Young L made her way through the ever-thickening smoke. With one hand she held a cloth over her mouth, in the other she held the Emperor’s daughter, who had passed out shortly after her brother asked young L to save them. The boy, for his part, had a firm grip on her pant leg and was following at full speed. The young boy was now the Emperor, even though he was young he had been prepared since birth for the position. However, right now he was but a crying child desperate to escape a burning building. Young L could feel her lungs burning and head getting light. She had paid no heed to herself as she had run through the burning building, but now she had to stay alive, to stay conscious. The skin of her burnt hands stuck to the cloth she held to her mouth in an attempt to slow down her inhalation of smoke. She was unsure if the girl in her arms was going to live, she did not appear as strong as the child emperor. As young L struggled to navigate through the smoke, fire, and rubble, she heard a voice call out. "Lad- Lord protector!" Struggling to see past the smoke, she stumbled into the palace courtyard. One of the palace guard, hopefully still loyal, ran over to her as she started to falter. As her legs began to give out, she turned her body and protected the girl from hitting the ground. "Boy is Emperor..." L coughed and muttered as she began to lose consciousness. The palace guard who had noticed her attempted to get to her in time to stop her from hitting the ground, but was too far away. The last thing she heard before blacking out was "Get them out of here! The place is going to collapse!"

V, for his trouble, received a kick to the stomach as L brought her other leg up to meet him. As V stumbled back slightly, he was slammed in the chest, this time by Luna’s flying body. L had managed to dislodge her from her face, and threw her, with quite a bit of force, at V. Luna had twisted her body and protected her more vulnerable bones from the collision, hitting V with her shoulder. The combination of the Luna projectile and the stomach blow sent V reeling backwards, once again hitting the wall behind him.  Eika had grabbed one of the weapons V had spilled out onto the ground and was circling L. Without warning, a gout of blue fire shot toward Eika. As she dodged it, she charged toward L, hoping that in her mad state, she had forgotten how to wield a sword. Luna had launched herself off of V's reeling body, which did no favors for him, but sent her flying back toward L. This time, L was ready and managed to grab Luna by her tail, this proved to be quite unfortunate as Luna was enveloped in blue fire in a matter of moments. Luna did not cry out, but growled wildly. Biting L's hand hard enough that Eika, who had used this chaos to slip under L's guard, could hear something break in L's hand. As Luna was dropped onto the floor, Eika drove her sword through L's right shoulder. Eika's tactic was rewarded with a blow across the face with L's left hand that sent her stumbling. V had regained his composure just in time to see Luna attempting to put herself out, and Eika stumbling forward, appearing to have been knocked silly.

"Why are you doing this?" L asked, she was no longer screaming at Namkuzu; she lacked the emotional strength. The Archdemon of the Mind shook his head. "It’s not to hurt you. It is to remind you." L looked at him angrily and with burning hatred. "Remind me?! Do you think I could have forgotten this?" Namkuzu shrugged "Perhaps, perhaps not. But the reality is that you do everything you can to keep these memories suppressed. Since being reborn by the God of Honor, have you once even for a single moment, tried to remember what their faces looked like? You dream of these events constantly, but when you wake you push it all down. You ignore the past, supposedly in order to focus on the present. Because there is "honor" in that. Why? The reason is because you cannot live with yourself when you remember your supposed failure. A demon who cannot live with itself? No wonder you burn yourself endlessly with your fire." L still on her knees, looked down, no longer able to keep her head aloft. "Tell me, would the Demon of the North have waited for her Emperor's enemies to find him? Would the Demon that terrified the lawless, the rebels, and the south alike fear death?" L was unsure of the relevance, but whispered. "She never did..." Namkuzu nodded "Exactly, she never did. But you do, do you not? You follow V, who you purport to respect as your new 'Emperor' but do you seek his foes before they seek him? Do you stave off death for his sake?" L was quiet as Namkuzu spoke, only resentment, hate, and regret smoldered in her eyes. "No, you simply hope that you will live long enough to "regain" your honor. Do you truly think freeing me for the God of Honor will undo your past? That somehow you will feel good about letting the Emperor, and his children, die if only you finish this one task? You say you have accepted yourself as a demon, but you reject your existence as The Demon."

L's words ground out from her mouth like she was trying to crush rocks into gravel with her teeth. "What would you have me do? Lay down and die? Forget my failures? Become honor-less? Or maybe you want me to just kill myself?" Namkuzu shook his head, "I feel it should be obvious that I would prefer you alive. However, you have one more memory that you have tried to suppress. L knew it was pointless to try and stop this from happening. So, she simply clenched her fists in silence. A new L appeared, roughly the same age as she was now. It was evening in the new palace; it had been rebuilt only a few months after the incident. Upon news of the Emperor's death, the kingdoms to the south had declared war. The new, young emperor relied heavily on L's council and support. She was never far from him and his sister, normally within eyesight. Until he was older, there was no way she could afford to leave him even for a moment. Especially in a state of war. As for the war itself, it was a stalemate. The Southern Kingdoms had always been considerably weaker than the Empire, however with the death of the Emperor and the support of the 'visitors' from across the sea, they had been able to acquire a few military victories. Another problem the south had was a lack of unity. The squabbling kingdoms, while united in their war against the Empire, hardly trusted each other and all wanted to claim as much glory and power as possible. While the southern kings bickered, the Empire had its own problems. Although it was largely self-sufficient, it now had no way to acquire the few materials it used to trade for, all of its southern neighbors stood against it, and the trading routes over the sea were being 'policed' by the outsiders. Which was no more than thinly veiled piracy.

The Empire's best advisors, including L, believed that the key to victory was simply to hold out. Eventually the unity of the southern kings would break, and the war front would fail. It was simply a matter of lasting longer than them. As the court adjured for the evening, L escorted the child emperor back to his room. She would prefer to have both children in her view at all times, but it was against protocol to have the emperors sister appear in court at her age. The girl spent most of her time in their quarters being tutored and looked after. "Will everything be ok?" The young boy asked L as they walked back to his quarters. Normally, L would have scorned an Emperor who spoke so weakly, but he was young, and in court he carried himself well. In private however, he relied on her highly. Too highly, thought L. Eventually he would have to learn not to lean on her. However, given the circumstances she supposed it was... acceptable. Even royal blood can only take so much trauma at once. Dead mother, dead father, and all the responsibility of the empire on his shoulders. "Most likely. The southern kings have no such thing as honor or strength of character. At most, in a few years they will simply turn on one another, pointing fingers and seeking the glory of victory in one another's blood, rather than ours." L spoke honestly to the boy; however, the weapons of the 'visitors' concerned her. She was worried that with enough of them, they would be able to break through the Empire's defenses and overrun the country. For now, however, the visitors seemed content to simply feed them only a small number of the new weapons. As L and the child walked toward his quarters, Namkuzu backed up from the L next to him who was starting to mutter angrily. He was fairly sure she could not access her demonic powers here, but better safe than sorry.

V picked up the plate his food had been on and threw it at L. It was a heavy metal plate similar to the pewter plates of V's world's past, although, he hoped less poisonous. The plate struck L in the face, doing no real damage, but caused her to turn and focus on V rather than finish off Eika, who was still bleary eyed from the blow she received. The air around them had suddenly dropped another few degrees. L angrily threw her sword toward V. As this was wildly uncharacteristic of her style of fighting, V was not entirely prepared and failed to dodge completely in time. The sword drove itself into the side of V's abdomen, the sudden pain, coupled with the force of the blow caused him to collapse. Gasping, V did his best to quickly change his Constitution from B to A. L stomped the ground in rage as the temperature continued to drop, V's heavy breathing was forming considerable vapor now. "Gotta... move!" V tried to call out to Eika and Luna. Eika had mostly recovered her faculties and was already running over to try and help V while he called out. Luna had mostly put herself out, and was also coming over to V, although she was considerably frostbitten by the fire. "This is bad, we gotta move." Luna spoke to Eika as L started screaming. "He can’t get up!" Eika cried desperately, she had tried to help V rise, but the sword in his abdomen was causing him so much pain that V's legs simply failed to respond to his commands to move. V suspected the sword, with its unique properties was causing considerably more pain to him than it should have been, based on his other experiences getting wounded so far. Luna grimaced as she gripped V's left underarm. "We are going to have to move him then!" Eika was panicking as little crystals of ice started forming on the edges of everything. "We can’t! What if the sword stabs him more while he’s moving!" V knew that was going to matter little if they did not get some distance, they had to move up one of the catwalks. Summoning every ounce of his willpower, V gripped L's blade and tore it out of himself. Sure, that was a terrible idea, but hopefully Eika would help move him now. Also, thankfully it hurts less now.

As L and the young boy neared the doors to his room, L drew her sword. "W... What’s wrong?!" The boy said as he looked around, suddenly alert. There should be someone standing guard here..." L drew the child close as she slowly approached the door. Kicking it open, all she found was an extremely startled young girl, the Emperor's sister. "WAH!" She jumped away from the door and screamed before noticing who had destroyed the door. "Sorry my lady." L bowed her head. "I thought you might have been in trouble. Why were you waiting at the door? Do you know where the man who was supposed to be standing outside of it went?" The little girl shook her head, "I really wanted to show you both something I painted! I could not wait till you got back, so I was standing by the door." She looked a little embarrassed as she spoke. L prompted "What of the man outside the door? Did he tell you where he was going." The girl shook her head. "No, I have not heard from him." The girl's brother looked behind them, unsure what to think of the situation. L picked up the little girl in her left arm. "My Lord, we should escape through one of the back passages." The Emperor looked around behind them again. "Are you certain? The guard may have stepped out simply to go to the bathroom or something." L shook her head. "I picked the guardsmen on rotation here myself. There has already been too long a gap of none of them noticing one of their posts is empty. Something's wrong." L did admit to herself that straight up fleeing the palace was perhaps a bit of an overreaction, but after what had happened to the late emperor, she would rather overreact than under react.

The boy followed L through one of the secret passages L had ordered to be made during the palace’s reconstruction. It circled around and led back to the front of the palace, L figured if it was an assassination attempt of some type, the threat would be inside the palace, not in the city surrounding it. As they escaped into the city streets, the little girl in L's arms complained. "It’s raining! My dress is going to get all wet!" Her brother told her to be quiet. "I will get you a new one if you like. It’s time to be quiet now though. Quiet like when we hid under the bed together." Fear crept into the little girl’s eyes as she nodded, closing her mouth firmly. Both L and the boy emperor could tell something was not right in the city. It was quiet. The sun had only just gone down, but the city was virtually silent. L was now certain their lives were in danger. Although the exact method of that danger was yet unclear to her. Had the nobility rebelled? Did the peasantry silently rise up, upset at the toll the war had been placing on them? That option did not really even make sense to L, but regardless, she had to get somewhere safe, she had a safehouse of sorts hidden outside of the city walls. She wished the late emperor’s brother was here, his strength would be a great boon and he had been instrumental in assuring his nephew's coronation went smoothly. However, he was on the front lines, defending the empire as she defended the emperor. As they crept through the city streets, L noticed that it appeared as if the city had been placed under martial law. Way too many soldiers patrolled the streets, and she had not seen a single civilian. How had this all happened without her noticing? As they approached the city gates, still hidden, L overheard a voice she recognized as one of the nobles. "Watch the gates, we swept the palace but all three of them are missing. We only had to kill a few of the particularly fanatical loyalists, the rest surrendered to us." L considered charging out and killing everyone at the gate, again the nobles of this country had betrayed them! But her sense of duty was much stronger than her anger. She would wait, and escape when the front gates had less people watching them, at-least until this noble and his personal guard moved on. As she waited and hid, she spied the noble and three of his men passing their hiding spot.

"Please! Oh, please mercy!" The noble cried through the cloth that had been shoved in his mouth. The noble was bleeding heavily and was crying on the floor of a storehouse L had drug him into. "Tell me what is going on!" L demanded, she meant to keep her voice down, but it was difficult to contain her anger. She hoped the walls of this place were thick. The noble cried and struggled to speak. "Just... just let me go! Give us the kids and you can join us!" L was trying extremely hard not to tear the man’s tongue out and leave him to bleed to death. "Join who?! Tell me what is going on!" The man blathered "Everyone, you’re against everyone.... the young emperor is too weak to lead us through the war, with the kids out of the way his uncle will take the throne and see us to victory. You have no allies!" L could not believe his words. "You are trying to convince me that the late emperor's brother is behind all this?!" L knew him to be a man of honor, and to her knowledge had never shown any interest in his brother’s station. The noble weakly shook his head as he sobbed "No, he knows nothing about it, why would anyone even tell him? Once the children are gone, he will have no choice but to lead the Empire, no need to... risk... telling him." The noble was starting to black out from the blood loss. L killed him, and went to the other room to retrieve the young girl. The current emperor had been beside her the whole time, but his sister was unable to handle business such as this yet. Covering the girl’s eyes as they passed the dead noble, they exited the storehouse and made for the gate. L easily killed the guards standing in her way, even while holding the girl tightly to her chest, continuing to cover her eyes. As they fled, L heard the alarm go up. "She is fleeing the city with the children!"

Rain pelted L's face as she stood, surrounded by another ten bodies. They had spent the night trying to flee into the mountains and hills near the capital, but it appeared as if the noble she had captured was telling the truth. Every noble family, and even the military must have been a part of this plot. She had encountered an endless tide of patrols, search parties and scouts in their attempted escape. She had taken a few minor wounds, but had killed enough people that she was starting to become exhausted. "We have to find somewhere to hide, I have to rest..." L muttered. The boy nodded "I guess the place you were taking us is no good..." L nodded, her safe house's construction had been overseen by a noble family she had thought was honorable, and loyal. They knew where it was, and probably had set up a trap near it. "Let’s head further into the mountains, we can try to find one of the caves in the area." As they started to walk off, L heard a rustling noise, and turned around just in time to see one of the men who she thought she had killed, raise up one of the 'visitors' weapons from the ground. She jumped in front of the two children, who were showered in a spray of crimson. L cried out in pain, but stayed standing, the boy ran toward the man on the ground and stabbed him through his neck, finishing him. The sound of the visitor’s 'weapon' echoed off the mountains. L spoke, gasping. "We... need to go. Everyone near here would have heard that." L was bleeding heavily, but she suspected the blow missed her lungs and heart, based on how she was still standing and breathing fairly well. The little girl looked horrified and scared but her brother forced her to follow L. As they walked, L's energy started to fade, as her lifeblood ran down her body. "You have to keep going. I can't... keep going. I'll distract them as much as I can. Take your sister, flee. Find one of the villages to the east, try to find your uncle... tell him what happened..." L was unsure if the peasantry in the nearby villages could be trusted, but it was better than them starving to death in the wilds. The young boy shook his head "No! We can’t leave you! We need your help!" L shook her head as she leaned on a nearby tree, trying to catch her breath. "No, you don't! You are the Emperor! You must avenge your father; tell your uncle the nobility is rotten. Save your sister!" The boy hesitated for a few moments, but nodded, grabbing his sister by the hand and running off.

L had screamed as loudly as she could after a few moments, challenging any traitors in the area. Even in her damaged state, she stood firm, slaying traitor after traitor. Eventually however, her strength gave out. A man in heavy armor of foreign make, had gotten close enough to her to catch her leg with his large war-hammer, breaking it. The group surrounded her, taunting her. L recognized the leader as one of the 'visitors.' Did the nobility realize that they were selling their country out to them? The leader tossed the dead body of a child in front of her, the boy emperor. While she slew traitor after traitor, the visitors had circled around and found him. Namkuzu passively watched the scene as L raged and cried out beside him. As past L died, Namkuzu spoke up with slight interest. "Well, let us hope for her sake that the girl somehow escaped, although I doubt that amounted to much, given her youth." L looked at him with hate. "And with that, the story of my dishonor is complete. Are you satisfied?" Namkuzu tilted his head. "I have already told you, this was not about my satisfaction, but yours." He gestured as the memories and scenes whirled around them chaotically. L grimaced but stayed silent. "It is hard for one to see the truth of their existence while living it, but perhaps, as we have been able to step outside of it, you can be led to understand the truth of your past." L's anger gave way to some confusion. "What are you speaking of, demon?" The Archdemon of the Mind gestured all around again. "When have you once acted dishonorably? Where have you once failed your duty? You are the Archdemon of Honor who believes herself to have lost her honor, but have you really? What part of this speaks of failure? You have always acted with honor and duty, never once wavering. You failed to save the emperor, but who could have saved him? If you had been next to him, you would have also been riddled with stone and ash. You found his killer and slew him, and carried out his final orders to save his children. When every person of power and status turned against the children, you denied their offer to join them. Instead continuing to carry out your duty, even until death. If dying in an effort to protect those children was not an honorable death, what was? How much more could you have done?"

L shook her head. "But they still died. I failed." Namkuzu laughed. "Why is that relevant?! You died against a power you had no hope of overcoming. Let me ask you a question. The girl you travel with, she has a class that indicates she has some great destiny, or duty, if you will." L nodded "She probably is supposed to free her people. I would assume a 'chosen one' of an enslaved race would be chosen to liberate them." Namkuzu nodded. "So that is her duty? It would be dishonorable to turn away from such a task, as she has been given the task?" L considered. "She did not choose that power; it was thrust upon her. However, yes. We are all given duties we do not ask for. The honor of one who fulfills a task that was thrust upon them is greater than those who chose to be in that position." Nodding, Namkuzu continued. "If you say so, as the Archdemon of Honor I will take your word for it. With that in mind, if that girl chases her destiny, fights the world, and simply finds that the gods refuse to allow her to win. They themselves step in and destroy her. Has she dishonored herself? Should her people spit at the mention of her, and speak of how she failed in her duty? Or should they praise her, for standing up for them till the last, even when faced with the power of the gods? Should they honor her sacrifice, as she honored the duty thrust upon her by fate?"

L grit her teeth, she was not stupid, and had realized she fell into Namkuzu's trap. "That's not the same. Men are not gods." However, her words carried little conviction. Namkuzu's voice turned cold for a moment, different than his normal passive tone. "Perhaps, but what is the power of one woman against her entire nation? A chosen one falling to a bunch of gods is hardly different in scale then a Lady Protector falling to a nation worth of military power." A length of time passed between them quietly before Namkuzu spoke again. "You never lost your honor. If anything, your death only reaffirmed your dedication to it. You have nothing to "regain.' Nothing to atone for. You have carried out your duty and honor with such precision that not even the god of Honor could find fault with you. Do you really think he would have chosen someone to champion him if they were honor-less?" L struggled against Namkuzu's words. If she forgave herself for failure, if there really was no burden for her to bear, what does that mean for those who died? Their deaths are her burden, she refused to cast them aside. Her dishonor comforted her, it explained her failure even as it tormented her. Without it, what else was there?" Namkuzu spoke, his voice firm. "Carry their memories, not their deaths. If you do not have the past, then look to the future. You have sworn to honor a new master. He requires your loyalty more than you even realize. I do not know the future, but I can sense it, the day will come for you to shape his fate, and perhaps by doing so, the fate of this world. Rise again. Rise and cast off the chains of the past, and if you must, bind yourself again to the chains of the present."

Eika and Luna were desperately pushing and pulling V along one of the walkways further away from the center room. "I can't believe one of her strategies has come in handy." Luna muttered to herself as she directed Eika to stop trying to drag him, and instead help her roll him further away. As V's body attempted to recover from the damage and pain of the sword, he muttered "Oh good, rolling." They had gotten him about a hundred yards away from the center room when everyone heard a very, very loud clicking noise. "Stay down!" Luna screamed as loudly as she could right before the blast wave smashed into them. V landed dangerously close to the edge, Eika was clinging on to him for dear life. Fire roared out of every opening to the central room, Eika couldn't help but cry out as fire tore through the entire structure. As the temperature dropped to deadly levels, and she was thrown backwards, Luna watched the explosion. The frozen fire was primarily exploding out and up. She figured they would be safe from the fire at this distance from the blast point. Blast...point... Luna quickly tried to ascertain as much information about how this space worked as possible, as she was pushed down the walkway. The group was breathing normally the whole time, that meant that this place has atmospheric pressure similar to the outside world. She also had to assume it was either replenishing the air or taking it in from the outside. "Oh shit." Luna cursed. Most of the time L's flames were just that, flames. However, based on the sound and blast wave, this was an actual explosion, a really big explosion. "Hold on to the side of the bridge!" Luna screamed with all her might and she gripped the side. Given the force of the blast wave the resulting negative pressure was going to be severe, this was about to be really bad. Luna hoped Eika and V would survive.

Luna tried to arrange her body in a way that would only break most of her bones when the negative pressure sucked everything back in. Eika screamed wildly as her, Luna, and V were violently sucked back toward the central room. Luna felt like she was going to be torn in half by the negative pressure, but thankfully she somehow survived, now the worst part was whe-. Luna's thoughts were cut short as she smashed into the walls of the central chamber and blacked out. Her body limply fell, however, providence seemed to be on her side as she landed on one of the lower walkways instead of falling forever into the abyss below. V for his part, had no idea what was even going on. As soon as the blast wave hit him, his senses only knew chaos and pain. He was vaguely aware that Eika was holding his body, but other than that he did not have any idea what was transpiring. Eika handled the negative pressure better than Luna, but could not stop her wild crash into the wall, she did her best not to be sandwiched between V and the cold metal, and only barely managed such before they both crashed into the wall. Eika landed limply halfway off the walkway, but V was too far to the left, he was going to fall! Eika tried to get her body to react quick enough to grab him, but the damage she gained fighting L, coupled with this explosion left her barely functioning. As Eika's world slowed to a crawl, slowly watching V fall past her, suddenly an arm reached out, as if it was sent from heaven itself, and grabbed V. Eika turned her head to see who this miraculous savior was. L was on her stomach, having dove forward to grab V before he fell out of reach. She grunted as V's dead weight jerked her arm, but she slowly managed to pull him up. Eika's body and brain could take no more, and the last thing she saw before blacking out was L's eyes, purple fire danced in them.