Volume 2 Prologue

The Demonic Territory.

Year 1024.

Midnight.

The pitch black sky bore no stars tonight, the only lights the mortal world were given were the Three Moons put in the sky by the Goddess Lumine, one green, one blue and one red. They served to scare the monsters away from this peaceful world...to preserve the mortals who knew nothing of the art of battle, and to bring solace to the grieving hearts of mankind.

But tonight…

"Nnn...I'm not telling you anything! OOF-" A young fox-kin, aged eight, stood under the moon light while aggressively tied to a wooden stake, right above a blazing fire beneath his bare feet. The wood quickly caught fire and the skin on his back, his neck, legs and feet were slowly, but excruciatingly melting away. His lips busted open, his nose split in two and the teeth from within his mouth falling out, he stood there, refusing to offer up any information about his home nor his comatose little sister. His captors, adult members of the Death Faction who were identical to older teenagers in appearance, scowled at him and plunged their sword into his side, stabbing straight through the other end. He gasped, yelped, and squealed in pain and panted for breath. They dug into him while spouting derogatory words in his direction, calling him a nuisance while complimenting his stupidly stubborn persona.

The boy's name was Edith Myars, and this was him eight years prior. His Sword Spirit, Ashe, was already tied up and a binding spell given to the disciples by Lord Achlys was cast, making her unable to do anything except watch as her master was tortured.

"You little bitch...You've got some serious guts not letting up, y'know. Now tell us! Tell us where your family is if you value your life!" One of the disciples swiped Edith across the cheek with his knuckles, Edith refused.

"Never...I'm never going to tell you! Not even if you kill me! I will never reveal their locations!"

"WRONG FUCKING CHOICE!" He swiped at him again-and again-and again-until the poor child's face was dripping with blood, and his head was cracked open at both sides. He was a mess, a mess of broken flesh, blood and teeth falling out into the fire. He felt even more skin burn off from his toes, and now, his littlest toe sizzled up and broke off, causing some blood to gush out.

He coughed, and red was all everyone saw. He struggled to raise his pitiful, bleak eyes and stared at the disciples.

"I'm not...telling you...anything…"

"WRONG ANSWER!" At that moment, another disciple took his sword up and cut straight through Edith's body from his neck all the way to his abdomen, the blade coming out at the other end and successfully slicing through his ribcage, intestines, and stomach. Edith screamed out at the top of his lungs as he felt blood gushing out everywhere, and his organs pouring out of the holes in his body. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and his jaw dropped open.

"Bwhahahahaha! Looks like this fucking kid's done for." One of them said. Then they looked at Ashe, who couldn't bare to look in Edith's direction, "Least we can have some fun with that lady friend of his."

"You monster…" Ashe muttered, "...You monster...how could you...to a child...Edith…" She grunted, face filled with tears as the screeching died down. No more sounds, not even breathing was heard from the young child. He was completely lifeless with his soul fully silent. The heat of the fire mixed with the strong scent of blood filled the sullen atmosphere. Ashe wanted to kill them all-she had the power to do so with ease, but it was Lord Achlys preventing her from making even a single move. So all she did was sit there in complete shame.

"How could you do this to him, Achlys...to a child…" She muttered under her breath, "...A child…" 

Then all of a sudden, before the disciples could lay a hand on the spirit, an abrupt pure black mist formed from directly in front of Edith's melting corpse. It had the shape of a person, but Ashe could feel intense blood lust emitting from the figure. So much that she felt her eyes pulsating within their sockets, ready to burst, by just looking at her. When the mist at last faded, a singular girl formed.

The girl's outfit was a medium length, formal, long sleeved, black gothic lolita dress with a large red bow just beneath her neck The dress had twelve buttons in total, all situated in the middle in rows of two. Between them was coloured black with small patches fo skin showing. Covering that area was a large blackish-grey bow attached to the middle-top area of her dress below the neck. 

Her untainted, pale skin was icy to the touch and resembled porcelain, and had both the texture and appearance of a doll with ball sockets at her elbows, shoulders and knees. Her hips were broad and appearance that of a ten year old.

Her gorgeous, long, luscious, smooth, silvery-grey hair reached down to the middle of her back and was never tied nor trimmed. Covering that was a small dark hat, which resembled that of a painter's with two red bows on either side. 

Her eyes though…

They were a bloody red with not a trace of life inside of them.

It was as if all the sins of the world were infused into her two beady eyes. She had this eerie smile plastered onto her face like that of a psychopathic serial killer tormenting and cutting up their prey. She just had to-no, she wanted to with all her being-to kill something or someone-to torture them until they cry uncle.

In nothing short of a blink of an eye, all three Death Disciples were cut to bits, their bodies quickly resembling swiss cheese and then sliced up with all their limbs detached and thrown about in puddles and puddles of blood right in front of Ashe's crying eyes. 

There wasn't even time for them to scream before the bloody demon massacred them all.

Then she turned to Edith's messed up corpse and stared at it hungrily while licking the blood off of her lips. Her Marionette strings brought up one of the fallen disciple's fingers and she grasped them-then she brought it to her mouth and chowed down, the blood exploded inside of her mouth and went down her throat. She groaned in pleasure at the metallic taste.

"Humans...they only exist to serve as our food, don't you think, Edith Myars? Or should I say...Marionette?" The girl, Est Marionette, uttered in a creepy, distorted voice, "You cannot die just yet." She uttered. Then all of a sudden, her strings wrapped around the body, broke it free of the stake, and laid it on the ground beside Ashe. Then when the strings were loose, the boy was fully healed. Though the cut he received from the disciple from the neck down left an irreversible scar.

"Heeheehee...Do not forget, Est Marionette will forever be your guardian. Lord Alastor and I will not allow you to die until our goal is fulfilled." 

Then, as quickly as she came, the girl disappeared. Leaving both Ashe and Edith in a ghastly, treacherous silence.