And here we go. The tenth cycle of ARCH. Wow...I didn't think I'd get here so fast! O-O Thank you to all of the faithful people reading this!!! I hope I don't disappoint!!

And this is where I go a bit more in-depth about what the gang's learning...First up is Sheena, simply because I know how I want the scene to flow; the rest shall come as I go.

I do not own ToS!! I do own the Archangels tho!!

Cycle Ten

As time passed and the seven friends grew used to the training the Archangels put them through and why they chose that style of training. By focusing on the group's weaknesses instead of their strengths, the seven angels gave them a bit more of a chance, for they all knew that they would need to fight Lloyd at some point in their journey, never mind Yggdrasil.

Sheena

The young kunoichi shifted slightly, her eyes closed and hidden behind a blindfold. Aki's training not only consisted of long range elemental seals but also on relying on ALL her senses, and not just her eyes. Having been blind since birth, the Archangel had learned to use his ears and his nose to identify where things were and if they were safe or not. Currently, he was standing in front of a shadow replica of a tree-something he summoned, along with eight others, and was telling her to attack the tree she thought he was at with a long ranged seal.

"Stand still." Aki spoke, voice never losing its gruffness. Assuming that it was a side effect from living in shadows, she never questioned his tone and simply got used to it. "Don't rely on me attacking-focus solely on the sounds and the direction they're coming from."

'Easier said than done.' Sheena thought to herself, relaxing her muscles and listening for where the archangel was at. It took a minute or so for her ears to pick up the faint shuffle of Aki's feet on the ground. 'He's behind me and a bit to the right...' Pulling out a card, she focused her mana on where her instructor was. 'Fire style! Exploding flame pillar!!'

Aki smirked when he felt the earth rumble beneath his feet. Leaping up and away just as the towering pillar of Efreet's hellfire shot up where he was standing. 'She's getting better-that's good...'

"Nice job, now try and get me again!" He hollered, jumping over Sheena's head to land in front of another tree.

Around a half hour later and eight long ranged seals later, Aki and Sheena sat in the center of the circle, the kunoichi removing her blindfold. Looking around, she saw that each seal was beside a tree, and they were all in the order that she had cast them. Fire, thunder, ice, earth, water, wind, light, and then dark. Looking at a grinning Aki, she asked tentatively, "So...Did I get it right?"

"If you had been attacking someone around the skill level of...oh, say Pronyma, you would've nailed her dead on every single time." Aki replied casually, pulling out his scroll to dispel his shadow trees. "But seeing as how I'm not Pronyma, the fact that you missed hitting me is understandable; I've had four thousand years to learn how to fight without using my eyes."

"Yatta!!" Sheena knew what he meant; she'd at least gotten the direction he was at right!! Suddenly remembering something that had bugged her for a while, she looked back at Aki. "Hey, just out of curiosity, why didn't you use one of those attack element spells on me?"

"Because as a summoner, you will be able to use all of the elements to attack, including Aether. But not as potentially as your friend Lloyd."Aki explained, replacing his scroll to its position on his back. "The others aren't like you in that aspect, so it was a really unnecessary exercise." Standing, Aki continued, "Blindfold back in place, gaki, let's see if you can block attacks without seeing where they're coming from!"

Regal

The martial artist ducked beneath the flying fist before leaning on both hands and performing a leg sweep. Fuyu leapt back and struck out with a low kick, which Regal dodged by rolling backwards. Standing up, he ran forward and snapped out a high side kick, which was deflected by a hand sweep from the turquoise haired Archangel. Undeterred, he went down on his hands and aimed for her neck with a high kick, which was dodged.

The sparring sessions between Fuyu and Regal typically ran along these same lines daily; both of them would try to land as many blows on one another as possible before time was up. It was tiring, but the exercise was well aimed for the ex-convict.

Leaning back back as Fuyu aimed a palm thrust at his nose, Regal leaned on one hand and his other leg while lashing out with his opposite one. He was truly grateful that the Archangel didn't question his reluctance to learn hand attacks, but she had insisted on teaching him some blocks-he would be hard pressed to block some attacks with his legs.

Suddenly cupping her hand as Regal's foot came near her leg, Fuyu channeled some of her mana into a buffer, knocking the attack aside harmlessly and sprawling Regal onto his back. "Nice aim, and you've got decent timing." The winter angel grinned recklessly, offering Regal a hand back up. When the taller man was standing again, she cracked her neck before speaking again. "Now if you could learn to channel that lightning mana of yours into your kicks, it would be harsh for whoever got hit by one."

Regal rubbed his arm absently with his opposite hand while listening, really grateful that he no longer had the handicap of his hands being attached at the wrists. With half of the attacks that he had seen Fuyu use, and with the blocks-including the Mana Buffer, which he found rather effective-he realized that even steady training wouldn't've helped him with keeping his balance whilst executing them.

"But unfortunately, you wouldn't be able to store it for long..." Fuyu muttered, looking at the braces on her wrists and ankles as she continued. "You'd have to get the kick out right away, or you might hurt yourself with the stored mana."

"Is that why you wear those braces?" Regal asked, looking at the bands of metal. Fuyu shrugged.

"Partially; the other reason is because I might just break my wrist or ankle if I don't wear them. My body's only human, after all. Four thousand years doesn't change how strong your bones are, or how much weight you can withstand before passing out." Slipping back into her fighting stance, she smirked. "C'mon. Let's see how well you can use that Mana Buffer with that mana of yours!!"

Presea

Huffing as she stood, Presea prepared herself for the next one of Chi's lightning fast attacks, her mana in the ground ready to shoot up a defensive wall at a split second's notice. It was her speed that the Archangel was focusing on, stating that her power and defenses were good enough for right now, and if she could boost her speed enough, she could be a real pain to fight with.

There! Out of the corner of her eye, the blur of gold and orange and bronze that was a charging Chi appeared. Swinging around so that her axe was in a parry position, she sent a bit of her mana before her, making the earth crack unevenly as the Archangel approached.

With the terrain becoming rather uneven, Chi found herself having to slow down before approaching Presea, swinging her axe directly at the pinkette. The sound of two axe blades meeting in mid-air echoed through the area as Presea used her nearly inhuman strength to push the older girl backwards. Smiling, Chi detangled her double headed axe and sung it at Presea's head.

If this sort of thing had happened at the beginning of the week, Presea would've had a nasty blow on her next. Instead, she was able to duck just in time, ramming the butt of her axe into Chi's gut. The unexpected blow had the desired effect, as it sent the orange haired angel backwards a couple of feet.

"Nice." Chi admitted, leaning against her weapon. "Mana manipulation and surprise attacks. That's not a typical strategy by any means, unless you happen to be a shinobi of Mizuho." Slamming her axe into the ground, the Archangel sent a wave of earth and stone right at Presea, who felt her eyes widen as she leapt aside and dodged the blow, performing the same attack with her own weapon, but creating two fissures instead of one. Cutting off Chi on both sides and behind, the pinkette charged at her, relying on her developing speed to help her reach the angel in time.

The blow slashed straight through Chi, who turned into a puff of smoke, the real one appearing behind Presea with a grin on her face. "Nice; hitting one of my shadow clones is rather good for someone of your build." When Presea turned around to look at her, Chi smiled lightly. "Now just focus on keeping your speed regular and soon you'll be a real threat to almost anyone-if I hadn't have had four thousand year to work at my skills, I'd be afraid as well."

Zelos

The red haired Chosen groaned lightly as he dodged away from another one of Watsu's crazed sword blows. Even if he had been revealed as an angel with a knack for fire, he had to admit that the explosive Archangel before him was a tad out of his league.

How many other pyromancers could make sand erupt out of the ground and turn into fire in mid-air!?

Currently the emerald haired angel was standing there grinning at his orange winged companion, who glared at him lightly. "Aw...tired already Zelos-chan?" Watsu teased, tilting his head aside as a pillar of fire shot at him. 'Well, he certainly doesn't have to be bugged about using his mana element, that for sure.' He thought, watching the hell pyre attack disintegrate beside him.

"How...the hell does Hi manage to survive working with you!?" Zelos demanded, wondering how someone as level-headed as Kratos' elder sister managed to stand being around the obviously dangerous Watsu. "I thought the Aurion family understood the meaning of personal safety!!"

"Hi's practically immune to fire; it's a plus for her, seeing how she's basically devoted to Suzaku." Watsu stated nonchalantly, swinging out with his sword again. Zelos cursed and flew up and away, sending a small wave of flames at the pyro. "The entire family is, actually; Kratos just seems to be better at controlling it than Hi, and Lloyd doesn't even know where he gets half of his attacks from." Watsu continued, dispersing the flames with a wave of his broadsword.

Zelos sighed as Watsu neared him in the air; he still wasn't used to the insane amount of fire spells that Team Suzaku knew how to use, especially after seeing the brief spar between Watsu and Hi a day ago-he swore that the Aurion family MUST have a streak of insanity in them-just look at how the lot of them acted in a fight!! But that was irrelevant as Watsu thrust his sword directly at the Chosen, who blocked it with the flat of his own blade, not shocked when flares of small orange flames burned between the swords.

Their spars were typically more focused on Zelos learning how to channel mana into the length of his blade, as well as getting his strength a bit farther up than the level it was at now. It went rather well, but the Chosen seemed more focused on NOT becoming a flaming target by the pyromancer's occasional misfire spell of spontaneous combustion.

Manipulating his fire elemented mana wasn't as hard as it appeared, and that was because he had nearly completed the angel transformation, even if he had destroyed the Cruxis Crystal that Yggdrasil had given to him.

He had destroyed it after the encounter with Lloyd at Altessa's place, as the sight of the gentle brunette completely unafraid of attack-possibly killing-his closest friends was enough to wake Zelos up to a fact that he typically ignored; Mithos was beyond insane.

Biting his lip, Zelos realized just how much he had changed since becoming friends with Lloyd. The brunette had made him wake up to the rest of the world, and now with Lloyd being brainwashed by Mithos, the redhead had decided the night after the attack at Altessa's house that he would fight for the real Lloyd's dream of equality, even if it meant killing his best friend.

Hell, if it came to it, it was probably a favor for the younger swordsman; better dead than an unwilling puppet of Yggdrasil.

With that thought in mind, Zelos grinned recklessly and prepared for Watsu's next attack with renewed vigor; anything to help Lloyd's dream would be worth any amount of torture at the hands of a psycho pyro by Zelos' standards.

Raine

Looking in annoyance at the staff in her hand, the silver half-elf tried once again to channel her water mana into a vortex similar to the miniature blizzard she had seen Yuki fire from his staff earlier. The fact that her mana was of the water element was ironic in itself, but Yuki never poked fun about it.

"We need to work on your offensive skills; you've learned almost all of the healing spells in existence." Yuki commented, twirling his staff over in one hand, the looping dragons reflecting the light that hit them. "Although it's true that you can only use light spells, your aquatic mana has several tricks that you can use once you know how to handle it."

So mana manipulation had become the focus of Raine's training, as well as learning a pair of light spells called Aureola and Ivlandi, both of which seemed to do extra damage to demons and undead. She'd also learned how to channel her water based mana into her healing attacks, which seemed to increase their range.

But creating a vortex of water that fired out of her staff was another ball game entirely. Not only was the water harder to master than a solid element such as earth or even fire, but Raine's hydrophobia got in the way.Yuki was patient with it, stating that he really didn't like the cold on all reality.

"But it's the element my mana is most attuned to." He shrugged, smiling gently. "I've learned to work around my discomfort and get used to what I can fight with...even if I really don't like it."

Impressed with what Yuki had told her, Raine began to fight against her fear of water in hopes that even if she didn't like it, she could still use it to her advantage in a battle. Sighing, she began to concentrate her mana in the center of her staff again, the crystal in the center glowing with the aquamarine light of the half-elf's aura.

Yuki watched from a distance, chewing absently on a piece of hair-a bad habit of his that he really couldn't get over. He knew that Raine had the ability to become stronger, but only if she could learn to use her water aura to her advantage. Genius had told him the reasoning behind her fear of water, so he didn't pressure her. But with only a week to learn how to fight in such a manner, and going up against a Beta-ARCH of Lloyd's potential required that Raine be able to fight with all that she had, and not worry about her fears.

Not knowing what the raven haired youth Archangel was thinking, Raine focused on the target right in front of her-she suspected from the fact that it had several stone shards stuck into the cloth that Yuki had filched it from his partner-and unleashed the torrent of water at the thing.

Although small and skinny, the aquatic twister packed enough of a punch to a hole in the cloth head of the dummy. Raine grinned happily to herself; she'd made progress.

Genius

The young half-elf prodigy looked up from his meditation as he watched Haru channel the wind around her into a shield of solid mana. Within the week studying under the Balacruf princess, he could easily tell why she was known as the Sapphire Wind Princess. Not even his Atlas spell had left a scratch in her, but his Earth Bite had only been deflected by the same shield that the Archangel was concentrating on making once again.

Sighing, Genius sunk back into his meditation, trying to ignore the ache in him that had appeared when Mithos had revealed himself as Yggdrasil. The fact that Lloyd had attacked them had only made the pain worse; his best friend of all time had meant to kill them.

Biting his lip, he instead focused on the time when he and Lloyd had been good friends, running around and basically oblivious to the rest of the world-Martel he wanted his old friend back!

Haru had taken his training to focus mainly on casting his spells without his kendama, a challenge that he willingly accepted; if he could keep his hands free while casting magic, he could get out of harm's way even faster than before, even though he doubted that he could dodge one of Lloyd's Prisma Beams if he ever was at the wrong end of one of those.

At first he had only been able to cast the most basic of spells kendama-less, but he had gradually improved. Now only spells like Indignation and Prism Sword were beyond his reach, and he didn't include the spells that Haru had taught him earlier; Excalibur, Forblaze and Bolting.

As if sensing that Genius had his mana under control, Haru came out of her meditation and stood, her azure colored dress barely brushing the ground. The half-elf rushed to his feet beside her, looking up calmly as she smiled.

"Let's try casting Excalibur again, seeing as how it shouldn't be as hard as the other spells to cast without a catalyst." Haru suggested, turning and looking where the magically spelled targets stood, ignoring the scorch marks that covered them, the gaping pits that they practically hovered over the deep gouges from various spells and the deeply embedded shards of rock. Genius nodded and channeled the wind mana that flowed through him, focusing on the targets in front of him and expelled it from his extended hand.

The blades of wind effortlessly tore through the target, and Genius smirked in self-satisfaction.

Colette

The blond spun in mid-air, deflecting one of Rose's immense three foot chakrams before sending a wing whirlwind attack in the auburn's direction.(A/N: Just a reminder, Hi and Rose are the same person; Rose uses Hi as a codename against Yggi) Kratos' older sister smiled lightly and caught the thin metal band, sending it flying backwards.

Colette caught it and began to focus on what Rose had taught her over the week, focusing her light based mana into the metal bands as she caught the Archangel in her sights. Images of Lloyd from before his transformation flooded her mind, as they were tied into her emotions, and therefore her mana. Rose had commented once on how unusual Colette's mana was; nine times out of ten its strength was determined by the strength of the person using it, but Colette based her power off of her emotions.

Therefore, if she wanted to only hurt someone, she would feel pity and a wish to save the person. Killer intent would do the job of killing whoever crossed her, of course, and sadness would serve to confuse her attackers.

Involve Lloyd, however, and the small angel's powers skyrocketed. Rose never asked why, fully understanding why; Kratos had acted the same way when protecting Anna. No matter what seemed to happen, love was the strongest thing out there.

As Colette let the thin chakrams sail through the air again, a spectral tail of pink tinted mana and feathers followed them, cutting pale pink arcs in the sky. Rose smiled at the sight, then sighed internally; if only love could help pull Lloyd out of his trance and restore him...she didn't like seeing Colette so depressed, and she highly doubted that her younger brother was completely supportive of it either.

Pushing such thoughts out of her mind, Rose smiled and nodded. "Nice. Now let's see if you can control the chakram's trajectory in midair." She stated, tossing one of her own weapons between her hands. Colette gave her a confused look, so the Archangel decided to restate what she had previously said. "Try controlling the way your chakram is heading in midair."

"Oh, okay!" Colette smiled, even though she knew what Rose had just suggested would be difficult to handle. But to the angel, if it meant the difference between helping Lloyd and dying at his hand, she'd learn it no matter what. The painful dagger in her heart that appeared whenever the thought of fighting Lloyd had begun to lessen as she accepted that he was now her enemy, and that she had to fight him.

Remembering her love interest before he had turned so drastically, she re-directed the chakram closest to Rose, but not in the direction she wanted.

It was a start...

And if it meant that she could help Lloyd, she'd learn it, no matter how difficult.

Sorry, no Lloyd appearance. He'll show up next chapter though, which will be the last one before the gang goes to confront Lloyd and Yggi...I hope you all enjoyed this, and I shall see you next chapter!!

Review!! Even if you don't have much to say, just review!!