A/N: Rargh, once again, apologies for the late chapter. Work got crazy and I had to focus on that for a little while, and then things got delayed on the beta end. Things are all good now, though, and will hopefully be more stable for the foreseeable. However, it looks like things are a little busier for my sister where she is, so I can't promise regular updates sadly. Just keep an eye on your Alerts and know that I plan on writing chapters at least once a week, but they'll be posted when they're beta'd and ready.

Review Responses:

Guest, well, I wouldn't take her too literally. She was one of the 'goddesses' of death, in that that was what she was perceived to be in mythology and she was worshipped as such (like Hades…etc.) But she was never actually Death, not like Shinigami was and like Kid is, just a little delusional. Thanks for the review!

Arcane Student, at the moment, Vayne is the one not following the buddy system, lol. And no worries for the gap! As you can tell by the slowdown in chapters, I've been busy too! Thanks for reviewing!

pokelover01, Clark and Vayne's Soul Resonance. Er…yes. I promise that before the story ends I'm going to show it, no worries! (I wanted to do it here, but plot demanded that they get split up for this arc). I'm glad you like it, and thanks for the review!

karma88, like I said to Guest above, she was always a witch, but in mythology, she was worshipped as a goddess of death. So it probably got to her head a little, who knows with her (and yes, those delusions will come up later on~). Thanks for the review!

Guest, I probably won't do it unfortunately. For personal reasons, I'm kind of uncomfortable delving that far into the paranormal/supernatural in my own work, but it would probably be cool! Very Shin Megami Tensei-ish. Thanks for the review!

allymaly, funnily enough, when you reviewed I had just finished listening to that song in the car for the first time. It does actually fit! Another song that just has Reiame written all over it is Shut Up And Dance With Me. Thanks for the review and glad you're enjoying the story so far!

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.


CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Fata Morgana Pt. 2, Truth in Memories


The sword lay on a pedestal, resting on a velvet cushion. It was a beautiful blade, steel so fine that he could see his face reflected in it with a guard of gleaming silver. It looked almost too fine to have been crafted for something as crass as battle, but it was no ceremonial sword either. There was an efficiency and elegance to the way that it was made, a functionality to the form and shape of the blade that it made it all that much more beautiful because it was deadly.

It was a contradiction wrought in steel, and Mordred found himself holding his breath as he leaned over it so as not to tarnish the weapon.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Arthur asked from behind him, watching him. Mordred had almost been able to trick himself into forgetting that the other man was even there. Arthur's footfalls rang throughout the stone chamber, heavy and regal, as he made his way over to Mordred. "I've decided to name it Clarent. It's meant to be a symbol of peace. Once we finish this ugly business at Camlann, brother, I think it will be time."

A gauntleted hand rested on his shoulder, heavy and reassuring. Arthur flashed him a smile, and Mordred felt his chest tighten, felt something close up inside of his throat. He shouldn't have been able to speak, but he had always been a good liar.

"Time for what?" he asked, his voice sounding strangely soft and high-pitched in this chamber. "Don't tell me you're actually putting aside your armor?"

"I'm leaving the battlefield," Arthur said. "Guin would have me return home. It's high time I started governing this land that I've conquered."

He looked Mordred in the eye, and Mordred found himself shrinking back, found himself struggling to hold Arthur's gaze. He didn't want to look away, lest his brother notice his odd behavior, but he couldn't look at Arthur anymore. He found himself wishing that he could disappear, that he could simply stop existing. A lot of things would have been easier if he had never existed in the first place. If he, like Morgana, had ever had the courage to stand up for himself, the courage to choose.

In theory, it would be so easy to open his mouth, to tell Arthur everything. He wanted it in that moment, so badly that he couldn't breathe, so badly that his mouth opened before he could stop himself.

But the words that came out were not the words that he wanted to say. "—I'm sure your subjects will be very happy."

Arthur barked out a laugh at that, his grip tightening on Mordred's shoulder. "My knights will be happy, now that I won't be dragging them to hell and back and over every inch of this godforsaken country. But, brother, while we're on the subject of changes, I was hoping to get the chance to speak to you."

There was a gleam in Arthur's eye that Mordred recognized, a gleam that sent something cold dropping into the pit of his stomach, that sent ice moving through his veins.

No, brother, he found himself thinking. Don't make this harder than it has to be. Please.

But Arthur wasn't listening, and the gods, if they were, were not that kind. "Merlin has done a lot for me. I'm not discounting that. As far as advisors go, he's been damn near the best of them. But he is…getting a little on in years, and while I know it's not quite the same for you folk as it is for the rest of us, I just wanted to let you know that there will be place in my castle for you, if you decide that's where you'd like to be."

A portion of himself screamed at Arthur, wanting to be released from this pain, this personal hell. Mordred took that portion of himself, and all of his sympathy, all of his doubts, and shoved it deep down inside of him, so deep that he could barely feel it anymore, could barely hear himself screaming out. He managed, somehow, to look Arthur in the eye when he replied.

"Thank you, brother. That means—a lot to me."

"You deserve it," Arthur said, smiling. "You and Morgana both. I'd never have gotten this far if it hadn't been for the two of you."

He released Mordred's shoulder, letting his hand fall back to his side. Mordred watched him turn away, a kingly figure in gleaming armor. "I'll see you on the battlefield, will I? It's time to finish this."

His throat tightened unpleasantly as he watched Arthur leave, the light from the chamber's high windows shining unevenly in the room and making it seem as though Arthur were walking from light into shadow. As though Mordred had always been in the shadow to begin with.

"I'll be there," he said, the words sounding choked. "Brother."

Arthur raised a hand in farewell, not looking back as he left the room. Mordred waited until the last of his footsteps had faded away, then exhaled, his shoulders slumping. His eyes moved from the doorway to the floor, to the sword that lay on its cushion beside him, to the way its blade gleamed almost like a mirror.

The eyes that looked back at him out of that sword were haunted, dead.

Clarent, the sword of peace. A tool of war, designed to become something greater, to end it. Arthur's grand dream, a world where war would become unnecessary, where swords could be appreciated simply because they were beautiful. For half a moment, it had been Mordred's dream too. But swords couldn't change. He'd known that already.

He had only ever been his mother's sword.

His hand moved to the blade, hovering hesitantly over its surface before his fingers closed around the hilt. Slowly, reverently, he lifted the blade from its pedestal…

The alerts were coming from two places, the majority of them concentrated around the first floor entry way, while a handful of alarms rang mutely from one of the high towers. Mordred strode quickly towards the stairs that would take him to the tower roof, trusting the Morrigan's spelled creatures to handle the intruder in the entrance hall. His mind was already working, running through numbers and making contingency plans—a plan to save the castle if the breach was small and easily repaired, a plan for if the enemy were numerous and this resulted in a drawn out battle, a plan for if it seemed like the enemy might win the day.

He was fairly confident that they could fight off any foe, even the strongest members of the DWMA. This place was a place of power, and he could feel that power surging through him as he moved through the halls, lending his step an extra spring. His mother would be feeling it too, and she was still in residence. The DWMA, if this truly was who was attacking, had chosen a bad time to assault this place.

He was still thinking that when he rounded the corner and nearly walked straight into his mother.

The Morrigan was making her way down the stairs from Morgan's tower room, her stride composed and unhurried. He managed to slow himself, coming to a smooth stop before it even looked like he had been on the verge of walking into her. "Mother," he said, bowing his head in the hope that the motion would hide his chagrined expression.

"Mordred." The Morrigan's voice had a touch of amusement in it, despite the alarms that rang around them. "You seem troubled, son. Where are you going in such a hurry?"

There was no way that his mother had missed the alarms ringing, as sharp as she was. That she was asking the question meant that she already knew the answer, that she wanted to hear him give her an answer himself. It was a game that the two of them had been playing for centuries. He was well familiar with its rules by now.

"There's been a security breach, Mother," he said, falling into the familiar rhythm. "One of the towers has been broken into. I aim to repel the invaders."

"No need," the Morrigan said, walking past him and down the corridor. She moved calmly, as if this were simply another day, as if she had planned for this possibility to begin with.

He couldn't help himself. Even though he knew that he was playing into her hands, he gaped at her. "Mother?" he asked, confused.

"The power beneath Tara Hill has already filled the castle's stores," the Morrigan said, barely slowing her step to respond to him. "Let the rats have it. They'll soon find that it won't be the prize they expect it to be."

His heart quickened at those words, his breathing shallowing in a way that hadn't happened for over a decade. After Morgana, he had thought that he was done being taken off-guard by his mother. But it looked as though even that hadn't been the worst.

"You can't mean—," he began, before he could stop himself.

He knew he had said the wrong thing when his mother stopped walking, her back to him. She didn't look over her shoulder. "I can," she said. "I will. I thought you'd learned to stop questioning me by now, Mordred."

The rebuke was like a slap in the face. Arthur's face flashed through his mind. Morgana's. He lowered his head before he realized he was doing it.

"Of course, Mother," he heard himself say, like it was coming from somewhere far away. "I apologize."

"Good," the Morrigan said, continuing to walk. "Inform our allies, discreetly, that they are to evacuate the castle. And see to it that our guests are accounted for. I may have need of those twins yet."

His eyes moved from his mother to the stairs she had just descended from, the stairs leading to Morgan's tower room. A wave of cold rushed through him then, a surge of fear so strong that it almost knocked the wind out of him. He looked up at his mother—did he dare? But she was already almost gone. If he was going to speak up, now would be the time. If he didn't—.

"Mother," he said, and there was a desperate edge to his tone that he couldn't quite stamp out. The Morrigan stopped walking again, and he could see impatience writ into her posture, into the curve of her spine, into every breath. "What about Morgan?"

When she spoke, her voice was cold. "What about her?"

She started walking again. Mordred stared after her, feeling his heart pound, feeling his world tilt on his axis. The crackle of magic against his skin, the mark of Tara, had once been comforting. Now, it felt like a death sentence.

Magically, Tara Hill was one of the most important places in the world, one of only two places where Fata Morgana's stores of power could be replenished, and the only one that was accessible to them. They had stopped here multiple times in the past to refill the castle's energy stocks, the great crystals that stored magical power and released it slowly, just slow enough to keep the castle afloat and moving. Used sparingly, they could keep the castle in motion for nearly a year.

Released all at once, they would turn the castle into a bomb.


Electricity crackled around his soul, bright and powerful, the world fading into a comforting sort of static. Enemies rushed at him from all sides, and he repelled them, the lightning that came from his fingertips tearing apart creatures made out of shadow, shattering them, reducing them down into their component parts. Clark moved in a flurry of light and shadows as he ducked underneath beaks and claws, his hands moving in a rapid series of strikes and blocks as he tore through their attackers, one by one.

And still they kept coming. The Morrigan's security forces charged at him, leaping for his head, his eyes, his throat. He ducked out of the way of the claws of one oversized crow, his right hand grabbing for the crow's throat. Electricity spread from the fingers of his hand at the contact, shadows streaming behind him as his hand punched straight through the crow, the crow's body becoming incorporeal just in time for him to take a step back and grit his teeth, just in time for him to prepare himself as what looked like a large ogre charged at him, battleaxe in hand. He caught the axe's blade as it fell, clapping both of his hands around its sides to stop it from reaching him. Power pulsed through him, the blade shattering beneath the wavelengths that exuded from each of his hands. Behind him, he heard Cassie say something, her tone worried, but her voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere very far away.

He jumped back, feeling a thrill as the ogre threw the shaft of its useless axe away, one of its massive hands clenching into a fist and aiming straight at his head. Clark ducked beneath the blow, hooking one of his arms around the ogre's outstretched one and pulling the creature down just as his other hand went up, the side of his palm slamming into the ogre's throat. The creature let out a choked noise as the electricity coursed through it. Then nothing. He shoved the ogre aside, so much dead weight, and spun around to face the horde that stood in front of them.

His body was tired. He could tell that much, could feel that much in the way that his arms threatened to hang limp at his sides, in the way that his breath was coming quicker and quicker, but it felt like an abstraction, a distant thought, like it was happening to someone else. The only thing he was aware of was the crackle of static in his ears, the flood of adrenaline in his veins, the grin on his face. The power flooded through him, coursed through him in a way that he had never let it before, and it was powerful and all-consuming and wonderful. It was addiction, pure and sweet, and he found himself welcoming it, found himself throwing his arms open wide as if to embrace it as the Morrigan's creatures charged at him again.

How could he have been afraid of this—this rush, this high, this feeling of being alive? This power was a part of him. It was life, it was water in the desert, it was pure, unbridled ecstasy. It was—

—an image passed through his mind as he ducked beneath another blow, a girl her blond hair streaming out behind her, a white dress—

—It was the power that had killed Ophelia.

Clarity, cold and awful, rushed through him like a splash of freezing water. His eyes widened as he came back to himself, and suddenly he was crouching on the ground, getting rushed at by foes on all sides, and his heart was pounding in his chest and his skin was clammy and cold. And Cassie was screaming his name, her voice hoarse as if she had been screaming it over and over again.

"Clark!" she shouted, from over by the back wall. "Snap out of it, Clark!"

One of the monster's blows came crashing down. Clark sidestepped it with wide eyes, trapping the monster's arm beneath his own and sweeping his leg out in an arc, catching the monster in the back of the legs and sending it crashing to the ground. He didn't stop to think, just grabbed Cassie by the hand and took off with her down a free hallway. Her breathing sounded loud to him—had she been fighting as well—and she stumbled as they ran, but Clark didn't slow down.

He felt his gorge rise, bile filling his mouth, and had to clamp his lips together tightly to stop from being sick. What had he done? What had he become?

"Clark!" Cassie's voice was insistent, snapping him out of another reverie.

She dug her heels into the ground, coming to a quick stop, and tugged on his sleeve to get him to stop as well. Clark stopped, staring at her with wide eyes, and went without complaint as she threw open the door to a broom closet, shoving him into it behind her. The sound of their pursuers' footsteps filled the air as she shut the door, rivaled only by the sound of their breathing and the sound of his own beating heart.

"Cassie," he heard himself say, his hands going up to his face, fingers digging into his skin. "God—Cassie—."

Her slap, when it came, reverberated through the air. A sharp pain rose up along the side of his face, and he blinked, finding that the blow had turned his head to the side. He looked back at her to see that her own face was pale, her eyes narrowed in determination.

"Snap out of it," she said, and he heard her fighting against a quaver in her own voice. "This isn't the time to be losing it on me. We can't hide in here forever. We're going to need to fight them."

"I—." Clark stared down at his hands, flexing his fingers. The power inside of him had retreated, leaving him feeling sick and weak. I can't, he wanted to say, I can't fight, but he didn't get the chance.

"Use me," Cassie said, grabbing onto his wrists and pulling his hands down, out of his line of sight.

He stared at her, uncomprehending. "What?" he asked.

"Use me," Cassie repeated. She bit her lip, her eyes moving to the door. The sound of their pursuers was louder now, like they were in the hallway right outside. Sooner or later, they were going to start searching closets, start searching for places where two DWMA students would be likely to hide.

Clark's eyes widened further.

"I—we can't," he began. "We've never—."

Her grip on his wrists tightened, shutting him up. "We don't have much of a choice," she said. "Look, just repeat after me. Ignis, okay? That's fire, that's all you need to know. Morgan and I agreed on that word, so it should still work. We can agree on a few more too, if you like, but we're out of time. Lightning—that can mean zap everything in a five meter radius. I think I can manage that."

"Cassie—," Clark began.

"We don't have time, Clark," Cassie said, looking him in the eye. "We don't have time and we don't have options. And I'm not willing to die here, okay? There was a time when I thought I would have been willing to die, but that time is past. It's gone! We have things we need to do, and people who are counting on us, and I'm not going to let you give up now! So are we doing this?"

"I just—."

Her grip tightened to the point of pain. "Are we doing this, Clark?"

Footsteps, just outside of their door. A cry shouted in a guttural language that Clark couldn't understand, but that sounded bad for them regardless. He looked back at Cassie, nodding once.

"Yes," he said, strangely breathless. "Yes. Let's try."

Cassie nodded, her expression an odd mixture of resignation and relief. She exhaled and sagged forward with the motion, her grip loosening on his fingers. And then she dissolved into light, coming apart. The heavy weight of her grimoire form settled into his hands, paper rustling as the pages turned. The door to their closet burst open, splintering where it had been struck. Clark turned to face it, hand up.

"Ignis!"


Cori Evans followed him without complaint as he returned to the library where he had left Elaine, her shoulders back and eyes straight ahead of her despite the fear that she had to be feeling. Micah watched her out of the corner of his eye. In a lot of ways, at that moment, she was her mother writ miniature. He ushered her into the library, closing the door behind him and turning to face the golden-haired woman who waited for them.

Elaine still sat in the chair where he had left her, motionless despite the alarms that were currently traveling throughout the castle. Any other day, she would have already been at one of the battles breaking out around Fata Morgana, but those had been the Morrigan's orders. By asking her to stay here and wait for him, he had inadvertently overwritten them.

A blank slate. She would do exactly what they told her to, whenever they told her to, and she would do it with competence and skill. The perfect assassin.

It made him feel a little bit guilty for what he was trying to do, but not enough to stop the whole experiment and send Cori back to her room. By this point, he had already built up the question in his mind, and there really wasn't any turning back now. He needed to know.

He took Cori by the arm, putting her between him and Elaine. She stumbled when he tugged at her and looked back at him with a puzzled frown on her face, her eyes moving between him and Elaine. The color had drained from her face, and he felt her arm tremble beneath his hold, but otherwise she didn't show her fear.

"Do you see this lady, Corpore?" Micah asked, inclining his head towards Elaine. "I'd like you to use the Anti-Magic Wavelength on her."

Cori peered at Elaine quizzically, but she was no blank slate, ready to receive orders and carry them out. There was intelligence buried there behind her eyes, beneath the fear and rage. She looked back at Micah, eyes narrowed, lips pursed tightly together in suspicion.

"Why?" she asked. "What'll it do?"

She flinched as she spoke, as if she half-expected him to hit her or snap at her to be quiet, but Micah had never been that crass. He appreciated the value of questions—after all, they were what he built his worldview around. In another life, he might have been a teacher.

He tilted his head towards her, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Given the way she shrank back from him, it clearly was not having the intended effect.

Ah well.

"A very good question," he said. "Our Miss Elaine here suffers from a particular ailment. Her ability seems to be dampening her actual soul. If your Anti-Magic Wavelength can peel back that veil, that would be…" He wasn't good enough of a liar to tell her that that would be a good thing. "…enlightening."

Cori's eyes flicked from him to Elaine again, as if she were considering. When she took a half-step forward toward Elaine, Micah knew that he had her, even if she didn't know it herself just yet.

"That's all I have to do?" Cori asked. "Just use the Anti-Magic Wavelength on her?"

"That's all," Micah said. "And then I'll never darken your door again. Cross my heart."

"And if this doesn't work?" Cori asked.

"That would be enlightening as well," Micah said. "For entirely different reasons."

Cori frowned, shifting her weight on the balls of her feet. She pressed her lips tightly together, chewing on her lower lip before nodding. "I'll do it," she said. "You need to let go of me."

Ill-advised, perhaps, but Micah could see her point. And he was confident enough in his ability to apprehend an eight-year-old child, if she suddenly got any ideas about escaping. He was confident too that she wouldn't, that she wouldn't risk leaving her sister behind.

He released her, taking a step back. He even held up his hands in front of him, palms out, to show her that he meant no harm. She snorted in derision at the gesture, eight years old and already so jaded, and stepped toward Elaine. Micah awakened his Soul Perception, a filter passing in front of his eyes and allowing him to see both Cori's soul, a rich violet and bright enough to burn, and Elaine's soul, shrouded in the static of her own Paralyzing Wavelength.

When light flared up in Cori's soul, it wasn't steady, like it might have been with her mother. Instead, it flickered and guttered a few times, like a flame trying to catch on damp tinder. He saw Cori's eyes narrow, her fists clenching in frustration, and then the light spread. It bloomed brightly like a flower, spreading from the center of her chest through her body, then emanated outward from her, flowing toward Elaine.

For an instant, nothing happened. But then that warm light brushed up against the crackle of Elaine's wavelength and slowly began to spread over it, pooling deeper, threading itself through the tangle around Elaine's soul. Where the light touched, Elaine's wavelength retreated, sparks and electricity peeling back to reveal the soul inside of her, a pale blue that was the same color as her son's. It twitched as the Cori's wavelength washed over it, and then a feeble light sprang up from inside of it, a flame glimpsed through a dirty lampshade, and something appeared in Elaine's eyes.

Awareness first, a spark threading through the wide, blank blue. Then the first hint of fear. Confusion. Micah felt a thrill run through him as Elaine's brow furrowed, her lips pursing, her eyes moving toward his.

The moment, unfortunately, was broken by the door crashing inward, splintering under the weight of the blast of wind that slammed against it.

Several things happened at once.

Angela Leon burst in through the library door, her eyes narrowed in fury beneath the brow of her witch's hat. She was sitting astride a familiar scalpel-shaped naginata, wind coiling around the spear's blade and buoying it into the air.

Elaine leaped away from Cori at the intrusion, pulling the light of Cori's Anti-Magic Wavelength free from the tangle around her soul.

And Cori's eyes flicked towards Angela at the same time as Micah's did, wide with surprise and something very much like hope.

He turned towards her, horrified, and saw the calculations playing out in the back of her mind the same way they would have been had he been in her situation, the same weighing of risks, of possible actions. A few minutes ago, Cori wouldn't have dared defy him, not when she knew that there was no escape and that her sister was still under their control. The risks vastly outweighed the rewards.

But the situation had changed. The DWMA was here, and that meant revenge and rescue all at once. If she could get away from him, if she could reach them, then she could guide them toward her sister. Then they could all escape, and ruin everything.

The balance had flipped the other way.

He saw the exact moment that she realized it, saw the light that flared up in her eyes, the excited flush that appeared on her cheeks. Saw it, and tried to stop it.

"No!" he shouted, lunging for her, arms outstretched to wrap around her. Too late.

There was a flash, and then where her arm had been, there was the gleaming curve of black steel, swiping at his chest. He jerked back, avoiding the blow, and that gave Cori the opening she needed to surge forward, running for Angela with the sort of speed and urgency that only adrenaline made possible. He grabbed at her again, feebly, but she leaped away from him, running into the nexus of wind, and was gone.


Vayne ducked around a darkened corner as a group of the Morrigan's monsters passed by, breathing hard, one of his hands pressed against a stitch in his side. Below him, the sounds of battle rang out, both the sounds of the fight that he had left Clark and Cassie to and new ones, new shouts and explosions that he hadn't heard before. The DWMA, presumably. Their ten minutes were up. They'd run out of time.

No, he thought, looking left and right with wide eyes. Not yet. They hadn't run out of time yet.

He still had time to find Morgan. He still had time to get them out of this, to get her to safety before anything happened that they wouldn't be able to take back.

He still had time. He wasn't going to abandon her here.

Gritting his teeth, he poked his head out into the hallway that he had just left, looking both ways. Seeing no one, he stepped out, his hand at his side, ready to transform at any moment. The battles were loud, loud enough that he could hear them even here, at least two floors up from the action. He couldn't imagine that someone as perceptive as Morgan didn't know that all of this was going on. And while he knew that she wouldn't do something as simple as showing herself to the DWMA and surrendering, he knew that she had to know what was going on, that she would be unwilling to fight against them.

Unable to stand up against her family. Unable to stand down and let them do whatever they wanted.

The image of the inside of a grubby shed flashed through his mind, his breathing harsh in his own ears, the memory of moonlight slanting in through an open window, reflecting off of his bladed hands.

Vayne knew what Morgan would do. He had done it himself.

If I were Morgan, he thought, sweeping his eyes over the hallway, and I wanted to get away from all of this, where would I go?

His eyes tracked upward. Up, Cassie had said, but there wasn't much farther he could climb. The only things above this floor would be—

Insight flashed through his mind, his eyes widening as he whirled around, trying to find the nearest staircase. The towers. A tower room. Morgan was a raven witch—a bird. If she wanted to get away, wouldn't she try to get as high as she could? High above everything, where nothing could touch her…

He ran down the hallway, struggling to remember the layout of the castle from outside, to remember where the towers were. There had to be a staircase somewhere around here. There had to be—

Up ahead, the hallway ended in a sharp corner. He ran towards it, and as he did, a man stepped out around the corner, coming the other way. Vayne froze, skidding to a stop, his eyes wide. He stared up at the man, feeling his blood run cold.

The man—Mordred—stared back, and Vayne saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes…


Rei could feel time slipping away.

He knew that their ten minutes were up, but he still hadn't found Morgan. From up here, from his vantage point on top of one of the castle's turrets, he should have been able to. His Soul Perception didn't have the same range as his mother's, but it had some range, and he knew that from where he was, he should be able to sense every soul that was currently inside the castle.

And he couldn't. It was like trying to find an elusive frequency, every time he thought he came close to feeling something, to hearing something, all of his senses were filled with static. He grit his teeth, trying again, trying to find the gaps in this strange shroud that covered the castle, but it was no use. Instead of getting clearer, the grainy images and sensations that he was getting from the building beneath him faded away.

It was enough to make him want to scream, enough to make him want to duck down into the castle and find Morgan himself, to go at it blind. He didn't because he had waited for too long, and at this point, it would be like wandering straight into a trap.

"Calm down," Ayame said, as if she could sense the direction his thoughts were taking. "Focus."

The Cloak of Shadow settled over his shoulders, its weight pressing down on him. Inside her soul space, Ayame reached out, her hands wrapping around him from behind. Her presence enveloped him, warmth permeating his soul. She rested her head on his shoulder—he felt it as an added weight, the Cloak pressing down where her head had been.

And suddenly, everything snapped into focus, into brilliant clarity so suddenly that Rei almost let go of the image in his surprise. He could see everything, could see Morgan holed up in her tower room, Clark and Cassie doing battle on the first floor, Micah and Angela and Shelley and Cori in the library, Annie alone. It felt as if the whole world had been revealed to him in a glimpse, the information coming so fast that he couldn't process it.

So fast that he almost didn't notice the soul that was standing on the rooftop, beside him.

Rei released his hold on the image and opened his eyes, shifting his weight into a guarded stance as he turned to face the intruder. Mordred stood a few feet away from him, watching him, eyes the color of wine narrowed into a disdainful glare. The sorcerer's expression was resigned, as if he had been expecting this. His hands were out at his sides, a violet light already beginning to spread across his fingertips. Rei stared at him, feeling anger and rage well up inside of him where there should have been fear.

There was no time for words, and words wouldn't have mattered in any case.

He passed his hand over the Cloak, fingers making a hand gesture as he signaled for a different weapon form.

Ayame transformed in a flash of light.