Once again, I deliver. I really am sorry that the updates are like…so non existent. I would try harder but I have been overwhelmed and can never really find any time to work on it all. So I apologize but won't promise to get any better. I'm sort of doing poorly in the academic world so that kinda comes first. In any case, here's your chapter and I hope you enjoy it and that it is worth it after the long wait.

I disclaim enough not to be sued. If you wanna claim it instead, feel free to, but I'm not taking the blame.

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Angel Memories: Chapter 22

Pieces

(welcome to existence)

Light surrounded me, warming my body. I felt the remnants of my memory being stripped away from my mind and body while I floated through the pure white space. Then, once again, the world began to form around me. From a pure white nothingness, white marble walls began to outline themselves. Finally, my feet tapped lightly on ground once more and I stood in the familiar hallway of Castle Oblivion.

"And that's how I tracked you down." A high pitched voice piped up from the other end of the hall. Standing on the platform opposite from me, were Mickey and Riku. Mickey reached out with a closed fist and then opened his fingers above Riku's own outstretched hand. A single piece of paper fell out and drifted slowly into Riku's welcoming palm. "I guess the card thought it belonged to you."

The card glided down and finally stopped in Riku's hand. He paused for a moment, looking down at the card in his hand and then looked up at Mickey. A wide smile split his face and he clenched his fingers together around the small piece of paper. "Maybe you're right."

The door beside the pair cracked open with a shudder, paused, and then flew open entirely. Sparkling light exploded outward and engulfed Riku. After a few seconds, the door closed again and I found Mickey looking up at the door with his hands on his hips.

"Why didn't you follow him?" I stepped forward and began to cross the large hallway. Mickey looked startled when he turned around and gaped when he saw me.

"You're alive!" The mouse shook his head violently to clear away the shock and then nodded decisively. "I shoulda known that you would have been though. You're one tough cookie after all."

"I suppose I am" I mused. "So why didn't you follow him in?"

Mickey sighed and sat down on the top step of the platform. One of his white gloved hands reached up and he began to absently play with his enormous right ear. "That's his place. I don't belong there with him. He's got some growing up to do…and I'd only be in the way."

"You're fond of him."

"Yup, and so are you."

"Yea."

We paused for a long time, comfortable in our silence. I reached the stairs and ascended them, stopping finally at the doorway itself. Mickey didn't turn around but let out a loud sigh.

"You seem like you've aged a bit to." He let out a wry laugh. "Gained a grey hair or two." I heard him turn to look back at me. "There's something very different about you, something…more stable is the best way to describe it, I guess."

More stable…I guess the king was right. I felt sturdier. I felt stronger and more resolved. "Yea. A little girl helped show me who I am."

"A little girl…" Mickey's voice trailed off into silence.

For a long time, I faced the door, back to back with the king. I wondered what was behind the final door and what Riku was doing that was so important. Mickey seemed confident as well as knowledgeable on the matter and finally I gave in to my curiosity.

"What is Riku doing?" I said steadily.

"Meeting with Ansem."

Something inside my stomach lurched but was quickly put to rest by my mind. "You don't seem all that worried."

"Why should I be?" The king turned to me with a questioning look on his round face. "He's more or less on our side anyway."

Ansem is…on our side? "Could have fooled me, you know, after he tried to kill all three of us before we came here."

Mickey furrowed his brow and crossed his arms in thought. He murmured something that sounded like what I had just said and then turned his eyes toward me once again. "You mean him?" he shook his head slowly. "That's not Ansem, he's just a Heartless who goes around telling people that he's Ansem."

This was quite a development. Ansem is not Ansem. Things really aren't how they appear to be, are they? I ran my hand through my hair and chuckled quietly. "Well, I won't interfere with his meeting, but I have my own appointment to keep." I glanced upward to the door in front of me. "I've been told to visit the other side. Maybe we'll meet again."

"Sure we will!" The king's high pitched voice pierced the atmosphere and nearly made me turn around in surprise. He sounded earnest and full of energy. "We'll all meet again and have a big party together." He grew quieter and looked wistfully at the ceiling. "That's a promise."

With my right hand, I reached out and gripped the door in front of me. Silently, I pulled it open and stepped through. "Whatever."

The light engulfed me and I felt it fill my body entirely. Something different was happening. I felt stranger than I had all those other times I had stepped through the doors. My consciousness did not split from my body but instead felt as though it was being pulled in many directions. My mind was burning and I tried to scream but I couldn't because my heart had jumped into my throat. I could feel it beating, almost trying to escape. The pain was unbearable. It reminded me of something that seemed like a memory from another life.

It felt like someone was stealing my heart.

With a final shuddering gasp, I felt the beating organ inside burst and I saw two beams of light explode out from somewhere on my body. They rocketed through the nothingness and quickly disappeared in the distance. I reached forward helplessly tried to catch them although they were already gone. Along the line of the horizon, I saw color form and change and mix and then begin to soar toward me.

The approaching maelstrom of color hurtled toward me like a train. As it neared I could feel myself drifting into a state of unconsciousness. With my last ounce of energy, I raised my arms and held them out in a desperate attempt to stop the oncoming wall of scenery.

The colors washed over me and stripped away my pain. As though I had jumped from a great height, my legs stopped on the stone floor and shook with the effort of remaining upright. I stumbled for a moment before I caught myself and took a deep breath. I felt heavier. Something was different about my legs…

Glancing downwards, my eyes came to rest on feathers. Two large wings protruded from my waist and toward the ground below. They both looked like the one that already exploded out from my right shoulder. All around me, dark city buildings grew out of the ground at the edge of the shadowed streets. The enormous structure's towered overhead, nearly blocking out the sky above. The sky itself was mainly barren with the exception of a very small number of stars and a peaceful glow that emanated from somewhere beyond a row of skyscrapers to my left.

"Where…?" My voice trailed off as I heard footsteps from around the corner. It seemed as though the owner of the feet was limping and dragging himself along very slowly. Taking care not to make any noise, I ducked quickly into a narrow passage between two walls, heavily shadowed and unnoticeable except for those who were looking.

Across the square, a figure stumbled past the corner of the wall, gripping it tightly but soon losing its hold as its momentum carried it forward and too its knees. It sank heavily to the ground and coughed loudly, body seeming to be racked with pain. With a shudder and a shake of its head, it stood up slowly.

As the figure straightened, it became clearer what it was. At full height, the dim light lit the body of a naked woman, thin and sinewy. Her body looked as though it had trained for years to achieve perfect balance between muscle and sinew. In short, she looked like the embodiment of combat. Short silver hair, barely reaching her shoulders fell gently off her head and over her eyes. For a moment, she looked up at the sky.

Then there was a cough.

From the opposite side of the square, another naked figure stumbled forward and into the dim half-light. This one was a man and gradually shuddered with the strain of standing but managed it after a moment. His hair too was a bright silver, very much like my own although short, barely reaching his eyes in the front and nearly nonexistent as it traveled down the back of his neck. He was well built, though slightly more muscular than the woman and a few centimeters taller. His eyes shone a bright aqua in the gloom and a feeling of wisdom permeated the air around him.

The two pairs of eyes met and stood silent and still for a long time, watching each other carefully. I found that I was holding my breath. Something about them seemed very familiar, although I couldn't pin what it was.

A flash of light shook me from my reverie and made me blink to avoid the bright white. The flare left me with spots on the back of my eyelids and as they opened and my gaze cleared, I saw that the woman was now holding something. The slender fingers of her right hand were clenched tightly around the pearl white handle of what appeared to be a large warhammer. The woman's eyes drifted downwards and fell softly upon the weapon. She looked interested and thoughtful, as though she didn't know where it had come from. Her hand tensed experimentally and then grew lax, letting the large hammer bob rhythmically. There was a certain air about her that made it clear how attached she was to her weapon, almost like it was a part of her.

At the base of the hilt, a small, dark red line of light formed and twisted, like an animal up the length of the hammer until it stopped in the middle of the head. The small red blob stretched as though yawning and then contorted into a strange symbol. The red shape hissed and steam rose from it before it flared briefly and dimmed. Though the light disappeared, the design remained, etched into the pearly surface of the hammer.

Though I didn't recognize the symbol, something told me that it could be read, like a letter. More than that even, that I could read it. I squinted my eyes to see more clearly in the half light. The image came into focus and then something inside my head clicked.

"Binah," the woman said solemnly. She nodded with a grim expression, lowered the weapon to grip it with both hands, and then launched herself forward. The stone street cracked with the sudden movement and sparks exploded from where the hammer's head hit the ground as the woman dashed toward the man at the end of the square.

My eyes shifted to the man who stood calmly, breathing in the mist that surrounded him. Quietly, he stepped back slightly, shifting into a different stance and raised his hands in front of his face. He was holding something as well. I had been paying so much attention to the woman that I hadn't notice this man's weapons being created. In each hand he held a large tonfa, curved slightly and also a strange off-white that gleamed in the half light. At the tip of each one, identical symbols were etched into the surface. I stared intently at them until my brain sorted out what it meant.

Chokhmah.

Why could I figure that out? The design wasn't in any language I knew. I had no way of cross referencing it with any other written languages to figure it out…and yet…I knew what it meant. Something just made sense about it and there was no need to question why. It just made sense.

The woman was now hurtling across the square. The distance was increasingly becoming meaningless as she neared the man. It was clear that she meant to kill him, as to why though, I couldn't tell. Her speed was incredible and she moved so fluidly, almost like water. Her strides were long and fast, not a single movement wasted with each step. When she was within striking range, she dipped lower and threw her weight into her shoulders, whipping her arms forward and tearing black tiles from the ground with the hammer. The man shifted back a half step and whirled his tonfa around his arms, raising one to deflect the oncoming hammer and striking forward with the other toward the woman's face.

There was a small snap that echoed softly through the empty air. A man appeared out of nowhere in-between the two rushing combatants. One hand flashed out, almost faster than I could see and grabbed one of the man's moving tonfas. Then, his other hand followed and with two movements that blurred into one, flicked the remaining tonfa out of the man's other hand and grabbed rightly onto his wrist. Without pausing or even looking down, he lifted his right leg and stomped down on the rising hammer. The large weapon stopped short and then crashed into and through the surface of the street, creating a large crater.

For a split second, the three figures stood, completely still in the mist. Their bodies were frozen in the perfect picture of struggle while the middle figure slowly opened his eyes. The eyelids gently parted and immediately, a bright aqua color flared out. Somehow, the man's eyes managed to momentarily brighten the entire plaza and I felt like he could see every inch of me, despite how hidden I was. His chest dipped and then puffed outward slowly as he took a deep breath.

Suddenly, the entire square burst into motion. The two naked combatants stumbled forward, carried on by their own momentum and the man in the middle stepped to the side, moving like the air itself. His hands blurred as they shot out and grabbed a hand of each of the warriors. He shifted slightly and then threw them both to the ground directly next to each other. They both hit with a fleshy thump and before they could even struggle to get up again, the man above them thrust a long blade between their heads, a hair's breadth away from each of their noses. The tip of the blade split the stone of the street and buried itself neatly into the pavement, like it was cutting through water.

The two prostrate figures stiffened and the woman clenched her fists in anger, but other than that, they remained completely still. Their eyes both rested on the blade directly in front of them and hardly blinked while they lay there. Above them, the man breathed in once again and shook his head slightly. He was tall, broad shouldered and had long silver hair, it looked very much like my own. He wore a loose white shirt with long sleeves. The entire thing was covered in swirling dark red designs and in the middle of it all was a large symbol, similar to the two that I had seen on the other's weapons.

And his weapon…

Masamune shuddered slightly in what seemed like recognition and respect. The man's sword was a long katana, like Masamune. The hilt guard was shaped strangely and looked very much like the symbol on the owner's back. The whole blade appeared to be nearly four feet long, although some of it was hidden in the ground where he had thrust it. What did the symbol mean? I searched my mind but at best could only find a very fuzzy patch that I couldn't quite make out.

The man interrupted my thoughts when he let out a loud sigh and pulled his blade from the ground. With complete silence, he sheathed the sword and stepped away from the two bodies on the ground. "I am Keter."

When he said his name, another bell rang inside me and the symbol on his crossguard and the one on his back both made sense. Keter and Muramasa. Masamune quivered with excitement as the second name echoed through my mind.

"Congratulations on escaping Beri'ah." The man and the woman both reached their feet and stood, looking suspiciously at Keter. "Welcome," he nodded to the two, "Chokhmah, Binah." He smiled widely. "Welcome…to Yetzirah."

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Remember that plot I always talked about? Remember that bitching thing I was always talking about? Remember how psyched I was about all the stuff I was planning? Well this is where it begins. For those of you who can't figure out who these new people are, I won't tell you, but I would suggest that everyone who hasn't done so already (I know I have) should do a little research on where the name Sephiroth comes from. It's fairly interesting and then maybe you'll get some of my allusions about air and water, or at least where the names Keter, Chokhmah, and Binah come from.

I do worry a little bit that I'm getting a bit too much into mythology and symbolism and stuff with these new guys and that it might go over a lot of people's heads as I continue. I also worry a lot about adding my own new characters and major plot twist. I totally need your opinions on all this. With any luck, you'll give them to me…I know you might not want to what with all the time I've been taking off recently.

Oh yea…

100 REVIEWS! ALRIGHT! I have been longing for this for the longest time. And now I finally reached it. I want to thank everyone…so I will. Thank you Unita, Lapse – Raevn, heartsoblivion, vratix, emmy19, xsaturnine, someone100001, anime warrior girl, chaos009, Raging Phoenix, Manders 1953, Anagram X, Unrealistic, Alphablades, and Vermillion Dragoness for all of your help. I love you all very much and totally appreciate everything you've done.

In any case, I'm nearly done with this story, maybe two more chapters or so, but it might take me a while before I can really get it all done. Don't expect too much in terms of being on time and efficient. Have a good one everybody. Hope you enjoyed the read.