"We'll always be friends, Astral. I promise."

The city was burning. Vicious, hungry walls of flame exploded across the tightly-packed apartments, crackling energy ripped the pavement of the highways apart like pieces of paper, everyone, everywhere, screaming, begging for the pain and anguish to end.

Astral danced in the eye of the storm, shooting his power out to rip the world apart. His eyes were wide and dilated, mouth pulled into a psychotic laughing smirk.

"Thank you for giving me your heart, Yuma."

Yuma knelt on the ground, his hands held above his head by the unlocked mechanism of the key. His head hung down, eyes dark and unfocused as they stared at the ground. Astral's wanton destruction slowed until he stopped completely and floated down to his captive.

"You don't need to be so sad, my sweetest memory," he gently cupped Yuma's chin, forcing his face up.

"You killed them. You killed everyone," Yuma whispered, shaky and disbelieving. Astral merely smiled, his whole face serene and soft as he began to pet Yuma's hair with his free hand.

"Don't you understand? It's so much better this way. All of them, they were so corrupt, evil, wrong, nothing like you. Your perfect, glowing heart, completely open to me…" Astral captured Yuma's mouth with his own, gently asking for entrance by licking across the boy's chapped bottom lip.

"Astral, I think…I think I like you!"

"….Is that what the feelings I see in your heart are? I…have similar feelings for you."

Yuma thrashed away from Astral, head-butting him, causing him to reel back and release his hold on Yuma's hair and face.

"Why, my sweet? I can feel your heart, you still love me…"

"You're not Astral! You – you're a monster that's taken him over! Just like the black mist…but it's even worse this time because you look the same…" Yuma's voice faltered and he sobbed the last few words out, a few tears leaking out of his eyes.

"Oh Yuma, I'm not being controlled," Astral gently wiped the tears away, his thumbs idly circling on Yuma's cheeks, "I've just gotten all my memories returned now. I understand."

"Astral, your memories. They aren't – happy, are they?"

"…No."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to help you make some happy ones."

"It's alright though, I didn't expect you to understand right away. You have been through so much sadness, and yet cannot comprehend the very existence of evil," Astral sighed, connecting his forehead with Yuma's. "Your innocence…is so very beautiful, Yuma. But soon you'll understand that it's better like this, just the two of us."