Tales of the Dreamworld, 9th Night: The Tale of the Stormsouls
Rated R


     Requiem: (n) 2. An invitation to rest or repose.  
       3. A dirge or solemn chant for the repose of 
       the dead. 4. A state or time of repose; peace, 
       quiet, rest.
     
                    Webster's 3rd New International Dictionary


     Just as every life possesses an instance that can be brought
to life in words, the event becomes a chapter in a book, a story
for others to gaze upon and be swallowed whole within the realm.
     A realm beyond the waking hours, forged from the magik of a
thousand dreamers and their dreams. And with it, a sanctuary not so
far from us where the last earth magiks reside. Within every soul
lies a story to tell, each event a tale to give unto others.
     These tales, both surreal and sensual, are but a few of many
chapters in a world given breath by a creator. Her name is Naoko
Takeuchi. The people and their lives are of her heart and soul.
They belong in her embrace. But the creatures of darkness, and the
Ancients who watch against them, belong to another, and they are of
my skin and soul. I embrace his games and his magik as my own
children.
     I ask that none may steal any of them away from their
creators. The world of the Moon Princess and her royal court belong
to Naoko Takeuchi. Their hearts and souls belong to her; they are
a part of her stories. But the realm of the last magiks of earth is
a part of my own story. Milady Naoko's princesses belong in their
castles beyond the moon, and those of the ancient magiks belong in
their eternal battle against each other. 
     One of honour does not become a petty thief; I ask for your
requests if you wish for my characters to wander other worlds and
other stories.

          -His lordship Chaos  (hislordshipchaos@hotmail.com)
               http://neoharuka.interspeed.net/tales-dw.html



     "Love is Life, and Death at last
      Crowns it eternal and divine."

                    -A. Procter, "Life in Death" (last lines)



     Do you believe in ghosts?
     The supernatural has always been a part of our history.
Throughout time there have been stories--documented and otherwise--
about such creatures lost somewhere between life and death. They
can be kind or cruel, guardians or predators, watching us in the
hopes of rejoining a place where there is sanctuary.
     Some find it in sharing our joys and tears, others in hunting
and dominating. Their wandering souls are a reminder of both our
death and our life. Their powers bridging two realms, they do
exist. And they are among us.
     Do you believe in love?
     There have been stories where one's soul has returned to earth
in ghostly form because they refuse to give up the soul they
possessed. Their emotion is so great they remain tied to this
world. Sometimes for revenge. Sometimes to make amends. And
sometimes to protect the ones they left behind. But for whatever
reason, sometimes their spirit returns to haunt us. When this
happens, no soul shall remain untouched from their presence. From
their power. From their reason for coming back.
     Do you believe?
     Let me tell you a story....


     THE TALE OF THE STORMSOULS


     Amidst months of sweltering heat it arrives: purple clouds
marching through a black sky riven with lightening, thunder, storm-
force winds, and heavy, wet rain. Torrents pour down and nothing
can escape the onslaught. Sometimes such a tempest is expected,
anticipated if not sought after. But sometimes they come of their
own force and their own will, unleashing a display of power that is
not easily forgotten by those caught beneath its darkened heavens.
     The city had seen this storm gathering substance for days
already, the hours of sunlight long having been swallowed up by a
darkness that rivalled the night. For many of the people of Tokyo,
now was a time to brace themselves for the inevitable rage of the
skies. They were only expecting a storm. Yet within the rumbles and
the roars there was magik summoning itself into being, finally
manifested by the swarming armada of black clouds and chariots of
lightening.
     Magik of the darker breeds, the work of mancers in the demon
arts. For days the storm had been gathering its strength, an uneasy
lull falling over the city as the people braced themselves for the
downpour. Yet the rains were only a sign of the true storm. But the
people did not know. They never could know even when the first of
its victims had been claimed. Not until then would the city begin
to understand the magik at work.
     And yet they still knew nothing.
     Here within such a forbidding atmosphere did it feel at home.
Such fear was at work here as this wondrous City of Lights tried to
cope with such a darkness. And if the fear was great, then the
desire to escape it was also great. Therein lied the secret of its
hunting. To fear meant to seek out an escape, and what greater
escape was there than in walking into your beautiful dreams.
     Oh, how easy it was to prey upon these sub-creatures!
     They knew so little of magik and its powers. They were all so
easy to hunt, to play with. What wonders these humans had forged
since it was put to sleep: now they possessed fire to give a city
lights even in the midnight hours. Yes, they possessed fire. But
not the fire magik.
     These humans had all but forgotten the ancient powers that be,
the forces it used and dressed itself in. This new world with its
flashing lights and loud noises had for the most part given it
barely even a second glance. A relic from long ago. A remnant of
superstition. And they were the ones who then lost their souls in
forgetting that in all legends lies a truth.
     No longer did they believe. But simply because they failed to
believe in a bogeyman didn't mean it did not exist. And here it was
given the gift to run rampant and free across this City of Lights.
     The first kill was out of necessity.
     The next one, and the one after that, and the one after that,
were brilliantly delicious. So pure and innocent these little boys
and girls were in the City of Lights. It had drawn them in with its
beautiful illusions so easily, it almost felt sorry for them. But
what was pity? What was mercy? Such words and ideals deserved
nothing but a mere distant thought dismissed even faster than their
incarnation.
     Here in this new world it was free.
     No one knew how to stop it because they had forgotten magik.
     All but a few.
     And it was this handful of souls who were now bent on its
destruction. On such a night, as the winds wailed and the rain
cascaded down in thick sheets of wet darkness, it would have loved
to howl across the heavens and let the humans below learn what the
ancient fear was once like. Yet tonight it was racing for its life,
the predator now becoming the prey.
     Swiftly it moved, making but a swoosh even as it dove across
puddles and swept up waves of water to mask its frantic escape. The
City of Lights became a hazy pool it looked down into as it leaped
onto the rooftops. Howling gales swarmed all around its opaque
form.
     But it was the Wolfen howls that it was running from.
     These ones were not mere human sub-creatures. They moved
differently, and what's more these ones were keepers of the ancient
magik of the Mysts. It knew their scent just as well as they knew
its own.
     They were the Mystwolves.
     It sprang off the edge of a skyscraper, watching the rain-
pelted streets below. So many people with so many beautiful dreams
to be seduced by. To let them see heaven, to let them feel the
warmth of paradise. Leaving their fears behind, it became their
beautiful dream to embrace. No one had ever resisted. Humans were
so pathetically predictable this way.
     But these Mystwolves were of Dreamworld breed, firstborns of
ancient realms and ancient magiks. They could track its scent,
fight its deceptively sweet magik, and bring to a crashing end its
visions of beauty.
     It landed once more atop steel grating. Beneath it warm steam
fought to rise up against the cold rain, shrouding its true form in
a hazy grey mist. Yet it did not take another step. For it was not
alone atop this roof.
     A shadowy figure emerged, a young girl. Even though the
elements of the raging storm were against her, she seemed more
beautifully dangerous than before. Her raven dark hair clustered
around her shoulders, dark violet eyes watching its every breath.
It dared not move.
     The girl's eyes abruptly flashed a blazing sunfire gold,
slitted cat eyes suddenly glowing from the shadows around her. She
was not dressed in that strange sailor-like battle fuku it had once
seen her in before. No, this time she was in human clothes with
shades of black.
     It stiffened as it saw her eyes. Then her aura was as it had
first perceived. She was more than a mere human girl or even a
Mystwolf. She was the Darkqueen.
     "You cannot hide from us," the Darkqueen said, a flash of
lightening revealing her savage smile and wolfen fangs.
     It snarled, turning its head as but a whisper of winds echoed
at its back. Beneath the thrashing battle of thunders and
lightening, the sound was almost inaudible. Yet it heard
everything.
     Now it was between two Mystwolves. One was the Darkqueen. The
other was her consort.
     "End of the line, youma," the Mystwolf stated, his voice
colder than the waves of rain washing over them. Thunder almost
deafening rolled past them. His own golden cat eyes were glowing
through the darkness.
     "Bastard wolfen," it growled, simulating a human voice. Oh how
primitive these words were. There had once been a time where almost
all life but these sub-creatures could communicate beyond words. It
was a wonder the humans ever managed to dominate the planet.
     A wave of steam spewed out beneath its feet, and it changed
form. No longer was it an opaque creature without actual form and
possession. Now it became human, a handsome young man with long
silver hair and piercing magenta eyes.
     "Why must you seek to destroy the paradise I create?" it
asked, its voice now deceptively sweet and alluring. "I am letting
these mortals catch a little glimpse of heaven."
     The Mystwolf growled, crouched low. "You know my face, don't
you?" he asked.
     "I know it well, Okami." It glared, those eyes long before
etched into its mind, burned there from a white-hot branding iron
of a memory. It would never forgive the Wolfen breed.
     "Then you know why I intend to rip your body to shreds," Okami
hissed, his ankh earrings glistening in the rain as they flapped
around in the tempests.
     Its own eyes flashed out in tints of sapphire fading to
scarlet, slitted cat eyes much like those of the Wolfen. "Perhaps
one night," it laughed. "But I sincerely doubt tonight shall be
such a night."
     Magik it invoked.
     It became engulfed within a new blast of hot steam, its male
body smiling at the Darkqueen before it was lost in swirling cloud
of fog and mist. But its now rich and smooth voice was left to
taunt them as it was swallowed up.
     The storm was calling it to other places.
     New fears to feed from. New dreams to weave. New souls to
steal. And all in good time, it would kill these Wolfen who were
hunting it down like a mere animal.
     "Sayonara, Okami," it chuckled.
     The Mystwolf unleashed a violent hiss, clenching his teeth as
he lunged into the thick of the steam. Yet he emerged with nothing
but grey wisps quickly fading in the pouring rain.
     "Kuso," he said. "It got away again. The beast could be
anywhere beneath the storms now."
     She nodded, wiping away the pounding rain from her forehead.
Raven dark hair clung to her cheeks and neck, soaked and glistening
as the lightening streaked across the skies. 
     "For now," she purred, stealing a long and sensuous kiss from
his lips. "But it cannot hide forever. Okami, my beloved, the night
grows dark and cold. We should return home."
     He bowed his head in reverence and respect. "Hai, my Queen."
     For now the chase had ended.
     But there would come another time....


     As a storm sweeps across the heavens, so does it cover
everything in a blanket of starless nights. Not merely shades of
grey but of blackest shadows brought to light only by the ferocious
cascades of lightening. Thunder becomes the only true sound that
manages to echo over the din of pounding rain and the wails of the
winds.
     No part of the city remained safe from the storm's onslaught.
Not even a Shinto shrine which had seen magik of this sort before,
but never a magik like this. At this shrine destinies had been
discovered and intertwined, won and lost and then rediscovered.
     The masquerade wraith stood at the threshold of the veranda on
one of the buildings tucked away to the corners of the temple
grounds. For a time there was nothing much to do but watch the
violent beauty of the storm. 
     With a sigh, the masquerade wraith closed the fusama. "I
suppose sooner or later we'll have to try to get home in this."
     Those who wore watches knew the time to be approaching the
late hours of the evening. Despite knowing that they could sleep in
the next day, they were all showing signs of restlessness.
     "I for one haven't seen anything like this before," the raven
knight agreed. "Even in the jungle forests, the storms were never
this violent or drawn out."
The candlelight in the room was outshone as a glow of white hot
lightening flashed through the paper partitions, followed by an
echoing rumble of thunder that faded only too slowly. 
     The long-haired blonde grappled onto the raven knight, letting
out a playful, frightened shriek. "Ki-chan!"
     She smiled as Kishi stroked the cheek of the long-haired
blonde and said soothing words of charm and allure. The raven
knight certainly did have a way of knowing how to say the right
words at the right time. Her own fingers were laced with those of
her raven angel.
     He smiled gently in nudging closer. "I must admit I'd be
surprised it this manages to frighten you, Mako-chan. After all,
part of your magik is rooted in the storm."
     She playfully tapped the tip of his nose. "Not as much as
Karasu's. But I wish he was here to make the rains stop even for a
few hours."
     He nodded, leaning forward to steal a kiss from her lips.
"Hai, Mako-chan. If I could, I would carry you above the clouds
where there was the light of a crescent moon to shine for only us."
     
     "How romantic!" the long-haired blonde sighed, leaning into
his lap.  
     "Excuse me," the raven knight said, taking the girl's wrist
and pulling the long-haired blonde off his legs. "I'm the only one
who's allowed to charm you like that, Minako-chan."
     The entire room was lit up in glow and shadows as an armada of
lightening bolts streaked across the skies, accompanied by a
convulsion of violent thunder.
     "Wah!" the odango-haired blonde exclaimed in absolute terror,
leaping up and latching onto the closest person around. "I'm
scared, Mamo-chan! Hold me!" 
     The thunder passed them by, the candles once again casting a
glow of flickering lights across the room. Everyone seemed to
regard the odango-haired blonde with stunned amusement. All but
her.
     "Usagi-chan," she said, looking thoroughly unamused. "Would
you mind not groping my fianc‚?"
     The odango-haired blonde looked up to see him thoroughly
stunned, wide crimson eyes staring blankly out into space with
hands frozen by his sides. The girl giggled loudly, drawing back in
embarrassment. 
     "Oh! Gomen ne, Sora-kun!"
     He simply blinked, still trying to overcome the surprise
taking root in his mind. From the other side of the room, the
masquerade wraith and the raven knight desperately tried to keep
from bursting out laughing. They were not very successful.
     "Baka," the dark-haired shrine girl sighed, leaning back
against the shrine protege.
     Managing to snap out of his stunned reverie, he quickly
settled back down next to her. "Gomen nasai, Mako-chan," he said
quietly.
     She laughed, her fingers lacing in with his. "You don't have
to apologize, Sora." She cast a mischievous grin at the odango-
haired blonde. "It's Usagi who should be doing that."
     "I said I was sorry!" the odango-haired blonde protested,
having now properly located the dark-haired prince and curling up
in the young man's arms. "You're all so mean to me!"
     "Daijobu, Usa-ko," the dark-haired prince said. "Mako-chan's
just teasing you."
     "You know what they say!" the long-haired blonde piped up.
"Every minute, a fool trips while running out to buy suckers!"
     Everyone was silent in puzzling over the latest muddled
expression.
     "That's it!" the raven knight exclaimed in exasperation. "I
give up!"
     "Minako-chan," the blue-haired genius said. "That's 'only
fools rush in', and 'there's a sucker born every minute'. Have you
really been studying enough?"
     A round of laughter went up as the long-haired blonde burst
into a fit of nervous giggles. He also found himself chuckling over
the mistake made innocently enough.
     His eyes caught the glimmer of the ring on her finger, the
figures of golden butterflies encircling a small diamondstone. For
now he would wait until that day, until the future became Crystal
Tokyo. 
     "We should be going soon," he whispered into her ear. "I don't
think the rain will let up before morning."
     She nodded. "Hai, Sora. Just give me a moment."
     "As you wish." He lingered with her touch for one more
heartbeat, and then quietly slipped out of the room and its
commotion.
     She glanced over her shoulder as she watched him leave. She
would have to tell him sooner or later. But would it be best if she
told her friends first?
     "Mako-chan?"
     She looked up to find the innocent face of the odango-haired
blonde looking at her. 
     "Ne, Mako-chan, what is it?"
     One expectant face after another turned to her, waiting for
words of either confirmation or denial. Some already suspected,
like the masquerade wraith and the blue-haired genius. She was
grateful that they kept their suspicions quiet.
     She took a deep breath, and began to speak. 
     "I...I'm...."


     It waited within the shadows.
     A human face rippled amidst the darkness, one second hideous
now handsome. There was a blur of long silver hair and piercing
magenta eyes before it was consumed by its envoy of shadows. Such
darkness was easy to hide within, awaiting the time to let them all
find their beautiful dreams come to life.    
     So long as the Mystwolves did not interfere, this City of
Lights would become its first city. When it had taken its fill of
the innocents here, it would move on to a second city, and then a
third, and so forth. No one here believed in the ancient magiks.
Here amidst these noisy carriages and strange glass towers, it
could rule as king of its own heaven.
     It smiled with human lips, chuckling with human voice as it
stepped out into the storm. A grey outline of its body was barely
even visible, dispersed by the rains before a second step was made.
Yet its magenta eyes remained, seen only if a human looked close
enough.
     The young man with a braid of raven wing hair had stepped out
onto the veranda, keeping out from the rain. He stared out at the
temple grounds for minutes on end, solitary yet not quite alone. So
beautiful he was; for a split second it had first mistaken him for
a girl. So gentle a soul and so delicate those crimson eyes.
     It wanted his eyes.
     Those two crimson eyes shifted, pausing and staring right at
it. It's own eyes narrowed, and it flickered out of existence even
more than before. A forgotten ghost.
     Had this human seen it?
     Yet how was that possible?
     His consort stepped out behind the young man, an equally
lovely young woman whose long chestnut brown hair and athletic body
made it crave her all the more.
     "Something wrong, Sora?" the girl asked.
     The young man shook his head. "Iie, Mako-chan. Just the storm.
It feels almost as if the heavens are crying out, and we can't
understand how to heal its pain."
     Its eyes flashed crimson and slitted. 
     "Are you ready?" the boy asked.
     The tall brunette nodded, and then together they leaped out
into the rain, trying to keep themselves dry with their umbrella.
The two were laughing as they splashed through the puddles on the
cobblestone path.
     Without so much as a second glance they passed it by; indeed
if that young raven-haired man had felt its presence, that was by
sheer coincidence. 
     It smiled darkly at its newest targets. There was something
strangely alluring about them both. Male and female, they were all
in love, bound by something that seemed to echo of destiny and
magik.
     And they both had such beautiful dreams.
     "Makkurono Sora...Kino Makoto," it whispered, staring out at
the crashing rains. "You two shall have the honour of being the
first to catch a glimpse of heaven."
     The face of a young man started to take shape, one that the
Mystwolves had seen upon the rooftops. And those same two wolfen
were out on the prowl again tonight. 
     It would have to leave for now.
     But it would return. Most certainly return....


     The rain was still pelting against the windows, though the
lightening and its escort of thunder had faded. Leaving his soaked
clothes in a pile on top of her own damp garments, he changed into
a pair of shorts. His damp braid of hair was cool as it dangled
against his back.
     For a long time he stared out beyond the pane of glass into
the darkness beyond. The city of Tokyo seemed to sparkle through
the blur of water droplets. Such a beautiful city of lights out
there in the midnight heavens.
     He glanced back over his shoulder as she emerged from the
bathroom. A towel around her shoulders as she tried to dry out some
of her hair, she drew closer to him, standing over his shoulder as
he watched the rain fall.
     "Is it still raining?" she sighed, tossing the towel upon her
futon.
     "Sometimes even an act so violent can be a thing of savage
beauty," he said, writing her name in the steam at the base of the
window.
     "It is an impressive storm," she agreed, scrawling his own
name next to hers. He was almost caught off guard as her fingers
wrapped around his chest.
     He turned away from the window, leaving the rain-spattered
glass to its own displays. Strange that tonight he was so
introspective; there was just an unspoken magik within the storm
that gave him this sense of uneasy serenity. Everything seemed to
be moving by in a blur of near forgetfulness since an entourage of
ravens had watched him pull out beyond a mirror's reflection to be
with her. 
     She cooked, he cleaned. They dined together, sometimes by
candlelight and sometimes in front of a movie. Other times they
treated each other to surprise dinners at restaurants. He smiled at
one memory that pushed aside all the others: through connections
with the woman with aqua-green hair, he had managed to find seats
for two on the rooftops of one of the most classiest restaurants in
the city.
     That first night, and all the others after it, had been of
pure magik shared between them. No one at the high school seemed to
speak of their relation in ill will or contempt. If anything, they
seemed to sigh wistfully over it.
     He would never allow anything to harm her.
     Yet the heart of an angel was delicate, fragile even in her
hands. Even as her ring sparkled in the lights of the apartment,
something within his stomach tightened. The sense that everything
was going to change.
     As if this might be their last one like this together. 
     He took her hand, guiding it to his chest. Her palm was warm
against his skin. Gently he pulled her closer, and still kneeling
upon the bed she drew forward and closed her eyes. Their lips met
in a tender kiss that seemed to last for eternity within the
beating of their hearts. As they reluctantly drew away, eyes slowly
opening in the ecstasy of the moment, he swivelled around to sit on
the edge of their futon.
     "Do you love me?" he asked quietly.
     She smiled, laughing as she draped her arms over his
shoulders, her warm breasts against his back. "What kind of a
question is that, Sora? Of course I love you."
     He stared out to the darkened heavens beyond their window. For
a moment he considered speaking, and then withdrew. "Gomen, Mako-
chan. It was rude of me to ask that."
     She brushed aside some of her long chestnut brown hair. "Then
why ask it?"
     "I don't know," he answered. "Just a strange feeling as if
tonight something was coming to pass, something in our destinies
that was inescapable. I cannot quite describe it; a taste of fate,
perhaps."
     She glanced over to the bathroom. Lying in there was the truth
she had been questioning for over a week. And now everything was
known to her, but not to him. For two days she had asked herself
how to tell him, how to tell the others.
     What was the best moment?
     She placed her hand upon her belly, looking down at it.
Somewhere within, a tiny heart was beating in unison with her own.
"Sora-chan," she said. "There...there's something I need to tell
you."
     He turned, that quiet smile on his face. He was willing to
hear whatever she had to say. There had never been a time where she
feared his words. If anything, she feared her own words in his
presence.
     She opened her mouth, yet the words she spoke were somehow
choked in the moment. Was she hesitant in telling him? Yet she was
certain of how he would react. His crimson eyes looked at her with
quiet dedication; for so long he had guarded her beyond her dreams,
and now it was his warmth she felt just before falling asleep. 
     His fingers reached beneath her chin, lifting her face so that
their eyes might gaze into one another's. He was wandering in her
emerald forests once more, content on being forever lost. 
     Finally she decided to say nothing, instead taking his wrist
and guiding his hand to her belly. No words would need to be
spoken. For within her was magik, and within him there was also
magik. 
     Eyes of crimson serenity widened.
     "A child?" he whispered.
     She nodded shyly, almost embarrassed by her state in all this.
All that time she had been feeling sick, thinking it was just a
virus. Yet it proved to be more; this was life, a new life inside
of her. This child shared the magik of two realms, and already she
found herself unable to control a maternal instinct creeping into
her heart.
     Tenderly he embraced her, holding her close in his arms. "I
swear I will let nothing happen to either of you," he vowed in but
a whisper. "Mako-chan, I love you...now--"
     "And forever," she finished, her cheek nuzzling against his
own. In his arms she felt safe, a strange idea given just how
fiercely independent she had once been and still was.
     For a long time they held each other, cheek to cheek. Slowly
they laid down side by side on the bed, lost in the gaze of their
eyes. Hands clasped together, no mere words could have given such
emotion to the magik they shared in those quiet moments.
     "She will be beautiful," he said. "Just like her mother."
     She stared at him in surprise. "You can tell just by touch?
This early?"
     He nodded, unable to hold back his laughter. "Hai, Mako-chan.
Feel the warmth of your daughter's magik."
     He took her hand, placing it on her growing belly. His own
hand rested upon hers, the magik working through them both. She
could feel a tiny heart beating, and a mind that was slowly
discovering the magik it was destined to be born with. And
somewhere in their distant dreams she heard a tiny voice whisper,
"mommy".
     A tear ran down her face as she cuddled next to her raven
angel, unable to speak. That voice was so beautiful, and it was a
part of her now. A part of them both. 
     That hour they came together once more, making quiet love. His
wings of raven's feathers wrapped them both up in soft down and
kept them warm throughout the night. After the moment of ecstasy
she fell asleep in his arms, and as she slept he watched her with
quiet dedication.
     A child and a mother.
     "Now and forever, my Mako-chan," he whispered, kissing her
face. "I shall never stop loving you. Both of you...."


     A new day had come, but while the sun rose to greet the
morning skies, there was no daylight for the people of the city.
Once again black heavens pulsated high over their heads as a steady
drizzle rained down. There was no thunder or lightening, nor were
those displays of magik necessary. 
     They held hands together, walking out through the rainfall
beneath a large umbrella to keep them dry. Arm in arm they window
shopped.
     "Can you believe this weather?" she sighed, kicking at one of
the puddles. "I don't think we've seen sunshine for a week."
     "Clouds cannot remain here forever," he said. "If the storm
decides to stay, there's always magik to force it back."
     She laughed. "And I suppose you'll be the one to do that?"
     He gave a shy grin. "Actually, Meikyu would be the better man
since he's the aquamancer. But I think I could help."
     She abruptly stopped them, staring into the window of a crafts
shop. Emerald green eyes widened as something inside caught her
full attention. "Wait right here!" she said excitedly. "I'll be
right back."
     "What are you going to buy?" he inquired.
     She gave him a playful wink. "It's a surprise. No peeking,
Sora-chan!"
     Through the window he could see her disappear into the back
galleries of the store. He didn't mind that he was staying out in 
the rains; the fresh and moist air reminded him of those distant
mountains and fields that had once been his kingdom. How long had
it been since he had last seen that one Dreamworld?
     A moment passed in where he regretted having left that place,
until he saw her face from behind the window, still scurrying
around the store. He smiled; she was the reason he had been able to
cross over. That would be something he never could nor would
regret.
     His eyes caught sight of someone walking his direction.
Strangely enough this young man was enjoying the rainfall without
an umbrella. That in itself was not quite strange, but it was the
man's eyes: piercing magenta that echoed of something magik. But
magik was almost completely lost to this realm; he dismissed it as
the storm's work.
     They did not quite regard each other as they passed. That is,
until they came shoulder to shoulder. Each one took another step,
and then stopped.
     He slowly turned as he brushed past this young man.
     A chill went up his spine, a cold dark feeling not from the
storms but from something else. But then what else could be giving
him such an eerie sensation? And then he recognized the driving
force behind it all: magik. Dark magik at that. He had just brushed
shoulders with something not human, yet dressed in humanity's skin.
     The stranger too paused, glancing back. Had it had detected
his own aura of a raven angel?  "You can sense my powers?" the
young man asked, visibly surprised. Piercing magenta eyes flashed
a scarlet evil of ancient centuries long forgotten.
     "Youma," he said, his own crimson eyes narrowing.
     The young man turned around to face him, never losing that
dark smile. "And here I thought I was one of the only mancers of
magik left on Earth. It appears I was mistaken."
     "What are you?" he demanded in a low voice.
     The young man chuckled. "Call me Tenshi. All my friends do."
Such an alluring voice to go with that alluring face. "And what,
pray tell, should I call you?"
     There was black hostility, the young man's lips being licked
in anticipation. He took a step back, knuckles whitening around the
umbrella. And he never spoke a word though his eyes said enough.
What an ironic curse that the man's chosen name meant 'angel'.
     "A shame it had to come to this," the young man stated. "I
could have given you your most beautiful of dreams."
     And then those human eyes were for but a heartbeat replaced
with its true eyes: flashed out in tints of sapphire's scarlet,
slitted cat eyes much like those of the Mystwolves. But this
creature was not one of the ancient wolfen. 
     This creature was something altogether different.
     Altogether evil.
     It snarled, low and guttural, smashing its fist into the
ground. An enormous shockwave tore through the sidewalks, throwing
up a cloud of debris that raged towards him.
     His eyes widened, flashing in burning crimson. A glowing wall
of scarlet magik suddenly vented itself out from the ground, rising
up to absorb the force of the attack. The entire street trembled at
the impact.
     The umbrella was lost, clattering across the streets before
being mowed down by a car. The rains were all around him now; in
only a few seconds he was soaking wet. But all that really mattered
in that moment was the youma.
     With a loud shout of incantation he launched an attack,
sending forth tempests of pure, raging wind. The air became so
condensed it shimmered not like glass but ice. The young man
lurched in trying to dodge the attack.
     It rolled across the sidewalk as the winds punched holes into
the cement, rising up only to see him right before it. A point
blank blast of magik sent it reeling backwards, blood spraying out
from its shoulder.
     The youma in the guise of a young man topple backwards,
sliding through a river of water. Although the movements were slow,
it still rose again too quickly. It lifted a finger to its wound,
quickly tasting its own blood before the pouring rains washed it
all away.
     He pushed back the bangs clinging to his damp forehead, the
magik of the whirlwinds circling around his body. She had not yet
emerged; perhaps it was better she wasn't outside and caught in the
middle of all this. 
     The youma chuckled, taking a flying leap as if it were a mere
skip before landing upon the top of a streetlamp. Its eyes
narrowed, another guttural snarl escaping its mouth. All he saw was
a blur crashing through droplets of rain before the demon smashed
into him, pushing him across the street and upwards into the air--
until he felt something shatter around his back.
     He gave a strangled cry as he tumbled onto the floor of the
office building, picking himself up from the field of shards
littering the floor. Suddenly powerful fingers seized his neck,
spinning him around and lifting his feet from the floor.
     The young man had him by the throat, hoisting him out the
broken remains of the window with but one arm. Rain pelted against
his face, cold water mixing with a new, warm sensation that ran
down his cheek.
     Blood.
     The sidewalks and streets were a dizzying three storeys below,
crowds starting to gather and gawk at the deadly spectacle of
warring magiks. His legs were feebly kicking in the air, his lungs
starting to burn. This creature's magik was neutralizing his own;
whatever it was, it was powerful!
     "Impressive," it snarled, clenching its fingers even tighter
around his throat. "You actually managed to cut me."
     With a vicious motion it hurled him through the air, trying to
smash him into either the road or an oncoming car. For a dizzying
few seconds, the world around him spun as he plunged to the puddle-
ridden streets. Car headlights glared in his eyes. Suddenly two
enormous wings of raven feathers unfolded from his back, catching
the tempests as he spun around, hovering over the traffic. A car
gave a frantic honk as it swerved to barely miss him, crashing into
a lightpole. Fists clenched, he summoned churning typhoons that
circled around his hands.
     The young man blinked in surprise as it dropped back onto
another lightpole. "Can it be?" it hissed. "A raven angel here in
this world?"
     He sucked in his breath, even more on the defensive now.
"Masaka," he whispered. How could this beastly monstrosity know of
guardian angels and Shadowdemons?  
     "Then it was indeed the Dreamworld magik I sensed when we
crossed paths," the creature hissed. "Yare yare, and here I thought
having Mystwolves in the city was trouble enough."
     Mystwolves?
     Yet there was little time to think as the youma lunged again.
He recoiled as something hot and sharp ran down the side of his
face. It moved fast, faster than he could react even with his own
heightened powers of magik. He was raised into the air, not pushed
but lifted from a blow. Crashing back down into a pool of water,
thoroughly beyond soaked, he struggled to regain his senses.
     The coat and shirts that had been so very clean at the start
of the day were in shreds, soaked with mud, rain and blood. The
umbrella was long since being lost. Crimson eyes watched as the
guise of the young man stood there before him.
     It was being completely passive now, if not reflective.
     And then he saw her face in the window.
     She cried out his name, racing for the doorway. He saw her
try. It saw her try as well. With a savage gesture, the young man
unleashed a wave of magik that blew back the door and shattered the
storefront windows. She was sent sprawling backwards, unharmed but
still in danger.
     "Mako-chan!" he screamed, whirling to the demon. "Damn you!"
     He charged, throwing out his arms with a tempest of whirlwinds
that tore apart the entire sidewalk. The demon was forced to summon
its own barrier, and then broke through the attack.
     Beams of scattered magik struck his body, pushing him back.
Without a grip on the watery sidewalks, he was neatly send sliding
backwards, almost toppling over. A flash of movement caught his
eyes, and he jerked aside his face. But he was not quick enough,
his throat closing up again as fingers wrapped around it.
     Crashing momentum send them both into the air, where it
hovered and he hung. The dancing form of a long braid the colour of
raven wing fell to the water-soaked streets below. Numb fingers
reached back to feel the ends of chopped hair near the base of his
skull. 
     It said nothing, though he could read the evil in its eyes.
     His face was torn, and he could feel the hot blood pouring
down his cheeks. The world was reeling from its grip on his neck,
and everything was being lost in a strange blanket of fog.
     "You have such a pretty face," it whispered savagely. "I only
I wish I had time to steal your soul. But killing you will bring
enough satisfaction for the time being."
     He lifted his head, staring defiantly into its human face. No,
he couldn't lose. He would refuse to let it see him fear it. For
her, he had to be strong.
     "There are others like me," he said. "If I cannot destroy you
now, then they surely will."
     It smiled, leaning closer until their lips were just a breath
apart. "But what good will it do to a fallen angel?" it whispered.
     And then came the pain, incredible and overwhelming.
Everything in his body went completely numb. Her image flashed
before his eyes, of her smiling face and long, chestnut brown hair.
She smelled like the sweet forest in early morning. 
     He opened his mouth, convulsing once as he coughed out blood.
Something had burrowed through his chest, and as he glanced down he
could see the right side of his ribcage splattered with scarlet
droplets now turning into rivers of the same colour.   
     "I'll savour your taste forever," it whispered, giving him one
last kiss on the cheek. It chuckled, withdrawing its hand.
     The clamp around his neck was suddenly gone. Everything seemed
to float around him. And then a sharp pain racked his entire body
as he struck the sidewalk, followed by the sting of cold water
drenching his already soaked body.
     For a moment he thought he heard the distant scream of his
name being called. The youma had already disappeared, fading away
into the storm which it had always lurked within. The world grew
distant if not like a dream.
     Earth was fading like a dream.
     And then there she was, kneeling over him, cradling his head
in her lap as she looked down at him with trembling emerald green
eyes. So sad, her eyes were.
     "I-Iie," she whispered. "Sora--"
     Her voice became choked, and she could speak no further.
     "Mako-chan," he coughed, the rain washing away the blood from
his face. 
     So cold. The world was growing so cold....
     "Don't talk," she gently chided, cradling his broken body in
her arms. "Everything will be alright, Sora."
     In that moment she appeared to be just like an angel, his own
beautiful angel with silken white wings. Despite the grey downpour
and the howl of the winds, everything seemed to be at peace as he
reached up to let his fingers caress her cheek.
     Just like an angel....
     "Our child," he coughed, trying to let his eyes focus on her
one last time. No matter how hard he could try to deny it, he knew
what was happening. His voice was growing weaker. His body was
growing colder.
     "Hai, Sora," she said, clutching his hand.
     "Our child...she will be just like her mother."
     If she was crying, then her tears were lost in the downpour.
She brought out a small teddy bear, and let him feel it in his
hands. That was to be their first gift for their child.
     "Everything's dancing...." he whispered, staring out into the
heavens beyond her. If only he had one last chance to be with here
again, one last time to dance inside their dreams, one final moment
to say 'I love....
     His grip within hers was lost, fingers sliding out amidst the
rain. His hand fell to the ground, splashing into a puddle of
crimson water. The teddy bear tumbled down the sidewalk, facedown
in a pool of rain. 
     The raven angel had died.
     And somewhere across the expanse of the city, a raven knight,
a shrine protege, a masquerade wraith and a Mystwolf consort felt
the chilling ripple as Dreamworld magik died with the last beating
of his heart. The ripples crossed beyond the boundaries of worlds,
reaching into the heart of Illusion and stretching its waves into
the Sanctuary.
     Everyone who felt the wave straightened up, staring with wide
eyes into the heart of a city beneath the storms. And there, within
the city and beneath the very heart of the storm, she clutched her
beloved tighter than before, unable to stay with him yet unwilling
to leave.
     "Iie! Iie! IIE!! SORATA!!!!"


     Sometimes it was strange to exist on the crossroads of time
and space. Other times it was lonely, with hardly a soul to talk
to. How old was she now? That guess was almost lost to even her.
     As the guardress, bearing the sacred key-shaped staff that
controlled the gates of time, long ago she had been charged by
Chronos to ensure that no one abused the portal. There had been a
warning at the time by the Ancient.
     The time guardress sighed, glancing from scene to scene that
came to her in a series of cascading images of places and events.
In this one children were playing in a park. In the next, an
ancient serpynt-dragon duelled with a knight. And in the third was
the obscured image of a city destined to become legend in the not-
so-distant future.
     She turned as a new portal began to appear, mysts of time
parting to allow passage for but a single soul. Out from the grey
fog appeared the Wanderer, dressed as she had always seen him. But
this time the shades were missing to display very stern if not
angry blue eyes.
     "This is the first time you have ever come into my realm," the
time guardress said, taking no surprise to the appearance. Perhaps
she had known he was coming all along.
     "I have added power with Morpheus' Imagika," the Wanderer
answered, closing the gap between them. "And I'm enough of a master
of illusions to know how to properly trick your own portal into
opening for me."
     "I'm impressed with your accomplishment," she said.
     "I won't lie and say I came here just to catch up on old
times," he stated. His voice was even in tone, but cold none the
less. "Why didn't you say anything about this? You could have done
something to prevent this from ever happening!"
     She spun her staff, walking around one of the mirrors of time.
Her watery reflection appeared in behind the scene played out. "If
you are referring to Sora's death, then I am sorry. But I can do
nothing. You know the dangers of paradox, Karasu. Collecting them
seems to be a hobby of yours."
     The Wanderer's fist clenched even tighter; he was biting his
tongue to keep from saying something that might put a tear into
their friendship. As much as she respected him for his honesty, she
respected him even more for that.
     "Dammit, Setsuna!" he exclaimed finally. "You once told me
that when the Wiseman attacked Crystal Tokyo, the guardian angels
returned to the Dreamworld to do battle. Now Sora is dead. Did you
foresee that in the future too?"
     "I never said anything to the contrary either," she replied.
"Karasu, time is not as simple a magik to work with as you might
think. Paradox shadows me wherever I choose to go. But I said that
the guardian angels would return to the Dreamworld for a time; I
did not say who returned or how many were alive to return."
     For what could have been an eternity or a second in her own
eyes, they simply watched each other. Then the Wanderer backed
down, visibly just as verbally. For a time he stared into another
mirror of time. The season of winter was fading with the March
month, lingering just a few days longer.
     He propped up his arm against the surface, resting his head
there. Pennant blue eyes staring into the mirror's world.
     "Just days ago, Rei-chan had her birthday. Everyone but you
were there at the Sanctuary. That was the last time I saw him
alive, Setsuna. And I never had a chance to tell him anything."
     His forehead gently rested upon the glass, eyes closing for a
moment. "Yui-chan...it was the same for her. There was nothing I
could do for either of them. Out of us all, he wasn't the one who
deserved to die like this. Kishi, Okami, Meikyu, even Yuichiro now
that he has the powers to fight; we are all hunters and warriors.
If given the chance, we all would take up our magiks and attack.
But Sora...Sora was never like that. A gentle soul. His only reason
to ever fight was out of the necessity to protect. That's why he
became a raven angel."
     "You're blaming yourself for something that you were never
even there for," she said. "Sora chose to engage the youma in
battle. He knew the possible consequences."
     "I should have sensed something though!" he snapped angrily,
more directing inwards than projected at her. "Dammit, Morpheus
left me in charge of the Sanctuary. I should have felt the magik of
that demon before it even got close to Sorata."
     Karasu glanced around this realm one more time. "I need to go.
Usagi and the others would want me to be there for Makoto. I can
fool my sphere of illusion to letting me go, if only for a few
hours."
     He turned to leave through the same illusion as he had come.
     "I'm afraid you cannot," she countered. 
     The Wanderer's eyes suspiciously turned to her. "And just
exactly why do I have to remain in your null zone?"
     The time guardress gave an enigmatic smile. "Thanatos'
request."
     He sighed, shrugging. "Figures. But at least he could have
told me something about this. I hate it when the Ancients decide to
step in without previous notice."
     "Do you believe in the Bogeyman?" she asked, leaning against
her key-shaped staff.
     The Wanderer lifted his head, replacing the shades over his
crystal blue eyes. "Which ones?" 
     "Earthen Bogeymen," she replied. "I know just as well as you
how rampant Bogeymen are in the Dreamworld. But do you believe in
the Bogeymen of Earth?"
     The Wanderer laughed in spite of his frustrations, shaking his
head in weary disbelief. "I personally have yet to meet one," he
answered, staring into a mirror of time. "But I believe in its
familiars."
     Beyond the face of the mirror a child was laughing upon a
swing. So peaceful and innocent. Why did the world have to be
against such laughter?
     "Then why do you believe that everything has ended?" she
asked. "The battle is not yet over. Not for you. Not for Sora. Not
for anyone."
     He turned away from the mirror, the impact of her words taking
root in his mind. Yet as open as his mind was through being a lost
soul, some things still escaped his grasp. 
     "What do you mean?" he asked.
     Her response was with another question: "This demon is still
alive, isn't it?"


     A day had passed, and the day into night, neither one seeing
the light of the sun. The rains had stopped but the blackest of
clouds were still overshadowing the moonlight. In a few short hours
the sunlight would be denied its brilliance. It had been this way
for days on end, and would continue until a new deception was
desired. The people of this City of Lights would begin to suspect
the magik, and be on their guard. Soon the storms would end. And
then a new illusion of deadly beauty would seduce another innocent
soul.
     Here at the Shinto shrine, no one was around. It was an empty
place at this hour. And thus all the more reason for magik to
present itself. A lone, solitary raven alighted the frame of the
torii, giving a loud mournful caw. Cocking its head, the raven
watched the moonless sky, waves of black clouds moving forth but
never separating to reveal a midnight heaven.
     The raven was joined by another.
     And then another.
     And another.
     And yet another upon another, each one alighting the torii.
They gathered together, converging upon the towering gateway
between worlds. Once before had these ravens converged to usher in
a crossing over. Now the time had come again for another step
beyond boundaries to be taken. Yet this time the step taken would
be a new one for them all.
     The ravens remained undisturbed as there was a brief flash of
grey that shot through the trees surrounding the temple grounds. In
fact the ravens seemed to be expecting it.
     A lone young man landed beneath the torii, crouched low to the
ground. The form was human, but the eyes and fangs and magik were
of ancient wolfen blood. The Mystwolf growled, paused beneath the
crimson gateway, sniffed, glanced at the eerie shadows of the
towering frame cast upon the cobblestones in the streetlights.
     The Mystwolf was also awaiting for something.
     The wait was not long.
     An entourage of ravens seemed to throw themselves into a fury,
soaring in a cyclone around the crimson torii at the front of the
Shinto temple. The Mystwolf became lost in a frenzy of wings and
feathers; even when the ravens dispersed and returned to their
perches upon the torii, the Mystwolf was gone.
     And then there he was, no longer confined to a spectral form
beyond common sight. The ends of a severed braid dancing over his
shoulders in the breeze, he studied the surroundings. The
gentleness was gone. The compassion swallowed up. Instead there was
only grim vengeance. In crossing over something had been lost,
buried deep in the back of his mind. For now he was not allowed to
find it.
     He ran his fingers down the side of his face, touching the
features of a raven angel. Everything was coming back in scattered
fragments that could be called memories. Raven wing hair fluttered
around his face.
     A spectre in his mind's eye watched.
     His senses were reeling. This body was listening to a beating
heart blocks away, catching someone's laughter over the pouring of
wine in a restaurant, smelling a thousand scents that he could
somehow recognize. He reached out the ravens, fingers splayed.
Their auras were within his vision, the colours dancing and
brilliant.
     Was this what it felt to be a Mystwolf?
     He whispered, "Give me a body and I will destroy it...."
     A voice called out from beyond his mind, from beyond his
present time and world. "Impossible. A Vampyre's magik is forged to
seek out your dreams, letting them play on your hopes and
fantasies. Before you realize you're in danger--"
     A savage snapping of jaws.
     He winced at the sound as it echoed across the midnight skies. 
     "--your soul belongs to them. Become a true spectre and learn
the art of such a magik."
     He raised his hand, studying a symbol of what he had come back
for, that which was wrapped around one of his fingers. "Angel," he
whispered, staring at the ring. 
     A flash of the band reflected a streetlight, catching him in
the eyes. He recoiled, a cascade of images pouring into his mind.
A body lying in the streets that was his own. A swerving car. 
     The voice returned, doubling up on itself so that he heard an
echo quick on the heels of the last words spoken. His head began to
throb, and he closed his eyes.
     "...preys upon the innocent and the beautiful. The purer you
are, the greater the rush when they steal your soul..."
     He never realized that his head had snapped back, mouth agape
in a silent scream that was lifted up beyond the writhing mass of
black clouds. 
     Scarlet warmth running down his chest. Falling to the rain-
soaked ground and listening to its sadistically sweet laughter.
     "...You had such an irresistible gentleness to you. But then
it saw your human soulmate..." 
     Her huddled form, cradling his body. A name....
     "Ma...ko...to...," he gasped.
     "...And it finds Kino Makoto to be a very beautiful
creature..."
     That face. That bastard's handsome face.
     Not her!
     Those eyes. Long silver hair.
     Not her!
     "...A very beautiful creature indeed..."
     NOT HER! 
     Suddenly he threw back his head, arms splayed out as he lifted
a howl of rage that echoed across the entire City of Lights. A boom
of thunder drowned out the animal inside being unleashed. The dam
of clouds burst, pelting rains falling over the city.
     "MAKO-CHAN!!!" he screamed. 
     Before the last breath of howl was sucked out from his lungs,
he flung a clenched fist into cobblestone, the Mystwolf battle aura
exploding. Stone was reduced to cracked fragments, the shockwave
rippling right up to the fronts steps of the jinja.
     Crackling bolts of something not quite wolfen streaked across
the ground, spiralling around his fist as he lifted it to his face.
This was not wolfen magik, nor was it an angel's magik. This was
something new.
     "Like to destroy like. Stormsoul to destroy Stormsoul," he
stated, crimson eyes slowly morphing into the slitted eyes of a
cat. 
     "...no other way but for you to become what it is..."
     The drenching rains held no feeling upon his skin as he leaped
into the air, alighting the torii. Despite the torrential storm
emerging, again the ravens kept close, waiting. Crimson eyes
narrowed as he caught a familiar scent in the air. It was time to
hunt down the powers of the howling storm. The guise this creature
who had murdered him had been one used for centuries on end.
     Three new runes burned into his skin, each one a blazing
crimson of new-found magik that was not his own. One on each
forearm, bearing the marks of Wind and Thunder. A third appeared on
the back of his neck, glowing with the rune of Lightening.
     Abruptly the marks faded, and in their place was forged a new
one to symbolize their mergence into one powerful magik. The last
one upon his forehead shone and did not fade: it was the Storm rune
itself, mark of the Stormsoul.
     "Then let it begin," he snarled.
     The ravens lifted their wings and he became lost in a cloud of
moving bodies and feathers of midnight. As the ravens dispersed
they left nothing behind. He was already gone.
     At the base of the stairs leading up to the Shinto shrine, a
young girl more older than one might assume watched the scattering
avian harbingers.
     "My Okami," the Darkqueen whispered. "Watch over Sora."


     She was sobbing uncontrollably, her face buried in the tear-
stained arms of the odango-haired blonde. Deep emerald green eyes
were stained with sadness, with feeling lost and alone in a world
suddenly turned twisted.
     "Daijobu, Mako-chan," the odango-haired blonde whispered,
tears running down the girl's face in speaking. "You've come this
far. We'll all make it through somehow. We'll all make it
through...."
     The dark-haired prince held her hands. "Makoto, we'll be here
for you as long as you want us to be here."
     Their words came to her as distant voices, visions on the edge
of her senses. Her world was reeling; he had given her so much and
asked for so little in return. Every night she had taken for
granted his warm body next to her own, arms encircling her to
protect her as they dreamed. 
     The dark-haired shrine girl stared out the window with
clenched fists. "What could possibly be so cruel to kill someone
like Sora?"
     Her eyes widened, fists shaking in silent fury over his death.
Slowly she forced herself to rise, taking a weak and shaky step
towards the window. She stumbled, and the long-haired blonde caught
her up.
     She seemed to collapse into the girl's arms, leaning her head
on the long-haired blonde's shoulder. "Mako-chan," the long-haired
blonde asked quietly. "What are you going to do about your child?"
     "I don't know," she answered through her tears. "I don't
know...."
     Lightening sent shadows racing across the walls behind them,
the room trembling at the sound of thunder. The storm was far from
over.
     "Sora," she cried softly. 
     

     They were mourning in their own way, as warriors could only
mourn. For while tears would one night be shed for their fallen
comrade, his death symbolized a danger to them all. Three guardian
angels were in solemn silence at her kitchen counter, each one
wearing an expression of their anger.
     "What in the hell could do this?" the shrine protege demanded
quietly, pounding a fist back against the wall. "What could kill a
raven angel?"
     "I don't know," the raven knight said. "This holds the scent
of Earthen magik. I may know the evils of the Dreamworld, but the
creatures of this realm are unknown to me."
     "That doesn't help our situation, Kishi," the masquerade
wraith said. "Makoto never saw anything except for Sora's death,
and any witnesses lost their memories. How damned convenient for a
wielder of magik."
     Kishi let out an exhausted breath, arms crossed over his
chest. "I almost killed him once. If Minako-chan hadn't stopped
me...I don't think we ever really made amends for that. We just
left it unsaid. Damn it all, why did it have to be him?"
     The shrine protege was fighting back tears as they spoke,
unwilling to accept that which had already conspired against them.
Their ranks had been reduced by one, an angel not deserving of such
a demise.
     "Yuichiro?" the raven knight asked.
     "I keep thinking about his face," the shrine protege said
quietly, eyes fixed on something other than them. "He was almost
like a little brother in this life; I don't think I ever wanted to
see him cry. If he was to die, this was a most cruel fate."
     "Save your memories for later," the masquerade wraith said
solemnly if not coldly. "We have work to do."
     "Meikyu!" the raven knight snapped. "Don't you feel anything?
Sorata is dead!"
     "I know that," Meikyu replied evenly. "And whatever killed him
is still out there right now. If we don't destroy it soon, then
before the night is over someone else will die too."
     Meikyu slowly turned to the window as a flash of lightening
spread an eerie hue across the entire apartment. In that moment the
wraith's jade green eyes glowed brighter than before. "I mourn his
loss deeper than you know, Kishi. But I can feel its magik in the
storm. It will be out hunting again tonight. And I don't want
another soul to end up like him."
     "Will it come after us now?" Kishi asked.
     "Until we know for certain, none of us sleeps," Meikyu stated.
"Yuichiro, since you are originally human, you are granted the
exception; we need for you to find Okami and Hotaru-sama. Being
Mystwolves, they should at least know something." 
     Yuichiro bowed slightly. "Consider me there. But what about
the others?"
     "Let them stay with Makoto," the masquerade wraith said,
casting a backwards glance at the closed bedroom door. "As much of
a fighter as she is, she desperately needs their company right
now."
     Kishi nodded in agreement. "Meikyu, I take it we're going
hunting."
     The masquerade wraith gave a dark smile, the flash of the
Tsunami scythe appearing. "Hai. It's time to be guardian angels
once more, and avenge our fallen brother."


     With inhuman eyes it watched three young men step out from her
apartment. Each one radiated with a glowing aura of magik. Such a
unique force not to be found on Earth alone.
     So, there were more raven angels like the one it had already
slain with surprising ease. To think that so many could be given
the chance to break free of the boundaries of the Dreamworld, and
exist here as sub-creatures.
     They were as foolish as the human mortals.
     Such arrogance in thinking that they were the targets. In due
time perhaps. Yes, they all held to them a beauty it wanted to
possess for itself. In time they all would be given a glimpse of
heaven, or be sent to hell.
     For now it wanted the beautiful young girl with the long
chestnut brown hair. She who had been the soulmate of the raven
angel with crimson eyes.
     "Kino Makoto," it whispered, features once more growing human.
Long silver hair and seductive magenta eyes watched the three
guardian angels leave.
     Three new warriors for its three new succubuses.  
     

     An hour had passed since her friends had left her to her own
tears. And yet those tears were gone. Her heart was still numb, her
stomach still twisted, but for now the tears were finally gone.
     Noises from the other rooms.
     She smiled; they were still keeping watch over her. But she
was stronger than that. Once before she had overcome the solitude
of her parents' death. With him it would be different: the scars
would run deeper, the tears run more bitter.
     Yet she would survive. He would have wanted it that way, a
chance to bring up their child in peace and serenity, learning the
ways of magik and the Dreamworld. Her hand rested upon her belly,
reaching out with her own magik to feel the heartbeat of the
daughter within. 
     "Daijobu," she whispered softly, her voice almost already that
of a mother's. "We'll make it through this, little one."
     "Mako-chan...."
     She turned her head. The winds against her bedroom window were
playing cruel tricks on her mind. For a moment she thought it was
his voice whispering to her. But could that be possible? There was
no other whispering in the winds.
     Emerald green eyes stared out at her reflection. Such a tall,
supple form she had; she felt more exposed now even with her
clothes on. In a few weeks the pregnancy would begin to show.
     What would happen then?
     Ravens sounded off over the din of the storm outside her
window. She glanced away, watching the rains instead of herself. A
strange calm washed over her in seeing the water strike against the
windowpane. Steady, rhythmic beating.
     It surprised her when a small, black object floated past her
face. "Na...ni?" she asked aloud, raising her hand to catch the
raven's down from its lazy descent. The feather was soft in her
palm, bringing back so many memories.
     Her heart began beating faster. She held her breath. This had
happened once before on a night so distant in the past yet still so
clear in her memories. Slowly her eyes returned to the mirror.
     Then there he was, standing inside where her reflection once
was. Head bowed, raven wings folded behind, hands pressed against
an invisible surface dividing them. The braid was still gone,
severed near the base of his skull. Loose strands fluttered in a
wind she never felt.
     Crimson eyes opened and his head lifted up.
     "S-Sorata," she stammered.
     How was this possible?
     It was him, her raven angel. Yet he was different somehow. His
eyes: they were crimson but holding the form of a Mystwolf. Slitted
feline eyes. Was the form before her even his true body?
     "Mako-chan," his voice called to her.
     She whirled, stunned to hear those words spoken within the
room and not the mirror. He was a step away from her, a gentle
expression once more on his face. His wings stretched out until
each tip touched her walls. 
     Inside, away from the water, it was raining raven's down.
     "M-Masaka," she whispered, stepping away.
     "My time here on Earth is short," he said, slowly moving
closer. Raven wings folded in back of him.
     "But you...you...."
     He turned away, his own torn soul reflected in crimson eyes.
"I don't know what I am now, Mako-chan. But I know what I must do."
     "You came back for me?" she asked, hopeful. Was this a second
chance? Was this the requiem for an angel?
     He shook his head. "Iie, Mako-chan. Under another midnight
sky, I would have come for one last moment together with you. But
the storm is in full fury. I cannot be here with you now. It's
still out there, Mako-chan, and I cannot rest until it's dead."
     Unable to do anything but stare at him, she remained silent.
No mere words would have been able to express the emotions tearing
her apart. 
     Suddenly she was swept up in his arms, in folded wings of
raven's feathers, soft and warm. His lips were close to her own,
just a breath's kiss away. His scent was of midnight, fresh spring
rain, of a soul who had decided to ride lightening and tame
thunder. 
     Such a soft, quiet voice, one that she never believed would
harm her or anyone else. His was a voice she listened to when
sometimes she awoke in the dead of night, lulling her back to sleep
with his gentle breathing.
     "I can't ask you to understand, Mako-chan. I barely even
understand myself right now. This is something I have to do; the
magik in my blood is burning."
     He gripped her tighter, and she buried her face into the base
of his neck. Fierce passion without fallen tears was etched into
her face. She never wanted the moment to end, and yet knew that it
must.
     "You've always been a strong soul for as long as I have known
you or your dreams. I'm asking you to stay strong for just a little
while longer, Mako-chan."
     She understood. Somehow deep within she understood, no matter
how much she wanted to seize him and force him to stay by her side.
All but a glimpse of that demon she had seen. It was still out
there, hunting, stalking. She was in no condition to chase after
it, not with him between realms like this.
     "Please," she asked of him. "Just hold me, Sora. Please hold
me for just a little while longer."
     He smiled, fingers running through her silken brown hair. "I
had almost forgotten how lovely your hair smells. So much like that
first night together in the hotsprings."
     She nodded, content to just stay in his arms and listen. But
then he stepped back, delicately pushing her away. Tonight the
storm was raging near out of control, and he had to leave.
     She touched her cheek as a teardrop escaped her guarded heart.
"Be careful," she said. The bedside light caught part of her ring,
the diamond's glow striking his cheek.
     "I remember our promise," he whispered.
     He bowed, slowly fading away like a ghost, or else as a
forgotten dream. His eyes were so haunting, both angel and Mystwolf
as one. "If ever there was a day without a night, ever a moon
without its stars, so too would be my soul if ever we were apart.
I love you, Mako-chan. And I will come back for you."
     She smiled, wiping away the tears. "Do what you have to do,"
she whispered. "I'll wait for you, Sora. As long as it takes, I'll
wait for you to return."


     Somewhere between the waking world and the realms of the
dreamers lies a sanctuary built to protect the last magiks that
ever existed on Earth. Long since destroyed, plundered and
exploited, this place was their last hope for survival. Galleries
upon galleries were amassed to give serenity for those of the last
magiks. Yet there were chambers meant not to protect those of magik
from Earth, but to protect Earth from those of magik.
     It was quiet within an empty Sanctuary; the only noise was the
faint whispers of the winds. And then those whispers took their own
life and will.
     "Chaos...."
     The winds moved steadily across the Sanctuary, sweeping from
one gallery into the next. Like a river of pure unseen air the
chorus made its way down corridors and through atriums. The
galleries less seen flashed by, the darker recesses of magik being
passed over.
     "Awaken...."
     The very air rippled, and for a brief instant, a myst that
resembled ghostly spectres flickered into sight. The winds pushed
into a final circular chamber, one decorated with scarlet banners,
and small chests adorned with gemstones and ancient runes. Six
boxes in total were placed within the circular wall, but they were
all discarded.
     The winds moved around the central pedestal, where a single
chest rested. Swirling, caressing, the air searched this Pandora
Box for the key to open the lock. The lock to unleashing an ancient
Elven lord known as Chaos. The glowing sapphire and its facets
suddenly gave off a flash of blue light, and the lid popped open
just enough to let a flood of thick, grey mist pour out.
     And there was Chaos, leaning on the pedestal and silently
watching as he let the mists run past his hands and through his
splayed fingers. There was a moment of retrospective silence in the
Elven lord's demeanour.
     Then came the impish smile.
     "Karasu?" he called out, unable to wipe the gleeful smirk off
his face. He couldn't wait to see the Wanderer's expression upon
learning he was back out of the box again!
     Yet the chambers seemed disturbingly deserted.
     Chaos moved away from his Pandora Box, examining the gallery.
Everything seemed to be deserted. No one was anywhere near here.
The only sounds that brought life to empty corridors were the
echoes of his own footsteps.
     So then who opened his box?
     "I daresay," the Elven lord remarked sourly. "Bad form.
Really, I must ask as to what game I'm playing tonight?" 
     There was no response. Only an echo.
     "Karasu, if this is retribution for the Imagika thing, you'll
have to beat the apology from my lifeless body!"
     Yet Chaos' voice only echoed across empty hallways and atrium.
"Where in the hell is everyone?" he muttered, sticking his head
into another corridor, just as vast and just as deserted as all the
others before it.
     Did they all hold an end of the world party and have the
audacity not to invite him for such an occasion?
     "Chaos...."
     He paused.
     Those whispers in the winds: he knew them from somewhere.
     "Get ready for a new game, Elvenchild...."
     "What in the hell's going on?" he said, scouring the Sanctuary
for the source of those whispers. 
     Something didn't feel right about this at all; the DreamSeer
was to only leave the Sanctuary to retrieve a surviving magik still
on Earth. Yet his release would have sent some shockwave of magik
to let Karasu know he was out from the Pandora Box.
     They came again.
     This whispers came.
     "Chaos...."
     The Elven lord took one final glance back at the resting
places of all his comrades, those of his Court. None of them were
undisturbed in their chests. So why had he been suddenly released
from his box? 
     "Shimatta," he muttered.
     Against his better wishes, a decision to find the Wanderer was
made.


     Death.
     This was the scent he recognized.
     It was permeating the very air, pulsating with each cloud that
lingered over the city like a plague of darkness and lightening.
Something was stolen, raped of its natural beauty. And whatever had
done this was still out here.
     Her tears still haunted his memories. Was that time their
final moment together, his requiem? "Mako-chan," he whispered.
     Atop the roof of an apartment building he stood, oblivious to
the rains steadily pouring down all around him. Wings of raven
feathers folded against his back, he let the Mystwolf senses
bestowed upon him gather what he wanted: a trace of the beast.
     Magik touched the edge of his mind. He whirled as a shadow
rippled behind him; it was something only his Mystwolf sense could
ever detect. He growled, coiled and ready to strike.
     "You," he demanded. "Who are you?"
     A young man chuckled, coming out into the light.
     This seemed to be human, with short yet wild silver hair and
mortal clothes. But those eyes were cat-like in nature, glowing a
fierce golden yellow.
     "Mystwolf?" he whispered. "Okami...."
     "Don't fool yourself, Sora," the Mystwolf cut in. "What you
see before you is a spirit, a projection of my own Imagika. You
see, that's my body you're occupying right now. My own mind lays
dormant in the back of your thoughts."
     The cold winds and soaking rains held no feel upon his skin.
Nor did he have the time to care about how it felt. Everything
seemed strangely alive and glowing in an aura he could not
recognize. 
     "This is the only time I can come before you like this," the
Mystwolf said. "All my magik is being consumed to keep your soul
aligned in my body. What I carry to you now is a warning: you lose
sight of what you returned for, and this will all be for nothing."
     Her face flickered in his mind's eye for a moment, and he
longed for her touch. Those final moments together and that distant
sensation as he watched the teddy bear tumble into the pools of
water.
     That voice: "...in truth, it would have seduced you, Sorata,
before the night was out..." 
     The Mystwolf joined him at the edge of the apartment, propping
a foot up on the ledge in peering at the streets below. "The
guardian angels of the Dreamworld have never died. You are the
first."
     The voice: "...but when you sensed it to be of the youma, it
decided to kill you instead..."
     "But we are mortal," he countered, his eyes looking down at
the lights of the moving vehicles. "Even in the Dreamworld we could
be killed, and our kingdoms conquered."
     He felt a chill run down his spine as the spectre of the
Mystwolf slowly turned to stare at him in the eyes. The rain was
coming down hard, yet Okami remained unaffected. So much like a
ghost.
     "That was the Dreamworld. Earth is not that place, so forget
anything you know about your home realm. In the past, raven angels
have crossed over to Earth. And they lived peaceful lives with
their soulmates."
     A second glance back at the city and its lights sprawled out
before them. "But when the reason for them to cross over was gone,
when their soulmate died, they disappeared." Okami glanced back at
him with a mysterious smile. "I hold little doubt that the angels
faded away to simply be with their beloved for all eternity.
Poetic, ne?" 
     His beloved.
     The engagement ring upon his finger was no longer there, lost
somewhere between life and death. She would still remember him
always, but what else was left for him? Yet regardless she was in
danger; that was his reason to return.
     "Makoto," he whispered.
     He turned back to Okami, only to discover the Mystwolf but a
fleeting memory, steam pouring out from a vent in the roof. Another
display of savage lightening spread across the midnight skies,
illuminating his face as he stared out at this City of Night. For
a brief instant the cat-like eyes of the Mystwolf were human.
     That voice from before returned: "...where it all began..."
     So distantly familiar.
     Had that all been a dream?
     "...Angel of the night...spread your raven wings..."
     By the time the next series of lightening bolts sounded off in
a crackling roar of thunder, he was gone. The scent was growing so
much more clearer to him now.


     The shrine protege grimaced. 
     The Darkqueen had not been with Okami. In fact, neither one of
them were at the Tomoe residence. Since the time the sun's final
rays should have been visible to the city, they were gone. So then
where were they?
     "Shimatta," he muttered, adjusting his umbrella as the winds
shifted directions and angles. His pants and shoes were soaked. He
considered forgoing on the umbrella and just let the rains finish
their job.
     "Yuichiro...."
     He swivelled, fists clenched as his own illusion-borne magik
was summoned. None of them had any idea what this demon was or even
what powers it could wield. To hear his name called like that sent
every nerve in his body on edge.
     "Who's there?" he demanded.
     But his eyes found nothing except for empty streets drenched
in the pouring rain. The shrine protege turned, suddenly finding
himself standing beneath the frame of the Shinto temple's torii.
The storm had stopped and the clouds around the moon were being
swept away.
     What was he suddenly doing here?
     "Na...ni?" he muttered.
     "Yuichiro," came the voice.
     He turned his head once more, his soaked garments now black
armour, and a flowing crimson cape behind that. They were standing
on the edge of ancient ruins that might have once been a kingdom on
the moon.
     "Rei-chan?" he asked.
     She was there, the dark-haired shrine girl, seductive yet
demure in staring at him. The girl held out a hand, beckoning him
to approach. Cautiously he took a step forward. Something sticky
seemed to be on the side of his face; he assumed it to be rain or
sweat.
     "What's going on?"
     Suddenly she raced into his arms, sweeping her arms around
him. The shrine protege was stunned, uncertain of what to think let
alone how to react.
     "Yuichiro!" she sobbed. "I was so worried about you! He...he
had told me you were dead. And I almost believed him, but I never
gave up hope. I waited for you to come back." 
     He gently but firmly pushed her back, staring long and hard
into her face. "What is this?"
     The girl's smile faded. "You...you mean you don't remember me,
Yuichiro? You don't remember us, how we were and still are pledged
to be married?"
     She held up her hand to reveal the engagement ring, and then
brought up his own hand to reveal a matching ring. He held his
breath, fixated on her hypnotic, violet eyes.
     Her touch was electric, his skin tingling.
     Strange images filtered into his mind. One instant he saw the
two of them laughing together in a quiet atrium, the next they were
laying together in a field of wildflowers. He saw himself leaving
the palace, dressed for battle.
     "We are together again, Yuichiro-san, my love," the girl
whispered. "And together we shall forever be."
     She took his hand and lifted it to his face, where he felt the
sticky river near his temple. That was blood, his blood. Where had
he received such an injury?
     "This makes no sense," he said, trying to desperately make
sense of it. He wasn't dreaming; this wasn't a dream...was it? 
     He stifled a gasp, eyes widening as the girl took his hand and
guided it between the folds of her blouse. The warmth of her breast
was against his palm, a nipple in between two of his fingers.
     "R-Rei-chan," he said.
     The girl smiled, caressing his cheek. She sighed as he tried
to pull out his hand only to find he couldn't will himself to do
that. She pushed herself closer to him.
     "Hai. Let me show you heaven, Yuichiro, where we can be
together at last."
     "Something's not right here," he said, trying to fight back
against...against what? What was there to fight? The faint image of
a storm flickered into his memories.
     The shrine protege gave a stifled gasp as fangs sank into his
neck, the magik swiftly working to poison his mind and steal his
soul. His hand dropped the umbrella before the rest of his body
collapsed into the rain-laden sidewalks.
     With a giggle, the girl retreated into the shadows, long dark
hair becoming shoulder-length dirty blonde. 
     "Delicious."


     They numbered three.
     Three what?
     "Three Storms," he murmured.
     Atop the downtown lights and neon signs he perched, wings half
outstretched to keep part of him out from the torrents of rain.
Something was leading him here. Her apartment was nowhere near this
part of the city, yet it was so burned into his heart to find
himself sitting here that he could do nothing but follow it.
     Rajin...thunder. 
     He winced slightly, eyes slitted as a new onslaught of
lightening and deafening thunder shook the city once more. Was
there no end to this damned storm?
     Fujin...wind and tempests. 
     A car some three storeys below his towering neon sign gave a
shrilling honk before spinning out of control, waves of water
drenching those on the sidewalks. The vehicle rolled, metal
twisted. People screaming.
     Raiden...lightening...that which was a lord of the storm.
     The sign below his feet changed colours, proudly displaying
brilliant advertisements. A label he cared not to read. His wings
now fully extended, he dropped towards the earth.
     What did these names of ancient myth mean to him? There was
only one name consuming his mind. Only one face haunted this thing
he could possibly call a life; a body given up for the sole purpose
of exacting revenge and protecting his beloved.
     Without even disturbing the growing puddles, he landed. Wings
folded back and he searched the streets for the magik of this
creature.
     "...purity of the storm's magik has been poisoned by this vile
creature..."
That voice; it was one that commanded authority by its very words,
the soul behind it not to be trifled with or questioned. One of
great and deadly magik.
     "...I offer you a second chance, raven angel. Return to Earth
and destroy that which killed you..."
     "Stormsoul to destroy Stormsoul," he whispered, fists
clenched.
     "...and then you can live again..."
     Storm magik. 
     This was all about the magik of the storm's fury, possessed in
an incantation or enchantment or curse.
     "...the one called Karasu is a master of illusions, not storm
magik. He is a master only of the Storm Furies attack, and thus he
alone carries the Arashi sword." 
     He knelt down next to a part of the sidewalk. How long had it
been? Overnight? Maybe two? Rain had long since washed away the
blood that was once his from this place. Fingers touching the
concrete, he relived the memories.
     "...but you have a chance to become a master of the storm
magik..."
     The rainwater was suddenly blood, thick and rich. His blood,
the blood of an angel. She was holding him in her arms, her tears
lost in the rain yet every droplet striking his face belonged to
her sadness.
     The teddy bear.
     His ponytail had been severed, falling into a puddle of water
just a few steps away. Such beautiful, fine hair that had been cut
off. As he had stared into those two magenta eyes. It was still
taunting him from beyond these worlds.
     Their child.
     She would be just like her mother.
     "...become a Stormsoul, and you may see her once more..."
     Just like her mother....

          
     The loud din of cars and their horns were uncomfortably loud
even with the roar of the falling rains. The raven knight glanced
back over his shoulder; an hour in the heart of the storm had
turned up nothing.
     Its scent drifted with the winds, caught for a moment only to
be lost just as quickly. He saw its shadowy reflection in every
window, yet only as the lightening flashed. And then it was gone.
Somewhere out there he could hear its laughter rolling with the
thunder.
     What was that demon?
     "Kishi, no!"
     He whirled as the echoes of the long-haired blonde's screams
reached his ears. Was she in danger, or was this another trick?
Dammit he couldn't sense anything to hunt!
     "Kishi!"
     It was her voice.
     He turned his head, the rains unrelentingly pouring down on
the top of a silver step pyramid. He watched the raven angel tumble
like a rag doll across the stones, absorbing the fury of his dragyn
magik. Sapphire blue eyes widened as the memories pounded his mind
with relentless contempt. The battered body of the raven angel
being held in the long-haired blonde's arms.
     "Chikusho!" he swore, pressing the base of his palms against
his pounding temples. His mind felt as if it was on fire, ready to
explode. "Chikusho! Chikusho!!"
     He tumbled forwards into a deep puddle of rainwater, coughing
and sputtering as he rose up. Moss green hair and bangs of deep
blue pressed tightly against his skin. Feebly, the raven knight
pushed out from the water, forcing himself to rise with the help of
a lightpole. 
     Everything in his skull was ricocheting, violently trying to
crush his brain. The vision of the road began to blur and haze, and
he barely recognized how he was slipping again.
     "Stop it, Kishi! Just please stop!"
     Her voice, the voice of the long-haired blonde screaming out
at him. She was cradling Sora's body, the raven angel's wings torn
and bloodied. As if choosing the angel over him. Death for the
raven angel.
     No chance for true amends.
     "Kishi, no!" 
     The long-haired blonde cradling Sora, leaving him alone and in
the pouring rain. The pounding of his skull grew worse. The rains
abruptly stopped, but he was too exhausted to see the moonlight
cast its warm glow upon him. But he saw the figure over him,
kneeling down to touch his cheek. There stood a girl with long
blonde hair. No, was it short and black? He couldn't tell; the
pounding was becoming much worse. Memory upon memory was striking
his mind.
     "Minako-chan...?" he asked, reaching out to her.
     The girl smiled darkly. A lowering of defenses. These raven
angels were so much more difficult to lure into such a fantasy.
This one had quite blithely walked into the illusion of heaven, a
chance to escape all the pain and hurt and sorrow.
     So dark and rich his memories were.
     He was ready if not willing to the fingers that caressed his
cheek and tilted his head. The glow of soul and magik faded from
his eyes. Slowly the fierce and relentless pounding in his skull
grew distant.
     He made no protest as the girl gently took his hand and let it
rest upon her exposed breasts. She sighed as his thumb brushed
against her skin.
     "Hai, Ki-chan. Here...."
     The girl's eyes flashed as she ran her tongue over the two
sharpened fangs that were slowly moving towards Kishi's neck.
     "Mina...ko-chan," the raven knight whispered hoarsely.
     Blood was drawn a heartbeat later.


     Nothing seemed right tonight. Nothing felt right. Already
there was a growing void of loneliness and tears in their presence.
The raven angel had died, and whatever had killed him was still out
there.
     With a peek through the blinds the blue-haired genius saw that
the rains were still far from over. Lightening and thunder were not
as dominant now, but still raging across the entire silhouette of
the city.
     "Meikyu," she said quietly. "Please come back for me."
     Only the lamp nearest the coffee table was on, its glow
casting light upon the forms of the dark-haired shrine girl and the
long-haired blonde, both having collapsed onto a couch or curled up
in a chair.
     The blue-haired genius smiled, seeing how the others were
asleep. The odango-haired blonde and the dark-haired prince had
stepped out to find a store open this hour of the night. Despite a
terrifying fear of storms, the odango-haired blonde had been
adamant about finding something to help their friend sleep.
     "Mako-chan," she said quietly. "I hope you're getting some
rest."
     None of them had really slept since yesterday, and if they had
slept it was a light and uncomfortable sleep. She sipped her tea,
blowing on the wisps of steam rising from the cup. Right now, as
exhausted as she was, she couldn't find any reason to be tired. And
so the blue-haired genius chose to read instead.
     Halfway through the cup of tea found her starting to nod off
in the middle of a page. The blue-haired genius sighed, closing the
book.
     "I guess I should find a corner for myself."
     "Ami-chan...."
     The blue-haired genius turned at the whispers.
     And there it stood, the mortal guise as handsome and alluring
as ever before, untouched by the rains or winds. Long silver hair
billowed out around the man's waist, magenta eyes piercing the
shadows and coming to life as lightening flashed through the
windows. Thunder rumbled as she slowly stood.
     "I have felt your eyes upon me in your dreams," the young man
said. "What is it that you desire from me?"
     The next instant the shadows revealed the masquerade wraith.
     "Meikyu?" the blue-haired genius asked.
     "Ami-chan," the wraith said, stepping forward to take her
hand. "As I promised, I have come back."
     What was happening? Confusion seized hold of the girl's mind
as she stood, knocking over the cup as tea dribbled onto the floor.
     "M-Masaka," she whispered. "This can't be you."
     Meikyu smiled, taking her hand. "Feel my heartbeat, Ami-chan.
What else could I be?"
     And then the wraith pulled her close, leaning over and letting
their lips touch. The blue-haired genius' eyes widened as her body
went suddenly on edge, electric and tingling. This was the touch of
her masquerade wraith, and so much more. 
     But this was all an illusion.
     It smiled, this human form kissing her lips again, feasting on
the girl's innocence. She pressed her lips harder against it, then
relaxed as it drew back. Kisses were made in a trail down her
cheek, ecstasy reaching slowly down to her shoulders. The blue-
haired genius gasped at the pleasure of the illusion.
     She was barely aware of the blood trickling down her neck. She
reached back, found a hand and guided it beneath her sweater. Her
cheeks were pink and blushing as she felt the fingers probe down
her body.
     "Meikyu," she sighed.
     It smiled, eyes flashing jade fading to scarlet, the slitted
eyes of a cat. "Hai, Ami-chan...."
     The blue-haired genius had been stolen.


     It had been here. 
     He could smell the Vampyre's stench all over this place. 
     The balcony doors were swinging to the whim of the storm's
tempests, glass windows broken and scattered beneath his feet. Out
from the vicious rains, he quietly walked past the threshold, water
dripping from his soaked wings and garments. With a quick shake his
feathers sprayed more rain across the room.
     "Why were you here?" he whispered quietly to himself.
     The storm's scent had originated here. This was its proverbial
eye. Somewhere deep within here laid the key to the enigma of his
death. This entire place held an aura of high prestige and
authority, from its posh carpets to the paintings and antiques
spread out as if he were inside an art museum.
     For a brief instant he saw himself kneeling down before three
shadows of magik. "Was this a creation of Chaos?" he heard his
voice ask.
     A pedestal was tipped over and broken apart, the remains of a
piece of jewellery spilled out across the edge of where carpet met
marble floor tiling. 
     "...even Chaos and his Court knew better than to tangle with
the Vampyre. Those creatures were the only ones Chaos agreed to
destroy. He didn't have a taste for such...dishonest games..."
     That sounded like the Elven Lord.
     The slitted crimson eyes of a cat focused upon the body of
what might have once been human. Legs were splayed out before an
ancient artefact laying on a central column. The piece itself
caught his attention first.
     What a grotesque treasure of the ancient realms, so much like
the demon that had once been lurking within. Everything was in a
beautifully hellish and intricately designed pyramid of skulls and
bones. Some were forged of metal or else polished stone. Others
were all too real. 
     Ancient runes, similar to those of the Elven race yet ones he
could not read, were scrawled along the rows of skulls, each one
following an exact line. And incantation, perhaps? He would never
know, never be certain of what they meant. He doubted anyone alive,
on Earth or in the Dreamworld, had the knowledge to decipher such
intricate markings.
     "Shimatta," he said, kneeling down.
     Somehow he recognized its work: the exact, horrifying deaths
that made these creatures legendary among nightmares. This corpse
was once a mortal man, capable of such human things as love,
despair, hate, triumph and fear. And now it was a shell and a skull
to match the gruesome work of the ancient worlds.
     Round, white eyes now albino were perfectly laid in deep,
hollow sockets, the skin a mouldy brown and sucked into the
contours of the skull. Every part of the man was shrivelled up. A
few clumps of long grey hair rustled in the crossbreezes from the
balcony doors.
     The entire expression was that of shock and terror. As if one
moment the man was living out an ultimate fantasy, and had just
seen the demons lurking behind the light. Whatever had attacked
this man had been swift and merciless; the throat was ripped apart,
torn to shreds as if to get at something.
     Blood?
     He picked up the arm, cradling it in his grasp. The skin was
brittle and rough, almost like papyrus. Crudely scrawled across the
muddied skin were ancient kanji pictographs. 
     "'Let mine eyes see what heavens I have tasted'," he read,
letting the arm fall to the floor. It landed with a dull thump and,
oblivious, the corpse stared blankly out in terror at the kitchen.
     Why this man?
     Why such a gruesome death?
     The guiding voice returned: "...children are just its
favourite prize...."
     And suddenly he understood.
     "So," he stated. "You were hungry."
     Hungry after being released from its no doubt millennium-old
prison. His hands moved towards the chilling artefact, fingers
tracing over the pyramidal structure of screaming heads and gaping
skulls, of silver bones and wonderfully cut gemstones lodged in
between the numerous jaws and eye sockets. 
     This was where it had been sealed.
     "...I have been watching you, raven angel. This demon has been
walking in your shadows longer than you suspect. That meeting was
just a prelude..."
     What was this man's name?
     She was there like a ghost next to him. He reached out his
hand, trying to caress her cheek as he saw her radiant face smile,
eyes closed, as she laughed. His own ghost was sitting next to her,
hands clasped together. Fingers laced. The sparkle of butterflies
and diamond.
     Such a bright autumn day....
     "Matsume Yuto-san," a voice spoke aloud.
     He whirled, crouching low and unleashing a guttural Mystwolf
growl. Another force was at work here, one so subtle he had missed
it in his search. His features softened as he saw the Darkqueen
standing there before him.
     "Hotaru-sama," he said, bowing his head.
     The Darkqueen was reading the name on the business card from
the dead man's planner. "A private art collector. The man was well-
known for amassing priceless antiquities of ancient lore and
mythology. Some of them could be as old as the Dreamworld itself."
     He grinned, baring twin fangs at the corners of his mouth.
"Certainly rivals your lamp collection, ne, Hotaru-sama?"
     "I prefer my lamps to this," the Darkqueen replied evenly,
moving around one of the leather couches.
     He ran his hand down one of the skulls. "This artefact," he
said. "The youma came from here."
     Something about this work, this entire room. Its nature and
name was in here, possessed can contained by these walls. A word
formed on his lips, touching his tongue. 
     "Vampyre."
     The Darkqueen nodded. "Their most ancient of names. They
vanished along with the Elven kind. Perhaps the two were at war,
and the Elven chose to destroy both themselves and the Vampyre at
once. Not even we Mystwolves will ever truly know what happened the
night both species suddenly disappeared."
     "Yet a few Vampyre survived, Hotaru-sama," he stated.
     "Just as there were Elven who survived, so too were there
Vampyres," she answered. "Many were hunted down and sealed just
like Chaos and his Court. Fortunately the Vampyre are not quite as
powerful as Chaos, and don't require a Pandora Box."
     "I don't know whether to take that remark as an insult or a
compliment," another vice remarked. "However, under present
conditions, I'm trusting it's a compliment to my prowess in
wielding magik."
     He straightened, slowly turning his head. "Masaka," he
whispered.
     Appearing in the balcony's doorway was Chaos, as ever
unchanged in a month and as ever unchanged in a few thousand years.
Long silver hair shimmered blue from the storm's glow cast through
the windows.
     "Shimatta," the Elven lord said, kicking at a piece of glass.
"Vampyre. I should have known by the scent in the storm."
     "Chaos," the Darkqueen said, surprised as he was to see the
Elven Lord. "When did you get out from the Pandora Box?"
     "I let myself out apparently," Chaos replied, glancing around
the room. "The Vampyre really tore this place up...and judging from
the way you look, Sora, he really tore you up too."
     Strangely enough he felt distant to that statement. On another
night, his heart would have been burdened with such distress, yet
now he felt nothing. What was, was. Now he had another reason for
being here.
     "Am I dead then?" he asked.
     "Not quite," Chaos answered. "I've seen this a few times
before. Your soul is crying out to the stars for a chance to return
to Earth. And," the Elven lord added. "for that matter, it appears
Thanatos has yet to decide on how to deal with you."
     "Thanatos?" he repeated. He knew the name well: that of the
Master Scytheman, whose duty was death itself. An enigmatic
Ancients, rumoured to be more powerful than any of the raven
angels, long since lost or else forgotten by myth. Tales flowed
like rivers about such ancient mages; perhaps, it was spoken
quietly, one of them had forged the Dreamworld.
     The Elven lord nodded, tracing a finger along the mysterious
runes scrawled across the skulls. "Strange. The markings here are
some kind of barrier, one meant to have sealed the Vampyre within
this...questionable choice of a sculpture. With the seal in place,
this Vampyre's aura would have been cut off from Earth."
     "Morpheus, and even Karasu would never sense it," the
Darkqueen agreed. "This was done long before the Sanctuary was ever
created, so it makes sense. The perfect shadow to hide a demon
within forever."
     The young lady harbinger looked at them both, the lightening
beyond the broken windows illuminating the wolfen in the
Darkqueen's eyes. "My only question is...how did it break free?"
     Chaos smiled. "These runes cannot be broken. Only removed. But
as to who removed the seal, I have no idea."
     He could only listen to their words, unable to speak for
himself in matters he knew nothing about. But with each word they
spoke, the burning in his body grew, magnified. The mission was
swallowing him whole.
     "None?" the Darkqueen pressed. "In all your centuries of
existence, you can think of none who might hold such knowledge and
power to unleash a virtually invisible creature?"
     "Iie. Isn't it wonderful how the older the magik is, the more
powerful it becomes?" Chaos asked with a dark smile. "Really, it is
a thing of beauty. In today's world magik barely even has a hold,
but in the ancient realms beyond measured time, magik was the
supreme force."
     Her ghost was still there to haunt his memories. A glance over
his shoulder found her arms wrapped around his own ghost's neck,
moving closer for a delicate kiss. Time was running out for her;
these forces now within his soul were pushing him on.
     Preparing him.
     The Elven lord leaned over, examining the horrific picture.
"They were, and still are, the Vampyre. That is their most ancient
of names. Sirens, succubuses, Chinese fox spirits: they are all
different titles for the same demon. Beautiful ladies, aren't
they?"
     He spoke up, "But I was fighting a man."
     "A Vampyre is whatever it wants to be," the Darkqueen said.
"Man, woman, child, animal: choose a form that would lower your
guard the most, and a Vampyre will become just that. With a man,
the Vampyre flaunts extravagant deceptions. Their only purpose is
to feel the thrill of the slaughter."
     That voice. "...it's the children to fear for..." 
     "You guardian angels only know the aura of the Vampyre," Chaos
said. "The Vampyre are creatures who hunt down the innocent, luring
them to their doom with the lie of a beautiful dream. Such an
unflattering method I must admit; they are quite loathsome and
vindictive creatures."
     "A Shadowdemon of the Earth," he said.
     The Elven lord chuckled darkly. "If wish to call them that.
This creature has already claimed the souls of three children.
Unless something is done, more will fall."
     "There's been nothing in the news," he said.
     Chaos picked up and toyed with a vase, its neck broken off.
"Sometimes you have to know what you're looking for to realize the
danger you're in. When a Vampyre claims a soul, that person becomes
their willing, mindless slave. Subservient only to the calling of
their angelic master, they help to lure others into its beautifully
woven traps."
     "Sorata," her voice cried out in sadness and pain. "Don't
leave me. Our child...."
     Two hearts beating as one, of mother and child. She would be
so much like her mother. Crimson eyes saw the rains turn scarlet
again, the teddy bear tumbling into the murky pools.
     He lifted his head, eyes closed as her whispers reached out to
him. "How do you know so much about them?" he asked Chaos.
     A jagged display of lightening bolts appeared in the window,
the room lit up in colours of electric purple and white. The
mangled form a human man was bathed in eerie hues.
     "I tangled with them once before," the Elven lord replied. "A
few challenged the authority of my Court. Seven of their best
demons went up against my Court of Chaos. Needless to say, we won.
Mopped the floor with them, in fact. Though I can't say the same
for you, Sorata."
     Like to destroy like.
     Chaos gestured to his altered form. "And so you are left here
in limbo, not quite alive but not fully dead, until Thanatos can
figure out a solution. I assume that's Okami's body you've borrowed
in the meantime."
     Stormsoul to destroy Stormsoul.
     The Darkqueen agreed with Chaos. "Okami and I were hunting
down this Vampyre when we first felt its storm approaching. The
Mystwolves and the Vampyres have long since been sworn enemies,
their blak magik searching to poison not only Earth but the
Dreamworld as well."
     He was no longer listening, running his fingers over the
artefact. Grinning skulls and void eyes. The answers laid somewhere
within it, within the scattered memories of life and death inside
his mind. 
     "Call it out by its true name," he whispered.
     "Be careful when you do that," Chaos countered, reading the
runes upon the tower of skulls. Eyes narrowed. "Ah...I know this
one. He's one of the seven who tangled with my court."
     "You know it?" The Darkqueen seemed surprised.
     The Elven lord grinned. "Hai hai. If you see his true form,
you'll see what I did to him." 
     "What was that?" he asked, absently running hand down an
ancient picture. So reminiscent of the beauty he saw in her face,
a portrait of a young woman with a gentle smile.
     "Look into its eyes and you'll know what I'm talking about,"
Chaos answered smugly. "Never did call it out by its true name
though; I managed to piss it off enough to have it emerge by
itself. Damn strong too, the most powerful of them."
     He slowly turned to the Elven lord. "You won."
     "I had my full power back then," Chaos countered. "I may have
absorbed the Vampyre's magik, but I got lucky at the same time. A
Vampyre cannot be killed until you know its name. Some kind of
intimate psychic connection, I suppose." Chaos glanced back at the
window. "With only one of the three crystals that seal my powers in
my possession, I'd just be an annoyance to it. Nothing like my true
form."
     "We can still find it, and fight it," the Darkqueen stated.
     He closed his eyes, trying to reach out inside of the room.
This new magik within...with it he could sense things that were so
subtle he almost missed them. A hidden darkness lurking in the
midst of this storm.
     "I know you," he whispered. "We are now the same...."
     The Darkqueen and the Elven lord seemed oblivious to his quiet
obsessions. "How do propose we track it down now?" Chaos asked.
"Last I checked, Tokyo wasn't some little farming village. This
Vampyre's hunting grounds leave a lot of open space for just three
of us."
     "We hunt as the wolfen hunt," the Darkqueen stated. "Sora's
bound by a new magik, one that is guiding him to the heart of this
evil storm."
     Her face. 
     In their last night together, he was watching an angel sleep
and dream a dream of dancing through heaven's stars. So beautiful
was her face. She would wait for him to return.
     "...bring it out from the shadows of the storm it so lovingly
embraces..."
     With quiet dedication he had watched her. Nothing would happen
to her or their child. She would grow up to be just like her
mother. His fingers groped for a braid of raven wing hair that was
no longer there.
     "A lot of good that does for us," Chaos said. "Vampyres are
masters of the shadow magik, hiding themselves in whatever
fantasies they please themselves to conjure up. Even you Mystwolves
have a helluva time trying to hunt it down."
     It's name.     
     Somewhere within this ancient work, this grotesque and twisted
form of a mortal man, laid the answer. To call it out. To shatter
its beautiful illusions. Somewhere within all these runes.
     "Its storm has spread all across the city," Chaos growled
disapprovingly. "With each night of the endless clouds, it power
grows as it consumes more souls of the innocents."
     He stood, turning to the clattering balcony doors. The
lightening was beckoning to his soul. His Stormsoul. To discover
himself was to discover its name. Its name was lying within this
room.
     The old magiks.
     The old myths.
     Somewhere in those words lurked its true name.
     Her face. He had caressed her cheek and brushed aside the
stray bangs of brown hair to watch her sleep. 
     It had decided to seduce him but instead decided to kill him.
It found him irresistible. He would have glimpsed heaven and lost
everything. But he was the first. Only the first.
     "...and it finds Kino Makoto a very beautiful creature
indeed..."
     Lightening flashed again, solely from his own will. Ripples of
magik swept into the room, blowing loose papers and debris across
the feet of his two companions. 
     "Sora?" the Darkqueen asked.
     "What is it?" the Elven lord pressed.
     He turned, the wolfen eyes vanished now and the crimson eyes
of an angel in their place. The rune of the storm was starting to
burn against his forehead. He was beginning to understand it all,
this new magik beating with every beat of his heart. His heart
belonged to her and only her. Not for his own revenge. Not for the
protection of the city. She alone was the reason he had returned.
     "We leave now," he stated. "I know where it wants to go."

     
     Even though she was in shadows, the long-haired blonde groaned
and squinted upon seeing the lamplight. Something had clattered to
the floor, and she in her lapsed sleep was jolted back into the
apartment.
     "Na ni?" she muttered, scanning the room. Everything seemed
quiet with only their breathing being heard over the rain and
thunder from outside. Was everyone else asleep? Lightening flashed,
casting the entire apartment in an eerie glow. The long-haired
blonde's eyes widened as the darkness was exiled for that brief
moment. 
     "Ami-chan?" 
     The blue-haired genius was hovering in the air, arched back
and hands clutching chest as if the girl was trying to be wrapped
in a lover's touch. But the eyes; the blue-haired genius seemed to
have lost everything that was a window into the soul. 
     Lightening flashed again, revealing long silver hair and
piercing magenta eyes watching her from behind the floating form of
the blue-haired genius. It was human, alluring and dark in its
smile.
     The blue-haired genius moaned softly, feet just a few inches
off the ground.
     She was up from the couch before the thunder had time to
rumble over their heads. "What have you done to her?" she demanded
angrily.
     Was this the demon that had killed the raven angel?
     It only smiled, chuckling in amusement as a parent might to
the innocence of a child. "Minako-chan," it soothed her. "This is
all but a bad dream, and when you awaken I can guarantee it will
all be gone."
     She shook her head. "Iie! Give back Ami-chan! Give her back!"
     Suddenly it was gone, and standing behind her was the raven
knight. The long-haired blonde had no time to react before it
turned her head and fiercely kissed her. At first she began to
struggle, but then resistance ended.
     "Kishi," she whispered.
     The raven knight kissed her cheek, fingers nimbly working at
her buttons. Her own hands seemed detached from the rest of her
body, working to help undo her blouse. Kishi's tongue ran down her
neck.
     "I can show you heaven, Minako-chan."
     The long-haired blonde gave a soft sigh, eyes already clouding
over. She tilted her head, offering herself to its powers, its
hunger.
     A second soul was stolen as droplets of blood ran between its
lips. Then a startled but strangled cry arose from another corner
of the room. There stood the dark-haired shrine girl, staring at it
with horror and terror combined in one expression.
     "Shimatta!" the girl swore. "You!"
     It grinned, revealing the elongated fangs dripping with the
long-haired blonde's blood. "Komban wa, Rei-chan. Such a beautiful
storm, ne?"
     It chuckled as the dark-haired shrine girl tried to run. The
girl never even made it two steps before it swept her up and let
the young lady catch a glimpse of heaven. The dark-haired shrine
girl struggled vainly, the thrashing coming to a slow acceptance as
blood ran down and stained her white shirt.
     Then a soft moan as its hands caressed her inner thighs.
     "Here, Minako-chan," it said, letting the long-haired blonde
savour a taste of the girl's blood. "She's all yours now." 
     Slitted cat eyes turned to the closed bedroom door brought to
life by the aura of lightening. It began to giggle. Not laugh or
chuckle, but giggle like a young girl.
     "Mako-chan," the young man whispered. "Let me show you heaven,
my beautiful angel...."


     The rains were cold as they poured down against the masquerade
wraith, but on this night he felt chilled for other reasons. Dread
had long since seized his mind, as if he was feeling his comrades
fall one by one without even fully knowing about it.
     He would hunt it down and kill it.
     To avenge Sora. To protect Ami-chan.
     Meikyu's flight bounced him off a light post and then onto the
sidewalk. Trenchcoat already soaked right through, he flicked the
thick--and now heavy--tail of earthen brown hair off his shoulder.
     
     "Where are you?" he muttered.
     Its scent was everywhere, the aura permeating everything.
     He began walking towards the crosswalks. Even at this hour, in
this storm, there were a few people outside. They seemed to hold
the common sense to have umbrellas. What good did such a luxury
provide a guardian angel?
     Sora had been an inspiration to them all. That single chance
at crossing over had given them all new hope and resolve. And still
beyond that, there had been a time before their kingdoms had come
to be, where they had first met. 
     "Meikyu...."
     Meikyu barely even gave a second glance over his shoulder.
"Give it up, youma. I am far too good a hunter to be tricked by
your sweet deceptions."
     Hands wrapped around and clenched a glowing light that
suddenly became the Tsunami scythe. People around him were gawking
as he whirled, brandishing the weapon.
     There stood a young girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen.
The rains had soaked her school blouse and pleated skirt. Quiet,
alluring eyes focused right on him.
     "Shimatta," he whispered.
     This wasn't a demon; this was a human girl!
     The girl smiled, running a hand through curls of long brown
hair. "We almost look like twins, demon hunter. You wouldn't hurt
your own twin, would you?"
     "You're not the one I'm hunting," he stated. "Step aside or
take me to whatever did this to you."
     The girl giggled, and suddenly attacked. Fingernails painted
scarlet became like sharpened claws, raking down his chest. Meikyu
dodged the slash, unable to bring himself to raise the scythe
against the girl.
     "You won't kill me, Meikyu," the girl said. "I know you too
well."
     "I don't have to attack you directly to defeat you," he
retorted, delivering a swipe of the blade into the ground. That
sent up a shockwave of magik tearing through the sidewalk and
hurling water in every direction. The girl leaped aside from the
miniature tsunami, still giggling. But the second the girl touched
the ground, a second attack caught her up and slammed her into the
pools of water on the walkway. She screamed, lost in the cascade of
falling liquid.
     And then he saw the face of the blue-haired genius looking at
him. The scythe went loose in his grip; what sort of illusion was
this?
     "Meikyu, please!" the blue-haired genius cried. A hand was
reached out to him, pleading for him to stop the attack. 
     "What the hell?" Meikyu exclaimed. Was this really his beloved
and blushing genius?
     Suddenly a new set of arms wrapped around his shoulders,
incredible strength wrenching him into the air as if he was just a
mere marionette. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught a glimpse
of a girl with sandy-blonde hair grinning at him from the shadows.
     That incessant giggling!
     "Why do you resist such beautiful dreams?" the blue-haired
genius asked, slowly undoing her blouse. "We have so much to give
you, Meikyu. Just let us show you heaven."
     "Damn you," he hissed, already aware of his fate.
     These people; why weren't they doing anything?
     He winced as he felt the fangs sink into his neck, bloodmagik
being violated and stolen. Jade green eyes slowly clouded over, the
battle already lost. The last thing Meikyu remembered hearing was
their cruel giggling.
     "Let us show you heaven...."


     "A magik which numbers three," he whispered.
     Crimson eyes widened as he saw beyond this City of Lights
beneath the star-swallowed darkness. He was flying, wings
outstretched against the torrents of cold, icy rain slamming
against his skin. 
     His vision, now his obsession.
     Another flying leap sent him high over the streets and their
lights and sounds. The City of Lights was passing him by, buried
beneath clouds and rains. A storm to possess all other storms. To
swallow up the heavens in a vile magik. To steal the purity of
everything on the Earth.
     He was dead, his world already stolen from him.
     Before he took the Mystwolf body.
     A scythe flashed from behind: his own shadow from beyond.
     "Give me a body and I shall destroy it," he whispered through
clenched teeth.
     A figure hidden by shadows nodded, and for a moment he saw a
silver like winter's mist. Arms stretched out to reveal the beauty
of a crafted longsword. A diamond eye faceted to give the
reflection of his face a hundred fold.
     Its name.
     Those two magenta eyes taunting him. Haunting him.
     His two escorts were starting to fall behind. He noticed and
never slowed. "Incredible," Chaos muttered, springing overtop a
large cooling unit. "He's like a man possessed."  
     The Darkqueen landed next to the Elven lord, then was soaring
through the rainfall. "The heart of a raven angel is now within the
body of a Mystwolf, and a powerful new magik is now his blood."
     She was in danger.
     It wanted to steal her beauty. Her innocence. Her soul. Heaven
was just a kiss away from the shadows' door. Her long chestnut
brown hair soaked and matted against her forehead as she cradled
his dying body in her arms.
     If ever there was a day without a night.... 
     The voice of an Ancient coming to him. He had been following
that voice. "Take this sword. It is not the Arashi, but a weapon
forged of your soul and its bloodmagik."
     Ever a moon without its stars....
     Wings never beat against the rain. He was flying without them,
bare feet landing in a pool of water before catapulting him back
out into the storm's full fury.
     So too would be my soul....
     Her face.
     The torii at the base of misty mountains. The cobblestone
path. How brilliant the moon had been that night. He had pulled
away, yet she had taken his hand and pulled him back to her.
     If ever we were apart.
     "Mako-chan," he whispered. "Hold on for me."
     "...only once you may summon it, for this sword represents the
height of your Stormsoul, but its power shall be without equal..."
     He closed his eyes, longing to feel the warmth of her hand
against his skin. To feel her lips press against his. Thousands of
years of protecting his Dreamworld kingdom, culminating in a
fateful step beyond the mirror's reflection. Falling asleep in a
bed of raven's down on that first night.
     "Now and forever," he whispered. "I swear it, Mako-chan."
     It's name: old magik, old myths.
     Suddenly he understood.
     He knew it's name.


     She slept soundly for the first time in two days, quiet on the
covers of her bed, curled up like a small child with tresses of
chestnut brown hair flowing around her face. For as strong and
determined as she was, in that moment she looked so angelically
vulnerable.
     This was not a sleep brought on by the exhaustion from crying
tears. There was a peace in her heart, knowing that he would return
to her. There was something he had to do first, someone he had to
protect.
     It was when the whispering began that she did stir, smiling as
if coming out from a dream with her lover, only to find him by her
side.
     "Mako-chan," the voice called out to her softly.
     She lifted her head from the covers. "Sora?" she asked, trying
to see in the darkened room. Everything was in shadows of blue or
black, rain spattering across her window.
     The she saw the figure move towards her bed. "Do not be
afraid, Mako-chan," it said. "I have come from beyond your dreams
to find this City of Lights." 
     The warmth of sleep was still in her mind, and for a moment
she thought it was his face in the glimmer of outdoor lights. "Who
are you?" she asked.
     "I have felt your eyes upon me, child," it said, its guise of
a young man smiling at her. "What is it that you desire from me?"
     She found herself blushing. "I...I...."
     Why was she doing this at the words of a complete stranger?
Yet she felt in some way that she knew this young man, recognized
him from another place or time. Was this one of the Dreamworld?
     She sat up on the bed, and then there he was, seated right
next to her. It leaned in beside her ear, whispering with a
haunting voice and haunting words. "You have such beautiful dreams,
Makoto. Such a tender angel."
     She was vaguely aware of a hand upon her shoulder, fingers
running along her skin. Another hand waved before her eyes,
gesturing to a realm opened up to her mind.
     A garden. Oh, such a beautiful garden. The flowers smelled so
sweet and fragrant, like the ancient fields she had once known.
Delicate petals of cherry blossom rained down around her, and the
midnight sky was brilliant with stars and moon. And standing there
among the flowers was her raven angel. He beckoned to her with his
hand, his beautiful face, his crimson eyes.
     "Sora," she whispered.
     "Hai," it answered softly, enticing her to step into the
fantasy of heaven. "That is why you are attracted to me, Mako-chan,
because of my bond with this raven angel. He is such a beautiful
young man, especially when he smiles. And he smiles for you, Mako-
chan."
     She took a distant glance to the mirror, vaguely aware of her
pupils fading to be replaced with a vacant emptiness. It was so
warm here in this dream, wrapping her up, swallowing her very soul.
     It smiled, magenta eyes flashing in slitted form as lightening
exploded outside. But here inside was a garden at the base of the
mountains she had chosen.
     "Go to him. Touch him, and see that death could never keep him
away from you. Caress him, kiss him, taste his beautiful magik."
     
     He stroked her cheek, smiling gently at her. She could read
his passion for her within his crimson eyes. Her body was growing
warmer with each passing heartbeat. Seeing him die had only been a
nightmare, a distant one she could barely even place now.
     "It can be yours," it said quietly. "Yours forever. Join us,
Mako-chan. Soar through the skies on the wings of a raven angel.
Let his lips become yours, and never again will you feel this pain
and sadness. Taste his beautiful magik."
     She reached out to him, and he nodded.
     Such delicate crimson eyes.
     And then she hesitated. When last she had seen such crimson
eyes they were not as much delicate as determined, dedicated. The
wings of an angel. 
     "Under another midnight sky I would have come for one last
moment together with you. It's still out there, Mako-chan, and I
cannot rest until it's dead."
     That was his voice, his true voice.
     She touched her lips, still remembering his kiss. Here in a
place, finding the down of a raven coming as the rain would. She
saw the teddy bear tumble into a puddle of water, discarded and
forgotten as she had cried out his name.
     "I can't ask you to understand, Mako-chan. I barely even
understand myself right now. This is something I have to do."
     The little child within her, their child. Two hearts beating
as one, her own giving life to the tiny soul already in her belly.
A daughter. The fallen teddy bear, its watery resting place growing
red in scarlet blood.
     "You've always been a strong soul for as long as I have known
you or your dreams. I'm asking you to stay strong for just a little
while longer, Mako-chan."
     "A lie," she whispered, shaking her head.
     It growled, the illusion of heaven starting to flicker. The
image of the raven angel was fading, cut to pieces and breaking
away like sand caught in the winds.
     "This is a lie!" she shouted, whirling around and slapping its
human face. "This is nothing but a lie! He's come back for me! You
bastard, you killed him!"
     The beautiful and savage garden crumbled. The bedroom around
her shattered apart like a mirror, shards containing her chambers
within their smooth surface. They were suddenly outside, and she
was drenched in seconds by the downpour. Lightening was parading
around the sky with an almost blinding aura around it, the thunder
shaking the earth beneath her feet.
     It snarled, baring its fangs. Magenta eyes turned hostile, the
slits returning. "You broke my illusion's hold. Not many of you
sub-creatures are capable of doing that. I wish I could say I was
impressed."
     With a grand gesture it motioned to the soaked city of Tokyo.
"Like this, Mako-chan? I created this storm; it's my home. Your own
power holds echoes of such magik. Perhaps that is why I was drawn
to you first."
     Emerald green eyes widened as she saw hovering all around her
everyone who had been there for her. The guardian angels, her
closest friends; it had stolen everyone from her. Near to that
human figure were three young girls she didn't recognize, their
cruel laughter reaching over the sounds of falling rain.
     She was staring at this human form with eyes fit to kill,
trembling with a near uncontrollable fury. All of her friends had
fallen just like him.
     "I tasted his blood right before he died," it taunted. "So
delicious, the blood of a raven angel."
     "Kon chikusho," she swore, her own aura of magik glowing
around her body. Such passion and dedication was her own, a duty to
protect her friends. He had died once already, and all she could do
was stand helplessly by and watch him breath his last. 
     "Not again," she whispered. "I swear, not ever again." She
lifted her henshin to the skies, calling upon her power. If this
was to be her last stand, it would be one made on her feet in
battle. Sailor Senshi were not pushovers. Neither was she.
     Standing in her sailor battle fuku, she faced the demon. "Sora
is alive, and he's hunting you...but he'll never get the chance to
destroy you first! Jupiter Oak Evolution!"
     It simply smiled, dispelling the attack with a mere look in
its eyes. "Such petty magiks, princess. I can tell by your true
aura now; ancient powers like ours runs deep in the blood."
     A parade of lightening lit up the dark skies with furious
tints of white and blue, almost blinding. The streets seemed to
convulse as the waves of thunder exploded past her. It was nearly
impossible for her to keep balance.
     Suddenly it was right behind her. She whirled, only to feel
its hands locked around her throat. Hoisted up into the air, all
she could do was fight for breath.
     "I could crush your windpipe with disturbing ease," it stated.
"But then again it would pain me to scar such a beautiful face as
your own. Surrender to heaven, Makoto, and I will show you wonders
you've only dreamed about."
     The rage within seemed to burn more. She lashed out with a
kick, but even at full strength the strike against its chest held
no effect. In fact it just seemed to laugh at her.
     "Such pretty hair," it said, reaching out with its other hand
to stroke her soaked ponytail.  
     It recoiled as a crimson streak slashed its face. Droplets of
black blood dribbled down its cheek. A red rose neatly cut into the
pools of water at their feet, petals glistening with the rain.
     "Let Mako-chan go!" a female voice exclaimed. It was the voice
of the odango-haired blonde, now a soldier born of ancient magiks.
Behind the sailor fuku-clad girl was the dark-haired prince,
dressed in a black tuxedo and billowing cape.
     It gave an indignant snarl. "Might I inquire of your name
before I tear you to pieces, little girl?"
     "Agent of love and justice!" the odango-haired blonde shouted.
"Pretty soldier Sailor Moon! I will never forgive you for what
you've done to my friends!"
     She was gripping its arm now, desperately trying to bring air
back into her burning lungs. "U-Usagi," she managed to choke out.
     It regarded the two warriors with mild interest. "Yare yare,
it appears I missed a few of you. But don't let that concern you,
Mako-chan; we can still have eternity together."
     All she could see out of the corner of her eyes were three
shadows pouncing on the odango-haired blonde and the dark-haired
prince. Cruel, girlish laughter rolled across the street like the
thunder.
     "Iie," she whispered, watching her friends fall just like all
the others. Not again, not like Sora. Emerald green eyes turned to
this demon in human skin, glaring with intense fury.
     "Yurusenai!" she screamed. "YURUSENAI!!"
     Both her hands locked around its wrist and her body became a
blur in the pouring rain as she swung her legs through the air and
twisted them around.
     A crack.
     Snapping of bones.
     She dropped to the ground, coughing and sputtering as she
gulped up air. Slowly she head titled up to see her friends.
"Usagi-chan," she said quietly. "Mamoru-san."
     Both the odango-haired blonde and the dark-haired prince were
caught in a heavenly illusion, hovering in the air just like all
the others. Those three succubuses were giggling, fondly stroking
the face of the prince.
     "Kuso," it muttered, appraising the damage to itself. "These
human bodies are just so damned fragile that almost anything can
break them apart." The human arm was bent backwards, bone jutting
out from the flesh. And the blood was black, dark and rich.
     She was on her feet without a moment's hesitation.
     "Shin'ne!" she exclaimed. She levelled a cold, hard punch to
its face, its head snapping back upon being struck. More bones
cracked, but it simply turned back to face her.
     She screamed as it seized her hair and used it to throw her
aside. She collapsed into a puddle, shaky but still ready to stand
again.
     "You bitch," it snarled. Black blood poured out from its
punctured flesh, coiling and wrapping around the wound. Steam rose
up in the rain, hot and moist. Glistening darkness turned to human
complexion.
     She growled, launching another attack. Everything was
deflected. Suddenly it disappeared in an explosive geyser of
rainwater, washing over her. She spat out the water, searching for
its presence. Then an arm wrapped around her neck, lifting her feet
off the ground to strangle her once again.
     "Such a pretty little angel," it whispered into her ear. "But
can you fly?"
     The city turned contorted in her vision and then she realized
it had hurled her high into the air. Her body twisted around as she
soared through the pelting rains, falling towards the road. In the
blur of colours she thought she saw the headlights of a car fast
approaching. A shrilling horn honked madly at her, but she could
not answer.
     She cried out his name, not in fear but in a longing to be
together with him one more time, even if it was their last:
"SORATA!!!"
     And then came the response.
     "MAKOTO!" he screamed, flinging himself across the street. In
an explosion of raven's down, enormous wings emerged from his back,
carrying his flight through the lanes of traffic. A split second
later he scooped her up in his arms. He corkscrewed upwards,
cutting through the rain as a car swerved to miss them both.
     Soft wings of raven's down wrapped around her as he alighted
the sidewalk, clutching her tightly. He wiped away the stray bangs
clinging to his forehead. "Daijobu, Mako-chan?"
     She nodded, embracing him in the hopes that this could last
forever. His eyes were his own, crimson and beautiful. No longer
wolfen or grim. There was gentle hope within his soul once more.
     "Sorry to make you wait so long," he said quietly.
     She kissed his cheek. "You made a promise, Sora. And I know
you keep your promises."
     "Ara ara," came the voice of the Elven lord. "I see you
Vampyres are still quite the petty sadists after all."
     It whirled, snarling as human, magenta eyes saw Chaos appear
in the rain, perched atop a telephone pole. On the pole next to the
Elven lord stood the Darkqueen.
     The Darkqueen gave a wicked smile. "Perhaps we should put it
out of our misery right now."
     "The Elven lord of Chaos," it growled, visibly displeased.
"And the Darkqueen as well. Ara, Sora, I see you are now in the
company of mine enemies."
     "I've got some old scores of my own to settle with your kind,
Vampyre," the Elven lord stated, knuckles cracking as Chaos made a
fist. "However, I'm not one to jump ahead. Ladies first, Hotaru-
san."
     With a gesture, Chaos allowed the Darkqueen to take the
initiative to attack. The Darkqueen smiled. "Arigato, Chaos.
Perhaps you're not as tactless as I once thought."
     Chaos shrugged. "If you're going to wait all day for this,
Hotaru...."
     The Darkqueen grinned, revealing twin sets of fangs. Seconds
later, the wolfen harbinger was sending up waves of water in the
wake of a charge. Mystwolf battle aura erupted, combining with a
deadly punch that tore apart a set of the human's ribs.
     It howled, thrashing about in the storm as its entrails were
splashed across the sidewalk and fences behind it. A heartbeat
later the Elven lord was suddenly standing over it. One more savage
blow punched a hole through its skull, crushing the human head.
Chaos winced, letting the rain wash off the thick, dark blood from
a bloodied hand. 
     "Disgusting," Chaos remarked. "Gomen ne, Sora, but it appears
that we took care of things first. I hope you don't mind."
     His embrace went slack, and he stepped forward. He shook his
head. "It's not over, Chaos."
     Abruptly a new set of laughter echoed across the streets, this
one bordering in sounding human. More and more it became animal,
horrific and grotesque. And then there its human form stood,
perfect and evil in every way.
     "What the hell?" Chaos exclaimed.
     "Elven fool," it hissed, unleashing its true powers. Chaos and
the Darkqueen were smashed aside, launched into the streets.
     He threw up his arm, halting their falls. The winds of the
storm were obeying his silent commands, gently letting the two
drift onto the ground.
     Like to destroy like....
     Lightening flashed once more, the howling winds carrying their
voices across the City of Lights. He watched the form of the human
man. It was summoning winds, and he was summoning his own tempests.
     "Sora," she said, taking a stance next to him. "I'll help you
fight. I want that demon destroyed."
     He turned, caressing her cheek. Despite the cold rain her skin
was so warm, and his magik could feel two hearts beating as one in
her body. "Iie, Mako-chan. This is something only I can do. This is
my revenge, my chance to put things right again. No matter what
happens, I'm glad we had this last chance to be together again. I
love you, Mako-chan."
     "You're powers have grown," it stated, walking forward. "I am
indeed impressed by the new magik you've acquired, raven angel. I
never would have guessed one like you could acquire the power of a
Stormsoul."    
     He broke away from her, moving to close the gap between
himself and the demon. "I call you out by your true name, Vampyre.
In death I found no peace. But here in another life, I will kill
you to protect my beloved and my unborn child."
     "Then tell me," it hissed, magenta eyes flashing of sapphire
and scarlet evil. "What is my true name, raven angel?"
     His wings stretched out to their full length, unleashing a
torrent of raven's feathers that swirled around them all. "You may
have a name, but you have no blood, no feeling, no heart. You are
a Stormsoul, a myth, a magik best left forgotten and buried. I call
you out: Vritra!!"
     A bolt of lightening shot down from the heavens, its jagged
and crackling form wrapping itself around him as it struck the
earth, pulsating along his body like it was his lifeblood. The heat
and energy it generated didn't scorch his skin, only give him an
aura of pure, unbridled magik.
     It gave a blackest of smiles, dark eyes staring out at them
with sadistic pleasure. "You do know my name, raven angel. Then you
must also know my true form."
     The young man's hands reached back beneath the jawbone,
digging into the flesh. He winced as the young man's fingers sank
into the skin, blood running down human hands. With a sickening
motion, the skin of a human creature's face was pulled off like a
mere mask. Revealed instead was a mucus-coated skin of ghostly grey
shaped in the form of a lizard-worm. Fangs slowly unsheathed
themselves out from behind its elongated mouth. Two maddened eyes
where three had once been glared at them both.
     The overcoat bulged as if driven by a hundred new winds
pulling from all directions. A living shadow pulsated and writhed
out, spilling across the floor to form claws and wings and spindly
arms. Everything became a bleached white colour, resembling a
living skeleton.
     Ever consuming, ever hungry.
     The demon's true form coiled around itself, a writhing mass of
bones and dripping darkness. "In over five thousand years, I have
never been called out," it said, the voice still that of a human.
Its eyes glared at him. "Even the Elven lord of Chaos failed at
that. But you, impudent angel, dare to force me to reveal my true
form. For that, I shall torment your soul for eternity, feasting on
your never-ending screams of anguish as I hang your broken body
from my neck as a living pendant."
     The skeletal worm's body rose into the air, hovering over the
earth as the storm fiercely pounded the City of Lights. Its two
maddened eyes glared at him.
     His own eyes burned with equal fury. 
     "Sora," her voice cried out in sadness and pain. "Don't leave
me. Our child...."
     Two hearts beating as one, of mother and child. She would be
so much like her mother. Crimson eyes saw the rains turn scarlet
again, the teddy bear tumbling into the murky pools.
     Chaos' words: "I've seen this a few times before. Your soul is
crying out to the stars for a chance to return to Earth in a mortal
guise. There is still a reason for you to remain in that realm."
     "YURUSENAI!!" he howled. 
     Triple runes burned across his body: thunder, lightening,
winds. He vaulted into the skies. Left behind was the exhausted
body of an ancient Mystwolf, who collapsed to the ground, shaking
upon trying to rise. But Okami's magik was drained from the
mergence, and thus the Mystwolf could not fight. She went to the
Mystwolf, stopping abruptly as the Darkqueen, despite being cut and
battered in numerous places, appeared next to Okami.
     "Let me hold my Mystwolf," the Darkqueen said.
     "Shimatta," Chaos muttered, managing to push off the ground.
"I don't recall it ever being so damned big! We can't do anything
to help while staying down here."
     "Do you have a better idea?" Okami growled.
     Chaos blinked. "As a matter of fact, I do." 
     The Elven lord abruptly disappeared from sight.
     She looked up to watch the battle in the heavens. It didn't
matter what any of them could do: this battle was between the
Stormsouls.


     They faced each other in the air, angels from different
worlds, now fierce enemies in this one: born of darkness and
dreams, brought to life by myth and magik, possessed with the
powers of the raging storm. Up here the rains were colder, fiercer,
driven mad by the frenzied tempests and armadas of streaking
lightening.
     He glared at it with crimson eyes of a raven angel, enormous
wings of raven's night spread out at either side of his body. He
reached back to feel the severed strands of hair where a long and
thin braid had once been.
     "To think you are a Stormsoul," it spat, wormy body writhing
around the clouds. "To think you are like me."
     "I was reborn with this magik," he said evenly. "I was given
a chance to return to Earth, and put an end to your blak magik."
     The demon cackled contemptuously. "You? A mere sub-creature?
Even with that magik you are no match for me, raven angel!" 
     They charged.
     Vritra flicked its tail, the end nothing but broken and jagged
bone meant to impale his body. He threw up his arms, the tail
striking his armguards, sparks flying as jagged bone smashed into
the armour plating. The blow sent him reeling backwards. At the
last second he managed to right himself and push off the side of a
building. 
     "Shimatta," he muttered. The demon was right; even with his
Storm magik he could not withstand the attacks of its true worm-
like form.
     "Mako-chan," he whispered. "Please give me your strength. I
cannot destroy this evil alone. I need your magik."
     And then he heard that voice, the words spoken by the one who
had given him this chance. "...the purity of the storm's magik has
been poisoned by this vile creature..."
     Three different magiks were converging within him, being used
to fuel his power. "...I offer you a second chance, raven angel.
Return to Earth and destroy that which killed you..."
     "Our child shall grow up in a beautiful world," he whispered,
fists clenched.
     "...and then you can live again..."
     Storm magik. 
     This was all about the magik of the storm's fury, possessed in
an incantation or enchantment or curse. To be reborn with the
powers of this Earthen rage was to become a Stormsoul. There had
been a reason for this rebirth. Thanatos, the Ancient of death and
life, had given him the body of a Mystwolf. 
     Chaos' voice. "I've seen this a few times before. Your soul is
crying out to the stars for a chance to return to Earth in a mortal
guise."
     The Ancients of the storm magik had seen something within him.
He had been chosen to cleanse the city of this demon and its
poisoned darkness.
     "There is still a reason for me to remain in this realm," he
whispered. "I have a reason to come back." The runes of thunder,
wind and lightening suddenly vanished. And then the final rune of
the storm appeared on his forehead, bathing the entire city in a
crimson light.
     Arashi, the rune of the storm itself.
     "Na ni?!" Vritra snarled, shielding its two good eyes from the
light.
     Far below in the city, she felt his magik exploding across
them all. Such a warmth in her own body. She closed her eyes,
lowering her arms and offering herself up to him. Lightening struck
her body, coiling around and yet leaving her skin unharmed. Slowly
she raised her hands, hovering before the silent Mystwolves.
     "Sora," she whispered.
     He understood it all so clearly in that moment. Ever since the
beginning, every breath, every heartbeat, every dream; the source
of all his magik, all it had ever been and all it would ever
be...was her.
     She became lost in the furies of the storm, angel wings of
pure white unfolding out from her back. The band holding her hair
back in a ponytail broke apart, tresses of chestnut brown hair
flowing around her face. 
     The mark of Jupiter burned on her forehead, unleashing a shaft
of emerald light towards the skies. Arcs of lightening swarmed
around her magik, crackling and exploding in all directions.
     Crimson eyes in the heavens slowly focused on the Vampyre,
narrowing as he became the Stormsoul destined to destroy the worm.
"So, I'm no match for you, ne, youma?" 
     It's two mad eyes twitched, losing all control. The entire
storm over this City of Lights was slipping, falling victim to
stars and sun and moon. If this continued, the skies would become
clear once more.
     "SHIN'NE!" Vritra roared, the skeletal beast lunging across
the heavens for him.
     He held his ground, the Storm magik abruptly dying out. Twin
wings of raven's feathers emerged where only one pair had once
been, and crimson eyes were suddenly a brilliant emerald green. Her
emerald green. One the earth below, she vanished from sight. Yet he
felt her so close to him, her touch all over his body, her magik
breathing life to his storm.
     The worm's jaws opened up to display savage rows of jagged
teeth. He made no resistance as it tried to swallow him up, and
instead threw out his arms. Suddenly the true power of the
Stormsoul came to life.
     An electric blue shaft of light engulfed him.
     Vritra's jaws clamped down, writhing masses of black that
might have been storm clouds, and something much more worse,
swallowing him up. The worm continued past, its tapering body
twisting around.
     Yet the light coming from his aura continued, bisecting the
creature in two as it moved. First the skull and then the long
series of curved rib walls. The demon howled as its bones began to
crack apart with a sickening sound. The tail spasmed as the light
blew it completely apart, bone debris raining down upon the city.
The Vampyre never even had a chance to scream before its body was
blown apart completely, reduced to ashes lost in the rains. All
that remained was the skull, left to writhe in agony.
     Three young school girls collapsed onto the soaked ground,
black ooze dripping out from their noses and mouths to mix with the
water. The darkness began to find substance and grow.
     One by one, those seduced and stolen by the Vampyre awoke from
a deep and dark dream they could not remember. One by one, they
touched the ground again as their souls returned to sparkle in
their eyes. Slowly they looked to watch the thrashing worm scream
its last. 
     Up in the skies, two maddened eyes where three once were bled
a thick and syrupy blood before erupting. Vritra's skull began to
slide apart, one end grinding against the next in falling. Its
fangs were coming apart, dashed to pieces by an unseen magik at
lethal work. The bones shattered like glass, exploding into fine
powder that sparkled like sands upon the beach. The sparkling
lights grew brighter as they scattered across the skies, becoming
fixed and then becoming the light of the stars once again.
     The rains ceased.
     The storm ended.
     As the last faint rumble of thunder died, the skies opened up.
Not merely a scattering of clouds, but as the Vampyre became the
stars it had once stolen, black became only darkness that would in
a few hours see the light of day once more.
     And there shone the brilliant crescent moon.
     The Darkqueen and the Mystwolf consort shared a look of
finality; this ordeal was over and the last known Vampyre was dead.
The City of Lights would find peace once more.
     "Ne, where's Sora?" the long-haired blonde asked, walking
towards them. "What happened to him?"
     "Mako-chan's gone too," the dark-haired prince said, helping
the odango-haired blonde up.
     Indeed the raven angel and the tall brunette had vanished, no
longer with their company. Both had been consumed within that final
explosion of light that had claimed the body of the worm.
     Meikyu solemnly looked up at the heavens. "They sacrificed all
their power and magik to ensure that Vritra was destroyed. They
both died in killing it."
     A silent gasp went across them all.
     "Iie," the odango-haired blonde whispered hoarsely. To grieve
the loss of one, and now grieve for them both would be almost too
much.
     Suddenly the skull of the lizard-worm pushed out from the
pulsating shadows. Vritra had been reborn. Its new form launched
itself into the air, towering over them all. "Filthy sub-creatures
of Earth!" it roared. "Prepare to die!"
     "Masaka!" the blue-haired genius exclaimed, recoiling. The
masquerade wraith leaped in front of the girl, scythe bared and
ready to be wielded.
     "Chikusho," Kishi swore. 
     The worm laughed, hatred in each echo its voice. "Baka angels.
I was still merged with those three girls from the very start! The
raven angel only killed an extension of my body!"
     The Vampyre snarled, seeing which one it would kill first.
     And suddenly there was Chaos.
     "Wait!" the Elven lord exclaimed, appearing to hover before
the beast. "Before we come to our grand finale, please allow for
one magik trick!"
     "Damned Elven!" the Vampyre demon roared, snapping its jaws at
him.
     Chaos darted through the air, back to a safer distance. He
smiled, glancing back at the odango-haired blonde to give a playful
wink. "And for his next great game, his lordship Chaos will now
make this creature of darkness disappear!"
     The Vampyre lunged for the Elven lord, its massive form of
darkness wrapping around all possible means of escape. Even with
its deafening roar shaking the ground, Chaos remained perfectly
calm. For resting in the Elven lord's hands was a Pandora Box.
Chaos' fingers brushed against the lid, pulling it out from the
chest. With a tremendous throw the Elven lord launched the Pandora
Box out into the heart of the Vampyre.
     In a flash of ocean blue light everything became lost. And
then nothing. Chaos leisurely descended back to the ground, the
Pandora Box's lid now shut tightly, and the sapphire lock placed
over it.
     "Wha...what happened?" the long-haired blonde asked
hesitantly.
     Chaos chuckled. "I beat him for the second time in a row."
     "You sealed the Vampyre inside the Pandora Box," the Darkqueen
said. "Very impressive, Chaos."
     He tapped on the lid. An enraged series of dull thumps from
inside the box responded. The Elven lord chuckled. "Oooh, he sounds
pissed. But I don't think Vritra will be coming back anytime soon." 
     "However," the blue-haired genius pointed out. "There is no
empty Pandora Box left. Chaos cannot be sealed."
     Chaos cocked an eyebrow, feigning innocent surprise. "Why, so
it is! What an unexpected yet marvellous turn of events!"
     "Please," the dark-haired prince said, chuckling none the
less. "You planned that out perfectly, Chaos."
     The Elven lord feigned hurt. "Oh, now that saddens me. Don't
you trust his lordship Chaos?"     
     Came the resounding reply: "No."
     "You are all so suspicious," the Elven lord sighed.
     Meikyu passed by Chaos, giving a friendly pat on the Elven's
shoulder. "And with good cause."
     Chaos considered that. "True. Very true."
     "Of course," the voice of the Tsukino child pointed out.
"Helios can very easily create a new one for you."
     Many in the group spun around, only to be presented with the
sight of the Tsukino maiden and the DreamMaster standing on the
edge of the sidewalk. How long the two of them had stood waiting
there, none could be certain. 
     "Chibiusa!" the odango-haired blonde exclaimed.
     "Chibiusa-chan," Chaos said fondly. "What brings you here?
Throwing me a victory celebration already?"
     "Forgive our absence from your battle," the Tsukino child
said, bowing. "In bargaining for Sora to become a Stormsoul, Helios
was unable to intercede with his own magik."
     "What does it matter?" Kishi said. "Sora and Makoto are both
dead now. They didn't have to, since Chaos sealed Vritra in a
Pandora Box."
     The Tsukino child shook her head. "Iie, Kishi. Nothing of
magik ever truly dies. They are just reborn." 
     "Where are they now?" the prince asked.
     The answer was spoken by the Darkqueen, one who understood the
magiks of this battle that were operating in shadow. "In Thanatos'
realm."


     Such a warm feeling, a warmth born of dedication and love,
brought together by something that not even destiny could fully
weave. At first perhaps born of a child and his mother; how long
ago had he been held like that? Then he saw emerald green eyes,
smelled the sweet fragrance of chestnut brown hair. Soft, gentle
skin caressed his cheek.
     He awoke, eyes opening.
     No longer crimson, but of an emerald forest. 
     An atrium, majestic and beautiful. Once it had been a shrine
to a queen sleeping within a glass coffin. Now there was a large,
shallow fountain in place of that coffin, peaceful waters lapping
at the stairs leading into the sunken floor. Stone fish and water
dragyns leisurely spouted more water across the pool. And all
around this place, a wall of arches.
     "What am I doing here?" he asked himself quietly.
     She was laying there in his arms, sleeping soundly, her head
resting against his chest. He smiled in stroking her tresses of
long brown hair. So peaceful, so innocent and vulnerable in her
sleep; it was hard to imagine that she could also be a soldier
ready to die for what she believed in.
     Ghosts of the past flickered across the Gallery, memories born
of the Sanctuary and its magik. Each one possessed a face he
recognized, a form he knew.
     "Who are your shadows?" he whispered.
     A fading flicker of the DreamMaster stood next to the pillar.
"They are the raven angels."
      The Wanderer appeared now, leaning next to Helios against the
pillar. "Ever since your death sent ripples through the Dreamworld,
they have been using their own powers in the hopes of finding you."
     The DreamMaster glanced at a new spectre emerging from winds
and mysts. Thanatos. Cloaked in a hooded robe of blackest night,
bearing a scythe that appeared more dangerous than that of the
masquerade wraith. A hand moved to the skull face, removing the
grinning, bleached white mask. 
     "I've been here from the start. Every step this raven angel
has made, I was there to see the footprint." Thanatos glanced over
at the Wanderer. "Long time, no death, Karasu." 
     That drew a chuckle in response. "I see your rather macabre
sense of humour hasn't changed either, Thanatos."
     Both seemed to vanish, blown into wisps of grey air as a draft
rippled through the Gallery. Thanatos reappeared, knelt down on the
last step before the waters of the pool. "I was presented with a
dilemma when you were killed. Your soul refused to find peace, nor
could it even if you had died naturally."
     Emerald green eyes rested upon her sleeping form, watching her
breath peacefully. Two hearts beating in her body, both of them
already beautiful.
     "It was your decision to keep me in this state until I could
destroy the Vampyre," he said. He turned away, and found the
spectre of the Wanderer sitting against the interior of an archway.
"Can Karasu give me a new body with an illusion?"
     The ScytheMaster's ghost rose, drifting. "I'm afraid that's
impossible. His illusionary powers cannot revive the dead." 
     He lowered his eyes; he was a raven angel. His magik held
legal rights in the Earthworld, and his death was beyond Thanatos'
powers. "What about my Imagika?" he asked.
     Again the ScytheMaster appeared, sitting beside him. "Iie. The
raven angels upon coming to earth are without such things."
     His eyes widened. "N-Na ni?" he whispered hoarsely.
     "Daijobu," the voice of Helios soothed him. "I have known of
this for a long time. The Imagika of a raven angel lies within
their Dreamworld; the realm they choose to create and defend is
their Imagika. That is why a guardian angel has always died when
the place they protected was destroyed."
     "Alone I would not survive," he said, staring up at the
skylight. "But then my life on earth should not have been."
     Helios shook against those words. 
     "Iie. Your soul, your lifemagik, was bound with another,"
Thanatos answered. "You were always tied to the life of your
beloved, Sora. You became a part of her, your own Imagika left
behind to keep your kingdom and its dreamers alive. And when her
time to pass from this earth occurs, you shall disappear to be with
her in an eternal dream, together forever."
     A crescent moon shone down upon him. Basking in its warm glow,
once more a child in the arms of his mother. Raven wings appeared,
folding around them both. He saw the sparkle from her ring. She had
kept her promised, and waited for him.
     "It has already happened," he stated. 
     The Wanderer appeared in behind him. "But it appears the
Ancients are not finished with you two yet."
     The DreamMaster appeared, hand drifting in the fountain
waters. "Karasu, your father left you with more than just an
Imagika. It was his sphere of illusion, everything that gave him a
life on Earth."
     The Wanderer was there, standing on water. Looking at him from
behind a pair of shades that hid crystal blue eyes. Karasu's silver
cloak fluttered in a wind he could not feel. 
     "Karasu, it is not my wish to force this upon you," he said
quietly. "All I can ask...all I can hope for...is--"
     Abruptly the Wanderer spoke but one word: "Hai."
     He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling the magik within his
soul. This was a part the warmth he felt. He could feel his life
and his heart returning to him. He began to cry, weeping at the
beauty of life being reborn within him.
     The ScytheMaster's phantom appeared once more. "Sora, without
Morpheus' sphere of illusion, your spirit will be put to rest among
the stars. You can take a mortal body, but in doing so you will
become the DreamSeer. Never again will you be able to cross over to
Earth unless it is to safeguard a surviving magik. I can only give
you one night before my own power is overruled, and you must return
to the Sanctuary."
     She stirred, quietly moaning and burying her head deeper in
his arms. He smiled, lowering his head and kissing her forehead.
She was dreaming the beautiful dreams of an angel. "Mako-chan, wake
up," he said quietly. "Please, I ask for her resurrection in place
of my own. Without her, my own dreams become darkness."
     He saw for but a brief moment the flicker of someone dressed
in black standing within the shadows. "She sacrificed her magik and
thus herself to destroy Vritra. Her heart is pure, her soul is
strong and dedicated."
     Eyes of emerald forests abruptly fluttered open, and she
sighed as his face became her first new memory. Their hands found
each other's and fingers laced together.
     The ghost of the ScytheMaster seemed to smile behind the
skeletal mask, turning away and disappearing. "This would not be
the first time I have granted such a request for her, Sora. But
unlike you, she is human, and will return to Earth. There is
nothing I can do to change that. Sayonara."
     Everyone around him faded. Only she was left in his arms.
     She sat up, still watching him with quiet affection. 
     "Mako-chan," he whispered, kissing her forehead. "You're
awake."
     The Wanderer's spectre, hidden with the shadow of a pillar,
turned and disappeared to another kingdom of the Dreamworld, once
more a lost soul walking the dreamscapes of an eternal midnight
sky.
     "I had the strangest dream," she said, touching her lips. Her
hands moved to stroke his cheek. "Sora...your eyes."
     Indeed, his eyes were no longer crimson. That had belonged to
the raven angel who died. Now he was reborn, her lover and her
guardian. Her magik was now his, and thus his eyes had become like
emerald forests of deep green.
     "Your magik," he answered. "Arigato, Mako-chan. I could have
done nothing without your strength. You are forever my inspiration
and my beautiful angel."
     She smiled, her head resting back on his chest. "It's so warm
here, Sora."
     "Hai, Mako-chan. Sleep all you want. I'll be here as long as
you need me to be."
     Her eyes closed again, exhausted from the ordeal. And so she
slept, spending their last night together as Earth children in his
arms. There could have been so much for them to do, so much for
them to say in these last hours.
     Yet sitting here, cradling her as she slept, felt more perfect
than anything else. Completion in her eyes, his soul belonging
wholly to her. He watched the unhurried waters of the fountain
bubbling across the pool. In a gallery not to far from this one, a
wyvern awoke from a sleep in gold, and called out to the corridors.
     "I'll always be here for you," he whispered, the tears
starting to fall from his eyes. "Mako-chan, I love you. And I will
do anything for you and our child, our daughter." 
     There was sadness in accepting the only way they could still
be together yet still remain apart. He would not be there for her
to cuddle up next to in falling asleep. His once crimson eyes would
not greet her each morning as she awoke.
     He brushed some stray bangs of hair away from her face. "I
shall wait for you, just as I did long ago at a torii standing near
the base of lofty mountains...in a dream I once used to dance in
before we travelled your realm together. Now and forever."
     He gently placed a hand on her growing belly. 
     What should they name her?
     Eyes of emerald forests looked to the stars, twinkling lights
shining down on them while circling a crescent moon. There would be
plenty of time to decide that. Together as Earth children there was
only the night, but as lovers there was only eternity....


     He stood atop the Tokyo Tower once more, watching in silence
as the darkness at last began to die. In its place, sweeping hues
of red, orange and purple tinted the skies. Light was returning to
this city, one destined to become legend. There were those amidst
these glass castles who were like him, souls of those who knew of
the old magiks. They had rediscovered those ancient of powers, and
were once more using them to protect this realm. 
     This Earthworld. 
     Silver eyes, clouded like the winter's mist, stared out at the
vast expanse of cityscape before him. Once more he found himself
drawn here, to this place where steel and glass all came together
to form a tower. Strange to feel the magik coursing vividly within
this structure.
     Early morning winds played with the front bangs of jet black
that were dangling at the eyes. And those two eyes were clouded
over, the vision within them lost.
     He was blind.
     And yet he could see beyond sight, beyond what the eyes could
simply see. Magik knew not a handicap such as blindness. He was one
of them, an Ancient, one of those to become the first to master the
elusive arts of magik these Senshi so freely wielded today. And
because they were the first, their power in the magiks was immense. 
     He was one of them. And something so much more than them. For
in order to see beyond what can be seen with only human eyes, one
must lose the humanity within their eyes. He could not recall when
those eyes now a blurred silver had watched the sunrise as any
other person would. All he saw now was the way the magik moved with
the sun, the way it reflected off the hollow, empty buildings.
     In being blinded, he had been gifted.
     A chance to use the magik given him.
     A dream to create a new realm unlike any other.
     "So," a voice said, cutting through the silence he seemed so
content with. "It was you who released Vritra after all."
     The Raithe continued to stand on the edge of the Tokyo Tower's
observation deck, watching the skies begin to clear with the dawn
of a new day. He never gestured or hinted to any form of response.
     At last he spoke. "It was necessary, Thanatos," he stated.
"The Wanderer cannot remain entrapped within the Sanctuary any
longer."
     From behind the Raithe, the one who was the Ancient master of
the Scythe shifted from the concealing shadows. Thanatos joined him
at the edge of the tower, both staring out into the heavens. 
     "What is it that you see?" the ScytheMaster asked quietly. "Of
us all, you are the only one who remains a mystery."
     The Raithe slowly looked to Thanatos. "What I see are for my
eyes alone. It is a dream that must be fulfilled, but no longer by
my hands."
     That drew a laugh from Thanatos, dark and sensing the hidden
irony in that statement. "Yare yare. This coming from the one who
has been subtlely manipulating history from the shadows for over a
thousand years. I suppose I should be grateful that I know of your
existence at all."
     He nodded. "The only reason you have to know of my name is
because of him, because of the Wanderer."
     Thanatos leaned against the shaft of the unsheathed scythe,
glancing first to his eyes of blind wintry silver and then out to
Tokyo once more. "You told me not to end his life when he gave it
up for Princess Serenity inside the Dreamworld," the ScytheMaster
said in a low voice. "No one has ever told me anything before.
They've asked, begged and even threatened out of fear. But never
stated with such certainty as you did."
     "He is special," the Raithe answered. "As Princess Serenity is
the key to the future of your realm, so is the Wanderer to mine.
Both of their magiks must be preserved if the future is to survive
what is to come."
     He knelt down at the edge, cloaks and garments, each a
different shade of midnight skies, shifting as he moved. The winds
pushed against a coat of darkness that seemed to be vibrantly
breathing around his body. There was so much left to be done, so
much that must be left undone. So many times he had worked with an
invisible hand to let the final dream be realized, but now it was
no longer up to him.
     "What do the others know about my involvement?" he asked
Thanatos. "Your other counterparts?"
     Thanatos merely shrugged. "They suspect, but cannot be certain
that you even existed to unleash the Vampyre from beneath the seal
of rune incantations. A few of them want to know how Sorata
possessed their magik of the storm, but most have dismissed it as
a symbiotic relationship with Kino Makoto. And I think they are all
starting to watch me with caution as well."
     "Let them watch you to their heart's content," the Raithe
stated. "They will find nothing of me, just as nothing of me has
been found for so many tens of thousands of years."
     The tragic end of the Silver Millennium had sent a court of
surviving Ancients into hiding. And as the magik slowly faded from
the Earthworld, so too had these Ancients faded, withdrawing to
their own devices. He had never bothered with them, even from the
beginning. They all knew of his magik, but not of him.
     Of all those within that court of Ancients, Thanatos seemed to
be the one who possessed the restless heart, and return to Earth to
watch it. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he had chosen to make
himself known to the ScytheMaster.
     He had chosen to remain a wanderer by his own rights within
two realms at once. His footsteps echoed in every part of the world
where magik had once been. For so long he had watched in silence as
the Earthworld forgot. And now the old magiks had appeared once
more.
     "Sailor...Senshi," he whispered, his voice barely audible even
to the winds moving past him. He had never encountered any like
them before. Not since the Silver Millennium. And now they were the
keys to the future.
     To a rebirth.
     Thanatos' words reached his ears once more. "You released the
Elven lord of Chaos as well, then."
     He shook his head. "Iie. That was not my doing."
     From beneath the hood and the grinning skull mask, the
ScytheMaster's eyes widened. This came as an unexpected revelation,
and he found it slightly amusing to see an Ancient react so.
     "But then who...?"
     The Raithe stood up once more in sensing the shift of the
winds of magik. No longer was he watching the city, but now acting
as its guardian. A child of his own he had to protect, and in doing
so this place also fell under his protecting magiks.
     "At last," he whispered. "It's finally here."
     The Scourge was awakening....