 
**F-Infinity Saga, Canto I**

James Smith

Copyright 2013 by James Smith

Smashwords Edition

Acknowledgements

To my friends, now scattered across the world like so many fallen stars: you have always been the light in my midnight sky. Thank you for everything you've done for me, to help me achieve this -- and other -- dreams.

To my readers: I'm truly grateful that you've chosen to give this series a read, please take your time and enjoy the journey. My personal hope with this series is to inspire curiosity and wonder, and your interest is what will drive me to even greater heights. More than anything, have fun with the read and thank you!

A special thank you, too, is due to Sabina Hernandez Gracia, who has always been a true friend and an amazingly talented artist who not only designed this book's cover, but whose insights helped define and shape the mysterious world you are about to explore!

Thank you again, and please enjoy the journey ahead!

-James D.R. Smith

Prologue: The Future is Now

Death did not find Seven Kharaos as it had so many others, alone and afraid. Instead the bastard wore a triumphant grin frozen to his face by the pain and the frigid cold. It was the smirk of a man who had cheated destiny; a man who had died a hero -- and the world itself, shuddering at its very core and resounding with the mechanical thrum of Fate could neither imagine nor abide such a fairy tale outcome.

No, Death did not find Seven Kharaos as it had so many others -- all others, in fact -- for the first time since mortality reached its inevitable conclusion and found It waiting at the end, the Death had come as a harbinger of life.

Nor did the fallen find death in the way one expects or hopes. Not in the sense of wishing to die comfortably in bed, slain by the scythe-like hands of time, nor in glory -- a martyr for some ultimately insignificant cause, eroded by the immutable winds of change. Such things had never held meaning to him.

Seven Kharaos had simply not expected the red-rimmed eyes of Death to so much resemble his own.
Chapter 1:4 Days

Two weeks before the world ended, a young man with pensive blue eyes looked upon his sweeping homeland for what he decided would be the last time. Mountain peaks grasped at the sky with fall's final fury, flames licking greedily at the very doorstep of Heaven. The lazy little town he had grown up in had barely changed for all the years he had been away -- from a distance, not at all. Though he had expected as much, the young man found himself both disappointed and relieved. His had been a life of chaos, and that minute constant disturbed him nearly as much as it offered comfort.

A capricious wind ruffled dark, curly hair as the man hesitated at the foot of the tall hill that swooped down into town. He used it as an excuse to fuddle in his pockets for a comb. Distracted fingers found three dollars, a pocket knife with a broken blade, two purple Japanese charm called _omamori_ , two blue and white Turkish _nazar boncugu_ , "evil eyes", and various other trinkets from his journeys. When he grasped the comb at last, victorious, he pulled it along with a score of his other prizes out, spilling them onto the dirt-packed ground.

With a huffed sigh at his characteristic klutziness, he retrieved them one by one. He winced sharply at the new crack running through the tiny lapis lazuli moai statue -- the second in its relatively short tenure with him. The final item he gathered was his passport; the ID page had flipped open and he chuckled at the open and innocent stare that beamed at him. When his eyes at last slipped from the photo to the rest of the information, though, his smile soured. The letters pronounced it boldly, a scathing condemnation. Seven Kharaos. In many years, he had been many people. He had been who he had to be, and who he could be, but never what he wished to be. Now, things had come full circle, no further than when he had left. Only now he had less time. Much less. The why, though, escaped him in its entirety.

The dreams still haunted him as they always had, veiled whispers that tugged at the back corners of his mind -- promises, revelations... threats. Even now, if he pressed his eyes shut tight against the empty cerulean canvas of the near-winter sky, he could see the silhouette of pristine wings, cast by the afterglow of fiery and terrible destruction. Such things had never come to pass, of course, and his logic railed against the very possibility. As such, he had chosen, at last, to come home.

Determined now, his feet once again met the road, long strides closing the distance to his destination with increasing speed. He began to run, a battle cry caught in his throat, backpack bouncing behind him. A few idle cars passed, the drivers following him with eyes that wondered who the stranger in their midst was, and what had brought him to Nowhere, USA. He met the gazes evenly and fiercely until they were gone, carried on their way by the sweeping tides of time.

On cresting the top, to the thin plateau on which perched the few scattered houses that represented the town's more antisocial residents, Seven allowed himself the slightest of breaths. Yet unable to focus properly ahead, he instead broke his promise and turned back to look down over the village once more. Green hills rolled languidly, emerald waves lapping at the outskirts of civilization. A single, crinkled road meandered drunkenly onward, a dull grey snake scaled with distant low-rising buildings and dotted with the occasional car. No future existed in that direction. None ever had.

Teeth grit, and twenty-seven years of pain weighing down on his soul, the prodigal son turned back to where home lay. At the end of the road, the head of the metaphorical snake, the dingy white house reared up to its less-than-impressive height of roughly two and a half floors. Two paned windows stared down at him, slightly illuminated from the inside like the eyes of a disgruntled dragon. One had once been his room, and the other belonged to his sister. The light meant she was home. Seven shuddered and wondered if he should make his grand return another, safer time. In his life, he had never run away. Tactical retreats were another matter altogether.

A mere minute: an infinity measured by tempered fear, his hand lingered on the brass knob, pondering his final chance to escape. He turned the miserable thing open and stepped inside.

Little had changed there as well. The door opened on a kitchen punctuated by half a dozen different scents -- the strongest of which, cinnamon, hung in the air like whispered promises of apple pies underscored by the stale scent of ancient tobacco, long spent. A half-burnt candle, also cinnamon, teetered in the corner above the stove, and the maple table stood as it had for years; a silent sentinel welcoming guests merely with its polished visage. One plate with a crust of burnt bread and the remnants of runny egg squared off against a bowl of soggy cereal and an untouched glass of orange juice. An unfamiliar bit of country pop bastardization played low on the radio; a rousing tribute to the wonders of alcohol and a third-grade education at a fourth-rate school. Though no one listened, it added a flavor to the essence of the home -- a subtle vibe that resonated within the wooden floorboards and white-plaster walls spattered with powder blue.

Just in case, Seven called out, "I'm home!" with all the enthusiasm of a cowardly hunter intruding on a sleeping bear's private den. Ashamed, he found his voice the second time, and yelled louder. Still no answer. His shoulders sagged, though whether with relief or disappointment, he doubted even they knew and he breathed out a long breath that stuck in his throat at a familiar, throaty voice.

"Hi brother," a young woman said behind him. Electricity crept through every fiber of his being as icy fingers played haunting melodies along the keys of his spine. From where and how his sister had come would be an answer he could never quite understand. She managed to slip in and out of shadows, ghostlike, and for as long as he had known her -- often appearing where least expected -- and wanted. Like on dates. When he had been pinned down under insurgent fire in the deserts of Afghanistan, the land flat and wide for a hundred miles in every direction and the hated sun of that cursed land purging any semblance of shadow save the blasted and pitiful makeshift barrier he crouched behind he had almost expected to hear those words, "Hi brother," and to turn and see her next to him -- a petulant look pasted on her face.

Seven turned on that voice to find his sister staring at him -- her wide green eyes shining with a child-like innocence that thinly, so thinly! masked the berserk monster raging beneath. A slight smile slipped past her lips and was gone again, lost forever and quickly replaced by a thin-lipped grimace. He returned that smile, no larger, though it lingered imperceptibly longer. "Hi Destine," he whispered in his own gravelly voice -- throat so dry the words trembled on his lips, fearful to plunge into the endless void that made up at least 70% of the stuff between his sister's ears.

"So..." his sister began, "Where've ya been?" She slipped past him and plopped down in one of the kitchen chairs, mounting it backwards so she could look at him, head resting on arms crossed atop the backrest. "Mom, and Bryan, and everyone else would like to know. We took bets."

"Here and there," Seven replied, looking down at his sister. A distant memory stirred in the depths of his eyes and his voice mellowed whimsically, "Mostly there."

Destine looked him up and down, "I bet that you'd gotten drunk and passed out somewhere in Boston." Her voice took on a somber tone, "Looks like I was wrong. Are you okay?"

He brushed the question off with a wave of his hand that turned into a sweeping gesture. "Where is everyone else?" he asked, looking around the ostensibly empty home for any sign of the rest of his family, equally reluctant to explain his sudden homecoming.

"Mom left for Maine for a few weeks and took Bryan with her, if you even remember our undistinguished brother," Destine said as she looked at him, scanning for some reaction. Something played in her body language mischievously, a cat playing with a live morsel. Seven saw the trap and walked into it resignedly, seeing no other route.

"And Dad?" he asked, wincing at the question.

Destine's features lit up, the trap sprung with all the perfection of an ancient trapper hunting naive deer, tempered by experience and not dulled in the least by the banal thrill of the kill. "Divorced. Going on three years. No idea where he is. Good riddance," she declared at last, voice firm and cold as ice. A proclamation of execution issued by a merciless governor.

Disappointed, but unsurprised, Seven's shrug spoke volumes to his own experiences. The death of love, and the childhood illusions -- or delusions -- of family held little relevance in the mind of one who had seen the death of so many souls. Burdened still, he swung down his bag, an old duffel that he referred as "The General", as though relieving the physical would negate the spiritual.

The General lacked anything immediately recognizable as a handle. It had belonged to his grandfather sometime between Vietnam and Okinawa, and the steel blue fabric had long ago worn to something more resembling a dusty grey. On every journey he had ever taken with it, careless baggage handlers had managed to remove a piece. Two handles, three patches, a giant rip had appeared in the side that he kept held together with duct tape and a dozen other scraps, scrapes, and broken pieces of plastic jutted out like cavity-marred teeth that bit at any who failed to afford The General proper respect. Seven carried it with a makeshift rope of green duct tape that functioned just as well as the real thing -- more or less. The General bulged now, small trinkets wrapped in colorful cloth poked out of a new hole -- its most recent scar thanks to the baggage jerks in L.A. -- as though making a break for freedom.

One of these he withdrew, pulling it through the hole carefully and respectfully so as not to anger his loyal companion -- or add further injury to either of them -- and presented it to his sister. "Not much," he said, "but I hope you like it."

Destine snatched it from his hands, the crimson cloth crinkling in her grip. She did not ask whether she could open it there or not, the feature being noticeably absent from American culture, and curiously pulled back the cloth revealing the sharp gold-studded brass. In her hands she held an ancient knife, sheathed in a wooden case painted with a dizzying array of blues and greens. Seven's sister smiled at the gift as she pulled the short blade from its home, observing the edge in the light filtering in from outside. She seemed disappointed that it could not really slash, but was quite satisfied with the exceptionally sharp tip.

"Thanks," she said. "So where does this come from?" Seven doubted she really cared but had a little surprise of his own to launch.

"Korea," he replied nonchalantly, "women used to wear them there, in its final dynasty. It's called an _eun-jong do_."

The violent girl really seemed to like that. She spun the blade with her fingers, twirling it like a magician until it balanced precariously on one fingertip. "So, they used this to protect themselves from men?" she asked with a wolfish grin, "I can think of some ways to put it to good use, too."

"Not quite," Seven corrected, "when girls were assaulted they used it on themselves. To protect their purity." He returned his sister's chilling stare, happy the tables had turned, "Enjoy it," he said.

As quickly as the knife had whirled in Destine's experienced hands, it reappeared in its sheath, and then that too, disappeared into her pockets. Though his sister often proved evil in mind if not action, and perhaps at best unstable on her better days, she did have a very strong sentimental streak. Of course, he had not bought the dagger with the hopes that she would ever use it -- aside from its sordid past, the weapon made quite a gift and had cost him quite a bit. Seeing her expression, though, was worth every penny.

In the silence brought by his proclamation something seemed off. Many years had passed, however Seven never imagined his sister would remain simply quiet after such a twist. Seven scanned the room, looking for the source of the disturbance: a small tickle on the back of his neck that told him things were not as they seemed.

And then he realized it. Distracted by his sister's hurricane-like presence, he had not noticed the existence of another, far more subtle flicker of life. Seven turned to look back at his sister, his eyes widening as he placed the feeling, the question forming on his lips cut off by his sister's answer as though she had read his very thoughts.

"Yep," she said simply, a smug smile returning to her face. Seven had lost again. He turned mechanically as the familiar energy emerged from his sister's room, praying to some distant and deaf god that he could have mistaken the instinct. Very rarely, though, had Seven's extended senses betrayed him.

From the room beyond emerged a young man wearing little more than a towel. His ebony skin glistened over hardened muscles, his smile broad and pearly and pure as he took in his long lost friend. "Seven!" Jennsen Wraist exclaimed, voice a booming echo that oozed confidence and the calm of firm command. Shoulder to shoulder, he would have towered over Seven but for now, he held his distance -- half unyielding wall, half spooked rabbit. Though he held himself confidently, his burnt-amber eyes searched the room frantically for escape.

Seven, though, choked on a dozen questions; the most prominent of which was simply, "WHY?" Instead, he just goggled at his half-naked childhood friend, head turning mechanically back and forth to register the connection between him and his sister.

Seeing his friend so obviously torn brought a look of pained understanding to Jennsen's face and he took a step forward to put a calming hand on Seven's shoulder. "Look man, I'da told you but you've been incommunicado since you saved my ass back in the jungle." Seven shrugged the hand away. He wished he hadn't pulled Jennsen out of the fire. Good deeds never went unpunished.

At the thought of his old friend not being there, though, Seven's bitterness temporarily subsided. He chided himself for wishing harm on someone who had never before failed to support or defend him. With a final look at the scene, as though to record the fear in some kind of mental diary, he did his best to let it go.

"What brought ya back?" Jennsen asked, eager to change the subject. Growing up, Seven had been the ever-calm eye of a vengeful storm. The last time Jennsen had seen his friend, though, the storm had raged unabated. He still had nightmares of those days, and though it was for his sake, Jennsen had never managed to look at his friend quite the same again. Though Seven had, quite often, claimed his sister to be unstable, a fearsome and drunken berserker who fed on chaos -- had he ever taken the time to look into the mirror, Jennsen once told him, Seven would recognize the insatiable blood thirst that swam just below the innocent glow of his too-clear eyes.

"I found my answer," he said simply, losing a willful battle to suppress his emotions. His voice terse, he clipped the end of his sentence with a fierce bite.

Curious, Jennsen pressed, "What did you find?" he asked calmly. The predicted answer, though, came as a startling condemnation.

With a voice that trembled with terrible power, like an angelic herald who proclaimed all days were now at an end, Seven replied with an unsure smile, "Nothing," he said. "The answer is nothing."

Unable to contain the cresting waves of shock and rage, and entirely unwilling to drown in that depthless sea of emotion, Seven spun on his heel and left his childhood home once more.

Perhaps they should have gone after him. Perhaps they should have told him the truth, or at least alluded to it. Perhaps they should have simply remained quiet, waiting for a conclusion dictated by fate and set into motion upon the first breath of the first star.

But Destine Kharaos and Jennsen Wraist were of a different stock. Even before the retreating form of brother and friend eluded their sight, the two looked at each other only once before setting into motion. Seven's sudden arrival and unexpected conclusion had confirmed deep-seeded fears shrouded in the dark and terrible realization that they, too, had probably played some small role in the world's end.
Chapter 2: Ascended

Far away, on a distant and forbidding side of the world, for the very first time in history cigarettes had saved a life.

Clutching tendrils of acrid black smoke filtered up from the ruins of the elementary school building, grasping at the passionless blue sky as though in one final and desperate attempt to seize the eluding memory of the past -- for clearly, there would be no future. Not in the God-forsaken land of Palestine.

Alex McKinnon looked at what little remained with a stunned, disbelieving look glazed onto his soot-blackened face. The cancer stick drooped between his two open lips, and he failed to notice when it slid free, bouncing off his foot to rest next to a large chunk of plaster that had once been a wall. Had it not been for his vice, though, Alex would have been inside the school when the bombs fell.

Dimly, he could hear the roar of the fighter jet's engine. Long gone now and probably already home, the pilot a temporary hero until someone realized that he had missed whatever target he was aiming for. The building itself had most certainly done nothing wrong, and though it came as a wonderful blessing that no one had been inside, the loss would surely send shockwaves through the community. The school was the one, the only, chance for the many to rise up beyond the bonds of their cultural heritage. Especially for the girls, who faced an upward battle even with a solid education bolstering them.

Alex's voice came in an angry and desperate roar, a challenge directed at a world that would not listen, would not answer. Would only serve to mock failure and sublimate success. A single shaft of sunlight pierced the smoky blanket and fell on his face, a golden rope that promised hope would be born once again. With a snarl, Alex turned away and kicked at a piece of the rubble that had come dangerously close to breaking some toes.

At that moment, he saw the shadow flicker on the ground, cast by the solitary ray of heaven's light. He whirled on it in surprise.

The girl held her fingers up to her lips to shush him as he opened his mouth in surprise. Small -- petite, even \-- and clad in heavy layers of dusty white cloth that concealed nearly all of her features, she stared up at him with eyes that belied her heritage. Wherever she was from, it was not there. Slightly slanted and wide, with the color and depth of a million-year old piece of amber, Alex guessed those eyes claimed a homeland somewhere in the distant east. She carried a long black ski bag that seemed as out of place as the entire scene did, destruction and all.

As he opened his mouth again to ask her who she was, the girl gestured again and swept her hand around, guiding his vision to the terraces of not-so-distant apartments. Through the haze, he could make out movement, more shadows flickering in dusty windows. He caught the glint of metal, heard the voices rising in anger.

"We're surrounded," whispered the figure, her lilting voice clear and fierce, though Alex had to lean in to hear. "If they hear us..." she shrugged, leaving the rest implied.

Alex felt no fear, though. "I've worked here for five years," he replied in a normal voice, "all the locals know me and like me. They'll help us."

"They are scared, and angry as bees, and will want someone to blame," the girl glared at him as she spoke in her whispers. "Do you trust them enough to spare an idiot American who thinks five years guarantees him safety in a culture that has suffered for two thousand?" Gunshots, fired upward randomly and accompanied by rising chants punctuated each word and suddenly Alex felt less sure.

"What do we do?" he asked, glancing up nervously as the shadows took form. _Mujahedeen_ \-- the local Islamic militias -- in the school's neighborhood were remarkably well organized and notoriously fierce. They had tolerated the school stoically only because it offered some protection from Israeli attacks, and now that too was gone and they would seek an outlet for their anger. More gunshots rang out.

The girl was already moving. "Through the ruins," she whispered over her shoulder. "Come quickly," she said. With a glance around her surroundings, like a wild animal scanning for danger, she bit off a curse in her native tongue. "They've seen us," she added grimly, "we need to lose them through the school."

Not wasting time either, Alex followed, a nervous eye cast over one shoulder. He could hear the voices approaching from behind, growing louder and colored with zealous fervor. The girl got to the doors first, and with one glance backward at Alex to make sure he was following, she pushed through, holding the ski bag in front of her like a talisman to ward against evil ahead.

Little was left of the building's insides. Thoroughly gutted by the explosions, fires still flickered where papers burned and plaster dust clouded the air. The building groaned as though in pain, and spider web cracks crawled throughout the walls, warning of imminent collapse. Slipping through like a spirit of the night, the girl navigated broken beams and fallen chunks of ceiling that leaked fragile sunlight. Electricity sparked from shattered lights and broken wires, hissing like angry snakes. Occasionally she stopped to gesture at a place where the floor seemed too weak to support his weight.

"What do I call you?" he whispered ahead, feeling as though he should at least introduce himself to his savior. She gave no indications of having heard, but shot back, "Mirai. Kishida. Shut up." Alex did not even know which one to call her and feared to ask.

A moment later, though, Mirai pointed at a room to the side. "Chem lab?" was all that she asked. Alex nodded yes, unsure if she could see but still unwilling to open his mouth and expose himself to more abuse.

She disappeared suddenly inside, emerging a moment later while still tucking vials beneath the folds in her robes. One bottle she handed to Alex. "Spread on floor behind you as we go," she whispered. "Don't breathe it. Head down. They're close."

Ignoring orders, Alex brought the bottle just close enough to his mouth to take a whiff. The powerful smell of ether nearly knocked him out, and he paused for just a moment to clear his head and ponder the mysterious girl's intentions.

The sudden sound of voices, though, brought him back to sober reality and he followed, liberally sprinkling the noxious liquid behind him as he went and careful to stay upwind of the fumes.

As Mirai turned back towards him to gesture a turn, though, Alex's foot found an exposed pipe, eliciting a loud yelp that echoed down the ruined hallway. Activity erupted, the hunt was on. Voices raised in victory, sending shivers up Alex's spine as he realized they did not belong solely to men. Women's voices, too, and more disturbingly, children's excited squeals broke through the din. He wondered sadly if some of them were his students.

Mirai's firm grip yanked him from his thoughts just as a black-robed figure's head rose into view from the other side the jagged remnants of a wall. "Run!" she cried, shoving him roughly forward.

Gunfire erupted all around, blasting out bits of plaster as they tore through the walls like angry termites, eager to consume everything. One clipped Alex's ear sending him spinning sideways and over a twisted desk. He landed on his stomach hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs, and he choked on the dust, certain that he had taken a vital hit.

In less than a second, though, Mirai was over him, helping him to his feet. With a quick inspection, she took the ether from him as she sent him forward once again. "Not bad. Manly scar," she breathed. Suddenly her watch began to beep above the din of the bullet storm. "Bad!" she screamed, "Three minutes! Go go go!" Mirai began pushing Alex from the behind, unrelenting. "End of hall. Almost there! Don't stop!"

A sudden lull brought a moment's false security until Alex realized the pursuers were only reloading. He could see them clearly now, the fierce hunger in their eyes. They could see him, too, and exalted in the hunt. With a final burst of speed, he used the adrenaline surge of the moment to sprint to the door at the end of the hallway. It opened on a little-used alley, and he wondered if Mirai had any plan from there, or if she was relying on him to navigate.

More shots rang out, a staccato beat that cut into the wall less than an inch from Alex's head. He turned back to see the streaks of fire zipping down the hall. None managed to hit a target, though, and despite the haste, Mirai seemed perfectly comfortable with the carnage. Sprinting behind him, she did not pause at the doors, tucking her shoulder low and bowling straight through, tumbling into a roll. As she rose to her feet, she tossed the bottle of ether in behind her and gestured to Alex to close the doors.

She cast about and found a dumpster. Almost effortlessly, she pushed the heavy thing in front of the door, effectively barring it from the outside. With a satisfied nod, she glanced down at her watch. "Two minutes! Go go!" she yelled. "Up there!" she pointed at a terraced apartment some two hundred yards away and took off, yelling something incomprehensible behind her shoulder.

Just as Alex moved to follow, a huge crash sounded behind him. The human wave had broken against the door. It held. For the moment. He took off after his savior.

The door buckled again behind them, but the sound was smaller this time. The ether, he realized, sapped the horde of its strength, shaved away its fighting edge. They would not be able to budge the dumpster until they had time to recover.

Mirai was far ahead now, had already in fact managed the two hundred yard goal. Placing her hands on the terrace, she easily vaulted over and peered up, anger glowing in her eyes as she watched his approach. "Faster!" she screamed. "One minute! Get your ass moving!"

Something in her voice spurred him on, and at last he found his speed. He loped up the hill towards safety. Suddenly he noticed something else wrong, some deep instinct realized that the entire world had hushed, as though holding its breath -- impending disaster. Mirai yelled something, and suddenly she was beside him again, half dragging him the last ten yards. She leaped over the terrace again and pulled Alex over and in beside her just as her watch beeped a final time. She dragged Alex to the floor and clapped hands over his ears as the entire world disappeared into a phosphorescent white blur. Wind roared in his ears, dulled only slightly by Mirai's hands. He tried to place his hands over her ears as well, a completely futile gesture. He could see nothing. Hear nothing, not even his own pained whimpers.

And then it was over.

Alex lay still a long time, long after Mirai had moved away to the terrace. She was saying something to him, but he still could not hear properly. His eyes slowly came back into focus, stubbornly rejecting the damage from the flash. He had yet to work out what happened. Mirai was staring into her ski bag now, silently nodding in satisfaction. She turned back to him and offered a hand to help him to his feet.

As he looked out over the school, his breath caught in his throat. There was no school. It was gone. A second strike had turned the rubble into little more than dust, an empty and hungry hole driven into the ground. Alex's mouth worked silently, awed into uselessness. "The people..." he managed to stammer.

Mirai stared at him with eyes like liquid flame, golden in the hazy sunset, "With their false gods now," she replied.

"You locked them inside a building you knew was going to be destroyed!" Alex shot accusingly. The anger burned away all else. He rose up over her threateningly.

Her stare, though, spoke of a feral danger and desperation. "They followed us into that school fully intending to torture and kill us," she gestured at Alex's freely bleeding ear, "if they hadn't shot us to pieces first. They decided their fate the moment they chose to express themselves through their arms. He who lives by the sword..."

"Shall die by it," Alex finished, the rage clouding his voice. "And what of you, Mirai Kishida? She who lives by the bomb? You poisoned those people even before the strike came!"

"And you helped," Mirai added, a slight smile played on her lips, "I have long ago paid for my sins, and far in advance. This was not one of them. Lives are precious. Ours too."

Alex turned his back to her, disgusted. "You aren't human," he accused.

Again, Mirai's speed shocked him. She was suddenly toe-to-toe with him, looking up at him with eyes that had not simply been dyed gold by the setting sun, but had shed their natural color, deepening into a shining and unnatural gleam. "Neither are you, Seven Kharaos," she spoke each word with fierce conviction.

"My name isn't Seven Kharaos," he growled, "It's Alex McKinnon. Why would you be looking for Seven anyway?"

Mirai's look turned to ashen fear. "You aren't Seven Kharaos?" she gasped. "But..." she managed, "But you have to be! Look what they did to get to you!" Her hands gestured at the destruction.

"Get to me?" Alex returned, "What the hell are you talking about? And I know Seven. He and I went to school together. Not me. Thankfully."

Mirai's eyes locked onto his once again, pulling them in like a deep and inescapable vortex. They promised retribution for even the smallest lie. Alex gulped and tried to look as innocent as possible, hoping the girl would turn her predatory gaze away. "Look out there," she said, "you think they would target an otherwise empty school if not for you? You were the only person there."

Alex decided the girl was paranoid delusional, but he played along if only to avoid angering her further. "Why would they target me... errr," he added, "or Seven rather? He could be a jerk, but that's only because of his refusal to bend or break."

Mirai leaned in close, her whispered words barely audible. "None of your business," she said. "If not you, where can I find him?" she demanded. For the first time, Alex noticed that her robe had been tattered to pieces. A dozen holes riddled the fabric, a few in seemingly critical places, but the only blood staining the cloth was his own. Beneath the tatters, he could see Mirai's defined muscles, the wiry definition of a warrior.

"I don't know," he began and Mirai tensed. Realizing that would not be an appropriate answer, he racked his brain. "Look, he and I were only a little close back in middle school. In high school he rarely kept other company. Only a couple friends. I wasn't one of them." Suddenly a thought struck him, "Wait!" he said, "This morning, his sister Facebooked something about her brother coming back home. Late as usual."

Frowning, Mirai said the word, "Megid."

"What do we do now?" Alex asked. Though he feared the one who had accidentally saved him, he was equally scared to continue on alone.

Mirai released a long, exasperated sigh. "Normally I would leave you here," she declared, "but it looks like I owe you a quick favor for the trouble. Stay down," she ordered, "we have company."

Raising his head just enough to catch a glance, a group of angry looking militia with thick beards and dirty clothes were gesturing in their direction. Alex cast about for an escape route but found none. He chose to rely on Mirai instead, fearing the consequences.

Hands reached down to grab his collar, and next thing he knew, Mirai was dragging him out into the open. She hissed another command to stay put in his bloodied ear, and then stood up to her full and less-than-imposing height.

Six men, judging from the boots, ringed the two of them. Alex could hear the guns being leveled, and harsh questions barked from the apparent leader -- two brown sandals straight ahead of Mirai. Though he had lived in the area for some time, Alex hadn't adapted to the language well. He only picked up a few words, but was able to put together the whole picture.

"Who are you?" the leader demanded, jabbing forward with his gun like a spear.

Mirai looked at each man in turn, a disarming smile on her lips. "Just a defenseless woman," she said. "This American tried to attack me," she gestured at Alex, who immediately shot up to his needs, racking his brain for the words to protest his innocence. Mirai slapped him across the mouth hard enough to inspire stars, and Alex sank back to the ground in betrayed confusion. "He tried to rape me," she finished.

The men looked at each other, and at the scene and snickered without the smallest trace of sympathy. "Defenseless? You treat him like a dog, woman," one of the men shouted out. They moved in closer when they heard the sexual implications. Thoughts had begun forming in their minds, too, on the beautiful girl they had outnumbered and overpowered.

"He is a dog. American," Mirai retorted. She placed a foot on his back and pressed him into the ground. "See? An obedient one. I'm taking him with me," she said.

The militia did not like that; they grumbled low and Alex could no longer make out the words. At last, the leader said, "Why not leave him with us? We are... equipped for dealing with prisoners like this one. If we can ransom him, maybe your family will get a little benefit, eh?"

Alex was shocked to hear Mirai agree. "You are right," she declared, "Come and take him but please let me go." She removed her foot from his back and he looked up at her, stinging tears of bitterness welling in his eyes.

The leader stepped forward, a cruel snarl twisting his lips like a vicious hound. Alex could smell the stink of rotten teeth as the man leaned forward to inspect his appropriated catch, eyes narrowed and calculating, and cold as the void of space. The man stood up and faced Mirai, reaching a hand out to grasp her shoulder.

Mirai stepped aside and glared at the man, who clearly did not appreciate his approach being rebuked. He snarled off a curse and reached out again to grab the girl.

The man's eyes widened as not one but both of his arms dropped from his sides to the ground, neatly parted from the rest of his body. Mirai stood beyond him and the sudden gush of blood, two Chinese broadswords grasped lightly in her hands, glowing like sun flares from the flames cast by the school's ruin. The other militiamen had no time to reach as Mirai flowed into a whirling dance of death.

The first she took with an uppercut, one sword supporting the other, lending strength. It cleaved the man's chin in two and took his life with it. She spun under his already falling corpse and sliced the next closest across the throat, using his body as a pivot to spin into her next victim.

This one actually reacted, reaching out clumsily to grab at the very specter of death. Mirai did not miss a beat as she slipped under his hands at the last moment, as liquid as quicksilver. The action threw the mujahedeen off-balance, and Mirai pressed her advantage with a quick kick to the back of the knee, sending him to the ground. Alex watched as she rolled across her opponent's back, leaving one blade buried. This she grasped and yanked it forward to propel the hapless and doomed human missile into the final two attackers. As they all tumbled to the ground, they let up a great cloud of dust that obscured Alex's vision. When it finally settled, though, Mirai stood in the center sheathing her weapons within that mysterious black ski bag. Her opponents, all six, lay dead or dying -- the leader still twitched at Alex's feet, unaware he had died. Mirai remained unscathed, even her victims' blood failed to stain her white robes.

She turned to stare at him, eyes burning golden and bright, angelic death and Alex accepted his fate. "None are allowed to set eyes upon the Ascended," she declared, voice an accusation, a proclamation, and a capital sentence all at the same time. Leaning low, to face him squarely, the blazes disappeared, replaced by a sympathetic gaze.

"I do not listen to the rules, though," she finished at last.

"Who are you?" managed Alex, mind racing. He had escaped death three times in less than fifteen minutes, and despite all this he had only one nagging question. "What are you?" he corrected himself.

The girl suddenly looked hurt at the question, as though it brought back distant and painful memories that, like herself, remained equally indefinable. She was smoke, mist, the shadow of the moon, a dream forgotten, a promise unfulfilled, a naked blade -- sharp and just, drawn only in defense but stained indelibly with ancient and rusty blood. None of this she could say, however much she wanted to. To scream it to the world that had shaped her; had demanded her. For a long time she simply said nothing.

Finally, just as Alex was about to apologize, she whispered almost to herself with the same conviction that had carried her through a thousand pitched battles, "I am me."

And then, as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone -- faded into the very fabric of the unforgiving universe, ever pursuing her prey. Sunlight filtered on the spot she had been a mere moment before, the afterimage of deadly grace, leaving Alex to wonder if he had hallucinated the entire thing. Looking about at the carnage, though, Alex knew in the depths of his heart that the world had changed.

Forever.
Chapter 3: Megid

"Two dollars and fifteen cents," the woman demanded from behind the counter, the same dour expression she had worn for the past fifty years weighing harsh and disapproving judgment on the customer in front of her. She was not the only one staring, though.

Everyone in the little store, from the ever-incumbent retirees swapping stories to the wide range of students who stood looking for a place to escape the grasping fingers of winter's first foray into the autumn took time to whisper to each other while attempting to hide their wide gazes. They took in the young girl with eyes like liquid smoke and who moved like flowing water through the crowds, her foreign features \-- never seen before in the likes of Megid, with skin many shades darker than even the adventurous woodsmen that bolstered the town's sagging economy. The more observant ones, able to shift their eyes from her exotic beauty noticed the off-season black ski bag slung across her shoulder, far too early to be useful and especially out of place combined with the white blouse and plaid skirt that barely reached the girl's knees.

Mirai Kishida, though, accepted the stares in stride. So far away from her homeland, she understood the curiosity. What she could not tolerate so well, though, were the hostile looks more than a few flashed at her -- teeth bared beneath a fake smile. Were it not for her quest, mere moments from completion, she might have shown all of them humility -- or humiliation; her English had never developed quite perfectly, though she suspected they were ultimately one and the same. With a shrug, she decided it mattered little and reached into her belted purse to produce the desired payment.

The clerk's scowl deepened when Mirai passed over a twenty, lacking anything smaller, but the woman said nothing \-- probably for fear of being unable to communicate, or it could have been the way Mirai's fingers tapped on the counter -- an unfamiliar but unmistakable dirge. The woman handed back Mirai's change and purchase and, at long last, she knew the sweet taste of victory.

Stepping outside with her newly acquired chocolate bars, she looked to the left and then the right scanning for any signs of potential trouble. Satisfied that none existed, she offered one to her companion with an outstretched hand -- far too focused on fiddling her own open with her remaining hand than to waste time on words.

"I think I will pass," replied the soft voice that Mirai had longed to hear. "But you enjoy, by all means, do not let me interrupt you."

Mirai dropped the second bar into a pocket of her blouse and looked up at her old friend. Terradyn's sculpted features emanated an aura of ferocious peace, as though her simple presence pushed all negativity away -- threatening it with something far worse than violence should it attempt to violate or disturb the sanctuary cast by her smile. With her mane of golden hair flowing down past her waist, and high cheekbones that served only to highlight the glowing sapphire stars of her eyes, many would have called Terradyn a goddess and thrown their hearts to the ground before her in blind devotion.

They really would not be all that far off.

"What do you think of the people in this place, Terr?" Mirai asked, curious what a different perspective might bring. Mirai had encountered -- and fought -- nearly every culture on the planet, in one form or another. City people she figured she had a grasp on, they often moved in ways that directly benefited them, and usually operated only in the short run. They were the bishops in life's game of Chess; far reaching to be sure, and ostensibly difficult to work out, but easy to counter once you knew and watched for their tricks.

Countryside people, especially Americans, had proven to be far more confounding. She needed only to remember her encounter with Alex Whatever, and the clouds he had cast with his condemning questions. Would he have traded his life so easily for the ones she had let die? And more importantly, would Seven Kharaos sacrifice himself to protect another? And if so, Mirai's thoughts conflicted, what would that mean about her own destiny and sacrifices? She needed to know.

Terradyn took a long time to answer, and with a voice as distant as a blazing comet, disappearing into the cosmos, her memories did not belong to the present, Mirai knew, but always divulged a deeper wisdom. "As you know," Terradyn began, "small towns breed small minds, and often even smaller hearts." Mirai nodded her agreement. She, too, had been born far away from the cacophony of civilization.

"This lends to itself, though, a certain strength. Like a tree growing alone in an empty field beneath a blue and unpolluted sky, the heart and mind can grow an unrivaled independence and spread to embrace the life-giving sun with all the vitality the earth below can muster," she continued, "but with that comes a profound weakness -- the fear of intrusion, for as in nature, the strongest trees often choke the life from those smaller and unfortunate enough to exist beneath those wide branches. Xenophobia exists, rampant then, to prevent competition and maintain the status quo. Safety and security," Terradyn continued, "but they are a case of often believing that the one tree constitutes the forest, and thus the extent of the world, failing to see all the other constituent components that allow them to continue their naive dream," she finished at last.

Mirai nodded absently, only half-listening after she had heard the part that Terradyn believed the people of Megid could possibly be strong enough to shoulder the burden laid upon their shoulders by the terrible machinations of fate. Instead, she concentrated on getting the candy bar into her mouth – and, that mission accomplished, took time to take stock of her surroundings.

The town of Megid, though bearing an ominous name, claimed to be the gem of the north -- a fiery emerald as deep as its rolling forests that climbed the obscuring mountains, covering them like thick, spiky hair. Though little more than glorified hills compared to the peaks of the west, and her own home, the mountains still reached defiantly skyward, stalwart guardians that ringed the pristine little village settled comfortably within the culminating basin.

No buildings rose, babelesque, to challenge Nature itself. Indeed, Megid seemed a town founded firmly on the concept of grandiose mediocrity. The tallest seemed to be the high school, claiming no more than three pithy floors. Houses dotted the main street, and many businesses were closed despite the early evening. She had heard talk inside the store that indicated the lifeblood of the town, the paper mill, had recently closed; sufficiently explaining the evacuation of wiser shopkeepers and residents. Yet others stayed on, as fierce and resilient as the winter winds, enduring as the mountains that shielded the dying little town.

And though Mirai could grasp the concept, she utterly failed at truly understanding what actually went on in the minds of normal people. On the other hand, she corrected, as an abnormally fat man strolled into view wearing no shirt and garish purple and blue shorts nearly two sizes too small despite the crisp air, calling the people of Megid "normal" might be a bit of a misnomer. Being entirely honest, though, Mirai realized that she had neither idea nor right to judge what passed as normality in the ever-changing world. None, after all, would ever call her with such a banal title.

Biting off another chunk of chocolate heaven, Mirai smiled at the very concept. She reached out nonchalantly, absent-mindedly offering a piece to her companion once again, but Terradyn shook her head to politely decline. A group of school children stepped out of an alley and nearly bumped into Terradyn, but with a swirl of her flowing white clothing, she slipped past and averted disaster, more graceful than a ballerina. So engrossed were the children with the odd foreigner ahead that they barely registered Terradyn's graceful movements as a capricious fall breeze rushing past their cheeks. They stared at Mirai with the innocent and open curiosity possessed by all children -- the good ones at least -- dozens of questions trembling on pale pink lips.

However, Mirai had questions of her own. She looked down at them, bending just a little bit lower to better match their height and meet them eye to eye. "Do you know the Kharaos family?" she asked gently, her voice falling into its natural rhythm, unfamiliar in the recent days when danger loomed behind every smile, and death behind every frown.

Something unexpected happened at the mention of the name, though. The kids blanched, ever so slightly, turning a nearly imperceptible shade paler. For a moment, they said nothing, feet shifting uncomfortably on the broken and dusty sidewalk as the crisp brown leaves of cast away by autumn swirled idly past, whipped up by an ominous wind. "Yeah, I guess we do," said one young girl, the leader apparent, no older than a third grader.

Happy to have found a lead at last, Mirai pressed further, "Please tell me about them," she said. "I'll trade you some candy from my country."

That sparked the kids' attention, and they looked to their princess expectantly, hoping she would negotiate something both equally rare and sweet. The girl looked back at them as well, weighing her options carefully, balancing unknowns against both her subordinates' and her own desire for the treats Mirai carried in one of her many pouches. Mirai quite liked the fire that danced in those young eyes, the spark of both wisdom and leadership \-- a kindred spirit, no matter how distant and intangible. "Well, we don't know much..." the girl began, cheeks flushed and regretful at her pittance of field intelligence. Mirai was not especially surprised, though.

With a flick of her wrist, all five children found small and bright cloth bags of Japanese candies in their hands. Mirai smiled at their looks of amazement and said, "That's all right... how about this: just tell me where they live."

The girl seemed defeated, unwilling to renege and surrender her pink and purple flowery treasure. Mirai had chosen that one for her especially. "The Kharaoses live up on The Hill," the girl motioned vaguely to the east as she spoke, to where a minor mountain rose upward dotted with residences, "the closest to the forest. They don't involve themselves in the town all that much, but they've been here forever," she said. "Our parents said to never talk about them," the girl's eyes widened at the invisible boundary she realized, too late, that she had transgressed and her green eyes turned pleading, "please don't tell anyone what we told you!" she added in a breathless rush.

Mirai reached out and placed a calming hand on the girl's head. "Don't worry, little one," she said, her eyes fixed on the distant residence that must surely belong to her target's family. "Neither you nor they will have any reason to fear anymore," she finished. Who _they_ referred to, the little girl could not quite clearly understand -- and had she asked, Mirai would not have been able to answer either. "I added a couple extra candy to yours," she whispered into the girl's ear as she withdrew her hand, slipping a few tastier treats through the drawstrings so quickly the other children couldn't see and get jealous.

The girl gazed at Mirai with renewed wonderment, and she blurted out, "Do you know magic?" The children fixed their princess with astonished looks, as Mirai offered a quick wink.

"No," she responded, "I have no need for thing like magic." Mirai's voice lowered, softer for any but Terradyn to catch, she thought. "None at all."

"But wouldn't magic be a wonderful thing," a deep masculine voice asked from behind Mirai, so close that she whirled around dangerously, fingers grasping for knives she kept tucked up her sleeves.

Two bemused eyes regarded her, shining like polished azure glass in the setting sun, and though they lingered but a single moment, Mirai knew they had gathered every detail into the well of pained wisdom reflected within. She noted his hair, a creamy brown not unlike her beloved chocolate, and the confident way in which he carried himself, a half-amused smile playing on his lips like he alone understood a joke the wind whispered in his ears. He took in the children as well, and with a wink of his own, the entire group dispersed into a well-rehearsed tactical retreat, laughing as they went. The man's aura, the very energy that radiated from him, smelled of a dualistic and confusing mix of unchecked chaos and carefully crafted peace.

"Sadly," he concluded, almost wistfully, "such magic does not exist in this world." His eyes slid to the side, as though he himself did not believe it, before they flicked back to Mirai, calmly taking in the scene. "You are far away from home," he said. It was not a question, merely a simple observation – the tone was curious, but lacked the judgmental weight shared by his neighbors.

But when Mirai opened her mouth to protest his assumptions, true though they may be, he raised a black-gloved hand to appease her.

"As it seems," he said softly, "so am I." He smiled. Sadly enough to stir some distant feelings locked deep within Mirai's heart.

Looking, truly looking, at the young man for the first time, standing there with a blazing soul, defiant against the encroaching darkness, some indescribable emotion swirled to the surface of her consciousness. His spirit welcomed that darkness, absorbing it like a diamond prism -- reflecting the dying sunlight in a dazzling spectrum of color that spiraled like the galaxy itself, balanced on the fingertip of some universe-bearing Atlas; and Mirai understood.

She had, after all, come to destroy him.

Yet the tangible eluded her, blurring her thoughts and staying her hand. She had dreamed of this day, of bleeding life from those eyes, of hearing the final confessions of the condemned soul whispered as a death rattle into the empty air. She could no longer remember even that.

It was something that in her twenty-three years she had never felt; buried under the mountain of duty and crimson blood that flowed like the River Styx through her own dirty soul. A word occurred to her, then, dancing upon the tip of her tongue, too beautiful and pure for her to utter, lest it die still born, smothered by her audacity, and yet the thought would not die:

Hope.

"Seven Kharaos," the words escaped her slightly parted lips like a blessing, though she had always spat it as a curse.

The young man's eyes widened and his smile deepened, a ravine that showed the ragged scars cut by glaciers of conflict and time long lost. "Mirai Kishida," he whispered back, a confused expression crossing his face even as he repeated her name.

"How do you know me?" she hissed. Imminent danger drove the doubts from her mind, giving rise to the thirst that had carried her there in the first place. Right hand searching, she latched onto the pommel of one of her blades, secured within the nylon bag. It offered her precious little comfort.

Blinking, Seven Kharaos gave a confused shrug, as though he did not know and did not think it truly mattered. How little did he know! "I saw you in a dream," he said, "I guess." Sensing, perhaps, some subconscious danger he quickly changed topics, "Now let me pose a question: what brings you all the way out here to this forsaken place?"

On that, Mirai found herself in total agreement. "Just enjoying the fall weather," she spoke back through teeth clenched into an awkward smile. If Seven had understood the implications, he did not show it. Instead, he looked around again, basking in the autumnal glow.

"I see," he said at last, letting the challenge slip by like a gushing stream. His eyes focused somewhere behind her, swimming in oceans lifetimes away, betraying nothing save their bewilderment. "For today," he apologized, "I'm afraid I need to get going. I have some... things to think about at home," he said at last.

"I thought you said you had no home," Mirai countered.

Seven nodded sadly again, "As long as I live, I suppose this world counts as my home," he said quietly, mind preoccupied, before turning to leave and cutting off Mirai's attempts to slow him.

As she stared at her target's retreating back, she could not help but think the swish of the crimson coat he wore to fend off the chill made his shoulders seem just a little bit reliable. Considering her next move, she noticed Terradyn suddenly next to her, leaning low.

"We're in trouble," her friend said suddenly, urgently. "He definitely saw me," her words trembled as though she, herself, could not fully believe them.

"And I think he knows what I am," the angel declared.

Chapter 4: The Angel in the Stone

Alabaster statues rose up to line the walls of Melisara Chapel with stoic guardians greeting all blessed enough to look on their finely carved features with frozen smiles. The notes of organ music lingered in the air like the prayers of the faithful, tingling against the skin, stirring within the wavering heart of the young woman who remained at the end of the hallway, alone and mostly unnoticed by the caretakers as they went about their business; making sure the chapel sparkled like the very gates of Heaven.

She resisted the urge to tug at her bangs, twirling the scarlet locks around her fingers as she had idly done in her childhood. Those days were long past, though, and she fiercely suppressed the impulse -- choosing instead to look straight ahead, waiting nervously for her summons. Her hands, though, worked at her white linen robe, anxiously smoothing out any creases and blood flushed her cheeks, betraying any evidence of inner calm.

Motes of dust filtered through the broken sunbeams that stretched their way lazily into the heart of the prayer chambers, and these the girl watched flit about -- desperately attempting to avoid the diligent and earnest attempts of Melisara's most fastidious cleaners. Alyrin Delling knew that, ultimately, they would fail -- none escaped the infinite reach of God.

The few servants who brushed by her, often carrying heavy loads of bread or fresh laundry, barely paid her any mind, save to offer a wide berth and perhaps a nervous smile or nod. None offered any word of greeting or welcome, well aware that it would not be reciprocated.

When the messenger came at last, Alyrin was surprised to note his youthful, but placid, countenance. Handsome in the way that Greek statues are handsome, with features a little too perfect -- as though sculpted by a master's hand -- and untouched by the time that left sparks of deeper wisdom smoldering in his passive summer sky eyes. He did not smile, or nod, and only laid his powerful gaze upon her once, but she understood. Words were unnecessary amongst the faithful.

He turned away as silently as he came, and Alyrin fell into step behind his shuffling robes. The chapel fell silent, then, each person turning to stare and wonder at last what portents the meeting would bring -- and if, at long last, their dutiful suffering had mercifully come to a glorious end. Alyrin imagined they would not be disappointed.

Together, they swept down the stretching hallway, clothes swishing against the marble like blasphemous whispers, disturbing the silent sanctum. Colorful frescoes and tapestries adorned the wide walls, displaying the ancient heroes of their order -- of Order, itself in the capital sense, it could be argued; guardians of light against the darkest nights and the deepest depths.

Alyrin felt a flash of pride -- sinful emotion, but exultant nonetheless -- as she took in those depictions. Some stories she could remember, vaguely, childhood memories and beyond reaching back through those murky and engulfing waves of time, misty and almost tangible, obscuring such thoughts; concealing them beneath the turbid waters forever, until once again such heroes were needed. She wondered, too, if her life accomplishments would be included like so many others -- that one day a future reiteration, a fledgling Ascended might look on the story of Alyrin Delling and be inspired to greatness.

She quickly buried the emotion, though. Pride often led to predictable failure, and though many of the heroes arrayed before her had shifted the world on their shoulders, many aspirants -- and even some of the champions themselves -- had undone themselves with their vainglory. In Alyrin's present time, the events of the world flowed mercurial, she could ill-afford to lose herself or cherished dream she had inherited from her forerunners: freedom.

As they approached the innermost chamber, though, a place Alyrin had been to only once in all her iterations \-- on the fateful day, lifetimes ago, when she had sworn her oaths and donned the vestments of her order -- she felt her breath shortening, coming in stabbing huffs, paralyzed in awe as the young disciple pulled back the constellation-bedecked ocean-blue curtain to reveal the very heart of Melisara Chapel.

In this sacred spot, for a thousand years or better, the very nature of the world as it existed that day -- and for every other -- had been debated, decided, and enacted. Some, the apostates and heretics of the world would say "enforced", but Alyrin much preferred the word "guided"; lest those less versed in the shadowy nature of the guardians misunderstand. Her organization existed in the glare of the sun, not the alleys and gutters of those who had fallen to petty crimes and deeper darknesses; no more visible, but infinitely more radiant and pristine. Those that proclaimed the Order was blinded by the light simply had never raised their eyes toward the truth.

Her companion spun away, moving quietly off to stand with his fellows; young men and women clad in loose-fitting brown and white robes crested on one shoulder with a golden cross and one of shining silver on the other. Many kept their hoods up or eyes closed, peaceful and meditative as they basked in the tranquility of the sanctum and its leader. Alyrin longed to dedicate herself to such endeavors, but knew her fate lay elsewhere -- on the battlefield.

She drew several long, deep breaths before she forced her gaze up the purple-carpeted dais, across the chamber that had never failed to produce a hero of the people, of God, and onto the one who had summoned her to this holiest of places.

The back of the chamber knew the violation of no stone, no masonry, the hubris of no man who would seek to craft even the primal elements of nature into his own forced image. Instead, it swept back into an earthen cove, a natural shelter striated with natural crystal formations. These caught the light like prisms, shattering it into a million glittering pieces, and bathing the antechamber in rainbow light.

From this, from the shielding earth and bathed only in the light remembered by the sparks of the very first star, rose another crystal. This one jagged and azure, a wave frozen in graceful cresting motion, locked forever in that one monstrously beautiful moment. And inside that stalactite, hidden from history -- from the skeptical eyes of man -- awaited the vaunted leader of Melisara Chapel, ageless and more perfect than his crystalline prison.

Perched atop a spiraling marble platform suspended midway in the transparent aquamarine structure stood a man the likes of which Alyrin had never seen outside of this sanctified room. Hooded, with prominent features obscured, the man's eyes positively blazed from beyond the darkness -- shining brighter than the walls that enclosed him, sparkling with vitality, wisdom, and fervor. He wore robes no different than those of his acolytes, but over them wore a chain-lined suit of golden links, crested with divine symbology.

Very few would ever catch those details, though. No, any who happened to wander past and catch the slightest glimpse would notice only one thing: pristine white wings, spanning wide and protective, arched as though about to take flight, frozen in time.

Lord Speare was no simple man, mortal and frail, but something far more, far greater. He was Seraphim -- an angel -- among the highest choir and most powerful; a force upon the world, his will shaped nations and crumbled mountains. And he had called for her. Called for Alyrin; needed her, and for this she would gladly have laid down her life for only that simple honor.

Though the angel could not speak directly, the faithful could sense his thoughts -- a telepathic link, of sorts, built stone by stone upon the foundation of trust and belief. As Alyrin approached, eyes once again downward in supplication, Speare deigned to cast his words upon the deepest corners of her soul.

"Child, it has been too long," the angel spoke softly to her mind, "I have prayed for your safety and success."

The summoned watched the angel softly, a look of gentle compassion and empathetic pain marring her delicate features -- enhancing them even, as a silver cloud trims the sun. How she wished to help the noble being that some evil had sealed away from a world that needed angels so badly.

Speare would hear nothing of it, though. "All things in time, child," the angel said. "That is not the reason I have called you here today." Alyrin blushed at the tone of the voice, intimate in the way of old friends and trusted confidants. Her heart fluttered at his approval.

She could feel his mind touching hers ever so gently, souls intertwined in a moment that existed outside of time, outside of the physical boundaries of the savage world around. His words came, ponderous with the weight, as though they carried all of his thousands of years of patience and understanding. "We have found him," Speare said at last, letting each word ring like the clarion bellow of a gong wrought of silver.

Alyrin's spirits soared. She had never imagined such good news would come of this meeting. She had expected prophecy, hints revealed in obscuring mannerisms as the angel had done cryptically in the past. Never, in all of the histories and annals of Melisara Chapel or the Order's records had Speare ever spoken so directly to an acolyte -- or to anyone else for that matter. Still, she had to confirm. "The Keystone?" she asked at last.

A ripple of approval passed through the link they shared, a teacher patting his student on the head to reward her. "The Keystone," Speare agreed.

Alyrin's breath come in sudden, ragged gasps. The Keystone held all the answers; the ones that would lead home -- back to Paradise. Alyrin's mind raced with images of smiling faces and relieved laughs when she shared the news with all who would hear; she would scream it from the mountaintops. The Keystone had come, and with him, all dreams were made reality!

The angel paused a long time before answering. "Megid," he said at length, holding the words out to her like an olive branch, gentle and certain, well aware the confusion it would bring.

And so it did, Alyrin's smile faded into a twist of doubt and she arched her crimson eyebrows in failed understanding. Megid? Megid laid fewer than 20 miles away! Alyrin's mind raced with the confusing possibilities. Her own internal questions began to falter along with the foundations upon which she based common sense and reality.

"All things are possible," the angel assured her, his soft voice slipping across the bond like warm velvet, "Does this not show that even Fate itself decrees alliance? That the key we require appear before our hand in our most desperate moment?"

Those words stole the doubt from Alyrin's mind, tempering her resolve into something stronger than steel -- the nebulous strength of fanaticism quenched and rekindled. She looked at her mentor with eyes that glowed like liquid smoke, awaiting further instruction.

As though to answer her unasked question, one of the other acolytes entered the room accompanied by shuffling feet and muffled grunts. Alyrin turned at the disturbance, anger flashing that she should be interrupted at so vital a moment.

The sight confused her deeper, a young man gagged and blindfolded awaited with tied hands. He struggled against his bonds fruitlessly, pulling this way and that; a caged animal. Only the cloth stuffed into his mouth held back the howls he would have unleashed as he rolled back and forth, futilely attempting escape.

Before Alyrin could do anything, Speare spoke to her mind once again. "Relax," he said, "this is the beginning."

When Alyrin said nothing, of course, frowning at the strange scene, Speare continued. "This young man recently encountered one of your old friends..." Speare let the words hang dramatically, "Mirai Kishida."

Alyrin had to bite back an angry hiss. The rogue named Mirai sought nothing more than to undermine the Order; to plunge the world into chaos. Just as Alyrin had been created -- crafted by the capricious hand of Fate to protect the world, to guide its people to conclusion -- Mirai existed to sow malcontent, to destroy the good works of all good people. Were she involved with the Keystone... Alyrin shuddered at the thought, and what it portended. Still, Mirai Kishida had sold her honor, and Alyrin maintained hers -- polished bright to shine, a paragon of justice.

One of the acolytes removed the young man's gag, and he began to sputter and curse vulgarly, demanding to know where he was and why he had been brought there when he should have been honored. At a glance Alyrin could see he carried none of the hallmarks borne by those like herself, he possessed a certain strength that belied his fear. Indeed, he was one caught up in the wake of an Ascended's passing -- a powerful one at that, no doubt Kishida.

Alyrin kept her silence. Her words were not for the world to hear, and both Speare and the acolytes knew this. They began to question the young man, who identified himself as Alex McKinnon, and apparently believed he was still in the Middle East, taken by one terrorist group or another. He claimed to be a teacher, and to know nothing. He seemed genuine and a sympathetic \-- or simply pathetic -- figure; a pawn caught in a much bigger game.

"What is your connection to Mirai Kishida?" one of the acolytes demanded with a completely unnecessary backhand slap that trailed blood from the prisoner's mouth. Alyrin moved closer to wipe it away but was restrained; some mental compulsion Speare held over her stayed her legs. He cautioned a single word of patience before returning to observational silence.

At first Alex didn't answer, anger burning in his eyes like smoldering coals as his tongue flicked out to nervously lick at the fresh wound. When the acolyte raised his hand, covered in heavy and somewhat gaudy rings, once again, though, Alex quickly broke. "She rescued me," he said quickly, "I don't know who she is." The hand swung yet again, this time drawing a nasty gash across the young man's cheek. He looked pleadingly at Alyrin for help, and heaved his shoulders with a sigh when he correctly predicted none would come.

The acolyte who had guided Alyrin to the chamber seemed to be listening to a silent voice now, head tilted only a few degrees, but Alyrin knew now that Speare could multitask conversations. She entertained the curious idea that he had somehow placed her on telepathic hold.

When their conversation finished, the young acolyte approached her with an object wrapped in white linen. She unfolded it to reveal a cell phone preloaded with a phone number. The thought occurred to Alyrin then that the abuse had only been a diversion, that Speare might slip undetected into the prisoner's mind to extract the necessary information. Like a thief in the night, Alyrin thought with a half smile, remembering an old quote about an even older savior.

"Dial the number," Speare urged, "and have Alex sow the proper seeds of discontent. Give him instructions to warn the Keystone, the one known as Seven Kharaos, about the dangers of his new friend."

Alyrin took the cell phone into her hands, looking at Alex's miserable face once again, wondering if she could do it. He had nothing to do with any of this and did the Order not fight to protect innocents like him? To guide them to a better place?

If Speare could read that thought, he gave no indication. "When he is done," Speare ordered in a cold voice, uncharacteristic and bloodthirsty, and worse, natural; more natural than his fatherly advice, "kill him. Slowly."

As the Ascended soul opened her mouth to protest, the angel cut her off, "None who know of the Ascended may be permitted to live," he said, "this is fundamental to our precepts. Now do it, Alyrin Delling. We are near the end, and it would be tragic to relinquish your place in Heaven for the sake of dregs like this one."

The blue crystal that imprisoned the angel suddenly seemed more like ice, and not nearly strong enough. Alyrin attempted to push the feeling down in her heart, the welling doubt that surged and ebbed like the raging tides, and had all her life \-- broken and reforged into something twisted; this concept called zeal, but she felt the floodwalls of her heart breaking as surely as powerless as the innocent human she had been ordered to execute. Slowly.

She realized then she need not share a heaven with those who had obviously lost their ways; ones who indeed had been blinded by the light they served.

She whipped the phone into the rough walls of the imprisoning cave, where it smashed into pieces, drawing angry protests from the acolytes assembled. Something held them in check, too, though, and Alyrin was sure it was the invisible and omnipresent voice of the angel in the crystal that prevented further trouble.

Wordlessly, Alyrin strode from the chamber, back arched high and steps steady as one who had maintained her honor even at loss of faith and, likely, soul. She paused only long enough to look at the clerics who had abused their prisoner; she could not take him with her, she knew, for where her fate would bring her would only endanger the young man further. Death lurked in those silver eyes as she took in each of the acolytes in turn, wordlessly communicating the horror each individual would face should they lay hands on the young man once again. They would, of course, slaves to the angel just as she slaved to hers -- she wondered how much of her mind, exactly, was still her own.

None of that mattered at the moment -- Clarion, her own guardian angel, was silent and content to watch the events play themselves out; a spider who hid in corners and the dark places that offered closeted safety rather than reveal her hand in the open. Still, it surprised her somewhat that the angel would allow her to return to the hunt.

For she was not going to take down a mere human or Ascended this time; not even an angel.

Her prey wielded power as great as her God. And yet, she would kill him, martyr him, to deny the angel in the stone his wicked prize -- the key to the Gates of Heaven.

***

As Alyrin strode from the chamber proudly, a white queen suddenly dyed black, Speare forced himself to suppress a smile that could have cracked his already weakened prison. The arrow had been spent, and the die cast.

Fate still remained firmly on his side, and that alone would guide events in their necessary direction. Alyrin Delling would indeed kill Seven Kharaos, and with his death, humanity would so follow -- their intolerable hubris purged at last, the slaves who had cast off the yoke of Heaven judged and found wanting and punished.

And then, only when humanity and their demonic supporters disappeared beyond the distant memories of far-reaching history -- a candle extinguished, a footnote written in smudged ink, could the Archangel Speare truly return beyond the Gates; to the comforting skies. To home, and to the dreams long abandoned on the winding road drawn out by his capricious companion; the entity both loved and cursed as Fate.
Chapter 5: Einheriar

Dawn brought wonderful news. World-changing news. It found Raile Olander recumbent in his usual perch, far above the city whose name he had never bothered to learn, staring at the new text message on his cell phone soberly – a nearly irresistible urge to smile slid just beneath the surface of his passive façade, just unable to be realized.

It was unfortunate he would have to leave. The shadows sculpted by the architecture here were perfect. They danced along the green marble floor and twisted up the railings and support columns like penumbral snakes. Still, there was no real choice to make. He would be free.

Raile let the hand holding the phone fall to his side as he sprung to his feet, tucking the device smoothly into the inside pocket of his long, white, flared coat. He tugged it tighter, thin material poor protection against the current cold snap – but too familiar and comfortable to disregard over something trivial like warmth.

Still, it was strange that _she_ would be the one to free him. After all, Alyrin Delling had been the one who had organized his capture. It mattered little, he decided; she had also offered the pathway home.

He took a moment to adjust the white leather patch that covered his right eye – making sure it fit snugly and was situated appropriately. For the past two years, he hadn't had to worry about his appearance; people were not allowed to visit him, and he was not allowed to visit people, so how he looked was not really much of a problem. The few birds that dared share his perch seemed ill-equipped to judge.

Walking into the bathroom, he faced the mirror and in its polished surface, he bothered to observe himself for the first time since his imprisonment. His hair had grown far too long, falling like a midnight curtain past his shoulders and streaked with the silver tails of falling stars. Roman nose and pointed chin marked his ancestry well, and were it not for the scar that ran like a fault line down the side of his face, he might still have looked his age. His good eye, tinged permanently with the silver that defined him, observed the reflection with passive care, every detail long since drunk in.

Finally, he turned away, to the almost-unassuming door to his left. Decorated with the same marble motif the rest of his prison held, at times it was easy to forget it was there – blending into the wall like a chameleon. It was done on purpose, of course; a prisoner who forgot his bars tended to forget the primal human directive to escape. Raile had never managed to make that mistake, though. Being human, that is.

Mounted on the door's handle was a tiny keypad that controlled the lock. The text message contained the password, but he really didn't need it. All those years ago, when Alyrin had locked him in here, he had known how to leave.

He hadn't, of course. Though perhaps Alyrin's methodology was wrong, her reasoning wasn't. A man like him did not belong in this world.

Which is why he was leaving it.

Fingers a blur, he typed the ten digit code faster than the digital display could keep up. When it finally processed the entry, the door swung open with a click. Raile stepped through into the darkness.

Though he fumbled a moment for the light switch, he gave up when his fingers failed to find one. Instead, he waited until his vision grew clear. Resting right where he'd expected it laid his old companion, Gungnir, propped sturdily against the wall. The wavy blade remained untouched by two years of dust, and gnarled wooden haft rubbed against his palm satisfactorily.

Next to it on the table laid a few changes of clothes that he would need on the outside and a briefcase with enough money to get him to where he was going.

With half a sigh, he hefted his partner, enjoying the comfortable burden in his palm – like a limb long lost had miraculously returned. Miracles, though, were natural coincidences attributed supernatural status. At least, on this side they were.

The phone buzzed inside his pocket. With a fluid motion, he reached for it and flipped it open as he brought it to his ear. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Your transportation is ready," a male voice replied. Raile did not recognize it. Voices, like faces, meant little to him. It was perhaps a newcomer, although it might also have been the Lord Knight – he did not know. "The limo will be waiting downstairs for you."

Without acknowledging the speaker, Raile snapped the phone shut and returned it to the place it belonged. He tossed the spare clothes into a red satchel that lay together on the table. Finally, he checked the straps at the back of his jacket to make sure they could still hold the spear – they seemed firm, still, but he held off sheathing it just yet. Clutching it before him like a hunter in the wild, he swung right to descend the stairs that lead to the concrete jungle sprawled oblivious below.

Instead of heading straight down to the waiting car, Raile paused above the second floor. Quietly he slipped over to the window and tried the lock. To his surprise, the window swung open. A pity someone was going to die for that mistake – on the other hand, whoever it was did manage to save the people waiting for him downstairs. "I guess he can take some solace in that," Raile said to himself as he swung up and through the opening.

The drop to the ground was nostalgic, exhilarating. He dropped into a crouch behind an overflowing dumpster, fingers just barely sweeping the ground before he was up and running, dashing behind alleyway debris for a few brief moments of cover before moving onward, ever deeper into the folds of night.

He still had trouble pushing down the excitement. He was going to save the world. Or destroy it. Whichever was fine too. Ragnarok was coming.

His lupine smile flashed like lightning in the neglected streetlights; below the passionless winter moon of an evil eye.
Chapter 6: Revelation

Two days had passed since the disturbing encounter, and Seven could not stop the chill that had taken up residence in the base of his spine. Words scrawled past the computer screen as fast as he could read them, but so far none of his research had turned up anything on Mirai Kishida, or her mythical companion. At the moment, unconcerned with the former, Seven was searching for psychiatric counseling.

Angels did not exist. To accept that would be to open the floodgates to nightmares more insidious than he dare consider, and the beautiful winged floating lady was surely a hallucination -- the fruit of insanity born of a life filled with equal parts trauma and adventure. Surely, he had simply gone crazy, and no surprise there -- it ran in the family.

The thought brought to mind his sister, who had been missing since Seven had returned to the house, slinking back like a defeated dog to ponder the ramifications of his self-diagnosis. He sincerely hoped, at least, that he would not have to begin talking to walls or chewing paint, or whatever else crazy people did. He made a quick resolution to be the most boring crazy person in the history of the world.

Silence bothered him, and his free hand tapped a steady beat as his other worked the mouse to slip from page to page. In the end, he gave up. Megid had no professionals, just in the way a desert lacks water: its most needed commodity. If a desert had an abundance of liquid, then it would no longer be a desert. In the same fashion, if Megid had professional help, Seven strongly doubted it would be Megid any longer.

The paintings on the wall, landscapes of distant worlds rendered in his own hand, a clumsy god with a horsehair brush and meager palate, stared silently back as Seven considered them, wishing he dwelt in one of those fantasies instead of grim and unpleasant reality.

Realizing such melancholy whimsy was uncharacteristic, Seven pushed himself up from the comfortable computer chair and looked out the window. Fall had grown only more intense, and the sounds of the forest reached him now, however faintly; animals busily preparing for what the news predicted to be a brutal winter.

He needed to find Mirai once again to dispel the lingering suspicions; the phantasms on the edge of waking dreams, the nigh imperceptible vibrations of a deeper force churning tirelessly beneath his feet and at the center of his personal world. Like how he knew her name. He had heard it in a dream -- the dream, in fact, for he had only ever had a single dream; been surprised, in fact, to learn that other dreamers lived different lives, different fantasies, every time they closed their eyes. But he had seen many things in that dream, and so far, none had come to pass: Mirai Kishida, in fact, was the first.

With that chilling thought in mind, he pushed himself up on shaky feet and strode out the door, so focused he barely remembered to grab his jacket on the way out; and lucky that he did, for the first winds of winter had found their way south from Canada, and they would have shred his smoky cream-colored t-shirt and plunged their cruel blades deep into his already trembling heart.

He found her almost immediately; just distant enough that he couldn't feel her presence. Seemingly lounged against a tree idly and enjoying a piece of fudge chocolate half the size of her head. She had been there for days now, wherever he went, at the edges of his perception -- watching and waiting for something he could not understand.

As he approached, he carefully noted the way she carried herself. Slim and lithe, Mirai did seem fragile. Supple, perhaps, in the way that saplings bend to the elements but are not bested by them. Sunlight caught her eyes, dyeing them a burnished copper as they slid back and forth from Seven's face to stare ahead, bored by the world, but utterly failing to hide her interest at his approach.

She blushed when he noticed, adding a flush of pink color to her tanned cheeks. Her hair hid beneath a hooded purple sweatshirt, accentuating her unique beauty. Today she wore a long charcoal grey blouse with striped red and black stockings that would have been far more common on the streets of Akihabara than New England, but Seven found himself catching his breath as he looked at her. Best of all, there were no angels floating around anywhere.

The next time her eyes slid his way, he raised a hand in greeting. He received a dangerous glare in return. Seven dropped his hand with a knowing shrug, expecting as much from the uncharacteristically hot-tempered young girl.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded even before he had time to open his mouth. Her hands were crossed now, firmly across her chest and he could see the fudge held between her fingers yet remained untouched. Her voice sounded harsh, overly so, as though trying to mask something beneath. Seven chose to press his luck.

"I just came to talk," he said slowly, letting the tone of his voice bring soothing comfort, "in fact, I imagine you haven't had a good meal since you came to Megid." At this, Mirai's eyes lit up slightly, and he continued, "Since there are no real restaurants here, you've probably been living off what you can find at the convenience store." Mirai nodded emphatically. "Why not come back for dinner with me?" he asked, "My house is right over there, and although I'm not a fantastic coo..."

"Yes!" Mirai interrupted, looking around as though seeking approval from an unseen presence. A moment later, she repeated, calmer, "Yes. I'd like that." She, too, seemed surprised at her quick response and blushed again, lowering her eyes to stare at a grey squirrel scrounging for seeds in the fallen foliage. Then her voice lowered, brusque with suspicion as a single word escaped her lips, "Why?"

Seven traced the squirrel as it discovered some treasure and rushed away to tuck it safely into its winter storehouse -- cheeks puffed with its other finds. "I'd say that it's tradition around here to invite new neighbors over for dinner," he said, "but that wouldn't be entirely honest."

He hesitated, wondering if he should say more, had to fight every instinct to force the gamble -- well aware that regardless of what the mysterious girl answered, it would place him on a path from which he could never return.

"I wonder if you have the answer to the question," he said.

Leaning close, Mirai's eyes widened as they caught the sunlight, sparkling with an inner fire and an unidentifiable emotion that might have been fear, were it not for the unbridled aggression that shone forth bright enough to blind that trepidation. Mirai whispered softly, evenly, "To what question?"

"Who am I?" Seven asked, his voice as level as he could force it. And then he shook his head, unhappy with the phrasing.

"No..." he corrected, " _What_ am I?"

The question that had hounded him to the ends of the world escaped from him like a condemnation of himself, of his sanity, of the indescribable means of his own wavering and threadbare soul. He had never dared ask anyone before, and he imagined he never would again -- but some primordial instinct demanded that he ask the wisp of a girl who stared at him now, her breath caught in her lungs at the sublime disaster of worlds colliding.

A long time passed before Mirai answered him, carefully taking stock of the man in front of her. She tilted her head to one side, and then the other, as the strands of her midnight hair flowed about her, tied back into silky ribbons that hung near her waist and threaded with strips of multicolored cloth that dazzled Seven's eyes.

She moved in close to him, the black ski bag gripped tightly in one hand as she pressed her body against his, leaning in close to whisper in his ear, "This isn't the place, Seven Kharaos." Her eyes slid to the left and then to the right, indicating that someone was watching them. When he turned to follow her gaze, she grabbed him into a tight embrace -- or at least that's what it would have seemed. Her slender fingers lingered on his Adam's apple with just enough pressure to convey the threat and keep his gaze focused on her.

"Follow me," she said, "let's take a walk." It was not a request. As she untwined her body from his, she dragged her fingernails across his throat and up his cheek just hard enough to draw a pained excitement -- his life held, precariously, and only by her good grace. And then, she pulled away, a graceful twirl that left the lingering scent of peach hanging in the air behind her.

Some time later, and none wiser, Seven followed Mirai through the twisted mountain paths that wound through the outskirts of Megid like a twisted net of roots. She remained silent, clearly lost in her own thoughts as she led him further and deeper into the forested maze, her back turned away and her face shadowed by falling leaves. They ranged so far, they entered territory that even Seven had failed to explore.

The sun rode high, and morning had given away to noon. Breath came heavy and difficult as Seven's lungs neared their limits, a line drawn by an undiagnosed asthma that had haunted him since his childhood. Blackness tinged the edges of his vision, and his footsteps began to fall in an uneven rhythm that sent him stumbling into low-hanging branches and bracing his hand against trees for support.

If Mirai had noticed, or even cared, she gave no indication. If anything, she picked up the pace, as though eager to put distance between the two of them, granted reprieve.

But she had something that Seven needed. He'd have followed her to the ends of the earth, crawling on hands and knees if he had to -- and though a second wind never came, he replaced it with a steely determination to learn the truth.

They broke through the trees to a rocky granite outcropping that jutted from the mountain like a broken bone, accompanied only by a rising wind that swept the sweat from Seven's forehead. The forest lay far below, painted in golden brown, as though finished backing in the sweltering heat of an unnaturally long autumn. Aside from a few scattered branches abandoned there by storm or by chance, little decorated the bluff save uneven stones broken free by frost and left there to await the day the whole mountain returned to dust.

Here, Mirai called a halt with an uplifted hand. She twirled about, half-surprised that Seven was still behind her, gasping for breath but iron in his stride. In her other, she gripped that ski bag ever tighter, revealing the rounded shape of whatever she held within -- too thick to be ski poles, Seven found himself drawn curiously to what the black nylon concealed.

But he quickly switched his gaze back to her, barely tall enough to reach his shoulder, she emanated a controlled danger so focused it felt as though it could slice paper. Seven had met dangerous men, mercenaries who could look around a pub and name you the exact price each life carried, including his own, oil sheiks who did not even consider that life had a value aside from theirs, and murderers, plain and simple, who measured life only in how much pleasure ending it would be.

Mirai did not strike him as one of those, yet she seemed far more dangerous still. The tiny girl wore violence like a mantle, a graceful cloak that concealed her true self -- uncharacteristic in the nervous half-smile she was leveling at him now.

"Before I answer your question, Seven Kharaos," she began, "I have some for you."

He nodded, his mouth dry, and his tongue ran over his lips nervously.

"Why did you come home?" she asked.

Seven tilted his head, as though unsure of the answer himself, he looked back towards where he came from, the sleepy village left far behind and found no reason there. Turning back to Mirai he said, "I guess I got tired," he said.

"Of searching?" she asked.

"Yeah..." he replied, "yeah... but how did you know I was looking for something?" he asked.

Mirai offered a tiny shrug, barely perceptible. "That's just the nature of people like you and I, Seven," she said, slowly looking him up and down, "we're always searching for something..." her voice trailed off, "and when we actually find it," she broke off before striding up to stand less than a foot away from him.

Rising up on the tips of her toes to better look him in the face, "That, Seven Kharaos," she whispered throatily, "is when to truly be afraid."

In an instant the blades were out, silver gleamed in the midday sun, and the empty ski bag stirred restlessly in the breeze as their razor edges rested against each side of his throat. "What's going on?" he shouted.

"Who are you, Seven Kharaos?" Mirai demanded, her voice a thin hiss, melodic but strained. "Why do you haunt my dreams?" she asked.

"That's what I want to know," he growled back, trying to step away from the swords the crazed girl gripped in her steady palms. She'd kill him if he gave a wrong answer, and even his restless shift caused the edged to dig deeper into his skin. "Tell me," he demanded in turn.

"These weapons have names," Mirai said, "Past and Present," she turned each one in turn letting him know which belonged to which. "Which do you choose?" she asked.

He looked down at her, into the clear deep brown eyes that drank in his attention and reflecting no answer. Death rode in the twist of her lips, neither a smile nor a frown, simply a frenzied relief not unlike his own, that had brought him to the here and the now.

"I don't want or need either of them -- one is done, and the other soon will be," he said, choosing each word carefully, "I choose you, Mirai, whose name means 'the future'. What do you choose?"

The swords lowered as Mirai twirled away yet again, gracefully catching her bag with an outstretched toe and kicking it up high into the air. In a single motion, she returned the two weapons to their home, spinning to a stop, the bag already carefully resealed.

She sauntered over to the edge of the cliff, each step a graceful and playful stride as she propped the dangerous package behind her back like a spirited girl with her umbrella, dancing in the empty breeze.

"Do you know what a Precipice Moment is?" she asked curiously, wheeling about once again to regard him. She bounced back from heel to toe, impatiently waiting for his answer, leaning forward and wide-eyed.

Seven shook his head. "No," he said, "please explain."

Mirai spun around again, balancing at the furthest tip of stone on a single toe, wobbling back and forth. "Hmm," she said, "have you ever considered fate? The overwhelming concept that the world runs on rails, an unstoppable river that drowns those who oppose it?"

"But what determines fate?" Mirai asked as she turned slowly to look at him again. The sun caught the edge of a cloud, casting her face with shadow. All Seven could see was her gleaming half-smile, and eyes that peered out of the darkness cast with a warm gold of their own. "When a coin spins through the air, what determines if it lands heads or tails?" she asked softly.

"We do," she breathed. "The infinitesimal calculations that determine the course the river takes and the coin falls," Mirai said, "we are the banks, we are the air, we are the vessels, the veins through which fate courses. And those moments, where the world itself presents two clear choice to be made by instinct, by the natural culmination of the human spirit -- these are Precipice Moments."

She reached out a slender arm, broadly gesturing over the fading forest that stretched out beneath them. "You've been out there, wandered from battle to battle, tuned yourself into both the present and the past. Have you ever once considered that the entire world balances lightly at the lip of an endless void?" she asked.

"One misstep and..." she reached out a slender leg over the cliff and leaned forward. Seven moved to catch her, a diving leap, but it was too late -- his fingers barely brushed the corners of her blouse as it slipped playfully from his fingers. Down she went, silently disappearing, not even a scream as she toppled from the ledge into nothingness. Seven scrambled to the edge on scraped hands and knees, wildly looking down for a way to save her.

"That," said a voice behind him. He whirled about to find Mirai standing directly behind him, her face a mysterious mix of devious coyness. The glow had left her eyes again, bathing them once again in an earthy brown -- Seven told himself it was all just a trick of the light, but his instincts begged to differ; warned him he faced something unnatural, supernatural.

"How?" Seven stammered, reaching out to touch her hand, to reconfirm reality and his own doubted sanity. He had seen her go over, and turned back to look down, for some ledge or path she might have used to circle back.

There was none, and only the empty sea of stretching pines and bare maple branches greeted him, a graveyard of fallen leaves.

Mirai offered her hand, pulling Seven back to his feet without any effort. "Does it matter how?" she asked. "Even if I told you the exact details," she breathed, taking a measured step back from him, again tilting her head to the side to regard him, "it would not change the simple fact that the world you woke up in this morning, and the world in which you now exist are no longer the same, _deshou_?"

Seven took a long look at the new gashes added to his jeans woefully, frowning at the loss of his favorite pants, threadbare though they may have been. With a shrug, he said, "What do you mean?"

"We are at the threshold of a new Precipice Moment -- The founding of Camelot, the signing of the Magna Carta, the first shots of both World Wars, the moment humanity first awakened; all of these pale absolutely compared to what we face now," Mirai explained, chin upraised. "And for the first time, the Precipice Moment is not an event -- not a choice, Seven, it manifested as a person," she said, " and when the rivers of Fate have become a deluge that will sweep all of us away, and only he can fight its current."

Mirai's expression turned hard, but sadness sprung from her eyes, as she said, "Of course, the Precipice Moment has a name, and it is --"

"Seven Kharaos!" Destine's voice cut through the clear air like a bolt of lightning flung by a scorned Zeus, splitting the tense moment with a crack of thunder.

The mysterious girl whirled around, gripping at her black bag, ready to unleash violence. Beyond her shoulder, Seven could see his sister approaching, dressed in full officer's uniform. She was a Fish and Game officer, a wilderness cop, and clearly comfortable with the area as she traipsed over the uneven ground effortlessly.

Mirai looked back at him, "Say anything about what we were discussing and I kill both of you, consequences be damned," she hissed.

His shoulders grew tight once again, muscles bunching together in electric anticipation at the uniquely malevolent vibe his sister unleashed simply by existing. Despite calling his name, she paid little attention to him, instead she focused on Mirai, eyes distrustful and brooding with unquenchable anger.

"What's going on here?" Destine demanded, "We got some reports that there was a possible drug deal going on up in this area -- I get here and find my brother and an outsider."

"Who is she?" Destine's voice reminded Seven of his youth, when every rising sun had heralded the start of a new battle with her. They had fought over everything; if one said yes, the other said no -- if one claimed up, the other claimed down, and war had raged. Those days had passed, but as with all things once history, bitter memories often served only as prelude to the future.

Seven glanced between the two of them. "A friend," he said.

Destine jabbed her index finger at Mirai, "People like her have no friends," she said. Her breath came in huffed gasps, and her free hand clenched and unclenched, as though imaging itself wrapped around the petite girl's throat and squeezing tight.

"She has one now," he declared, moving to place himself between Mirai and his sister, "and I don't appreciate you being racist."

Destine strode a step closer, each step stabbed into the muddy rocks, punctuating her checked rage -- an emotion that threatened to fly out of control in a moment's notice.

He half-expected her to him. Instead, Destine leaned in low beneath his arm to look at the foreign girl eye to eye. Something indefinable passed between the two young women, noticeable only in Mirai's changed and unreadable expression.

"Now go," Destine demanded.

The girl turned to look at Seven again, she smiled at him softly as she nodded to herself. "You surround yourself with interesting people," she observed. "I'm afraid I can stay here no longer, though," she said.

"You owe me some answers, and I owe you some dinner," Seven whispered, hoping his sister wouldn't hear.

Mirai shook her head, "Not here," she said, "if you truly wish to know more, find me tonight. 9 PM. Meet me at the basin of that mountain." She gestured to the odd-shaped sloping monster that dipped about half-way down its profile, leaving a strange indentation. Locals referred to the area as, "The Bowl", and often used it to go drinking in the summer time. The mountain was actually a dormant volcano, sleeping since ages past.

Nodding, Seven said, "I'll see you then."

Mirai strode back over to the ledge, whispering something to herself, so low that it might have only been a trick played by the capricious autumn wind as she slipped over the side once again. But Seven heard it, and was sure the girl said:

"I hope not."

Chapter 7: Check

That afternoon, Seven Kharaos found himself sitting at one of the only tables in Megid's poor substitute for a cafe -- the little convenience store that beat at the heart of the insignificant village that beat a shallow pulse, rarely showing the signs of the vibrant lives many of the townspeople lead.

A puzzled look robbed his face of natural innocence, keenly revealing the cunning strategist who lurked beneath, analyzing the world with active interest carefully disguised behind otherwise disinterested eyes. Across from him sat the traitor, Jennsen Wraist, who watched him with the same look -- more or less; he was either worse at hiding it, or even better at obfuscation. Seven had never really been able to decide one way or the other with his childhood friend.

Between them lay a chessboard, simple and rustic in design save for the queen, a spiraled piece of wood carved in such a way that it appeared to sprout naturally from the unpolished cider platform. Jennsen stared at Seven's piece now, unable to raise his eyes to meet his old friend's, as he nervously spun a Styrofoam cup of black coffee between his hands.

In truth, his friend would probably win. Jennsen played almost exclusively by the book; a mechanical and efficient manner, systematically attacking and defending in the way the masters had long ago discovered. Seven, on the other hand, preferred guerilla tactics, striking with speed and seemingly out of nowhere -- sometimes he built a defense on the right, keeping his opponent properly distracted even while he planned a crippling assault on the left -- a psychological player, who could change his strategy minute-to-minute.

Against someone well-versed with his tactics, though, Seven could find little ground to gain; Jennsen would likely not be taken in by his smokescreens or battlefield sleight of hand, would fail to be distracted or psyched out by Seven's wild, unpredictable movements. Instead, Seven faced an inevitable, slow rout by the well-regulated White army.

"About Destine," Jennsen began, the actual first words either of them had said to each other; the game ritual so deeply ingrained that Seven had come immediately after descending the mountain with his sister, settling down and placing the pieces out on the board. Jennsen had already been waiting, stoically pondering the pitched battle ahead.

Seven raised a hand to ward off the discussion, simultaneously making a move -- he had found the tiniest chink in Jennsen's armor, but could not quite bring himself to exploit it just yet. "I'd rather not discuss it," he said.

Jennsen let out a frustrated sigh, even as he countered Seven's move with a bland defensive castle. "Look man," he said, "you were gone for a long time. She was worried about you, so was I."

Some of the other patrons leaned in closer; hoping to fish up some juicy gossip that would serve as mealtime conversation back at home that night. The Kharaos family were well known in Megid, having resided there since long before and would likely be there long after.

Still, the whole family possessed a reputation that wavered between excellence and arrogance; a point of pride and a blemish all the same -- prone to fight, to protect, to inspire, and to frustrate, the Kharaos clan followed a singular dogmatic code; a steadfast dedication to their own sense of justice, and to hell with all else.

Seven sometimes regretted that he, too, indulged in such selfish pursuits. Often, he exulted in it. He turned a cold glare on his onlookers and they turned back to their own lives; pointedly ignoring the two old friends who glared at each other across a divide far more profound than the wooden warriors arranged before them.

As Seven made his next move, he looked up, catching Jennsen with the same glacial stare. "I'm sorry," he said, "about making such a big deal. Just shocked, I guess." He leaned back in his chair, "Suppose I shouldn't be."

Taken off guard, Jennsen made his first mistake. "Okay then," he said, using the back of his checkered sleeve to wipe away a drop of sweat. "So," he asked, "we're cool?"

With a nod of satisfaction disguised as agreement. "On that front at least," he declared firmly. "How have you been, Jennsen?"

His friend offered a nervous smile, a flash of brilliant white teeth that quickly disappeared as he took in the board. In the flurry of movement designed to distract from their mutual discomfort, Seven had turned the tables, casting natural order from its axis -- chaos itself was his greatest weapon.

"I've been as good as always, I suppose," he ventured, mind still reeling as it attempted to quantify what had happened. "Where have you been? I thought you said you were going to the Middle East?"

Seven looked up at his friend, disturbed. "How would you know that?" he demanded softly. Something tickled the back of his mind, though he failed to recognize the impulse for what it was -- too infantile to lend name to the blossoming emotion. He tried to force it down, told himself that it was insane.

But as Mirai had told him, the world he had gone to sleep in the night before existed no longer -- and now, insanity ruled the day.

"You told me last time we met, that time down in Columbia. Man, you pulled my bacon out of the fire!" Jennsen laughed, as he often did, especially when recalling all the dangers he had faced -- and just as often managed to drag Seven into.

"Surrounded by FARC rebels in a burning house," he shouted loudly, drawing the attention back to them once more; Megidders often entered the military, and every single one of them loved a good war story. "They were telling us to give up, come out and we'd be well treated," he guffawed, drawing a raucous round of laughter at the absurdity of the idea -- they all knew how South Americans treated their audiences.

"Inside, we were talking about how many we could take before they took us, and all of a sudden this asshole burrows up into the middle of us from the god damned floor, dusts himself off and says he'd spent the night drilling in with something he'd jerry-rigged from a computer fan, a car battery, and a soup ladle. Thirty seconds after we get out of the tunnel, there's this huge explosion -- this bastard somehow rigged their radios to –" Jennsen's voice cracked mid-sentence as Seven's fingers clamped firmly around his throat.

The spectators leaned closer still; the only thing they enjoyed more than a good war story was an even better war. Seven's voice dropped to a menacing whisper, "I told you that I was going to eastern Asia, not the Middle East. Now, Jennsen, how did you know where I really went?"

The old clock on the wall, always running late, ticked away slowly in the thick silence; matched only by the low growl that issued from Seven's throat. All the pitiful soul desired, rife with the aching sting of betrayal already pumping poison into his fast-beating heart was some form of denial, some sweet lie to mask the bitter pill.

Instead, Jennsen's hands came up unthreateningly, showing his empty palms. Even then he managed to crack a smile; it was not a look of nervous confusion, but rather confident calm pulled up at the edges of his thin lips into the faintest shade of a smirk.

"Do you really want to do this here?" he asked softly, a veiled threat hidden in those words, plain only to Seven. He leaned towards his friend, speaking only loudly enough for him to hear, "You are treading on some damn thin ice, Sev, better you don't go prying where you're not wanted. Or would you like them," he gestured with his head, "to know the rest of that story, Seven Kharaos? How many Shadow Soul are here, do you think? Half the town serves in the company one way or another."

Seven did not bother to look around the room for the telltale signs that someone belonged to the mercenary group co-commanded by his old friend: the razor-edged gleam of impending violence that indelibly stained the soul so deeply it reflected in their eyes. He pushed his thumb a bit harder into Jennsen's Adam's apple.

"How many do you think I could take?" he hissed.

Jennsen's plastic smile did not slip as he raised his shoulders into an acknowledging shrug. "All of them," he managed to get out, "all of them." Seven released the pressure and his friend gasped in denied air. "But you don't want anyone to know what happened down there; not even me," he paused before adding, "not even you. Last chance Sev, I'm tryin' to save you here. Back. Down. Now."

He laughed deeply, easily, and smoothly pushed himself back, sliding clear of Seven's loosened grip and leaving Seven to ponder the revelation. "So," Jennsen switched subjects, speaking louder once again, "I see that you've picked yourself up a stalker."

Seven blinked twice, looking at his friend even closer now; the dark man who held far darker secrets -- a fragment of the truth, or possibly the whole ugly thing. He glanced nervously around the room, half-expecting Mirai to be lurking in a corner, and he desperately wanted to warn her in that moment that nothing was as it seemed in the idyllic hell called Megid. Mercifully, she was nowhere to be found.

"Be careful of her," Jennsen warned, "she's liable to get you killed."

"She's not the only one," Seven shot back. He moved a piece across the table. "Check," he said.

Jennsen expertly countered the move, dancing his king into a well-protected pocket that Seven would have trouble laying siege to. "Fair enough there. Don't you just get tired of it all?" he asked suddenly, seemingly sidestepping the jab; only the weary timbre in his voice revealed at all exactly how deeply the words had managed to cut.

Knowing that a frontal assault would simply be stymied by Jennsen's stickling defense, Seven set about planning a feint for what would hopefully be a crippling attack to the white army's unprotected flank. "Tired of what, exactly?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Jennsen had asked the question dozens of times before.

"The world, I mean," Jennsen chose his words as carefully as he manipulated his pawns, each falling into rank and file with military precision. "We've seen a lot of shit, done a lot ourselves – I know my hands ain't ever gonna be clean," he said, holding up his palms as though he could see the blood still stained there upon them, permanent as the scars that crisscrossed his arms; old battle wounds, well-earned and well-loved. "And you know what's changed? That's right, not a god-damned thing. Not a single god-damned thing. And here we are, back where we started, living like it don't matter."

Seven sighed at his friend's self-deprecation, but he could not shake the feeling that somehow he was being tested. "Look man," he said, "the whole world sucks. If you really want to change it, go spray-paint a tree orange. If you want to change _your_ world, start by changing yourself. You never got that, always focused on the outside, trying to shape the world to fit your image of what it should be – and if you can't handle that, then I guess you could just try destroying the damn thing. Just bitching about it isn't gonna do jack."

Jennsen looked up from his hands, as though seeing his friend for the first time. "And what about you, Seven," he asked in a soft rumble, "stuck absolutely to a code that only you seem able to decipher; rushing from battle to battle – you're like a scrap of newspaper caught in the wind, and wherever you go, trouble follows. Don't you feel guilty? Angry that fate drags you down these rubble and grief strewn roads time and again to break you, throws you into conflict not just with your enemy -- but your friends, with yourself? What are you going to do about it, Sev?"

The question seemed odd, more the tone of a sinner seeking salvation than a friend seeking validation. Until that moment, Seven had never really considered the question. It dawned on him then that what he had always been seeking was not the answer -- he had one, always had -- he only needed that simple, poignant question; a cardinal direction.

With the queer, half-crazed smile he donned like armor before plunging time and again into chaos and the unknown, he declared for everyone who cared enough to listen, "I'm gonna paint the whole fucking world orange."

The answer drew a surprising burst of relieved laughter, not just from Jennsen but from the eavesdroppers who had never quite turned back to their own business. When, at last, it died down, Jennsen looked down at the board once more. "Can I count on you for that?" he asked softly.

"You tell me, J," Seven said, "When've I turned down a challenge? Especially one so easy," he laughed. His friend joined him.

"Well, I wouldn't quite measure you by that," Jennsen said as he moved his queen to the fore for the first time. "After all, you still can't beat me. Still, I'm gonna look forward to see exactly what shade of orange you bust out. In the meantime, though," he said, "Checkmate."

Seven spent a long and silent time looking at the board, desperately seeking a way out of the Black King's inevitable fall.

Chapter 8: A Demon in the Mist

Through the steady and powerful roar of the engine, pounding like thunder, Alyrin Delling heard only her own doubts and fears, echoing as though from the walls of an endlessly deep well. Her crimson hair, glowing like rivulets of blood in the radiance of emergency lights hung about her lowered face like a veil, concealing the dangerous look sculpted onto her perfect features. White breath puffed from her lips like dragon smoke, crystallized by the frozen heights.

It seemed strange, that the Order would still support her after she had refused orders -- but then again none knew of her intent to betray; to slay the one shining dream they had shared until only a few hours before.

The helicopter suddenly pitched sideways, caught by angry turbulence, and she just missed biting her tongue; teeth clicking shut and held there in a tight and bitter grimace; stark contrast to her cool, inviting cerulean eyes.

"Touchdown in five!" the pilot shouted over his shoulder as the tips of young, slender pine trees rose into view beyond the cut off panorama of the open bay door.

Alyrin nodded but chose to say nothing, already slipping into the silent guise of the hunter.

She reached up and flipped a switch on the device strapped to her head. Her vision changed to a million shades of green as night vision lenses slid in front of her eyes. They displayed important statistics, relayed in a nebulous array of numbers assembled seemingly at random -- daydreams plucked from the mind of some maddened mathematician and scrawled like bright yellow ink on the forest green canvas. The numbers 1135784 floated next to the co-pilot's head. It indicated he was one meter away, human, male, and in good health -- focused on his task.

Alyrin considered technology only one short step from disappearing down slippery slope leading to abject heresy. But her quarry was so near, and the fulfillment of a dream thousands of years in the making seemed to wait impatiently just over the horizon, where the moon was crawling up the ladder of the starry sky.

Still, she nodded in satisfaction at the display's reliability and looked down to check her equipment belt. The various tools of her trade were all securely fastened into heavy black Velcro latches and pouches; safety catches turned off and primed for either stealth or violence \-- whichever suited the situation best. She gave a final nod at the pilot, who dipped the mechanical bird to within just a few meters of the ground.

He looked back at her, and a number next to his head clicked to a 9 -- a smile. She flashed a final thumbs up before tumbling to the side and out the door into the eclipsed forest.

She hit the ground in a cat-like crouch, braced to absorb the impact. Her clothes adjusted to cushion and support the blow, designed with that specific purpose firmly in mind -- the midnight spider silk fabric smooth and insulated against the New England chill.

Alyrin waited for a moment in the engulfing shadow, unmoving save for the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed silently in and out; inhaling calm and exhaling fear. Seconds ticked by as she acclimated her aura to the uninviting wilderness.

Stepping slowly and carefully through the underbrush, she used the goggle's built-in compass and GPS to navigate east towards the insignificant town that the map function told her was named Megid. Roughly two kilometers away, the dot already frustrated her. Small towns never offered much in the way of comfort or food.

Were it not for the technological guidance, she would have quickly become lost. The winding paths seemed to know intruders and become more sinuous in spite, curling in on itself to resist invasion.

Cursing her luck in the eight languages she knew, she wandered further, trusting only the blinking spot above and to the right of the same eye -- an accessorized star -- to show her the way..

An hour later, though, she grew suspicious of its supposed accuracy. The weak light of Megid still radiated softly above the treetops but seemed no closer for her trek. She ripped the goggles from her head and gave them a hard shake. Nothing changed, she noted, as she fastened it back on.

"Oh well," Alyrin muttered before she ordered loudly and clearly, "Disengage."

The system shut down, bathing her in darkness. Fear might have come, then, were she capable of such banal emotion \-- the angel would not allow it, cut her off from the emotion entirely. She was a dog on a leash, and Clarion her master.

Another hour passed, leaving her more lost than before. Her fingers lingered on the GPS beacon tucked away in her tool bag. If activated, it would bring not only help but grim consequences.

For starters, she'd be very lucky not to be expelled from the Order, not that it really mattered any longer -- lucky just to keep her life; that likely wouldn't happen either, angel or no. More, though, Megid would be destroyed down to the last glimpse of a memory. The others left no witnesses, no chance of innocent humanity to be tainted by the world that existed only in their dreams -- and worst nightmares, the tangential reality that corrupted far easier than it purified. They'd purge every soul that lived in the peaceful little village: men, women, children; history itself could not escape the Order's reach.

She unclipped her belts, letting the extraneous tools fall to earth. In the ebb and flow of time, such things were unnecessary. Alyrin had been born -- forged in the flames of chaotic destiny -- with all the tools she needed; power that reached beyond human definition.

Empty-handed now, she pulled the zipper of her jumpsuit open, revealing her skin to the biting wind. Around her, a barren copse of trees watched silently, skeletal sentinels arrayed in a near perfect circle that served as a "house" of sorts in which she could practice her divine arts.

Her left hand came up, pointing southward towards the Devil's Gate, and her right swept northward to indicate Heaven's Gate leaving glowing silver trails in the air wherever her fingers brushed. She traced the left in a sweeping arc until it crossed over her chest and pointed towards the Astral Gate in the east as her right hand split the north into two equal halves. Only then, with the field properly set, did she open her soul to the power.

Energy rushed through her, holy and electric, tingling down her extremities and bathing her in an icy rush. She struggled to hold back an ecstatic gasp, knowing such distraction could cause the ceremony to fail unpredictably. Instead, she grappled with the energy, forcing it into her fingers as they began to draw angelic symbols in the air, each shimmering unbound, as though carved into the fabric of the universe. They glowed an endless hue of blues and pinks. Half of the symbols meant nothing to Alyrin, even the angel within did not understand their meaning \-- they had been lost to time, but it did not matter if her conscious mind knew them -- they existed as knowledge inscribed upon her soul.

A solid pillar of silver light broke forth from the ground in a perfect circle about her feet, shooting into the deepening sky like a holy arrow and the earth itself shook violently, rumbling as Alyrin bridged a temporal connection between this world and one of the next. The spectacle, evoked beauty reminiscent of the first act of creation, fraught with untold dangers. The least of which, perhaps, would reveal herself to her enemies as surely as if she had scrawled it upon the ceiling of the night sky in racing stardust.

At last, the light and the ecstasy faded, the beam of silver breaking through the clouds and disappearing into the vast beyond, and Alyrin found only despair. No answer had been proffered; her prayers spent on deaf ears. Alone and lost, she cast her teary eyes up at the pale waning gibbous moon -- no more than a sliver of illumination railing against the fuzzy blanket that had swallowed her single hope.

But something was off -- shadowed in the light and shape above, an object gently rode the wind down to earth. Alyrin watched, and rekindled hope sought salvation somewhere beyond the next rolling twist.

When it drifted low enough, Alyrin plucked it from its course. With half a smile, a mostly disbelieving twist of her lips, she studied it closer.

The feather shared the same luminescence of the moon above. Long, thin, and perfect -- striated blue streaks ran throughout the individual barbs, forming complex geometrical patterns. One, Alyrin recognized -- the constellation Orion, The Hunter. No bird had ever possessed such unique and distinctive markings.

Only one creature in all existence could claim such fine plumage. And where angels walked, so did those like her -- souls neither human nor angel, but something else entirely -- crafted as weapons to wage the proxy wars of Above and Below. Existences far too dangerous to be allowed freedom; for where the Ascended walked , chaos followed -- a constant and tireless companion.

The feather's markings were clear indication as well \-- they belonged to a renegade angel named Terradyn. At the thought of the name, the angel within awakened once more, railing at her conscious mind -- demanding Alyrin fulfill her end of the contract. Angels were not her concern, though.

She sucked in her breath, barely believing that she had managed to track down the soul who called herself Mirai Kishida. The hunt of two thousand years finally neared its end. Putting the Keystone to the blade remained a priority, but all took a back seat compared to the vengeance burning deep inside, inextinguishable, stronger than trembling faith.

Fingers trembling gently in excitement at her blind luck, she pulled the goggles back on and clicked the switch. Numbers set to the bottom left offered important environmental statistics: air pressure, humidity, wind speed, and wind direction. With a gentle push of the button on the side of the frame, the display switched to a detailed list of information over the past few hours. Her eye movements controlled the scrolling, and with a few rolls downward, she arrived at what she wanted. Though the wind was currently silent, it had been blowing from the west. With a final glance to appropriately orient herself, she ordered the device off once again and set off into the darkness.

Had she bothered to glance at her reflection in the dull lens as she pulled it free, she might have been surprised to see that her violet eyes had washed a steely silver and that her teeth no longer smiled as usual; instead they bared themselves at nothing -- a bloodthirsty and rabid wolf. Or if she'd taken the time to look at the feather one last time as she let it slip from her fingers, she would have noticed that it had faded to black -- a simple crow's feather and nothing more.

And if she had only taken the time to listen, Alyrin Delling would have noticed the forest had hushed -- either in fear or supplication of the demon who now raged silently in its midst.
Chapter 9: blInk

Words flowed onto the page like a clear crystal stream; each letter crisp and beautiful and yet unsullied by critic or reader, so fluid that the writer himself knew not if the next word would be adjective, or noun, or odd preposition. Instinct dictated his undulating scrawl, much more so than either premeditation, afterthought, or even his muse – the half empty bottle of bourbon perched precariously at the edge of his desk, where a maligned sneeze might just send it careening down to the ill-kempt floor; now studded with discarded papers and mostly unread bills.

His name was Michael J. Tarst; or at least he was pretty sure it was. The drink scrambled his thoughts sometimes – that was what the doctors said anyway. He had his own ideas... though sharing them would surely wind up with a trip to somewhere even worse than AA meetings. Truth be told, though, the poison did not help. He swore to quit – after this bottle. Or the next. Maybe.

Blindly grasping at the desk, for he refused to take his eyes from the dull glow of his ancient monitor, his hands closed around the medallion, and he ran his fingers across the embossed surface, envisioning the words in his sleep-blurred mind's eye.

"Joseph Pulitzer..." his mouth formed the words, and though his tongue found familiarity, it lacked recognition. His fingers moved higher, finding the rounded corner of a deep gouge once made by heavily wielded pen knife. Tracing the "J" from the bottom tip up, and leaping over to the angle of the "T" in Tarst, he found some relief that he had not entirely lost his mind yet. Michael dropped the disc unceremoniously back to his deck, where it wobbled to a stop – in easy reach for the next time his sanity came into question.

The prize itself vexed him, but critics heralded him as the decade's master of historical fiction; a talent and vision unseen before and replete with vivid tales and detailed storylines that captured not only the spirit of the age but the lives and souls and banalities therein.

Only he and his late wife knew the truth. What they claimed was brilliant historical fiction was not fiction at all; but rather the culmination of hundreds of lives of memories and experiences. Each haunted him, a poltergeist that on bad days no amount of liquor could hold at bay. Today was a really bad day, and the words revealed its puzzle all too slowly.

Perhaps it was the unseasonal storm raging outside. Scientists and reporters filled the news, claiming that some environmental tipping point had been reached, sending the Earth into a death spiral – and an equal number of critics claimed it was a cyclic event repeating roughly ever 413 and one half years and citing statistics and numbers that were far more fictional than anything that he had ever written. He had grown used to the false prophets; they were a constant throughout his own histories and none thus far had proven true.

The thought drove him to cast his eyes away from the novel he was writing, and down at his desk at last. Several books graced its surface: The Bhagivad Gita, a treatise on the Vedic Sages, a novel about ancient China called "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". When people asked how long he had been a writer, and he replied, "Always," he did not mean it in the figurative sense – but rather quite literally. Lifetime after lifetime, his soul was as bound to the pen as it was to the world in which it dwelled.

Of all Ascended, Tarst believed that he remembered the most of what he once was; and lived, cursed and burdens by the culminated mistakes of previous lives.

A pair of Bibles, too, caught his attention. Though they were far from the original, he kept the twins to remind himself of what he had done by choosing to pen the tale of Christ. Twice. It was, at best, a failed attempt to conceal the truth that had accumulated in over a thousand years of wars, suffering, and chaos; an homage of sorts. "The path to Hell is paved with good intentions," he growled low under his breath. His cell phone lay atop the mini tower, silent and dark.

At its worst... Tarston reached for his bottle to drown the idea before it could consume him with despair yet again. His wife, Nancy, had always understood. She was not Ascended but that did not matter – she believed in him, supported him. When she passed, his world began to spiral out of control. First the bottle, and then the full realization of his nature, and now the whole damned world was slipping across the cusp.

He snarled at the TV, which was still prattling on about the so-called "New War" that had broken out just days ago in the Middle East. With America in a state of apoplexy from its financial, educational, and social collapse, Israel suddenly found itself without allies and surrounded by the wolves.

Dreary old England found itself in little better shape; his homeland had tied itself so firmly to its former colony that as the Yanks went down, they brought the Queen's country with it. The talking heads still lamented the loss, and insisted the future would be bright but Tarst knew the truth – the sun had already set in the West. It would rise again, someday, if they were all around to see it.

Looking outside, to where the driving snow had changed its mind yet again into a needle-like rain, Weston doubted such opportunity would present itself.

A buzzing distracted him from those dark thoughts, and he reached over to pick up his phone – managing to knock the Bibles over, at last, in the process. They hit the ground with a thud.

He checked the caller ID, and muttered under his breath, "Speak of the Devil," before snapping open the phone.

"Miss Kishida" he exhaled at the voice.

The voice on the other side sighed, "Just Mirai," she said in her lilting accent. "Tarston-san," she added.

"Okay, okay. Graces, you win Mirai," he declared – the honorific made him feel far too old for his age; though just last month he had hit 40 like a train. "Thank God you called -- I've been trying to reach you all day."

"Based on your predictions, I successfully made contact with the target," she said. "And in the town, cells don't work. Thanks for sending me out to the pit of nowhere, by the way," she admonished.

Edged relief flooded through his tired muscles. Using his centuries of experience, Tarston theorized that Ascendency was far more like a mathematical formula than random divine "inspiration" – though it was an inexact science.

"You need to get him out of there," he warned. "I'm sending you copy of what I just divined today, it's not good."

"Order?" Mirai asked -- the girl's instincts had grown only sharper in the years since he had found her.

Tarst sucked in his breath, "Alyrin Delling," he whispered. His hands shakily poured another shot of bourbon. Soon, he'd have to switch to the whiskey. Or something stronger. His soul was too old for this, he grumbled to himself.

He swigged back the glass before Mirai could speak, letting the amber fire ignite his throat, and through the clear bottom of the glass he could see the freak storm outside. The pieces suddenly fell into place, and his fingers beat out a rhythm on the keyboard -- telling the story that history concealed.

As he scanned over his newest piece, the words turned his tongue to lead, "She's found you." His hand knocked the shot glass over – it caught the edge of the desk and shattered spectacularly into a thousand tiny shards. He gasped, "Get the Keystone and get out of Megid now!"

"Too late," Mirai added something unintelligible in her own language before adding, "God damned angels."

Nancy's photograph, the only thing he had managed to salvage from the fire that stole her from him, watched sadly as he nodded absently into the receiver. "Each piece a puzzle, each puzzle a soul," he whispered into the phone. "Don't ask me what it means, the answer is one of the few that I have no memory of."

Outside, a neighborhood cat screeched in surprise before falling suddenly and terribly silent.

"The Sword lies between Here and There," he whispered into the phone as quickly as he could, a memory passed down from memories as his free hand reached again for the bottle, before he remembered his lamentably broken glass. Instead it found the photo frame; Weston tilted his wife down so she would not see.

He heard the footsteps, thudding along the deck outside.

"And in Darkness lay the future King," Tarst recited the poem he had spent centuries crafting, never finding an appropriate ending. Mirai's shouted questions formed only a muted buzzing at the back of his mind. He pulled back his main drawer and reached deep inside with a trembling hand. From its depths he withdrew an ancient pearl-handled revolver.

His outer door gave way with a crash and shouted commands.

"In times like these may dragons rise," he finished and paused, considering the poem he had dedicated his existence to perfecting. Mirai's voice was distant now, a buzz in the back of his brain.

Tarst leveled his weapon at the door, pulling back on the hammer slowly. He lowered the phone to his desk, setting it down ceremonially. His lifetimes' legacy complete, Michael J. Tarst regretted only two things: that he would not be able to archive this piece of history, and that he would not be able to see his wife in the vast and impermeable beyond.

The door to his study splintered in deafening explosion, revealing the black uniforms emblazoned with bronze crosses -- the assassins Ascended called Shadow Soul.

In times like these," he amended his magnum opus fiercely as he opened fire, "even poets must draw the sword!"

Chapter 10: Trinity

Shadows flickered in the bitten moonlight, as swift and evasive as lost faeries, dancing beneath the crystal, midnight stars. Any one of them could have been death camouflaged in silent grace. Far below, Mirai Kishida watched the last traces of silver light disappear into the empty sky, waiting beneath the boughs of a massive oak tree -- back reclined against the protective trunk and her eyes half-closed, relying on senses other than deceptive sight to see her through the chaotic night.

She was close -- too much so now to risk flight. And when she emerged from the trees adorned in hypocritical technology \-- a simmering aura of intent rage draped about her narrow shoulders -- Mirai regretted that she had not ended their struggle long ago; before this Alyrin Delling had so deeply steeped herself in ecclesiastical darkness.

The girl seemed every bit a fierce and proud knight, a shock of wispy scarlet hair protruding from beneath the folds of the hood that half-shrouded eyes that glowed ghastly and unnatural; silver as the light that led her into Mirai's camp. They raced with power the likes of which Mirai had never completely understood. She held her own in check, knowing that the telltale flash of gold would reveal her absolutely and disastrously.

Alyrin cast about the abandoned camping site, searching for her prey, which concealed herself mere feet away, no more than another shadow painted onto the maple trees.

Unbothered by failure, a malicious grin spread across Alyrin's face, teeth flashing in an evil grimace as she strolled about the camp, a prowling cat on the hunt. She said nothing, nor did Mirai expect her too. Alyrin had never been a woman of many words.

Smoothly, she reached into one of the nylon tactical pouches fastened at her hip and produced a handful of photos. She held them up in turn, allowing just enough moonlight to reveal the horrified visage they held trapped forever in film.

Mirai's breath caught at the sight of the man's face. Alex McKinnon was only an innocent, a simple case of mistaken identity and nothing more. She wondered how the Order had found him so quickly, and what exactly he had told them. More than that, of course, she hoped he was safe.

As though to answer her question, Alyrin tore the photos in two, letting the wind scatter the pieces like dust; a clearer message could not have been delivered had she screamed it at the suddenly absent stars.

Mirai knew to stay hidden and quiet; urged to by the deathly pall that hung about Alyrin's shoulders; at the _saki_ \-- the bloodlust -- that rippled from the young woman like crushing ocean waves. Her mind ran the calculations, faster than any computer could compile the statistical odds, returning results starkly negative. She added different variables, accounting for banal details such as wind speed, and air resistance -- subtracted others, like her own tolerance to the cold, and her own survival instincts. No matter how she tried to cook reality's books, the result was nothing less than abject defeat. Cold, hard math that screamed to stay safe until the storm blew over; to pursue retreat at all costs.

But then a scrap of one of the photos blew too close to her feet, and she looked down at it -- at the fearsome grimace splayed across her temporary and accidental ward's face -- Mirai knew why some people called her a fool. Her rage boiled deep within, the natural persona resulting from frustrations dating back millennia; it began as whispers behind her ears that evolved into a steady chant pulsing like the heartbeats of vengeful ghosts.

If not for glory or closure, then simple vengeance would do, for the life of the innocents she could not protect. The simple logic presented by overwhelming force lost color, washed out by the turbid, rushing thrum of anger.

But before she could act, could force her tense muscles into explosive action, someone wandered into the camp, clutching another scrap of the photo that marked the end of Alex McKinnon.

Moonlight broke through the crowds, falling poetically on a visage twisted with depthless rage. It was Seven Kharaos, and it wasn't at the same time. For surely it was him; wearing the same jeans and colorful shirt he had earlier, but the aura that rippled from his body came as waves of unadulterated force -- neither good nor evil, but something that dwarfed such concepts into insignificance.

Existence fell into hushed silence, reverent, and even her beating heart seemed to freeze as Seven spoke, his a voice suited to power, fundamentally different from the gentle nobility that lent strength and honesty to his character.

"Where is my friend?" an earthquake could not rumble deeper, nor could an emperor match the command that possessed his voice as he asked the angel-possessed girl. His fingers tightened around the edges of the photograph, and the material steamed as it disintegrated in his grasp. He tossed it to the ground, a crumpled scrap, and looked left and right at the abandoned camp as though seeing it for the first time.

His voice dropped another impossible octave lower. "Both of them," he growled. Mirai's face flushed, shamefully; neither her culture nor her nature had allowed people to call her "friend" so quickly or so easily. Even that morning she had threatened him, and meant it; but there was no duplicity or doubt in the man's resounding voice.

At length, Alyrin took stock of the furious figure that loomed before her, several feet taller, and at least a little bit angrier. Her voice too, smooth and low and dangerous, asked simply, "Name?"

Clearly offended at the brusque question, Seven pulled his thumb across to point at his chest, "My name is Seve--"

Mirai exploded into action, desperately trying to smother the proclamation in its crib. Alyrin sputtered as the golden eyed demon appeared behind her in a flash, twin swords crossed together in a vicious "V". They pulled down to end her, but the two blades smashed into an invisible barrier -- energy manifest \-- and there they hung, suspended in empty air, shooting off rainbow sparks as Mirai snarled and tried to push her way through with sheer force.

She slammed her _dao_ down again and again, faster and faster, desperately trying to crack through the magical wall. She moved as lightning possessed, striking low and high, looking for the tiniest chink in the armor, spinning, pivoting, dancing. In the span of seconds, she had scored at least two dozen blows -- each as ineffectual as the first.

An eerie sound began to creep upon the air, trickling over her skin like sweat. A flock of birds burst from the trees, their cries too shallow to drown out the prophetic murmuring, and even the cool breeze had changed direction -- as though fleeing impending disaster. The skin on Mirai's arms began to tingle as her hair rose up to stand on end.

Safe within her bubble, Alyrin had begun to open her wicked gates -- the source of her black magic. Mirai recognized the motions, could see the blue sparks begin to gather within the air, snapping and hungry, summoned there by the unreachable girl's twisting hands -- they grew arrow-like and aimed directly for the dormant Ascended who had first challenged her; the key to the inscrutable machinations of Heaven.

And yet he did not move, did not even realize the danger -- likely could not even fathom it. Seven stood unblinking, a curious child peering into the widening maw of disaster; unaware that his innocence had long since ended.

Mirai's honed reflexes, sharper than even her mind, were already in motion. She threw her blades down and kicked out at the shield as hard as she could. Her leg caught the transparent wall hard, sending a jarring shake right up through her teeth. Undaunted, she grimaced and pushed off with all of her force, adding the barrier's innate repulsion to her own momentum to throw herself at the hapless fool.

The world erupted into electric flame as a cry of pain pierced the darkness like a jagged and rusty spear.
Chapter 11: Infinitum

"So, you are not going to join us after all," said the beautiful angel as she brushed away a strand of wavy chocolate hair, tucking it safely behind her ear as she regarded the equally magnificent being who addressed her. She sat upon a throne of carved ivory, ebony hands resting upon its arms in perfect counter-balance; in truth, she desired bleached bone but such things were gauche for divinity. Her eyes shifted in the multihued torchlight, sparkling like prisms as they regarded the curious scene before her.

Ten emerald-swirled marble steps below, a second angel emanated an aura of tranquility and quiet confidence, her arms gently crossed across her chest as she carefully worded her answer -- knowing well that one misstep with the tempestuous Melpomene, one who would revel in that result, would bring several thousand years of warded disaster crashing down not only upon her head, but upon the unwary world.

She looked up at length, meeting Melpomene's piercing gaze -- her own like motes of flame dancing in her carmine eyes -- and said, "No, our paths wind through different valleys," she paused a moment, considering, "though both our gazes remain fixed on the untenable cerulean sky."

The other angels in the room nodded in tacit approval \-- most, at least -- though Melpomene herself seemed unmoved. Unmoved was fine, Terradyn believed, as long as she remained un-offended. Instead, her fingers tapped the throne with either boredom or impatience, a rolling but off-key melody. None dared correct her, though. None ever had.

But in the way of things, the graceful but untenable flow of the universe, such things remained distinct advantages. Power could be directed just as the current of the mightiest river shifts its flows to circumstance -- a dangerous thing to ride, to be sure, but thrilling and vital. The only thing Terradyn needed were banks strong enough to direct the flow.

Her eyes flickered momentarily toward the locked door, partially concealed behind Melpomene's intimidating chair, before refocusing on the task at hand.

"We propose a truce," Melpomene declared firmly, letting the words echo throughout the inner sanctum. The torches flickered at the very force of the pronouncement, washing the chamber with dazzling blues and oranges that did not quite touch the low-cut amber dress Terradyn wore like a suit of armor.

Such a pronouncement came as firm disappointment. Terradyn wanted -- needed -- an alliance with the fickle faction of outcast divines. They controlled this chamber, the so-called Heart, and though their influence found itself limited, it did exist there, in the most vital of locations. Outcast angels watching over exiled angels as though such a mission would somehow erase the sins of their past.

She rose up to her full height, addressing the council and their queen as equals. "A truce pleases us," she said, "however we believe that alliance is more in order, if not necessary for our mutual futures."

Melpomene's fingers began tapping faster, pounding out the discordant rhythm with increasing urgency -- and annoyance. "By allying with you," she responded, "we declare war on the other factions -- ones that currently hold power far greater than yours in the outside world." She flashed a slightly sympathetic smile for her former comrade-in-arms before adding, "We have a good thing here, Terradyn. Perhaps it is not the world beyond the Gates, but it is ours. This world has been good to us, and we to it. Inciting war is no way to return that favor."

"And should that world be teetering on the precipice of destruction?" Terradyn asked, a golden eyebrow raised suspiciously, unsure of what the council's reaction would be.

The chamber hushed into murmuring tones. Some looked as though they agreed, but just as many or more seemed to take the query as a direct threat -- their stances changed, guarded, dangerous -- the very air crackled with energy. Terradyn did not break her gaze, though the thinnest trickle of sweat slid down her back, running a chill down her spine like fingers pecking at piano keys.

Before the situation intensified, though, Melpomene arose, her silver garments swooshing behind her as she gracefully descended the stairs, a queen confident in her domain, fully knowledgeable that more than the other angels protected her in that chamber. Indeed, Fate itself had predicted the situation, though the result certainly remained to interpretation.

Coming closer, Melpomene reached out towards Terradyn with her power, flowing tendrils of energy that lightly stroked Terradyn's narrow chin, brushed her high cheekbones, silently probing for an answer. When Melpomene gasped, Terradyn knew that she had discovered the truth -- braced herself for backlash.

Instead, she merely asked, "You have found it?" her voice failing to cover the excited tones that lurked under her minty breath like lava beneath a dormant volcano -- a heartbeat away from awakening.

"Him," Terradyn corrected. "Mirai Kishida is currently bringing him up to speed."

That brought Melpomene to a pause, her blossoming smile faded into a disapproving frown. "This is wise? Perhaps the Keystone does not need to know his role. He will be easier to manipulate that way."

Terradyn shook her head, ignoring the whispered agreement of the other angels, "Not this one. I have seen him with my own eyes," she declared, "something exists within him -- a fire that burns bright enough to eclipse the sun. Should he stumble into the truth unaware..." she trailed off, letting the now silent onlookers extrapolate exactly what kind of disaster would befall each and every one of them. Terradyn knew that to be a better tactic than simply outlining the truth for them -- they were survivors, always had been. The first case scenario for them translated as the worst one. It made them eternally pessimistic, and volatile at times, but a wonderful lever when craftily plied. Manipulation had never been her strong suit or her love, but all things had their place in the world, and perhaps existed exclusively for such situations.

"And how do you wish for us to fulfill our alliance?" the queen asked, her voice as unyielding as the crystal that sealed the chamber off from the rest of the world. Intrigued though the leader may have been, Terradyn knew the bargain hinged on her next few words.

Still, she nodded in response to the question, this was simply another battle in an infinite line of previous encounters, she told herself. "When he arrives here," she said, "you will offer him your gift."

Melpomene began tapping once again, impatiently indicating that Terradyn continue.

"You will respect his decision," she finished.

The rhythm grew more off-beat as the challenged angel considered her possibilities. "Dangerous..." she whispered under her breath, loud enough for only Terradyn to hear. "If he chooses to unleash _that_ one..." the tapping stopped as Melpomene reached her decision. "We reserve the right to dissuade him from whatever decision he makes. We may offer him anything," Melpomene said, her lips still pulled into a steep frown. " _Anything_ ," she stressed the word as though stretching it to encompass the universe. Terradyn wondered exactly how far she would go, and did not doubt the word flirted as closely as it possibly could to being literal.

"That is... agreeable," Terradyn replied, trying to hold back the relief that escaped with her breath. "However, you may only try to dissuade him with words -- no violence, no force; his soul will be fractured as it is when it arrives."

Melpomene shook her head, "We will decide how to handle that when he arrives." She paused, a long moment before asking, "What do you think he will decide?"

Terradyn let a small smile slip onto her face. "The man may be one of the biggest fools I have ever met," she said simply, "but he carries the heart of a hero."

She let the words float in the air like a falling feather, riding the ancient wind of the even-older chamber. They carried the tones of finality, resounding throughout the souls of those who listened like a lingering echo.

"He will make the right one."

Chapter 12: It's a Wonderful World

Calamity swirled in and out of black nothingness. The revolting smell of burnt hair polluted each and every painful breath as Seven struggled back to consciousness, pitifully fighting back the overwhelming urge to vomit everything he had ever eaten. Nothing remained of the fallen leaves; the bare earth faced the shrouded sky in accusatory protest; as though demanding long-withheld deliverance.

The ringing in his ears dispelled all sound as Seven coughed up wet mud, wiping away the remainders that dribbled on his lips and leaving dirty smudges across his cheeks that highlighted his turquoise eyes as they burned with a range of intense emotions \-- confusion sparred with disbelief whilst rage and fear glared at each other from across the battlefield of an otherwise empty soul.

Something was keeping Seven pinned facedown to the ground, and he shifted it off with his free arm. As he turned to inspect the offending object, his eyes widened in realization. Smoke rolled off Mirai's body like ocean waves; the majority of her clothing had burned away revealing the delicate girl beneath, a chickadee clad in steel. Her eyes remained closed; forever, perhaps.

Miraculously, he remained unscathed. Mirai had shielded him, paying for his safety with her own. Seven had to bite back a curse at the young woman's foolish sacrifice as his memory raced to piece things together.

Two pinpricks of light leered through the obscuring haze, silver will-o-wisps that loomed like fireflies. A form coalesced in the haze, a grim reaper cloaked in nebulous periphery.

Seven did not know exactly the instinct that prodded him forward, but it forced strength into his weakened legs -- flooded him with the singular desire to escape. He scooped Mirai from the ground as gingerly as he could, relieved when she groaned slightly in protest. One of her thick swords had fallen nearby, tossed there by whatever explosion had shook the ground so violently it had thrown up great clumps of dirt, leaving a foot-deep circular gouge exactly where they had fallen. He took up the weapon, shifting Mirai towards his back. With a second glance at the smoky apparition, he dashed in the other direction, leaping the new trench and hitting the ground running.

In the background, a dulcet female voice laughed maniacally. Seven turned just in time to see the weird girl emerge from the smoke, her face a twisted mask of ecstasy and rage as she slowly pointed at them, continuing to raise her arm towards the heavens.

His body reacted long before his mind could match; with a grunt he dove to the side just as a blinding flash of lightning crashed down exactly where he had been standing. Every hair on his body stood stock straight, and only the awkward leap had saved his eyes the trauma of being burned from his skull.

Undaunted, he saw his opportunity and took off as fast as he could, sprinting as the thunder clap rolled over him like a shockwave. At the last moment, he twisted away, shielding Mirai and absorbing the rumbling energy into his own body, stumbling under the sheer force. He shook away the unnatural stars that floated in his vision, turned, and kept running.

The branches and the trees passed like blurs as he dodged in between them; a hunted animal. He ducked and twisted and turned but did not dare to look back, knowing instinctively that the predator would not be far behind.

Unfortunately, she also blocked the way down the mountain. To the east lay a boulder-strewn ravine that he could not navigate with the extra weight on his back -- not safely, anyway, and in the other direction the roots grew twisted and gnarly; they would trip him for sure. His only choice would be to go up and over, circling back towards town once he hit the highway.

Ten minutes of awkward navigation went by before Seven's breath gave way into ragged gasps. He had used every trick he knew, a lifetime of accumulated experience growing up in the forest and the mountains that no outsider could hope to match and yet, he knew it would not be enough.

He leaned down to gently rest Mirai against a tree, propping her head up against and outstretched branch as he considered his possibilities. Slipping off his padded winter jacket, he laid it over her like a blanket. Leaving her behind would, perhaps, at least slow down his pursuer but she seemed interested in him, specifically. Seven Kharaos, a name that carried far more mystery than substance -- for the owner, anyway; the last few days made it seem like everyone else in the world knew what significance the title carried. Leaving her behind, would guarantee that he would never learn the truth; and looking at her peaceful face as she slept, a slight smile playing across her dry and cracked lips, Seven knew that he could not simply abandon her to her fate.

Instead, he scanned the area, looking for anything that could be used. His eyes lingered on the trees -- ancient and silent sentinels, untouched by the voracious paper mill that once fueled the tiny self-styled dragon below. Bringing destruction to such noble existences sickened his heart but would not stop him. He hefted the weight of Mirai's sword in his hand, the thick blade seemed perfect for cutting and the edge gleamed hungrily in the cold moonlight.

He walked over toward one of the trees, and set himself as he had seen samurai in TV shows. The awkward posture lent itself to near-certain injury, and he shifted his stance once again, like he was about to swing a bat.

Gritting his teeth so hard he feared one might give way, he struck as hard as he could.

The jarring impact nearly did succeed in breaking his teeth, and sent resounding shockwaves through every nerve of his body. His shaking fingers abandoned the weapon and left it stuck there, barely a quarter of an inch buried into the wood; hardly a scratch in the mossy black bark.

"Hand it to me," a weak voice said next to him. Seven bit his tongue to avoid a startled shout as he whirled about.

Mirai was up, tattered and staggering, but with a dangerous look in her eyes that glowed far more dangerously than her thirsty weapon. Her raven hair fluttered in the reluctant breeze, drawn back like wings as she mustered her strength. She raised an outstretched hand -- not a request, a royal decree.

When he hesitated, she snatched it from the tree, a fluid movement that he could barely read, pivoting on her left foot and spinning around to pull it free. She held the weapon outstretched, balanced perfectly in her palm, a natural extension of her body. In his life and travels, Seven had met many soldiers, many warriors -- grizzled veterans of a dozen wars, but none carried the sublime presence the girl wielded as she clutched the curved blade.

"Are you okay?" Seven asked. Mirai had thrown his coat about her shoulders, draped with its arms tied around her neck to avoid restricting her movements -- a makeshift cape that shifted as she dropped into a guarded stance.

She barely regarded him from the corner of an amber eye, fixing him with a cold stare. "I'll live," she said, "assuming we get out of this in one piece. We need to get moving." Motionless now, she turned her gaze ahead once again. Her breathing evened, in and out, as steady and peaceful as the rolling tides.

Seven shook his head sadly, clutching a hand over his chest he nearly doubled over in pain as fuzzy black began to shrink his vision, his body finally losing the edge of adrenaline that brought it so far. "No can do," he gasped, trying desperately to stave off unconsciousness, "my lungs have had just about all they can take. Damned things. You go on ahead," he struggled to stand up straight.

Frowning, Mirai pondered the lone sword in her hand, weighing the cool metal and leather-wrapped handle as though balancing it against the worth of Seven's life. "No," she said at last, "I won't let her have you; you see what they do to their prisoners, yes?" she asked.

"Yeah..." Seven said as he spat out phlegm speckled with blood as he stood up straight at last. "Yeah, what the hell is going on?" he asked, "Who is that girl?" He cast about right and left, as though expecting assault from any direction at any moment.

Mirai's voice grew low, a harsh whisper escaping her lips, "You should know. Why don't you?"

Such an accusation made no sense to the accused, and he looked at her puzzled, arms outstretched in outraged confusion. He said nothing, unwilling to respond.

"You can see them, can't you?" Mirai growled, obviously unhappy that Seven had failed to take the bait or apologize for apparently being too foolish to understand. "Angels," she finished, spitting the word out like an epithet.

Seven uttered a long, lone groan, lowering his head to place his head in his hands. "So I'm not just crazy then?" he asked, his voice rising into a half-whine. "I really hoped that I was just crazy."

"Hmm," Mirai shot back. "No. Well, maybe, but not in this case."

"So what does it all mean? Why did she attack me? What about Alex?" he asked.

A long sigh escaped Mirai's chest. "You really are like a child, aren't you?" she said. "Know nothing. Consider nothing. Abandon everything that either frustrates or perplexes you. Terradyn said you would be this way, but I can't believe it even though the truth is staring right at me with its silly expression."

"You, me, her... Alyrin," she said. "We are the same."

The long awaited answer to Seven's life quest loomed suddenly close, shocking him with its sudden appearance -- a white whale that rode the horizon like the setting sun; for he knew beyond that moment, somehow, loomed a world of deeper darkness. He licked his lips, unsure if he even wanted to hear the answer now, having already met two denizens of that midnight purgatory.

"We are Ascended," Mirai declared firmly, her voice still barely more audible than a whisper or muttered curse, "souls doomed to wander this ethereal existence. Forged by Heaven, sculpted by Hell, abused and abandoned by both. Your friend Alex... he was a mistake, we thought he was you and they followed me to him."

Though Seven could understand the words, the emphasized capitals and the implications, they made little sense. Not only had he chalked up angels to either hallucinations or PTSD, the very concept of a soul -- something unidentifiable by science or perception seemed little more than a fever dream once envisioned by a shaman hopped up on the good stuff. He opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out; his voice failing uselessly, comically. Though his rational mind immediately rejected such an explanation, something deeper rose up to brush against the concept before her buried it even deeper, replacing the downwards spiral with thoughts of his friend.

"So Alex..." he began, trailing off, unable to finish the sentence.

Mirai didn't even nod, "Yes," she said, "to get to you." Her eyes flooded golden, growing deeper and more malevolent in their intent.

"Why me? Is it something I did in the past? One of my operations?" Seven asked somberly. He silently added Alex McKinnon to a tragically growing list of those who had sacrificed for him before, and swore an oath to that memory -- stolen innocent would be repaid with unholy vengeance; his blood began to burn in his veins, yearning for the forbidden taste of sanguine fruit, an impulse long buried and brought to light in only the most dire of situations. Vengeance, though it would bring no peace to his heart, would at least carve a fleeting smile upon his lips -- the tired specter of justice satiated with its meager meal.

To the question, though, Mirai only shook her head. "No," she answered, "it has nothing to do with what you have done, though perhaps you do deserve some of the revenge you meted out so very justly." Her voice, colored with the slightest bit of sarcasm, left Seven blinking and wondering if the petite swordswoman could read his mind.

"Ascended exist outside the provinces of Heaven and Hell. We shift the flow of the world in ways that neither angels nor humans can. Born and reborn, our memories hunt us throughout the ages," Mirai's voice grew distant, as though seeking something long buried beneath the sands of time. "But even amongst us, you are special. Soon, you will come to learn how," her voice cut off abruptly into an angry hiss. "She's coming, we make our stand here," she whispered again, leaving Seven to worriedly ponder the prophetic pronouncement.

He was ninety percent positive that she had lost her mind, but as their relentless enemy emerged from the thicket -- a girl wreathed in chaotic, spinning flames that did not quite touch the foliage above, leaving only a smoldering trail of blackened debris with each cautious step -- the remaining ten percent accepted it all with a strange calm that came balanced in perfect contrast to the bloodlust that still raged only slightly beneath the surface of his otherwise calm expression. In that moment, he came to understand Mirai, the way she faced a hated enemy with the same intense passivity with which one observed the dawn of a new day.

The air about Alyrin's shoulders shimmered ominously, like heat rising off pavement on a hot summer day -- but through the mirage, Seven felt sure that he could distinguish a shape; a pair of tremendous wings spread wide enough to embrace the invisible horizon, fierce and terrible. His instincts warned him about those wings, screamed they were unnatural, demanded he escape at any cost -- and yet, something even more profound offered a deep twang of sympathy as he observed the girl, her eyes glowing silver orbs that expressed no emotion of their own and a face rapt in uncomfortable ecstasy. Despite this, his intuition could provide no further answers -- and so he watched, his mind long removed from the danger at hand.

"She is not herself," he muttered, half to himself. His hands found a broken branch on the ground, and he snatched it up, a desperate weapon for a desperate time.

"Doesn't matter anymore," Mirai shot back.

She was eyeing him cautiously, clearly unable to see the shimmering wings as they thrust out. As he opened his mouth to shout warning, Alyrin struck. Before his startled eyes, the girl simply vanished in a lick of scarlet flame, the same deep color of her hair.

In the next moment, she was mere inches away, a dagger clenched tightly in her hands already making its fatal arc as it swept towards Seven's unprotected throat. A single tear slid its way down the side of his attacker's cheek, as though a bitter admission of guilt. He could see his entire life slowly reflected in its clear prism; a reminder of all that he had abandoned and the truth he had long since avoided. Death would come; a welcome friend \-- a relieving reprieve from the reality that had long since been laid bare. The world could carry on without him -- would be spared his existence; the shining weapon came as an angel's just mercy, passed down from somewhere above.

Such things were unacceptable to Mirai Kishida -- the girl whose name could be read as either as "future" or "the beautiful lightning" both foresaw and forestalled Seven's welcomed end. She struck as fast as her namesake, a single two-handed strike that sliced through the thick oak as easily as paper -- for a moment, it hung there; unsure that it had even been cut. Mirai lashed out, quickly kicking the tree towards Alyrin, just as Seven had planned.

It toppled with a thunderous crack as the branches gave way, falling like an over-handed swing, perfectly executed and aimed like an arrow at the storm-clad menace. Still, Mirai moved faster. Her blade caught Alyrin's, locking it into a stalemate as her right foot hooked into Seven, knocking him backwards just as the great tree slammed down.

Alyrin reached out a slender hand as though to ward against destruction, but Seven knew better. Lightning cracked from the heavens with a triumphant roar. The tree burst into thousands of jagged pieces -- she leapt back from Mirai, breaking the lock as the splinters rained about them.

The moment she hit the ground, her hands moved again, a dizzying blur. The forest uttered a low groan, as though protesting some fathomless pain, as a tempestuous burst of wind flooded the clearing with hurricane force.

The sheer power pinned him to the ground, and the wooden shards rained about like flung daggers. Two embedded themselves in his club, reaching through towards his heart. More, tiny fragments, struck his legs and unprotected chest as he raised his meager defense to shield his eyes -- his body erupted in pain as blood spurted from a hundred different wounds; his screams lost to the callous wind.

And still, it could have been worse. As the wind carried itself away, giddily dancing through the protesting grove, Seven found himself miraculously alive beneath a crimson shadow.

It was Mirai Kishida. In the final moment she had shielded him as best she could -- large chunks of wood, stuck from the ground like a circle of broken spears around the both where she had managed to deflect them with her lonesome blade. The sword itself had broken at least twice, gaping cracks had widened the metal and bent it awkwardly, and she still clutched the hilt in a trembling, blood-stained hand. Many more shards had found their way through her meager defenses -- they pierced her body in a dozen places Seven could make out from behind her, their teeth stained with lifeblood. He could not begin to count the minor injuries -- the tiny splinters that protruded from her like porcupine quills.

She turned to him mechanically, the tiniest of smiles gracing her lips. The radiant gold had dissipated from her eyes, leaving them pieces of dull amber that struggled to remain conscious. "What are you doing, _baka_?" she asked, her voice almost impossible to catch over the burble of blood. "Run." She wavered on her feet as she turned back towards Alyrin, who strode forward slowly -- inching towards them like creeping death, sadistically savoring the pain like aged wine.

The light again took shape in Alyrin's hands, a hilt-less blade not unlike the splintered remains of the once-mighty oak, a beautiful fragment wielded by the ugliest soul. She strode closer to Mirai, drawing within striking distance as Seven's valiant protector tried to force her useless arms to action, to bring her broken sword to bear in desperate futility.

"I will seal your soul forever," Alyrin hissed, her voice an arctic glacier. "No Heaven, no Hell, no Rebirth. Farewell, First Ascended of Heaven."

Indecipherable runes grew out of the ground, pulsing with a bronze radiance. The holy words crawled off the leaves like insects, racing up Mirai's bleeding legs, spreading across her torn clothing and dissolving through to reveal a body covered with more scars than skin. They spread up her neck, reaching around to her throat as she desperately raised her chin to keep them at bay. Finally, they grew still. Mirai still struggled to no effect -- somehow the mysterious letters managed to seal even her breath.

Alyrin raised her weapon, her voice lilting in a language Seven had never heard before -- full of undulations and inflections; a chant not unlike he had once seen Shinto and Buddhist exorcists perform on journeys taken long before.

Mirai's voice pierced the song with one single word, clear as the autumn sky. "Run!" A noble sacrifice offered with her final gasp of precious air; the sound crashed like waves in Seven's ears as Alyrin's cursed weapon fell.

He offered a quick prayer to whatever God or Devil cared enough to listen; laying bare for the first time his soul upon the altar of divine sacrifice -- wishing only for the strength to move. His eyes squeezed shut with fervent effort.

The next moment bleached Seven's world with holy light, and he opened his eyes at the sound of pierced flesh, blinking in shock at the stinging pain. He was looking into Mirai's startled eyes, free from the ropes that had bound her, anger and despair welling within. Seven did not understand, neither when he heard Alyrin curse nor when she slid the blade free, jerking it as she did so -- inflicting a whole new level of suffering as she opened the hole where Seven's heart had once been. Mirai's shattered weapon, too, had found its mark -- poised to strike her enemy in a defiant final blow, it instead managed to pierce one of Seven's lungs and there it remained, a rotten tooth broken off from the dirty maw of vengeance.

Fresh blood spilled onto the ground, staining the Earth that he once feared he would destroy. Understanding came in the measured heartbeats that he no longer had; Mirai fell next to him, gently catching his body despite her own wounds. Alyrin's spell already began to take effect: he felt somehow less than whole; and though his rational mind declared it only illusion, he could have sworn that he was fading like a well-worn stain, disappearing into twilight. Warm tears fell on his cheeks, comforting yet unable to stave off the fingers of winter that now clutched his broken muscles. She asked over and over, "Why?"

Though he did not say so, he knew the answer. It came expressed as a peaceful smile across his cloudy turquoise eyes; long ago he knew the terrible fate that awaited him -- the destiny he would be forced to embrace. He had traveled the world, inspired by childhood heroes, throwing himself into chaos in the vainglorious attempt to bring order, to make sense; to justify his own existence and in the end, the truth had been so simple: Seven Kharaos had lived a coward. Perhaps now, though, despite the wild machinations of meandering destiny, he could at least leave the world in peace. His hand raised a final time, flickering like a candle in the wind, a triumph in itself as he extended a single forefinger towards the sky -- letting his arm fall, it pointed towards safety, sanctuary -- the way out of the forest for his soul-shared friend. A single question forced its way from his lips, the only one he ever needed an answer to. "Did I change the world?" he asked the tear streaked face he no longer recognized.

Night seemed darker, and most of the stars had disappeared beneath the haze. One, though, stuck out. It was poetic, Seven thought, that he should disappear beneath the jealous gaze of Algol, harbinger of misfortune; for despite it all, he remained grateful for his short stay upon the infinite and beautiful celestial gem his ancestors had dubbed Earth. He heaved a final shuddering sigh, the wind escaping peacefully from his lungs, bearing his ephemeral soul on dreams of better times as he slipped forever into the inky darkness; carried only by a few scattered motes of forsaken white light.

"Yes, you damned fool," both Alyrin and Mirai cursed at the now-angry velvet midnight sky, churning ominously with newly-formed clouds rife with crackling orange lightning.

"You ended it."

