Author's Note: Yeah this chapter may or may not have been written while listening to "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele… *shifty look*

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Quiet rain fell from an inky void, descending from nothing and melting back into the glassy nothingness beneath his knees as it had done for years.

"Not so imaginative as your own realm." He commented softly to the figure that had surely materialized only moments ago yet seemed to have always been standing over his shoulder.

A twinkle like a flash of starlight winked in the dark. "Whatever do you mean? This is part of it."

Kakyou did not reply for a long time and a silence fell between them, punctuated only by the ellipse of raindrops. A blankness surrounded them like that which can only be found in unconsciousness until at last he spoke again, rousing them both from reverie.

"What brings you here?"

"I am always here." Came the low answer, nearly forgotten once spoken, slipping away into the darkness.

A tiny spark flashed in the darkness, but this time not from the figure's shadowed face. Kakyou instinctively turned to see, but it was gone nearly before he had registered it.

"What is the point?" He wondered aloud.

"Point?" the figure seemed genuinely intrigued.

"Isn't there a point? To showing me everything before it happens."

Impossible to tell if the smile he felt upon his back was full of arrogance, pity, or affection.

"Existence is not what mortals try to make of it."

"Did you learn that by living as long as you have, or have you always known that?" Kakyou inquired further, his voice dying away as another falling spark caught his attention.

"You see?" The figure replied with amusement, exhasperation, contempt and love. "You ask that as if those are mutually exclusive options."

Like dying fireflies, the raindrops had been replaced with falling sparks, glowing angry reds and vivacious yellows. Kakyou stared at them, entranced by the light, before at last realizing that it failed to illuminate the surroundings at all. He wondered why until he remembered that there was nothing to illuminate.

Still as they touched the glassy blackness beneath them, some of the sparks died, sinking back into the void and others caught a breath of life, igniting small fires.

"Am I asking all the wrong questions?"

"You might say that." The figure acknowledged, watching the growing blaze as well now with solemn patience.

A few sparks landed on Kakyou's arms, singeing cloth and skin alike.

"When the world ends, what happens to you?" Kakyou suddenly asked as shadows were replaced with flames, making it impossible to tell the difference between the sparks descending from the sky and the ones ascending from the inferno.

The figure's head tilted ever so slightly although it was hard to tell if that was in contemplation of the question or of the sparks that had caught upon his own cloak.

"Do you vanish with it? Do you go to another world, where there are other dreamers? Or return to what you were before there were dreamers in the first place?" Flames licked at his knees, creeping up the material.

"There have always been dreamers."

He was part of the blaze now, impossible to distinguish from what should have been a destructive force although for the life of him, Kakyou could no longer recall what there had ever been to destroy.

"And there always will be?"

But there was no response as all melted away into heat like that of a dying sun.