Return Commentary: The Fallen General: I took your advice to heart, here's the story I came up with. I hope you enjoy.

IdeaPerson1097: I knew it was corny, wonder why I didn't change it. I'll be sure to move the story forward next chapter.

And here's the chapter.

Chapter XII: Bloodedge

Ragna awoke early the next morning as the early rays of the morning sun were still off in the horizon. He'd fallen asleep just outside the village against one of the trees, both to provide needed protection and because he didn't exactly fell comfortable sleeping inside the village with everyone else. The Reaper may have become more social compared to his loaner attitude from before, he still wasn't comfortable around too many people at once… that and he tended to yell a lot when he had nightmares.

Ragna slowly made his way to his feet and yawned, everyone else in the village was probably asleep except for the guards and wouldn't be up for at least a few hours. This could give him the time he needed to make a stop he'd been meaning to make for a while, one he'd been avoiding for far too long. There was of course the chance that Makoto and the others would wake up, not see him there, and possibly think he ditched them.

'I've held it off for this long, I can hold it off a little longer… But still, we're practically going to be going through that area, if I don't stop by now I don't know when I'll get my next chance.' Ragna took in a deep breath before he realized something. 'Wait… is that marker I smell?' Somewhat afraid of what he'd find he took out Blood-Scythe and stared at his face through the reflective edge.

"What the HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!?" Drawn on his face was a ridiculous Italian moustache, a messy goatee, and even a giant eyebrow over one eye and a partial giant eyebrow over the other one. "Damn it! Was I really this out of it last night?" Taking a dash of saliva from his mouth he attempted to wipe off some of the writing, he'd rather have a smudgy face than this idiotic look. To his misfortune it didn't come off, the crap was permanent. "When I find out whoever did this I'm going to kill them."

He could try washing this off with some soap, he'd seen some in the village last night when everyone was washing up for dinner, but going back to grab it would mean walking through the village looking like a nineties graffiti artist when to town on his face. Nothing else for it, he had to do it.

As he walked back through the village he was trying to think of who would have done this. Makoto? Nah, she was prankster, but she wouldn't humiliate him in front of her family. Noel was out too, she was too innocent and pure to try to put on something like this. Tora might do something like this, but this was a trick more up her younger counterparts ally, ergo that of a child.

'Must've been one of the kids then,' he thought to himself glumly. 'Guess that means I'll just have to let it go, they'll deny that they did anything until next week and it's already a miracle that the Beastkin are accepting me as well as they are, I guess I'll just have to live with this.' In the center of the supplies he managed to find a bar of soap. "Thank god, who knows how long it's going to take for this stuff to come off."

"What stuff?" he heard a voice say behind him in mid yawn. Ragna recognized the voice as one of Makoto's brother. This guy was the older one, so that would make him Mukoto. "I didn't expect to find you out here, looking for something?"

"Already found it," Ragna said, thankfully that his back was still faced to eldest Nanaya sibling. "Just looking for some soap so I could wash up before breakfast."

"Oh, alright then," Mukoto said as he passed by the reaper. "I was actually hoping I could grab some coffee before everyone else made a mad rush for it. I you want to wash up I heard there were hot springs somewhere over there."

"Thanks," Ragna said as he quickly made his way off hoping that no one would see him.

Mukoto looked through the supply pile for his coffee, after a few minutes of searching he finally realized that the cooks had probably thought of this and had hidden the coffee. "Well, that's not great," he said shaking his head before he realized something. "Didn't I see Makoto head to the hot springs earlier? …Eh, I'm sure it won't be a problem, I mean the springs are huge, what's the actual chance of them seeing each other? It has to be like-"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU PERVERT!?" That was his sister's shout, and it was coming in the direction of the hot springs.

"Whoa! I didn't know you were here! I'm sorry!" If it wasn't obvious that was Ragna's voice.

"GO AWAY! GET OUT OF HERE!"

"I'm leaving! I'm leaving! I'm sor-!"

"IDIOT!" The sound of a fist hitting flesh was heard throughout the forest. It sounded like a crippling blow. A painfully yell was heard from far away and it sounded like it was coming closer and closer. That was when Ragna fell out of the sky and landed in a mess near Mukoto.

The elder Beastkin walked over to where the victim lay sprawled out. Ragna didn't just have the markings on his face from earlier, but now he had a giant welt on his left cheek. Mukoto looked down at the victim of his blunder. "… Sorry about that. Forget my sister was heading that way."

"Go… screw yourself," Ragna said through his pain.

*Breakfast*

Ragna was not having a good morning. Now not only did he wake up to having marker on his face, he also had to run into Makoto when she was in the middle of bathing and got a painful punch able to send him airborne back to the village. His girlfriend also refused to look at him when everyone sat down for breakfast, but this was less of an angry thing and more of an embarrassment issue.

"Come on Makoto," her mother said to her daughter as everyone sat down to a breakfast of eggs and roasted walnuts. Makoto and Ragna were seated across each other, but neither of them could say anything to the other. "The poor boy's not to blame for the little incident this morning, isn't that right Mukoto?" The eldest son could only whimper as he held the ear his mother had gripped while scolding him. "And if anything I'd consider this lucky for you."

"Lucky!?" Makoto demanded.

"Sure," her mother said with a smile. "Now that he's seen you-"

"Okay! Okay! We get it! You don't have to spell it out!" Ragna shouted at her, his face now matching the shade of the jacket he wore. At the very least he didn't have any marker on his face.

"Just a harmless joke," Makoto's mother told them.

"I'm getting less and less certain about you and your jokes," Ragna argued.

"Wait, what was the joke about?" Mikoto the bookkeeper asked.

"Well you see," Mukoto began. "I saw Ragna earlier this morning and he-ARRRG!"

"Tell them and the ear comes off!" Makoto threated her brother as she head him in a grip similar to the one that her mother held him in. The older sibling wisely decided to keep his fat mouth shut. "Good. By the way Ragna why were you covered in permanent marker when I saw you?"

"That was something I had on me when I woke up," Ragna said. "Not the best way to start the day."

"How did the Grim Reaper let himself get drawn on?" Makoto's father asked.

"Well I'm used to only getting 2 to 3 hours of sleep a night if that," Ragna explained. "So when I sleep, I sleep hard." Makoto's nodded in understanding. "By the way, where's Noel?"

"Over there with the children," Makoto said as she pointed to the table where all of the children were seated. It was a display of somewhat obnoxiousness, joking telling, funny faces, pranks, you name it. Noel was doing her best to keep order, but it was pretty obvious that the kids were winning for supremacy. He also noticed the twins were also sitting at the table.

"She's got her hands full," Ragna commented. "I almost feel bad for her."

"Almost?" Makoto asked him.

"Better her than me," the Reaper said with a grin.

"I wouldn't speak too soon if I were you," Makoto's mother told him. "After breakfast is over, it's your turn."

"But I don't know anything about taking care of kids!" Ragna exclaimed. Instantly several Beastkin looked over to the Grim Reaper. Ragna blushed as he understood what that might have inferred without the proper context. "Babysitting…" he said in an attempt to recover. The Beastkin went back to their business.

"Neither did Noel, but she's managing," Makoto told him. "Just pay attention for the first few minutes and you'll get the hang of it before long."

"You'll have to take your own advice to heart," Makoto's mother told her daughter. "You're on duty too."

"What!? But mom-!"

"You'd have to take it up with your father it was his call."

The village chief nearly chocked on his eggs when he heard that. After he managed to clear his throat he noticed his eldest daughter glaring daggers at him. He could swear he felt the sweat trickle down his face. He knew that look, he wasn't getting out of-

"Fine…" Makoto relented as she stood. "C'mon Ragna, let's relieve Noel."

As the two left the Village chief glared at his wife. "Did you have to throw me into the fire?"

"She would have known something was up." Mikoto rolled her eyes at her mother's antics as she left the table to help out the village with more bookkeeping. "Don't give me that, I had my reasons."

"Such as?" her husband inquired.

"For one thing taking care of children is a good way for two people to strengthen their relationship with each other. Kids have a way of revealing things about a person that they never thought they knew. It's all part of making sure they're happy together." Makoto's father gave a slight nod in agreement. "Plus, nothing encourages abstinence more than chaotic babysitting adventures."

"Now you're talking my language," the Chief said with a smile.

*Time Skip-Four Hours*

When Ragna had been in the Kaka Village with Tao he'd often been bothered by three of the Kaka kittens. They were cute sure, but they were also a nuisance and took a lot of energy to deal with. But at least then there had only been three to deal with. He might've had Makoto helping him out this time, but that didn't matter too much when were thirteen kids to watch. Makoto got her six organized in games of tag and hide and go seek, but his set found him way too interesting.

Early on they notice how interested they were in his weaponry so he decided to hide it in a tree. That turned out to be his first mistake because he'd forgotten that they're freaking squirrels! In the end he had to give his equipment to the other adults so they could keep an eye on it. After that they'd managed to rob him of his coat. A grown and mastered thief wouldn't be able to get Ragna out of the coat if he were a cold, dead corpse, these kids managed in a few minutes. After that they tried grabbing his hair to look at it, one girl even suggested putting it in a ponytail.

"Not happening," Ragna denied. Makoto and the kids she was watching came back. "So, how'd it go?"

"The kids refuse to take another step, but they want to do something, any ideas?"

Ragna thought to himself for a moment. He thought as hard as he could.

"Braid his hair!" the girl from earlier shouted.

"No way!" Ragna said, his hands covering his well-kept spikey hair.

"Look Ragna," Makoto began. "We're both running out of options here either we think of something, or we might honestly consider letting the kids give you a new hair style."

Now Ragna was thinking in overdrive, anything to prevent him from getting the lamest look in history. "Wait, how about a story? I've got one about the six heroes."

"We've already heard all of those stories!" one boy shouted.

"Yeah, well I have one that you haven't heard," Ragna challenged. "It's a story about the seventh hero."

"But there wasn't a seventh hero," another child decided to inform.

Ragna smirked. "That just proves you haven't heard the story. Gather round everyone, you're all going to want to her this."

Eventually the curiosity got the better of everyone and everyone sat in a half ring around Ragna. Odd as it was, Ragna noticed a few of the adults coming over to hear this.

"All right, this took place a hundred years ago, during the Dark War. The Black Beast was creating pain and destruction wherever it went. There wasn't a single nationality or group that could even think of taking it on. Things were looking bleak, hopeless. All people could do was run, hope to out run the thing, hope for something… eventually they were given a miracle."

"Yeah, we know the story," one rude kid interrupted. "The six heroes show up and beat the Black Beast and then disappear. We know the story."

"Yeah, you know the story," Ragna agreed with an uncommitted nod. "You know half of it, if that. What you don't know is that if things really happened like that the heroes would've lost. The Ars Magus that was developed to fight the Beast was developed in a very specific timeframe. This was during two years that the Black Beast went dormant. It didn't move… it didn't attack… it just laid there."

"And that's when the great sage 'Nine' developed Ars Magus?" Mekoto asked. Ragna nodded. "But how did that happen?"

"My master called it a manmade miracle. Brought on by one man. He claimed that the guy was friend of his, and he took on the Black Beast by himself, fighting it off and causing it to go dormant. It cost him his life… The coat I have and the sword I use belonged to him."

"What was his name?" Makoto asked.

"Bloodedge," Ragna said solemnly. He heard a snort coming from one of the ruder kids. "Something funny?"

"You expect us to believe that? Your master was crazy! How could anyone believe that?"

"Well, the fact that he fought back in the dark war might have something to do with it."

"Yeah, who was he an infantry man?"

"You might've heard of him in history class kid. His name's Jubei, or you could call him the 'One-Eyed Lotus'." Okay, that managed to shut the kid up. "All right, now that we have that out of the way, any questions." A young girl raised her hand and Ragna pointed at her.

"So was Bloodedge your dad or your grandfather or something?" she asked.

"Not to my knowledge," Ragna said.

"What do you mean to your knowledge?" Mokoto asked.

"Well, I didn't know my parents growing up. I grew up in a church for the most of my life before I fought against the NOL."

"Why'd you fight against the NOL?" one kid asked.

"…That's a story for another time," Ragna told them darkly. It was at that moment that the lunch bell rang. "All right, it's lunch time. Everyone-!"

Ragna wasn't even able to finish the sentence as the kids ran off as fast as they could to get into line for lunch and the adults weren't exactly going slow themselves. Ragna and Makoto decided to stick back so they could talk.

"Didn't think you were that good of a story teller," Makoto told her boyfriend. "So how do you feel after all of that babysitting?"

"I feel like your mom was trying to pull a preemptive cock block on me."

"And?"

"It worked," Ragna said without humor.

Author's Note: I don't own BlazBlue… do I really need to keep saying it? *Sigh*

Tie in chapter, more interaction with the family. Next chapter we'll start getting to the actual events that took place in ChronoPhantasma. I'll see you guys then.

Ciao.