A/N: And, at last, it's done. I warn you now, this is a loooooooooooong one. I'm not going to be specific in exactly how long, though. It may well scare you. My apologies for not getting this done for yesterday- I did my level best, but, alas, it was not meant to be. To be honest, it's been a pretty crud week for my family, and at school, and it's literally been impossible to write at times. But hey, it's here now. Oh, by the way, the underlined words at the start are supposed to look like links... Heh...

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, as if you hadn't figured that out from the previous Twenty-Five… Twenty-Seven disclaimers in this fic.

Well, Twenty-Five was a history lesson, and now, the bell rings, and we move onto... Biology! This is WyG 26, 'The Life and Times'!

Twenty-Six: The Life and Times

Posted By: AngelAuthor

At:3:27 PM JST

Subject: If you want something done right…

See, here's the thing. Cast your minds back, waaaaaaaay back to last January, and that most… memorable 500th strip my 'friends' supplied. You might remember the post:

"I'm pleased to tell you all that all my friends have agreed to join me permanently to help this comic along. I shall continue with the art work and story, but you will be seeing quite a bit of them, with, for the most part, the same as before. However, Wings will be helping Wikket with subtitles, as she's multilingual- but I fully intend to get her to do some Chibi t-shirt art for me, because I sure can't. Which, by the way, thanks to the help of Juilliard and Trojan Horse, we're finally getting a store! That's right! Slowly but surely, more and more AwBW products will be available! You asked for it, now you're getting it!"

But, today, Wikket is leaving us, buzzing back off to England. Wings said she'd do the Subbing for you non-Japs who may be semi-able to read this post, or else are squinting at the screen hoping it will suddenly change and make sense; but, guess what? She's off on her 'Jolly Holidays' tomorrow, so a translated page won't be up until next week at the earliest. For the rest of you, there's a new page.

You just can't get the staff these days.

Posted By: Wings

At: 17:09 PM JST

Subject: -Pout-

There's no need to be like that. I'll do the page as soon as I get home, from the holiday that I'm sure will be nice and relaxing without any running around or people yelling or stressing out over comics! Hmmph. You'd better take it back… Don't make me post those embarrassing photographs I just might happen to have

I think the dog look rather suits you. :P

Posted By: AngelAuthor

At: 17:21 PM JST

Subject: WTC!

Where did you get those! Wait… Let me guess. –Picks up killing Axe of DOOM- Excuse me. I have an appointment with a certain Die master…

-Cough-…He didn't give you the beauty pageant one, did he?

Posted By: Wings

At: 17:25 PM JST

Subject: 'Beauty Pageant?'

Huh…? Oh, wait, you MUST mean the Cross-dressing one:D No, of course he didn't. –Innocent Eyes-

Posted By: AngelAuthor

At: 17:30 PM JST

Subject:

You'd better not come back from holiday, or I WILL hurt you. –Sigh- Thanks, Wings. Thanks so very much… Now… is there anyway to remove posts…?

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

So, what if, what if a-very-big if, Seto actually did like the girl? And what if she actually liked him for more then just the eye-candy? Azreal was a friend of his, and if she was happy with this guy, even if he was the biggest jerk in the world…

She had hung up, looking elated, but a little wary of him, more so when he opened his mouth to speak.

"Fine." He sighed. "Maybe I could lay off you a bit. But I still don't like the guy! And if he gives me the slightest reason, I won't hesitate to punch him, even if you do like him! So you'd better warn him that if he wants to keep things as they are, he'd better be on his best behaviour! And-" He said, almost as an after thought. "If he does anything to upset you, he'll have me to answer to!"

"Thanks, Joey…" Azreal laughed, not mentioning the fact that the day Joey got one over on Seto would be the day when soup came ready sliced in a loaf.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

The holiday had not exactly turned out as planned. Instead of just relaxing, they'd ended up travelling to a floating city that looked likely to crash, where the air was thin and full of a curious fog-like substance that Seto was still unsure of what it was, and now Azreal was running through roads and streets she seemed to instinctively know, looking for one, just one person who was still here, with a kind of desperation. Seto didn't know where everyone was, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know, wasn't sure if anyone was still alive, wasn't entirely sure of what was going on, and he didn't like it. Yet, it was all he could do to keep up with Azreal as they pounded through the ghost of a city.

She stopped dead. Seto looked as best as he could through the fog, and saw they had come to a small paved square. There were raised flowerbeds serving as walls to the square, full of flowers, that in their bright and vibrant colours seemed misplaced in this so far grey and white city. Inside the square were benches, and on one sat an old woman, who did not look well. It also appeared she had no legs below the knee. Azreal seemed to get her movement back, and ran over to her.

The old woman opened one eye slightly, then let it shut again, laughing. The sound seemed tinny and unnatural here. "Hello." She said.

"Hello…" Azreal replied, sounding upset. Then she swallowed, and spoke again. "Nana, what's-"

Her grandmother... Seto realised. On her mother's side. But what's happened to her legs…? Even as they stood, more and more of her legs were slowly fading away, nearly at her waist now.

"Ssh." She interrupted Azreal. "That was always your problem. Too many questions…"

Azreal bit her lip.

"I'm glad you're here." The woman said, holding out her hand. Azreal took it. "I wanted to say I'm sorry…I know we didn't know each other very well, I wanted to, I just didn't know how…"

"We can fix this." Azreal promised her. "We can fix it. All you have to do is use your wish feather and-"

The woman held up a feather in her other hand. In contrast to the ones on her back, white and proud, this was the deepest coal black imaginable. "Too late, I'm afraid." She muttered.

"But-" Azreal began. Again, the old woman held up a hand to stop her. It was an odd sight, as now her legs were completely gone and you could see the bench through her waist.

"Now, you listen to me." She commanded. "You must get out of here. Something's gone wrong with the pumps and the city is flooded with Nothing. Your mother got everyone out, but I told my operator I was going to meet her and stayed here instead."

"Why didn't you leave?" Azreal asked, desperately.

"I didn't want to. I couldn't bear the thought of if I couldn't come back." She laughed bitterly. "Because I'm a silly old woman. I didn't have long left anyway. At least now I got to choose where… You know, I met your grandfather on this very bench…"

Azreal fixed her gaze on the ground. What could she say…? What could she do…?

"You and your friend," her grandmother said, acknowledging Seto for the first time. "Need to leave here immediately." She lifted Azreal's head with a hand that was only partly solid and winked. "He is rather handsome. It'd be a terrible waste… It's not safe here. You need to get out of here right now." The hand faded away, and it began to work it's way up her nana's arm. "Not long left for me, but plenty left for you! Now, go!"

Azreal looked down again. All the Muses were safe, her mother had got them all out… The links to the city had only been cut off to stop the Nothing leaking down after them… Nobody would die. They'd just have to hide out on Earth until the city could be rebuilt… But that was no use. They needed home and business, and they needed food and water and shelter as much as they needed Creativity. The time on Earth would destroy all the system they had in place, all the order. And the Muse headquarters would go down. There would be no way of getting the creativity up to the other cities, no-one harvesting the creativity down on Earth… If it was a problem with the pumps or the filters, surely it could be fixed- if only someone could get close enough. So she couldn't go. She'd come too far.

"No." She replied, wanting to cry.

"Not even for your grandma's dying wish?"

Azreal shook her head, knowing she couldn't do what had been asked no matter what.

"Then good luck." The old woman said, just an eerie floating set of shoulders and above now. She began chuckling slightly. Out of all her granddaughters, Azreal was the most like Millierie, and she probably didn't even know it. "…You are your mother's daughter."

"And she's yours." Azreal chocked out. "Do you want me to…"

"Yes please."

As Seto watched in bewilderment, Azreal began to sing softly, the notes haunting and hypnotic, though the words were strange. As he watched, the old woman closed her eyes, smiling just a little. And as the song quietly continued her face got more and more transparent, wispy, until it could no longer be seen. The bench was empty except for a single black feather, lying still on the bench.

Azreal finished the line of the song, voice barely audible now, crying openly. But, to Seto's surprise, she did not stop, only after a second's hesitation continuing the melody. It, and her voice grew in strength, until it seemed no longer muffled by the strange fog and sadness in the air, but clear and cutting through it. Then she stopped.

"…We need to head down to the lower levels." She told Seto, shakily, turning away from him. He took hold of her shoulders, turning her around and looking straight down into her face.

"Not yet. Az, you need to tell me what's happening. Exactly what's happening." He commanded. "What's going on here?"

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"I am not getting a cat." Ryou said adamantly, rubbing some small red lines on his right palm. She had always assumed that they, like all the other scars on his arms, were Bakura-induced, just not as bad as the others. But maybe…

"That was a cat?" She asked.

"Yes." Ryou agreed. "It was a rash for weeks. Turns out I'm allergic…"

Anna laughed.

"What?" He asked defensively.

"Nothing." She shook her head, still giggling. Ryou, who had a evil spirit festering within him, who had survived the Shadow Realm and numerous comas, was allergic to pussy cats. Suddenly, something occurred to her, and she rolled the sleeve of her jacket up and twisted her arm round to show him a small red circle on her elbow.

"Rabbit." She explained.

"A rabbit?" Ryou echoed. "What? A cute little furry thing?"

"Hey, rabbits are vicious! And this one had it in for me…"

"Yes, I'm sure it was the don of the rabbit mafia."

"Well, I wouldn't put it past it…"

"It's a conspiracy…"

"I'm serious!"

"As am I. I think they're in cahoots with the cats."

"Yes! And dogs are the good guys!"

"Exactly. So I must get a dog to help with the course of justice and fairness and equality for all!"

They weren't half getting some strange looks for that conversation…

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"What, exactly is happening! Get some work done!"

"Sorry, sir, we seem to be having problems sending our orders through to Wherever…"

"What?"

"Well, we radioed through for a porthole hours ago, but they haven't opened us one."

"Then send it down the chute!"

"That's the strange thing. They're all shut to."

This sounded interesting. Risking stopping on his way, he paused behind a large crate to listen. Something was up in Wherever…

"Hey!" Another voice, belonging to neither the boss nor the worker yelled from a distance away. "Guys, tune your radio into number Four!"

"Why in the Floating Cities would we want to do that?" Boss-man bellowed back. "The News is no good to work to! Besides, we have a situation here!"

"I know!" Radio-guy shouted. "It's talking about Wherever! You won't believe it…"

The music buzzed and gave way to radio snow as they fumbled to tune into the right station. And then, the news came on, and there it was.

"…Totally unimagined! The President has released a statement saying that while they knew about the threat of the Nothing, it was not sufficient to order an evacuation. Well, let me tell you, it looks sufficient enough from up here in the Radio 4 Whirlybird. The Nothing has actually physically swallowed the city, it's surrounded it from all angles, and it's surely only a matter of time before the lowest levels fall away…" A female reporter was saying, in a shocked tone, evidentially on-site, flying as close to the city as she dared.

"And just how many would have been killed in what has to be the biggest disaster since, well, since the Great Depression and the implementation of Joran's Theory?" The bloke in the studio asked.

He gave a bitter smile. Well, serve them all right…

"Well, we have no statistics for you yet I'm afraid, as any rescue attempts would be useless, but it has to be a great amount…" She sounded confused. "But there are unconfirmed rumours coming in that it could be… zero…"

"What!"

"I should repeat that these rumours are unconfirmed, but some are alleging that Millierie Kiyoko; needless to say the CEO of the Muses; did implement some kind of evacuation of her own."

"Is that even possible?"

"It would certainly be a feat unlike any we've seen in our known history. We're talking hundreds of thousands of people, and while she has liberties, we must remember that Miss Kiyoko does not have the authority to order an evacuation. Again, I need to point out that these rumours are unconfirmed."

"To anyone worried about friends or family in the Capital, the Government are requesting that you do not panic, and we should soon have the number for a helpline very soon, and we'll give you new information as soon as we have it…"

The volume gradually faded away until the radio was clicked off. There were various oaths and prayers and exclamations of surprise muttered quietly under people's breath.

"Well, Bless Ms. Kiyoko!" The boss declared. "She may not be an Ethral like we are, but she's still amazing!"

"Those rumours were 'unconfirmed'." Someone else pointed out. "Plus, she 'doesn't have the authority', right?"

"When has that ever stopped her?" He laughed. "Face it, if anyone could pull this, it'd be her- and those triplets of hers! We'd better hope she pulled it, or it really will be a disaster…"

Seeing that the conversation no longer held any attention for him, he turned his attention away. He knew exactly what he was looking for. One thing to his credit was that he was clever, and the plan had already formed in his crafty mind. You see, with all this stuff happening to Wherever, it would probably be a very hard time for the Kiyoko girls, including the fourth one. She really didn't want anything else on her plate…

He needed to get down to Earth. And, just a few piers away, they were preparing to lower some mysterious crates down to the surface. No-one knew what was in those boxes- it was top secret. But once a month, they went down, regular as clockwork, to field operatives; NIPs who, although not official muses, worked down on the planet, shipping things back and forth. The shipment had never been missed, and it wasn't going to stop now, whether the capital had gone down or not. All he had to do was wait for just the right moment…

Now!

He sprinted along, hurtling between the gaps of the piers, the jumps exhilarating and so large that if he thought about it he wouldn't make it; and reached where the crates were being lowered into the Chute, and leapt after them. People had spotted him, but by now it was too late. The control of the boxes descent had been handed to the people at the other end, and they could not recall them now.

And so, roughly a year and a half after he was supposed to, Lira Klio finally made his way down to Earth.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Exactly an hour later, by some miracle, Azreal was in the café, sitting at a table with Kaho and just receiving a hot chocolate from the waiter. This was not an unusual sight. The Milk Bar was well known for doing the best milkshakes and hot chocolate in town, and there was never a day when it wasn't full of students. These two were not a rare sight, either. They would come in once every week or two, sit at the same table by the window, and talk quietly for an hour or so.

"You seem very pensive." Kaho commented, as Azreal sipped her drink, and, apparently thinking it was too bitter, started to put some sugar in. Still, at least she didn't seem so frustrated anymore… "What's on your mind?" She asked.

"It's just…" Azreal began, absently refilling the sugar spoon. "Something Téa said…"

"What?"

"She said she was beginning to think that I… loved Seto." Azreal said quietly, going red.

"She said that to you?" Kaho blinked.

"No, she said it Joey. I just overheard."

Kaho smiled. "Maybe that'll teach you to stop that nasty little habit of eavesdropping you seem to be developing."

Azreal groaned. "I know, but it made me wonder if I do… you know. And how can I tell if I do?"

"What difference does it honestly make?" Kaho replied easily. "For goodness sake, you're fifteen! You don't need to worry about this stuff! Just go with it and see how it turns out."

"… You're right." Azreal said, looking more thoughtful then ever. "You're right!" She repeated, more firmly.

"Yes, and I think that's quite enough sugar now." Kaho commented, giggling.

Azreal looked down at her drink in dismay. She had been absently dumping sugar in all this time, and now it was completely sodden; no more would dissolve. It would be far too sweet to drink now. Azreal pushed it away from her, laughing. "Oops."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Azreal wondered if they could keep moving and she could tell Seto on the way. But, looking at him, she knew it wouldn't be possible. He might have been able to ignore the difficulty he was having breathing, but she couldn't. He needed a rest. So she might as well talk to him here. She wasn't going to think about her Grandmother. She wasn't. Not now. Millierie's mother had always been uncomfortable around Azreal. She had tried her very best not to be, she really had, but things had always been awkward between them. Now they would never be anything else… She wasn't going to think about it. The song had brought her strength back, her focus, her determination. She was no mere muse. She was half-human. She could last in the Nothing longer then any other citizen of Wherever. She had to save it, because she was the only one who had the slightest glimmer of hope that she could.

Of course, she wasn't doing it alone.

"Az." He prompted, still trying to hide his breathlessness. Good old Seto… proud as always. "I've kinda figured out that this isn't ordinary fog. So what is it?"

"It's Nothing."

"Considering that it's just dissolved someone, I wouldn't call it nothing!" Seto exploded. Ah, so maybe he was getting ever so slightly stressed after all.

"No, it's called Nothing." Azreal explained. "How do I tell you all this…?" She sighed. "Okay, Seto, are you up for a quick biology lesson?"

"If it's relevant."

"Just bear with me, it is going somewhere…" Azreal replied. She'd need to keep this as brief as she could, they couldn't afford to waste a lot of time standing around in Nothing having a good old chin wag. Unfortunately, it was not really a subject you could rush. "Right, well… You may have noticed that we have a 'human' and a 'muse' form. Technically, that's not right- we don't become Humans, we just call it that because it's the form we're visible to humans."

Seto nodded. He'd thought it might be something like that… But he didn't see what this had to do with the Nothing around them.

"Now, we don't really know much about our ancient history." Azreal told him. "We know we lived on Earth, we know there was a war… but we don't really know anything else about where we came from or how we ended up with wings or any of that stuff. There are theories that we came about the same way you lot did, just under slightly different circumstances. We're really very similar, same basic organ pattern, same need for food and water and air… See, you live very much in your three dimensions-" She drew them in the air with her finger. "And, of course, you can sense time. Well, we're pretty much the same, except slightly shifted to the side."

"…What?" Seto really was confused.

"I just mean that, in general, we're much worse at keeping track of directions, judging distances, that kind of thing. But we're better with time. It's a little more… flexible. I can't explain it. It's just that there always seems to be a little more time then you need. Unless you're me and you're always late, but I divulge. Anyway, on top of that, we're sensitive to... Creativity, Nothing, stuff like that."

Seto frowned. "You mean it's another sense? Another dimension of existence?"

"Hmmph. You get this a lot quicker then I did back in school." Azreal pouted. "Yeah, that's what I mean. Some of you humans can do it to- except when they think they're seeing Ghosties and Ghoulies it's just us humble Muses. Now, we can sense Creativity, and this is where we really differ. See, for humans, it's just another process. You don't even notice, you're not sensitive to it. And you don't do it all the time. But when you think creatively, you release a kind of…substance thingy, somehow or another- that's what we call Creativity. Now, we're sensitive to it, and we need it… It helps us get energy, somehow. I never did pass Science." She shrugged. "We breathe it in or compress it down and eat it solid. We need Creativity, but we don't need as much oxygen. Which is why I'm not having any trouble breathing up here. I think."

"I still don't see…" Seto gasped. "What all this has to do with the 'Nothing'."

"Well, you guys making Creativity is like any other process. You put something in, Thought and Effort; you get something useful out, Creativity; and you get a waste product- and this would be it." She gestured around them. "Now, usually, our pumps dragging all the Creativity out of the air has filters on them to get the Nothing out, but now… Still, at least it doesn't affect plants!"

Seto's head buzzed as he tried to comprehend all this. It all sounded perfectly scientific, but it still seemed a mystery to him how 'Thought and Effort' could trigger off a chemical reaction… But then, he couldn't sense it, so how could he know? Now he really was confused. "So, what exactly does this stuff do?"

"You saw what it does." Azreal said, quietly. She was in her Muse form. She knew the Nothing might be able to get to her quicker, but she wasn't Seto, not being able to breathe properly would annoy her no end. It was very odd, she could keep the form up, here in Wherever. She could feel the Creativity circulating the city, still mixed with the Nothing, so much more concentrated, replenishing her powers; but at the same time she could feel the Nothing wearing them away much faster… "It erodes. Too long with it, and you're gone. We haven't even been able to find out why or how- we can't safely do any experiments."

Seto glared at her. "Azreal. She's right. We need to leave. This stuff will kill us if we stay here too long."

"…Go." She replied. "You're right. You need to go."

"You to." He told her, firmly.

"No." She shook her head. "I'm… I'm going to stay here, and see if I can do something." She smiled nervously. "Hey, Humans aren't all that sensitive to it, right? I'm half-human. I can last a lot longer then other Muses. You'd have to stay up here days, unless you were dropped into a vat of the stuff, so I should be fine. Loads of time. The lack of oxygen is your main worry, especially when the Nothing in the air isn't exactly helping you get enough, but I don't even have that problem. So I'll be fine."

Seto glared at her, but it gradually slid away into an expression that wasn't one, that was void of emotion. "And I suppose you know how to fix filters?"

"…Not exactly." Azreal admitted. "But I'm going to try!"

Seto sighed. "You can hardly work a telephone. I'll come with you, or you'll never get anywhere."

"…Seto…"

"Shut up and lead the way." He answered. This was a challenge to him now. He had to fix this. Fix this, and save the darned city. Fix it before she died in the attempt. And so help him, he would. He never failed a challenge. He'd never entered into one for unselfish reasons before either, but you couldn't have everything.

"Right." She nodded, and turned to leave the small square, but first she picked up the black feather sitting on the bench. "See? Now we can't fail. We have a wish." She smiled, but it was false, looking more of a grimace of nerves and sadness.

"…A what?"

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Yugi had received a variety of interesting presents, from a watch to a CD he had been looking at last time they went shopping to a huge pack of sweets (Not that he needed anymore after that cake) to a pair of socks that played music when he walked in them, (A/N: Who was that! Honestly…) to something that they couldn't quite figure out what it was, but in ten years time would be discovered to be a lamp, and now, there was only one left, this one from Anna.

Yugi had deliberately left it to last, because, in all honesty, he was a little nervous of opening it. Anna was famous for her slightly twisted sense of humour, so he didn't want to think about it. However, the package in the brightly coloured birthday paper seemed conservative enough, just a simple rectangle. Yugi took it and peeled back the wrapping cautiously, smiling in delight as he saw what was inside.

It was a deck, the new fire-themed structure deck. Some of these cards would make excellent additions to his deck, and best of all, the present had been nothing to be worried about after all- a deck of cards was just about the safest thing you could get for a Duellist.

"Open them…" Anna prompted, Yugi not spotting her slightly devilish grin. "Take a look at what's inside…"

"Okay…" Yugi nodded, flipping the box open. To his surprise, the opening flap just ripped away in his hand. "Oh no…" He gasped, looking up at Anna. "I'm sorry…"

"Don't apologise to me, it's yours." She shrugged. "Besides, it's just the box! Just make sure you take more care with the cards, hey?" She smiled to assure him that she was joking.

Yugi pulled the top card from the deck, it just so happening to be The Twin Headed Fire Dragon. As he admired it, he noticed that the card was unusually shiny. He frowned. He wasn't aware that the Dragon came in ultra rare… He rubbed it slightly, and was even more despaired when this caused the card to rip. "Gah!" He yelled, trying to smooth it back in place.

It was then that he noticed his friends were all laughing at him, and he relaxed a little, examining the damaged 'card'. In actual fact, the thing that had ripped had just been foil- foil designed to look like a card, wrapped around a large, but thin, chocolate, the Dragon etched oh-so-lightly into it. He grabbed the 'box', quickly finding that it to was made from Sugar paper- no wonder it had been so easy to rip…

Anna had brought him a 40 card, fire themed, fully-edible deck.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

When Lira had been fired from his job last April, he had caused scandal. He was exiled to Earth, and one or two of the bolder two-faced people said maybe Azreal wasn't that bad after all- you know, now that she was dead, and had been right about him. In that order. At any rate, while the general population of the Musing Community thought that Azreal Kiyoko had died in hospital and Lira had been banished to Earth, in reality, Azreal had been banished to Earth and it was Lira who did not go. He was the only one outside of the family who knew that Azreal was not dead, who knew that the publicists had been adamant that her case was covered up, that death looked better then exile; and they knew that he would use that to his advantage. Of course, as far as the Judges and court and Millierie knew, his sentence had been enforced and he was stranded down on Earth. It was one of the people in the government that had swung him a job, disappearing into the Somewhere docks, knowing that he would find a way to tell the people how the government had lied to them about Azreal's supposed death if he had no incentive to keep quiet.

And so, for over a year now, though he had lost track of the days and weeks, Lira had been working down in the Somewhere docks, shipping things back and forth between Earth and the Musing Cities. He was no longer scared of the law, so occasionally things would go missing, or a lot more bootlegging happened, but nothing could be done about it. Still, Lira was not content with just this. He was supposed to be riding the gravy chain, not doing manual labour, constantly hiding away. He couldn't have that lifestyle now. But he could certainly have revenge.

He had a list. He had had over a year to work on it, after all. Locked away in the madman's brain was all those he felt he had to avenge himself on. Top of the list was a certain dirty half-human. But he'd deal with her last. That way, she'd suffer with her family and friends, knowing it was her fault. He'd deal with the other Kiyokos before her- They all seemed to come as a set, so they could all suffer together. And then there was Seto Kaiba. He would be first. He meant the most to Azreal, he had been the most annoying, he was the one who had told Azreal that the case had been completed before she was replaced, he was the one who made her happy… It all came back to him. If he hadn't told them that the comic had been back on track before Lira got there, they wouldn't have been taking a closer look at all his case notes. He wouldn't have been fired. It was all Kaiba's fault.

So Lira would get him back. Then he'd get the family. Then…with lack of anyone else, he'd get her. Yeah.

Now he had come to be sitting on top of a pile of crates going down to the planet's surface. He could hardly wait to get there. Azreal would already be stressed out over her precious home town. She wouldn't want to deal with him. He didn't really have a plan. But he'd get one. It didn't matter how long it took him to implement, he'd see it through to the end. As long as he got them all, in that order, he didn't care if it took him the rest of his life. He'd do it, or die trying.

The crates juddered to a stop. He was down on the planet's surface.

At last. Time to Lock and Load. Time to ready his body and mind for his sole focus now- getting Seto Kaiba.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"Well, that's the lot!" Téa said cheerfully, slamming the machine door shut. "What do you want to do now?"

Azreal shrugged. "Hey, it's your birthday. You get the right to choose."

"Then why don't we watch another movie?" Téa suggested, picking up the box set from the counter and looking at the remaining films inside it. "How about Shirley Valentine? I haven't seen that one before…"

"Really?" Azreal asked, following her into the front room. "I love it. You'll like it. It's really cute and funny."

"Yeah, I heard that." Téa replied, taking the DVD out of it's box and setting up the player.

"I met one of the actors, once." Azreal commented. "Another one I had to inspire directly…"

"Oh," Téa said in some surprise. "Wasn't this film made in the early '90s, though? I would've thought they'd all be too old by the time you were inspiring to need a muse."

"Well, you'll see in a bit," Azreal explained "But one of the couples had a baby in the film. He was the baby. Of course, by the time I met him, he'd just finished drama school and was making a film about a teenage spy. But he couldn't do it. Despite all that training, he couldn't make the character feel real."

"But I bet you inspired him and got lots of creativity and made him a big star, though!" Téa grinned. Azreal laughed, embarrassed.

"Not exactly. It was my first big case… and my first big screw up. I was one of the extras on set, you see, and it never seemed like his heart was in it. That was the first time I saw Forrest Gump, you know- I made friends with him, and he made me watch it, and then he said… 'Life is like a box of chocolates… empty, and full of other people's wrappers.'."

"That's so sad…" Téa replied, looking concerned. "What did you do?"

"Well, by this point, I kinda figured it was his mom that wanted to him to be an actor." Azreal shrugged. "I mean, she'd made him act even when he was only a year or two old, and she sent to Stage school. I kinda guessed that maybe he was only acting because he didn't know what else to do. So I…" She turned away, slightly embarrassed. "I told him he shouldn't act if he didn't want to, and that he should go where his heart took him. The next morning, he quit, and… well, the last I heard, he had gone to college, and was studying to be a doctor."

"Sounds like you really helped him out- you made him realise he didn't have to act if he didn't want to ." Téa blinked. "Why are you embarrassed?"

"'Helping people out' comes second." Azreal laughed. "They were sympathetic to my reasoning, of course, but because of me the film was stopped, we lost another actor, and a good potential for Creativity. And Muses need Creativity more then they need a clear conscious, that's the reality of it."

"Well, I think you did the right thing." Téa said stubbornly as the film began.

"Thanks, Téa."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"A wish." Azreal repeated, her feet knowing the familiar streets even when her eyes could not see through the deadly fog. She hated to see it like this… It had always been so busy, bustling and bright, full of life… Now it just seemed dead. The Lifts between levels certainly would be, so she took him to find the stairs. They had a lot of climbing to do. And she knew that the lower they got, the stronger, the more concentrated, the Nothing would be… She swallowed hard. It didn't matter any more. Seto would get out okay. And she… well, she didn't have long anyway. She might as well go out with a bang. "From the feather."

"A wish?" Seto echoed.

"Yeah. You know. Magic."

Seto looked surprised at that. "You've explained all this with Science." He said, trailing his fingers through the fog. It made them tingle in the same way as when Az touched him in her muse form, hot and cold at once. "And you make your cities float with Science, I suppose. So why on Earth… and above it… do you go back to magic now?"

"Isn't everything magic until we can explain why it happens?" Azreal replied, shortly. "Magic is just Science we haven't figured out yet."

"You have wish-granting feathers and you haven't figured out how they work?"

"Hey, we don't have record of anything before we came up here- and that was in the Dark Ages or something. Give us chance- we were too busy figuring out how to keep the city floating and how to copy the technology for other cities and working out what to do if there was a fault … No-one expected this, though…" She sighed.

"But…" Seto frowned. "Someone must have built this place to begin with. Are you suggesting that someone in the Dark Ages knew how to do this? That's impossible!"

"We're working on that to." She told him. "But hey, till then- A wizard did it."

"You cannot be serious…"

"Uh-huh. Had to be a wizard. I'm sure of it."

Seto rolled his eyes, but he didn't really mind. By now he had worked out for himself that acting like nothing wrong, still using her unique brand of not-quite-funny humour, was just her way of dealing with things, in much the same way that he acted so-

…It was her way of dealing with things.

"Right. Well, tell me what you know about these Wish feathers anyway." He replied.

"Why so interested?" She answered, looking at him quizzically as she lead him through street after street, presumably towards some sort of staircase or lift down to the lower levels. Her mouth smiled just a little, but her eyes could not even manage that. They were sad. But there was something more in there to, something that made him uncomfortable. There was a determination, not a fiery, desperate, angry one. A cold, harsh one that suggested nothing, not one thing, would stop her. He hadn't seen that cold look before, at least not in her eyes. He'd seen it all too many times in the mirror, however. And that's why it scared him when she shared it.

"Just curious." He shrugged, not letting his thoughts show on his face, something he had also done many times before.

"Well… We figure it's some kind of energy store that builds up over your life…" She began slowly, still walking at a brisk pace through the ghostly street, her wings looking more solid then he'd ever seen them before. "I have one to. See?"

"Where?"

"Right wing… kinda towards the middle. It's much brighter then the others." She slowed her pace a little, and he squinted at her back, looking carefully at the off-white, slightly greying feathers. He knew they had never been pure white, but he didn't remember them being as dingy as this… He pushed the thought from his mind as he finally spotted a speck of white, under a cluster of other feathers. Gently, he lifted them up as best he could to see properly; and then he could see what she meant. There, amongst the tattered feathers was a proud one, resplendently white in colour, better shaped, and larger somehow. He tentatively reached out to touch it.

"Wait." Azreal commanded stonily, craning over her shoulder to see what he was doing as best she could. "I should warn you- it's not a normal feather. It pulses."

"Pulses?" He asked, more intrigued then ever. He pressed his fingers against it, and indeed it was, just as you would find on your wrist or neck- which suggested that this feather actually had blood passing through it; that it was more then just grown from the wing… "Amazing…" He muttered.

He felt Azreal shudder and snatched his hand away. She turned to face him, smiling a false smile again.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, unsure how he could have.

"Not really." She replied. "It's just sensitive, like if someone pinched you. That's all."

"I'm sorry."

"I said it didn't matter!"

Her lip was bleeding a little from where she'd been biting it, suggesting she'd been lying, but he didn't push the issue as she picked up the walk again without another word.

Something was bothering Seto still, and then he finally pinned down on what it was. "Wait. Why is yours white, but that one-" He gestured at the feather she was carefully carrying with her. "Is black?"

"It turns black when you're going to die." She informed him monotonously. "It means it's going to detach itself. It means you're dead and gone. I said it was an energy store, right? Well, it gets loose when you're in serious danger. You can pull it out and use it to do almost anything- your heart's deepest desire. We don't know how. Of course, when death is imminent most people use it to prolong their lives a little. And when people… don't use it, it goes black. Can't keep the colour without a blood supply, I guess. So now there's all this energy locked away in this thing that could grant your heart's desire." She waved her grandmother's now black feather at him. "Not that it could bring her back. Nothing can do that."

"Az…"

"And we can't use it either." She said, loudly, before he could say anything. "Well, we could, but it would be incredibly disrespectful. In our society, you can be jailed for it. Completely disgusting. Just totally, utterly, morally wrong!" She was yelling, apparently frustrated at this, and that she could never bring herself to do such a thing. Seto didn't really understand what was wrong with it, but it really just bought home how different their cultures really were. He listened carefully, and a sound something akin to a sob escaped her. He couldn't do this any longer.

"Stop." He commanded steadily. She did, and turned to face him, although she didn't look up at him.

"We have to keep moving." She said, harshly.

"It's alright to be upset." He stated. Then she did look up at him, looking unsure what to feel.

"Upset?" She demanded. "My grandmother just died in front of me. My people are stuck, separated, in a strange place, and my city is being dissolved! I know it's alright to be upset! Way beyond upset!" Tears were streaming down her face now, and she went to wipe them away, but Seto got there first, gently getting rid of them with the back of his fingers in the same way he'd done for Mokuba when the boy was little more then a toddler. Az took a step back, and gave her eyes a wipe for herself. The cold determination had reasserted itself in her eyes, stronger now, all traces of sadness gone. "But right now, I don't have time to be upset. We have to do this now!"

Seto placed a hand on her shoulder as best he could with her wings there. "There will be time to grieve." He promised.

"Pity there never was for you." She answered harshly, turning abruptly around a corner. "This way. We need the staircase at thirty-five degrees past North."

"Why that one?"

"We're taking a little detour." She replied, not pausing her pace for even another second.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"It's my birthday in a few days time, on the fourth." Yugi explained. "All these guys are coming over to celebrate, and I wondered if you'd like to join us."

"Really?" She blinked. "Even after the… disaster at Tristan's?"

"Of course!" Yugi said, blinking in surprise.

"We've said before, that wasn't your fault." Tristan said graciously. "Forget about it."

"We'll just have to remember that you can't drink coke." Yugi assured her. "It's probably not a good idea if you disappear in front of Grandpa. We might be able to convince Tristan's family that it was their imagination, but not him…"

Anna winced at the memory. "Don't remind me…" She had finally discovered why Coca Cola was not available in Wherever. Unlike humans, it didn't make you hyper. No, it made you de-materialise.

"No Coke for me." She agreed. "But, yes, I'll be there. Wouldn't miss it for the world…"

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

He hadn't been at home. Lira had gone through all that trouble to go to the house and pummel him, and the Kaiba jerk hadn't even been home. How inconsiderate.

Still, he was not fazed. He knew that Kaiba was pathetically devoted, through a total lack of a spine, to Azreal. She was fool enough that, when she felt Wherever being cut off, she would have rushed at the chance to do something about it, wheatear the city was supposed to be completely cut off or not. He could sense an opening somewhere in this damned city, so evidently some equally idiotic friends of hers were helping. That's where he'd find them.

Lira slinked through the town, out of the posh district where the Kaiba lorded it over everyone else, to the average district where Azreal lived with her so called 'family', to a rough area of town where no-one would live by choice. As he passed in front of two of many of the tower blocks, he could see through the gap a hill, and perched on top was a warehouse, glaring down at the rest of the area. For a second, he thought that was where the entrance was, he could feel it so strongly. But it wasn't. This had a different feel to it, one he liked… It seemed to be brooding, waiting to strike… He could now distinguish it from the Church down a little way on the opposite side of the street, but he did not go to it just yet. Something about this place called to him…

And then someone physically did.

"You there!"

Lira jumped, startled- no-one should be able to see him!

"Yeah, you." He turned to see a weedy little man wearing excessive amounts of gold jewellery. "I can see you well enough."

"How?" Lira demanded.

"Practise." He sneered. "I've always been able to see you people. Could I be of service to you?"

Lira folded his arms across his chest, trying to look more intimidating. "I was looking for Seto Kaiba. But I think I've found him." He jerked a finger in the general direction of the Church. "So, if you'll excuse me…"

"Inspiring him, I suppose?" The man asked, not sounding too happy about it.

"No." Lira replied, sick of questions. "I intend to kill him. Or worse."

"Worse then death?"

"Living with nothing is worse then dying with everything." Lira answered. His mental stability was not all there, otherwise he would not be saying this to a random passer-by. But losing everything can do that to a person. "I know that first hand."

The man grinned. He could see that Lira was on the edge of insanity, he was there himself in fact, but he was patient. "You'll have to get in line." He smirked. "I want his suffering to my name to."

"Oh?" Lira's eyes narrowed. "And what's he done to you?"

"That's really none of your concern." The man smiled nastily. "However, I have a plan that I suspect is better then any you might have, and I really can't allow you to screw it up. Unless of course you'd care to join me, I need help…"

"I'm listening." Lira answered cautiously.

"You'd need patience." The man warned him. "This may take years to implement."

Now it was Lira's turn to smile icily. "I've already waited a long time, but if it's all the better when it comes, I would wait for a century. What's your plan?"

"I'm not telling you until your participation is secured." He told him steadily.

Lira's grin widened. He liked this guy's way of thinking. Why not? If it was a dud, Lira had the advantage of being invisible to ninety percent of the human race. He could get away easily enough.

"Fine. I'll come and help you."

"Excellent." The man held out his hand. "I'm Jack Selbek."

"Lira Klio." They shook.

Jack Selbek grinned. Lira Klio seemed to have assumed they'd be partners. It was not so. Lira Klio now belonged to Jack Selbek.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Finally shaking them off, (Though no paper, book, photo or inanimate object went unsigned, or any girl unsweetened) Duke entered the corridor that was serving as the exit and entrance for the stage, still buoyed up on his assured success. Not looking where he was going, he banged into a girl, hurrying the other way with sheets of paper. Duke began to help her gather them up, so he didn't look at her.

"Oh, sorry!" She said. "You were good, by the way. I could hear part of it back here…"

That voice was worryingly familiar, but he couldn't place it…

"Thanks." He smiled, quickly scribbling his name on the paper and handing it back to her.

"Uh, thanks," She said, bemused. "But I think that you just signed Ryou's guitar tabs."

That voice really was… He looked up, and saw the bespectacled face. He remembered it. He remembered the voice. But who…?

"Azreal!" He yelped, suddenly. "Wha- what are you doing here!"

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Azreal didn't seem to be a particularly talkative mood as she strode purposefully on, presumably to her staircase thirty-five degrees past North, so Seto didn't push it. Instead, he, still ignoring his breathlessness as best he could, peered through the fog. Amazingly, he recognised most of the buildings on this street- perhaps their cultures weren't so different after all. It seemed to be a street entirely devoted to Religion. As they walked along, he saw everything from Shinto shrines to Mosques, all on the same road. This struck him as strange, and he said so.

"Seems a good way of arranging it to me." Azreal shrugged, not sounding overly interested. "This way you know where to find them all, whatever faith you follow- we have everything on this street. Shintoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Christianism, Jewism, Muslimism…"

Seto decided not to comment on this. Somehow he didn't think it was worth the bother. "Wait a minute. It said in the lift that this was the Muse offices. So far, it doesn't look much like it."

"Of course it is." Azreal answered. "This is where all the Inspirational people live and work, so there has to be facilities for them."

Azreal's 'detour' seemed to involve, rather then heading straight through the streets to the edge of the level where the stairs would be, tacking along it lengthways to get to the particular staircase. Admittedly, Seto was not too happy about this arrangement, as they were walking close to the edge; and the sight was more then dizzying. He was almost glad that the Nothing was there, making the air impossible to see through. At the moment he could only see a little way down, which was bad enough. On a clear day, he was certain, it'd be like standing on the wings of a plane. Apparently muses didn't suffer from vertigo.

"Here." Azreal grunted, as they reached a staircase and she began to descend. She'd slowed her pace slightly as they'd walked, but now she seemed anxious to move on again, desperate to get where she was going, or desperate to get away from this place. She ran down the stairs at a speed that made Seto worry she was going to go headlong. Only one thing slowed her, and that was the staircase itself. Or rather, the wall around it.

His first impression of the wall was relief. Almost like a railing, it was raised at waist-height, and so reassured him that neither of them would be falling down any time soon. It was unusual, though- at the bottom, it was just normal grey bricks. But, above them, standing vertically, was slab after slab of a very different kind.

They looked to Seto almost like some sort of hard wax, a kind of pale, mottled yellow-brown colour; with a consistency that looked to him almost like those clotted cream fudges Mokuba loved. Apart from this, each one was unique. The similarity many shared was the black feathers pressed into them, but not all of them had this. They all had a name on them, and writing, but the curious thing was that they all seemed to be in different languages. The only thing that every single one had was a tiny little metal bowl affixed to the bottom of them; no more then a finger's breadth or depth, and filled with water. It was these little dishes that were slowing Azreal down.

It was bizarre to watch. As she passed each one, she would press her first two fingers to her forehead, dip the tips in the water, and then spread it onto the wax panels. This was all done at speed, barely glancing at what she was doing, as she hurried on, mumbling something in a language he didn't understand.

She went down and down, continuing this little ritual, her strange speech becoming more haggard as the speed they went at began to take it's toll; and then, all at once, she stopped dead. Seto couldn't have said how far down they'd gone, he'd long since lost count of the steps, or how long they'd been descending, nor could he tell you how much further they had to go. But, seemingly no reason, Azreal had stopped, and she suddenly knelt down on the step, facing the wall. Before her was a panel just the same as all the others they'd passed, but this one was blank.

"Az…?" Seto began slowly, his voice almost being completely swallowed by their surroundings. She was knelt in front of the blank panel, but didn't look like she was about to make any actions, instead looking at the black feather with an odd look on her face. Normally her face was an open book to her emotions, but now it was as incomprehensible to him as the strange words she'd been muttering as they'd climbed endlessly down. Before them, the steps stretched out even further, as though they would spiral on forever.

"I just wish that we could…" She began, still looking at the feather, but she did not finish the sentence, starting a new one instead. "…I can't do it properly, but it's better then nothing…" She said plenty of other things to, but Seto didn't understand any of them. As he watched, she dipped her fingertips into the small bowl at the bottom of the panel, and rubbed the water over the blank space. She also rubbed some carefully over the black feather that was all that remained of her mother's mother. This feather was then pressed firmly against the waxy-like substance before her. To Seto's surprise, it gave, and the feather sank into it, sticking there even as she removed her hand. After rubbing some more water over it, she sat back on her heels, singing the start of that strange song again, the tune very different this time, crying even as she did. She didn't move after that. Seto took this to be a sign that she was finished with whatever she was doing, and sat down next to her.

"This is a graveyard, isn't it?" He asked, quietly. She nodded, and he pulled her close to him.

"I couldn't even put a name on the tablet!" She wept. "But if I didn't, the feather would have been dissolved to! What else could I do, Seto? What else could I have done?"

"Nothing." Seto told her. "Nothing. Now, then…" He stood up again. "We need to keep moving, Az."

"I know…" Azreal sighed, and she stood, once again following the tradition of pressing her fingers to her forehead, into the water, and then onto the panel. After that, she continued to walk slowly down the stairs, before realising after a few steps that Seto was no longer by her side.

Azreal turned to see him smoothing water onto her grandmother's panel with the tips of his fingers, the bandage around his hand even now. That place where they'd sat around a campfire so care-free now seemed a world away, and, as below them the Earth carried on oblivious of what was happening above them, in a way it was. It seemed Seto had cottoned onto their customs and was now following out of respect, although he was giving the panel a look that she couldn't for the life of her figure out what he was thinking.

They were quite some distance down the steps before either of them spoke again.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Mokuba turned quickly at a sound on the stairs behind him, and found himself looking directly into deep, blue-green eyes a few steps below. Realising that this time Mokuba was looking at her, not through her, Azreal stopped her ascent and stood, mind whirling.

She must have accidentally materialised without noticing again. And in front of Mokuba! It had been happening more and more often of late, she couldn't keep it up for long, if she didn't get back soon, she'd have to… Oh shift, she thought shift shift shift! Oh, CTRL ALT DELETE! This can't be happening! Not now! Not when I was finally… If mom hadn't…If I hadn't…

"Who're you?" Mokuba demanded suspiciously. Although, it wasn't as harsh as it could have been. He just couldn't take a teenage girl standing on his stairs hyperventilating as a serious threat. "Hey…Are you alright?"

"Fine!" Azreal replied shrilly, getting hold of herself "You just made me jump." She regained composture and went up the last couple of steps to join him by Seto's door. "Isn't he awake yet…? Strange." Her sleep spell must have been more powerful then usual. Maybe that's why I couldn't control when I materialised this morning… Her optimistic side thought. Liar, the pessimist side replied that's not true and you know it.

"Look, just who are you?" Mokuba asked again. Azreal realised she'd need a cover story.

"Oh, excuse me." She replied. "My name is Az- Anna Mitsan, I work with your brother." She couldn't help but smiling a little sadly to herself. Anna Mitsan. Now there's a name she hadn't expected to use again.

Mokuba looked 'Anna' up and down. She certainly did not look the part, with scruffy, long brown hair tied back with a hairband that seemed to know it was fighting a loosing battle, jeans that were wearing into huge holes at the knees, and a very loud multi-coloured, slightly misshapen jumper. She was short, very short, standing perhaps a head taller then Mokuba. Thick glasses perched on her nose, but not very well, because every few seconds she had to push them back up. Behind those glasses were those amazing eyes Mokuba had seen earlier. They were a deep, dark, blue but it looked like someone had got a paintbrush and flicked a splatter of emerald green over the top. They met his eyes without a flinch or annoyance, and stared back at him with hawk like intensity, but he could see a definite sparkle there, a love of life, a need for fun… He blinked and dragged his gaze away, resisting the urge to shake his head to clear it. There was something weird about this girl, besides the way she dressed. She couldn't have been more then fifteen, so all in all, she did not look like someone Seto would work with. Mokuba wondered vaguely how long it would take security to get her if he called them now and also how this girl had got into the house in the first place. Not that they weren't used to girls trying to get in, Seto was very popular, but few actually got this far…

Azreal reeled a little to as Mokuba broke free. Not even her hypnosis would work for her anymore. Only to be used in the direst of circumstances of course, (Not that she hadn't broken practically every rule already) but it was the one aspect of musing she actually excelled at. The one thing the papers fawning after her mother hadn't been able to pick apart when discussing her shortcomings. And now even that had betrayed her. Azreal rubbed her forehead worriedly. Maybe she really was getting sick. Or maybe her sub-conscious was trying to tell her something... Azreal pushed these thoughts back to their customary place at the back of her mind, the excuse being that she needed to deal with the most immediate problem first.

"What? Don't say he hasn't told you about me." Azreal said, quirking a brow at Mokuba's disbelieving expression. "Well, that's his choice, I guess. Listen, when he wakes up, tell him I called round and that I'll be back later. There's something… something I just have to do." Even though, she added mentally, given the circumstances, it's an even worse idea than usual.

"Wait a minute." Mokuba said suspiciously "I'm not buying this. Who are you and what do you want?"

"I already said, silly." Azreal laughed nervously. She went to rub her elbow- an instinctive movement when she was nervous- and noticed her hand had a mind of it's own again and was dematerialising.

Oh Crud.

Azreal shoved the hand hastily into her pocket. "Well, it's been real, Mokuba, but I really have to go now…!"

Azreal ran off down stairs at a speed Mokuba would have been punished for, and rounded the corner in them. Mokuba followed only slightly more sedately, but as he turned there was no sign of the mysterious girl. Even an hour later, after a through search of the mansion, he saw nor hide nor hair of her. Mokuba shrugged as he entered the kitchen. It was obvious this girl was not a business partner.

Oh well Mokuba thought, pouring some cereal. I guess it's better that Seto has a secret girlfriend then that he argues with himself in his room.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

All the panels stretching out before them now were blank, and not in use, so they were no longer slowed by the water-type ritual. However, they were still moving steadily downwards, admittedly at a slower pace- some of the desperation seemed to have drained out of her. Seto had to confess part of him was relieved; the further down they went, the thicker the Nothing got until they could hardly see in front of them, and had he had to run he probably would have suffocated. As it was, he took the opportunity to ask Azreal about everything he'd seen and heard since arriving on the stairs. He didn't care an awful lot for being so out of the loop in this way.

"As you said, it's a graveyard." She told him. "There's really not much else to say. When we die, our bodies are either absorbed by Nothing or tossed into it, only the Wish Feather is kept- if it wasn't used, of course."

"It strikes me as strange that you will take your dead to the very thing you fear the most." Seto commented.

"No, no…" Azreal shook her head. It was not the most pleasant of conversations, for sure, but she was glad of it. Anything to take her mind away from the task at hand. "You've got to understand, according to… well, our superstitions, if you like, we're of air and of water. By giving any bodies over to the Nothing, our spirits are released back into the air. That's why we have the water here. It helps us honour the memories of the… deceased."

Seto snorted. "Right."

She looked at him, smirking slightly. "Well, if you think about it… If we're Air and Water, then you're Earth and Fire. And what do you do with bodies? Bury them or burn them."

"And what do you consider yourself?" Seto asked quietly. "What does that make you?"

The question caught her off-guard, and Azreal didn't answer for a long time. When she did, it was on a topic unrelated to the question, as she continued to explain their customs to him.

"Y'know what these panels are made of?" She questioned. "That's Creativity, that is. I told you we could compress it down and eat it- well, that's what it's sealed in."

"It doesn't look too appetising." Seto admitted, wrinkling his nose.

"Oh, it's gorgeous…" Azreal said dreamily. "It's sweet, but kind of wooden… um… Well, have you ever eaten Cinnamon bark? With a bit of the sap on it, and like it's been stored between a fish and some oranges?"

"…No?" Seto couldn't help but laugh. "It still sounds disgusting to me…"

"Oh." She shrugged. After a pause, she added: "Maybe it's an acquired taste."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"We-ell…" Well began awkwardly. He was fairly sure when people talked about Evangelising, this wasn't exactly what they had in mind… He was saved from answering by the fire escape at the back of the room bursting open.

"Well! Guys!" Anna yelled, entering. Wasn't she supposed to be on holiday…? "I really need your…help…" She trailed off, seeing the room was full of Muses, who weren't too pleased to see her.

"Isn't that the Kiyoko girl…?"

"I thought she died in hospital!"

"That was just her mother covering up for her! I told you she'd been exiled!"

Azreal paled. If they knew she was here, it was only a matter of seconds before…

"I bet she was the one who set the Nothing on Wherever!"

"To get revenge!"

"I knew she was twisted!"

Azreal decided to try, even though she knew there was no point. "Oh, come on. How am I supposed to control Nothing?"

There was a slight pause.

"She's a witch!" An old Muse cried.

"I always knew she was!"

"I said there was some'in strange about her…"

"It's because she's half human!"

"She's a Witch!" The same old, hysterical Muse cried. "Now that's she scattered us all, she'll pick us off one by one!"

Azreal rolled her eyes. People just got worse and worse as they got older…

"Anna…?" Well began uncertainly.

"Well, I-" Azreal started, interrupted by a cry of 'Get her! Now! While she's distracted!'. "Oh, crud…"

She bolted through the door, pushing through the room and out into the corridor. The Muses quickly gave chase. No way could she stand up to this lot!

"This is a House of God!" She tried, still running. In the Church proper, the Evening Service continued unknowingly. "House of God House of God House of God House of God House of God!"

But they paid her no heed as they backed her into a corner.

"Stop!" Well commanded. "Or, well, I'll have you all chucked out by your, well, ears!"

They all stopped, considering.

"I will!" He insisted.

"Well, just make sure she doesn't get away…" The old one grumbled as Well's friends herded them all into the room they'd come from.

"Well…" Well began. "What's this favour you're asking?"

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The Staircase reached yet another little landing, leading out onto one of the levels, and once more Azreal passed it. They'd begun on Level Eight, and they had only just hit Level Five. They needed to go down deeper then even she ever had before, down past Level Four, and Three, and Two; all the way down to Level One. She had no idea what was going to be there when they reached it, or what she'd do, but that was where they were headed. Hopefully they'd know what to do when they got there. One thing she knew was that she would not be leaving it again. She could feel the Nothing leeching through her even now. It wouldn't be long. She had to hurry.

She still hadn't answered Seto's question. Did she think of herself more Muse or Human? She'd never really considered it before…She had settled into Earth well enough, but she had been born and raised here, had spent most of her life training or working as a muse…

"Is this it?" Seto asked suddenly, knocking her brutally away from her thoughts, although in all honesty she was grateful for the interruption. It took her away from thoughts she didn't want to think.

Before them, she could see the staircase was finally coming to an end. There was only a few more steps to go, a few more panels, and then it went level, turning into Level Four.

"If you mean 'are we where we need to be?', no." Azreal replied. "If you mean 'Is this the end of the staircase?', then yes."

"How much further?" Seto wondered as they began to descend the final stretch.

"This is Level Four." She told him, monotonously. "About as close to the Nothing as everyday people would go. Levels One to Three have been immersed for quite some time." They reached the platform, and she paused for a second, rubbing her hand gently over the last of the blank panels. "Those who do venture down tend to end up here on the wall." She muttered quietly. "And I may soon be joining them."

She hadn't intended Seto to hear the last part, but he had. His reaction was predictable enough.

"No you won't." He said fiercely, in a tone that he usually reserved for argumentative employees. "As long as we hurry and fix this thing, you'll be fine. We'll go back down and… and we'll go and make s'mores on the lakeside."

Azreal wanted to laugh, but the sound that came out of her seemed to be more akin to a sob. She knew, and had known for quite sometime, that she would die. She hadn't told him. She had to tell him. "Seto…" She began.

"Ssh." He commanded, stubbornly, taking her hand and pulling her out onto the Level. "You are not going to die. You're not. You can't, because I'm going to tell you my name."

Azreal pulled back. "Seto, I don't know!" She promised. "Even when we were at your parents' graves, I didn't look at the name, I swear. You don't have to tell me."

"Yes I do." He insisted. "My second name… my original name, is Jetsuke… If you die, that name dies with you, Azreal."

She had to tell him. But not now, not yet, not like this.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Unfortunately, she was about to become even later. Just as she passed the girls toilets, the door swung open and she was dragged forcibly inside.

After she got over the initial surprise of the attack, Anna looked at the offenders in bewilderment. "Téa? What is this?"

She heard the door creak closed and turned to see another girl standing in front of it.

"Mai?" She said, utterly confused now. "Do you even go to this school?"

"That's not the point." Mai said sternly. "Téa called me at lunch. We need to talk to you, Azreal."

"What about?" She blinked. She had heard the conversations that generally happened in ladies toilets, and she didn't really want to be involved in one.

"Seto Kaiba." Téa said deliberately.

"Oh." Anna replied, leaning against the sink. So, the cat was out of the bag at last…

"Listen," Téa said slowly. "We know you can't control who you have a crush on- and hey, who would blame you for liking him?- but Seto Kaiba is not a good choice, at least not now."

"That is," Mai amended. "Basically, he's completely off-limits."

Anna blinked in confusion, then held back a laugh. Hadn't these two realised that they were…? Did they just think that she…?

"I know there's good in him somewhere." Téa pleaded desperately. "But it won't come out till he's ready. You should just forget him."

Mai snorted. "Face it, he's just a complete jerk. Give him half a chance, and he'll break your heart."

"We just don't want you to get hurt by wanting something you can't get…" Téa added softly. "There's no point even trying. You'll just get hurt."

"Don't you think he's been a bit more mellow recently, though…?" Anna hinted.

"Well…" Téa began uncertainly, before Mai cut her off.

"Phfft." She snorted. "Who cares! The guy's a jerk, and he always will be. So there's absolutely no point crushing on him." As always, blunt and straight to the point. Anna decided it was time to put them out of their misery.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Far below the drama above them, a group of people were gathered, trying to keep the porthole open. The longer they held it there, the more sensitive to Wherever they were; until they could practically see all twelve of the levels looming majestically out of the fatal fog that enshrouded it. It was majestic in the same way that the ruin of a medieval castle was, it had the sense of great strength and secrets locked away inside it, if only it was not wounded so much. This great city, for all it's faults, corruption, and pollution, was to approximately seven million, seventy-four thousand, two hundred and sixty-five people, home. All those were now scattered around across the planet, waiting and hoping and dreaming, not knowing if they'd ever get back home at all; and not knowing that all those hopes and dreams and were resting on the wings and shoulders of one girl and one boy. The city had begun with a single woman and a single man, and it looked set to end that way to.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Azreal stopped, and looked at the house before her. If three year old memory served, it was still exactly the same. The honey suckle trellis up the door. The peeling paint by the window she'd helped on it's way by picking at it. The door was even the same bright red colour.

But it was not exactly the same. The house showed signs of age, as everything else on the planet did. The red door was fading now- it was fresh paint when she'd last seen it- the honeysuckle was bushy and overgrown, the apple tree she'd played in as a child stunted and dying.

But her swing was still there. Azreal could see it, a little rusted, but still hanging firmly onto it's branch and swinging listlessly in the breeze just behind the fence.

It demanded to be sat on. One last time.

Without conscious thought, Azreal jumped over the waist-high fence and sat on what she still thought of as her swing. She gently pushed herself, but the swing was as well oiled as ever despite it's appearance, and it swung as silently as before.

Azreal was so drowned in half-buried half-forgotten memories that she didn't notice when a man came to the door of the house.

"Hey you!" He said, though not in an unfriendly way "Stay right there!" He began to walk down the path towards her. Azreal had that sinking feeling she'd accidentally become solid again.

Against her better judgement and screaming instincts, Azreal stayed put. She just had to see… She knew it wouldn't be him, and even if it was he wouldn't recognise her, but she had to see. Just had to.

"Can I help you, Miss?" He asked politely, considering it was his house and his garden and she was a seemingly random stranger.

"Um, no, I…" Azreal said, trying to swallow down tears. It was him. So now she had got what she had come for. She looked away, back down to the house and saw a woman holding a small boy's hand in the doorway.

"Doug?" The woman called "Who is it?"

"No-one." Doug called back. "Just take James back inside, okay? Tell him daddy will be in in a minute." Azreal swallowed. He was happy. And he had a new family. There was no other reason for her to be here. She shouldn't have come in the first place.

"I… I'm sorry to have disturbed you." Azreal finished lamely, and began to walk away. Then she felt a catch on her arm. She turned around, but kept her eyes focused on the floor.

"Hold on a second." Doug said, sounding confused. Not daring to hope, Azreal lifted her head and met his eyes for the first time. "I know you, don't I?" Doug said slowly "But where from…?"

Azreal held her breath. It wasn't possible.

But then, she had seen quite a few impossible things recently.

She stopped those thoughts. Hope, she reminded herself, Destroys logic.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Level Four, dedicated to 'Customs and Quality Control', was boring in comparison to the few parts of Wherever he had seen previously, although it was welcome relief to the staircase. It almost reminded him of the area surrounding the Night Market, down on the wharf. Although he could not see at all far through the ever thickening Nothing, what he did see seemed to be entirely Warehouses, with what appeared to be piers sticking out at jaunty angles from the edge of the Level. He suspected, should he walk all the way across, they'd be on the other side to. At the bottom of the stairs they'd just climbed down was what resembled nothing more then a customs booth at an airport, and, silently, they walked through it. It seemed that this level was for nothing more then shipping in what they needed and sending it up to the other layers.

"It never used to be like this." Azreal said, no more then a metre in front but already hard to see through the swirling white. "When I was really little, this level was dedicated to Art. Level Three was the docks. Of course, then the Nothing got to Level Three, and… Well. Before that, Level Two was the docks, and before that Level One… but the Nothing has never risen this far or this fast before." She sighed, muttering something quiet and foreign-sounding under her breath.

"What?" Seto asked, too short of breath now to say anything longer. It was silly. Before the air had been too thin to breathe properly. Now it was like trying to suck syrup up a straw. Not that he'd tried that, but still.

"Oh, sorry." Azreal said, sounding decidedly nervous now as they got ever closer to where they could climb even lower. "I was just mumbling to myself…"

"I know that." Seto sighed. "What language?"

"Polish." She replied, and, on seeing the familiar quirk of his eyebrow, elaborated. "You have star signs, right? Well, similar principle, except instead of working it out with stars, we do it with the country we happen to be hovering over at the time."

Seto remained silent. It would seem that, in that case, the city remained stationary, not, as he'd suspected, rotated along with the Earth's gravitational pull. No wonder it hadn't got dark yet, his mind refusing to believe the time his watch told him it was. But he didn't know how they would have done it. It would make their job significantly more difficult unless they were very lucky.

"It's just my formal language." Azreal added. "You use it to show extreme respect, you know, at funerals and so on. I'd hoped you would never hear me use it."

Seto didn't comment, saying instead "And the song?"

"Oh, that's not Polish." She sounded surprised. "That's the last remaining part of our old language. Nobody knows what it means. It was the only ancient artefact we found, these words written down. There's not even an official tune. For all we know, it could just be somebody's shopping list. But everyone sings it. Mothers to daughters, fathers to sons… It's passed on by word of mouth. We sing it in any way, in any tune, for any feeling… It's an expression of emotion for us. It leaves you feeling… peaceful. Powerful. That's why my nan asked me to…" She trailed off.

"Huh. Sounds useful." Seto forced out. "You'll have to teach me."

"Perhaps." Azreal answered, quietly, not sounding at all sure that she would. She stopped abruptly and kicked the top of a metal ladder at her feet that Seto hadn't even noticed until the clanging sound drew his attention to it. "This is the only way down I know of that isn't blocked off. I used to explore down here, but I never got too far before I came back up. Once we're down, it'll be hard to talk. It'll even be hard to think. I have no idea where the way down to Level Two is, or what it'll be like down there. It certainly won't be safe. I can't even guarantee we'll come back up."

"Are you sure about this?" Seto asked gruffly. Azreal nodded mutely. "Then let's go."

"…Are you sure about this?" She couldn't help but ask.

"Just start climbing down that ladder, Az. I'll be right behind you."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Suddenly, her bedroom door banged open and James was jumping on her shouting something incomprehensible about birthdays.

"Morning…" She winced, pushing him off before he broke some of her bones. "Don't jump on me like that, especially not before I've woken up!"

"Why are you on the floor!" He asked, as though it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

"So I can trap you in my duvet." She replied evenly, throwing it over him. He squealed and tried to wriggle free, but she wrapped him up easily. He was small, even for a child that would turn four in January.

"Let me go!" His giggling voice came, muffled. But however much he squirmed, Azreal kept hold of him, yawning.

"I don't think so."

"Yes! Ahhh! Let go! Let go!"

"Never!"

And so forth. If you've ever been a three year old, or had a younger sibling, you probably know the kind of noise that, down the hall, told Doug and Ruby it was about time they got out of bed.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Seto's boots clanged noisily on the metal rungs of the ladder as they slowly and steadily climbed down. The disconcerting thing was that, with every step, part of the rung would simply crumble away, through rust and the erosion of the Nothing over the years. He wasn't looking forward to going back up…

Below him, Azreal suddenly missed her footing on a particularly weak bar, and all but slipped off the ladder completely; only two things saving her. One was that, even as her right side flew away, her left held all the tighter. The other was Seto's stronger hands holding her right hand even tighter.

"Are you alright?" He panted, somehow managing to keep his balance even given his awkward angle on the ladder as he kept hold of her.

"Fine…" She stared fixedly at the ground below, not too far away now. Seto was always there. She only wished she could do the same for him. She carefully navigated the remaining distance and clanked down onto the metal floor that made up Level Three, the panel creaking in protest at the sudden weight on it's rusted rivets.

A moment later, Seto landed next to her. Azreal took his hand, rough and calloused because of the bandages around it, and began to guide him through what she knew of Level Three. This was where she'd spent parts of her childhood when she wanted to be away from others. Knowing that she could spend longer in the Nothing then normal muses, and hating the fact, she'd come down here quite often. Sometimes she'd venture away and explore the abandoned streets and homes closest to the way out; but, for the most part, she'd simply sank down at the bottom of the ladder and sat there, half hoping that then, that day, would be the day the Nothing chose to take her spirit back and release it into the air, flying free, away from all the judgements against her. That day had never come, until now. She shuddered at the thought of how miserable she had been at times here. Well, now the idea of being absorbed did not seem so comforting. She fully intended to fix this first.

Seto could see very little of Level Three, even less then he'd seen of Level Four. The only reason he knew Az was still there was because he could feel her hand, cold and hot in it's Muse form, clasped around his; and he could see her silhouette in places where the air was slightly clearer. Occasionally, an old building or the odd potted plant, totally unaffected by it's conditions, would jump out right in front of his face. At this point, Azreal would swerve violently, change direction, and carry on. He doubted even she knew where she was going any more, they'd come what felt like an immeasurable distance away from the ladder. She seemed to be guiding them in any random direction in the hope that they'd stumble into the entrance to Level Two. But, going about it like this, they never would. Seto was certain there was a better way, but he couldn't think of it right now; they'd instinctively speeded up, dashing recklessly any which way in the blind hope of finding what they sought. But there was a better way, and, at last, he knew.

The Levels of Wherever got progressively smaller as they went down, each level the size of the hole of the Level above it. The holes in the middle all lined up, perhaps, but each one was smaller then the one precluding it, the very rim visible through the hole in the level above. This meant that, just as easily as Azreal's older sister could drop a filing cabinet down to Lower Levels, they could also drop through-and that was what Seto had worked out. The tricky part would be making it onto the Level below and not just crashing all the way through. But it was a better plan then stumbling around like a blind man in the dark.

Azreal went to change direction, but Seto pulled her back. The levels were circular, and so, provided they continued in the same way, they'd eventually hit the centre. Or the edge, but he didn't want to think about that. He was trying to consider all the technicalities of plummeting through a pane of glass and hopefully making it onto the Level below without killing them, but Az had been right- the Nothing was fogging his brain and making him think and react more slowly.

…His footsteps sounded different. Rather then the constant clanking, creaking and groaning of the metal floor, this sounded more like cracking.

Sure enough, his hypothesis proved correct when the glass he'd unknowingly stumbled onto was sufficiently weak enough to let him tumble through it, dragging Azreal with him.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

By the time the two women entered the room, Anna was- or at least, appeared to be, curled up, asleep on her bed. Unfortunately, the old woman was not as gullible as she should have been. Anna tried to keep her breathing controlled as she came right up close, regarding her suspiciously. The only light, although it was still practically daytime, came spilling in from the hall.

"How can she sleep already?" She knew Azreal was faking it.

"Mother, please!" Ruby cried, keeping her voice low. She knew equally well that her sort-of daughter, as she had become known, was feigning sleep, but was bailing her out again. "Anna hasn't been very well at all, she had a month off, only went back today…"

"She's as fit as a fiddle." She sniffed, but at least she straightened up.

"She's just as ill as you are." Ruby replied, smoothly, ushering the old woman out. Then she went and sat on Anna's bed, and the girl straightened up, looking at her dad's wife in the curtain-and-blind-induced gloom.

"She's right, Ann." Ruby said in the end. "No self-respecting girl of your age could sleep at this time. We only had tea half an hour ago. What were you really up to, and, more to the point, why is the window unlocked?"

Stupid childlocks. Too hard to do up properly in a rush.

"Um…" Anna considered. "Would you believe… I wanted some air?"

"Let's take it as read that I would not, and move onto the fact that you were trying to escape."

Anna shifted embarrassedly. "I was going to leave a note."

Ruby shook her head, but after a short pause spoke again, laughing. "Oh, go on then! You can get the bus home easily enough. Just don't let the old bag catch you! After all, the rest of us have family commitments to her, but as she's so desperate to make sure you know you don't…"

Anna was surprised, but then hugged Ruby briefly before leaping out the window once more, and away into the dusk.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

They were lucky as they crashed painfully into another hard, solid, creaking metal floor; rust and corrosion flying up around them on their impact like brown and grey snow. For a second after their crash landing, Azreal rolled sideways, and, as they'd only landed on the very rim of the level, onto the glass in the hole in the middle. Seto scrambled to pull her back, the glass cracking and crumbling below her. For a moment, she leant against him, giving him a look that told him to never do that to her again. It had been somewhat a shock to her when she was suddenly dragged down through a glass panel and slammed into a metal floor.

Level Two was small in comparison to the others, she knew, only about a mile in diameter. It was also dark. Very dark. Although she could not see through the Nothing that held this level as much in it's cold fingers as all the others, she had learnt that this was the Level that, all the way around it's circumference, had the buoyancy columns strapped to it, reaching down far below Level One. Apart from that and one small building behind them, she knew that the Level was empty. Once upon a time, maintenance workers would have come down to make sure the columns that kept the city stable and floating were fully operational, but now it was far too dangerous. The columns were left in the hopes that they would remain self-sufficient. However, more frequently in recent years and months, Wherever would experience the occasional 'Earthquake' as one gave out. Shortly before she'd left, they'd begun strapping extra columns onto Level Four. But perhaps if they could fix the filter well enough…

She struggled to her feet, panting. In Nothing this thick, it was getting hard for her to breathe, so goodness knew how bad it was for Seto. She could feel it wearing away at her now. Her ankles had begun tingling and tickling, like a gentle form of pins and needles, but she wasn't deceived. It wasn't a good sign. All she wanted to do now was save Wherever. The Nothing would have to wait.

Not yet… She willed, stumbling toward the solitary building they'd had the good fortune of landing in front of, Seto behind her. Not yet… Not just yet.

They headed into the building, neither noticing the small group of black feathers gradually fading away, marking where Jay's team had fallen in exactly the pursuit that Azreal and Seto were now undertaking.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"Azreal! Wakey wakey!" Ruby bellowed down her ear. "What, are you in a coma or something?" Azreal looked at her blankly. She had completely missed everything Ruby had said to her.

"You got pulled out." Ruby explained. "Because you were sick. They were going to pull you out anyway, but…"

"Why!" Azreal yelled "Why were they gonna pull me out anyway!"

"Calm down, Az…" Emerald said. "You're still ill."

"Answer the question!"

"You screwed up." Opal said bluntly. "All those little stunts you pulled. Quite frankly, it's embarrassing. All those extra mindwipes, your dad, that whole thing with setting up the friends… You've really done it this time, Az."

"Ryou and Téa!" Azreal retaliated. "That was totally legitimate! You're supposed to help love grow!"

"Grow, not plant it. And you seem to be doing quite a bit of that…"

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"What are they going to do?" Azreal said, fearful now.

"You're going to have a case review…" Ruby said. "To see if you keep your job, and… oh, there's no easy way to say this…"

"Then say it the hard way!"

"Azreal…"

"Tell me!"

"You've been charged with trying to sabotage the musing operation on Earth."

"What!" Azreal screamed "But that's preposterous! Musing is my life!"

"We know…" Emerald said, trying to calm her down. "Don't worry, it'll be okay. No-one believes that accusation."

"Yes they do." Opal shrugged. Her other two-thirds glared at her. "Face it, Az. Given your track record, it would look suspicious to an outsider. Especially with your parentage thrown in."

"What about my parentage?" Azreal asked dangerously, standing up.

"Calm down there, kiddo." Ruby said, passing her something. "Here, mom left a card. She was here, honestly, but then she had to go-"

"Work." Azreal completed bitterly. "Work, again. She's never here."

"Oh, c'mon…" Emerald said in a vain attempt to kill the tension. "It's a great card."

"A great card. Wonderful." Azreal said sarcastically. "Now all I really want is a mom that gives a shift if I live or die!"

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Like the umbrella Seto had held over her on Valentine's day to shield her from the rain, the building provided some welcome relief from the Nothing. It wasn't more then a hut, really, with only one room, but at least here the Nothing wasn't quite so thick, as it's only method of entrance had been to seep in around the edges of the door. It had about the same consistency as it had two levels above, and so gave them to pause and catch their breath slightly.

"I did not appreciate that method of descent." Azreal gasped, flatly, rubbing a small gash on her upper arm where it had caught on the glass. The Nothing around her gave her the odd feeling that the words were being rammed back down her throat.

"But it worked." Seto pointed out. "I suppose this would be the way down?" He inclined his head to a trap door in the floor as he busied his hands by trying to remove the bandage. The glass had only cut a swathe through it, and it made his hand rather harder to use effectively. So, slowly, and as gently as possible, he began to unravel it, his blistered palm gradually appearing over the top.

It didn't appear that Azreal was going to wait for him to finish, however, because she threw open the trap door. Immediately, Nothing bubbled up like steam out of a kettle, forcing what little air they'd had out. However, after the preliminary spurt, it came more slowly, and Azreal could make out what seemed to be the beginnings of a slide, the metal as dull and eroded as everything else had been. At first, she thought it looked far too rickety to even contemplate considering thinking about using it; but then she realised it was no worse then Seto pulling her through a glass floor, which she'd survived only recently. Besides, the pain in her legs was getting worse, and she wondered vaguely if, if she were to remove her shoes, she'd still have toes. Not hanging around to find out, she threw herself onto the slide; and Seto followed, the bandage streaming away behind him like the string of a kite until the last length finally ran off his hand and away into the sky.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"Az!" He drawled. "And here was me thinking you left a challenge for me. I mean, you were here for a week and a half and only succeeded in being landed in hospital; I spend a day here and it's done!" He laughed in an irritating way. Azreal glared at him.

"Hello, Lira." She said through gritted teeth. Seto noticed she was holding some sort of instrument. "There's a portal back to Wherever over there for you. Why don't you go jump in it?"

"Ha ha ha." But none the less, Lira started to walk out of the door and towards the vortex.

"They replaced me with him?" Azreal asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Bet you guys got on really well…"

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Azreal might have found the fall through the floor petrifying, but Seto found this worse. Of course, he would not have admitted being scared of anything, and generally, he wasn't. But, for some reason, this made him long for his office and his laptop and his 'suicidal plant' more then ever. The slide was steep, and, even though it was rusted and old, they still slid at a speed not even Wheeler in sight of food could contend with. They rounded a corner, and yet, kept sliding endlessly on, the resultant wind whipping his face until he was forced to close his eyes; the last thing he saw being his bandage flipping away. Despite this wind, it was still impossible to breathe. Perhaps even harder then when the air had been still and thick. It simply went too fast to catch.

To make matters worse, the chute seemed less then safe. He guessed it had been originally intended for goods, not people, and he bet that even if it was in a brand-new state it would have creaked and groaned to the nines. As it was, the constant moaning mixed with the winds sounded like a constant screaming, and he could feel it bending and giving beneath them, and it was only seconds till it gave way. Seto began to wonder exactly what he was doing here. He'd intended to spend the holidays working on a way to beat Yugi's God Cards- it was about time they duelled again- and he'd even had the jet readied in case he had to resort seeing Pegasus about it. Instead, he was shooting down a rickety metal slide and he really- and then it was over and he was spat out onto yet another metal floor, practically on top of Az.

This one was surprisingly clear. The concentration of Nothing was a lot less. Azreal shortly realised that this was because the air was moving- down here on Level One, the smallest Level, the furthest away from the level above, the air could move a lot more easily. It was no gale-force wind, it was hardly even a breeze, but the air was moving just enough to let them see their surroundings.

She hadn't expected this, the smallest and lowest of the layers, to have a hole in the middle- after all, there was nothing below it that required light. However, it was shaped like a doughnut, just like all those above it. Except… No, it wasn't. Instead of glass in the hole, there seemed to be pipes and pipes spewing out of it like snakes from Medusa's head. This was not a nice image, so Azreal hastily amended it in her mind to branches coming from a tree. But, whatever imagery was used, they looked to her like nothing more then wide, industrial pipes, snaking upwards all around. She knew that these pipes were run up between the levels, hung on the underside of each to pump Creativity into the level below, and that it was blown up from the floor on Level Twelve. However, it was a bizarre experience to stand between them, a forest of pipes, swirling upwards at seemingly random intervals of space. But, however awe-inspiring, there were so many…

"How are we going to find which one's causing the problem?" She asked, despairingly.

"This much couldn't be caused by just one breaking." Seto assessed, quietly. "I suspect this is a far smaller problem."

Azreal tried, she really did; but she just couldn't see how more then one breaking made it a smaller problem, especially as she'd been up for goodness-knows how long. She came to the conclusion that it was some kind of crazy Seto-logic and sat back to wait for him to explain.

Seto smiled. An honest-to-goodness smile, in this place of fear. Things weren't nearly as bad as he'd thought; they'd been lucky.

"Take a look down the hole, Az." He said, nodding over to where he'd been looking while she was gazing round at the pipes. "There's some sort of control terminal down there. It's just a computer that's gone out of whack!"

"So…" Azreal said slowly. "You think we'll be able to fix it?"

"I do."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Azreal ran helter-skelter through the office as fast as she could. People were used to her by now, and calmly moved out the way- or stuck out a foot to attempt to trip her up or kick her in the shin. She was used to them to, and ignored them.

"You're running late, 'Real!" Rebecca called, leaning over the desk.

"I know!"

"Wait!" Rebecca called out. "You forgot these!" She waved the notes on her charge and her help at her.

"Oh…" Azreal replied sheepishly, reversing to get them. "Thanks, 'Becca!"

"You're welcome. Now go!"

"Right!"

"Good luck! I'll see you when you get back!" Rebecca called after her, ignoring the glares thrown at her. So what if she happened to like Millie's youngest daughter? Did it affect any of them?

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Within a matter of minutes, they had located a ladder down into the pit and had climbed down there with much speed. It was not nearly as sturdy as it looked from above, that Azreal knew. It was supported not by proper columns as with the Levels, but with chains, half of which had snapped and the rest that looked dangerously close to joining them. She was surprised the platform didn't swing listlessly to and fro with the breeze. The one bonus was that the air was almost completely clear, all the Nothing that was there being sucked straight up to the city.

Apart from that, there wasn't much to it. The pipes hung below them to filter the air for Creativity before sending it up to the pumps, and they snaked up through the floor forming an almost solid wall around a relatively small standing space and a tiny computer terminal. The most disconcerting realisation came when she saw that the same chains from which this small platform was suspended were also the ones holding onto the pipes. There'd be no extra support there. If the chains snapped, so did the pipes.

Wait. Then that meant… She looked around, and saw that some of the pipes had indeed fallen away. They came up through the floor, and begin filtering with the fine sieve plates inside, but it wasn't nearly enough as it all just billowed back out into the air and got mixed up again before being sucked up into the pipes and pumped into the rest of the city. The sections of pipe that had fallen away were the most important parts, and, here in this more sheltered spot, the Nothing was doing it's job and wearing slowly away at those that remained. Seto took a step forward, and, immediately, one of the chains gave, and, before her eyes, that section of pipe tumbled away into the pit of Nothing that hung below them, incinerated immediately.

To make matters worse, the years of filtering had just left the Nothing behind, not got rid of it. It had accumulated, and now was a literal vat of the stuff. She didn't fancy her chances, or Seto's, if they fell into it. Not that it mattered. Glancing down, she saw that her toes really had gone. She didn't point this out to Seto as the Nothing worked it's way slowly up her body. She forced it out of her mind. First, they had a job to do.

Seto stepped more cautiously this time, but all the care in the world could not stop chains snapping at every step. He looked around him, sure that there were enough to hold them for long enough, then hurried over to the computer- slow and steady hadn't made a blind bit of difference, so now haste would do fine.

"This platform won't hold much longer…" Azreal said nervously. Over three quarters of them had snapped now, and the others were straining and groaning with the extra weight and the constant pushing of the Nothing.

"It'll hold long enough." Seto said determinedly, fingers flying over keys. "Don't you see? The problem is that the pipes are sucking up unfiltered air! That's all it is! All that needs to be done is the pumps turned off and the parts replaced. They were just old."

"Can we do that?" Azreal asked, trying to ignore that the lingering 'funny feeling' in her ankles had stopped. She didn't dare risk looking down.

"Are you giving up?" Seto replied. "But the answer is that you can't. You can hardly work a telephone. I, however, can." Of course, the second he said that, he hit a hurdle- and, in frustration, the keyboard. The force of the blow caused their footing to be even more precarious, the platform bucking and swaying like a pendulum, causing even more chains to snap. Azreal stumbled backwards slightly, luckily crashing into a solid wall of pipeline instead of tumbling off.

"I'm guessing you can't either." She said, wryly.

"It wants-" Seto began, before being abruptly cut off. "The computer's just stopped!"

"What!"

Seto growled in frustration. "I was attempting to turn the pumps off, but then it just tripped out. The Nothing must have got into the circuitry or something…" He pulled the computer out to look at the back of it. To his surprise, there didn't appear to be any wires or supply going into it at all. No wonder it wasn't working…

Something rolled against his boot, and he glanced down to see what looked like a television aerial. He picked it up and looked at it in suspicion. "What on Earth…?"

"And in the Floating Cities." Azreal reminded him. "But it looks a spike."

"A spike?" Seto repeated, mystified as he turned it over in his fingers.

"Like a lightning rod." Azreal informed him. He felt her stand behind him. "It attracts the Creativity that powered earlier computers, before we got the generators in. Then they were left 'cause the electricity may trip out but Creativity never does. Never did." She amended. "It must've snapped off during your little temper tantrum…"

Seto looked away. It had turned out to be a relatively minor problem, but without power, he could think of no way they could fix this.

And it was all his fault.

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"Please, hear me out." Millierie pleaded. Azreal said nothing, so she took it as permission to continue. "I just didn't want you to make the same mistakes I did…"

"What, end up with an illegitimate kid?" Azreal replied sarcastically. "Wow, thanks for the advice, mom."

"No." Millierie said gently. "You don't belong here. You were never to designed to have a job with so many rules. You were designed to live."

"Oh, glad to hear I don't have to top myself."

"You love him."

That surprised her. Azreal looked up in shock, but Millierie just smiled back sedately.

"Don't make my mistake. Az… look, I've hardly been a good mother. I haven't really been any kind of mother at all. But, look, let me do this one thing for you. Stop doing what she think you should do, do what you feel you should do… I mean… Look, go back to that Kaiba guy, alright? I have a feeling he needs you. Your father to. I have a feeling… that he'll be a better parent then me, Anna."

Azreal looked up, trying to comprehend what Millierie was saying to her. "But…"

"You don't want to be here, Azreal." Mother told daughter gently. "You never did. You just knew that you ought to."

Azreal looked at her mom for a while, the doubts showing, but then… Suddenly, she sprung forward and hugged her mom hard. Millierie held her for a while, vaguely thinking of how things could've, should've, been. But it was too late now. She pushed Azreal away.

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Azreal was ripping the back off the computer with a kind of primitive desperation, reminding Seto creepily of an animal ripping meat from a carcass. Her fingers scrabbled at the back, looking for a hand hold, and, at last, the cover came off. Seto moved around to have a look at what made this machine tick.

Azreal stared into the innards of the computer in despair. She may have known that this computer ran off Creativity, but that didn't mean she understood how it worked one tiny bit. The wiring and circuit boards and all the things she couldn't name might as well have been on a UFO, for all the sense they made to her. Seto, however, appeared completely at home, muttering under his breath to himself.

"The components look fine." He told her. "Apparently, it only effected this external 'spike' of yours." It really was rather anti-climatic. He had expected something a little more foreign to him, but from the looks of things, Creativity worked and moved in much the same way as electricity did. This seemed odd to him, as up till now, it had all the properties of a gas. He supposed he'd never know…

"So it'll still work?" Azreal checked.

"No, not without power." Seto shook his head. "I'm sorry Az, but I can't see how we can-"

"Where does it go in?" She asked abruptly.

"Where does what go in?" Seto answered in confusion.

"The power!"

Confused, Seto pointed at a cluster of wires that had fallen loose, having worked out that they had once been attached to the spike. To his surprise, she gathered them up and held onto them tightly in her fist, squeezing so hard that he was surprised they weren't absorbed into her hand. She then knelt down with her head over the nearest filter, from which the pipe to funnel it up had snapped. And then, a second later, the computer flickered back on.

"…I don't know what you're doing, Az," Seto said, hesitantly. "But it's working! Keep it up!"

"Just hurry…" She groaned, shuffling her position slightly so he wouldn't turn around and notice that her feet had gone and now her legs were getting even shorter. She pushed the thought out of her mind, concentrating on breathing in as much of the Creativity billowing up through what remained of the filter as she could. She gulped breath after breath of the stuff, willing it to travel quickly through her body, pushing it physically out of the pores of her hands, into the computer, letting it work… She ignored the fact that by shoving it all back out of her body there was nothing to combat the Nothing whizzing around her. She was the only make-shift power source they had.

"Az, it's asking for the passwords again!" Seto said, stumbling slightly as another cable gave way. "And this platform isn't going to hang around for very much longer!" He added.

"Just don't get stressed this time!" She yelled back, head over the filter.

"What's the password!"

"How should I know!" Azreal demanded back. Pushing the Creativity through this fast was taking it's toll, and throw in the Nothing as well… "Just try anything!" The screen flickered as she talked, and she resumed breathing deeply, although by now her chest and lungs were screaming in protest.

"…Any suggestions?" Seto asked.

Azreal didn't answer, by now consumed by her task of keeping the thing on.

Seto scratched the back of his neck in thought. The password could be anything! How was he supposed to guess?

"Seto, please, hurry…" Azreal groaned. She didn't know how much longer she could keep this up…

"Just a little longer, Az…" He promised, though he was no closer. "Just keep it up a little longer…" He typed something in, crossing his fingers in desperation. "I'm in!"

"What was it?" She asked, purely out of curiosity as Seto began to try and work out how to turn the pumps off.

"'Password'."

Azreal snorted, though she supposed it was good for them. "Hurry…" She begged again, too short of breath for anything else; her heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst out of her, her lungs burning with a cold fire as they tried to keep up, her throat and lips dry as a desert…

"Just a minute longer…" Seto soothed. "I think I can…" It wanted another password. Just great. No, it wanted 'Name and authorisation'. Somehow, he didn't think he- or Azreal- had that.

"I need a name and an authorisation code! A technician or something! Someone high up!" He told her.

"Use my mom." She told him. "Millierie Kiyoko, access code…Ah…" She paused as the computer began to give out and, tired as she was, forced more into it. "ROEA."

"…How do you spell Millierie?"

She didn't reply, just shuddered slightly, eyes closed. Okay, he'd have to figure it out on his own… But hey, he wasn't undeservedly called a genius. He worked it out easily enough. He entered the name and authorisation, and then the windows showing how well each individual pump was functioning began to close, as, one after another, they stopped.

"Done." Seto announced, quietly. "Well…That was easy."

"Look…" Azreal whispered, straightening up. "Look…"

He was looking. Now that the pipes were no longer sucking, the Nothing was building up around them, and more were snapping, but that didn't matter. The filters had stopped, and the air began to clear all over again. And, staring up through the holes above them, they could see it happening on all the Levels. No more was being pumped up, and as a result, the Nothing was dissipating at last, faster then he could ever have imagined; either blowing away into the atmosphere or simply tumbling back down the pipes and ending up back in the swirling 'vat' of Nothing that remained beneath them.

They'd done it.

Behind him, Azreal was laughing in joy. "We did it!" She screamed. "We did it! Oh, Seto… We…" She trailed off, having no words to say, but then, laughing, expressed herself in the words of the song. ""Muwal Sarnes, sarne er li, Fet, Teffet, Tef!" She kept shouting the final three words over and over in her joy, and, as the Nothing blew away, they echoed out further and further; ringing out for all the World, and those above it, to hear.

"Don't get too excited." Seto said soberly, though he to was smiling as he watched the deadly stuff swirl away. "It's not done yet. All these pipes will need replacing, and the chains and the filters to… It's only because they're so old and breaking that the pipes went down to begin with." He looked around them. The remaining chains, now very few in number, were creaking and groaning. They needed to move before the entire platform gave way. "No, this entire platform is scrap. But maybe next time they could think of…" He trailed off as he turned to see Azreal, teary-eyed, watching not the city, but him. She had no body below the waist. The words were forced back down his throat and formed into a lump there.

"Surprise." She whispered, smiling slightly.

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It had rained and rained for days, and had never stopped for more then a few minutes, and it looked set to do it for a few more. But at that moment, Azreal decided she didn't care as she stood on the school porch with Seto, looking out.

"It's really tipping it down…" Seto commented. "I can barely see… Ah, there's the car…"

She caught his hand, and he looked at her curiously.

"Let's walk." She said spontaneously. "Let's walk it."

Seto shrugged.

"Alright."

And so, they blew off the ride home, and they walked back to the mansion through the streaming rain, laughing as they ran and splashed along the pavement.

And she didn't let go of his hands.

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It was odd, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as she thought it would. Considering she was being dissolved, simply melting away, she felt surprisingly okay about it. Maybe it was the effect of the Nothing. Maybe it wasn't. It didn't seem to matter so much any more. That was kind of strange as well. You'd think that if your legs had quite literally disappeared from under you, you'd care a bit more then she actually did. But, right then, she felt better then she had done for a long time. They'd done it. They'd done it! She turned and smiled at her companion, but it soon faded from her face.

Seto was staring at her, not knowing what to say. She didn't know what to say to him, either, but then he came and wrapped his arms around her as though that could keep her there, as though if he held on hard enough, this wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. He'd seen too much death and hardship already. He'd only just learned to care again. He couldn't lose it all now. Just couldn't. He sank down to his knees, still holding what remained of her, the old metal creaking beneath him. The chains were not secure, especially now the Nothing had taken it's toll. It would collapse any moment now. But he couldn't leave. Not without Az. Not without Az.

Silently, she pressed something into his hand. He didn't have to look to know what it was, but it was her wish feather, still white.

"You can still use this." He said, quietly, desperately. "You can still-!"

She shook her head. "No…Seto, I was dying anyway. Even if we hadn't come to Wherever, I wouldn't have lasted much longer."

He stared at her.

"I've been dying ever since I came down to Earth." She told him, tears spilling onto her cheeks. "My powers just couldn't survive there, so they were leeching off my human side to. At least now I got to do something great before I went. And…" She trailed off, took a deep breath, and tried again. "And that's why I can't use my feather. It grants your heart's desire." She wanted to hug him, but it was too late. Her arms had gone. "And I have my heart's desire already. Being with you, and near you, and with all the others as well… That's all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted is right here with me now." She smiled. "And we did it, Seto. We saved Wherever. We did it."

She knew she was dying. It was a fact that seemed to be there and she couldn't change it. Still, there were things she'd miss.

Even now, she couldn't help but think of those, her family and friends, who she would never see again...

Her Dad, so forgetful and clumsy, like her; but so kind- he always tried to understand, even if he couldn't. Then there was Ruby, who it was undeniable- was a great person. She had done her very best to accept her, right from the start. And now, she was sure, she had. And, the final member of her new family- James. Half brother or full, it made no difference. He was so smart; a little shy, but that didn't matter. It was a shame, really, that she wouldn't get to see how he turned out. She bet he'd be successful...

Success, she thought, was normally a word associated with the other half of her family. Another Ruby, headstrong and determined, and willing to lead when there was no-one else. Then there was Opal, who, as surly as she may seem, cared more then it appeared- she just liked to watch, and observe, before she attempted anything. There was Emerald to, who gave all her love to anyone who needed it. A little naive, perhaps, but a great comfort. They had all been her strength, at one point or another, loving her even when everyone else rejected her. Sometimes they just didn't understand, but they cared enough to try.

If she had one regret, it was not getting to know her mother better. Millierie had always seemed such a distant person, always away from home; but she had still managed to see what no-one else had- where her youngest daughter would be happiest. And, yes, she had just wanted her to be happy. Azreal knew that, but she still... from what she'd heard, she was a lot like her. They would have been great friends, she was certain, if only there had been more time...

'Great friends'... She certainly had some of them...

Ryou, who smiled even when he was sad, because it was easier that way. She hoped he was getting the new beginning he wanted, especially as one of them was about to met their end. He had to do it for them both. She wondered if anyone would remember to tell him...

Téa, who cared so much that it was almost overbearing; but who always instinctively knew when she was needed and how she could help.

Kaho, so shy and quiet- but just what she had needed when things got tough and she just needed someone, anyone, to understand. Kaho was wrong. She didn't need anyone to be a hero for her. She already was one.

Joey, who had a heart almost as large as his mouth, was always ready to defend them. He'd even agreed to back off Seto a little. That was a big deal to him.

Yugi, who, what he lacked in height, he made up for in heart. And hair.

Mokuba... was still a little bit of a mystery. But, she was certain he had great things ahead of him to. Considering all the junk that had happened to him, she had never met a nicer, more noble kid then the younger Kaiba.

And then there were the others, who she did not know so well, but who had been there for her none the less:

Duke, the laid-back one who helped the balance of things. He was always so sure, so confident, lending them strength.

Mai, who always tried to help, although sometimes it didn't turn out too well. Her idea of 'help' was just a little different to most, that's all. Like trying to get Ryou and Téa together. Not that she herself hadn't done that...

Tristan- he didn't say much, and when he did it was often to tease someone, but it didn't matter. His heart was in the right place, and firmly secured.

And, as he'd heard him say so often, there was Well; probably stopping anyone from entering the wood even now. Now she'd never find out his real name...

She smiled a little. All these people had helped her time be happy. She just wished she could have thanked them, told them that she did appreciate it, that having friends her own age had proved to be as wonderful as she'd envisioned, only more, so many new experiences...

And, on that line of thought brought her inevitably to the one she'd been trying to avoid.

Because that was where Seto lay.

There was no doubt about it, he was cold, rude, and about as arrogant as they came. He was also just about the best thing that had ever happened to her. Although, she'd never met anyone as misunderstood, especially by themselves. She could only hope that...

"Az..."

Seto was still looking at her, with no expression. It was almost as if, for once, he wanted to show emotion, but had forgotten how; or perhaps did not know which one to use. Her mouth twisted a little more upwards as she thought this, remembering the first time she'd seen him smile. It was strange, how much people could change and yet be the same person... and now she'd never see him smile again. She hadn't been expecting that when she got up this morning- it seemed like him pulling her into the lake had happened in an entirely different world. And now, here they were in their last conversation together. They could not talk about nothing, she had to make this count...

"Seth..." There was so much to say, and none of it could be said. She was all but gone, and the chains that held the platform in place were straining as far as they could. Time was not short, it was up. There was only one thing to be said. "Run."

She finally faded away, smiling to the end, eyes glinting at some private joke. Seto turned wildly, blindly, no time to think; and stood, but all he saw was the chains finally snapping. The platform jerked wildly, finally coming face to face with the fate it had been trying to avoid. There was nothing to grip, no strongholds, so what other choice did he have? Seto fell, down towards the remaining Nothing, his mind strangely empty.

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A/N: If you made it this far, I salute you! I shall postify the Epilogue tomorrow night, though, of course, that may vary by your respective time zones. (Nod nod) This fic is all ready to be wrapped up! (Sob) And the last bit won't be as long as this, I promise. It'll be, like, a thirtieth of the size… Really short, I promise. Two pages… Bye now!