Seihad

by TK Takaishi

After fifteen years of lies, the Khaydarin Empire finally launches its invasion with frightening force. As the prophesied Final Seihad escalates, the only hope of salvation lies with six stand-masters who must relive the legacy of Adun…and surpass it.

13. Seihad Chapter Thirteen

** I don't own digimon.

Seihad: Chapter 13

By: TK Takaishi

Before Takeru's eyes, the world stretched and shrank to a pinpoint, then ballooned like a blooming flower; the passage of time slowed until every beat of his heart felt like a life-age of the universe. Dark shadows of stars wheeled overhead, leaving fiery black trails that burned brighter than the most piercing white light. Revolted, Takeru turned away and closed his eyes, but the stars were there behind his eyelids as well; everywhere he turned violent plumes of dark light writhed and contorted in ways the mind was not designed to comprehend. His skin prickled and burned with a million pinpricks of burning heat and cold; he was wet, then he was dry; he was gulping in air, then he was gulping in sand; his mouth tasted sweet and then it tasted bitter…Takeru felt his stomach clench with nausea as his legs gave way underneath him, only there was no ground to fall onto. He was falling…falling…

Visions passed before his eyes. Mountains heaved and the seas formed. Empires rose, building great legacies and cities, only to leave behind mysterious monoliths and ruins, their names forever concealed within languages long dead before the birth of Adun and the first Seihad. Millions of names and stories passed through his consciousness, lives of people who had walked the earth when Takeru's line had yet to be born impressed themselves upon his memory. The entire life age of Gaea compressed itself into a single instant and burst upon his like a wave of foam breaking over rock. Moaning, Takeru curled into a ball and clutched his head. It was too much to take…too much to remember…too much to experience…

Too much!

Takeru gasped as cold stone slapped against his bare flesh, and suddenly the nightmarish ruin of a reality was gone. Shivering and gulping down air as fast as his parched throat would allow him, Takeru remained curled on the ground for long moments as he waited for the world to stop spinning. Presently, he turned onto his side and threw up…except there was nothing to throw up. His stomach could heave up nothing but air.

For once, Takeru was thankful that he had not eaten anything since the night before.

When he finally felt strong enough, he opened his eyes.

An unfamiliar, dark gray ceiling greeted him. Slowly, as his senses returned to him, Takeru began to see more. He was in a small stone room, completely devoid of all furnishings save a small, crude wooden bench against one narrow wall. Beneath him, the stone chilled him with its cold, as if the sun had not glanced here for a long, long time. A single door made of some kind of roughly cast metal led into it. And to his left…

With a moan, Takeru propped himself up onto his elbows, then levered himself upright. Grinding his sword point into the ground, he staggered to the open window slit set into the thick wall. Reaching the wall, Takeru leaned against it for a few moments as he willed the world to stop spinning. When the nausea in his stomach finally died down, Takeru braced himself against the window-sill and looked out.

He was on a tower of some kind. As he looked out over the gray battlements, the now familiar vista of gray horizon and dead plains greeted his eyes. Automatically, Takeru looked up, trying to find his bearings or, at the very least, gauge how much time had passed since he had been knocked out, but it proved to be a hopeless cause. Strain his eyes as he would, he could see no hint of sunlight through the omnipresent cloud of gray fumes that covered the sky, and it was so dark he could scarcely tell whether it was night or day. He sighed and watched as the white streamers of his breath faded away. After almost a week of staring at such a sky, he had come to expect it. But the air…

The air smelled different.

The air of  Paen province had smelled rotten, as every living thing in the land was wasting away with sickness from the curse that had been cast upon it. Yet the air here did not smell of anything but dead dust. As if nothing had grown here in so long that even the smell of rot and decay had faded away. Wherever "here" was, the curse had been here for centuries…

He looked out again, this time with greater care. Yes, the dead plains had struck him as familiar, but on closer inspection, he could see that wherever "here" was, it was not Paen province. Paen province had been coated with fields of yellowing, dying grass; here there was nothing left but gray dust. Where the sea had still been green and blue off the coast of Ichijouji, here the sea was nothing but a heaving sheet of iron, utterly dead. And the tower…

Takeru looked down and caught his breath. He was so high that he could not see the ground for the billowing gray clouds of grit that blew around the fortress's base. Black gate rose against gray flagstones, soaring towers rode upon jagged battlements, arches flew upon thrusting towers…ever higher and higher until it seemed to him that he was at the peak of some gigantic, organic mountain of stone slabs and steel bars. Banners whipped wildly from the top of some of the towers, and Takeru knew what he would see before he saw them: the golden serpent of Khaydarin.

Yet for all its might and splendor, the fortress was empty. The walls were intact, the gate shut, but Takeru could see no sign of patrolling soldiers or servants tending to the myriad tasks a fortress this size must require. He could hear nothing but the eternal shriek of the wind as it tore hungrily at the snapping black pennants, and a strange, distant roar that swelled and dwindled away like waves on an ocean shore. He could not tell what it was; the sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Slowly, Takeru backed away from the window until he could no longer hear the roar, and sat down.

What was going on?

There was nothing here save spirits and dust.

Takeru firmly pushed down the rising feeling of panic. He leaned his head against the stone wall behind him, closed his eyes again and focused on forcing air in and out of his lungs. When he felt calm again, he ground the tip of his sword into the ground again and forced himself onto his feet.

Once again, he regarded the dark door. There was no doubt in his mind now. He had been sucked through the sangrias to the other side. If Yamato's descriptions were anything to go by, he was now standing in the middle of Khaydarin's capital, on Tichon's own fortress.

Takeru thought back over the last few moments. He had seen Ken, standing fifty paces away, struggling to get to his feet. Kari and Yamato had been beside him when the darkness had struck and everything had gone to hell. He remembered turning to Kari and summoning his stand to throw her clear. But by the time his stand had reached her, the storm of sand had grown so thick that he couldn't see them anymore.

Takeru looked out over the courtyard. The question now was how large the sangrias' opening had been and whether the others had been caught in it. Was Yamato in this nightmare with him? Had he managed to throw Kari clear or not? And Ken? Had the opening reached him?

And where was Khaydarin?

Resolutely, Takeru turned to the doorway and sheathed his sword. One thing was certain. There were no answers to be had on this windswept tower top. He tested the door and, finding it unlocked, marched through.

Inside, the only light came from feeble, sputtering torches set into iron holders in the wall. A set of spiral stairs led downwards into the bulk of the fortress. The footing was treacherous and steep, so Takeru was forced to summon his stand. His stand's staff appeared promptly in his left hand. Holding its glowing tip before him like a torch, Takeru put a hand against the wall and began the dangerous task of descending the stairs.

For several minutes, he crept carefully downwards, one hand holding his staff before him, the other resting on the hilt of his sword. Down and down he went, around and around, until Takeru lost track of all sense of direction. Once, he paused as he willed the world to stop spinning again. In the darkness, he could hear nothing save his own breathing and the slight humming of his stand as it flowed from his fingertips. After a few moments, Takeru gathered his strength, straightened resolutely and continued downwards.

At length, he came upon the end of the stairwell. In the side of the rock wall, another narrow archway appeared, even darker than the first. Cautiously, Takeru extended his staff through the opening, intensified its glow and looked both ways. Seeing nothing, he stepped out into the corridor.

"Which way now?" he muttered to himself.

To his right, he could see the corridor lead to a series of steps that led even further into the depths of the fortress. To his left, he saw the corridor extend for several hundred paces before it reached a sharp bend to the right. Behind the bend, he could see the faint gray glow of the outside. Wherever the corridor led, it led to someplace with windows. After a moment's thought, Takeru turned left. It would be best to explore this fortress systematically, and a search from the top down was as systematic as any.

He reached the bend and looked around it. At first glance, it appeared to be some kind of multi-purpose hall. The walls were lined with narrow slits that let in air and light and little else from the outside. Here and there, strange, barbaric designs had been carved into the walls; patterns that teased the mind and evoked images of snarling jaws and snapping snakes. On top of these designs, richly embroidered violet banners lent a regal air to the entire hall. In the middle, long tables made of some kind of coarse-grained wood filled the floor in strictly regimented rows. At one end, a large, unlit fireplace was set into the wall. A mess hall of some kind for the captains of Tichon's army, perhaps.

Takeru let his staff disappear from his hand as he stepped forward. With the added light from the window slits, it was no longer necessary. He scanned the walls, the tables, the windows, anything for a clue of what was going on, but he found nothing to dissuade him of his first guess: this was nothing but a deserted mess hall. In bewilderment, he tried inspecting the designs along the walls, but soon gave up. If it was a language, then it was not any that had learned before. And if it was art, a glance was enough to convince him that he didn't want to meet the artist.

He inspected the exits. Three other doorways, four counting the one he had come through, led into the hall. All of them came in from a corner, all of them looked identical. Takeru regarded them blankly. His path had forked again. Which way to take?

Frowning in thought, he turned back to his original doorway. Drawing his sword, he channeled a bit of his stand's energy into it until the blade glowed golden, then slashed a mark into the rock. If he ever needed to find his way back, such marks would be invaluable. Turning, he was about to start down the next corridor to the left when he froze.

Footsteps were coming down the center corridor.

Hastily, Takeru ducked back into the darkness of the corridor he had come from. Cautiously, he extended his stand's senses again, but could tell nothing about the person through the omni-present haze of death that permeated the entire fortress. He cursed silently. He had not realized until now just how much he depended on his stand's senses. Without them, he felt half blind.

Long seconds passed as the footsteps grew louder. Presently, a slim figure, shrouded in shadow, appeared at the far end of the mess hall. Takeru raised an eyebrow. It was a woman.

Woman or not, he had no intention of betraying his presence. Takeru held his breath as he watched the person peer about the large room as if searching for something. When she saw the designs on the wall, she leaned against it to inspect it. Takeru watched as the woman slowly stepped along the wall towards him. Tightening his grip on his sword, Takeru hunkered deeper into the shadows. If she came any closer…

Then the figure stepped into one of the dim pools of light from the windows, and Takeru blinked.

"Kari?" he called as he stepped out from the shadows. "Kari!"

Kari turned at his voice. "TK!" she cried. Abandoning her inspection of the walls, she hurried across the hall and threw herself into Takeru's hasty embrace. "I thought I would never find anything breathing, much less you!"

"Me too," Takeru said as he held her tightly. Mixed feelings of disappointment and relief flooded through him. So his last minute throw had not been enough to clear her from the mouth of the sangrias. Yet she was safe. That was something. Pulling back, he inspected her carefully. "Are you hurt?"

Kari shook her head. "Aside from a bad case of nausea from the trip," she said, "not a scratch. You?"

"I'm fine," Takeru reassured her. "Did you see anyone else?"

"Not a soul," Kari said worriedly. "Do you think the others are here as well?"

"We were ahead of everyone else," Takeru said tightly. "But…"

"If we're here, then Yamato must be as well," Kari finished for him. "He was right beside us."

"Right." Takeru said, nodding. "And there's no guarantee those behind us weren't caught as well. But I don't understand something."

Kari gave him a blank look. "What do you mean?"

"Both of us were caught when the sangrias' opened," Takeru said tensely. "But why were we sent to different places?"

"Tichon designed it that way?"

Takeru frowned. "I don't think so. Why would he possibly want it to do that?"

"Who knows?" Kari arched an eyebrow at him. "But just because we don't know, doesn't mean he doesn't either."

Takeru nodded reluctantly. "Alright," he conceded. "But more importantly…," he looked around. "Where is Khaydarin?"

At that, Kari nodded. "I was thinking the same thing," she said. "At first, I thought they had all gone through, but that's absurd. At least someone must have been left behind. Yet…the castle is empty."

It's more than empty, Takeru thought as he looked around, suppressing a shiver up his spine. There wasn't a single soul, human or otherwise, that impinged upon his stand's senses. Not a single rat or cockroach, bird or predator prowled either the inside or the outside of the castle. Something was very wrong. It was almost as if someone had deliberately emptied the castle, so that there would be…

"All the more space for us, Lady Hikari," a smooth, silken voice said.

Takeru and Kari sprang apart. In an instant, both their weapons had been unsheathed and both stands were standing beside their masters, claws and staff at the ready.

Whether the man had walked into the room, or had been hiding in the room all along, Takeru had no idea. The man had simply appeared where previously there had been nothing but empty space. Shifting his sword grip uneasily, Takeru frowned in confusion. There was something wrong…

The man had strong, handsome features. A mane of dark brown hair fell about his broad shoulders, and a pair of hazel eyes, bright and darting as a bird's, took both of them in in a single glance. His fine dark cloak shimmered and shone strangely as the man casually walked around the table separating them. As Takeru had done hundreds of times before, he allowed his gaze to take the measure of the man, to observe the easy grace with which he carried himself, to notice the quick, firm power of his step. Warily, Takeru brought up his stand's staff and crossed it with his sword in a guard. No, this man was not to be taken lightly.

"Stop right there," Takeru heard Kari say sternly.

One corner of the man's mouth twitched upwards in an arrogant smile as he stopped obediently. "It is customary," he said airily, "for the intruders to introduce themselves before the master of the house."

The master of the house…Takeru tightened his grip as his stand leaned forward. That could mean only one thing. But to think that this man…

"But I already know who you are," the man continued, "so I suppose introductions are moot." A bright, cold smile lit up his face. "And I suppose you must have figured out who I am by now."

Takeru could tell that Kari had come to the same conclusion. Her posture, merely wary before, was now positively bristling with aggression.

"Emperor Tichon, of all Khaydarin. Lord of Lies, the Great Deceiver," Takeru said flatly. "We meet at last."

"We do indeed," Tichon said as he swept into a low bow. "So this is the next Adun? The man who has single-handedly derailed my campaign." He regarded Takeru with an appraising stare, then sneered. "I thought you would be taller."

Takeru felt the petty insult slide off the sheer surface of his calm rage. "And I thought you would be prettier," he retorted.

Tichon's gaze hardened. "You are in my way."

"You will not go through the sangrias," Takeru said firmly.

Tichon's eyebrow arched upwards in an amused gesture. "Oh?"

"Your reign of terror is over," Takeru said, his voice flaring with rage. Slowly, he leveled his sword. Beside him, he felt Kari bracing for her attack. "This ends, today."

"You're right, it will," Tichon agreed. "But I think you don't understand something." Reaching up, he unfastened his cloak's broach with a click. With a slight rustle, the nauseatingly shimmering cloak fell away from his shoulders, revealing the long sword buckled to his side. Slowly, almost casually, he drew the sword and threw away the sheath, revealing the midnight-black blade that glowed with the same dark light as the sangrias had.

"This," Tichon said, as if relishing every word, "is my domain."

Kari shifted. "Go on then," she taunted. "Call your men! We'll destroy you after we're done with them!"

"Oh, my Lady Hikari," Tichon said with a sigh. "How naïve of you. I sent my men away for just this reason." His eyes glinted. "So I could enjoy this."

"You knew we were coming," Takeru said flatly. "You opened the sangrias to trap us here."

"Of course," Tichon said loftily. "I know everything, my dear boy."

"No you don't," Kari said through gritted teeth. "You didn't know about Locke."

Tichon glared at her. "He has paid for his crimes," he said, his voice betraying only the slightest hint of anger. "His betrayal is inconsequential."

"Oh no it isn't," Kari said as her eyes began to glow silver. "It let us get to you."

Tichon grinned, revealing twin rows of perfect teeth. "Ah, the idealism of-"

"Enough."

Tichon's outline blurred and disappeared as Kari's silver-white bolt smashed the tables behind him into a thousand spinning splinters. The rapid clatter of their landing filled Takeru's ears as he dove, rolled, then dashed away from Kari. He knew without looking that Kari was already circling in the opposite direction to trap Tichon between the two of them.

The blur that was Tichon resolved itself for an instant atop one of the tables. Another bolt from Kari's stand sent him flying again, but this time Takeru was waiting for him. Gathering his legs beneath him, Takeru leapt onto one of the tables and spread his stand's wings. As Tichon's shadow passed over him, Takeru unleashed his stand and, with a roar, exploded straight upwards.

A resounding clash shook the chamber as their swords met. For a moment, Takeru was blinded by the shower of sparks that exploded between them as, unbelievably, he felt the same slash that had destroyed the walls of Paen province slow to a halt.

It was a moment too much. Before he could gather his wits, Takeru felt his blade being shoved sideways and downwards by Tichon's expert parry. Surprised, Takeru was forced to grab Ichibou with both hands to keep it from being wrenched from his grip and in a heartbeat, he had been sent into an uncontrollable tumble past his opponent.

"Takeru!" he heard Kari shout. "Watch out!"

It was the faintest breeze brushing past his hair that alerted Takeru to Tichon's passing. He could not see his opponent with his back turned, but he could sense him. Somehow, Tichon had pivoted along his parry until he was on top of Takeru.

Merde…

Takeru twisted desperately as he tried to bring his still trembling sword to bear, but it was too late. With a laugh, Tichon brought his sword down.

Takeru summoned his stand.

The golden staff of his stand appeared an inch from the back of his neck and Tichon's thrust was diverted up and past Takeru's shoulder. Takeru's heart skipped a beat as he saw the point of Tichon's black blade whistle a hairsbreadth from his face. But even as his mind reeled from the closeness of the encounter, his body was already moving.

Curling into a ball, Takeru lashed out blindly with his legs. As he had intended, he felt his left leg wrap around Tichon's neck and shoulder. Once the hold was secure, he pivoted again, curling even more until he had flipped completely around in midair and could see Tichon. With his stand's staff still trapping Tichon's sword, Takeru reached up, grabbed Tichon's sword arm and, with a shout, rammed his right knee as hard as he could into Tichon's midsection.

Except Tichon's arm was already there. Instead of meeting soft flesh, the point of Takeru's knee hit only hard sinew and bone. Takeru's mind reeled with disbelief. Was this man human?

Then he had no more time to think as Tichon's elbow smashed into the side of his face. Takeru's vision wheeled with stars as he felt his opponent slip away like a snake. Takeru felt three more hard blows, two to his stomach and one to his sword arm as he fell away, then Tichon was out of reach. Gasping with shock, Takeru could do nothing as his left shoulder slammed into a table as he fell, demolishing the crude wooden construct into tinder, then the world went white with pain as his shoulder hit the unyielding stone ground.

Automatically rolling with his momentum, Takeru emerged from the fall crouching on his haunches, but the damage had been done. Twenty paces away, Tichon landed lightly, completely unscratched. He laughed. "Oh come now," he taunted. "I expected more from the almighty Emperor Takeru, master of the Shun Ten Satsu, the legendary Tenken!"

Takeru said nothing. His vision was still spinning from Tichon's elbow, his sword arm was numbed from the nerve strike, and his left shoulder was a throbbing mass of pain. For a few minutes at least, both of his arms were useless. There was no doubt that Tichon had won that little encounter. Although he tried not to show it, his sword was trembling in his grip. He had taken the measure of his opponent.

There was no way he could win.

Before he could think more though, Tichon swung his sword over his head and charged. Takeru gritted his teeth as he willed his sluggish limbs to move. Move… he screamed silently at his battered body. Move…move!

"Takeru!"

Mere paces from Takeru, Kari slammed into Tichon. Despite her diminutive size, the force of the tackle sent both of them flying sideways. For a few moments, they rolled and grappled desperately along the ground, each trying to gain the upper hand. Too close to use their swords, both fighters used everything they had at their disposal: knees, elbows, fingernails, feet, and even teeth. Blood and spit splattered across the stone ground as the assailants raked each other mercilessly. Wincing at the pain in his shoulder, Takeru struggled to his feet. "Kari, get away from him!" he shouted. "Get AWAY!!"

Whether she heard him, or whether she figured it out by herself, Kari complied. With a quick twist of her hips, she planted both her feet on Tichon's chest and pushed up hard. With no other choice, Tichon threw himself backwards, and the fighters sprang apart. The instant Tichon was out of striking range, Kari twisted, cat-like, onto her feet and drew her weapon. At the same time, her stand roared to life before her. In an instant, the air was suddenly filled with a shower of white shards, flying straight for Tichon.

But Tichon would not be deterred. He did not merely allow the attack to break upon him. Takeru watched incredulously as Tichon deftly advanced into the shower, smashing aside the thick stream of explosive white bolts as one would swat away flies. Once again, another resounding boom rippled across the stone ground as their blades met. Takeru shielded his eyes as the glow of Kari's stand brightened to almost blinding proportions. He had never seen Kari draw so much on her stand's power. And still, she was being pushed back. How can this be? he thought incredulously. How can this man be defeating the two of us so handily?

Pushing down his disbelief, he summoned his stand, and a groan escaped him as the sudden pain drove him to his knees. Shocked, he looked over his left shoulder. The normally pure-white feathers of two of his left wings were now covered with golden blood, and the joints were bent at an odd angle. There was no way he could fly.

Another resounding clang jolted Takeru to his senses. Gritting his teeth, he levered himself up onto his feet and began a stumbling run across the hall. He had to help Kari. He had to! "Get back!" he screamed as he willed his stunned body to move faster. "Get back!"

Again, Kari tried to retreat. Swift as a silver streak, she flipped backwards and pushed off her hands. Just before she was about to leap away however, Tichon leaned forward into his charge and snapped both arms forward. The heels of both palms caught Kari squarely in the belly, and she was sent flying almost twenty paces away. Takeru watched in disbelief as Kari slammed into a chair with a scream and collapsed onto her knees, clutching her midsection.

Kari had the fastest reflexes among all of them, even Takeru, and this man was outmaneuvering her as if she was moving in slow motion. This isn't possible!

"You can't run from me!" Tichon roared as he charged.

Desperate to help the obviously stunned Kari, Takeru spun on his heel, cocked his arm and launched his stand's staff like a javelin as hard and as fast as he could. Please hit! he prayed desperately. I have to slow him down!

But it was if Tichon had eyes in the back of his head. An instant before the staff reached him, he ducked and grabbed the staff with his back hand. Before Takeru could blink, his own staff was hurtling towards him. Leveling his sword, Takeru caught the golden staff on the steel blade, but the force of Tichon's blow was enough to push him cleanly off his feet, parry or no parry. Again, Takeru was sent rolling and sliding across the rough floor. Slamming into the stone wall, Takeru felt his breath leave him in a loud whoosh and for a moment, the world went black as his head hit the hard brick. The next thing he knew, he was slumped face-first on the ground, completely paralyzed with shock and pain. Merde, he swore silently. Merde, merde…merde!

Kari, however, had not wasted Takeru's distraction. Even as Tichon had launched Takeru's staff back at him, her own stand was already lunging for the Emperor with a bloody roar, claws and fangs extended. Swift as lightning, Tichon turned and slashed at the beast's face. For a moment, the flash of light obscured the two combating figures as the stand and the blade struggled for supremacy.

Yes, Takeru thought. Do it Kari!

Then the moment was over and Kari's stand was falling to its side with a dying roar, disappearing like morning mist. And before his fallen opponent, Tichon stood, his blade dripping with the silver stand's blood, his chest heaving with the exertion. Takeru's heart sank. No…

Kari, however, was not done.

"Forward," she screamed, "the SEITZIN!"

Even as Tichon's blade was halfway through its slashing motion, Kari was already charging in, heedless of the long, gash across her temple, her wakizashi held high for a killing blow. Caught completely flat-footed, Tichon roared as he struggled to bring his longer and less maneuverable sword to bear, but it was too late. Faster than the eye could truly follow, Kari was upon him.

Takeru watched with his heart in his throat as for an eternal instant a burst of writhing, electrifying light illuminated the entire chamber like bright sunlight as the stand-master and the demon struggled for supremacy. An explosion of stone splinters and wood chips flew outwards from the titanic clash, slicing apart the remaining tables like paper and forcing Takeru to summon his stand and shield himself from the shrapnel. Not daring to take his eyes away from the fiery explosion before him, Takeru grabbed one of the few surviving tables and levered himself upright.

Then the light faded away, revealing the two combatants, and Takeru almost fell again with shock.

A dark creature, broadly shouldered with the body of a man but the face of a snake, hovered like solid smoke between Kari and Tichon. Patterns of dark blue and black ran across the monster's glowing orange eyes and across his arms and torso, and a shimmering, grey cloak whipped around wildly in the turbulent air. One clawed hand held onto Kari's wakizashi as if the razor-sharp blade meant nothing. The other gripped Kari's neck, lifting her cleanly off the ground as a giant might lift a child.

Unharmed, Tichon leveled his blade and smiled. "Takeru," he said coldly as his blade began to glow a malignant black, "this might be news to you, but…

"…you're not the only ones with stands."

Then wordlessly, he stepped forward and, with one smooth motion, thrust his sword hilt-deep into Kari's left breast, through her heart and out her back.

Takeru felt every drop of blood drain from his face as the world faded to black around him.

No…

He saw Kari's mouth open with shock, but no sound came out. He could hear the splatter of the river of blood that poured from her breast, see the flickering aura of white around her body splutter and die away as her feeble struggles faded away into nothingness.

No…

With a grunt, the black stand lifted Kari's limp form higher as Tichon grabbed his sword's hilt with both hands. Kari jerked convulsively as he twisted the blade deeper into her chest, then roughly wrenched it out, but could do nothing as Tichon's stand spun her around and tossed her across the room like a rag doll. Scrambling, Takeru dove for her falling body and managed to break her fall, but it was too late…

No!

"Leave her, Takeru," Tichon said as he casually flicked Kari's blood off his blade. "We have business to conclude."

Takeru ignored him. Kari felt limp and ominously silent in his arms. Frantically, almost fumbling with fear, he turned her over and laid her gently on the ground. Tearing off his entire cloak, he pressed it to the ragged hole in her breast, but even as he did, he knew it was a useless gesture. Blood was seeping like rivers around his fingers, soaking her clothes and spreading in a pool on the ground. Already her face was as pale as snow, her breathing laboured and difficult. He had seen it before, too many times. And every time it had been this bad…

"You can't die," he whispered fiercely. "You can't die!"

Kari arched her back as she convulsed violently, turned on her side and vomited a stream of blood onto the ground beside her. Hurriedly, Takeru tore off a piece of his cloak and wiped her mouth clear of blood, trying to keep her airway open, but if anything her breathing became more laboured. Taking her face in his hand, he turned her around until he could see her rapidly glazing eyes. "You can't die!" he shouted. "You promised me!" His heart twisted with each word, as if willing them to come true. "Kari!"

Against all odds, Kari seemed to hear him. Her mouth opened as if to say something but nothing came out. Instead, the faintest whisper of a thought-shape brushed across his mind. Help,, she breathed. A single tear fell from her dimming eyes. Takeru…

"I'm here!" Takeru said urgently as he grabbed her hands as tightly as he could. "Don't move, Kari. Don't-"

Live…, Kari whispered.

"I can't," Takeru choked through the lump in his throat. "Not without you!"

Live…

Then even that whisper faded away as her the torrent of blood from her chest slowed and stopped. Takeru froze in disbelief as the ragged movement of her chest stilled, then abandoned his makeshift cloth compress to hold onto her face with both hands as he searched desperately for a sign, any sign of life.

But her eyes, once so bright and lively, were now as blank as pale glass.

"Kari…," he choked. "No…" Numbly, he checked her pulse, then her breathing, but he knew he was just going through the motions. He had seen death enough times to know when it had struck once again.

Kari was dead.

Takeru bowed and pressed his forehead against hers. He couldn't move; he couldn't breathe. The sharp pain in his chest was so intense he felt he would die.

A part of his heart had withered and died with the woman before him.

No…no…

"Leave her," Tichon said again, this time his voice markedly colder and harder. "There is no pleasure in killing an opponent with his back turned. But I am growing impatient."

Takeru turned.

"Ah, you hate me?" Tichon said as he saw Takeru's eyes, a pleased smile twisting his lips. "Good. Because perhaps now, you will finally know an inkling of what you and your kind…" Tichon's eyes flared a malignant red. "…have done to me."

But Takeru did not strike. He did not even advance. Instead, he gently lifted Kari's limp head and untied her hair ribbon, then fastened it to his sword's scabbard.

"I will live," he whispered as he laid her head back down gently. "I will live…"

Then with a bound, he leaped into the air. At the apex of his leap, his stand appeared behind him, superimposed over his own body, and a thousand bolts of golden lightning slammed into the ground around Tichon, throwing up an impenetrable screen of smoke and whistling shrapnel. For a moment, Tichon was forced to wrap himself in his stand's dark aura to repel the rock shards. As the smoke became so thick that Tichon lost track of Takeru however, the dark stand turned to stand back-to-back with Tichon. Narrowing his eyes, Tichon crouched to his haunches and peered intensely into the thick debris cloud. Where would Takeru come from?

But as the seconds ticked away, no attack came. When the smoke finally cleared, Tichon straightened in confusion.

Takeru was nowhere to be seen.

For a moment, Tichon could not believe that Takeru had run. When no sign of the stand-master revealed itself however, red rage filled Tichon's vision. With an inhuman scream, he turned and smashed a gaping hole in the fortress's wall. As the flying bricks fell to thunderous crashes on the dusty courtyard outside, Tichon threw his head back and roared.

"GAEA IS MINE, TAKERU! YOU CAN'T STOP ME!!!"

**********

Prowling the desolate corridors cautiously, Yamato heard, then felt the tremendous crash that shook the fortress to its foundations. Looking up, Yamato scanned the damp, rotting walls of the dungeon in bewilderment, then broke into a dead run.

He had awoken down here, and although it had been years since he had last seen this fortress, he could still remember the correct routes to take him to the top. The locked wooden gates and iron bars posed no problem for him; a quick slash and a kick always left little to obstruct his passage. Skidding down the slimy dungeon flagstones, Yamato rounded a corner, then paused at a forked passageway. Both ways led to the top but to different sections of the castle. Frowning, he looked to the left, then to his right, trying desperately to recall any slight detail that might help him make his decision. Which way should I go?!

As he debated with himself, Yamato heard a series of dull booms, not unlike that of boulders striking rocks, break the brittle silence in the dungeons. Although not as loud as the first explosion, these ones were still loud enough to echo across the endless corridors like dull thunder. Yamato looked up once again, this time with a hint of apprehension. By the sound of it, whatever had exploded up there had demolished an entire wall of the fortress. Yamato knew of very few things in the world that had the destructive force to do that, save…a Stand.

The explosions had come from the right. Judging from the time between the first and the second thuds, the explosion must have occurred somewhere near the top of the castle. Without pausing to think, Yamato took off in that direction. Privately, Yamato reflected on the irony. While others ran away from the danger, he could inevitably be found running towards it.

It was the story of his life. Perhaps that said something about his character.

Then he pushed all such trivial thoughts from his head. Reaching the spiral staircase that led upwards, he smashed the door down and proceeded to mount the stairs three at a time. Yes, here he was at the guard's quarters. He ignored them; he was still too low. Gathering his stand beneath his legs, he vaulted from one staircase to another, then resumed his upwards dash. Perhaps there he'd find some answers.

As he mounted his tenth set of stairs however, Yamato paused just before he emerged from the stairwell. If he recalled correctly, this was the first of the main levels, where corridors became much larger and longer. Cautiously, he raised his head above the bottom stair and peered both ways.

The corridor was deserted. Every few paces, narrow window slits had been carved into the brick walls, and the omni-present gray light that Yamato remembered provided the only source of illumination in the otherwise dark hallway. After checking with his stand to ensure that there really were no one, Yamato straightened up cautiously, his sword drawn and at the ready.

It made no sense. Even at its quietest, the castle had always had some sign of life about it. There should be servants tending to the generals, soldiers tending to the animals in the stables, prisoners to be fed, guarded or executed in the dungeons…there was no end to the tasks a fortress of this size required. Yet the fortress was utterly devoid of life. Uneasily, Yamato shifted his weight slightly, then set off to his left, to where he remembered the next stairwell would be. There was something afoot. He just wished he knew what it was.

Then all uneasiness deserted him when he turned the corner and almost ran into a man.

Springing backwards in alarm, Yamato raised his sword and prepared to summon his stand. How had he not heard him? Idiot! he shouted at himself. You-

"Yamato?" Takeru called. "Yamato, it's me!"

Yamato blinked as he slid to a stop. Takeru stood before him, hands raised cautiously. Yamato felt a rush of relief as he lowered his sword and hurried to his brother. "Thank goodness you're-"

He stopped and frowned. "What's wrong?"

For a moment, Takeru couldn't seem to speak. His face contorted in an odd mixture of despair, rage, and overwhelming grief as tears poured down his cheeks. As Yamato drew closer however, Takeru drew in a ragged breath and wiped away the tears that obscured his vision. Shaking his head, he grabbed his brother's arm. "We have to go," he croaked urgently. "You've been here before?"

"I was brought up here for a time."

"We need a place to hide," Takeru said haltingly between odd, uneven coughs. It took a few moments for Yamato to realize that Takeru was sobbing. "A place to plan. Can you think of one?"

Yamato nodded. "Follow me," he said as he squeezed his brother's arm. Then he turned and took off at a dead run. Behind him, he could hear Takeru's swift footsteps following him. Rounding the corner, he raced down the stairwell he had just come up, sliding down the rail where there was one, taking the steps four at a time where there wasn't. It did not take long for the two of them to descend seven flights.

When they reached the end of the stairwell, Yamato paused, then checked both sides of the corridor. Once satisfied that they were alone, he beckoned to Takeru and tacked right. If he recalled correctly, they were back in the lower catacombs which contained nothing but smithies, spare armouries and storage rooms. Few ever ventured down here.

As he led Takeru past several more rounds and bends, Yamato slowed down slightly as he began to look for a suitable room. He needed something small and infrequently used. Something easily missed.

There.

He grabbed the small armoury's door and yanked at it, but it was locked. Muttering under his breath, Yamato drew his knife, channeled the blade blue, then inserted it carefully into the gap between the door and the doorframe. Sliding the blade down, he felt a small hitch as it sliced neatly through the deadbolt and the door opened easily. Ushering Takeru in, Yamato checked both sides of the corridor again, then stepped in himself and closed the door carefully.

Inside, Takeru had already summoned his stand's staff to shed a little light on the dark interior. Grabbing a nearby crate of arrowheads ready to be fitted to arrows, Yamato wedged it against the door to keep it shut, then swung on Takeru.

"We will be safe here," he said hoarsely. "At least, for a little while. Now tell me what happened."

Takeru didn't answer. Instead, he leaned against the nearest wall and slumped to the floor as if the last of his strength had given way. He buried his face in his hands.

"Takeru?" Yamato said as he drew closer. "Takeru?"

Takeru drew a ragged breath. "Kari is dead," he answered in a flat monotone. "Tichon killed her."

Yamato felt his breath leave him in a giant whoosh as he, too, slumped to the ground. "What?" he hissed.

"Tichon killed her," Takeru repeated automatically.

"You're sure?" Yamato said as he clenched his fists. "You saw…"

"I saw," Takeru said through gritted teeth, "Tichon stab her through the heart with my own eyes. I saw him wrench his sword out and throw her away. I saw…," his voice broke and a gasp of sorrow racked his body. "I saw…I saw her die in my arms."

"Maybe you-"

"Don't insult me, Yamato," Takeru said, his head still buried in his hands. "I know death when I see it. The Creator knows I've had enough practice."

Yamato said nothing. There were no words in all the tongues of Gaea, from the East coast of Yagami to the West coast of Ichijouji, dark enough to describe the despair he now saw on Takeru's face. Before him, Takeru seemed to fold in upon himself as he finally gave full vent to his sorrows. "Yamato," he moaned. "What are we going to do? What am I going to…Kari is…I can't…what am I going to do!!"

Yamato shuffled over and touched his brother's arm awkwardly. He didn't know what to do. He had never seen Takeru like this before. This was not an Emperor of Kings who sat before him. It was a wretched, broken man, wholly defeated and ruined.

"Takeru," he said, trying not to sound harsh. "Listen…"

When Takeru did not respond, Yamato took a firmer hold on his brother's arm. "Takeru, listen to me," he said more firmly. "Look at me!"

Takeru looked up.

"We can grieve for Kari another time," Yamato said. "This, is not it!" Even as he did, he knew how harsh this must sound to a man who had just lost what Takeru had lost, but it simply had to be said. "You saw Tichon?"

Takeru scrubbed his face with his sleeve and took a deep breath. "Yes."

"You're certain it was him?"

"He was dressed in a black cloak, the type Khaydarin soldiers wear, except this one was tinged with a richer violet," Takeru said mechanically. "He had dark brown hair and eyes and a good build. His blade was black."

"That sounds like him," Yamato said doubtfully. "But it could just as well have been-"

"And he had a Stand."

At that, Yamato frowned. Takeru turned to his brother. "I don't know how he ever received it," he whispered. "But he had one. I saw it with my own eyes. And when you think about it, it makes sense, doesn't it?"

Yamato nodded reluctantly. It did make sense. How else would Tichon have been able to open a sangrias without command over the thought-plane. Come to think of it, why had he not concluded this before?

"We fought in some kind of hall on the upper floors," Takeru continued. "But he was too much for us…" He looked up. "Did you see anyone else? We'll need all the help we can get."

"Not a sound or a clue," Yamato said, shaking his head. "I saw no Seitzin in here. Neither did I see any of our friends." His brows knitted with worry. "Though that does not mean they are not here. I couldn't see them when the sangrias engulfed me."

"Then perhaps they are here."

"Perhaps," Yamato said cautiously. "But I would not stake so much on a wishful fancy. We may well be the only two left."

"You're right," Takeru said as he slumped against the wall again. "We need a plan."

"Tichon is not invincible, Takeru. We have a chance."

"What chance do you think we have, Yamato?" Takeru hissed violently as he bolted upright. "You didn't fight him. I did! He brushed Kari and me off like ants!"

Yamato felt his jaw tighten. "I am stronger than Kari."

"Not by much," Takeru said darkly.

"We can-"

"Yamato," Takeru said quietly as he slumped again. "We are fighting in his home. He knows this place. He's got us figured. We don't."

"What are you saying?" Yamato sad suspiciously.

"This," Takeru hissed, "is a fight we cannot hope to win, Yamato. We must flee."

At that, Yamato paused. His eyes grew colder. "This is not the Takeru I know, to admit defeat so easily."

"This is not defeat," Takeru gritted. "We will come back. But we cannot face him here, by ourselves. We have to fight him with our rules, not his."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Yamato said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"The sangrias is outside, and it is open."

Yamato's eyes must have betrayed his skepticism, because Takeru straightened up defensively. "I saw it on my way down, through one of the windows," Takeru said. "With both sangrias open, Tichon can transport people to any corner of Gaea, but the tunnel between the two anchor-points should remain open the whole time. If we can make it there, we can make it out."

Yamato couldn't believe his ears. "You want to turn tail and run?"

"A retreat," Takeru said tightly, "is not a defea-"

Then both brothers fell silent again as another boom rocked the fortress. This time, the explosion was much closer than before.

"He must be destroying entire rooms and walls searching for us," Takeru whispered in awe. "He's half mad!"

"Either way, we aren't safe here," Yamato said as he straightened up suddenly. "Come, we must leave at once."

"Are we going for the sangrias?"

"I see no other choice," Yamato said tightly, "if you will not fight with me. I cannot fight him alone."

Takeru averted his eyes. "I told you why."

Yamato closed his eyes. Yes, his brother had indeed told him why, and in a dark way, Yamato understood.

Takeru was broken, perhaps beyond repair. He had seen it happen to others, but never in his wildest dreams had he thought that it could happen to Takeru. His brother had always seemed a pillar of strength, rock steady against the fiercest storm Khaydarin could send their way. A wave of dread surged through his stomach. It should not have happened.

But it had.

Yamato leaned down, grabbed Takeru's arm and hauled him upright. "We can argue about this later," he said roughly. "Let's just get out of here."

The brothers hurried to the door. Yamato opened it a crack, then peered down both sides of the hallway. When nothing revealed itself after a quick glance, he pushed the door all the way open and began running towards the right. "This way," he hissed. "We need to get higher to get to the main level, then we need to clear the dry moat."

Silently, the stand-masters sprinted down the hall, then up yet another flight of stairs. Yamato glanced left and right uneasily as they ran. There was no mistaking it; there was something about this place that clouded his stand's eye like a veil. Robbed of his stand's senses, he felt half-blind. Where would Tichon come from? Where was Tichon?

They went up past the servant's quarters, then the soldiers barracks, which weren't much grander. Pausing slightly at one, Yamato poked his head into one. Mostly, they were nothing but narrow stone rooms with rows upon rows of small cots. The weapons, armour and gear that Yamato was accustomed to seeing there was gone, as if their masters had taken them with them when they left. Wherever they had gone to, they obviously had need of their gear.

Not a good sign. Yamato thought grimly as he turned back and continued running. The suspicion in his gut was hardening to knowledge now. Not a good sign at all…

When they reached the main hall, Yamato paused.

They were perched on a broad, railed balcony overlooking a huge hall. Around the room, similar balconies broke the smooth walls in a circle of tiered steps. Yamato's eyes narrowed.

He remembered this hall. It was Tichon's throne room, a mere stone's throw from the great black gates that led to the outer courtyard. It had been here that his young mind had been twisted and coerced against its will. There was the solid gold serpent embedded into the floor which he had kissed when he had first been sworn into Tichon's service; and there were the soaring marble pillars which had so intimidated him when he had first been led into this hall. As he looked upon them now, he saw that had not underestimated the hall's size; four men joining arms would not have been able to surround the smallest pillar; a thousand men would have fitted into the hall with room to spare for their mounts and wagons. High overhead, the black, jagged arches he remembered so well from his childhood stabbed downwards like menacing stalactites. Unbidden, dark memories boiled before his eyes. Oh yes, he remembered this hall very well indeed.

Behind him, he heard Takeru gasp. "It's huge," he whispered.

"Yes, huge," Yamato muttered darkly. "Be very light on your feet. Tichon designed it so that the unwary's footstep would echo like a gong in here. It's saved him from many assassins in the past."

Grabbing the banister with his right hand, he flipped over it and landed cat-like on the smooth marble floor. He winced slightly as the small thud of his landing echoed across the chamber. For a few moments he stayed there, crouched on his hands and knees, ready to explode in any direction should danger present itself.

But nothing came whistling out of the dark shadows beneath the arches. Releasing a small breath of relief, Yamato straightened up as Takeru leapt down after him. We're lucky, Yamato thought as he turned to see Takeru stand up from his crouch as well. Tichon hasn't arrived yet. Motioning quickly to Takeru, he started running for the exit.

As he did, he allowed his thoughts to wander and plan their next few minutes of action. What should come next? Some way to get to the sangrias, that was what Takeru had said. If he had seen it, then it could not be far, though it might still be a good idea to steal some horses. Where were the stables again? To the south, somewhere. It had been a long time since…

"Yamato!"

Before Yamato could gather his thoughts, he pitched forward as something slammed into his back, even as Takeru's shout turned into an agonized scream. Twisting like a snake, he was raised his nails and was about to tear into whoever had tackled him when he realized what had happened.

"Oh no…," he muttered in shock as he cradled Takeru's shaking form. "Takeru…"

A shard of dark light longer than Yamato's forearm lay smoking in the ground a few paces behind Takeru. It did not take Yamato long to realize what had happened. Takeru had dodged the one intended for himself, but…

…had taken the one intended for Yamato.

Another shard, longer than the first, had thrust itself so deep into Takeru's lower back that Yamato could see its bloody point protrude from his brother's belly. With each pained breath Takeru took, the jagged edges of the blade tore the ragged wound a little wider. Yamato felt cold.

That was a fatal wound, even for a stand-master.

Takeru squeezed his eyes shut as he curled around the blade that impaled him. "…can't…," he hissed in agony. "…can't…breathe…"

Then there was no more time to talk as a hail storm of the shards descended. Roaring in defiance, Yamato grabbed Takeru by the lapel of his tunic and with a burst of desperate strength, flung him bodily across the room. Takeru howled as he fell and skidded across the slippery-smooth marble, but he, at least, was out of harm's way.

With the shards almost upon him, Yamato channeled as much of his stand's power into his sword as he dared and flung it in a wide arc about him. The blade glowed such a brilliant, lightning blue that all else in the room was driven into shadow as he surrounded himself with its whirring slashes. A cascading torrent of brutal clashes, whistles and shrieks filled the throne room as dark shards smashed against the lightning-blue nimbus around Yamato and ricocheted off with brutal force. The reflected shards flew everywhere, carving long, ashen furrows in the marble floor or exploding against the slender pillars with earth-shattering force. Shreds of the violet tapestries hanging over the throne and around the pillars were reduced to floating shreds in a heartbeat. In moments, the once grand throne room was reduced to a ruin.

Then the attack was over and Yamato slumped against his sword, panting with exhaustion as he regarded the ruined hall around him. He gritted his teeth as he tried to take stock of his injuries, but soon gave up. His body was covered with slashes beyond count.

But none of them had pierced him. And none of his limbs were broken. He could still move.

"Impressive, Yamato," Tichon said as he descended slowly from the third tier on his dark stand's shoulders. "You've mastered a heavenly defense."

Yamato turned and glared, but he did not reply. "Takeru!" he shouted instead, not daring take his eyes off Tichon. "Takeru, are you alright?"

There was no answer. Yamato felt a cold hand close around his chest. "Takeru!"

"You know as well as I do that no-one can survive a wound like that," Tichon said coldly. "Not even a stand-master as remarkable as Takeru."

Yamato looked up, furious. "Keep your venom to yourself, snake," he gritted. "You know nothing of Takeru!"

The smile on Tichon's face slowly faded away as he got his first good look at Yamato's face in years. "You've changed, child," he said coldly.

Yamato gritted his teeth. "Takeru!" he roared. "Answer me!"

There was no answer. Yamato felt the clammy grip around his chest tighten further. He ached to turn and see for himself what had become of Takeru, but he dared not turn his back from Tichon. He felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. What to do?

"Takeru has done something to you."

And then, all of a sudden, his fear was gone. He knew now that Takeru could not help him. With a wound like that, he knew that his brother would not live to see the sun set. He might even be dead now. The thought drove every doubt aside like a storm would drive away mist. Pure, unadultered rage flamed up to take its place.

"Takeru," Yamato spat as he stepped forward, "did nothing." Another step. "He's only undone what you've done to me!"

Tichon watched, bemused, as Yamato advanced, step by ominous step, upon him. "You could have ruled with me, Yamato," Tichon said with a sigh. "Unlike the so-called 'Creator' you serve now, I share my pow-"

"Spare me your drivel!" Yamato snarled. He felt hate, cold as ice and deep as the rift lend strength to his limbs and urgency to his step; hate so strong and overwhelming he could hardly think. Here before him was the man who had killed his family, destroyed his people, and made him help. "You still have the audacity to preach to me?! After all you've done to me and my kin?!"

Almost before he knew it, his forward step had turned into a charge. Impassively, Tichon raised his sword and their blades clashed. Undeterred, Yamato spun on his heel and brought his sword crashing down again. When that was blocked as well, Yamato abandoned all pretense of an ordered attack and began hacking away like a possessed man. Incoherent screams tore from his throat as, stroke by shattering stroke, he drove Tichon back with the sheer ferocity of his charge.

Tichon's mouth tightened. With a quick flick of his wrist, his sword met Yamato's at a strange angle and the edges slid against one another with an ear-splitting shriek. Locking Yamato's hilt with his own, Tichon pushed his opponent's sword away, then spun and planted a brutal kick on Yamato's chest.

"Phwhoa!" Yamato felt his breath explode out of his mouth as he flew backwards. Helpless to stop himself, he landed on his back and slid along the marble floor, coming to rest some twenty paces away from Tichon.

"Yamato," Tichon said wearily as he straightened up from his kick. "I thought we had been over this…"

For a long moment, Yamato could not breathe, much less answer. Clutching his side, he waited until the tight band around his chest loosened and he could draw air again, then coughed as he painfully levered himself onto his hands and knees. "We have indeed," he rasped painfully. "But I was a child then. You won't deceive me again."

"I'm not trying to," Tichon said plainly.

A flash of white rage seared across Yamato's vision. "Twenty years," he snapped as he stood up, "and you still speak in riddles. Get to the point, then. What are you trying to do?"

"I'm merely-"

"Because," Yamato spat, "if you're only trying to wax eloquent about your coming reign on Gaea, then let your sword do the talking!"

Tichon's eyes narrowed. "Well said, Yamato," he said slowly. "But I'm only trying to convince you that your fight is without hope of victory."

"Oh," Yamato chuckled as he forced himself to stand up. "I don't think you can, old man. No matter what you say, I'm not going to stop…"

Tichon's eyes flared. "And what chance do you think you have?" he demanded. "What chance do you think you have against me?"

"More than you might think," Yamato gritted. "I have not wasted the past five years."

"Then what chance do you think your friends have against my armies?"

Yamato laughed. "I have news for you!" he spat scornfully. "We smashed your armies! Last I saw, they were the ones running. Not us."

"I taught you better than that, Yamato," Tichon said sternly, as an elder might scorn a young fool. "A retreat is not a sign of defeat. You of all people should know that."

Yamato felt cold as the import of Tichon's words sank in. "You let us approach the sangrias?" he said incredulously. "You drew your armies away on purpose?" His gaze hardened. "I don't believe you."

"Well, it seems to be working so far, doesn't it?"

"What are you talking about?" Yamato shouted.

Tichon laughed. "I have you three trapped in my own domain, dancing to my tune. And your friends…," his lip twisted in a condescending sneer, "don't have the spine to destroy the sangrias. Not while there is still hope that you three might still walk out of it."

Tichon's eyes strayed to the broken heap in the corner that was Takeru and an edge of malicious enjoyment entered his voice. "But I know, and yes, you know, that that hope is nothing but a fancy. After all," he looked up and met Yamato's horrified gaze with his triumphant one. "Two of you are already dead. The fool's hope they have clung to all this time will finally kill them."

"We have your towers-" Yamato began.

"Not for long," Tichon said as he waved a hand airily. "The moment you three entered, I had my armies turn around. The Seitzin are surrounded. It's only a matter of time."

Yamato staggered. The world spun. "I don't believe you!" he shouted. "You're lying! You've done it before, and I won't fall for it again!"

"Then go see for yourself," Tichon said coldly. He gestured towards the heavy bronze doors at the end of the throne room. "Go on. Prove me a liar then."

Yamato stared at him. It couldn't be true, could it?

Almost without thinking, he found himself turning, stumbling, then running for the bronze doors. When he reached them, he threw his shoulder against them and dug in his heels. The heavy doors swung ponderously open to admit his passage. Staggering outside, Yamato spat and coughed as a blast of gray grit greeted him. Shielding his eyes, he scanned the scene before him desperately.

There, there was the sangrias. He could recognize the five towers and the central hub with its characteristic bronze ring. They were identical in every aspect with its counterpart in Paen province. Identical, except for one thing.

The bronze ring in the middle was alive with dark violet flames. Shimmering and spinning of its own accord, it flashed with a malignant light so bright that it pierced even the omni-present gray fumes of Akeldama. In its light, Yamato could see armies after armies arrayed before it, roaring and stamping in fervent, blood-thirsty anticipation for the slaughter ahead. The flash and glimmer of red light on spear-helm or drawn sword stretched as far as the eye could see. It was more than Yamato could count in a lifetime, more than he could hope to comprehend or grasp with a hundred years of wisdom. It was a host great enough to sweep across Gaea three times over. And before them, the sangrias looked open…

"Look into the sangrias, my boy," Tichon called mockingly from behind Yamato. "If you have the courage!"

Unwillingly, Yamato's eyes were drawn to the ring before him.

"Oh no…" he whimpered.

He could see Paen province. It was as he remembered. The Seitzin, with their multi-coloured banners, were arrayed in full force around the five towers. But the Gaean alliance made no move against the towers. Yamato could see no flames licking at the base of the sangrias, nor could he see the fiery trails of siege boulders crashing into the monstrosity's flanks. Instead, the Seitzin fought desperately against the throbbing waves of black that engulfed them from all sides. The Khaydarin armies that they had sent running had turned around, and were now charging the trapped Seitzin with renewed strength and ferocity. Even from this great distance, Yamato could see the ripples that crashed through the Seitzin's ranks as they absorbed each charge stoically, but he knew they could not last. In the midst of a sea of black, the once mighty United army of Gaea looked pitifully small and outnumbered; a small, sinking island of colour in a world of hungry gray.

And in his heart, Yamato realized Tichon was right.

The Seitzin would not dare bring down the sangrias while the three of them were still here.

And it was going to cost them their lives.

"Do you see now?" Tichon taunted. "Do you really think you have a chance against me alone? I, the stand-master that has walked this earth since before Gaea rose from the sea, do you, a mere child, think you can defeat me? The arrogance!"

Yamato's retort stuck in his throat. What was there to say?

"And once I kill you, I can open the sangrias," Tichon continued, relishing every word. "The Seitzin will be caught from before and behind. Do you really think they have a chance?"

Yamato felt cold tears sting at his eyes. You fools, he shouted soundlessly at the sangrias. Bring it down! Forget about us, destroy it!

But he knew they would not hear. And he knew they would not give up hope. For once, the idealistic optimism Takeru had instilled in his men was going to work against them. They would die clinging to a false fancy, and Khaydarin would triumph.

Tichon was right. It was hope that was going to kill them all in the end.

"Fools indeed," Tichon said. Yamato heard the rustling of the dark Emperor's clothes as he drew closer, but he did not turn around. There would be no sense in killing him now. "You have seen it yourself now. I am no liar. And if you are still not convinced, then you, too, are a fool."

Yamato said nothing as Tichon appeared beside him. Fighting down the dread and loathing in his breast, Yamato forced himself to turn and meet his enemy's gaze. "Get to the point," he said, hating the brokenness he could hear in his own voice.

"As you wish," Tichon said, his voice cold and hard as winter ice. "Fight, and I will kill all of the Seitzin and every last man, woman and child in Ishida. I only broke your country twenty years ago. This time, I promise I will completely wipe it out."

Yamato looked away.

"Surrender," Tichon continued, "and I will spare your people's lives. They will serve me as slaves, but those who do not resist…will live."

"And us stand-masters?" Yamato rasped.

Tichon lowered his sword slowly. Yamato hated the smugness in the gesture. Hated the smugness in Tichon's voice. Hated it because he knew, and Tichon knew, that he had been completely, and utterly broken.

"Since you hate lies so much," Tichon said flatly, "I will be honest. You stand-masters are far too dangerous to be left around. Either way, you and all that remains of your kind will die. Your choice concerns only those that you will leave behind."

Yamato staggered away from Tichon in shock. So it had come down to this. Tichon had not really given him a choice, and he knew it. His death did not concern him. They had all known when they started this war that death could come for any of them at any time. As one that had ridden along the sometimes blurred knife-edge of life and death his entire life, Yamato had lost his fear of it.

But to think that his death would accomplish nothing save to sell his people into bondage…forever…

Was that all he was worth?

Why has it come to this? a voice in his head screamed. The cloaked stranger promised me he would lead me across the rift. Why then, has he not?

But it did not matter now. The war was over and Tichon had won.

The despair that clawed at Yamato's heart was more than he could bear. After a few short weeks of blissful freedom, the life he thought he had escaped was going to return. Looking up, he stared at the sangrias, straining his eyes to see his friends, the stand-masters who had been the only ones to accept him back from the dominion of darkness.

He didn't know what he wanted from them. Consolation, perhaps? Reassurance? Forgiveness he didn't deserve? He didn't know and he didn't care. Before he sold their entire world into slavery, he wanted to see them.

It did not take him long to see the four familiar pillars of light, each holding a corner of the hated pentagram, leading their respective nations in the desperate struggle to hold the sangrias until they returned. Ken held the northern tower, Davis the western one, Cody the south-western and Yolei the southern. They had wisely left the eastern one empty, as the fighting was thinnest there. The sight of their heroic last stand filled Yamato with shame. There they were, giving their men's lives, giving their lives, for the mere hope of his return. And, as cruel fate would have it, he would be the one to throw all their hopes away…

My friends, forgive me, he pleaded silently. Forgive me…

"Your decision, Yamato," Tichon said quietly. "Now."

Yamato turned. If looks could have killed, Tichon would have been burned to a crisp where he stood. He opened his mouth. "I sur-"

Wait.

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere. Yamato's voice caught in his throat as for a moment, the sheer majesty and power behind that simple whisper set his heart vibrating with awe.

"You?" Tichon prompted.

Yamato ignored him as he quickly quieted his heart. Takeru had told him about his encounters with this voice. This whisper that had guided him in the past. I am here…, he told the voice uncertainly. What would you have me do?

There was nothing but the howling of the wind. Then…

Open your eyes, Yamato.

And see what?

He looked before him. Nothing was different. The great black host was still there, as large and menacing as ever. The bronze ring of the sangrias still spun in its wreath of violet flames. Within the sangrias, the sight of Paen province remained unchanged. The four stand-masters stood at the forefront of their armies as always. What would you have me see?

For a few moments, he stared uncomprehendingly at the sight before him as he awaited an answer.

Then it struck him like a feather and a thunderbolt at once.

He knew this scene.

It had been described to him once before.

And it was not right.

He turned to Tichon, his eyes wide with realization.

"You're lying…"

**********

Takeru sprang back as his brother raised his sword. "Yamato?" he said incredulously. "Yamato, it's me!"

Takeru saw a relieved light come into Yamato's eyes as he finally recognized him. His brother extended his arms as he came forwards. "Thank goodness you're-" Yamato paused as he got a good look at Takeru's face. "What's wrong?"

For a moment, Takeru couldn't speak. He knew that he must look terrible, but whatever he looked like, it could never reflect what it felt like inside, as if someone had stuck marble-sized shards of glass right into his heart. As Yamato drew closer however, Takeru drew in a ragged breath and wiped away the tears that obscured his vision. He had to pull himself together. Just for these next few crucial minutes…

"We have to go," he heard himself croak urgently. "You've been here before?"

"I was brought up here for a time," came the reply.

"We need a place to hide," Takeru said haltingly. Silently, he cursed the sobs that racked his body, but every scrap of self-discipline had deserted him. He could only make do. "A place to plan. Can you think of one?"

Yamato nodded. "Follow me," he said as he squeezed Takeru's arm. Then he turned and took off at a dead run.

For Takeru, the journey passed in a blur. After the first three turns, Takeru gave up trying to keep track of their progress and resigned himself to following Yamato blindly down the confusing, twisting passageways. All he knew was that Yamato was leading him down. Down, down and down…

A few minutes later, Yamato seemed to pick one of the small doors about them at random and tried to open it. Apparently finding it locked, Yamato drew his dagger. Takeru watched numbly as his brother quickly sliced the deadbolt, opened the door and pushed him inside.

It was some kind of small armoury. Shelves and racks of swords and spears lined the walls and crates upon crates of arrows were stacked in a neat pile in a huge chest in the middle of the room. There was no light. Automatically, Takeru drew upon his stand and called forth his glowing staff again as Yamato hurriedly shut the door behind them, plunging the room into darkness.

Yamato grabbed a nearby crate of arrowheads ready to be fitted to arrows and used it to wedge the door shut. Then he swung on his brother. "We will be safe here," he said hoarsely. "At least, for a little while. Now tell me what happened."

Takeru couldn't answer. He felt his legs tremble as they gave way beneath him and he slumped against the wall and to the ground. He buried his face in his hands.

"Takeru?" Yamato said as he drew closer. "Takeru, tell me!"

Takeru drew a ragged breath. "Kari is dead," he answered in a flat monotone. "Tichon killed her."

Takeru heard a thump as Yamato slumped to the ground as well. "What?" his brother hissed.

"Tichon killed her."

"You're sure?" Yamato said as he clenched his fists. "You saw…"

"I saw," Takeru said through gritted teeth, "Tichon stab her through the heart with my own eyes. I saw him wrench his sword out and throw her away. I saw…," his voice broke and a gasp of sorrow racked his body. "I saw…I saw her die in my arms."

"Maybe you-"

"Don't insult me, Yamato," Takeru said, his head still buried in his hands. "I know death when I see it. The Creator knows I've had enough practice."

For a long moment, Yamato was silent. It was just as well. Takeru did not feel that he had the strength left to answer any more questions. The pain grew so intense it felt almost physical, as if someone had ripped out a part of his chest. Folding around the hole in his heart, Takeru gave up trying to hold his grief in. "Yamato," he moaned. "What are we going to do? What am I going to…Kari is…I can't…what am I going to do?!"

"Takeru…," Yamato said uncertainly. "Listen…"

Takeru hugged his legs and curled into a ball. He just wanted to melt into the ground and disappear. He had never felt like this before. Every breath was an effort, every beat of his heart a spasm of pain in his chest. He wanted to die…

"Takeru!" Yamato said harshly. "Pull yourself together, man!"

Takeru looked up in shock. Yamato's face twisted in anguish, but his voice remained as unyielding as the stones around him. "There will be a time to grieve for Kari, but it is not now!"

Takeru had never heard Yamato speak so harshly since their duel at Palas. The sheer shock was enough to drive a bit of the stupor of pain away. "You're right," he said as he tried to control his breathing. "You're right…"

"You saw Tichon?"

Takeru scrubbed his face with his sleeve and took a deep breath. "He claimed to be, yes."

"You're certain?"

"He was dressed in a black cloak, the type Khaydarin soldiers wear, except this one was tinged with a richer violet," Takeru said mechanically. "He had dark brown hair and eyes and a good build. His blade was black. And he had a Stand."

Then he stopped as he saw Yamato's face turn ghostly pale in his stand's light. "What is it?" he said worriedly. "What did I say?"

"He had a Stand?" Yamato said, his voice a hushed whisper. "It's him then, in the flesh. Not merely a mirrireid bearer."

Takeru  straightened up even more. "Yes, then, it's him," he said hollowly. "What is the matter?"

"I didn't expect him to come for us personally."

"So what?"

"Takeru, you don't understand," Yamato said as he shook his head. "If it's him in the flesh, then we can't beat him."

"What?"

"I've trained under him," Yamato said intensely. "Takeru, I know him. I've fought with him. He's not human! He can destroy both of us with a thought. I've seen him do it!"

"You're talking nonsense," Takeru said heatedly. "Yes, he's strong. But he's not invincible!"

When Yamato said nothing, Takeru shifted his staff slightly to better cast its light on Yamato's face. What he saw there drove all doubt away, and shocked him into wordlessness.

Yamato was deathly afraid.

"You're afraid of him," Takeru said flatly.

"You should be too."

"I am," Takeru admitted.

"Not nearly as much as you should be," Yamato said darkly.

Takeru could not believe his ears. Was this really Yamato, the former Praetor of the iron mask? "Then what would you propose?" he said coldly.

Yamato said nothing for a long time. Then…"We need to run."

"I am not running," Takeru said flatly.

Yamato frowned. "I know how you feel about Kari, but…"

"I am not running," Takeru gritted through clenched teeth.

"Takeru, for once in your bloody life, listen to someone who knows more about this than you do!" Yamato exploded. "If you stay, you will die!"

"We only need more help," Takeru said stubbornly.

"And what help, o wise stand-master, can be found in a place like this?"

"Maybe the others are here as well. Perhaps the others were taken through the sangrias with us. We can't be sure how far the sangrias extended when it opened."

"They're not here."

Takeru felt something snap within him. "And how the hell do you know?!" he hissed. "What is the matter with you!"

"Because I saw it," Yamato snapped back. "Moments before we got sucked into the sangrias. I saw Ken , Yolei and the others standing further back. They weren't being pulled in Takeru. We're the only ones here!"

Takeru growled as he buried his face in his hands, but even he could not deny that. When he said nothing, Yamato laid a cautious hand on Takeru's shoulder. "Takeru, you want help? It's on the other side of the sangrias. That's where we have to go!"

Takeru still said nothing. He didn't know why, but the very idea of crawling back through the sangrias rankled him. The fact that he didn't seem to have a choice was more insulting still. For a moment, the sight of Kari's broken body flashed before his eyes and Takeru felt his heart lurch within him once again. He squeezed his eyes shut as he willed the image away in an effort to fend away the wave of pain that accompanied it. Yes, he had promised her that he would live.

But even as he had, he had also promised himself that her death would not go unavenged.

"Merde…," he swore viciously. "Merde, merde, merde…Stolok Merde!"

There was a moment's silence. Then…"Does that make you feel better?" Yamato said quietly.

Takeru glared at his brother. For a moment, inexplicable hate welled in his heart for his brother as well. He pushed it back down with a twinge of shame. "It does not," he retorted curtly. Then he clenched a fist and smashed it against the wall. "Merde! It was not supposed to happen this way!"

"And how would you know?"

"Because I've seen the ending to this war," Takeru said brokenly as he allowed his fist to fall to his side.

"What are you talking about?"

"I've read it in Prophecies. I know how it ends. And it does not…"

Takeru stopped.

"Wait just one moment," he said as he looked up with wide eyes at Yamato's stony face. "It does not…"

"Does not what?" Yamato said impatiently as he stood up. "Come, we have to go!"

Takeru shifted position so that he could see Yamato's eyes clearly. Carefully, he brightened his stand's glow until no trace of shadow remained on his brother's face. "Yamato," he said slowly. "I want to ask you a question:

"What did the cloaked man say to you?"

**********

Around him, the wind crescendoed to a roar as Yamato looked back at the sangrias. A stinging storm of grit stung at his hands and eyes, but Yamato could care less. His mind was elsewhere, to the day before, around the campfire with his friends…

"Through the rain of fire," Yamato recited in a whisper, hardly daring to trust his own memory, "through the great heaving of the restless earth, through the red light of the blood-stained sky, I beheld the sight of this land's salvation."

"I can't hear you, Yamato," Tichon hissed menacingly. Yamato heard an ominous rattle as Tichon raised his sword slightly. He ignored it.

"Angels dressed in liquid light," Yamato continued slowly and carefully, "stood at each corner of the Devil's Rune, and held back all the world with their mighty strength."

No, he had not got it wrong. Kari had told him the whole prophecy the night before they had began their last charge. He was certain he had it right.

"No breath of wind," he breathed, "no drop of water, no spark of fire; no sword of man, no fang of beast, no arrow of demon…" He looked up. "…will disturb the final Seihad."

Tichon stared down at him. His eyes held nothing but confusion and rage. "I don't know what you're talking about," he snarled. "But I lose patience. I will not ask another time. Your decision!"

But Yamato refused. He knew now that there were more than two choices. Tichon was not telling him something. "You're lying!" Yamato shouted as he sprang away from Tichon. His sword blazed bright blue once again as he hope stirred in his breast. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"You speak nonsense," Tichon said in disgust. "Do you truly believe that will buy you time?"

"Nonsense?" Yamato laughed out loud. "Nonsense?" He shook his head. "No, I speak truth. Perhaps that is why you, O Lord of Lies, can never understand!" He swung his sword out to point at the sangrias. "You're missing an angel!"

Tichon's face twisted in disbelief. "What?"

"You've got the picture all wrong!" Yamato shouted. "There are five stand-masters out there right now. One for each corner of the sangrias. You're missing one!"

"I am missing nothing," Tichon hissed. "What is, is. Even I cannot change that. You can see for yourself. There are four out there. Not five! Have you lost your mind?"

**********

Yamato frowned in confusion. "Why this all of a sudden?"

"Humour me," Takeru said as he leaned backwards, trying to appear relaxed. In truth, he did not believe he had ever been this tense in his life. "I just want to be reminded. What did the cloaked stranger say to you?"

"The cloaked stranger?"

"You know what I'm talking about," Takeru said. Surreptitiously, his hand crept down to his belt, ready to out sword in an instant if need be. "The one I introduced you to."

"I know," Yamato said testily. "I just don't know why you would want to know at a time like this."

Takeru's intense gaze burned into Yamato's. "Like I said," he said slowly. "Humour me. Please."

Yamato sat back and was silent for a moment. He looked down and his face passed into shadow. Not wishing to alarm Yamato, Takeru resisted the impulse to move his stand's staff closer. He would have to rely on Yamato's voice and answer.

"He said…" Yamato said at last.

Takeru's eyes narrowed.

"That if I atoned for my sins," Yamato said softly and with utter conviction, "then he would lead me across the great rift."

In a flash, Takeru's stand exploded out of Takeru's chest like a shot. Before Yamato could even blink, the golden angel had crushed the distance between the brothers like a striking snake. The sudden light was so intense in the previously dark room, coloured motes burst upon Takeru's vision like ripples, blinding him for an instant.

Dear Creator…

Yamato coughed.

The sudden blast of wind that had ripped through the room with the stand's charge fluttered, then died away.

The motes cleared away and Takeru blinked.

Why did it have to be Yamato…

Before him, Yamato staggered backwards. In disbelief, he took hold of the long, golden rod embedded in his chest with one shaking hand, then sank to his knees. He coughed again. Blood splattered across the floor of the armoury.

"Why?" Yamato choked.

"The cloaked stranger said no such thing," Takeru said as he stood up. His gaze, merely intense before, was now as hard as steel. "You cannot atone for your sins, Yamato. They were already forgiven."

"And how would you know?" Yamato wheezed as he collapsed onto his hands and knees. As he fell, Takeru could see that his staff had plunged all the way through his brother's chest. Its bloody end was protruding out of Yamato's back. "How would you know what the cloaked stranger said to me?"

"Because he talks to me too, you know," Takeru said quietly. "All the time."

Yamato looked up. A trickle of blood trailed from one corner of his mouth, but the light in his eyes no longer seemed like that of a man betrayed. Only shock remained. Shock and hate. His outline started to blur with dark light, as if he were a mannequin of smoke beginning to unravel.

"How did you know?" he rasped.

Takeru took a deep breath. "The Last Seihad will be fought between the Tenken and the Lord of Lies," he said. "And only two will ride forth. There can't be three of us, Yamato." His eyes flashed. "I wasn't sure, but after your answer…I was."

**********

"None of this is real, is it!" Yamato accused as he circled around Tichon warily, his sword raised. He tossed his head towards the black-covered plain before them. "That isn't real! That isn't a plain, I see. That is not the sangrias. Those aren't your soldiers. They're an illusion. I'm seeing nothing but thin air!"

Tichon stared at Yamato and said nothing. Encouraged by his silence, Yamato continued, his eyes alight with excitement.

"You've been deceiving us all along! There were only two stand-masters that entered the sangrias, weren't there? Not three! That's the only way there can be five left to defend each corner of the sangrias!"

Yamato whirled around and pointed an accusing finger at the crumpled heap that was Takeru. "I don't know if he's real or not, but what he said cannot be true. He cannot have seen Kari die, because both of them cannot have come through."

Tichon stuck the point of his black sword into the ground and rested both his hands on its hilt. Still, he said nothing.

Yamato's mind raced as the pieces fell into place so fast he could barely keep up. "We never left the sangrias, did we?" he said, his voice slowing down as the implications caught up with the revelations. "We entered it, but we never left." He met Tichon's gaze with his own hard stare. "All this…they're nothing but thought-shapes. And I can't change it because…" Yamato looked around, his eyes wide. "…because…"

**********

"This is all a dream," Takeru murmured. "I can't change it because this is a dream. Tichon's dream. And I'm caught in it."

Before him, the dying Yamato snarled but said nothing. Takeru smiled.

"But because I'm here, in the flesh," Takeru continued quietly, "I can still be hurt. I can still die."

Yamato chuckled harshly. The sound felt like sandpaper scraping together in the small room. "Then realizing it won't help you," he wheezed, "if you can still die…"

Takeru's eyes blazed with wrath. Taking a step forward, he raised his sword high above his head.

"But so can you."

Yamato raised his anguished gaze to meet Takeru's.

"Are you willing to bet your brother's life on that little fantasy?"

**********

Tichon transfixed Yamato with a cold stare as the stand-master stood facing him, his eyes alight with renewed hope. "Are you quite done?"

Yamato felt doubt take hold of his heart again as he saw Tichon's condescending smile. "Done?"

"Can't you hear what you're saying, Yamato?" Tichon said as he calmly stroked his sword's hilt. "You're raving. I've seen it before. The ravings of a madman desperate to see what he wants to see."

"I'm not," Yamato said, his chest heaving. "I'm not, and you know it."

Tichon said as he narrowed his eyes. "Then you are fool enough to hold the obscure, translated sayings of a five hundred year old text, written by a delusional man in his last days, as sounder evidence than that of your own eyes?"

**********

Takeru sighed. "Yes," he said simply.

Then he took another step and, with one smooth stroke, cut off his own brother's head…

**********

Yamato lifted his head proudly. "Yes," he said simply.

Then he hefted his sword and, with a shout, began to channel…

**********

And the angel said, "For though the Tenken comes to bring peace, his appearance will herald war. Friends will tear at one another, brothers will kill in anger. Beware the Lord of lies, for his tools are many, but his signs are few. I tell you, have nothing to do with his evil devices."

- Prophecies 4:12

**********

It began as a mere flickering of the shadows, a small tremble in the air. The colours washed away first, like the fading away of an old painting. Then the solid flagstones of the room's walls grew hollow, the scuffle of his boots against the rough floor bricks became tinny and distant. A blanket of dark mist veiled his eyes as everything around him unraveled like smoke, just as Yamato had done. Even the air lost its acrid, tangy flavour as the omni-present haze of grit faded away. Stepping backwards, Takeru held his breath as he held his sword bared and ready.

This time, he was ready when the floor faded away beneath his feet. Falling through the semi-translucent floors of the rapidly fading fortress, Takeru opened two of his stand's uninjured wings and stayed balanced as he descended. Wide-eyed, he looked down as he phased through floor after floor. In moments, he was past the soldier's barracks, and was down among the smithies. Then after that, there were the dungeons. With each transition, a tingle of cold raced up the length of his body and culminated in his spine, making him shiver with shock. It was, to say the least, a strange experience.

Then even that faded away into black nothingness as Takeru's boots made contact with a ground of sorts. Takeru folded away his wings as he spun around in a circle, expecting to see the black infinity of the thought-plane.

What he saw was anything but.

It was, Takeru would later recall, the only sight that would make sense. But that realization did nothing to dull the awe of the moment.

To his left, a huge, mile-wide hemisphere opened to Paen province. Takeru could see the five stand-masters, one at each tower of the sangrias, blazing like five brilliant pillars of light in glory undimmed before the hungry black swells that broke upon them like waves. With a surge of relief so powerful it made him giddy, he saw the pure white light of Kari's stand glowing bright and strong on the eastern-most tower. So she had never entered the sangrias; her death was nothing but an illusion. He had managed to throw her clear after all. Thank the Creator, he prayed as he squeezed his tearing eyes shut. Thank the Creator…

The picture was exactly as Adun had foretold it. But the dimensions were all wrong. It reminded him of the trick mirror Davis had given him once as a joke; a mirror that warped any image that fell upon it into outrageous shapes. The center receded away and the edges bulged forward nauseatingly, increasing his field of vision until he could see the whole of the Paen valley. From this tremendous height, the armies that clashed seemed like mere ants to his sight, scurrying and swirling, charging and retreating. Takeru reached out to it hesitantly and wondered exactly how far away he was from home. How did one tell distance in this dimensionless void?

As he turned to his right, Takeru recoiled at the sight of another huge hemisphere opening unto the familiar gray vista of Tichon's realm. The loathsome towers of Akeldama and the roaring ranks of black soldiers filled the mile-wide opening until nothing could be seen but black stone and armour. He now knew what the roar he had heard in the tower was. It had been the bloodthirsty calling of this host as they stood at the gate of the sangrias waiting for their master to unleash them. In one thing at least, Tichon had not lied. His hosts were as great as he said they were.

"Takeru!"

Takeru looked up.

"You both figured it out," Tichon hissed. "How? The illusion was perfect!"

Takeru snapped back into his stance. Before him, he saw Yamato do the same as he circled around to trap Tichon between the two of them. Suspiciously, Takeru shifted his stance so that he could see both his brother and Tichon at the same time, but it was as if Yamato could read his thoughts.

"The cloaked stranger said," Yamato shouted, "that if I took his hand and never let go, he would lead me across the great rift."

Takeru released a breath of relief he hadn't known he was holding. "'And the angel said," he shouted back. "Beware the Lord of lies, for his tools are many, but his signs are few. I tell you, have nothing to do with his evil devices.'"

Takeru watched as some of the tension left Yamato's face as rage entered Tichon's. "Adun," Tichon rasped as he heard Takeru's words. "I hate him. I hate him, hate him, hate him…hate him!"

Takeru hissed in shock as Tichon's voice turned into an animalistic scream of rage. "Five hundred years, and his arm still foils me!"

In horror, Takeru recoiled as Tichon transformed before him. The once strong features of the Khaydarin Emperor sagged as the flesh over his bones melted away like mist. His once long, rich mane of dark hair fell away in long tufts until only a few limp strands remained. His broad cloak and armourpiece creaked as it sagged against his narrow shoulders. Yet even as his body wasted away before his opponents, a manic, malevolent light, more intense and fanatical than the most rabid hunter-seeker entered his eyes. An aura of dark light that sucked and tore at what little illumination there was to be had in this realm of thoughts sprang to life around him like hungry flames.

"I will not be denied my rightful place!" Tichon roared. With each passing second, his voice grew less like a man's and more like a creature's. Gone was the cultured accent, the coldly polite tone. Takeru's eyes widened as Tichon's aura of power expanded like an explosion, stinging and burning his face and hands like a blast of freezing wind. Was this still Tichon that faced them, or some beast?

"You're not human!" Takeru heard Yamato shout from the other side. "You're no man!"

"FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS I HAVE WALKED THIS LAND," Tichon shrieked. "AND THE CREATOR FOILS ME STILL!!"

And all of a sudden, in a blinding flash of realization, Takeru finally understood his enemy. Understood him perhaps, even more than he understood himself. He knew now what drove this Emperor, this being, to such crazed ventures, to such reckless hate. He knew now the very nature of this pitiful creature that howled like a trapped animal before him.

It was the same thing that had driven otherwise decent people to tear down the Age of Gods in fear and loathing of each other. It was the same thing Takeru had found in himself, and fought against time after time, in the deep watches of the night, when all his newfound power had giddied and intoxicated him like maddening wine.

It was pride.

"You were created by Him as well, weren't you?" he shouted.

Tichon turned and snapped at him. Takeru recoiled as a stream of fetid saliva trailed from those snapping jaws. Hiding his disgust, he ploughed on. "Yet you seek to supplant him," he shouted. "You grew proud of your own power!"

Then Takeru felt the breath freeze in his throat as Tichon looked up and pierced him with his glowing glare. Was it just his imagination, or was Tichon growing larger again? The gaunt, skeletal frame quivered with an eternity of repressed hate and frustration as Tichon drew his sword and advanced.

"Gaea is His," Takeru shouted defiantly as he raised his sword to defend himself. "It has been, and always will be, His. You will never have it!"

Tichon's eyes flared with wrath. "I WILL HAVE IT, BOY, AND YOU WILL NOT STOP ME!"

But the threat held no meaning for the young stand-master. Yes, he was but a mere boy compared to this immortal, but the power of something far greater and more ancient than him flowed within his veins. Stripped of his lies, the five hundred thousand year old Tichon was no more powerful than Takeru, and both combatants knew it. It was but borrowed power that they wielded, and not their own. Takeru could feel it burning within him. Strength enough to corrupt and desecrate a creature until nothing was left but the hollow shell he saw before him, or strength enough to defeat that corruption. And he had made the choice six years ago, in full witness of the Creator Himself, when he had first embarked on his quest after his commission at Palas kondou. His eyes hardened as they took in the loathsome creature before him.

It was time to see that choice out to the bitter end.

Takeru drew his sword up until the blade stood straight up before his eyes. Solemnly, he kissed the pommel; a duelist saluting his worthy opponent. "Try me," he said calmly. Then with twin battle cries, both stand-masters whirled into a tight circle of blue and gold around Tichon, completely surrounding the Lord of Lies.

A glowing circle of light to contain the dark…and crush it.

The last Seihad had begun.

**********

Kari shielded her eyes as another dark explosion shattered the ground mere paces down the line. The tremendous boom knocked the soldiers around her off their feet; a rain of shrapnel and blood beat out a grisly cadence as they bounced off the Seitzin's raised shields. Screams and shrieks filled her ears as at least a score of men were hurled bodily into the air and the Seitzin line began to buckle beneath the renewed Khaydarin onslaught. "Courage!" she shouted at the failing Yagami soldiers around her. "Hold the line! Hold it!"

Taking heart from the sight of their stand-master standing tall and unafraid, the battered Yagami line rallied and held under the charge. The surprised and frustrated Khaydarin invaders found themselves thrown back for the fifth time as the exhausted Seitzin's sword strokes redoubled in strength and ferocity. Satisfied that her men were still fighting with all they had, Kari turned furiously towards the enemy. Her eyes blazing silver, Kari clasped her hands together before her, and summoned her stand.

The white beast behind her arched its back as it let loose an earth-shattering roar. With a shout, Kari threw her arms open, even as her stand snapped its wings back and unleashed a deadly storm of explosive white shards in retaliation. A dozen explosions tore gaping holes in the Khaydarin line and Kari saw, with no small amount of satisfaction, the mirrireid-bearer who had launched the first blow shriek as he crumpled in white flames.

Seeing the enemy fall beneath Kari's attack, the men behind her roared. "Courage!" the battle cry sounded up and down the line. "Hold! Hold!"

Riders! Incoming riders! Ken yelled.

Stunned, Kari whipped to her left. Khaydarin riders were indeed sweeping across her position in their charge against Ken. In the distance, Kari could see Ken's Ichijoujan soldiers hastily rearrange their formations, pikemen to the front, archers to the back, but it was obvious from a glance that it would not be enough. Their lines were too few, too shallow to stop a determined charge.

"Archers!" she shouted. "Riders!" Her stand swung its head to her left and loosed another barrage of white lightning, even as she swept her wakizashi at the horsemen. "Bring them down!"

All along the line, Yagami archers turned as one. A giant creaking noise filled the air as they drew their longbows, then the sky was suddenly full of a withering rain of shafts. Loud thuds and vicious shrieks mingled with the explosions from Kari's stand as the entire left flank of the rider's charge was instantly hewn down. The Yagami archers managed to get in two more volleys before the charge passed out of range, but it was enough. Ken's own bowmen made short work of the remaining riders and in moments, the charge was broken.

Gasping for air, Kari straightened up as she watched the unending Khaydarin armies fall back and regroup for yet another charge. Behind her, her stand wavered and disappeared. "Hold!" she gasped. "They will come again!"

I can't hold for much longer! Yolei cried. I don't think I can summon anymore…

Damn those two, Davis gasped. Takeru and Yamato are taking their time aren't they?

They'll come when they come, Ken said, his thought-shape flickering with exhaustion. Until then, we have to hold!

We will hold, Kari shouted. In the distance, the black armies rippled as another wave began their advance. Her whole body shook as she reached deep within herself to some hidden store of stamina and dragged forth the last dregs of her stand's power.

We will hold for as long as it takes!

**********

The battle was unlike any that Yamato had fought before. As he and Takeru whirled through the battle, trading blows with the shrieking Tichon trapped between them, Yamato threw caution to the winds and drew on his stand as he had never before, pushing himself and his stand to the utter limit. The electric blue light that roared through him was so intense he felt like he was on fire. The pain from drawing and burning so much of his stand's energy in so short a time was acute, but Yamato's concentration had taken him past pain. He no longer heeded it; it was but a dull ache to be pushed away.

He lost track of time as he fought. Had they been dueling for minutes? Hours? He didn't know. Such perfect concentration required the ignoring of everything else, including the passage of time. All he knew was that they seemed to have battled forever. He could not remember a time when he had not been struggling with this fell beast that snarled and snapped at its opponents. Some distant part of him knew that he was pushing himself dangerously close to the limits of his stamina, that he must be tiring despite the void of concentration he had surrounded himself with, but a much louder part of him didn't care. The only thing that mattered now was to destroy the foul creature that stood before him. Completely and utterly crush and grind him into the ground, beyond any hope of recovery or recall.

Between them, Tichon spun like a madman as he parried their unceasing blows. With a wrench, he pushed Yamato's charging stand aside and tried to leap away, only to be cut off with a single blow from Takeru's staff. With a roar, the golden stand spun its staff above its head and brought it whistling downwards…and hit nothing but empty space as Tichon spun away. For a few moments, the golden angel and the dark Lord of Lies traded mighty blows as each sought to smash the other away. Before Yamato could bring his stand to join the fray however, Tichon crouched and with a shout, flung his sword about him in a wide arc. So powerful was the wave of dark foam that trailed from its edge that both Takeru and Yamato were forced to pull their stands back.

Panting, Yamato forced himself to stay upright as he hefted his sword and his stand drew to a stop beside him. Beside him, Yamato could see Takeru's chest heaving as he struggled to breathe.

As he allowed his concentration to dull, Yamato began to notice for the first time the billowing clouds of smoke that surrounded them on every side. Its acrid stench stung his face and lungs and made his eyes water. Huge, half-molten scars traced their jagged path through the once-smooth ground of their battlefield, testament to the awesome power that was being flung around like so much dirt. Dumbly, Yamato looked down at the rutted ground. Had he done that? He hadn't even noticed.

"Yamato," Takeru said quietly.

Yamato opened his mouth to answer, but found that he could not. He had not the breathe.

Takeru straightened slightly. "I don't think I can fight for much longer."

As if to prove his point, the stand behind his brother suddenly shimmered, then phased out of existence entirely before Takeru could pull it back together. Yamato could see the expression of barely contained pain on Takeru's face.

He knew what it was Takeru was feeling. His entire chest was an aching mass of pain; every breath of burning air was a Herculean effort. As the blue glow receded from his limbs, the pain from the dozens of slashes around his body, merely a dull ache before, came sharply to the fore and almost drove him to his knees.

"We need to end this quickly," Takeru rasped between gulps of air.

Yamato looked up, but before he could speak, Tichon straightened from his crouch. Unbelievably, the baleful violet glow around him grew stronger, even as the blue and gold auras of the two stand-masters began to fade.

"COME!" Tichon roared. "LET'S FINISH THIS!"

Yamato kept a wary eye on him as he spoke. "Can you use Shun Ten Satsu?" Yamato asked simply.

Takeru turned to him, wide-eyed. "Maybe," he whispered. "But I'll need time to prepare."

"Then do it," Yamato said as he hefted his sword. "I'll give you the time."

"It won't land!" Takeru said desperately. "He's too fast! And I have strength left for only one-"

"Start preparing," Yamato said quietly.

"Yamato," Takeru said urgently as he grabbed his brother's arm. "If I miss, we will lose this battle."

Yamato turned and met his brother's gaze. Understood what he meant.

Takeru had reached the limit of his stamina, and he knew it. It was not that he had strength left for only one shot at the Shun Ten Satsu. He had strength left for only one shot at Shun Ten Satsu, and then nothing else. It would take all that he had left to unleash his last and most formidable technique. If he missed, Takeru would be so crippled, he wouldn't be able to fight. And if that happened, there would be no way for Yamato to win. Yamato felt his jaw tighten grimly.

But it was not as if they had a choice. If they did not end this within the next few minutes, neither of them would be able to fight. They would lose the battle anyway. So, it was this gamble, or nothing at all.

All this passed in a heartbeat of wordless communication between the brothers. Yamato reached up. Gripped his brother's shoulder. "It will land," he said with grave certainty. "I'll make sure of it."

"Yamato," Takeru said as he tightened his grip. "Don't do anything reckless."

"It's a little late for that, Takeru," Yamato said grimly.

"I AM THE FIRST AND THE GREATEST!" Tichon shrieked. "COME, BEFORE I LOSE MY PATIENCE!"

"Prepare," Yamato hissed. Then he stepped forward, allowing his body to partially shield Takeru's from Tichon's sight. Behind him, he heard Takeru's sword slide into his scabbard in the first stage of the Shun Ten Satsu, and he felt a small twinge of relief. At least Takeru was not arguing.

"The first," Yamato said slowly. Even as he stepped forward, he knew he was playing a dangerous game, trying to draw the half-mad Emperor into a conversation, but he had no choice. "The first stand-master. That was what you were weren't you?"

Tichon glared at him. So intense was the hate in those baleful orange eyes that Yamato almost took a step backwards. "THE FIRST STAND-MASTER?" he boomed. "DO NOT BE ARROGANT. KNOW THIS, CHILD. THE FIRST CREATIONS WERE FAR MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU WILL EVER BE!"

"The first creations," Yamato said, his mind racing. "Not a Stand-master. A Stand." He looked up in horror. "A spirit of power."

Tichon roared wordlessly. Yamato doubted he could hear them, or if he could, whether he could understand. With each passing moment, Tichon seemed more animal than human. But now, Yamato knew why.

"You could have been me," Yamato whispered. "You could have chosen to be greater than me, or Takeru, or all that have come before us."

"I AM!!"

Yamato shook his head. "But you ceased to serve. And…"

"SO YOU SEE WHAT HE HAS CURSED ME WITH!" Tichon's roar was so loud, both Takeru and Yamato were forced back from the sheer volume. "LOOK AT ME!" He threw his arms out, as if to show off his rotting body to the stand-masters. "LOOK!"

Yamato shuddered as a bead of cold sweat rolled down his temple. He had thought stand-masters to be immune to the taint. Now, as he gazed upon proof to the contrary, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that would have been his fate had Takeru not rescued him from the dark. It was the only fate befitting a stand-master that did not heed his allegiance to the Creator. Slowly, he took another step forward despite the sudden stench. If Tichon was dangerous when collected, he was deadly when he was half-crazed by hate. Yamato knew he was flirting with death by coming this close, but he had to draw Tichon's attention away from Takeru.

"You were beautiful once," Yamato prompted. "Weren't you."

Tichon threw his head back and laughed. Yamato felt chills run up and down his spine as the screech raked against his ears. "AND SO I WILL BE ONCE MORE." Tichon swung an arm at Paen province, "ONCE I CLAIM WHAT IS MINE!"

"Gaea," Yamato said quietly. "You want to be the Creator."

Tichon stared at him and for once, his roars died away, as if transfixed by Yamato's suddenly intense glare.

"You will never be the Creator," Yamato said firmly. "You were never made to be."

Tichon's eyes flashed. "I AM THE FIRST," he boomed. "AND THE GREATEST!"

"The first, yes," Yamato said calmly. "But not the greatest!"

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" Tichon shrieked. "DO YOU, A MERE BABE, PRESUME TO TELL ME WHAT I AM AND AM NOT?"

"Yes," Yamato said calmly. "And today, we shall prove it to you…"

As his last word trailed away, Yamato felt the first wave of golden power explode from behind him. In an instant, Yamato saw the edges of his cloak and tunic singe away in the wake of the expanding golden flames, and he knew that Takeru had started his attack run.

Which meant it was time to start his.

Yamato had turned sideways, presenting his left side to Tichon. As he had done a hundred thousand times before, he raised his sword until it was level with his jaw and braced the tip with his left hand. His sword arm hardened to a coiled steel spring behind his sword's hilt, and in an instant, his posture had turned from that of a swordsman, to that of an archer. With a skill perfected by a lifetime of training, Yamato crafted his sword into an arrow.

An arrow aimed at Tichon's heart.

"GATOTSU," he roared.

As they always did when he executed his last, best technique, the seconds stretched into years as his concentration focused to the breaking point. His senses sharpened to unbearable clarity as the universe shrunk to a single point just to the left of Tichon's chest. With a discipline born of determination, his consciousness focused on that tiny, hyper-real point. He would not miss, because that little point was the only thing in the universe to hit.

Gathering every fiber of his being, he forced everything into one last charge to end all charges. A great boom echoed across the entire interior of the sangrias as his scream stretched, elongated and faded away entirely with his great speed. With the last of his waning strength, Yamato attacked.

Hit! he screamed silently. You must slow him down!

Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tichon's black blade descend. In horror he watched as, in slow motion, it slammed into his own sword and inexorably pushed it down and away. Even before his blade had descended a fraction of an inch, Yamato already knew that his last technique had failed.

He was going to miss.

Tichon would be free to dodge Takeru's attack.

They were going to lose.

But instead of despair, Yamato felt only peace as his sword slid away from its mark in slow motion. Some part of him had known that this was going to happen. And somehow, as if the idea had been rooted in his heart even before he had suggested Shun Ten Satsu to Takeru, he knew what to do. As the light of the clash brightened and began to blind him, as the first rumblings of the titanic boom began to crescendo in his ears, Yamato felt an inexplicable determination rise in his heart. As if his body was already steeling itself for what it knew his mind would eventually come to accept.

He had promised Takeru that his attack would land.

Therefore, it was time for Yamato, son of Masaharu, heir of the Ishidan Stand, to show his quality…

…or die trying.

All this passed in a heartbeat, so that even before his blade had dropped by a foot, Yamato had already made his decision. As Tichon's black blade continued to sweep away his thrust, Yamato let go of his sword.

He watched as Tichon's parry threw his sword away. Unable to stop himself, he tumbled headlong into Tichon's deadly embrace. Just as he expected, Tichon instinctively raised his sword. Yamato closed his eyes.

Only a loud grunt escaped him as he felt Tichon's burning blade slide through his belly and erupt out of his back. Time snapped back to normal as his concentration promptly shattered into a million shards, never to return. As he stumbled, he felt the blade twist and tear at his gut until the freezing pain spread to every corner of his body. His breath exploded out of his mouth in a loud whoosh as the blue glow of his stand faded away into nothing.

Was this what he had put Takeru through all those years ago?

He never suspected it would hurt this much!

Yamato vaguely heard Takeru's scream behind him, but he didn't care anymore. It took everything he had to fight the rapidly descending dark haze from plunging him into a slumber he knew he would never wake from. He could not die. Not just yet. Looking up, he met Tichon's triumphant gaze with his own.

And smiled.

"You've lost," he told Tichon softly.

Then he grabbed Tichon's sword-arm as tightly as he could and fell to his knees.

"Get him Takeru!"

**********

Takeru could not have stopped himself even if he wanted to. It happened so fast that he was helpless to stop it. By the time he saw Tichon's blade erupt from his brother's back, he was already halfway through his attack run. By the time Yamato had fallen to his knees, he was already in the air, his body already starting to uncoil from its tight curl in preparation for the final strike. But an instant before hesitation took hold of his limbs, he heard Yamato's shout.

In the perfect void of his concentration, some distant part of himself understood instantly and steeled his arm before it could waver. Even as the shock sent icy trembles through his entire heart, his body began the final stages of the technique automatically. A great stillness fell upon the chamber as Takeru unleashed his most powerful attack; Creation had waited millennia for this moment and now that it had come, the air itself could only hold its breath as the fate of Gaea rode on a knife's edge. Leaning forward into the charge, Takeru felt rather than heard the shout rip from his own mouth, even as his sword of golden light exploded out of its sheath and swung in a great gleaming arc for Tichon's head…

"SHUN TEN SATSU!!!"

**********

It started first as a tremor that passed through the Khaydarin armies. Kari straightened slightly as hundreds of violet flames suddenly lit up among the black-armoured soldiers; a moment later, the thin, reedy screeches reached her ears over the roar of battle and wind. The mirrireid bearers were dying in droves.

What's going on? she heard Cody ask anxiously. They've stopped attacking!

And so they had. The Khaydarin vanguard was slowing, then grinding to a stop. Chaos broke out in the formerly ordered ranks as the soldiers turned on one another in a panic. Kari threw up her hand to stay the archers as she watched the enemy disintegrate before her very eyes. A murmur of confusion and unease rippled up and down the Seitzin line.

For a few moments, the battle died down all along the front. An uneasy stillness descended.

Takeru? Kari thought, hardly daring to hope. Did you do this?

Then she turned in amazement as the sangrias behind her gave a sudden tremor. A great rolling boom like the discharge of a thousand cannons at once rolled over the battlefield like peals of thunder as ripples spread across the velvet surface of the central bronze ring. Then the shockwave struck.

She saw it before it struck her: a solid wall of air carrying a cloud of shrapnel and debris expanding outwards from the central ring, then she was blasted off her feet along with everything and everyone around her. Earth and sky spun dizzyingly for a few moments before she landed with a bone-shattering crunch on the hard ground. Shocked shouts and cries mingled with the great rattle as weapons, armour and soldiers fell around her. Shrieks filled the air as the siege weapons toppled over their masters and great cracks opened in the ground, swallowing unsuspecting Seitzin and Khaydarin alike like great gaping mouths.

For a few moments, Kari was too shocked to move. When she could finally breathe again, she forced herself to look up at the writhing sangrias. Her heart was pounding so loudly in her chest, she could feel her armour rattling with each beat.

Takeru…

**********

Takeru howled as he felt something snap within his arm as his stroke connected, but he had not the air left to cry as Ichibou exploded into a million flashing splinters in the resultant explosion. Like a leaf caught in a gale, Takeru was sent flying backwards as Tichon's otherworldly shriek of outrage and pain shook him to the bone. Helpless to stop his flight, Takeru curled into a ball as he slammed into the ruined ground and skidded across the jagged streaks left by their fight. Sharp splinters shredded what remained of his armour and tunic and tore painfully at his skin, but Takeru could do nothing but wait until the rough ride was over.

When he finally scraped to a stop some thirty paces away, Takeru found that he could not breathe.

Turning drunkenly to his side, Takeru shook his head as he tried to clear its ringing. Clutching his chest, he forced his lungs to expand and contract despite the fiery pain in his side. His eyes watered as he choked on the suffocating cloud of smoke that now billowed through the sangrias. It was a long moment before he realized that the light which now fell upon him was no longer the gray, omni-present light of the sangrias. Blearily, he turned his head to his side and saw the distorted image of Paen province mere paces away. The explosion must have carried him all the way to the entrance.

Then he cried out as a sharp flash of pain lanced through his right side. His already swelling right arm was a fiery, twisted mass of pain. He must have broken it. Gritting his teeth, Takeru rolled over onto his left arm and propped himself upright. Scrubbing away his tears as best he could on the shoulder of his ragged tunic, Takeru peered into the cloud with his heart in his throat.

Did I do it?

His heart lurched as another unearthly shriek filled the air. Cursing the billowing smoke that obscured everything, Takeru pushed himself as high as he could with his left arm and strained his eyes. It had to be over. It had to!

For all his efforts however, he almost didn't recognize Tichon when he saw him.

The Dark Emperor's right arm was completely gone. A hideous gash trailed from the shoulder-blade above the blackened, smoking stump to the Emperor's left side. Black blood lay smoking in a wide arc on the ground around him, but as if unwilling to bow to death itself, Tichon refused to fall. Even as Takeru watched in fascinated horror, the Emperor staggered around until he could see the fallen stand-master.

Tichon's head lolled limply as he wavered on his feet. Gone was the manic light that had once pierced Takeru to his core. Gone was the mad laughter that had once issued from those rotting lips. Tichon's once grand black robe was now nothing but tatters on a dying body. As Tichon's rapidly glazing eyes fixed on Takeru, Tichon brows flared weakly. He opened his mouth...

Whatever Tichon was going to say to him, Takeru would never know. For even as Tichon staggered toward the paralyzed stand-master, a hand reached up from the billowing dust cloud and grasped the creature's one remaining arm. As Tichon looked down drunkenly, Takeru saw a swift, blue streak travel across the creature's face.

Tichon looked surprised as his face split in two.

A swift bubble of hope welled in Takeru's breast. Yes…

As Tichon fell however, the hand disappeared as well; Takeru felt his heart sink again. Completely heedless of the pain that now threatened to swallow what was left of his consciousness, Takeru crawled along the gritty ground on his left side. "Yamato!" he croaked. "Yamato!"

The dust began to clear and for an instant, Takeru saw Yamato's hunched form in the haze. Then he lost him again as a tremor shook the entire sangrias. The twin hemispheres on both sides of the otherworldly bridge shimmered and wavered as a gray film began to grow over their once crystal clear surfaces.

"Don't…don't come any closer!" Takeru heard Yamato rasp.

Takeru groaned as he forced his battered body to resume its crawl. "What are you talking about," he cried. "You're hurt! We need to get you-"

His voice trailed off as he caught sight of his brother.

Yamato grinned weakly. "You look horrible," he coughed.

"Yamato…" Takeru heard his own voice sob.

Yamato was lying on his side in a pool of his own blood, his right hand clutching at the black sword that he had pulled from his own body. Takeru watched in horror as the stream of blood that poured from the wound in his brother's stomach slow as his brother's heart began to fail. But despite the agony Takeru knew Yamato must be in, his bloodstained lips curled into a smile.

"Hurry," he murmured. "Get out."

Takeru knew his brother was right. Without its creator to sustain it, the sangrias was collapsing around them. Already the tall black towers of Akeldama had been obscured behind the veiling gray mist that was spreading across the exit. The ground heaved beneath them like an animal thrashing in its death throes as giant cracks and bottomless chasms opened in the once smooth floor. In moments, Takeru knew, the entrance would close as well and the two of them would be trapped. But Takeru couldn't move. He wouldn't move!

"I'm not going without you," he shouted. "Come on Yamato. Get up! Let's go!"

Yamato did not answer for long seconds. Takeru pushed down the panic in his throat as he watched Tichon's broken body fall into one of the cracks. "Yamato!"

"TK," Yamato said quietly. "I can't feel my feet."

"I'll drag you then!" Takeru said as he struggled to get to his feet. "Come on, we'll-"

"TK…I can't feel anything."

Takeru froze, then fell again as another heave threw him off his knees. This time he did not get up. Hot tears that had nothing to do with the dust stung his eyes. "No…"

Yamato's voice was a gentle caress. "Adun said it would happen."

Takeru turned over onto his back. He didn't feel like he had the strength to sit up, much less stand. Not that he cared. It seemed that his life was nothing but one long, unending chain of sacrifices. Why, so soon after he had been reunited with his brother, were they going to be torn apart again? "No…," he groaned. "Yamato, you can't die."

"Why not?"

"Because," Takeru said, his breath catching in his throat, "I still need to…take you to task for…doing something so reckless…moments after I told you not to."

Takeru heard a weak chuckle, as if Yamato had not a care in the world. Takeru however, could do nothing but stare upwards at the black void with unseeing eyes. He felt drained as he finally came to accept what was happening to his brother. Drained of everything. Kari would live, but his brother would die. How could that be justice?

"I have one request," Yamato sighed. "Don't forget me…don't forget Locke…and don't forget those who followed the right side when the end came."

Takeru felt his lips tremble. "Never," he swore. "On my honour, Gaea will never forget."

As if sensing his brother's distress, Yamato shifted slightly so he could better see Takeru's supine form. "I'll see you again," Yamato murmured reassuringly. "Don't you remember what He promised?"

Takeru blinked away tears as he nodded.

"A way across the great rift," he intoned.

"And I will see you there," Yamato coughed. His voice began to sound thick, as if there was blood in his mouth. "He promised us that. And after all this, you have to admit that he is most definitely trustworthy."

Takeru felt a weak laugh roll from his lips, even as tears slid down his cheeks. "I suppose." His voice cracked. "I won't say goodbye," he said tightly. "I won't."

"Then I won't either," Yamato said softly.

For a long moment, the two brothers lay there, paces apart, each absorbed in his own thoughts.

"Now…," Yamato's murmur turned into a pained grunt as a weak flicker of blue light danced across the corner of Takeru's eye. "Get the hell out of here, Emperor Takeru Ishida. Our people…need you."

Before Takeru could protest, Yamato's stand bulled into him like a runaway wagon. Gasping as the air was knocked out of him yet again, Takeru felt himself being sent flying by his brother's blow, through the gritty dust of the sangrias, through the curtain of real light, through the cold liquid surface of the rapidly clouding hemisphere, and out.

Out…

As Takeru slid to a stop in the dusty ground of Paen province, he looked up to see the first ray of light break through the mantle of cloud and brush the frozen land with its warm glow for the first time in five weeks.

I knew it, he thought as he let go and let the dark haze claim him. You just had to look…

**********

Ere two rode forth, only one returned, for the Tenken shall be wrought with the spilling of willing blood.

Prophecies 52: 17

**********

**Author's notes:

The only thing left now is the Epilogue. You know, I debated for a long time whether to hold the Epilogue back for a few weeks, because I know I would get more reviews. But in the end, I decided against it. Review numbers are very nice, but in the end, not the most important thing. I think I just need to get this whole thing off my chest.

I got bored recently and drew a picture of Kari. After that, I decided to be daring and scanned it in and coloured it with Illustrator and Photoshop. I say daring because I had virtually no experience with Illustrator and absolutely no experience with Photoshop. Nevertheless, I'm being even more daring and posting the thing up for you guys to see. It can be found at: www.princeton.edu/~ashum. Hope you like!

Btw, if you're wondering. The reason why it's posted on the Princeton University server is because I'm a student there. :P