Hehe, new chapter! Record time. n.n I figured it was only fair, since it took me an entire year to even get chapter two up...

Raine: Oh, Martel... She's becoming an active presence on this site again. Regular updates are starting to happen... Dear Martel in heaven, why?

Come on, Raine. It was really only a matter of time before I got (somewhat) back into the saddle again. Besides, I hardly call this "regular." That would be, like...weekly activity, or something.

Raine: Considering the fact that you have not one, not even just two now, but three revived pet projects, all of which occupy your thoughts every waking moment, that is a frighteningly possible concept, Maiya.

You think so? That would be awesome! Here's hoping!

Raine: Not what I meant.

"Nng…" His mind rose to the surface slowly and with some effort at first, but once feeling had crept back into his extremities, some measure of coherence finally formed. He was lying on something hard, and even as he opened his eyes a little, it was dark. Dust floated about in the few small patches of sunlight falling through holes and cracks in the ceiling, but everything else was still and silent.

Regal struggled into a sitting position, pressing his hand to his forehead briefly, and squinted about. The last thing he remembered was…bracing himself for a detonation of some kind, but when he twisted to look at the ring of machines around him, there was no evidence at all of damage. And where he was sitting—the mass of mana was gone, and it was actually…cold. Breathing was no longer difficult; he felt considerably lighter. The system couldn't have shut down; it had been too late, hadn't it?

After all that talk of faith and religion—did they have a guardian angel, after all?

He winced as several bruises informed him, when he made to stand, of just how hard he had fallen against the stone floor. But he was alive and had nothing worse to show for it, and for that he could only be grateful. Hopefully his companion could say the same; he rather hoped she hadn't been hurt in his haste to pull her back.

"Are you alright?" he rasped, turning to check on her. His eyes fell only on dim, musty air, though. A frown settled down across his brow. "…Raine?" It was quite a feat to decide which was the greater after another careful and fruitless survey of the room, his concern or his confusion.

For a moment the duke stood there, one hand resting against a now dark and lifeless machine, quite at a loss. Luckily, a creaking noise from somewhere above spared him from having to wonder for too long. He lifted his eyes to squint upward and caught movement…but that…wasn't Raine. He couldn't see well here, but he could make out the outline of a hood when the shrouded figure paused to look right back at him. Someone else was here; that was a surprise. But where was Raine?

Regal opened his mouth to call to the stranger, but he never got the chance. The body hidden beneath what he presumed to be a cloak of some sort was apparently rather quick and agile, for as soon as they had both realized the other had seen them, he—or she?—took off running up the ramp. Instinct kicked in, and all he could think to do was follow. He needed answers, and this person appeared to be his only immediately available source. The very fact that he had to give chase gave him all the excuse he needed; people with nothing to hide did not typically flee after being seen.

He mounted the ramp himself and tried his best to ignore the groaning beneath him and the admittedly healthy distrust of this ancient, neglected architecture nestled in the back of his mind. Instead he watched the stranger's heels and worked to close the sizable gap between them. It was no easy task; she (for as they climbed back toward the main body of the tower, where there was more exposure to sunlight, he was able to distinguish a distinctly female figure) was light on her feet, and she took risks and moved with such confidence as he had thought only Raine could demonstrate within a shaky ruin. The two of them were certainly cut from the same cloth.

"Stop!" he called, though rationality told him it was a fruitless effort. Predictably, she didn't even spare a glance over her shoulder. He narrowed his eyes, mouth a tight, thin line. She was quick, but his stride was longer, and he was gaining ground. In just a minute, he would be able to reach out and…

"Wh—" She had reached the top of the ramp, and though he tried to catch the back of her cloak, she was apparently as resourceful as she was determined; she used one hand to hit the edge of the crumbling wall on the way by without so much as an instant's pause. Dust and scraps came raining down, startling him into a misstep. He barred an arm across his face and stumbled, and by the time he had cleared his vision and straightened up, she was out of his line of sight.

Regal coughed into his sleeve and stood there, catching his breath as he looked about. He could still hear hurried footsteps, but the Tower's walls made every sound echo, and for a moment he wasn't sure which way to turn. Movement from above caught his eye, though, and he looked up in time to see her climbing onto one of the platforms. But as he made to follow again, the stairs she had mounted gave beneath her—and the entire section collapsed with a deafening crash.

"…Goddess," he mumbled.

He trotted forward, heart pounding with the fear that there were now two women to worry about. A fall from that height would have been unpleasant enough on its own, but the weight of the stone, if she had landed wrong… True, she had not thus far presented herself as an ally, but that hardly meant he wanted to see her hurt.

"Mm.."

The duke slowed to a halt near the rubble and listened, using one hand to swipe at the dust cloud hovering about the scene. The source of the scraping and rustling he could hear presented itself when he got a little closer and stepped around a large chunk of stone. It was the clearest he had been able to see his quarry yet, though her face was still hidden. He could only see a delicate jaw and the pained, frustrated grimace riding on unpainted lips. She wasn't running anymore—because, he realized with a blink, she couldn't. Her foot was caught in the heap between fragments that were too big, too heavy, for her to move herself in this position. Even if she had the strength (unlikely, given her small frame), there was no way for her to get leverage. She didn't look grievously hurt, though. That was a relief, in more ways than one.

Carefully, he closed the rest of the gap. At the sound of his footsteps her head snapped in his direction and she gave another futile tug. Her eyes were still shadowed, but the heat he could feel in the hidden gaze was enough to tell him how delicately he needed to handle this. Perhaps she was simply afraid of him. If that were the case, maybe he could fall back on his upbringing and…negotiate.

"Calm down," he offered as a sort of ice-breaker. She just stood there, her only movement coming in the rise and fall of her shoulders. She hadn't lashed out, though, so he kept going. "If you will let me, I can help you." Regal rested his hand lightly on one of the rocks. "But I would like your word that, when I do, you will not run. I only want to ask a few questions, and if we continue this chase, there may be another collapse—and there is no guarantee that either of us would come out of it unscathed. I will free you first," he added, "to prove that I am telling the truth. Do we have an agreement?"

He watched her look down at her predicament, then back up at him. There was another pause, but at last she gave a quick nod. Her stance was still tight, though; she didn't trust him. It wasn't surprising. But then, he was no fool, either.

Regal nodded in return and carefully stepped around some of the rubble, placing himself close to her with his back to the room. She leaned as far away as she could, but he avoided making eye contact while he went about his task in the hopes of putting her a little more at ease. Planting his feet, and watching her pinned leg to be sure he didn't inadvertently make the situation worse, he braced himself to tilt back the offending stone. It was heavy, but with a little patience he worked it free and opened a wide enough gap that she could slide free. And so she did—and at once he let the stone fall back into place and wrapped his hand around the arm of the woman who had tried to bolt at first opportunity.

She stumbled at the sudden detainment and pulled against his grasp, but he held her firmly. He had not chosen his position lightly.

"In my line of work," he informed her with just a touch of cheek, "promises are taken a great deal more seriously. You agreed to stay put if I helped you. Therefore, before you run off again, I would appreciate a few answers from you."

"'Line of work.'" Her voice, when she actually did speak, was low and derisive. It carried a familiar note, as well, but it was too quiet to properly make out.

"Yes. Now, I am looking for my friend, a woman who was here with me." He relaxed his hold a little, though he did not let go entirely. "She is…about your height," he guessed after giving the stranger a quick glance over. "Her name is Raine Sage. She has v… Is something wrong?"

She had tensed under his fingers and whipped her head around to look over her shoulder at him, her lips parted. "How…do you know…that name?" she asked softly.

Regal blinked at the sudden shift in countenance. "I came here with a woman… Her name is—Raine?" His eyes widened as she hooked her fingertips around her hood and drew it down to reveal a familiar face to fit the familiar voice. "What in the name of Martel…" She was staring at him as openly as he was at her, though his gaze was purely surprised while hers glittered with…suspicion? Fear? There was no recognition there—that was certain. A little hesitantly, he brought his free hand to touch her other arm. "What are you…wearing?"

Immediately she pulled away, though instinct tightened the hold he'd already had on her. "Answer me," she ordered. Her voice was nothing if not clear, now.

"Raine, what happened? Why in the world did you run—"

"Who are you?"

He wasn't at all certain how to react, or what to say. She didn't recognize him—but she knew her own name, and she was disturbed that he knew it. His eyes searched her face, but the examination turned up something else that startled and worried him more. "…What happened to you?" he asked quietly, frowning at her left cheek. There under her eye was a broad, swooping line, disappearing back into her hair to reappear under her ear and taper to a point along her jawline. A scar? When the hand from which she had shied lifted toward her cheek, though, she jerked her head back and used her free hand to swat his away sharply. A flinch passed through her expression ever so quickly, barely visible.

"Very funny. I'll laugh later. Are you going to answer my question or not?" She still spoke softly, but there was a strain of almost suppressed-sounding anger wound through her words, almost as though she was furious but afraid to be so. That was not like her. None of this was like her.

"It..." He was lost, and it felt like there were hundreds of tiny threads tangled around his mind. She was afraid of him, and as far as he knew there was absolutely no reason for it. He might have supposed she wasn't actually the woman she resembled, but he had spent enough time in her company to know that face very well. Not even poor lighting could imitate her eyes, at the very least. So what was she talking about? How long had he been out?

"Wait a minute." He lifted his free hand, palm out, and then used it to knead his forehead. Only now did he realize that his heart was still pounding, and not just because of the chase. He was not at all fond of the floundering that seemed, at the moment, to be his only option—that had seemed to be his only option since he had opened his eyes to a radically unexpected situation. He needed to seize the end of one of those threads and work it free systematically. Start at the beginning, he told himself, closing his eyes briefly to draw in a deep, grounding breath.

"…The machines. In the sealed chamber." He lifted his eyes again to level them with hers, though the look she was giving him was unnerving to say the least. "What happened?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He hid the surprise inspired by her words rather expertly and pressed on as though she had said nothing. "When you touched that…mass—you said it was corrupted mana—as soon as you made physical contact, one of the machines malfunctioned. There was an explosion, correct?"

"You are insane." Savagely, she pulled at his grasp. She nearly broke it, too, before his guard could be raised again.

Regal pressed a little harder. "Raine, please. I am trying to understand—"

"Tell me who you are."

"I want to know what happened after the explosion—"

"There was no explosion."

He shook his head. "There was. I was there, and so were you. You cannot tell me…" No damage. Regal twisted to look back toward the chamber in question, his eyes narrowing. That was right. There had been no damage. He had thought at first that she had simply been able to stop it, but surely…there would have been some sign of…something. Right? "…So what happened?" he murmured to himself, slowly bringing his gaze back to the fiery one staring at him. "And why don't…you remember it…?" There were too many pieces to this puzzle, with more surfacing with each passing second, and none of them seemed to fit together. Had everything not been so alarmingly real, he might have thought himself in a dream.

But then, dreams usually made sense while one was dreaming.

"I suggest you drop whatever ploy you're making and tell me what you want from me," she snarled. "I'm not playing this game with you."

"I am not trying to play anything, Just… Tell me this—"

"I am not answering any more of your damned questions until you answer mine! Who are you?!"

This gave him pause, and he mentally stumbled a bit over his own thoughts. "Raine," he blinked. She was no Colette, but…had he ever actually heard her swear? He almost felt some vague, stunned amusement wanting to rise. It was checked, however, when he took in the glint in her eyes. She was dead serious. Regal searched her face again, pale in the dim light. Her expression was that of a cornered animal. "You…really don't know me," he observed at last.

She was not quite so contemplative with her quick, sarcastic reply: "And you really won't introduce yourself."

Both of them recoiled a bit at a crash from somewhere deep in the Tower, and his gaze lingered warily over the far stairway. He still remembered in vivid detail their encounter with the machinery in the hidden chamber; it was not an experience he was eager to repeat in any form. But before he could speak, she continued, tersely.

"…We should get out of here. This ruin isn't exactly a structural masterpiece anymore, and I don't know about you, but I would just as soon forego becoming part of history today."

"So I heard," he replied before thinking. When she gave him a strange look, he shook his head wearily. "I apologize. You…said almost the exact same thing when we arrived." At least—he thought she had. She didn't even remember that arrival. "You're probably right, though. We should leave." Standing here would get them nowhere, and if Raine was concerned about the wisdom of lingering, all the more should a layman like himself worry. Perhaps he would get more out of her when they could both see each other more clearly. Still frowning, he turned around distractedly.

He started to move carefully back toward the doorway through which they had originally entered this room, but he met with resistance and looked back to see Raine still planted very firmly atop the crumbled stone. She was clearly not about to budge, and perhaps his expression betrayed his puzzlement. "Might I humbly request that you release my arm first?"

"Ah." He hadn't even realized he was still holding onto her. However, as he started to uncurl his fingers, something occurred to him, and he looked at her a little cautiously. "Are you going to run?" Thus far she had been alarmingly unpredictable, and the last thing he wanted was another round of tag. Whether it was something wrong with her or something wrong with him, he needed answers, and she was still the only person who might be able to give him any.

Raine scoffed, but he noticed that she turned her face away before making her biting reply. "We are going to the same place, idiot. Besides, I'm not stupid enough to repeat this little incident," she gestured vaguely toward the pile of rubble that had nearly crushed her, "and the stairs to the entrance are riddled with fragments and debris. It would be suicide for anyone to try sprinting down."

"Yes," he replied calmly. He kept his gaze locked on her and never blinked. "But are you going to run?"

Regal knew well the look she gave him, though it seemed to be a little more scathing, if that was possible. "No, master," she almost purred, surprising him again. "I won't run."

His brow creased. This was bizarre, and it was only getting stranger. For the sake of his aching head and spinning mind, he certainly hoped there was an explanation to be found. But… First things first. Gradually, watching her closely, he loosened his hold around her arm until finally pulling his hand away. She shifted back and away a few centimeters, but after rubbing her arm gently and eyeing him up and down, she brushed past him at a more reasonable walk toward the door. Another rumble behind them reminded him to stop staring at her back and start moving.

Something odd had happened in this Tower—something more than a magitechnology malfunction. He needed to know what.

Raine! Watch your mouth!

Raine: Please. We heard much worse out of Zelos' mouth more than once.

Yeah, but not you. Whatever happened to my sweet healer?

Raine: You kidnapped, tortured, and murdered her. Multiple times. In many ways.

...Point taken. Ah, well. Here's hoping people are picking up on these little things! :D Please leave a review, and you might just get a cookie.