„DARN!" His fist crashed into the table and it broke. „This little bitch of a guild master..." he cursed. „She turned our defence line to ash in a second!" The woman came back in. „Master, we have no control over Dark Rose anymore. We're out of options.", „Kanami... activate the mines around the guild building." he ordered. „What? But master, won't we kill the guards?", „They are just a few of our members. And they're weak! I had no use for them from the very beginning! Just activate them when Dark Rose is close and blow them up!", „Okay, Master." Kanami bowed herself, turned around and went out of the room.

„Did you just see that?" Tomoko asked. „What was that?", „Homura's Light Magic." Raze answered. „She just shot down all the spheres at once. She's powerful, but this is just one of the many things she can do.", „Impressive." Tomoko said. Raze smiled while they continued running. „There is a reason she is our guild master after all." They reached the end of the street. „Okay, wait." The two took cover in a shadow where no one could easily discover them. „We wait here 'til Ichiro'a order." Tomoko nodded. „Okay...", „Are you excited?" Raze asked. „You're in the middle of a war between two guilds.", „I'm scared my heart will explode soon...so fast it is beating..." Tomoko replied. „But... a wizard grows from his experience, right?" Raze nodded. „Definetly.", „Everyone?" Ichiro's voice came into everyone's head again. „We are ready. However, I'm not sure about this. Shiver Dragon may have some other tricks on charge, so be careful. Stay away from the building until we are totally sure there is no trap. Akira, shoot. Now!"

When Akira heard his signal, he grinned. He layed down under the huge bell of the church and charged his gun. Then, he looked through the scope and aimed on his first target. „Nine guards, huh? No problem to me..." He stoke his tongue into the corner of his mouth. He pulled the trigger and the shot was fired off. The guard went down in a second. Suddenly, the earth started to shake. „What the-?" Raze asked. Explosions ripped through the air, shockwaves followed. Raze and Tomoko where hurled against a wall. „What in hell's name was that?" Raze held her shoulder when she got up. „They had bombs..." Tomoko said. Raze clenched her hand to a fist. „Those bastards. They killed their own guards! Who the hell plays with the lifes of his own followers so reckless?!", „Raze?!" Eaden ran to them. „Are you guys okay?", „Nothing happened to us." Raze said. „My shoulder hurts a bit from the impact, but I'm still in one piece... Tomoko, what about you?" Raze looked at her. Tomoko whiped dust from her skirt. „I'm fine. My back aches, but I guess that's okay so far...", „Thank goodness." Eaden said relieved. Silver joined them. „Ah, I knew that our Ice Princess would not be injured." he said with a smile. Raze glared at him. „I wouldn't have had

any problem with it when that detonation would had blown off your head." she replied. „You know that's not true." Silver said calmly. „Everyone seems to be okay here... What about the others?", „We haven't encountered them yet. Let's go look for them!" Eaden said. Silver nodded. The four left their position and ran to one of the other side streets. They found Nicole who was kneeling in front of Annika. Annika was laying on the ground, with her eyes closed. „Nicole!" Eaden shouted. The brown-haired girl looked around. „Eaden... You're okay?", „Yeah. What's with Annika?", „The explosion blew up one of the civilist's houses." she explained. „Annika was hit by a part of

a wall." Blood ran down Annika's forehead. „I'll call Alena!" Eaden said. She touched her lacrima. „Alena? Alena, are you there? Answer me!" No response came this time. „Damn it!" she cursed. „Wait." Raze said and kneeled down next to Annika. She held one hand over Annika's wound. „Ice Dragon's Healing Hand." A cool, blue light came off her hand, surrounding Annika's forehead. The wound slowly closed. „You... know a healing spell?" Eaden said surprised. Raze nodded. „You don't know everything about me, even after four years in one and the same guild. Even though this spell isn't even half as powerful as Alena's healing spells, it's enough to cure things like this... Since Alena was capable of using medical spells, I didn't need to use my own cure spell." She smiled. „I'm impressed, icicle." Silver said. Raze stood up again. „I'm always good for a surprise." she replied with a smiling face. Annika groaned and opened her eyes. „Are you okay?" Nicole demanded. Annika sat up and held her head. „I have a headache... but except of that, I'm fine." Nicole sighed relieved. She helped Annika up and looked around. „What's with the others? You couldn't reach Alena, could you?", „We hope they are okay..." Eaden said. „Let's look for them.", „I guess we should stay here." Annika said. „Ichiro didn't want us to get off our positions, remember?", „Guess you're right..." Nicole said. „But I'm concerned about our guild mates...", „We look for them." Raze said. „You two stay here and remain available anytime." Nicole nodded. „Okay." Raze nodded towards Eaden and they ran further. In another road, spikes had ripped the

ground open. They were gigantic. Soul was kneeling on the ground and struggling for breath, Iona leaned against a wall and Alena murmured something. According to her face, it wasn't anything nice. „Are you...?" Eaden stopped. Iona looked up. „Soul used his spike magic to cover us up. That guy has reacted so fast I couldn't even follow him." Soul coughed. „I thought I'm too late..." he said. Alena folded her arms. „Whatever. The shock wave was stopped by the spikes, however, we could still feel it. It tore me off my feet. My lacrima's broken." She pointed on the blue shards that were laying in front of her. „Oh... that's why I wasn't able to reach you." Eaden said. „Yeah... Have you met the others yet?" Alena asked. „Nicole and Annika are fine so far. But... we haven't spoken Ichiro yet...", „He's with Homura if I'm not mistaken." Iona remembered them. „I wouldn't be too worried about him. Seems like everyone took that one without any problems... We were lucky that we weren't all too close to the guild hall. If that would've been the case, we all would be dead." Soul stood up. „Guess Akira's magical bullet triggered those mines. I'm happy it did. They would have definetly detonated if we would have crossed them.", „You say it." Alena agreed to him. „Is everyone okay?" Ichiro asked. „There you have it." Iona said. She responded. „We are okay! Don't worry. No one's injured!", „Thank god." Ichiro said. „Okay, time to use our explosive lacrimas. Most of the guild members must be right inside of the guild hall. Iona, we stick to our plan and attack first, then we blow that place up and hope we don't even need to fight mano-a-mano." Iona nodded. She raised her hands. „Heavenly arrows!" She shouted. Lightning arrows shot down from the sky and hit the guild hall. Seconds later, a magic circle appeared above the building and crushed it. „What was that?" Tomoko asked. „Ichiro's Gravity Magic." Raze explained. „He increased gravity. The material the guild's build off isn't made for enduring heavy gravity like that and collapsed. Partly." Iona took out the red lacrima. „Okay, time to throw our bombs." Raze followed her example. „These terrorists don't take care about the town's people at all to save their own skin. How selfish! They didn't evacuate them and surely killed a few of them just now!", „Don't forget they are a dark guild." Silver commented. „That's how they function.", „Let's do it all together." Soul said. „On my count-down. Three... two... one." He removed the spikes and they all threw their lacrimas. „Rose garden." Iona said. Raze formed another scale shield in front of everyone and the red lacrimas exploded.
„The magical word for those lacrimas... is „rose garden"?" Tomoko asked. Raze nodded. „Yeah. We used to have another one before, but this way... we remember our fallen comrades, Blide and Kaio. You know?" She smiled but her smile was very sad.