The following day, they were once more on the trail that would lead them to Drrael. Fillia noticed that Zelgadiss was extremely tense, adjusting his course by a few degrees every so often. Gourry was with them, though begrudgingly. He only agreed to come after Lina threatened to treat him just like she would treat Drrael. Lina and Amelia both had spells in their hands, ready to go, and Xellos and Sirus had their staffs ready. Fillia herself was ready to turn into a golden dragon at any moment. They continued their stealthy pace through the woods, always on guard. They walked, almost jogged all day until the sun finally started to set. The decided to make camp.

Zel turned to the group. "We should get there by tomorrow night," he said quietly. They all nodded, knowing that tomorrow was going to be the day they would decide the world's fate, again. Everyone, but Gourry, who sighed, sounding very indifferent to whether he lived or died. Fillia got supper in silence and handed it out to everyone. Zelgadiss, however, passed.

"You're not going to eat?" Lina asked.

"I am far to nervous," he replied. "I don't think I could keep anything down."

"I still have some herbal tea," Fillia suggested. "I could make some to help you all get to sleep." Everyone looked at her with puppy dog eyes, except for Gourry. She made a large batch of her tea and everyone had several cups. After finishing his last cup, Zelgadiss curled up under his bedroll. He was asleep almost instantly. A few minutes later, Xellos was setting up his own bedroll. He stopped, however, and looked up.

"Who's going to take first watch tonight?" he asked. Everyone seemed to groan. After all, they had several cups of tea.

"I will," Fillia volunteered. Xellos nodded and slipped into his roll, Amelia following suit. About a half hour later, Sirus set up his bedroll, almost next to Amelia. Lina and Fillia continued to talk about the following day until Lina finally started to nod off. Fillia suggested she get into bed. Lina shrugged and curled up with Zel in his roll. Fillia stared in shock. She knew Lina was tired, but she had no idea what posed Lina to go to bed with Zelgadiss. True, they seemed to like each other but that?? Fillia turned away, trying to fight the blush that was coming to her cheeks.

When she turned, Gourry was brought into her line of sight. He had been quiet all through dinner, not even bothering to fight Lina for his food and he barely had any of her tea. Gourry was leaning by a tree, staring up to the night's sky.

"All right, Gourry," she said. "We can talk now."

"Talk about what?"

"Why do you want to give away your heritage, the Sword of Light?"

Gourry's voice was scarcely a whisper. "It killed him."

"Him?" Silence was her only answer. "Very well then, I am going to make some guesses. Correct me if I am wrong." Gourry merely looked down. "I'll take that as an okay. Now then, you said 'him' so I'm going to assume this has something to do with your brother." Gourry glared at her briefly, but went back to looking down. Fillia took that to mean she was on the right track. "I was busy at the time, but I did hear some of those psychological taunts Kotowa was throwing at your. Apparently your family had some high expectations of you." Gourry did nothing. "Or you wanted to be just like your brother but couldn't quite make it, is that it?" He glared at her again, his eyes throwing daggers. "So I am right. Good. He appeared to be your idol, but at some point you had to chose between the Sword and him." Gourry looked away from her. He was hitting it very close to home. "Your brother is older than you, I noticed. So he was obviously the one who would inherit the sword, not you. But the sword killed him. How?"

He turned to her, eyes shimmering in the fire light. "Do you really want to know?" Gourry hissed. "It's not a pretty picture."

"Neither is life," Fillia countered. "Everyone does things that they regret. Myself included. But we still have to face the future. And tomorrow we have to decide if there is going to be a future or not." Gourry looked at her, sizing her up. Sighing, he stared of into the fire.

"When I was small," he started. "My brother had the Sword. I never questioned the fact that I would never get it, but I wanted to be a swordsman like Gorel. He helped to train me, even as he trained himself with the Sword of light. As the years went by, he became very proficient at it. One day, rumors started coming in that a neighboring town was being infested with Mazoku.

"He said his goodbyes to us and went off the fight them. We all thought he'd come back with a success story. It was several weeks before anyone from the village came back. All they had to say was that the Sword of Light would kill anyone who got in their path. I didn't understand what they meant, so one night I snuck out of my house to go to the town. I was only 10 and I carried my sword with me.

"The town was washed in blood and fire. I finally found Gorel on a hill. His eyes were pure white and he was laughing at the pain of the people below. I went up and asked 'What are you doing?' He turned to me and with a chilled voice responded, 'Killing. Why?'

"'Why are you killing the people you came her to protect?' I asked him. He said he was doing as the Mazoku ordered him to. I asked him why again and he said that I would die. He attacked me. We fought for a few minutes, but he had more skill than me. I was loosing. I was on the ground without any weapons and he was coming at me. I somehow managed to kick the Sword of Light from his hands. We both scrambled for it.

"Somehow I got to it first. The blade came to life in my hands and I rolled onto my back. No sooner had I done that, than did my brother, my idol fall onto the Sword, letting it go right through him. His last words were 'That was the right choice.' Shortly after that was when I ran away from home."

Fillia sat speechless for a long time. She had know that Gourry didn't like to talk of his past, but she had no idea that it was so painful. As Gourry continued to stare into the fire, a small tear slid down his face.

"This sword brings only blood. I wash my hands of it."

"But, your brother wanted you with the Sword of Light, that is why he killed himself." Gourry looked to her in shock. "He obviously didn't want to be controlled by the Mazoku, so he used what control he had left to commit suicide. He must have known what was coming because he trained you when you were young. He fell on his sword to free himself." Gourry mulled it over in his head. Fillia, however, knew she was right. She had rarely been so sure about something. It was almost as if she could see into Gorel's mind and know what he was thinking on that day.

"Maybe," Gourry admitted begrudgingly. He had blamed himself for over 15 years for Gorel's death. Though what Fillia said obviously told him he had some rethinking to do, it was going to be hard to overcome 15 years of guilt.

"Good," Fillia said. "Now that that problem has been taken care of, let's try the second one you have." Gourry glared at Fillia again.

"And what problem would that be?" he asked innocently.

"Your brother explains why you want to be rid of the Sword of Light, but not why you refuse to fight and don't care weather you live or die." Gourry looked up to the stars again.

"I promised that I'd be there, never leave, and protect. I failed."

"Gourry, it is okay to grieve for Sylphiel." Gourry looked at her, tears coming freshly to his eyes. He finally broke down and cried, grieving for the two people he loved most in the world.

The following day, Gourry was much better. Of course, the only way to tell was the fact that he was on guard just like everyone else. Xellos wondered what had happened that night to make Gourry change. He had asked Fillia, and all she said was that Gourry felt things he hadn't let himself feel. Xellos questioned that. Though he hadn't been human all that long, he found that he could not deny feelings when they came to him. It was impossible to push them back down. All he could do was, sometimes, hide them from the others. How could Gourry be hiding feelings from himself?

The day went by slowly as anticipation grew. Zelgadiss had stated that today they would find Drrael's home for when he wasn't feeding on souls. Knowing that today they would finally face Drrael put everyone on edge. However, noon came and went, and no one bothered to stop for lunch. They couldn't stomach food because they were so nervous. Dusk slowly approached and Xellos wondered if they would get to Drrael by the end of they day. They continued on.

Finally, a few minutes before the last rays of sunshine disappeared over the horizon, Zelgadiss stopped, putting his hand up. "Found it," he said triumphantly. Amelia kept on walking as everyone else froze.

"But I don't see anything Zelga-" she was cut off as she walked into what looked like a wall, except nothing was there. "Itai.." Sirus was by her side in an instant, casting a healer's spell. Xellos walked up beside Zelgadiss and tentatively put his hand forward. Sure enough there was a barrier, invisible to the naked eye. It felt a little rough, but it was more or less flat and continuous. Slamming his staff to the ground, Xellos tried to teleport. He didn't get anywhere as some sort of shock went through his system. If he went anywhere, it was flying backwards.

Xellos opened his eyes an instant later. Fillia was over him, also casting a healing spell. Shaking to cobwebs from his head, Xellos sat up, watching Sirus study the shield.

"Very well then," Sirus muttered. He turned and faced everyone. "Miina, what we have here is very advanced shield. Its specialty is reflecting light so that it has an illusion of almost a mirror, but somehow, we are not reflected. It also repels teleportation, as Xellos-san I am sure can tell you."

"Yes," Xellos said acidly. "It repels very well." Sirus continued.

"So Gourry-san's sword is more or less useless against this thing."

"But we can't use magic against it," Xellos stated. Everyone turned to him surprised. "We're going to need all the energy we can get when we face Drrael. I don't want any of you using magic unnecessarily."

"Perhaps," Sirus said quietly. He was staring at the barrier pensively. "Perhaps we can use the Sword of Light after all." He knocked his hand against it. "Maybe with some sort of minor spell added to it, the Sword won't be entirely composed of Light and therefore be able to slice through. If it does have any effect at all, it will be fast and I doubt we will be able to repeat it. I think this barrier has some sort of adapting capability, so we shall have to be quick when we jump in."

"Okay then!" Lina shouted, rolling up imaginary sleeves. "Sirus, I want you to cast one of your white magic spells to Gourry's sword. Gourry, try to make as big a whole as you can."

"Right," they both said. The plan went off flawlessly. Just as Sirus predicted, they had only a few seconds to get inside, but they all managed it. Once inside, the hole behind them shut, immersing them in darkness.

"Alright," Lina said angrily off to one side, "I know it's night out, but what's with all the black?"

"Of course!" Sirus stated somewhere behind Xellos. "The barrier reflects light like a mirror. So no light gets inside of here. With no light getting through, there is no light in here."

"Then, how can we see what we're doing, Sirus?" Amelia asked. Xellos wondered briefly why she didn't use the -san she always did, but pushed the thought aside. They had work to do.

"Simple," Sirus replied. "Cast a light spell. The barrier should still reflect light so a few spells will light this place up in no time. Drrael knows we are coming and he must know we are here. There is no point in hiding."

Just about everyone cast a light spell, tossing them in opposite directions. Sure enough, the inside of the barrier reflected light and a large amount of space was lit up. About 120 kilometers by 120 kilometers by Xellos' calculations.

"Dear gods," someone whispered. Xellos found that to be an understatement. The place where they stood was not a luscious forest like they had just been in, but a vast rocky dessert. Everything was barren and colorless. It was like stepping into a world where no color existed.

"That bastard," Zel swore under his breath.

"What do you mean?" Fillia asked.

"Drrael feeds on souls and life energy. What he did was take the very life out of the earth itself. This is what the world will be like if we don't stop him." Xellos shuddered. It was an ugly thought. They proceeded away from the wall, looking everywhere across the barren wasteland for any signs of Drrael.

"So thou hast finally come," a voice thundered. A large form towering over them appeared from the very air before them. The beast was horrible, and far uglier than Shabranigdo could ever be.

"Drrael…" Xellos cursed.
Go to Part Eleven-It's Over, Right?