A/N: Sorry I didn't stick to my typical update of every two days, I just reloaded my operating system and am still getting everything set back up the way I want it. I've also been working on other stuff with the time I have outside work, and I'm hoping to get another job pretty soon and I have no idea what my hours would be like then. So it may be another three days before my next update. Sorry!

Also, I've been co-writing Vickie1's "Legacy of Kain: Deliverance". Well, it's her story, I've just been helping out! XD. SO GO READ IT!! WE WORKED VERY HARD ON THAT FIRST CHAPTER IT WENT BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN US SOMEWHERE AROUND 5 OR 6 TIMES SO R&R THAT FIC EVEN IF YOU DON'T R&R THIS ONE!! THANK YOU AND REMEMBER: THE CAPS-LOCK BUTTON IS OUR FRIEND!!

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Mychala Vel's third batch of potion works like a charm. I now feel nothing but the slight shifting distortion of vision that even the most powerful blood witches still experience passing through any of the realms, and I drink the entire potion which will last me, she says, until I have performed the Cardikamon, and then it won't matter because my body will automatically adapt to anything I put it through. Thus, I won't even have the distorted vision problem.

The success has made her quite cheerful and, I suspect, more animated than she's been in a long time, and she starts chatting away happily as the two of us work together in order to make the body paint for the Cardikamon. I let her talk, sometimes asking her to go through the steps of making the paint again so I can better commit it to memory as I'm making it. Such knowledge is practically lost in Nosgoth's future, but the Cardikamon was still a legend, even among the less potent of blood witches whose powers never fully awaken, staying as apprentices all their lives.

After the paint has been made, she stores it away, sealing the large batch we've made into a stone box and having me burry it deep into the earth in the physical realm so that it will bear the full impact of the passing time. Things age far more slowly in the Window World after all, though that's not the only reason Mychala Vel doesn't seem as old as she should. Apparently the elasticity of the Cardikamon's purpose makes one's body immune to the true effects of age, and the only reason Mychala Vel looks old, is because she likes to due to the allowances being aged gives her.

And because people are more likely to differ to an old woman rather than a young one.

Even though her location is remote, hidden, and quite secret, she still has the occasional Soul Singer/blood witch visit for one reason or another. She is, after all, the Matron of this time. Which is, basically, the Queen Soul Singer.

I listen intently as Mychala Vel talks about her past, telling me stories that range anywhere from her childhood to her adolescent years. She recounts, fondly, the many strong and handsome men which sought her hand in marriage, and the few she actually did marry. As she didn't age after the Cardikamon, she went through about 5 husbands, all of which got old and died on her in spite of her love for them, before she wised up and realized love wasn't worth this.

It is when she decides to impart on me the tale of her dalliances with the ancient vampire Janos Audran that I decide I have heard enough and I do not want to hear any more. Sure blood witches and vampires stereotypically get along quite well, but realizing that happened in this distant past is a bit much. So I pretend to have fallen asleep in the comfy armchair. Unfortunately she pretends not to notice this, and continues on until I 'wake up' and tell her plainly that I do not want to listen to how Janos Audran wrapped great black wings around her and whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

Unfortunately blood witches can be just as randy as men, the blessed difference is that we wait for a connection with another person, we commit to a relationship, and then our sex drive comes out in full force. Because it is a powerful act of bonding, and without love it is a violation of the flesh. But with love it is a wonderful thing, and for a blood witch there is simply no desire without love. For us, lust comes after love, and I guess some people might consider it a curse, but most blood witches are more than content with the way our minds and bodies alter, especially when the price for a loveless lay is so steep for us.

I'm certainly happy for this arrangement. This doesn't mean I can't appreciate a handsome male, but at least I'm not wired the right way to get distracted by a pair of gorgeous blue eyes.

I suppose I can't really blame Mychala, though. The way she talks about him so lustily indicates that she still loves him, a lot. It must be painful for her, must have been very painful when she committed that act against him, making it appear as though she had betrayed him and his kind to humanity, when the true reasons behind her actions were far more monumental than that, and had to be taken whatever the cost.

I sleep on her couch when both of us run out of words and energy. In my sleep Mychala grants me a dream of the ritual I will be performing when she sends me to the future. In this dream I perform the dance required of me, and I sing a song unique to me as I dance. It is a dark, sad song with dream-like lyrics, and the markings painted upon my body become lacerations that will leave scars that will never fade, but which will only become visible when I open myself directly to my power and my eyes darken as they always do.

Over and over I dance in my dream, over and over singing the sad song, and over and over I watch as blood spills from the painted markings to splatter upon the ground. My blood soaks into the earth, and the earth rewards my sacrifice with the completion of the Cardikamon, where the wounds heal over, and the scars take on a color that will also be unique to me. Perhaps there will be many colors, perhaps only one, and perhaps the colors will change periodically, but they will be scars that mark me as a being of the highest of blood witches, or, in this day and age, a Master Soul Singer.

What is more, throughout the dream Mychala imparts on me more and more of the knowledge of time-travel through use of Hametsu. Teaching my mind while sending me through time herself will teach my body. I learn, soaking up the information like a sponge, and I understand.

When I awake, the dance and the song has been burned into my memory and it will never leave me. Mychala tells me to get ready, but before I go…she demands a shard of my sunstone.

I whimper, "Will you be able to make it look exactly as it did before?" I ask her, grudgingly removing my ring and holding it out to her with trembling hands.

"Yes, it will!" She says with some exasperation, even as she snatches the sunstone from my fingers with a very large grin on her face. "And for being so very kind in allowing me to so much as touch your recently acquired sunstone—which I recognize, by the way, but I can imagine just who gave it to you and that he desperately wants you on his side for it too—I will allow you to watch how I do it, and see if you can get enough of a hint to figure out how it's done." She says.

And I do watch her. I watch her with my inner eye as she separates a tiny part from the ring, the serpent's eye, in fact, by going into the very molecules of it and separating them with kinetic force. Afterwards, I watch as she concentrates the molecules of the air itself around the empty eye of the serpent in the ring, and begins to rearrange the protons, adding, taking away, and using the atoms of the ring as a base for this work. I realize the reason she can only copy molecules and not create them is because the base is needed to avoid causing a nuclear reaction when she separates and adds the protons of an atom, which, by the way, does not happen naturally, nor can it be done chemically without said nuclear reaction.

The leftovers of the atoms she cannot use join together again, and somehow the air molecules have created their own protons, neutrons, and electrons where they were lacking, preventing there from being wastes. This seems to happen naturally for some reason, but one can't deny the blood witch's influence in this, because otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

She hands me back the ring, the shard she had taken from it placed in a small glass bottle so she won't loose it. "Thanks, but before you send me back…I want to know. Can the Elder God be trusted?" I ask her.

Mychala sighs, she had been avoiding answering this question, but now I had backed her into a corner and I wasn't going to let her talk around it either. "I really can't answer that one way or another. The truth is, Rayne, that the Elder God…" And here she purses her lips, looking around as though to make absolutely certain we are not going to be overheard. But as the Elder God cannot see us in the Window World, he wouldn't be able to hear us either, so she is able to speak freely, "The Elder God…was not created to be a god. He is the circulatory system of the Wheal of Fate, not the brain, but over time he has come to believe that he controls the whole, not just the body that is the Wheal of Fate, but Nosgoth itself. That, however, isn't his purpose, and because of this, he cannot be trusted to know what is best for Nosgoth. He may honestly believe that this is the way it should be, but that doesn't mean he is right. And, what's more, he doesn't understand the importance of the vampire race to Nosgoth, and can only see a portion of what they truly are, and that portion is a negative side of the coin. What's more…he had smashed together the Wheal of Fate and Nosgoth itself, making them one thing, when the fact is that they are meant to be two separate parts of the machine.

"I don't know what happened to the real gods, nor do I know why they have chosen to step aside and allow the hub of the Wheal step up into a position they are suppose to fill, but the Elder God is no god. However," And her eyes are intense and piercing now, "You would be wise not to let him know that I told you this. Make him believe you know only as much as the rest of the world, as much as he's told you. That he is, in fact, a god. But no, do not trust him completely, but do not display overt animosity, not just yet. Let him think you are leaning to his side, and he might just give you more information than he would originally want you to have.

"I imagine the only reason he sent you to me is because he doesn't know that I know what he really is. That's the beauty of the shadow realm, that we Soul Singers can hide so well not even he knows where we are or what we're up to. I suggest using the shadow realm as often as you can if you're going to go poking around places with information he might not want you to have. And especially in Nosgoth's future when you get there. Do you understand?" She asks, and I nod.

"Just, one more question before you send me there. I know that the Wheal of Fate needs Soul Singers but…does Nosgoth need the Wheal of Fate?" I ask her.

Mychala Vel gives me a sad smile, "That," She says, "is the very question I have been asking myself for centuries."

&

With instructions to head for the pillars first, for some reason, Mychala sends me through time. And I have found myself back in her hovel 5 centuries in the future.

Mychala has gone from this hiding place. Nothing of her home remains, not even in the Window World, except for a single slip of paper that catches my eye just before I'm about to leave. I unfold it, and find myself deciphering the written script of Hametsu, struggling for a moment before the memories of my lessons snap into place and the characters seem to become as clear as if they were in English. "Get the paint."

Lucky I found this note, I might have thought she took the paint with her when she left.

The paint I buried what only felt like yesterday is far deeper in the ground than I remember burying it, and the stone container we placed it in seems to have been fossilized, which I take as a good sign as I send it to subspace.

My trip back to the pillars is uneventful as I stay in the Window World. I pass by those cities, only now seeing their human population and hearing the rush of a crowd's noise, but I don't linger here. This isn't important.

It's only when I arrive at the pillars, or near them, that I find myself staring at the running figure of someone—no, something that I had never imagined could be possible.

I watch, from the window world, this blue-skinned creature, so much like a vampire's reborn corpse, yet at the same time so very different, so very much…more. Cloven hands and hooves are wrapped above the claws in leather, while a large piece of faded brown clothing with white markings upon it is wrapped around the creature's lower face and shoulders. Its hair is black, raven blue, and its muscular limbs are taunt, powerful, so powerful.

He opens the double doors that lead to the pillars, and I find myself compelled, irresistibly, to follow him—as if curiosity weren't enough—and my eyes widen as I see an all-too-familiar figure standing before the pillars, his back to the creature and myself. The creature moves forward, and then, from his hand, a blade of violet light pushes out, and now I am even more confused. But somehow I know that this moment is important, this creature is important and…somehow, familiar. Though I could have never risen such a being as this on my own.

I linger close, invisible, insubstantial, and, for all intensive purposes, nonexistent to these two beings.

"I know you're there, Raziel." Kain says, and my eyes widen.

Oh. My. God.

"Moebius led me to you Kain. Though I might have guessed you'd meet me here." Raziel says, and my eyes grow wide as I stare, transfixed at this being, this other 'Raziel. It's…impossible, and yet…but they can't talk! The raised corpses can't talk!

Could he be…?

He can't be the same person, he can't!

"And if Moebius told you I was hidden on the underside of hell would you throw yourself into oblivion to pursue me?" Kain asks with a chuckle. "Moebius trawls for the ignorant and unwary, hauling his gasping pray from the strings of their destinies, stay out of his net Raziel."

"Spare me your elaborate metaphors, Kain, I have pursued you here for one purpose; you will pay for your betrayal. And balance will thus be restored to Nosgoth." Raziel says spitefully.

"And who's will is satisfied then? The will of Raziel or Moebius?"

"Would I be better manipulated by you Kain?" Raziel sneers. "Now, turn and face me," He says, raising his light blade, "The chase is over," He says, following as Kain simply walks away from him, moving towards the central pillar.

"This isn't a chase, Raziel, we are merely passengers on the Wheal of Destiny, describing a perfect circle to this point. We've been brought here for a reason. I've seen the beginning and the end of our story, however, and the tale is crude and ill-conceived. We must rewrite the ending of it, you, and I." Kain says.

"Face me Kain! Even you shouldn't die a coward's death!" Raziel orders.

"Isn't it customary to grant the condemned a final request?" Kain asks, walking round to face this creature.

"I recall no such courtesy from you." The other snarls.

"Indulge me, Raziel. All I ask, is that you listen." Kain says, "This is the sublime moment of our undoing, Raziel. The ineffable fulcrum upon which swings the entirety of our history. This is where all of Nosgoth is betrayed. In this instant, Ariel, the Balance Guardian, is murdered by dark forces bent on overthrowing the pillars. Her spirit is just now tearing free, lost in the ether, trying to find its way here. You have already seen how she comes to haunt these pillars." He says.

"Bound here by your refusal to die. You are the reason this land becomes diseased, as long as you remain alive, you condemn Nosgoth to an eternity of decay!"

"Be still, Raziel. See this! As Ariel dies, I am being born to take her place as Balance Guardian, such is my destiny." I suck in a breath involuntarily as, at that moment, the nine white pillars suddenly begin to darken, their change of color starting at the bottom and reaching to the top. As if the black were being soaked up by these monuments from some unseen reservoir below us.

"My god!" Raziel gasps.

"At the moment of my first cry, Ariel's beloved, the guardian Nupraptor, finds her corpse. Rapt with grief and tormented by suspicions of treachery, Nupraptor plunges into a madness which overflows and infects all of the guardians who are symbiotically bound, including me." Kain continues. "The repercussions of Ariel's assassination were expertly calculated. The entire circle descends into madness, and I am tainted at the moment of my birth, instantly rendered incapable of fulfilling the role that destiny has prepared for me." He says.

"Shall I show you the same mercy you showed the rest of the circle, then?" Raziel asks, "You blithely murdered them to restore their pillars, yet your hand faltered when it came to the final sacrifice. What makes you exempt, Kain? You're merely the last man standing. Why condemn me for simply carrying out what you hadn't the courage to do yourself?" Raziel asks.

"Let's drop the moral posturing, shall we?" Kain says with some contempt, "We both know there's no altruism in this pursuit! Your reckless indignation lead you here, I counted on it." He goes on, crossing his hands over his chest. "There's no shame in it, Raziel. Revenge is motivation enough, at least it's honest." He hisses, "Hate me, but do it, honestly." Oh there's a challenge. After a short pause Kain goes on with his story. "30 years hence, I am presented with a dilemma. Let's call it a two-sided coin. If the coin falls one way, I sacrifice myself, and thus restore the pillars. But as the last surviving vampire in Nosgoth, this would mean the annihilation of our species, Moebius made sure of that." An suddenly I remember what Mychala Vel had told me so recently.

"Unfortunately, with the circumstances rigged the way they will be in the future, the saving of the pillars will involve the death of the vampire race, and while very few realize it, or understand why, the vampire race is crucial to the survival of Nosgoth. So one way or another, Nosgoth dies, slowly and painfully. But so long as the vampires live, there is still hope. So long as you can be born to return to this time, there must still be a way to save Nosgoth, and stop the Hyldan." And now I knew what those circumstances were, and I remember what Moebius had told me about this 'Circle', and why Kain refused the sacrifice, or rather, why he will refuse the sacrifice. I also know that with the pillars' corruption, the lock that keeps the Hyldan at bay weakens, as it must, because nothing is meant to last for eternity.

I doubt Kain knew, at the time, how much of a necessary evil he had committed in refusing to sacrifice himself if only to save his own life and the entire vampire race.

Kain continues speaking. "If the Coin lands on the reverse, I refuse the sacrifice and thus doom the Pillars to an eternity of collapse. Either way, the game is rigged." He says.

"We agree then," Raziel says, "that the Pillars are crucial, and must be restored."

"Yes, Raziel, and that's why we've come full circle to this place." Kain says.

"So after all this, you make my case for me." Raziel says with some irritation, "To end this stalemate you must die so that new guardians can be born!"

"The pillars don't belong to them, Raziel. They belong, to us." Kain says, and I find my memories returning to the murals I had seen in that chamber beneath the pillars. The ones in which the architects were the original vampire race. I hate myself for it, but I have to agree with Kain. How can humans truly know to guard and protect something that they neither built nor should have taken in the first place?

Raziel, on the other hand, does not agree with me. "Your arrogance is boundless Kain." He sneers, but Kain only chuckles.

"There's a third option." He says, and my attention snaps sharply to his words. Ah yes, this must be why Moebius is so desperate for him to die, and so frightened of what he's doing here in the past. "A monumental secret, hidden in your very presence here." More like his very existence I'm thinking. "But it's a secret you have to discover for yourself." Gah! Not this again!! Stupid earning-knowledge-for-growth crap is going to bite us both in the butt, I just know it! "Unearth your destiny Raziel, it's all laid out for you here."

"You said it yourself, Kain, there are only two sides to your coin." Raziel retorts.

"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times, suppose one day, it lands on its edge." He says, and with that, he disappears.

Now that he's gone, I deliberate over revealing myself to Raziel, if only so I might ask him some questions but…somehow I don't think he'll be particularly friendly. Still, if what Kain says is true, then Raziel and I have something in common, and, what's more, it might just be the same thing. But, I still have to meet with Mychala to perform the Cardikamon. I should probably…

HOLY CRAP DID HE JUST PASS INTO THE SPECTRAL REALM!?

Okay, that's it, I'm following him! This is just going to drive me insane, especially if this is, in fact, the same Raziel as…no, I can't think about that, I don't want to think about that. I shut my eyes tight and block it out.

But…there's nothing else to it. This could, very well, be the Raziel that Moebius's future ghost mentioned, as well as the Sarafan Priest who possessed that powerful burning light…and might, had the situation been different, my heart as well.

The same one that had tried to stop it because of his fanatical beliefs and loyalty to Moebius's past self.

But if this is the same Raziel, then it looks as though the true nature of that light has made its appearance. I don't understand it, but I know it is significant, direly significant, and I have to find out what it is, what is different about him. And there is also that undeniable connection between us, a connection that just…happened, that sprung up out of nowhere, or perhaps, had always been there, just never allowed to show itself due to the time that separated the two of us. It was like the kind of connection a man and women have with one another, but different, more than that, and I don't know whether or not that connection has to do with the light, or our entwined fates.

I follow him, hidden away in the Window World, wondering how I might approach him, reveal myself to him. Will he remember me? The self-proclaimed half-vampire that somehow managed to obtain his affection in the space of a few hours and then crush any chance of being together the same day? Who he tried to kill, who took his blood?

If he does…what will I do? How will I be able to look him in the eye? But, well, I will have to face the music sooner or later.

I just hope I don't have to find out what that energy blade is made of the hard way.

&
Ending Notes and Stuff!
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Rayne: FINALLY!! RAZIEL IS IN THE PICTURE!! Er…shouldn't he be in the Ending Notes then?

Rhea: Er…well yeah but…

Elsewhere…

Raziel: (Running for his life from a herd of rabid fangirls) SOMEONE HELP ME!!

Ending Notes…

Rhea: He's kinda busy…

Rayne: DANGIT!! WHEN DO I GET TO MEET HIM!? THIS ISN'T FAIR!!

Rhea: Chill out! And, technically, you did meet him. (Points to Human Raziel)

H. Raziel: Why haven't I been in the ENs lately?

Rayne: Well, he doesn't count, he's human and was a real jerkhole in the game.

H. Raziel: I can change!

Rayne: Oh shut up, you're not actually in love with me, remember? There's a—

Rhea: FANGIRLIZM!! IT WAS FANGIRLIZM!! SILENCE!! (Glomps Rayne)

Rayne: GAH! GETOFFA ME!!

Kioko: (Comes in with her hair a mess looking flustered) I don't guess any of you would have anything to do with Kain's weird behavior lately, would you?

Rayne&Rhea: (Freeze in place) Er…what makes you say that?

Kioko: Because, apparently, he was under the impression that I have a crush on him. I don't guess either of you can explain this.

Rayne: Er, noooo, he just sort of came to the conclusion himself because you always seem to like having him unconscious and at your mercy.

Kioko: And neither of you bothered to inform him that I, literally, have no heart?

Rhea: I don't see how that'd matter, seeing as how, after Defiance, he doesn't have one either.

Kioko: Rhea…Are you trying to set us up?

Rhea: IT WAS HER! (Points to Rayne)

Rayne: Thanks Rhea, thanks a lot.

Kioko: Alright then, Rayne, I'll leave the actual explaining to you.

Rhea: R&R PLZ!! (Runs away and hides)

Mychala Vel: And if anyone's wondering how, if Moebius and Mortanius got their knowledge from me, where the other 7 guardians got their knowledge, the answer is—

SUDDEN ENDING!