DISCLAIMER &AUTHOR'S NOTES: Altogether now, 'Digimon belongs to Toei, Saban and Bandai, not Scribbler. This is a copyrighted fic, any attempt to plagiarize will result in a severe concussion when the authoress bashes you one on the noggin with her keyboard!' You have been warned (!)
Many thanks to all who have reviewed all previous chapters, I'm very grateful. Like I said before, you really do have to know what Tokyo Tower looks like to understand the rest of this fic, I'm sorry, but it just won't have the same dramatic effect otherwise.
I won't be around for a couple of weeks now (that's why I've been so prompt with these last few chapters) because I have mock exams coming up for my A-Levels. However, I've already started work on my next fic and will post it as soon as I can, so watch this space (!) Thanx muchly 4 all UR support out there, and let me know what U think as par usual thru reviews (also drop us a line as to whether you'd like me to post my next project or not - much obliged.)
At the risk of sounding cheesy, "C'est la vie!"
Scribbler ^_^
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"The Darkness Within" By Scribbler
Chapter Eleven ~ "Devil's Tears"
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"Forgiveness is the final form of love."-- Reinhold Niebuhr
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Tai leapt from roof to roof with practised ease, only a little slower then usual because of reduced visibility. Above him a huge white shape soared through the sky, feathers dampened by the torrential downpour around them. Angewomon clasped Kari protectively in her arms, trying - yet failing - to keep her dry as well as aloft.
In the distance a large glowing spire loomed out of the night, illuminated by the many ghostly lights surrounding it. Tokyo Tower dominated the skyline, dwarfing all other buildings in the contiguous area. Through the haze of falling water it still arose proud and tall, a symbol of Japanese progress and triumph recognizable throughout the globe.
Tai kept his eyes fixed on this exultant construction, not considering its technological significance, but rather the prize it contained.
And enemy.
His feet touched many buildings and leapt many gaps as he travelled, but he acknowledged none of them, focused only on that nearing tower and what was contained therein.
The brown haired boy was just crossing a broad, flat rooftop when suddenly his body was wracked with a crushing pain slightly above his midriff. It wasn't enough to merit more than a wince on his increased pain-threshold, but did make him stumble for a moment and wonder what caused it. It vanished as quickly as it had come, like a shadow of pain, intense but only a token of what should be felt. Tai faltered in his mad flight at the abrupt and inexplicable sensation.
What was that?
He vacillated momentarily at the edge of the rooftop, taking a second more than usual to gather his muscles and launch himself over the wide gap between this and the next structure. The hesitation was slight, but didn't go unnoticed to Angewomon's sharp gaze. The winged Digimon flew down closer to the speeding human, being careful to avoid any telephone wires as she did so.
"What's up?" Her usually powerful voice sounded thin as it was snatched away by the howling wind. The teenager didn't answer, and reluctantly she was forced higher into the air by a clump of trees blocking her path up ahead. Angewomon's brows knitted beneath her steel mask. She knew he'd heard her, but Tai had consciously chosen not to reply, and in this kind of situation that was never a good thing.
Contrary to the Digimon's train of thought, Tai didn't actually know what was the matter. A strange sense of foreboding was manifesting itself in the pit of his stomach, and he had the distinct feeling that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. As if in answer to this, pain abruptly flared in his arm, followed by agony in his scalp. Invisible fingers twined themselves around his hair, yanking and ripping it away from his scalp, yet leaving no trace of their presence. Tai gasped as these ethereal sensations too evaporated before he could truly distinguish what they were.
Spots danced before his eyes as unbidden thoughts coursed into his brain. Necessary inconvenience. Puny humans. Blood fest. Like bugs. Their unspoken voice drove into his mind like a spear, accompanied by a cacophony of ghastly imagery shrouded in darkness and tinged with blood. Tai started as he recognized some of these images. He'd seen them before.... when he carried the entity inside him. Tortured imagoes used to send him to the brink of insanity with grief and remorse. Flashes of past victims sped across his psyche, coupled with untrue visions of his friends, streaked with crimson fluid, pointing accusingly at him. His dream. Tai realised that somehow, as he drew nearer to it, he was sensing the link he held with the entity's mind. The unholy bond forged between them through months of mental battling.
The hazel-eyed teenager's jaw set, and he pressed on, regardless of the pounding rain, knowing now that his quarry was close by. Waiting.
Yet along with these horrific foreign thoughts and memories another voice sang. Emotions that didn't belong to the dark evil pervading his brain surged faintly along this psychic bridge, whirling their own story into his mind. Tai sensed fear, and pain - both physical and mental. Waves of determination flowed towards him, riding on the back of intense dread and longing. As the youth drew closer to the tower these feelings grew stronger, until tenuous words burned into him like a ghostly beacon.
Parasite.
Shrivel up.
Arm.
Pain.
Run.
Until what?
Tai.
He didn't know what to make of them, but they coursed through his being until his very veins pulsed with their indomitable melody. Tai halted as he reached the end of the buildings bordering around Tokyo Tower, his mind awhirl with questions and alien words alike. Delicately, Angewomon hovered next to him, Kari peeking out from within her partner's embrace. Together, they stared up at the huge monolith, not sure what to do now. They'd come to the specified destination, but had no idea where to start looking for either Sora or her clone. Never had the proverb 'needle in a haystack' been so apt.
Tai's eyes narrowed as yet more images permeated his mind's eye. For some inexplicable reason, he sensed that these weren't the memories of either mind connected to his. Neither were they the cruel weapons used so many times upon his slumbering brain. Instead, these visions were clear and sharp, like they were a present reality, occurring at that very moment.
The same scene, fragmented and seen from different angles through different perspectives, showed itself lucidly through the link. Tai discerned an explosion, and the sound of rending metal. A flash of pink fabric scurried across his sight, to be replaced by another bolt of darkness and detonation. He could almost feel the fear of the determined mind, but the entity's singular presence all but blotted these emotions out as it darted forward to grip the rose material. Tai caught a flash of hazel eyes, wide with pain and shock. Then a burst of fear as....
Sudden movement high above his physical body suddenly caught the boy's attention. With his almost super-human sight he glimpsed something moving on the gigantic dais hundreds of feet above him. A ball of fire, nearly invisible from this distance, was dissipating into the sodden night air. From the smoky clouds an object suddenly emerged, twirling as it fell parallel with the metal structure. Tai's hazel eyes fixed onto this seemingly insignificant article, and as he watched he became aware that it was pink. Exactly the same shade of pink as....
Kari and Angewomon's heads both snapped round at the anguished cry that abruptly ripped from Tai's throat. The boy was a blur as he leapt desperately from the building beneath him, pushing his muscles harder then he'd ever pushed them before. Inhuman strength mixed with extreme anxiety lent wings to his feet, sending him flying towards the metal spire looming before them. The two females let out twin gasps, but their intakes of breath were completely lost among the cascading raindrops falling around them. Tai vanished from view through the sheets of rain, but still his tormented scream rang out clearly, reverberating inside the ears of all who heard it like a knell. A tortured soul clamouring from the depths of Hell.
"SORA! NOOOOO!"
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Sora felt shocked when she was tossed from the platform. One moment she was standing on the freezing metal, the next she wasn't. Her stomach lurched at the sudden absence of terra firma, and a single burst of surprise rocked her entire being.
She was going to die.
Just this simple realization. Nothing more. No screams of terror. No frantic attempts to prevent the inevitable. She'd just been thrown from the Tokyo Tower; she knew there was no hope now. Quiet acceptance of this fact quashed all other emotions within her, rendering her mind calm in the face of death. Sora fell limply, not even bothering to struggle, preparing herself for that fateful moment when she either hit the ground or struck a metal bar on the way down.
"SORA! NOOOOO!"
Tai? Sora thought she could hear him, the same anguished shout he'd emitted when she was captured burning on his lips. A memory, come back to haunt her in her final moments.
Suddenly, something crashed into the teenage girl. She felt a warm bulk strike against hers, carrying her with it as it travelled upwards on its journey. Up, up, up, she went, strong arms manifesting around her body and hugging her tightly. Sora was vaguely aware of a presence through the mind-link. A mind tinctured with grief and loss, now filled with concern for the shivering individual clasped against its chest. A compassionate mind. A mind she found strangely comforting and familiar.
The thing holding Sora grabbed a huge metal rod in one hand, swinging their combined weight round to land gracefully in the crook of two steel shafts embedded in the Tower's side. Sora collapsed to her knees - legs unable to hold her up - as her aching feet touched down on the hard surface. Her near-death experience wracked her slender frame, causing sobbing gasps to involuntarily bubble in her throat and burst into the saturated air.
She turned her gaze up at the one who'd saved her, and found herself locking with a pair of intimate hazel eyes set in drenched tanned skin. One name escaped her dripping lips as water scored its harsh and unforgiving path down her face.
"Tai...."
"Sora...." He murmured back, crouching beside her trembling form. Their eye contact didn't break for a second, as hazel stared into hazel like they'd never met before in their entire lives. Emotions flowed between them silently as they looked at each other.
Sora felt immense relief that he was here by her side, here to face off against this terrible evil out for her blood. But another part of her screamed at him to leave, to go back where he came from, before it was too late, before he was forced to once again succumb to the darkness. Yet she said nothing, only stared at him as if not believing that he was truly there.
Tai returned her gaze like for like. Anger frothed beneath his cool exterior at the state of her, hair plastered to her head with rain; face pale and drawn with pain and shock. He reached out to steady her shaking shoulder, but she yelped and sprang back at his touch. Tai's gaze slowly slid to Sora's left arm, to the rapidly diluting pool of red by her side, to the trails of sticky blood coursing down her skin. Choler flared within his gut. The entity had hurt her. It had tried to kill her.
It would pay.
A harsh screech behind them caused both to whirl round. As if from nowhere, a bolt of darkness sped towards them at abnormal velocity. Tai turned with equal speed, scooping Sora into his arms and plunging from the metal bar without hesitation. The black missile, deprived of its target, smashed into where they'd knelt only seconds ago and reduced the area to a blackened chunk of melted steel which hissed impotently as rainwater touched it.
The duo plummeted, down, down, down, until finally coming to rest on another, wider beam below. Tai struck the surface feet first, bending his legs slightly to absorb the impact. Sora stared incredulously at him. Nobody could have survived that fall, much less be able to stand after landing! The boy holding her straightened up, tension clear in his features. He swivelled his eyes to look at her, willing her to comprehend what had just occurred. At once a flare of understanding surged through their mental link, and Sora knew perfectly what he meant. He still held some of the power endowed him by the entity. Not the control of darkness, but physical abilities. Like the ability to jump hundreds of feet without breaking a limb or receiving even a scratch for the effort. Like the ability to leap entire buildings in search of a lost companion....
Tai set her down, and she shakily ordered her legs to keep her body upright this time. However, Sora still needed to lean heavily against the brown haired boy as a wave of queasiness washed over her from loss of blood. He supported the sagging girl with one arm; simultaneously casting his gaze about for signs of the entity. Around them webs of orange painted-steel latticed his vision, but he could see nothing else. Tai growled. This was too much. It had taken so much from him already, but still tried to murder Sora. Still tried to hurt him in the worst way possible.
Whilst Tai scanned the surrounding area, Sora could only look in one direction, such was the nausea freezing her muscles. She stared at a single spot, willing the sickness in her stomach away, calling on her inner-strength as she'd done for the last year whenever faced with emotions that seemed too big to deal with. Gradually the area around the spot she fixated on began to appear fuzzy, as she ceased thinking about the world around her and concentrated on what was happening inside herself. The waves of discomfort faded slightly, and she redoubled her efforts on this front at the encouraging response she received.
Suddenly Sora's brain pricked up. She felt a darkness rushing towards them, surging out of the gloom like a goblin straight from Hell. It advanced upon the two teenagers with inhuman speed, coming at them from above. Tai was so busy looking around for any physical signs of the enemy that he'd glossed over completely the psychic warnings of its presence, but Sora - in her hyper-conscious mental state - perceived them immediately. But there was no time to move; it was too fast....
At first Tai didn't know what was happening when Sora hit him. He felt her break from under his embrace and push him away, shoving him savagely in the chest with a strength he didn't know she still possessed. Her action was so rough, so unfriendly; he could only gape as he stumbled backwards, almost slipping over the edge of their perch. What was she doing? Was she trying to kill him? A sudden thought struck his smarting brain, causing his jaw to drop in horror. Had she been infested? It wasn't totally unlikely, and she was acting in such a hostile manner....
Then it struck. A bolt of dark lightning, which hit the pyjama-clad girl before him. Tai could only watch, horror-stricken, as she flew up into the air, saturated hair flying wildly, mouth open in a silent scream. Her broken body sailed over the rim of the gaudy precipice like a rag-doll, limbs flailing lifelessly as she tumbled into the void below. The brown haired boy sat stationary for an incalculable moment, before screaming his agony behind her. A raw, pain-filled screech, devoid of words but not of meaning. He rose, preparing to leap after her, but was stopped when a figure landed on his back, clamping its arms around his neck. Tai struggled, but the stranger remained where it sat. It leaned its head forward to whisper into his ear, but at the sound of its voice he felt as though his very soul was being hewn in two.
"Guess who."
"You!" Tai spat, enraged. Here was the vile creature that had ripped his family away from him. Here was the being that had murdered countless innocents in its clamour for blood and death. Here was the thing that had torn Sora from his breast....
Sora!
Tai threw himself forward after the girl who'd sacrificed herself for him, but the entity that bore her face was ready. With wicked talons it raked its fingers across Tai's face, leaving long gashes across his cheek and forehead. He yelled at this action, swiping blindly at his assailant as his own blood got into his eyes. It cackled madly, dodging each and every blow with ease. Tai roared powerlessly, red fluid clouding his vision and preventing him from following Sora as she fell. He slipped, falling precariously close to the edge - but not close enough. Tai blinked, tears filling his eyes and cleansing them of the life-juice blurring his sight.
She was gone. He had failed. The only person he'd ever loved, and he'd let her down when she needed him the most. She'd sacrificed herself, and he hadn't saved her. Grief filled his mind like a pale mist, the colour of his tears. Tai felt all the anger, all the fear, and all the loss of the past year well up inside him, welcome tinder for a spark to set them alight. Emotions crowded into his head, repressed for so long but now brought forward by the memory of that fragile body tumbling, shattered, through the air. He'd failed her, and now.... now something was going to pay.
The entity atop Tai's back let out a wailing screech as Tai's raw emotion pitched through their mental link, spearing its dark mind with its vehemence. Such was the intensity of the boy's feelings, that it muffled everything else, until the only things left in the bond were his boundless waves of power and the creature's agonized mental screams.
Sora's clone fell back, loosing its grip on Tai's spine and spinning off the edge of the metal bar. Tai heard a sickening crump as it made contact with another below, turning and jumping with cat-like grace to land beside it.
The entity hissed, crawling backwards on its rump. One leg was twisted oddly beneath it, obviously broken. Tai faltered as the bright glare of a nearby floodlight caught its visage, illuminating it with phosphorescing light. His gaze fell upon the familiar contours of its face. Sora's face. Despite everything, he still saw the girl he cared so much about in this unholy creature, and something panged inside him at the false sight of her injured and in pain. His angry emotional outburst subsided slightly to be replaced with the less harmful sensation of worry. The entity, sensing this momentary lapse, took its opportunity and lashed out at the boy with a weak bolt of dark lightning. The spurt of energy passed through Tai's shoulder, sending a spray of crimson droplets onto the metal at his feet. These quickly trickled away through the beads of fallen rain there, but the expression of tormented anger on Tai's face remained. He surged forward again with another involuntary mental attack borne of his sorrow and rage, but this time the creature was ready.
Using the same trick Tai did when exorcising it from his body, the entity threw up a barricade of psychic barriers nanoseconds before the assault hit. Tai's onslaught was stopped dead in its tracks, howling furiously against the shields barring its way. However, unlike Tai, the dark entity was experienced enough in the fields of both mental and physical combat to use both at once. As the hazel-eyed boy concentrated on breaching its intangible blockades, Sora's clone swung its unhurt foot around to kick his feet out from under him. He went down - hard - slipping on the wet surface of the metal bar and falling helplessly over the edge. Tai threw out his arms as he slid down, catching the edge of the precipice with his fingers and holding on with all his might. Every muscle strained as he fought to keep hold of the greasy purchase, but he could feel himself slipping.
A head appeared above him, craning over to get a better look at the struggling boy. Needle-like raindrops rammed themselves into his eyes as he tilted his face upwards to see it, running through his brown hair like miniature fjords and waterfalls. Its mouth - Sora's mouth - twisted into a horrible grin. Tai felt something probe at his mind, testing for weaknesses. Desperately he tried to fend it off, but his untrained attacks had drained him mentally, and he just didn't have the strength to fight it any more. He barely had enough power left to cling to his purchase on the metal, let alone embark into more tussles with something that didn't even appear to have been fazed by their last encounter. In spite of everything, Tai felt his psyche slump and shatter, defeated. He couldn't fight any more. Sora was gone. It had won. What did the world have left for him? The entity sensed this minor weak spot, and sped hungrily towards it. Tai's broken mind let it come, too crushed to stop it any more.
"Heaven's Charm!"
Tai felt the shock of the entity as a new surge of physical energy struck it, then the pain as it was hurled against the side of the scaffold thirty feet away. He winced at the token agony he himself felt, but didn't make any attempt to return from his mental stupor as it faded. The psychic contact was momentarily broken as the entity contented itself with dealing with its corporeal throbbing, leaving Tai hanging impotently from the orange bar.
"Tai!" A mature, womanly voice called. "Are you OK?" Tai didn't answer, didn't even bother to turn his head. Angewomon started towards him from where she floated behind his dangling form. The boy seemed....different somehow. Broken. As if he'd sustained some terrible wound - which he had, just not on his body. One of his hands suddenly came loose from its hold, leaving him clinging dangerously in mid-air. Angewomon sped through the rain as fast as she could, trying not to jolt the little bundle clasped in her arms.
Through the self-pitying haze clouding his mind Tai abruptly felt a presence. Not the dark entity, but a warm existence touching his brain with tendrils of compassion and care. A voice filtered through his pain. A recognizable voice.
Get up, Tai.
Sora?
Tai jerked his head up as Angewomon grabbed his wrist and hoisted him back onto the metal beam. She alighted next to him, delicate and graceful despite her big bulk. From her arms Tai sensed the presence, and - sure enough - slender fingers curled themselves around the Digimon's arm to pull the rest of their body into view. Tai gasped.
"S.... Sora?"
"Tai." She croaked weakly, trying to clamber out of the angel's tender embrace. Angewomon perceived her intentions, and gently set the teenage girl down on the steel surface. Sora stood for a moment; unsure as to whether she was going to fall if she attempted to move. Tai solved the problem for her, darting forward and enveloping her in a soothing clinch. She fell into his arms, wincing slightly but ignoring the pain as she buried her face into his sodden chest. Rain battered down on them relentlessly, but neither one acknowledged it as they drew solace from the other, whom they thought they'd never see again.
Angewomon watched them, and smiled. From a rooftop far below Kari felt an inkling through her Digivice of the warm, glowy feeling her Digimon got looking at the two figures. Tai's sister grinned. It had been so long since Tai was happy, and even if it was short-lived, she knew that for a moment he'd found true joy.
Tai clasped Sora's shaking form to him, unwilling to release her lest she disappear like some wonderful dream. He'd thought her dead, and the sight of her alive filled him with a new kind of gladness he'd never felt before. He was - as yet - not fully aware of the psychic connection between himself and her, but his relief and beatitude flowed inadvertently through their link into her mind.
Sora breathed these thoughts in deeply. Their nature was soothing, acting as a balm against her stinging wounds. She returned these assuaging tendrils with thoughts of her own.
Tai.
He gasped as the silent voice echoed inside his head. Sora spoke again, softly and tenderly.
Tai, we're linked.
The hazel-eyed boy gulped slightly, his head still resting against her sodden shoulder. Linked? Tentatively, he attempted his own sentient thought-speech.
How?
When we defeated the entity before, you and I bonded mentally somehow. I can hear your thoughts, did you know that?
Memories of speeding across the rooftops pervaded Tai's brain. Of feeling the entity's presence close by, but also that of another being, malleable and scared, yet determined beyond belief. Sora sensed these recollections, and her mental voice filled his head with gentle whispers like butterflies' wings in Spring.
Yes, that was me. I'm here for you Tai. Together, we can beat that thing.
Can we? Tai's psychic ability to speak was slightly weaker than hers, hesitant of this unspoken connection thrust upon him.
Yes, we can, and we will.
Her determination and faith rolled forth like an insurmountable wave, satiating him with fresh strength and resolve. Yes, they could. And they would. Together.
A screech split the saturated air around them, and the entity - trailing its broken leg like it was simply an annoying inconvenience - sped towards them, leaping from beam to beam like a demonic monkey. The pain of its limb seemed not to bother it as it yowled at the pair, sensing their newfound strength through the shared mind-link. It had to stop them before it was too late, before the girl transmitted too much information to the escaped vessel. Whilst it had controlled the boy, the darkness had astutely set up unbreakable barriers within his mind, which disallowed him the ability to read through their mental connection how the entity could be destroyed. But that girl hadn't been part of the equation then. Hadn't been considered as a threat. Now, if she saw the secrets hidden in the recesses of its mind then it was finished. This thought drove all pain from the entity's borrowed form, lending wings to its feet as it surged madly forward.
Angewomon leaped from her perch, mouth set in a grim line. Faster then the eye could see, she slammed into the snarling figure, brushing it aside with one gloved fist. The entity fell from where hung in the air, but twirled around to catch hold of another metal beam, swinging itself up and over to land on top of its flat surface. It hissed at the winged Digimon, calling upon its fading power to shoot a bolt of dark lightning at her. Angewomon dodged aside, but the attack grazed one of her wings, sending a flurry of snowy feathers into the atmosphere. The angel yelped in pain, then tumbled, spinning down out of sight, unable to right herself, avoiding numerous bars of steel as she plummeted to earth.
Snarling, the clone of Sora rounded on the two teenagers several beams above. It unleashed another hacking cry and propelled itself up towards them, red eyes shining brightly through the sheets of rain. It could feel its energy draining with every passing second. It needed to get back inside its host before it was to weak to do so.
Tai wordlessly scooped Sora up into his arms again, and sprang for the nearest steel bar with all the polish of a feline. Soundlessly he bounded from beam to beam, making his way up to the huge metal platform halfway up the tower. Below them the entity clamoured in pursuit, its claws scraped huge gouges from the painted steel as it followed.
Within inhuman capability, Tai jumped straight up, soaring high into the night sky. As he began his descent, he tilted sideways, altering his direction so that he landed with a jolt on the gigantic dais' shell. The heavy impact jolted Sora in his arms, and she cried out in pain. Tai set her down, feeling something decidedly sticky running over his hands. Propping her up against his chest, he stared at his fingers, at the warm scarlet liquid smeared from the wound in her back, inflicted when the bolt of dark lightning had hit her. He stared at the shivering girl incredulously. How had she kept going with an injury like that? How had he not sensed the incredible agony she must be enduring? Sora gave a half grin, rainwater dripping off the end of her nose.
I kept it hidden from you. I didn't want you to be hurt because of me.
Tai gazed at her. At this slender, drenched girl, her seemingly fragile form concealing such potent hidden strength. A strange feeling manifested itself above his midriff, bathing his very soul in warmth and light. He'd felt this feeling before, but never more so then when she looked at him now, beads of liquid coursing down her trembling face.
Sora's body mirrored this sensation of its own accord. The erstwhile-disused part of her heart flared into life, and sent tentacles of curious warmth singing through her veins. What was this feeling? Was it the relief of being rescued? Did it come from the soothing balm caressing her burning torn flesh? Or was it something else entirely? Something from this boy she had grown up with, now gazing at her with gentle hazel eyes? Something she felt she ought to recognise....
A harsh shriek sounded out as the entity crawled, spider-like, over the rim of the platform. Tai spun round, shielding Sora with his tense body, settling instinctively into a fighting stance. Inadvertently, his mind to all intents and purposes closed off the link with Sora, concentrating instead on the hissing, spiting copy of her stretched before him, trying to decipher what its first move would be.
The entity growled menacingly through feminine lips, adeptly hiding its thoughts from the boy's questing mind. It too fell into a fighting crouch, conscious of the superfluous leg trailing beneath it. That would be a problem in combat, unless....
With a quick blast of dark energy, the clone severed its shattered limb, using the same black force to seal the gaping stump left in its wake. Hellish agony lanced through it, but it used this to its advantage, allowing the full potency of its pain to flow, along with its essence, through the mental connection, right into Tai's searching psyche.
Sora dared forward as Tai suddenly screamed in mental anguish, doubling over and clutching at his head. She sensed partially what he was feeling, but knowing that she would do this, Tai placed his own mind in the path of the flood of agony, shielding her both physically and mentally, and taking the full force of this unexpected attack alone. Sora's mind was beaten back by the barriers he set up to protect her, reducing her to her physical body, unable to mentally sense either him or the entity.
Sora watched helplessly as both Tai and her double were forced to their knees in twin suffering. She dashed to the brown haired boy's side, cupping his tanned face in her hands, feeling his soft skin pulsing beneath her fingertips and screaming his name.
"Tai! Tai!" His hazel eyes were wide and unseeing, wracked with the suffering only pure, unadulterated hurt could cause. His mouth was unmoving, but those hazel orbs quiescently screamed as his cells were literally ripped apart from the inside out.
Sora stared powerlessly into those agonized spheres, her own inability burning her up inside. He was hurting. He was hurting so badly, and she couldn't help him. Tears welled up in her eyes and slid down her face. This was her fault; he was trying to protect her. Guilt coursed through her body, flowing along her veins until coming to centre in a little hollow above her abdomen. There, these emotions mixed with the warmth that had fabricated itself inside her only seconds earlier, strands of pain snaking through its melting core, swirling together until she could barely distinguish one from the other.
Pain.
Warmth.
Helplessness.
Comfort.
Darkness.
Light.
Protection.
Sora gazed into his distant hazel orbs, fading away from her by the moment. With a jolt she realized that the intense injury was effectively killing him. Without the presence of the dark entity inside him, Tai was mortal - able to die. Nobody mortal could stand up to this kind of mental torture. The spark buried in his eyes fizzled, growing fainter, and Sora cried out in sorrow. She didn't even know if he could hear or see her anymore. As the fire in his eyes gradually became paler Sora felt an almost physical pain in her heart. Like a part of her was dying, shrivelling up as the thin boy knelt before her succumbed to the numbness of death. Rain pounded her skin and conflicting emotions pounded her soul.
Tenderness.
Hurt.
Guilt.
Affection.
Agony.
Fervency.
Tai.
Sora gasped as sudden, brutal realization dawned upon her. Like sunlight piercing through pitch storm clouds, a ray of understanding penetrated her brain, her heart, her very soul with its dazzling brightness. That feeling, it was....it was Tai. She loved Tai. With all her spirit and all her being she loved him. Loved him more than anything else in the entire world.
Tai.
The chestnut haired girl leaned forward and closed her eyes. Her lips touched his, and affection flowed through her body as they melded together in a warm kiss. She and Tai. Tai and her. Together. Mentally, Sora called out his name, willing him back to her by spirit alone.
TAI!
From the depths of his painful prison Tai heard her. Felt the vines of her warmth connect with his psyche, pulling him away from the void he was falling towards, rescuing him from the intense agony with their shining love. Swiftly, his soul swam in the direction of that enticing brightness he'd wished to see for so long, returning to himself, to the world of the living, to her. With a shudder, Tai's mind re-entered his thin body to be enveloped by her loving embrace. He returned her kiss, floating on the sea of emotion she'd created.
SORA!
The pair knelt in the rain, lost in each other. Finally united after all this time. Water pummelled their battered and bleeding bodies, but they didn't care. They had one-another, and that was all that mattered. Tai and Sora. Sora and Tai.
Like a tangible wave, their love shattered the pain holding Tai captive. The dark entity felt it break; smashed by their feelings for each other, the most powerful force it had ever felt. Years of secret devotion, hours of crying for lost chances, thousands of cherished memories culminated in that one surging force which hurled itself down the mental link, filling the entity's mind and stunning it with the sheer intensity of their emotions.
With incongruous tenderness, their mouths parted. Sora opened her eyes, and hazel met hazel, their gazes locking with shared devotion. Tai had been imprisoned, and now he was recovered. Sora had been lost, and now she was found. The air around them fairly crackled with emotion, as they stared intently into the soul of the other. Their second half. The one.
I love you.
It wasn't clear who said it. Maybe both of them did, but this silent declaration hung between them, like a silvery thread, binding them for all eternity. Their minds melded along this shining wire, merging and partaking in both sets of hopes, fears, dreams and memories, until it seemed they knew each other better than they knew themselves.
Tai's mind suddenly felt something strange. Something buried deep in Sora's memory - a singular thought - gleaned from the entity's mind during their earlier conflict, which she didn't even realize she possessed. He probed at it, opening it up to his questing mental fingers. All at once the truth filled him. The truth that the entity had kept hidden from him since the beginning behind thick psychic walls, now breached by Sora's love. He grasped at it, seeking it out in all its glory. Now he knew what he had to do.
Gently, Tai broke the contact with Sora. He sensed the entity's mind regrouping, summoning the last of its dark power for a final attempt to retake him. Silently the boy rose, turning away from the chestnut haired girl to face his ultimate enemy. He knew what he must do.
Sora clutched desperately at his hand, pulling him back, willing him not to go. He couldn't leave her, not now, not when she'd only just truly found him. Both mentally and physically she whispered her frantic petition.
"No, Tai... oh God, please....don't do this to me....don't go...."
He stopped, and for one hopeful instant she thought that he had heeded her words. He glanced over his shoulder, and their eyes met once more. Sora expected to see fear in his gaze, or if not that then some indication of what he was planning. But all she saw was love. Love for her. And something else mixed with this love. He was asking her for something. Not strength, nor comfort, he had all those things already - although she would willingly have given more. Tai stared at her, pleading for insight, for understanding, for her to know what he knew, to understand what he now understood. Sora gazed back at him, comprehension slowly perforating her mind.
She dropped his hand, and knelt there, watching him go as the rain fell heartlessly all around her. Tears mingled with heaven's sniffles, as the boy she loved walked slowly and purposefully away from her. She knew what he had to do....now.
The entity skulked, sensing something was afoot, but not knowing what it was. It watched the approaching teenager through glowing red eyes, incredulous of his actions. Did he really think he could beat it alone? Foolish human. He would pay dearly for his arrogance.
But Tai wasn't alone. Far from it.
The hazel-eyed boy called with his mind. Called into the deepest recesses of his brain for aid. His psyche delved far beneath the surface of his mind with each determined step he took, summoning support from within. Faintly, but growing stronger, thin voices answered his beckons. Numerous voices, rising together in a cacophony of answering songs.
Through the fabric covering Tai's chest, a small shape began to radiate. Golden light seeped from his skin, unlocking the power he called upon. It started as a simple circle, then grew, expanding and reforming into a collection of contours emulating the sun. His crest. The Crest of Courage.
Tai felt presences begin to surround him, drawn from his heart. Their prison. They leached from his inner being, raising their voices as they were released from the living cell they'd been trapped in for so long. With every new presence the walls around these spirits' cage weakened, cracking and crumbling as Tai invoked the power to set them free. Spirits of those who had died along his journey filtered through the fissures the brown haired boy initiated, lending their strength to aid him in his fight against the thing that had stolen their lives away.
Tai saw their gaol with his mind; saw the dark sphere encapsulating his heart and all those who lay within. Splits began to appear in the surface of this pitch globe, glimmers of light leaking through as more and more spirits were released. They danced away from that disintegrating confinement, that place they had been banished to when their souls had been cast out from their bodies when they perished. The dark entity had taken over all faculties when it controlled Tai, but there was one part of him that it couldn't rule. That inherent power which made him a Digidestined - the power of courage. Try as it might, this core of might stood strong against its attacks to destroy it. So it had changed tactics. Whenever it took a victim with his body the entity had grabbed at their souls, concealing them inside the dark core it created around Tai's heart, using their misery and torment to manipulate the power of his crest within his essence itself. The crest became warped and twisted, defecting unwillingly to the darkness, lending its energy to the entity that it may control this boy, this vessel. The entity became strong, living off the combined torture of the imprisoned spirits and Tai's own guilt and grief. But also, it drew power from the tainted crest, sapping the very shield it had created around the Digital World so many years ago, darkening its energy and those connected to it until the protective barriers around that land reverted to a solid mass of power which allowed neither entrance nor exit for anything not sprung from the place of its birth.
It never thought Sora would learn of the lost souls.
It never thought Tai could release them.
The determined youth walked slowly, feeling the power of his crest return, sensing it revert to its true state, released from the evil warping it inside his chest. It shone brightly through his skin, burning with the inner fire of one who is showing infinitely more courage then any person should ever have to show. Shapes began to materialize around him, shining faces of those he'd known. They smiled at him, knowing that he hadn't been to blame for those horrendous times, lending their aid in his battle against the darkness. Tai saw them, felt them, sensed them. His body began to blaze with the energy they supplied him with, shimmering like a beacon for lost ships at sea.
An ethereal hand lay on his shoulder, and Tai looked up to see the golden vision of his mother's spirit gazing at him, willing him silently on. His father walked beside her, Miko's form clasped in his arms, quiescently encouraging his son through golden eyes. Tai saw others next to them, each visage familiar, each forgiving him, each helping him the only way they could. His spirit burned with the aching amount of power they bestowed upon him, but he kept on advancing upon the entity crouched before him, fortitude placing one energy-saturated foot in front of the other.
The entity hissed, sensing the turning tide. Desperately it shot a blast of dark lightning at the brown-haired boy in a last-ditch attempt to swing the fight in its favour, but a recovered soul darted before the black spear, shattering into a thousand glittering pierces upon contact, but content in the fact that it had aided the one who was going to avenge its life.
Tai didn't even waver at this, surging forward like a personified wave of power. He halted, mere inches away from the entity's cowering form, the light of justice radiating clearly in his gold-flecked hazel eyes. Suddenly, small delicate fingers intertwined with his, a tiny hand taking his own. Tai glanced down at a little blonde girl, hair billowing in the breeze, gazing up at him lovingly, forgivingly....in a way that her twisted shade never could until reunited with her innocent soul.
The entity lunged at him whilst his head was turned, intending to try and reclaim its host, but with unbelievable speed Tai whirled round and caught its wrists in mid-air. Red eyes locked with hazel, one set wide with fear, the other with power. It hung, suspended by the crackling energy searing the atmosphere, emanating from the seemingly slight teenager standing before it, rain thundering down on him. Tai leaned forward, pressing his tanned face into the entity's until their noses almost touched.
"Game over."
At once the surge of insurmountable power leapt forth, consuming them both in a pillar of brightness. It coursed through their bodies, their minds, their very essences with its vigour, enveloping them with energy as old as time itself, made tangible by will and wrapped in light. The entity screamed once as the all-consuming brilliance entered its stolen form, cutting it core to ribbons and banishing it to infinity.
Clutching at incongruously slender hands, Tai let it flow through him, searing him to nothingness but letting it do so to rid the world of this unspeakable evil. Awe-inspiring powers gushed from him. The power of courage, the power of the spirits' souls, and finally.... the power of love. Love, courage, and soul mixed and mingled, melding together to form one huge blast of energy, which lit up the night sky with its vividness, slicing a hole through the black clouds above as it stretched into the sky. Heavens clashed; sound was rent asunder, as that last battle was fought in a blaze of blinding splendour.
With a rush of magnificence, the unleashed power ended this conflict, erasing all sheathed in its intensity with a final burst of ineffable patina. Nothing screamed, nothing suffered, nothing died; for it's was not the control of life or death. This indefinable power simply ceased the existence of all within its touch, finishing the struggle that couldn't be settled by physical blows alone.
The world fell silent as this ancient authority smashed through the barriers of space and epoch, returning to its rightful place among the stars. A hurling comet streaked like a burning diamond across the deep cavity of the night, as finally the battle was concluded in a heady concord of finality. As the many universes watched through rekindled porticos, a single fracas was concluded in the eternal fight, ended by the light of the ever-indifferent moon.
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Tokyo Tower stood injured in the waning murk of the night, burned and gouged in several places, but still proud and tall. Its orange and white hide gleamed resiliently, as if to say to the world, 'look, great things took place among my rafters, and I'm still here to tell the tale to you.' A soft breeze lightly caressed its steel skeleton, whispering that *it* - if nobody else - had heard this valiant statement.
On the great steel platform surrounding the spire's body a solitary figure stood. Tresses blowing gracefully in the wind, watching as the storm clouds that had filled the night slowly dispersed above its head. Around it were curious marks, like scorches tinted with glitter. The last testament to a great struggle.
Sora pushed a lock of damp chestnut hair from her face, gazing intently into the irradiating firmament. She fancied she could still see a trail of gold, leading away into the waiting arms of all who had gone before it. The teenager turned her hazel eyes to look outward, upon the stirring city.
They don't even realise what happened here tonight, she thought despondently. None of them know what went on among the metal beams so high above them, and even if they saw the light they'll forget about it soon. That's the way of the world. That's life. A single tear trickled down her cheek, and she sniffed sadly to herself, unaccompanied in her dejection.
Suddenly, Sora had the distinct impression that she wasn't alone. Invisible fingers cupped her face, and she felt warm breath blow softly upon her skin. A wonderful sensation of warm lips against hers touched her mind for the last time, leaving an intimate part of itself embedded forever within the girl it loved, before billowing contentedly away on the cool air.
Sora stood for a moment, savouring the lingering taste of ethereal affection. Then smiled. The tender, knowing smile of a soul truly at peace with itself.
"I'll never forget, Tai." She whispered. "Never."
The serene girl gazed out at the scene laid before her, looking at everything as if with new eyes. On a rooftop far below a brown haired adolescent stood, and feebly floating on the gentle breeze fluttered an angel wearing a steel mask and a shrewd smirk.
Beyond the horizon the sun hung suspended in the sky. Golden and bulbous, it shone caring rays down upon the awakening metropolis, as it did everywhere. Beams of yellow light snaked their way through the receding clouds to impart their balmy compassion upon the world it so zealously guarded. Eyelids opened to greet these taken-for-granted miracles, and Sora watched blissfully from her vantage point over them all, happy in the knowledge that she had experienced love.
A new day was beginning.
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Owari.
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Many thanks to all who have reviewed all previous chapters, I'm very grateful. Like I said before, you really do have to know what Tokyo Tower looks like to understand the rest of this fic, I'm sorry, but it just won't have the same dramatic effect otherwise.
I won't be around for a couple of weeks now (that's why I've been so prompt with these last few chapters) because I have mock exams coming up for my A-Levels. However, I've already started work on my next fic and will post it as soon as I can, so watch this space (!) Thanx muchly 4 all UR support out there, and let me know what U think as par usual thru reviews (also drop us a line as to whether you'd like me to post my next project or not - much obliged.)
At the risk of sounding cheesy, "C'est la vie!"
Scribbler ^_^
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"The Darkness Within" By Scribbler
Chapter Eleven ~ "Devil's Tears"
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"Forgiveness is the final form of love."-- Reinhold Niebuhr
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Tai leapt from roof to roof with practised ease, only a little slower then usual because of reduced visibility. Above him a huge white shape soared through the sky, feathers dampened by the torrential downpour around them. Angewomon clasped Kari protectively in her arms, trying - yet failing - to keep her dry as well as aloft.
In the distance a large glowing spire loomed out of the night, illuminated by the many ghostly lights surrounding it. Tokyo Tower dominated the skyline, dwarfing all other buildings in the contiguous area. Through the haze of falling water it still arose proud and tall, a symbol of Japanese progress and triumph recognizable throughout the globe.
Tai kept his eyes fixed on this exultant construction, not considering its technological significance, but rather the prize it contained.
And enemy.
His feet touched many buildings and leapt many gaps as he travelled, but he acknowledged none of them, focused only on that nearing tower and what was contained therein.
The brown haired boy was just crossing a broad, flat rooftop when suddenly his body was wracked with a crushing pain slightly above his midriff. It wasn't enough to merit more than a wince on his increased pain-threshold, but did make him stumble for a moment and wonder what caused it. It vanished as quickly as it had come, like a shadow of pain, intense but only a token of what should be felt. Tai faltered in his mad flight at the abrupt and inexplicable sensation.
What was that?
He vacillated momentarily at the edge of the rooftop, taking a second more than usual to gather his muscles and launch himself over the wide gap between this and the next structure. The hesitation was slight, but didn't go unnoticed to Angewomon's sharp gaze. The winged Digimon flew down closer to the speeding human, being careful to avoid any telephone wires as she did so.
"What's up?" Her usually powerful voice sounded thin as it was snatched away by the howling wind. The teenager didn't answer, and reluctantly she was forced higher into the air by a clump of trees blocking her path up ahead. Angewomon's brows knitted beneath her steel mask. She knew he'd heard her, but Tai had consciously chosen not to reply, and in this kind of situation that was never a good thing.
Contrary to the Digimon's train of thought, Tai didn't actually know what was the matter. A strange sense of foreboding was manifesting itself in the pit of his stomach, and he had the distinct feeling that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. As if in answer to this, pain abruptly flared in his arm, followed by agony in his scalp. Invisible fingers twined themselves around his hair, yanking and ripping it away from his scalp, yet leaving no trace of their presence. Tai gasped as these ethereal sensations too evaporated before he could truly distinguish what they were.
Spots danced before his eyes as unbidden thoughts coursed into his brain. Necessary inconvenience. Puny humans. Blood fest. Like bugs. Their unspoken voice drove into his mind like a spear, accompanied by a cacophony of ghastly imagery shrouded in darkness and tinged with blood. Tai started as he recognized some of these images. He'd seen them before.... when he carried the entity inside him. Tortured imagoes used to send him to the brink of insanity with grief and remorse. Flashes of past victims sped across his psyche, coupled with untrue visions of his friends, streaked with crimson fluid, pointing accusingly at him. His dream. Tai realised that somehow, as he drew nearer to it, he was sensing the link he held with the entity's mind. The unholy bond forged between them through months of mental battling.
The hazel-eyed teenager's jaw set, and he pressed on, regardless of the pounding rain, knowing now that his quarry was close by. Waiting.
Yet along with these horrific foreign thoughts and memories another voice sang. Emotions that didn't belong to the dark evil pervading his brain surged faintly along this psychic bridge, whirling their own story into his mind. Tai sensed fear, and pain - both physical and mental. Waves of determination flowed towards him, riding on the back of intense dread and longing. As the youth drew closer to the tower these feelings grew stronger, until tenuous words burned into him like a ghostly beacon.
Parasite.
Shrivel up.
Arm.
Pain.
Run.
Until what?
Tai.
He didn't know what to make of them, but they coursed through his being until his very veins pulsed with their indomitable melody. Tai halted as he reached the end of the buildings bordering around Tokyo Tower, his mind awhirl with questions and alien words alike. Delicately, Angewomon hovered next to him, Kari peeking out from within her partner's embrace. Together, they stared up at the huge monolith, not sure what to do now. They'd come to the specified destination, but had no idea where to start looking for either Sora or her clone. Never had the proverb 'needle in a haystack' been so apt.
Tai's eyes narrowed as yet more images permeated his mind's eye. For some inexplicable reason, he sensed that these weren't the memories of either mind connected to his. Neither were they the cruel weapons used so many times upon his slumbering brain. Instead, these visions were clear and sharp, like they were a present reality, occurring at that very moment.
The same scene, fragmented and seen from different angles through different perspectives, showed itself lucidly through the link. Tai discerned an explosion, and the sound of rending metal. A flash of pink fabric scurried across his sight, to be replaced by another bolt of darkness and detonation. He could almost feel the fear of the determined mind, but the entity's singular presence all but blotted these emotions out as it darted forward to grip the rose material. Tai caught a flash of hazel eyes, wide with pain and shock. Then a burst of fear as....
Sudden movement high above his physical body suddenly caught the boy's attention. With his almost super-human sight he glimpsed something moving on the gigantic dais hundreds of feet above him. A ball of fire, nearly invisible from this distance, was dissipating into the sodden night air. From the smoky clouds an object suddenly emerged, twirling as it fell parallel with the metal structure. Tai's hazel eyes fixed onto this seemingly insignificant article, and as he watched he became aware that it was pink. Exactly the same shade of pink as....
Kari and Angewomon's heads both snapped round at the anguished cry that abruptly ripped from Tai's throat. The boy was a blur as he leapt desperately from the building beneath him, pushing his muscles harder then he'd ever pushed them before. Inhuman strength mixed with extreme anxiety lent wings to his feet, sending him flying towards the metal spire looming before them. The two females let out twin gasps, but their intakes of breath were completely lost among the cascading raindrops falling around them. Tai vanished from view through the sheets of rain, but still his tormented scream rang out clearly, reverberating inside the ears of all who heard it like a knell. A tortured soul clamouring from the depths of Hell.
"SORA! NOOOOO!"
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Sora felt shocked when she was tossed from the platform. One moment she was standing on the freezing metal, the next she wasn't. Her stomach lurched at the sudden absence of terra firma, and a single burst of surprise rocked her entire being.
She was going to die.
Just this simple realization. Nothing more. No screams of terror. No frantic attempts to prevent the inevitable. She'd just been thrown from the Tokyo Tower; she knew there was no hope now. Quiet acceptance of this fact quashed all other emotions within her, rendering her mind calm in the face of death. Sora fell limply, not even bothering to struggle, preparing herself for that fateful moment when she either hit the ground or struck a metal bar on the way down.
"SORA! NOOOOO!"
Tai? Sora thought she could hear him, the same anguished shout he'd emitted when she was captured burning on his lips. A memory, come back to haunt her in her final moments.
Suddenly, something crashed into the teenage girl. She felt a warm bulk strike against hers, carrying her with it as it travelled upwards on its journey. Up, up, up, she went, strong arms manifesting around her body and hugging her tightly. Sora was vaguely aware of a presence through the mind-link. A mind tinctured with grief and loss, now filled with concern for the shivering individual clasped against its chest. A compassionate mind. A mind she found strangely comforting and familiar.
The thing holding Sora grabbed a huge metal rod in one hand, swinging their combined weight round to land gracefully in the crook of two steel shafts embedded in the Tower's side. Sora collapsed to her knees - legs unable to hold her up - as her aching feet touched down on the hard surface. Her near-death experience wracked her slender frame, causing sobbing gasps to involuntarily bubble in her throat and burst into the saturated air.
She turned her gaze up at the one who'd saved her, and found herself locking with a pair of intimate hazel eyes set in drenched tanned skin. One name escaped her dripping lips as water scored its harsh and unforgiving path down her face.
"Tai...."
"Sora...." He murmured back, crouching beside her trembling form. Their eye contact didn't break for a second, as hazel stared into hazel like they'd never met before in their entire lives. Emotions flowed between them silently as they looked at each other.
Sora felt immense relief that he was here by her side, here to face off against this terrible evil out for her blood. But another part of her screamed at him to leave, to go back where he came from, before it was too late, before he was forced to once again succumb to the darkness. Yet she said nothing, only stared at him as if not believing that he was truly there.
Tai returned her gaze like for like. Anger frothed beneath his cool exterior at the state of her, hair plastered to her head with rain; face pale and drawn with pain and shock. He reached out to steady her shaking shoulder, but she yelped and sprang back at his touch. Tai's gaze slowly slid to Sora's left arm, to the rapidly diluting pool of red by her side, to the trails of sticky blood coursing down her skin. Choler flared within his gut. The entity had hurt her. It had tried to kill her.
It would pay.
A harsh screech behind them caused both to whirl round. As if from nowhere, a bolt of darkness sped towards them at abnormal velocity. Tai turned with equal speed, scooping Sora into his arms and plunging from the metal bar without hesitation. The black missile, deprived of its target, smashed into where they'd knelt only seconds ago and reduced the area to a blackened chunk of melted steel which hissed impotently as rainwater touched it.
The duo plummeted, down, down, down, until finally coming to rest on another, wider beam below. Tai struck the surface feet first, bending his legs slightly to absorb the impact. Sora stared incredulously at him. Nobody could have survived that fall, much less be able to stand after landing! The boy holding her straightened up, tension clear in his features. He swivelled his eyes to look at her, willing her to comprehend what had just occurred. At once a flare of understanding surged through their mental link, and Sora knew perfectly what he meant. He still held some of the power endowed him by the entity. Not the control of darkness, but physical abilities. Like the ability to jump hundreds of feet without breaking a limb or receiving even a scratch for the effort. Like the ability to leap entire buildings in search of a lost companion....
Tai set her down, and she shakily ordered her legs to keep her body upright this time. However, Sora still needed to lean heavily against the brown haired boy as a wave of queasiness washed over her from loss of blood. He supported the sagging girl with one arm; simultaneously casting his gaze about for signs of the entity. Around them webs of orange painted-steel latticed his vision, but he could see nothing else. Tai growled. This was too much. It had taken so much from him already, but still tried to murder Sora. Still tried to hurt him in the worst way possible.
Whilst Tai scanned the surrounding area, Sora could only look in one direction, such was the nausea freezing her muscles. She stared at a single spot, willing the sickness in her stomach away, calling on her inner-strength as she'd done for the last year whenever faced with emotions that seemed too big to deal with. Gradually the area around the spot she fixated on began to appear fuzzy, as she ceased thinking about the world around her and concentrated on what was happening inside herself. The waves of discomfort faded slightly, and she redoubled her efforts on this front at the encouraging response she received.
Suddenly Sora's brain pricked up. She felt a darkness rushing towards them, surging out of the gloom like a goblin straight from Hell. It advanced upon the two teenagers with inhuman speed, coming at them from above. Tai was so busy looking around for any physical signs of the enemy that he'd glossed over completely the psychic warnings of its presence, but Sora - in her hyper-conscious mental state - perceived them immediately. But there was no time to move; it was too fast....
At first Tai didn't know what was happening when Sora hit him. He felt her break from under his embrace and push him away, shoving him savagely in the chest with a strength he didn't know she still possessed. Her action was so rough, so unfriendly; he could only gape as he stumbled backwards, almost slipping over the edge of their perch. What was she doing? Was she trying to kill him? A sudden thought struck his smarting brain, causing his jaw to drop in horror. Had she been infested? It wasn't totally unlikely, and she was acting in such a hostile manner....
Then it struck. A bolt of dark lightning, which hit the pyjama-clad girl before him. Tai could only watch, horror-stricken, as she flew up into the air, saturated hair flying wildly, mouth open in a silent scream. Her broken body sailed over the rim of the gaudy precipice like a rag-doll, limbs flailing lifelessly as she tumbled into the void below. The brown haired boy sat stationary for an incalculable moment, before screaming his agony behind her. A raw, pain-filled screech, devoid of words but not of meaning. He rose, preparing to leap after her, but was stopped when a figure landed on his back, clamping its arms around his neck. Tai struggled, but the stranger remained where it sat. It leaned its head forward to whisper into his ear, but at the sound of its voice he felt as though his very soul was being hewn in two.
"Guess who."
"You!" Tai spat, enraged. Here was the vile creature that had ripped his family away from him. Here was the being that had murdered countless innocents in its clamour for blood and death. Here was the thing that had torn Sora from his breast....
Sora!
Tai threw himself forward after the girl who'd sacrificed herself for him, but the entity that bore her face was ready. With wicked talons it raked its fingers across Tai's face, leaving long gashes across his cheek and forehead. He yelled at this action, swiping blindly at his assailant as his own blood got into his eyes. It cackled madly, dodging each and every blow with ease. Tai roared powerlessly, red fluid clouding his vision and preventing him from following Sora as she fell. He slipped, falling precariously close to the edge - but not close enough. Tai blinked, tears filling his eyes and cleansing them of the life-juice blurring his sight.
She was gone. He had failed. The only person he'd ever loved, and he'd let her down when she needed him the most. She'd sacrificed herself, and he hadn't saved her. Grief filled his mind like a pale mist, the colour of his tears. Tai felt all the anger, all the fear, and all the loss of the past year well up inside him, welcome tinder for a spark to set them alight. Emotions crowded into his head, repressed for so long but now brought forward by the memory of that fragile body tumbling, shattered, through the air. He'd failed her, and now.... now something was going to pay.
The entity atop Tai's back let out a wailing screech as Tai's raw emotion pitched through their mental link, spearing its dark mind with its vehemence. Such was the intensity of the boy's feelings, that it muffled everything else, until the only things left in the bond were his boundless waves of power and the creature's agonized mental screams.
Sora's clone fell back, loosing its grip on Tai's spine and spinning off the edge of the metal bar. Tai heard a sickening crump as it made contact with another below, turning and jumping with cat-like grace to land beside it.
The entity hissed, crawling backwards on its rump. One leg was twisted oddly beneath it, obviously broken. Tai faltered as the bright glare of a nearby floodlight caught its visage, illuminating it with phosphorescing light. His gaze fell upon the familiar contours of its face. Sora's face. Despite everything, he still saw the girl he cared so much about in this unholy creature, and something panged inside him at the false sight of her injured and in pain. His angry emotional outburst subsided slightly to be replaced with the less harmful sensation of worry. The entity, sensing this momentary lapse, took its opportunity and lashed out at the boy with a weak bolt of dark lightning. The spurt of energy passed through Tai's shoulder, sending a spray of crimson droplets onto the metal at his feet. These quickly trickled away through the beads of fallen rain there, but the expression of tormented anger on Tai's face remained. He surged forward again with another involuntary mental attack borne of his sorrow and rage, but this time the creature was ready.
Using the same trick Tai did when exorcising it from his body, the entity threw up a barricade of psychic barriers nanoseconds before the assault hit. Tai's onslaught was stopped dead in its tracks, howling furiously against the shields barring its way. However, unlike Tai, the dark entity was experienced enough in the fields of both mental and physical combat to use both at once. As the hazel-eyed boy concentrated on breaching its intangible blockades, Sora's clone swung its unhurt foot around to kick his feet out from under him. He went down - hard - slipping on the wet surface of the metal bar and falling helplessly over the edge. Tai threw out his arms as he slid down, catching the edge of the precipice with his fingers and holding on with all his might. Every muscle strained as he fought to keep hold of the greasy purchase, but he could feel himself slipping.
A head appeared above him, craning over to get a better look at the struggling boy. Needle-like raindrops rammed themselves into his eyes as he tilted his face upwards to see it, running through his brown hair like miniature fjords and waterfalls. Its mouth - Sora's mouth - twisted into a horrible grin. Tai felt something probe at his mind, testing for weaknesses. Desperately he tried to fend it off, but his untrained attacks had drained him mentally, and he just didn't have the strength to fight it any more. He barely had enough power left to cling to his purchase on the metal, let alone embark into more tussles with something that didn't even appear to have been fazed by their last encounter. In spite of everything, Tai felt his psyche slump and shatter, defeated. He couldn't fight any more. Sora was gone. It had won. What did the world have left for him? The entity sensed this minor weak spot, and sped hungrily towards it. Tai's broken mind let it come, too crushed to stop it any more.
"Heaven's Charm!"
Tai felt the shock of the entity as a new surge of physical energy struck it, then the pain as it was hurled against the side of the scaffold thirty feet away. He winced at the token agony he himself felt, but didn't make any attempt to return from his mental stupor as it faded. The psychic contact was momentarily broken as the entity contented itself with dealing with its corporeal throbbing, leaving Tai hanging impotently from the orange bar.
"Tai!" A mature, womanly voice called. "Are you OK?" Tai didn't answer, didn't even bother to turn his head. Angewomon started towards him from where she floated behind his dangling form. The boy seemed....different somehow. Broken. As if he'd sustained some terrible wound - which he had, just not on his body. One of his hands suddenly came loose from its hold, leaving him clinging dangerously in mid-air. Angewomon sped through the rain as fast as she could, trying not to jolt the little bundle clasped in her arms.
Through the self-pitying haze clouding his mind Tai abruptly felt a presence. Not the dark entity, but a warm existence touching his brain with tendrils of compassion and care. A voice filtered through his pain. A recognizable voice.
Get up, Tai.
Sora?
Tai jerked his head up as Angewomon grabbed his wrist and hoisted him back onto the metal beam. She alighted next to him, delicate and graceful despite her big bulk. From her arms Tai sensed the presence, and - sure enough - slender fingers curled themselves around the Digimon's arm to pull the rest of their body into view. Tai gasped.
"S.... Sora?"
"Tai." She croaked weakly, trying to clamber out of the angel's tender embrace. Angewomon perceived her intentions, and gently set the teenage girl down on the steel surface. Sora stood for a moment; unsure as to whether she was going to fall if she attempted to move. Tai solved the problem for her, darting forward and enveloping her in a soothing clinch. She fell into his arms, wincing slightly but ignoring the pain as she buried her face into his sodden chest. Rain battered down on them relentlessly, but neither one acknowledged it as they drew solace from the other, whom they thought they'd never see again.
Angewomon watched them, and smiled. From a rooftop far below Kari felt an inkling through her Digivice of the warm, glowy feeling her Digimon got looking at the two figures. Tai's sister grinned. It had been so long since Tai was happy, and even if it was short-lived, she knew that for a moment he'd found true joy.
Tai clasped Sora's shaking form to him, unwilling to release her lest she disappear like some wonderful dream. He'd thought her dead, and the sight of her alive filled him with a new kind of gladness he'd never felt before. He was - as yet - not fully aware of the psychic connection between himself and her, but his relief and beatitude flowed inadvertently through their link into her mind.
Sora breathed these thoughts in deeply. Their nature was soothing, acting as a balm against her stinging wounds. She returned these assuaging tendrils with thoughts of her own.
Tai.
He gasped as the silent voice echoed inside his head. Sora spoke again, softly and tenderly.
Tai, we're linked.
The hazel-eyed boy gulped slightly, his head still resting against her sodden shoulder. Linked? Tentatively, he attempted his own sentient thought-speech.
How?
When we defeated the entity before, you and I bonded mentally somehow. I can hear your thoughts, did you know that?
Memories of speeding across the rooftops pervaded Tai's brain. Of feeling the entity's presence close by, but also that of another being, malleable and scared, yet determined beyond belief. Sora sensed these recollections, and her mental voice filled his head with gentle whispers like butterflies' wings in Spring.
Yes, that was me. I'm here for you Tai. Together, we can beat that thing.
Can we? Tai's psychic ability to speak was slightly weaker than hers, hesitant of this unspoken connection thrust upon him.
Yes, we can, and we will.
Her determination and faith rolled forth like an insurmountable wave, satiating him with fresh strength and resolve. Yes, they could. And they would. Together.
A screech split the saturated air around them, and the entity - trailing its broken leg like it was simply an annoying inconvenience - sped towards them, leaping from beam to beam like a demonic monkey. The pain of its limb seemed not to bother it as it yowled at the pair, sensing their newfound strength through the shared mind-link. It had to stop them before it was too late, before the girl transmitted too much information to the escaped vessel. Whilst it had controlled the boy, the darkness had astutely set up unbreakable barriers within his mind, which disallowed him the ability to read through their mental connection how the entity could be destroyed. But that girl hadn't been part of the equation then. Hadn't been considered as a threat. Now, if she saw the secrets hidden in the recesses of its mind then it was finished. This thought drove all pain from the entity's borrowed form, lending wings to its feet as it surged madly forward.
Angewomon leaped from her perch, mouth set in a grim line. Faster then the eye could see, she slammed into the snarling figure, brushing it aside with one gloved fist. The entity fell from where hung in the air, but twirled around to catch hold of another metal beam, swinging itself up and over to land on top of its flat surface. It hissed at the winged Digimon, calling upon its fading power to shoot a bolt of dark lightning at her. Angewomon dodged aside, but the attack grazed one of her wings, sending a flurry of snowy feathers into the atmosphere. The angel yelped in pain, then tumbled, spinning down out of sight, unable to right herself, avoiding numerous bars of steel as she plummeted to earth.
Snarling, the clone of Sora rounded on the two teenagers several beams above. It unleashed another hacking cry and propelled itself up towards them, red eyes shining brightly through the sheets of rain. It could feel its energy draining with every passing second. It needed to get back inside its host before it was to weak to do so.
Tai wordlessly scooped Sora up into his arms again, and sprang for the nearest steel bar with all the polish of a feline. Soundlessly he bounded from beam to beam, making his way up to the huge metal platform halfway up the tower. Below them the entity clamoured in pursuit, its claws scraped huge gouges from the painted steel as it followed.
Within inhuman capability, Tai jumped straight up, soaring high into the night sky. As he began his descent, he tilted sideways, altering his direction so that he landed with a jolt on the gigantic dais' shell. The heavy impact jolted Sora in his arms, and she cried out in pain. Tai set her down, feeling something decidedly sticky running over his hands. Propping her up against his chest, he stared at his fingers, at the warm scarlet liquid smeared from the wound in her back, inflicted when the bolt of dark lightning had hit her. He stared at the shivering girl incredulously. How had she kept going with an injury like that? How had he not sensed the incredible agony she must be enduring? Sora gave a half grin, rainwater dripping off the end of her nose.
I kept it hidden from you. I didn't want you to be hurt because of me.
Tai gazed at her. At this slender, drenched girl, her seemingly fragile form concealing such potent hidden strength. A strange feeling manifested itself above his midriff, bathing his very soul in warmth and light. He'd felt this feeling before, but never more so then when she looked at him now, beads of liquid coursing down her trembling face.
Sora's body mirrored this sensation of its own accord. The erstwhile-disused part of her heart flared into life, and sent tentacles of curious warmth singing through her veins. What was this feeling? Was it the relief of being rescued? Did it come from the soothing balm caressing her burning torn flesh? Or was it something else entirely? Something from this boy she had grown up with, now gazing at her with gentle hazel eyes? Something she felt she ought to recognise....
A harsh shriek sounded out as the entity crawled, spider-like, over the rim of the platform. Tai spun round, shielding Sora with his tense body, settling instinctively into a fighting stance. Inadvertently, his mind to all intents and purposes closed off the link with Sora, concentrating instead on the hissing, spiting copy of her stretched before him, trying to decipher what its first move would be.
The entity growled menacingly through feminine lips, adeptly hiding its thoughts from the boy's questing mind. It too fell into a fighting crouch, conscious of the superfluous leg trailing beneath it. That would be a problem in combat, unless....
With a quick blast of dark energy, the clone severed its shattered limb, using the same black force to seal the gaping stump left in its wake. Hellish agony lanced through it, but it used this to its advantage, allowing the full potency of its pain to flow, along with its essence, through the mental connection, right into Tai's searching psyche.
Sora dared forward as Tai suddenly screamed in mental anguish, doubling over and clutching at his head. She sensed partially what he was feeling, but knowing that she would do this, Tai placed his own mind in the path of the flood of agony, shielding her both physically and mentally, and taking the full force of this unexpected attack alone. Sora's mind was beaten back by the barriers he set up to protect her, reducing her to her physical body, unable to mentally sense either him or the entity.
Sora watched helplessly as both Tai and her double were forced to their knees in twin suffering. She dashed to the brown haired boy's side, cupping his tanned face in her hands, feeling his soft skin pulsing beneath her fingertips and screaming his name.
"Tai! Tai!" His hazel eyes were wide and unseeing, wracked with the suffering only pure, unadulterated hurt could cause. His mouth was unmoving, but those hazel orbs quiescently screamed as his cells were literally ripped apart from the inside out.
Sora stared powerlessly into those agonized spheres, her own inability burning her up inside. He was hurting. He was hurting so badly, and she couldn't help him. Tears welled up in her eyes and slid down her face. This was her fault; he was trying to protect her. Guilt coursed through her body, flowing along her veins until coming to centre in a little hollow above her abdomen. There, these emotions mixed with the warmth that had fabricated itself inside her only seconds earlier, strands of pain snaking through its melting core, swirling together until she could barely distinguish one from the other.
Pain.
Warmth.
Helplessness.
Comfort.
Darkness.
Light.
Protection.
Sora gazed into his distant hazel orbs, fading away from her by the moment. With a jolt she realized that the intense injury was effectively killing him. Without the presence of the dark entity inside him, Tai was mortal - able to die. Nobody mortal could stand up to this kind of mental torture. The spark buried in his eyes fizzled, growing fainter, and Sora cried out in sorrow. She didn't even know if he could hear or see her anymore. As the fire in his eyes gradually became paler Sora felt an almost physical pain in her heart. Like a part of her was dying, shrivelling up as the thin boy knelt before her succumbed to the numbness of death. Rain pounded her skin and conflicting emotions pounded her soul.
Tenderness.
Hurt.
Guilt.
Affection.
Agony.
Fervency.
Tai.
Sora gasped as sudden, brutal realization dawned upon her. Like sunlight piercing through pitch storm clouds, a ray of understanding penetrated her brain, her heart, her very soul with its dazzling brightness. That feeling, it was....it was Tai. She loved Tai. With all her spirit and all her being she loved him. Loved him more than anything else in the entire world.
Tai.
The chestnut haired girl leaned forward and closed her eyes. Her lips touched his, and affection flowed through her body as they melded together in a warm kiss. She and Tai. Tai and her. Together. Mentally, Sora called out his name, willing him back to her by spirit alone.
TAI!
From the depths of his painful prison Tai heard her. Felt the vines of her warmth connect with his psyche, pulling him away from the void he was falling towards, rescuing him from the intense agony with their shining love. Swiftly, his soul swam in the direction of that enticing brightness he'd wished to see for so long, returning to himself, to the world of the living, to her. With a shudder, Tai's mind re-entered his thin body to be enveloped by her loving embrace. He returned her kiss, floating on the sea of emotion she'd created.
SORA!
The pair knelt in the rain, lost in each other. Finally united after all this time. Water pummelled their battered and bleeding bodies, but they didn't care. They had one-another, and that was all that mattered. Tai and Sora. Sora and Tai.
Like a tangible wave, their love shattered the pain holding Tai captive. The dark entity felt it break; smashed by their feelings for each other, the most powerful force it had ever felt. Years of secret devotion, hours of crying for lost chances, thousands of cherished memories culminated in that one surging force which hurled itself down the mental link, filling the entity's mind and stunning it with the sheer intensity of their emotions.
With incongruous tenderness, their mouths parted. Sora opened her eyes, and hazel met hazel, their gazes locking with shared devotion. Tai had been imprisoned, and now he was recovered. Sora had been lost, and now she was found. The air around them fairly crackled with emotion, as they stared intently into the soul of the other. Their second half. The one.
I love you.
It wasn't clear who said it. Maybe both of them did, but this silent declaration hung between them, like a silvery thread, binding them for all eternity. Their minds melded along this shining wire, merging and partaking in both sets of hopes, fears, dreams and memories, until it seemed they knew each other better than they knew themselves.
Tai's mind suddenly felt something strange. Something buried deep in Sora's memory - a singular thought - gleaned from the entity's mind during their earlier conflict, which she didn't even realize she possessed. He probed at it, opening it up to his questing mental fingers. All at once the truth filled him. The truth that the entity had kept hidden from him since the beginning behind thick psychic walls, now breached by Sora's love. He grasped at it, seeking it out in all its glory. Now he knew what he had to do.
Gently, Tai broke the contact with Sora. He sensed the entity's mind regrouping, summoning the last of its dark power for a final attempt to retake him. Silently the boy rose, turning away from the chestnut haired girl to face his ultimate enemy. He knew what he must do.
Sora clutched desperately at his hand, pulling him back, willing him not to go. He couldn't leave her, not now, not when she'd only just truly found him. Both mentally and physically she whispered her frantic petition.
"No, Tai... oh God, please....don't do this to me....don't go...."
He stopped, and for one hopeful instant she thought that he had heeded her words. He glanced over his shoulder, and their eyes met once more. Sora expected to see fear in his gaze, or if not that then some indication of what he was planning. But all she saw was love. Love for her. And something else mixed with this love. He was asking her for something. Not strength, nor comfort, he had all those things already - although she would willingly have given more. Tai stared at her, pleading for insight, for understanding, for her to know what he knew, to understand what he now understood. Sora gazed back at him, comprehension slowly perforating her mind.
She dropped his hand, and knelt there, watching him go as the rain fell heartlessly all around her. Tears mingled with heaven's sniffles, as the boy she loved walked slowly and purposefully away from her. She knew what he had to do....now.
The entity skulked, sensing something was afoot, but not knowing what it was. It watched the approaching teenager through glowing red eyes, incredulous of his actions. Did he really think he could beat it alone? Foolish human. He would pay dearly for his arrogance.
But Tai wasn't alone. Far from it.
The hazel-eyed boy called with his mind. Called into the deepest recesses of his brain for aid. His psyche delved far beneath the surface of his mind with each determined step he took, summoning support from within. Faintly, but growing stronger, thin voices answered his beckons. Numerous voices, rising together in a cacophony of answering songs.
Through the fabric covering Tai's chest, a small shape began to radiate. Golden light seeped from his skin, unlocking the power he called upon. It started as a simple circle, then grew, expanding and reforming into a collection of contours emulating the sun. His crest. The Crest of Courage.
Tai felt presences begin to surround him, drawn from his heart. Their prison. They leached from his inner being, raising their voices as they were released from the living cell they'd been trapped in for so long. With every new presence the walls around these spirits' cage weakened, cracking and crumbling as Tai invoked the power to set them free. Spirits of those who had died along his journey filtered through the fissures the brown haired boy initiated, lending their strength to aid him in his fight against the thing that had stolen their lives away.
Tai saw their gaol with his mind; saw the dark sphere encapsulating his heart and all those who lay within. Splits began to appear in the surface of this pitch globe, glimmers of light leaking through as more and more spirits were released. They danced away from that disintegrating confinement, that place they had been banished to when their souls had been cast out from their bodies when they perished. The dark entity had taken over all faculties when it controlled Tai, but there was one part of him that it couldn't rule. That inherent power which made him a Digidestined - the power of courage. Try as it might, this core of might stood strong against its attacks to destroy it. So it had changed tactics. Whenever it took a victim with his body the entity had grabbed at their souls, concealing them inside the dark core it created around Tai's heart, using their misery and torment to manipulate the power of his crest within his essence itself. The crest became warped and twisted, defecting unwillingly to the darkness, lending its energy to the entity that it may control this boy, this vessel. The entity became strong, living off the combined torture of the imprisoned spirits and Tai's own guilt and grief. But also, it drew power from the tainted crest, sapping the very shield it had created around the Digital World so many years ago, darkening its energy and those connected to it until the protective barriers around that land reverted to a solid mass of power which allowed neither entrance nor exit for anything not sprung from the place of its birth.
It never thought Sora would learn of the lost souls.
It never thought Tai could release them.
The determined youth walked slowly, feeling the power of his crest return, sensing it revert to its true state, released from the evil warping it inside his chest. It shone brightly through his skin, burning with the inner fire of one who is showing infinitely more courage then any person should ever have to show. Shapes began to materialize around him, shining faces of those he'd known. They smiled at him, knowing that he hadn't been to blame for those horrendous times, lending their aid in his battle against the darkness. Tai saw them, felt them, sensed them. His body began to blaze with the energy they supplied him with, shimmering like a beacon for lost ships at sea.
An ethereal hand lay on his shoulder, and Tai looked up to see the golden vision of his mother's spirit gazing at him, willing him silently on. His father walked beside her, Miko's form clasped in his arms, quiescently encouraging his son through golden eyes. Tai saw others next to them, each visage familiar, each forgiving him, each helping him the only way they could. His spirit burned with the aching amount of power they bestowed upon him, but he kept on advancing upon the entity crouched before him, fortitude placing one energy-saturated foot in front of the other.
The entity hissed, sensing the turning tide. Desperately it shot a blast of dark lightning at the brown-haired boy in a last-ditch attempt to swing the fight in its favour, but a recovered soul darted before the black spear, shattering into a thousand glittering pierces upon contact, but content in the fact that it had aided the one who was going to avenge its life.
Tai didn't even waver at this, surging forward like a personified wave of power. He halted, mere inches away from the entity's cowering form, the light of justice radiating clearly in his gold-flecked hazel eyes. Suddenly, small delicate fingers intertwined with his, a tiny hand taking his own. Tai glanced down at a little blonde girl, hair billowing in the breeze, gazing up at him lovingly, forgivingly....in a way that her twisted shade never could until reunited with her innocent soul.
The entity lunged at him whilst his head was turned, intending to try and reclaim its host, but with unbelievable speed Tai whirled round and caught its wrists in mid-air. Red eyes locked with hazel, one set wide with fear, the other with power. It hung, suspended by the crackling energy searing the atmosphere, emanating from the seemingly slight teenager standing before it, rain thundering down on him. Tai leaned forward, pressing his tanned face into the entity's until their noses almost touched.
"Game over."
At once the surge of insurmountable power leapt forth, consuming them both in a pillar of brightness. It coursed through their bodies, their minds, their very essences with its vigour, enveloping them with energy as old as time itself, made tangible by will and wrapped in light. The entity screamed once as the all-consuming brilliance entered its stolen form, cutting it core to ribbons and banishing it to infinity.
Clutching at incongruously slender hands, Tai let it flow through him, searing him to nothingness but letting it do so to rid the world of this unspeakable evil. Awe-inspiring powers gushed from him. The power of courage, the power of the spirits' souls, and finally.... the power of love. Love, courage, and soul mixed and mingled, melding together to form one huge blast of energy, which lit up the night sky with its vividness, slicing a hole through the black clouds above as it stretched into the sky. Heavens clashed; sound was rent asunder, as that last battle was fought in a blaze of blinding splendour.
With a rush of magnificence, the unleashed power ended this conflict, erasing all sheathed in its intensity with a final burst of ineffable patina. Nothing screamed, nothing suffered, nothing died; for it's was not the control of life or death. This indefinable power simply ceased the existence of all within its touch, finishing the struggle that couldn't be settled by physical blows alone.
The world fell silent as this ancient authority smashed through the barriers of space and epoch, returning to its rightful place among the stars. A hurling comet streaked like a burning diamond across the deep cavity of the night, as finally the battle was concluded in a heady concord of finality. As the many universes watched through rekindled porticos, a single fracas was concluded in the eternal fight, ended by the light of the ever-indifferent moon.
___________________
Tokyo Tower stood injured in the waning murk of the night, burned and gouged in several places, but still proud and tall. Its orange and white hide gleamed resiliently, as if to say to the world, 'look, great things took place among my rafters, and I'm still here to tell the tale to you.' A soft breeze lightly caressed its steel skeleton, whispering that *it* - if nobody else - had heard this valiant statement.
On the great steel platform surrounding the spire's body a solitary figure stood. Tresses blowing gracefully in the wind, watching as the storm clouds that had filled the night slowly dispersed above its head. Around it were curious marks, like scorches tinted with glitter. The last testament to a great struggle.
Sora pushed a lock of damp chestnut hair from her face, gazing intently into the irradiating firmament. She fancied she could still see a trail of gold, leading away into the waiting arms of all who had gone before it. The teenager turned her hazel eyes to look outward, upon the stirring city.
They don't even realise what happened here tonight, she thought despondently. None of them know what went on among the metal beams so high above them, and even if they saw the light they'll forget about it soon. That's the way of the world. That's life. A single tear trickled down her cheek, and she sniffed sadly to herself, unaccompanied in her dejection.
Suddenly, Sora had the distinct impression that she wasn't alone. Invisible fingers cupped her face, and she felt warm breath blow softly upon her skin. A wonderful sensation of warm lips against hers touched her mind for the last time, leaving an intimate part of itself embedded forever within the girl it loved, before billowing contentedly away on the cool air.
Sora stood for a moment, savouring the lingering taste of ethereal affection. Then smiled. The tender, knowing smile of a soul truly at peace with itself.
"I'll never forget, Tai." She whispered. "Never."
The serene girl gazed out at the scene laid before her, looking at everything as if with new eyes. On a rooftop far below a brown haired adolescent stood, and feebly floating on the gentle breeze fluttered an angel wearing a steel mask and a shrewd smirk.
Beyond the horizon the sun hung suspended in the sky. Golden and bulbous, it shone caring rays down upon the awakening metropolis, as it did everywhere. Beams of yellow light snaked their way through the receding clouds to impart their balmy compassion upon the world it so zealously guarded. Eyelids opened to greet these taken-for-granted miracles, and Sora watched blissfully from her vantage point over them all, happy in the knowledge that she had experienced love.
A new day was beginning.
___________________
Owari.
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