Buffy's mind reeled at the image before her and she found herself taking a step back from the horror. Black streaked the sky in droves, darting about her and then reaching for the sky in a shot of darkness. The black mass was gone as soon as it had pulsed out of the crack in the doors Sam had just slipped through and Buffy screamed internally. Her stomach plummeting inside her she found her feet staggering towards the Devil's Gate.

The impact proved to her befuddled mind that she had in fact been running, despite the slow crawl her thoughts had put her pace at. She slid her hands over the surface tears pooling in her eyes. He was gone. He had disappeared by a door leading into the mouth of Hell and left them all here. A firm resolve slipped past her defenses and she allowed the tears to abate without being freed. Her fists clenched at her sides and she turned from the door in a state of fury she had not felt since Dawn had been taken from her.

This was her fault. She had allowed this. Allowed Dawny to be taken. She had been so swept up in the aftermath of her own resurrection she was letting everyone who ever meant anything to her slip away from sight.

Outrage clawed at her gut, turning her mind from the task at hand into a joke. Let the entire underworld try and stop her. She'd stood at the mouth of Hell before, won every war with the things that clawed their way up from below. Nothing would stop her from this now. Not even the thoughts of finding Sam dead below her feet.

"Willow!" She barked out, roughness coating her voice. "Get this thing open! Now!"

Willow didn't even hesitate, just began chanting words that to Buffy meant only one thing, whether Sam Winchester liked it or not, she was going to be right behind him.

In the distance she faintly registered Anya's frantic murmuring to Xander as he tried to calm her down. "Can he do that? How did he do that? Oh god, we are all gonna die aren't we?"

Buffy turned from the distractions of her friends and slid her heated grip around the hilt of her two-hand axe. One way or the other, this night was going to end badly; she just hoped she got a few shots off before an ending found her.

Tara's hand at Buffy's shoulder should have startled her but Buffy found herself sinking into the contact. This might be the last time someone touches me this way, She thought grimly, with the intent to comfort and not torture. Tara's smile waxed and waned as she slid her gaze from Willow and set it deep into Buffy's line of vision.

Her other hand rose forward in a gesture of offering and in it lay a small stone no bigger than a grape. It was a pure white crystal and held a soft glow in the center that would've made the sunrise itself ashamed. Buffy let her pupils fixate around the wonder it made her feel. She had seen a stone not unlike this one before. An orb of Thesulah, a stone meant to summon and keep a soul protected, but the last one known had been destroyed in an attempt to reinstate Angel's soul. No word had ever been heard of another. There was said to be none left on Earth.

"How?" Buffy began, wonder and relief coating her words.

"Willow conjured it, made it from nothing. She knew you'd need it in there. It's designed to only recognize Dawn's soul. Nothing else can penetrate it. There's nothing like it in the world. We tried using it earlier, but since it's not imbued with any other power, it can only capture the essence it was made for upon touching it."

Buffy let the sounds of the night wash over her mind, the orb now safely tucked away in her jeans pocket. Her axe hung loosely from her left hand. The countdown in her mind had begun. She would get to Dawn or die trying. She had nothing left to lose. Not anymore.

Willow suddenly collapsed onto the ground with a violence Buffy hadn't seen before in one of her spells. She wretched backwards suddenly as vines beneath her skin crawled up her neck staining her milky skin a violent red. Her screams filled the night as Buffy charged forward throwing herself at the circle and being flung backward into a headstone. Pain erupted from her side but she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Tara's screams reached her ears a second later as the Scooby gang watched in horror as Willow's skinned opened around the movement beneath its surface. Whatever was inside of her invisible to the eye as her skin peeled backward over each small wound again and again until her face and arms, neck and throat were covered in lacerations.

Willow's hair slowly began to ink itself with a dark red drowning out the bright red locks fluttering over her bloodied skin. Buffy lifted her axe to cut away at the invisible force repelling them from helping Willow but found Tara's words filling the space between them.

"N-No!" She stammered out. "She can do this. It's testing her."

Buffy held her axe high all the same, waiting for the shock of black to flood Willow's eyes next. Only her eyes were sealed shut against the onslaught of power rushing through her.

Willow's mouth opened and although no sound reached their ears Buffy knew now she was speaking to the powers that held the gates closed. A second later the spell's backlash tossed Willow against the inside of her own circle. She bounced off it and collapsed onto the ground. Tara threw herself onto Willow, her hands in her hair, her lips at her temple.

"Willow? Baby?" She moaned her voice a frightened whisper. Willow rolled into Tara embrace and heaved an exhausted sigh of relief to be still alive. Buffy's eyes widened at what had just happened. She had seen Willow perform scary magic before, but nothing like this.

She snapped her head back at the still closed gates and her heart skipped a beat. "What happened Will?" She demanded.

Willow lifted her head yet made no attempt to sit up. "They wouldn't open the doors. Not for me."

Buffy started to open her mouth in protest but Willow waved a frustrated hand in her direction to silence her.

"They will not let anything more out tonight. The powers won't risk the scales tipping. They will let someone in, but only one of us."

Buffy sat back onto her haunches and let the moment sink in.

"What do I have to do?" She said, no hesitation whatsoever in her voice.

"Your blood." Willow breathed. Tara clutched her tighter and stroked her hair over and over a look of reverence in her gaze. Buffy knew that look; it was one on each and every person's eyes after they saw Willow pull off the impossible time and again while still clawing her way back from the depths of black magic.

Without a second look at the people she would be leaving behind Buffy turned to face the doors to Hell. She'd been here before, at the gaping mouth of darkness, evil reaching upward for her very existence.

Living on a Hellmouth was second nature to her now. But how many people could say they'd actually been to Hell and back, literally. She was about to find out exactly how many. Dawn first, no matter what she found in there. No matter what…she paused in her thoughts trying to regale her mind of all it would be soon be witness to, no matter what bodies she had to crawl over to get to her.

Dawn…Dawny…

Her arms suddenly felt the weight of her sister's missing embrace. Tonight she would return a piece of her soul to her life, and if fate had anything to do with it, return the broken piece of her heart Sam had taken with him too.

With a prick of her fingertip on the axe she squeezed a drop of blood to the surface and inserted her finger into the hole Sam had been blocking before he disappeared through the doors. She would be following her heart and soul down into that pit. She'd spent years trying to stop them from coming up to her part of the world. She'd never given much thought to surrendering her place on the surface and bring the fight down to them. She was about to see if it was even possible.

No regrets Buffy. Dawn and Sam are in there. No regrets…

An instant later she felt her body weightlessly push through the surface of the doors, transporting her body through the iron gates as if she was a ghost. The wind escaped her and sound pushed into her eardrums like a hollow drone. When her senses came back to her she almost wished they hadn't. Blood curdling screams bombarded her thoughts pushing into every crevice of her body and chilling her to the bone. Goosebumps barely had enough time to erupt on her arms when she was slammed into total darkness.

Fear shot through her but it didn't have time to thrive, what did was the deep seated dread that accompanied what came next.

Because fear and pain are trivial emotions, things you can experience on Earth. There are some things that surpass anything you've ever imagined to be pain, any horror you ever thought to be a nightmare and have the ability to extinguish any hope you ever once had for survival.

And unfortunately, that very thing, only took a half a second to realize all of Buffy's worst fears and drag it from her. Because the sight before her when the light flooded back into her mind was unlike anything she had ever faced.

The entire Scooby gang stood outside the doors, shock and fear lacing their worst fears as Buffy's hoarse and desperate screams echoed off the cavernous walls of the room beyond the Devil's gates. No sound had came back from there since Sam had left them for whatever lay beyond and even before that no spirits had called out from the crevices. Not even the vibrations of demons clawing at a way out had ever echoed back to them.

But now, in the silence of the night, Buffy could be heard above everything. Her screams reaching a fever pitch over and over before being strangled off into a moment of silence that stretched on and on.

Willow's hands shook within Tara's and Xander grip on Anya tightened as the screams tore out of the seams of Hell over and over. Fear carved out a new memory for their thoughts, yet each one knew beyond any hope that whatever was making those noises was Buffy herself and not a trick of the mind.

When silence finally rested over the world once and for all the sounds of each of their beating hearts could be heard over even the sounds of the night.

And for the first time since Jenny had been lowered into the ground all those years ago, Giles felt the sting of tears in his eyes, burning for a chance to be free.