where the Southern Continent's warriors had bled for generations. Now combat shattered its memorial silence once more, sending chrysanthemum petals spiraling through the battlefield like pale witnesses to fresh violence.

A warrior maiden wearing armor as white as the scattering flowers around her tumbled. Her opponent's fist knocked her on the back, clearing her nasal passage with the floral sweet scent, but doing nothing to help with the jab of pain.

Groaning, Princess Xiahana La Louve—Xia to most—rose once more to face death in this foreign land. Perspiration flowed down her platinum blonde strands, their purity a stark contrast to her wavering resolve.

As for her opponent, she didn't enjoy this valiant bout; contrary to satisfaction, something resembling guilt flashed across her petite face.

Xia perceived that flash of hesitation as an insult. "Are you pitying me, Massacre Princess?"

Upon hearing that, the girl's baleful yellow eyes twitched in exasperation. "Stop it! You know I hate that nickname," she whined powerlessly.

"So you prefer Nuan Yulong, huh," Xia staggered forward. Light of White Mana pulsed around her body, shining with the recovery spell to bring her back into fighting form. Xia, posture straight, advanced to her doom.

Nuan couldn't comprehend the extreme effort one person could pour into the art of dying.

"Your men have escaped," Nuan stated, her expression ambivalent. "There is nothing for you to gain by staying. Just leave," Nuan issued her demand, "I don't want to shed more blood than necessary."

"The Massacre Princess caring about my well-being?" Xia spat. "Can't say I'm honored."

"I know you were sent here on a penitent crusade," Nuan tried to reason her way out of violence one more time. "Your cousin sent you here to die." Nuan raised her voice. "It is pointless to fight for them."

"Know that," Xia kicked the sword she had dropped and grasped its grip in her hand. "Don't care."

"Is it about your father?" Nuan said, pressing the wrong button.

Xia's irises narrowed to an edge. A spell was cast.

WHITE MAGIC RANK II: STRENGTHEN

Pristine white fiery light flowed to her arteries, dispensing across her capillaries and tiny blocks of cellular tissue. The Mana of Order empowered her strength twofold, stacking on top of the internal energy, the vast Aura, flowing from her every heartbeat.

Armed with both Aura and Mana, she exploded into a momentous slash directed at Nuan's face. "Don't you dare talk about him! Your damn empire is the one who killed him!"

Petals and stamens flew, leaping together with Nuan Yulong. Pirouetting mid-air like a fairy of the dead, she delivered an Aura-packed kick to the back of the crusader’s head and punted her through the field.

Landing elegantly, Nuan yelled at the young woman she had booted into the face of the valley, "Seriously? You actually fell for that! Your father is our close ally. Why would we even want to kill him!?"

Xia climbed to her feet with a sniffle and attempted to land a thrust at Nuan. "I don't care. Father would never sell his nation to the likes of you!" Her blade got caught by the bare palms of Nuan, but the full weight behind it would not be denied.

"I am going to take down your empire, then go back and kill Spade and my idiot little sister for what they said about Father." She declared. "I swear on my honor as the Crown Princess of Curtis!"

At her wit's end with this woman more stubborn than a mule, Nuan wrenched Xia's blade to the side and snapped it with her knee. "Can you please get a firmer grip on reality!" Nuan slammed another kick into the idiot and sent her flying into a rocky gorge again. "You are not going to win a one-woman war against an empire."

The Crown Princess of Curtis slammed into the valley so hard, several rocks followed her on the trip down to the landscape. Dust rose with the crashing cascade so thunderous, most would be forgiven for believing Xiahana had died.

But the warrior in white hadn't fallen yet. Bleeding from her forehead, she valiantly endured the pain and double vision from the thrashing. On her knees, she threw out her hand to unleash another spell.

"WHITE MAGIC RANK III: BIND!" Xia screamed.

"You are yelling out your binding spell like an amateur?" Nuan rushed in with blinding speed. "What happened to the silent cast?" She taunted, without knowing any better.

WHITE MAGIC RANK IV: SMITE

Incandescence gathered on Xia's outstretched hand, building a beacon that turned the night sky brighter than noon. Nuan yelped as this pilaster of power plowed into her and scorched the stones behind her black with intense power.

Xia's smug smile screamed "take that little Timothy." So caught up in her victory, she missed Nuan's fuming face and the dynamic crescent kick that sent her sprawling into the soil.

Nuan huffed, more outraged than tired. "Cheater!" she accused the groaning Crown Princess. "What kind of person fakes their attack? I think better of you!"

The crusader got up with nationalistic pride. "In Curtis we use feints like that to win in the playground all the time," she boasted. "Get good, you naive fools!"

"That is it," Nuan delivered a flying kick, sending Xia back to the earth. "I am not going to play nice with you anymore."

And to Xia's dismay, she really didn't.

The motivated Massacre Princess moved fast, smacking Xia with a fist she only intercepted thanks to her previous physical amplification spell.

Crunch!

Xia grunted at the leg crushing her kneecap. Pain exploded, but she pushed it aside to throw a body shot Nuan caught. Pulled by her fist, she got dragged into a knee strike, which emptied the wind out of her lungs. Refusing to give in, Xia wrapped her arms around Nuan to bring her down onto the dirt.

Both combatants rolled across the floral field; however, Nuan seized that advantage to come out on top of her opponent. She threw a knockout punch Xia barely deflected from her face. But out of a fluke, or maybe gritted determination, Xia managed to check the second fist, yanked it to the side to deliver the facial poke that got Nuan off her body.

Both Princesses rolled to her feet, glaring at each other like a mother bear tussling over its territory.

"You are like a cockroach," Nuan growled.

Xia, her bleeding lip sealing itself courtesy of another bout of healing, spoke with all the pride she could afford. "Thank you, I live to ruin your days."

With that, the two warrior maidens launched into each other without ever noticing that was the moment the world, and their lives, forever changed. Had they chosen to retreat at that second, the chain of events that saw them chained as fellow bedmates till the end of time would never occur; alas those women weren't Blue Magic specialists.

The multicolor whirlpool and the sound of rushing space caught the two fighters unprepared. Like torrent water bursting from the pump, Ether, flowing like water, flooded the Valley of Regret. It welcomed the return of hope.

The hero, who never wished for such a title, elevated from the whirlpool. He slid into existence in front of the void between the two flabbergasted combatants. Winds followed, blowing his steel-tone coat. Feeling the soft texture of floating blossoms, he breathed his first mouthful of fresh air since time immemorial and gazed upon the beautiful moon.

"Selene will certainly be boasting about her domain," the man, Ciel to his friends and "that-evil-bastard" to his many enemies, spoke. He popped out a note and began to scribble down a new item on his to-do list. "Must find a way to bring down that satellite. Who knows what she might be setting up from it."

Utterly bewildered by this enigmatic stranger who appeared out of nowhere, not knowing he wasn’t kidding about taking the moon off orbit, Nuan and Xia immediately came to an understanding. 

"Who are you and why are you interfering with our fight?" Xia challenged.

Ciel, registering the two women for the first time, tried to wrap his head around the situation. He took in the knightly girl in white armor, sporting several splashes of its owner's blood. Twisting his neck in the other direction, he scanned the girl in black with a surprisingly childish touch of orange highlight. He contemplated the circumstances his luck had wrought and came to a simple decision.

The time had arrived to fib his way out of this hole.

"I am incredibly sorry to interfere with your squabble," Ciel bowed respectfully. "I am an inventor of sorts. My latest experiment involving matter transference malfunctioned and deposited me into this place." He gazed between the two and measured his odds. With this in mind, he staked his chips on the most gullible person here. "May I find your commanding officer?" he asked Nuan Yulong. "I need to talk—"

"I am the commanding officer," Nuan squinted at the man she suspected might be paying her half-truths.

Ciel shrugged, at least he got the information. It appeared this country saw fit to appoint just about anyone to positions of power. "I see. Pardon my rudeness. I might be too ignorant of the current circumstances. May I—"

"He's lying through his teeth," Xia called out. "Last I checked, matter transference research is barely a thing." She cut off Ciel's attempt to argue. "Shut it, Curtis is the center of magical research. I actually read some of my sister's papers."

"And even if you're blind, you should recognize a Dragon Scion when you see one," Nuan added. "In case you don't know, I've been active for half a decade."

Ciel's eyebrows trembled, but not for the reason the two believed.

"Well, that's not exactly correct," he corrected. "I did have a working matter transference, but it's a work in progress. However," his voice grated at Nuan like knives, "I assume you are royalty of this nation?"

"Y-Yeah," Nuan shivered, feeling intense fear for this man.

"Is your father an immortal undying emperor who may or may not have a religion founded around him?" Ciel asked the kid sweetly.

Xia decided to take the answer from Nuan's mouth. "Yeah," she confirmed his theory, "that's common knowledge. How do—"

"Great!" Ciel cut off Xia's sentence. "You two can keep brawling. I'm off to kill that guy."