The battle was beyond imagination.
A conflict against a powerful dark energy that made the ghosts she had conquered in the past seem like child's play.
Her armor, which she had been improving for years, could not bear the pulse of evil and cracked and her sealing spells proved useless.
At last her beloved and proud Rekki-maru cracked as the mad pirate shrieked in death.

Carrying the wounded girl that managed to destroy one of the evil blades Taki left the Spanish harbor,
Taki suddenly felt an immense explosion of evil energy behind her ...... the release of the Evil Seed.
Taki removed the shards of the evil sword from Sophitia's wounded body and cured her.
After she returned Sophitia to her family she left for her homeland with the shards of Soul Edge.
During her travels she was reminded of the events that unfolded before her departure ......

Taki began her journey when her fascination grew in Soul Edge, the evil sword that resonated in the presence of her beloved sword Rekki-maru.
As a Fuma Ninja, her specialty was the extermination of demons.
She possessed exceptional fighting skills and excelled in forging weapons, which made her a valuable asset to the Fuma clan.
In fact, it was she who battled and defeated the dread pirate Cervantes ed Leon, who was possessed by Soul Edge.

Toki, the chief of the clan and Taki's foster father, suddenly summoned all the ninja of the clan and addressed them,

" Hachibei who once lead this great clan with me has stolen the spiritual ninja-to Mekki-maru and ran away with his daughter Chie.
They are now nuke-nin ! I order you to find them and retrieve Mekki-maru ! "

( Nuke-nin are ninja that leave their clan without permission, usually ninja can not leave the clan until they die because of the secrets of their clan and lord.
Thus the clan is responsible for the nuke-nin and must execute them as soon as possible.
This was one of the tragedies of the ninja ; if the ninja wanted to live as a nuke-nin, they must kill their friends and relatives who seek their lives. )

Seeing the pure fury in his eyes, Taki began to grow suspicious of Toki for the first time.

No one could find Hachibei ; his skill in hiding was easily the finest in the clan.
Only Taki with her unusual sixth sense and massive intelligence network could even begin to track him down.
Eventually after following a trace of Chie, her childhood friend, Taki was able to locate Hachibei.

Hachibei and Chie ran a small stall on a vacant road.
A man of extraordinary strength lived with them at the time.
Taki avoided trouble and contacted Hachibei while the man was out.
Hachibei was surprised to find Taki in front of him at first but eventually his face filled with relief.
He showed Taki Mekki-maru and began talking through his heavy coughs.

  " Toki is possessed by madness and has lost his senses. This Mekki-maru controls him now. "

The ninja-to she took from Hachibei seems quiet and dull even though Hachibei claimed it had extraordinary spiritual powers.

  " Toki is not the Toki we knew, if he comes in contact with this blade again ...... I am in my final days. I beg you, Taki, never let Toki have this blade ! Never ! "

Hachibei was ill and he knew Toki would find him soon.
With these new facts Taki's suspicions in Toki grew, she left and decided to let Hachibei and Chie go free.
She hid Mekki-maru and returned to her clan to confirm her suspicions.

  " A Chinese man, Chie's lover, has taken Mekki-maru. Hachibei and Chie have already been killed. "

In hearing her report Toki grinned and ordered the clan to pursue the Chinese man.
Toki was not the Toki Taki had known, his eyes were full of evil and Taki could see the madness behind them.
Her suspicions were confirmed.

A t the same time, Mekki-maru suddenly changed.
She knew the evil blade was resonating with an unexpected power and she believed the source to be an evil sword in a foreign country.
Taki crossed the sea for the first time.

Taki returned homeland with a shard of the Soul Edge.
She tried to drive the shard into her beloved but broken ninja-to "Rekki-maru", but they were resistant to one another and refused to be joined.
Meanwhile, Taki was attacked repeatedly by assassins who seemed to be sent by Toki, her master ninja.
It was an easy task for Taki to drive them away, but she found that their purpose was to steal the mysterious spiritual ninja-to "Mekki-maru" which Hachibei had entrusted to Taki.

  " In Mekki-maru there is sealed a fearful power. Never let Toki have the ninja-to. You are only one that I could entrust ... "

Reminded of Hachibei's words, Taki tried to fuse the shard of Soul Edge with Mekki-maru.
The two were immediately united and began to shed a dark aura. An aura so dark even common people could sense it.
Sensing the blade's potential, Taki closed it in its sheath and sealed it with magic cards.
However even this was not enough power to suppress the power of Mekki-maru.
And the instant she ran out of power, she was captured by Geki, Toki's right hand man and his highest-ranking ninja.
Exhausted from battling Mekki-maru, Taki could not resist the strength of Geki as he took Mekki-maru from her hands.

  " Respectable Taki, I'm sorry to say this ninja-to belongs to Master Toki.
You must have thought you deceived us well, but everything was planned from the beginning. Now it is time for you to rest."

  "No, Geki  !!! Don't release it ! "

A careless Geki watch in horror as his right arm was blown to bits as the blade shed a dark shock wave upon its release from the sheath.
His shriek of pain split the bamboo forest ; Taki seized the moment, grabbed Mekki-maru and ran past Geki's assistants, Gaki and Doki.

  " Humans should never have this power ...... especially Toki ...... "

A t the same time, the rumor of the berserker bearing the new evil sword reached Japan.
Taki realized that the evil sword must be the remaining Soul Edge, because her Rekki-maru still resonated like before.
Taki planned to have the two evil swords, Soul Edge and Mekki-maru, battle each other to offset their evil powers.

Thus, Taki became a nuke-nin like Hachibei.
The assassins under Toki's direct control were powerful and fearful ninja and among them was Geki, having lost his right arm, wished to taste her blood most of all.
Driving their attacks back with her various skills, the Dream Shadow of Demon Sealer continued her quest westwards.

And now the powerful ghost Gel-O-Fury gained enough power from the Evil Seed to break Taki's seals in the bamboo forest.
Its direction was mostly likely the Hoko-ji Temple in Kyoto.
The great temple of madness constructed by warped ideals would be the final battleground with the ghost.

Taki chose to share her fate with Mekki-maru for a while.
Often while chasing the Soul Edge, Taki would look at Mekki-maru and think,

" What terrible powers ...... but, isn't there any way to control it ? "

Pursued by her former clan members, Taki decided to destroy Mekki-maru by pitting it against Soul Edge.
She hoped that the two powerful weapons would obliterate one another.
Unfortunately, by the time she found Soul Edge, its wielder Nightmare had already been defeated by a group of warriors.

How would she destroy Mekki-maru without Soul Edge ?
Taki tried to devise another plan, but her secret desire to master the sword grew stronger by the day.
The decision was made.
Having mastered the fundamental skills needed to handle Mekki-maru during her journey,
all she needed was to build her mental strength enough to overcome the evil influences of the sword.

Around the time she mastered the ability to use the sword for short periods of time, several Fuma ninjas appeared before her.
Unlike previous encounters, these ninjas did not attack on sight.
Instead, they attempted to capture her.
Unfortunately for the ninjas, they were no match for Taki; they all fell before her Mekki-Maru.
" I know that they were sent by Toki …but why would they travel so far to these strange lands to seek me ? "

Searching through the strewn remains of the ninjas, Taki came across a metal fragment.
Although weak, the aura emanating from the metal was unmistakably that of Soul Edge.
The sword was not destroyed; it still existed in pieces.

Taki then realized why the ninjas had tried to capture her.
Toki was trying to gather information about Soul Edge in order to find all of the fragments.
Undoubtedly, pieces of the sword, just like the one she held in her hand, were already in Toki's possession.

Knowing the effects that Soul Edge had on those who wielded it, Taki knew she could not let it come into the hands of Toki.

Even without the sword, the head of the Fuma clan was already powerful.
She was afraid to think about what would happen if Toki acquired the evil blade and received its madness.
He could transform into a monster with unfathomable strength.

Taki headed back to Japan.
She could not allow this impending disaster to occur in her homeland.

On her way back to Japan, she sensed the presence of the evil sword.
The metal she possessed began to resonate ever so slightly with the aura of evil.

After she hastily sealed the fragment, she thought about what she should do next.
Should she go after the fragments that her former master had, or exorcise the evil sword itself ?

Either way, time was running out.