DISCLAIMER: Digimon is not mine; it belongs to Toei, Saban and Bandai respectfully. This fic is created merely for pleasure and not financial gain, plus I'm dirt-poor so there's no useful aspect of suing me I'm afraid. If anyone tries to steal this story then I shall come round to your house (and believe me, I'll find out where you live!) and bash you over the head with a copy of Harry Potter! And that there is one mighty heavy book!
Blurbish taken care of, here is the latest chapter in the ongoing saga sprung from my warped imagination. Enjoy!
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"The Darkness Within" By Scribbler
Chapter Nine ~ "Dancing Shadows"
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"Tout comprendre c'est tout pardoner. (To understand everything is to forgive everything.)" - French Proverb.
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The Digidestined stood motionlessly in Sora's bedroom. None of them uttered a single syllable, as the fine green mist surrounding their senses released them from its ethereal embrace. Time stood still as what they'd just witnessed sank into their minds.

Abruptly, the spell was broken, as Joe let out a strangled groan and pushed his way roughly through his comrades to rush to the bathroom. Blinking slightly, his friends peeled back to let him through the crowd, and soon the sounds of retching were heard behind the closed door. This veritable noise snapped each member of the mass from his or her wispy thoughts, and they fall back to reality with an almost physical bump.

Kari collapsed against TK in tears, but he didn't respond, too numb with shock at what he'd seen. At what they'd all seen. Tai lat stretched across the rumpled bed, unconscious, and the blonde youth stared at the older boy's prone form, fighting back his own urge to vomit.

Suddenly, there was a cry from Cody that caused almost everyone to turn around.

"Izzy!"

The red haired youth was slumped against his neo counterpart, eyes closed, face pale and drawn. Apparently invoking the power of his long-dormant crest had been too much for him, and unconsciousness had claimed him the moment they returned. As if in a dream, Matt stepped forward and pulled his friend off the younger boy, laying him down on the plush carpet. He checked Izzy's pulse as he'd been taught to do in School, finding it rapid but strong beneath his skin. He glanced up at Cody, who looked a little woozy, but ultimately fine - having had to give less of his strength than Izzy to take them into Tai's memories.

Tai's memories.

Alone of all the youngsters, Sora did not look at the fallen technophile. Her gaze was riveted to the figure sprawled across her bed. Her hazel eyes shed no tears. Tears were not enough to communicate how she felt at that moment. Her heart seemed dead in her chest, the warm feeling which had graced her being absent and lacking. Fleetingly her eyes darted to the clock on the wall. 1:47am. It had been approximately two minutes since Izzy used the power of his crest to show them....to show them....

She fell to her knees, forced there by the recollection of what she'd viewed only moments ago. Her hands were limp, and the mug of hot coffee slipped from them to spill across the rug. Now that she knew what had happened to Tai she grieved. She grieved for all he'd suffered, all he'd been forced to endure, all the darkness had put him through.

All she'd put him through.

Despite all the horrific images assaulting her brain, one of those disjointed memories burned brighter than the rest. She remembered that day at Matt's concert too. If she tried hard enough she fancied she could still feel the warmth of the cookies through the box in her hands. She'd been so scared that day. Scared of hurting him. Scared of confronting Matt. Scared of making the wrong decision. Her mind had been a confused mess of mixed up emotions, not knowing which way to turn, until finally she chose the road less travelled. The road her head had deemed right, but her heart had screamed....

"Sora, are you OK?" Matt's voice cut into her thoughts like the knife that had pierced Tai's breast. Her head snapped round to look at him, and locked with his startling blue spheres. Worry shone clearly in her boyfriend's gaze, combined with the intense shock that was mirrored in her own. Sora didn't answer. Couldn't. Emotion caught in her gullet, choking the words there.

Kari babbled incessantly, pressing her face into TK's shirt.

"It's my fault. It's all my fault. He.... he was trying to save me.... The battle with Parrotmon.... Greymon.... That darkness was meant for me, not him! Oh, Tai. Tai!" She snivelled. "What have I done to you? What have I caused, Tai?"

Sora's throat felt dry, like she hadn't drunk anything for weeks, but inadvertently a few curt words slipped out.

"It's not your fault, Kari." She croaked. If anything it's mine. I didn't know how he felt. I didn't know....

"Yes it is!" Kari practically spat, her voice brimming with guilt and self-loathing. "I'm the Child of Light. It was me the darkness was after when the Digimon first came to the real world. Tai was trying to protect me! I... I let this happen to him!"

Sora felt drained. She wanted to argue. She wanted nothing more than to stand up and scream at the crying girl, to vent her fury on the nearest available target, but her body - and mind - were just to weak to do anything of the sort. Her shoulders slumped, and she dipped her head in defeat, but another husky voice perforated Kari's sobs in her stead.

"No. This wasn't your fault, Kari." Cody stepped forward, and Kari raised her head at his approach. "Tai did what he did because he chose to, not because you made him. He did it because he loves you."

"B.... but...." Kari began. The determined little boy shook his head.

"No. No buts. You have to realise what I have, Kari. That sometimes things happen which you have no control over. You can blame yourself for the rest of your life, and it won't change anything. Better to just pick up the pieces and try to fix things then cry over what you can't alter with tears."

Kari stared at him. "If I hadn't run away from Agumon...." She whispered, half defending her cause.

"Hey, you were a little kid." TK found his voice at last, soothing her with kind words. "You did what any of us would have done in that situation at that age."

"You can't change human nature." Cody asserted, crossing his arms across his slender chest as if to emphasize his point.

Kari sniffed, tears still trickling down her cheeks. "I guess...."

TK encircled her with his arms, drawing the weeping Digidestined into his warm embrace. "I know."

The sound of the toilet flushing echoed through the apartment, and Joe reappeared with a distinct greenish tinge to his cheeks. Matt noted his return with a vague nod, before transferring his own attention back to Sora.

"Sora, can you stand?" Dumbly, she nodded - if a tad uncertainly. The blonde boy slid his arm around hers, using himself as a support to lever her slight body upright. The chestnut haired girl stumbled against him, grabbing his arm to stop herself from falling, then dropping it again with atypical tentativeness. Matt looked at her, misgiving manifesting itself in his gut at the expression stamped across her delicate features. After all, they'd all seen and felt the same things....

A faint groan floated from the bed, causing everyone's heads to jerk around as if on string. Sora's visage contracted into a mask of consternation, and she broke away from Matt's hold to stagger across the room. Her knees gave way only centimetres from her destination, and she fell against the bed, hauling herself up bodily to perch on the edge of the bedclothes.

"Tai? Tai?" She whispered. The entire room held its breath as the brown haired boy moved beneath the sheets covering him. Because of the way he'd fallen, his sweater had ridden up, exposing a vast amount of tanned skin. However, as he shifted now, an incongruous white mark became visible in the very centre of his chest. A pale line, slightly raised, located above his heart. Sora recognised it as scar tissue, and her eyes burned at the memory of how it had been inflicted. It was as if she had not only viewed events as an outsider, but also lived them herself. Every smile, every pain, every thought permeated Sora as if her own.

Tai's eyelids slid open, and he gazed unfocusedly at her. As his vision cleared and he discerned her form for what it truly was, he sat bolt upright in alarm. His hazel eyes cast about in terror at the other Digidestined gathered around him, widening more and more as they rested upon each familiar face. His comrades stared back at him, unconcealed sympathy and hope buried in their eyes. Tai couldn't understand these expressions, and tried to leap out of the bed for the window.

Sora recognised what he was about to do, and reflexively jutted out her good arm to catch his in a vice-like grip. All her remaining strength flowed into keeping a hold of the youth's flailing wrist, as he struggled to free himself without hurting her.

"Let me go! Let me go!" He ordered hopelessly. "You have to let me go! Before its too late!"

"Tai...." Sora started, but his anxious cries halted her mid sentence.

"Please, you don't understand. I have to go! I can't stay here, it's too dangerous!"

"Tai, we know!" Sora shouted, silencing him in a way nobody could have thought possible. His entire abruptly body froze at the conviction in her tone, and slowly he turned two miserable hazel orbs upon her pale face. The expression in those wretched pools of colour was one of fear, yet questioning. Without uttering a syllable he spoke a thousand words, yet there remained a thread of terror at her unexpected declaration. Terror at being discovered, at his darkest secrets being laid out like a rotting carcass upon a gamekeeper's gibbet, fodder for magpies to pick at. Terror of her knowing who he was instead of whom she thought she knew.

Sora's voice fell to a low murmur, as she gazed deeply into those spheres of untold pain and melancholy that she'd missed for so long.

"We know everything."

Eternity ground to a halt. Time stopped. The entire world shrank to the size of a bedroom in a Tokyo suburb, and then to a pair of sorrowful hazel eyes. Whose? It was unclear, such was the mute connection suddenly forged between the two locked pairs of eyelets at these three simple words. A trio of letter-collections used millions of times each day for trivial purposes, but now endowed with such meaning it made the mind boggle to even attempt to comprehend the enormity of it. For a few priceless seconds they gazed into each other, nay, through each other into the connotations behind those three utterances.

A bead of moisture materialized in the corner of one hazel eye, then sliced its way down the bearer's gaunt cheek. A choked sob followed soon after, and the solitary teardrop dripped from the quivering flesh in a poignant display of relinquished barriers. Of walls being torn down in the gentle face of knowledge.... and understanding.

Tai sagged against the benign girl sitting before him. She opened her arms in a gesture of compassion, enveloping his thin, juddering body in an embrace she'd wanted to give him for almost a year. The onlookers breathed a near-audible sigh of relief at these actions. Tai had accepted the offer of compassion held out to him, consummating it with the tactile action now enacted in front of them.

Violent sobs wracked Tai's frail frame, yet they were tinged with joy and relief. She knew. They knew of the terrible events in his past, yet they didn't care. He had seen it in her eyes; in that moment of understanding so intense it would have destroyed a lesser soul with its touch. They'd forgiven him. She'd forgiven him.

"I'm.... sorry." He babbled haltingly. "I'm so.... so.... sorry."

"Shhh." Sora caressed his back like a mother soothing a weeping child. "It's OK. It's alright."

"I never meant to hurt anyone." The erstwhile inconsolable teenager continued, gulping intermittently. "I tried to.... to make things right, but I couldn't. It wouldn't let me. Then it kept happening.... over and over again.... and I couldn't stop it. I.... I went from village to village; hoping each time, thinking this one would be different.... This time it won't happen, but it did. They drove me away in the end.... Threw stones at me to make me go.... I was.... I was so lonely. That was the only thing that didn't spark it off.... loneliness.... but I couldn't bear it! I couldn't! So I came here.... To Tokyo.... I'm sorry, I never meant to cause so much grief and loss. I never..." His words disintegrated into meaningless sobs, and Sora rubbed his spine whilst at the same time rocking him back and forth, his head resting on her shoulder.

Tai's anguished suppurating cleaved through the hearts of all who heard him. The Digidestined felt his pain like it was their own, yet none more so than one person....

A warm sensation began above this individual's stomach, spreading like a drug through the yielding system stretched before it. The person supped upon this feeling, tasting its wonder but not fully understanding its presence or meaning.

Suddenly, Tai froze. Sora felt him stiffen beneath her fingers.

"Tai?"

"It's.... it's coming." He said hoarsely. "I can feel it.... trying to get out."

Sora's voice was no more than a whisper, but all assembled heard what she said as if she'd shouted it from the tallest rooftop in the city.

"Fight it, Tai. Fight it!"

Tai trembled, afraid of what was coming yet ashamed of his fear in front of his comrades. "I.... can't." He whispered tensely.

Sora lifted her face from his shoulder and held him at arm's length, forcing him to do the same with his face. She looked intently into his mournful hazel eyes; her own filled with assurance in his capabilities. Imparted strength flowed along her gaze to permeate his frightened stare, showing him rather than telling him what she meant. This time he wouldn't be alone in his struggle. This time he would have friends by his side. This time she would stand with him in his battle.

Tai returned her gaze, fear still evident in those sparkling hazel spheres, yet mixed with a gratitude words could not begin to express. Not only had they forgiven him, they were also lending their power in his clash with the dark entity which had dictated his life for so long. Thankfulness the likes of which the world has never known reverberated inside that small bedroom, and with a sharp intake of breath, one of the fiercest battles the world had ever witnessed began.

Tai's mind set up a barricade of mental barriers against the darkness seeking to breach his psyche. The tendrils of murk slammed against these walls with unimaginable force, snarling their repugnance at being denied access to their playground. Tai physically shuddered as it rammed his defences again and again, hoping to overcome these obstructions by force alone. Stinging agony seared his mind as the entity struck him, each new strike earning an involuntary tremble from his body. He clapped his hands over his ears, clutching at his skull and tearing his hair in pain.

Sora leaned forward. "Come on, Tai. You can do it, I know you can! I believe in you!"

A pair of ample hazel eyes looked at her, as two separate beings gazed at the chestnut haired girl offering her support to the boy sat before her in his fight. One of them took heart from her close proximity, the other rumbled in fury at her intangible aid. These two warred with each other, clashing tumultuously beneath the surface.

Again and again the entity lashed out at the thick shields Tai's gratitude had created, denting them with every new hit. Yet still they held, keeping Tai's tattered mind free from its violator presence. The Digidestined watched keenly as this silent combat was waged, willing their own strength into their leader as a supporting mass. Tai could almost feel them, sending wave after wave of strength to him, and he revelled in the emotions he hadn't been allowed to feel for so long, using them against the darkness which had made him a prisoner in his own body.

Hope.

Comradeship.

Support.

The darkness hissed as it was forced back. It struck at the strange energy defending the boy's mind, but its efforts were like a gnat taking on a lion, utterly useless. Back, back, and further back, until it could no longer see its goal, much less reach it, and found itself clinging onto its position inside Tai by otherworldly fingertips. A ghastly roar permeated his being, causing him to physically grit his teeth and ball his hands into fists. It was agony. Purely and simply, the worst kind of torture a soul could endure without shattering. Tai hovered dangerously close to the edge, rags of his mind teetering on the brink of oblivion. This void seemed to suck at him, drawing him down into its depths where the darkness waited to claim him once more and for all eternity. Mentally he yelped, as he sensed his barriers cracking against this insurmountable force. He was losing. He was going under.

Suddenly he felt someone grab him. Tai swivelled his anguished gaze at the slender hand clasped desperately in his own, delicate fingers intertwined with his. Sora squeezed it, retrieving him from the void by reminding him of his physical body. Touch. It dragged his senses from the maelstrom of mental fury they were embroiled in, focusing him once again at the ultimate task at hand.

"I'm here, Tai!" She shouted, breaking through the darkness' hold with another ally - sound. "I'm right beside you. You can do it!"

Sora....?

"Sora...." He croaked. The entity slashed at the images bubbling up within him, trying to dissipate the memories her voice brought forth. But it was too late. Pictures of her face infused Tai's sickly brain. Sora when they were little kids, splashing in the paddling pool at a friend's birthday party. Sora playing against him in soccer, her mouth set in a grim line as she concentrated on the ball at her feet. Sora in the Digital World, strapped down to Datamon's copying machine, calling to him. Sora at Matt's concert, clutching a box of cookies in her hands. Sora through her balcony window, staring at him with disbelief. Sora....

A new resolve filled Tai, rolling forward like a tidal wave to slam against the entity so that it howled in pain, its grip on his mind becoming tenuous. But it wasn't enough. He wanted it out. He wanted to return to those hazel eyes, emancipated from the darkness that enshrouded him. He wanted to be free.

The entity screamed as a bolt of passion lanced through it. Tai screamed too, linked as he was to the pain-wracked core of darkness. A physical scream, which ripped from his lungs like hellfire burning his throat. Tears coursed unbidden down his face, a tangible symbol of his mental agony. The tsunami of power surged from his psyche, pushing at the darkness with everything he had. It yelled, he yelled. It cried, he cried. It hurt, he hurt. But still he kept hitting it, prying it from its unsolicited roost. Gradually it began to lose its grip.

Tai felt as though he were on fire. Every pore in his body shrieked. His cells parted, as he felt he was literally ripping apart. He wept like a child, sobbing at the agony he was forced to endure; yet smiling at the relief coursing through his veins as the darkness began to leave him.

The Digidestined children watched with round eyes as Tai's entire body emitted a strange shadow, which clung to his skin like a swirling mist. The brown haired youth was almost completely lost from view as this pitch fog surrounded him, his cries the only indication he was still there.

Yet Sora remained firm. She clasped Tai's hand tighter, refusing to release it, to relinquish him to the darkness. The shadow crept down Tai's arm, stinging her fingers as it touched her skin, but still she wouldn't let go. Wouldn't leave him. It hissed at her, unconcealed hatred slithering from lips that weren't there. Sora wrung the boy's palm, letting him know that she was close at hand. That she wouldn't leave him alone again.

The darkness squealed as the combined force of Tai's resolve coupled with Sora's touch yanked it away from its vessel. A high pitched screech filled the room, as the entity leaked out of the exit they forced it through, pooling on the floor in an oily black puddle, hissing and spitting with all the wrath of Hades. Tai gasped as the last particle of blackness dripped from his being, sudden freedom washing over him; an overwhelming swell of autonomy. Sora gasped too, feeling his liberation as if it were her own, linked by the victory they shared.

The Digidestined let out a collective sigh. They too sensed the relief of their friend, although not as intensely as the duo on the bed.

The darkness on the floor growled, rising up slightly, a tentacle of oozing murk snaking forth to wave impotently at the chosen youngsters. The surface of this greasy mass started to bubble, small wraiths of steam rising into the heavy air. The crowd of mitigated faces sneered at it, believing that it was evaporating now it had been removed from its host. However, it was doing nothing of the sort. The wisps of steam converged above the entity, forming a foggy accumulation that hovered about a foot off the ground. This mist grew, doubling in size within a few minutes until it stood as tall as Matt, who was nearest to it. Slowly, the haze darkened, taking on the swarthier hues of a living creature, whilst at the same time shaping itself into a recognisable silhouette. Not knowing what to make of this strange behaviour, the Digidestined only watched as a figure stepped out of the churning eddies. A figure they all knew and recognized. A gasp sped through them at what they beheld.

The form of Sora Takenouchi stood before them, whole and uninjured. The dark entity had locked onto the only image it could whilst still attached to Tai's mind, taking this and using it as a template for its own physical body when thrust into the world beyond. It remained motionless under the collective gaze of its onlookers, an almost perfect copy of the chestnut haired girl. Silence reigned for a moment, tinctured by almost corporeal incredulity.

Abruptly the entity's eyelids snapped open to reveal two glowing red orbs, devoid of both whites and pupils. They glowed in its head, as its face twisted into a mask of hatred. With a snarl it leapt forward, showing gleaming white fangs. Matt gave a cry as it barrelled into him, slashing at his face with razor sharp talons. He fell backwards under this sudden assault, landing on his side as he desperately fought against the mad beast wearing his girlfriend's visage.

His companions yelled at the sight of their friend being attacked so violently, surging forward to aid him. Gatomon was the first to reach the struggling mass of flailing limbs, the little Digimon leaping into the fray with gusto. She clamped her jaws around the entity's wrist, eliciting a yelp from its twisted lips. It slammed the feline against the floor, ramming a hand into her face in an attempt to loosen her needle-sharp bite. But Gatomon had not been renowned as Myotismon's most formidable fighter for nothing. Instead of opening her mouth, she bit down harder, the coppery tang of blood touching her tongue. The entity fell back from the blonde youth, clawing at the white fur-ball with eagle-like talons. Gatomon yelled as twin gashes opened up across her back, the screech causing her to inadvertently open her maw. The entity needed no second bidding, catching the cat-Digimon and hurling her with inhuman force against the wall. All the breath was driven from Gatomon's small lungs, and she slid to the floor in a helpless heap.

"Gatomon!" Kari yelled, pain in her voice at the sight of her partner so brutally cast aside. The little Digimon didn't stir.

Red eyes turned upon the Digidestined, as the dark entity rounded on them once more. On its wrist it bore a deep slash that dripped black blood, a wound which would have proved fatal to any normal human.

But this thing wasn't human.

A feral hiss escaped its feminine lips, and it fell upon Matt once more, clawing at his eyes before he had a chance to react. However, this time someone was ready. Davis shot forward, swinging his leg with an aptitude born from years of soccer training. His foot connected hard with the entity's midriff, sending it backwards from the unexpected blow and winding it. Matt scrambled to his feet in its wake, elegant scratches latticing his now closed left eye, red fluid dribbling down his face.

The entity snarled at the boy who dared to attack it. Davis glared at it through angry hazel eyes, refusing to be cowed. Behind him, Kari surreptitiously crossed the room and scooped up her beaten and bleeding Digimon lovingly in her arms. The entity noted her movements, and swung its own slim arm round to point at her. At once a bolt of darkness shot from its taloned fingertip, streaking towards the target it had missed nine years ago. Kari looked up just as the spear of blackness sped towards her, a scream hovering on her lips.

"KARI! NOOO!"

Kari felt herself knocked to the floor, Gatomon still clutched against her slender chest. A breeze blew across her terrified face as the entity's attack missed her by a hair's breadth, instead striking the wall and shattering the plaster in an explosion that rocked the entire apartment. A body lay atop hers, and for a moment she thought it was TK who had rescued her from the maw of death snapping at her heels. But TK stood a few feet away, gaping at her with concern in his ice-blue eyes. Then she saw the brown hair, peppered with shards of glass from the smashed goggles embedded among the fawn strands.

Davis. It was Davis who had saved her!

He raised his head, a large gash carved into his cheek dripping blood copiously where a piece of debris had caught him. Davis grinned sheepishly, surprised himself at his unusually heroic act. Kari felt herself return the smile, mouth forming only one word.

"Thanks."

Denied its prize once again, the entity shrieked, ploughing into the remaining children like a thing possessed. Its uncomfortably familiar appearance elicited little comeback from the youngsters, who defended themselves from its salvo of physical assaults rather than attack it back. Claws slashed, blood flowed, and yells of pain from both sides were unleashed as the darkness clothed in their comrade's form enacted its violent activities.

Delivering a sharp blow to Joe's head that sent him flying across the room, the entity abruptly found itself at the bed. Tai stared at it, fear etched into his facial features. Memories of his dream resurfaced with sickening lucidity. He'd seen all this before, stared into those red orbs set in the face of the one he cared so much about. Yet then it had been a dream. A vision, not genuine. The panting creature standing before him now was most definitely real. Too real.

The dark entity leered at him, sensing his weakness from their mental tussle. He was almost spent, and it curled its borrowed lips into a mocking parody of a smile at his defencelessness. If it took control now it could never be removed, no matter how much strength he took from his companions. It bunched its muscles, preparing to spring. To envelope the trembling boy in its true form and force its way back into his skull.

Suddenly a figure appeared in front of Tai. Standing on shaky legs, one arm strapped to her chest by snowy bandages, the real Sora used her own body as a shield against this evil that infected the world. Hazel met crimson as the two Sora's faced off against each other. Both refused to back down, meeting their counterpart's gaze with matching conviction and hate. In that instant the entity realized the bond between the boy and this female, and the fact that it could never fully restore itself within him as long as he drew strength from her. For a ephemeral moment it considered killing her right there, but one fleeting glance at the expression on his face told it that if she were to die then he would set up new defences born of grief. It would be trapped outside of its haven until....

No. It could already sense itself getting weaker. The feeling was only slight, but signified what was to come like a neon signpost to its ultra-receptive senses. It hissed, making a split second decision. The crowd of remaining Digidestined were already regrouping, advancing upon the entity menacingly from behind. The transaction couldn't be completed with them present, it was too risky. The incarnate darkness whipped around with unheard-of speed, launching itself from the ground and turning a neat somersault through the air. It landed lightly between Sora and the bed, coming face to face with Tai. The brown haired boy stared at his exorcised demon with a mixture of trepidation and tenacity. Yes, he feared it. He feared it so intensely that it hurt, but he'd already made the decision that he would rather die as a free human then return to the living nightmare that was existence under the rule of darkness.

However, instead of attacking Tai, the entity spun round and grabbed Sora from behind. One slender yet powerful arm snaked around her waist, the other encircling her exposed throat. Sora gave a gurgle as her air supply was effectively cut off, struggling fruitlessly against the steel-trap-like embrace she now found herself ensnared in.

"Sora!" Matt cried, running forward, but a quick jerk of her head by her doppelganger halted him in his tracks. Everyone knew what that movement implied, and ceased their encroachment lest their friend have her neck broken by her unearthly captor. Matt glowered at the entity that bore his girlfriend's face, yet twisted it so much that it seemed totally different to the benevolent original. In return, the demonic creature sneered at him, curling its top lip in a sardonic grin at his powerlessness. At all their weakness. Puny humans, fenced in by their emotions - just like its chosen vessel - to be used against them as an opportunity for darkness' triumph. The irony was not lost on the malevolent being, and a burst of vicious laughter spewed from its serrated maw.

Each and every person in the room shuddered at that evil sound. None more so than Tai, the remnants of a memory coming to his liberated mind at the sound of this new voice. Shards of his old personality emerging, he prepared to leap at the entity whilst its back was turned. But even as he tensed his weary muscles the entity swivelled its body round. Tai stared into scared and clouding hazel eyes as Sora was dragged roughly into his view - unconsciousness claiming her as her lungs were deprived of the life-giving air they so desperately yearned for. Her body sagged feebly against the entity's deadly embrace. He switched his gaze to the maddened gleam of the darkness' red spheres, hazel eyes becoming hard and unforgiving. It looked back at him, smugness clearly evident in those scarlet tarns, coupled with the knowledge that it now held him in the palm of its clawed hand.

With a booming voice that returned Tai straight back to his dream, the entity spoke. Its utterances cleaved through the strongest of spirits, dripping malevolence and hatred like a storm cloud pours rain. The noise emitted from its twisted lips harkening back to ancient scholars and how they imagined Lucifer himself must sound. But this voice was far more terrifying then anything they could have conceived. This voice was iniquity come to life. This voice was death, shaved from those killed by the worst murderers in the world and combined to make one hideous tone embed in an effeminate throat unsuited for such sounds. It spoke only two words, but they were two word wrapped in vileness, blended with malice by an incompatible tongue, which sent them flying through the tension-filled atmosphere to bury themselves like a spear in the brain of a hazel-eyed boy glaring fiercely from the flowery bed-sheets he was encased within.

"Tokyo Tower."

With that, the entity pivoted to face the window leading out onto Sora's balcony. As the chestnut haired girl slumped lifelessly into its clinch, it released her neck, raising its razor sharp talons at the panes of glass and unleashing a bolt of pure darkness from its palm. The entire building shook as the wall exploded outward, raining detrimental debris onto the street far below.

With a last callous glance at its audience, the malevolent creature sprinted forward and leaped from the crumbling edge into the gaping void beyond. A collective gasp ran through the unwilling spectators as they watched the two Soras plummet from the aperture onto the neighbouring rooftop. Amazingly unhurt, they sped away through the rain, into the darkness faster then the naked eye could discern.

Tai scrambled from the bed, rushing to the yawning gash in the brickwork, not caring about the rapidly disintegrating floor beneath his feet. Even with his extraordinary sight the pair were already lost from view, shielded by sheets of cascading water, taking with them all the hopes he'd recovered such as short time ago.

Tai yelled after them desperately. "Sora! Sora!" Making as if to follow them through the cavernous opening. But sturdy arms halted him as Joe and Matt clutched at their friend, silently preventing him from his mad pursuit. Tai yanked against them, sending Matt off balance, only to find Davis hanging off his arm in the blonde youth's place, quiescently begging his idol not to venture out into the unforgiving night. Tai stared at the younger boy, at the plea buried so sincerely in his anguished hazel eyes, then back out into the blackness which had swallowed completely both his greatest enemy and the person he cared most about in the world. Tai's eyes welled with unshed tears, and he threw back his head as a tortured scream ripped unbidden from his gullet like the cry of a tormented soul in Hell.

"SORAAAAAAAAAA!"
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AUTHOR'S NOTES: Before anything else, I would just like to say a big THANK YOU 2 all those kind enough to review the last chapter, and an even bigger THANK YOUUUU! 2 those ppl who defended what I'd written so far (DragonBlond 04, I am thanking U muchly!) I hope that this instalment lives up 2 expectations, but review it and tell me if it doesn't.
As a side-note, I finished writing the ending tonight, so the light at the end of the tunnel has been sighted. That is, if NE1 actually wants to know the ending. C&C and let me know how the land lies, OK? I'll post according to feedback.

Toodles.

Scribbler ;-D