Summary: (One-shot) Of existence, a wish, the endless battle of the Crimson Realm, the desire to save everyone, and the slow descend of Sakai Yuji into madness.

Disclaimer: I do not own, if I did, I would have ended the second season with the appearance of the Snake of Festival, what don't stare at me, you all know you wanted to see it!

AN- The first one-shot I have ever done, but this is just a mere preparation... and an idea that would not stop bothering me.

Shakugan no Shana:

For the Want of a Wish

"I want to protect this city."

That had been Yuji Sakai's ultimate wish, His ultimate desire. To protect all that lived under his gaze, to stop the Denizens of the Crimson Realm from hurting others.

Those Denizens come from another world, a world unreachable to humans. They come to this world and consume the source of human's existence to remain in this world.

The Denizens come from an empty world. A world ravaged by its inhabitants, where every scrap of power and life had been seized and taken. This was a world in which life could no longer exist.

So to survive they robbed humans of their existence, it was their only way, the only source for survival they had.

They continued to consume and consume the power of existence of humans, uncaring to what their abuse of this world might lead to, uncaring of what the lives they might be ending in their quest to quench their hunger. .

They did not care if the unbalance of all fading existence would lead to a great distortion and bring ruin to all the worlds. Their only desire was to consume and consume more and more power, to perpetuate their existence.

That was why the strong Denizens called Crimson Lords chose to fight against their kin, who had lost control. Those Crimson Lords allowed certain humans, the one whose loved ones had been consumed, to feel their existence and form pacts with them.

The Lords gave them humans power and special abilities to gain their vengeance, and in return the humans give their own existences to the Lords.

Those humans became just shells for the lords, a skin that would contain their powers and allow them to move in the world of humans without causing unbalance.

Those who have made that pact became the ones called Flame Haze. These were the extension of the hand of the Crimson Lords, simply powerful agents that gave up their humanity in their quest for revenge and balance.

The contractors were no longer humans, but a void in existence sustained by the Lords of the world of Guze.

Thus with the contract established, those Flame Hazes would hunt out the Denizens who spreaded the distortions across the world, and in order to avoid their hunters the Denizens created the remnants called Torches.

Using the remains of the "existence" they had consumed, the Denizens created a replacement for their victims, the fake existences called Torches.

But the Torches' existence was not infinite… when their times ended, the remaining power of existence inside the Torch would fade away and the existence the Torch replaced alongside it.

In short, that existence, that person, would cease to exist.

That human will lose all, his status, his residence, and even his existence would fade away… in the end all would vanish leaving nothing.

All that Yuji Sakai knew well.

All that information, he had learned since he had met "her" and became tied to the world of Guze.

All that, he knew to heart; that information made the foundation of a "world" that few would ever know about.

But in the end he did not really cared about it…

No, rather those things had no importance in the matter of his wish.

In the end all he wanted was to end all battles, to end all that things that hurt those he cared about.

It was a wish he had from the very start, ever since he had been told by her he was simply a Torch.

It was the truth, the current Yuji Sakai was a Torch… a replacement existence that was meant to fill in the void of the original Sakai Yuji who had been devoured by some Denizen or another.

He did not bother to ask if he was really like the "real" Yuji Sakai or just something totally different, in the end he knew the truth in his core.

He was a fake, something that was not human. Only an image that was sustained on whatever power of existence that ran through his body.

Even if he tried to deny it as much as he wanted he knew his existence one day would run out, that all that made him up would fade into oblivion.

In the end, no matter how much he did, how many friends he made, how much he gained… one days all those things would fade away.

That was the reason he wanted to save others. Even if he would fade and no longer exist, if he managed to save another then his existence would have a meaning.

"Even if I fade, at least another would be saved…"

It was probably a selfish desire, the desire to leave a mark in this world, the desire to be remembered.

He had simply wished to have something to fight that feeling of being "nothing" that he had in his heart.

But it was something that he could be sure had been born out of his self. Not of the original Sakai Yuji, but something that was truly born from his self.

Something that was him, no of the him that had been once real, but something that came truly from Yuji Sakai.

That and the new bond he had made with that person who had shattered his world were the only things that were truly his.

That fact made them that precious.

Even after he learned about the Reiji Maigo that sustained his existence, and eventually became involved in many bloody battles and became more powerful, even after he made many bonds and made many friends…that desire stayed in the core of his being.

"I want to save everyone. I want to save Shana." It was his only meaning, the reason in the end he could define himself.

Yet it was his greatest shortcoming.

He would fight to fill the void of being a Torch; he would fight to save all others. For that reason he would strike down all the opponents before him.

Yet even if the opponent before him was defeated, another would continue to exist.

But even if another opponent appeared and threatened existence, Yuji Sakai would strike it down for "that" reason.

The cycle continued to repeat, again, again and again… and more and more enemies would then appear.

In the end it would be a meaningless fight, an endless fight that would yield no results.

He could not truly save everyone.

Even if he continued to fight, Denizens would continue to exist and abuse the world.

Even if he continued to fight, more and more humans would be consumed and turned into Torches.

Even if he continued to fight, Shana and the other Flame Hazes would continue their battle against the distortion.

This endless battle for existence… it truly had no end. The struggle of the world of Guze had no resolution.

Nothing short of a miracle would be able to truly end it.

To truly save everyone, to truly save Shana… he would have to forge that future and create that miracle.

But a Miracle was by definition something that is beyond the power of a mortal, something that should be impossible.

It was something that only a God should be able to do.

To be able to end this battle, one would have to have the powers of a God.

"So have you decided…?" The words came from deep within his heart, from the darkness inside Reiji Maigo.

The one that came from that other world, that shadow was a piece of the God that carried the same ideal as him, to end this war.

"This is only something you can do. This wish is not a hope or a mere desire, but rather something only you can accomplish." The voice continued, the words carrying his feelings, the same feelings that resonated with Yuji Sakai's own.

It was the only way, the thing only he could do. To save everyone… to save Shana… to prove his own existence… he would become a God and forge that miracle.

"I accept… lets change the truth of this world!" Yuji made the pact with no hesitation, with no care of what he would be giving up.

It was the only path, he had no regrets. For that sake of that wish, for the sake of his friends and their happiness, he could only move forward.

To follow his greatest wish, the one that filled that void.

Thus he became the enemy of everybody. He became the enemy of Shana. In order to save them he became the enemy of the world.

In the end, he had no regrets, because he would live as he could. He would create a world with no more battles, a world in which everyone would be saved.

A world in which Shana could truly live with him…

Thus Yuji Sakai faded with his dream in sight. And the one who inherited that dream, the Snake of the Festival, Yuji Sakai, was born.

Notes- Probably a jaded view of our hero… but a part of the core that is Sakai Yuji. This is my attempt to reconcile the Torch Yuji Sakai of the beginning of the story with the Yuji Sakai who would make the pact to become the Snake of the Festival and the enemy of all his friends.

Anyway, the beginning is part of the dialogue between the Snake and Yuji in adapted from one of the novels, but I felt it was rather important and good to note why he made the pact with the snake.

Grammar is not the best, as English is my second language. So please notify me of any problems.