• "If he doesn't come,"

    Iris whispered, as the breeze caressed her face and played with her flowing golden hair. Blood
    seeped from a small slash in her cheek. Her arm felt sprained.

    "If Mitzu-kun doesn't come, he must be..."

    Her voice faltered. She couldn't form the words that would curse her true love to such a terrible fate as death, but in her inhuman heart, she knew it was true.
    The wind picked up force and howled around the girl, accenting Daeka's dark laugh.

    "Something the matter, girly?"

    She sneered nastily, swinging her mystic scythe in a deadly arc.

    Iris dodged the attack and pointed her staff at Daeka's chest, pink ethereal light building up at it's tip. She shot off a blast of magic at the villainess, the force of the wind almost pulling the staff out of Iris' hands.

    Daeka jumped back, not quite dodging the blast, and screeched with fury.

    Iris' magic was weakening. She was losing energy fast. Sweat started to bead on her forehead. The wind pulled her staff out of her weak grasp and she stooped to grab it.

    Something touched her face. It wasn't hair and it wasn't the wind. Iris slapped at her cheek and took hold on the unknown item, bringing it level with her eyes.

    She went numb.

    It was a pink rose petal. She had given Mitzu-kun a pink rose just before he left, almost two weeks before.

    Standing, staff in hand, she searched the area for her love.

    "Mitzuruki!"

    Iris cried out, catching sight of a cloaked figure standing on the roof of her high school. She ran, having lost all interest in the battle at hand.

    The masked figure turned and searched her face, his bright eyes filled with deep anguish and longing. They were not the eyes of her beloved.

    Iris stopped dead in her tracks, watching as he tore off the cloak and mask.

    Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears as Blaze dropped his cape, his attention on Daeka. As he made to attack, Iris fell to her knees on the sidewalk, gravel digging painfully into her soft flesh.

    Daeka let out a final cry of pain, matching Blaze's cry of triumph.

    Iris slumped sideways to the ground, the brilliant light in her blue eyes fading rapidly. Her mouth moved, trying to form words that would not come out. She glanced up slowly as the villainess aimed and threw her scythe, Blaze too slow to stop the attack.

    The scythe sliced at the air, coming closer and closer to it's target. Her.

    She sighed and closed her eyes, a single tear rolling down her cheek, and thought of Mitzuruki one. last. time...