Chapter 2: Choice
Still engulfed in a world of white nothingness, Syaoran grimaced as bits of crushed concrete and brick trickled down his shirt and its dust swirled on the turbulent air around him. The taste of his own blood was heavy upon his tongue.
He was alive... but barely.
Had he projected his barrier any later... as it was, he was lucky to only escape with burnt arms and fractured bones.
So this was the power of one of the hierarchy? No... This was only her surface ability. Like his own, it was only a fraction of her true ability.
He closed his eyes as he attempted to force himself forward. If the concealment dissipated while he was helpless still, he'd be dead for certain.
Syaoran opened his eyes as he forced himself to push back the pain. However, two brilliant colored eyes of his opposition seemed to pierce the clearing haze. But she seemed to make no other movement.
Instead, she merely stood there palm-outstretched, the remaining white-electric energy dancing across her hand. Much longer hair dancing in the back-breeze.
"Hoh..." She said in a voice that was more adult, and much more menacing than before. "Still alive? It would be disappointing if you had just upped and died on me." Her darkened silhouette seemed to grow taller as she pulled her hand back to her face and flicked the offending hair from her eyes. "Especially since I've yet to hear your name."
Syaoran wiped his sleeve across his mouth, clearing the blood before it could drip down his chin. He stared at the attractive woman before him, the stark difference between her present form and her counterpart before, beyond remarkable.
"Heh... and what is a name to you... Sakyriel?"
"Nothing." She said firmly. "It's just what this world calls... 'common courtesy'." She seemed to carry an amused smile that accompanied the exchange. "After all, you know more about me than I you... it's only fair."
"I don't care for 'fair', but since it would be annoying otherwise... Syariel."
"Oh?" She ignored the grimace upon his face as his own body underwent transformations—mainly of a recovery sort—as she contemplated his name. "Syariel...? Cute. Were you chosen because of the similarities between our names?" She smiled. "Or are you... something of the expendable type?"
Syariel allowed himself a smirk. "Probably something closer to 'good behavior' than anything else."
"Good behavior... eh?" Sakyriel whispered. "Isn't that just the nature of a 'purity' of Heaven!" She pulled her arm forward—fingers raking the air—and released a concentrated slash of incandescent energy toward her foe.
"'Purity'?" Syariel said quietly as he crossed his arms in front of him, blocking the slash with the resulting energy barrier. The force of the collision enough to force his wings into the open—wings of the purest white—in order to counter the power that sought to push him backwards. "About that..." He raised his wings and tensed his arms. "I wonder."
With a strong downward force of his wings and a forced separation of his arms, he forced the energies to the street below as he sailed upwards. Shattered pieces of the road exploded outward, but not fast enough to reach his ascent speed.
"Playing that hand already?" Sakyriel mused as the shattered pieces did little but dance in the air around her. "That won't do..." She smiled as her own wings—black as midnight—emerged and rose high. "That won't do at all..."
Syariel landed upon the roof of the higher of the nearby buildings, clutching his sides with a look of agony across his face.
It was too soon... much too soon.
Though he'd been on Earth for a couple weeks, he had had no flying experience since his incarceration. And a dry run like this just wouldn't do! Not to mention these wings...
His hand shot to the rooftop to stop himself from pitching over.
Impossible! Was this his limit?
"Hey."
Tch... She found him already?
"Don't tell me this is all you've got." Said Sakyriel from above, practically hovering in the air as she slowly descended on the breeze. "The other angels before at least made it interesting when they were trying to kill me."
Syariel's wings beat against the air for added stability as he rose to his feet, his hand clutched over the central part of his chest. "Heh... don't write me off yet." A trail of sweat rolled down his face, betraying his exhaustion. "Besides... who said anything about killing you?"
"Pffft..!" Sakyriel sounded as she stifled a laugh. "Why would I expect otherwise? Especially since you so eagerly accepted the fight at hand? At least those other angels before had tact... even a fair level of diplomacy.
"What are you in comparison? Not much."
Syariel grimaced, but moved his hands to an offensive position. There was nothing that would prevent him from the fight to come. Even if he was at his limit.
"Are you sure you want to?" Sakyriel said as she slinked forward. Her waist-length hair trailing behind her on the late afternoon breeze as she regarded her opponent with gentle eyes. "I wouldn't be offended if you just gave up."
"Like Hell!" Syariel declared as he rushed forward, an azure flame encircling his wrist.
"If that's your wish." Sakyriel said coldly, as she invoked a dark enchantment, a dark pentagram expanding from her feet. Just as Syariel's own magic began to splinter into light rods collecting in his palm as he prepared to discharge the holy flame... only to recoil in agony as the dark shape hit his feet and overcame him completely.
With no means to avoid its effect, Syariel collapsed to his knees, the flame about his wrist dissipating as quickly as it had come into being, as the darkness swept his being.
Sin energy! Can't—!!
"GaaaAAAHHHH!!!" Syariel screamed as his body was engulfed, his angelic energies failing completely to the potency of the deepest level of sin. Hell's greatest weapon against them.
As he was now... as he was...
He just couldn't compete...
"It's over." Sakyriel sighed as she looked at the collapsed form of the angel before her. She paused over his unmoving form as she retracted her sin-wash. Though he hadn't lasted as long as the ones before him, she couldn't help but feel that he was different. She shook her head in dissatisfaction. "I guess my expectations were too high."
Her gaze lingered on his face. He was rather handsome... but such was the waste she had grown accustom to.
"Sorry..." she said as she lifted him by the tattered remains of his shirt. "But I will be taking your energy now. After all, a syncron like yours is of no use to you now. So pardon me!"
With that, she thrust her now glowing hand deep into his chest and seized her prize.
"Ha. It's mine—"
Eh?
She looked at his pained face with a feeling of horror.
Wha—what is this? It's not possible...
His syncron was gone already. And in its place was something far from what it should be. Though what exactly... she hadn't a guess.
Her face took on a look of pity as she explored this new-found enigma.
This angel... that he was fighting all along without the source of his power. And that he managed to make it this far?
"How cruel..."
"It is?"
Sakyriel retracted her hand as she spun around to the sound of the voice behind her, Syariel's body falling limply to the ground as he battled against the unconsciousness that wished to claim him. He too, through pained eyes, looked towards the voice.
"Is it really?" said a calm female voice, from a silhouette against the radiance of the glow of the now setting sun. The figure of a petit individual walking slowly towards them. "I thought of all people, someone like you could appreciate it... Kyrie."
At the mention of the name, the light fell away and exposed the form of an eighteen year old girl with sleek black hair, with a touch of elegance that most humans simply did not possess. An individual that Syariel wished to see the least.
"Myciella!?" Sakyriel declared with earnest joy. "That I'd see you again! It feels like it's been ages!"
"It has been a while. Hasn't it?" The disguised version of To-myciel said with a smile.
"Too long." Said Sakyriel with an intuitive grin. "Though I have to question why you chose this, of all times, to hold our reunion. That you are in a human disguise, I would be led to believe you didn't just arrive."
"As ever amazing with your insight." The human To-myciel said she stayed her hair blowing hair with a touch of her hand to the side of her face. "We were never dissatisfied with your intelligence... I must say. Just your decisions made along the way..."
"I like to think of it as just 'simple-deductive-rationality', more than anything else. And don't worry; I'm not worried about my decisions in the slightest. As my friend, shouldn't you respect that?"
"Perhaps." Sighed To-myciel. There was no arguing with Sakyriel. Especially if she argued to win.
"And now for your reason?" Sakyriel looked back to the struggling form of Syariel behind her. "I doubt you came to 'rescue' that. After all, as an assassin he lacks all the essentials. Or did you think of him as nothing more than an experiment for your own purposes?"
To-myciel smiled. "I can't say that it's a lie. But it's more that I came to remind him of his mission more than anything. That I should talk to you in person is just another excuse.
"Although I ask that you forgive him... after centuries of confinement, he doesn't have the strongest of conversational abilities. Though I had expected him to at least drop the basics before engaging you in combat." She sighed. "Perhaps I expected too much?"
"Confinement?" Sakyriel shook her head. "Never mind that. For what did you send him? You should know that I don't just listen to anyone."
"How true." To-myciel said as her human form melted away with the last of the light of the setting sun in the distance behind her, exposing her true angelic form. What with her flowing gowns and magnificent spread of her four white wings, she was a true marvel to behold as she took to the air above.
"Ho..." Sakyriel said as she craned her neck up. Her two black wings tucked at her back to show her willingness to talk. "Four wings now? You've had a promotion, I see."
"They're nothing more than decoration to me. You know as well as I that the only true four-winged angels are guarding the throne chamber of our Lord."
"'Our Lord'." Sakyriel said with a complacent look. "You say that as though there's truth to those words. You know I'll never acknowledge that which chooses to never reveal itself."
"That?" To-myciel said softly with a resigned look in her eyes. "To think you would still show such disrespect... perhaps I am wrong to try to waste words upon you?"
"Probably." Sakyriel said as she held her hand out at her side, horizontal to the flat roof below. An intricate black and red insignia magic seal etched itself into being, centralized directly underneath her outspread fingers. "Action... as they say..." A soft crimson glow began to emit from the seal, a black object starting to emerge. "...Is always louder than words!"
With that, her wings arched into the air, just as her black runic-blade came into being and flew to her hand—which was eagerly accepted by her awaiting fingers—as she launched herself from the roof, intent on delivering the first strike.
To-myciel watched the coming assault with a less-than-worried expression, as she merely raised her hand in front of her. Her eyes narrowed as Sakyriel's slash came down.
"Naïve."
Syariel watched as the entire area surrounding the two combatants above was swallowed by a light so brilliant that he could not look directly at it for more than a second. Like an explosion in the evening air, shaking even the building beneath his fingers. Something that even the normally unobservant humans, noticed below.
Not that it mattered... he had more important concerns.
Feeling the role of a useless observer wasn't one of them... but he no longer had the strength. He no longer could even watch.
With that last despairing thought, he sank to the roof and lost consciousness.
"Heh... What was that?" Sakyriel asked through a smile. Bits of electric blue inscriptions upon the air began to emerge from the fading glow. "Shield energy perhaps? How useless."
She looked to her black blade, which had already begun to absorb the light from their clash and store it within. Small runes upon the blade slowly turning crimson. When they all were filled... then shield energy was nothing.
"Useless..." To-myciel replied, easily visible behind the blue insignia laden air. Calmly regarding her opponent's weapon as it began to cut into the shield. "Is it?"
She smiled lady-like, before returning to her serious face. Her lips parting ever so slightly as to just permit a whisper.
"Repel."
"What!?" Sakyriel replied as the energy expanded outward, threatening to overtake her and her blade. "That's not...!"
She retreated from the surge before it crippled her ability to stay aloft. The red runes slowly being erased from the blade's surface. While the air in front of To-myciel returned to a somewhat normal appearance.
However, it was less the repulsion that interested Sakyriel, as her eyes settled upon the object in To-myciel's hand.
"Tch... that is..." Sakyriel started, before adding a laugh accompanied with a look of entertainment. "Heh heh... that blade is... really. When did you get permission for such a thing? That runic blade..."
"Azurewrath." The two said simultaneously. Both in awe of the delicate but intimidatingly beautiful blue blade... what with its intricate white etched weavings, gracing its length, it was the pride of Heaven. It was also the one object completely resilient to corruption.
"The 'sword of light', as it were." Said To-myciel as she held it before her. Her four wings seemed to resonate in its presence. "The true reason behind the four wings... is to use it, you need the stability of your soul, or else it may tear it asunder.
"Even as I am now, it is more my master... than it mine."
Sakyriel looked at her 'friend's' shaking form. "So it seems." She looked at her own blade; it seemed to be quivering in response to the other. "So... where were we?"
"Talking, I believe."
"Oh... yeah."
Sakyriel smiled and lunged out, her blade nearly invisible in the fading light.
"Too slow."
To-myciel met the charge with clear precision, the resulting clash between sin and saint tearing the very fabric of the air around them, so violent a meeting of the two.
"Heh..." Sakyriel smirked, scatterings of light and dark energy spraying into the night. "Since talk is cheap... let's dance." She threw out her other arm, sin energy mingling with the scattered bits of Heaven's radiance. She flicked her fingers out and the pieces began to glow in the dusk. "Inferno!"
At once, the combing energies conflicted to the point of combustion, a black flame reaching into the air around them.
Their swords collided once again, sparks spraying outward, the electric glow of blue against the all encompassing darkness of black aiding the climbing flames by seeding the air with the energy it thrived upon. But that was just the one side.
"Surge."
At once, the sword responded, the white arching across the deep blue like a cresting tide, until it encompassed the two entities like a skirt, just before releasing a deluge of water that erased the flame below.
"Ho... pretty impressive. I see your skills have increased in our time apart... Myciella!"
"No, my most precious Kyrie, I just haven't been laying about with my skills in dormancy." She pushed the fallen angel away from her as her wings took her to a higher vantage. "Especially consider the times to come."
"What times?" Sakyriel scowled. "Not another war? Is that all heaven is about these days... executions, banishments, wars!? I suppose this time it's to eliminate those you cast aside before."
"Actually..." Their swords clashed again, bringing them closer than before. "It's the opposite."
"Opposite? Ha! Heaven wishes the Fallen to return? Preposterous!"
"If you would be our allies... help your origin in its time of need for the coming of the third war."
"Twilight...?" Sakyriel said softly. You think Twilight is approaching?"
"It's more than likely." To-myciel stated as she fired a binding spell off. Her eyes flickered downward, and did not go un-noticed.
"So that's the story behind that one as well?" asked Sakyriel as she neatly dodged the spell and sent one of her own variety in return. "Then by incarceration... he's of the Day War?" She regarded To-myciel with an uncertain scrutiny. To think you are willing to go so far... is Heaven that weak? Or is it that Hell is that Strong?"
"Either or both. I'm sure our own rules are set to doom us all. If you would come back, be forgiven..."
"There's nothing to be forgiven for. I've done nothing wrong for the sake of my homeland." She cast her sword aside. "I even sacrificed my perfection for its sake. And when it's survival was ascertained, my own fate was sealed because of my efforts.
"And now... after everything that has happened beyond heaven, you wish for my return?"
To-myciel let the Azurewrath melt back into nothingness as Sakyriel faced her.
"Here you are... come to the Mortal world. Whispering Twilight when Twilight may not come to pass. And seeking to forgive for the moment, but choose to eliminate once the job is through? I think not."
Sakyriel slowly descended to the roof top below, her sword imbedded deep within its surface. She ignored it in favor of the weakened angel beyond.
"What are you doing?" Asked To-myciel as Sakyriel picked up the exhausted Syariel.
"Me...?" Sakyriel said as she regarded Syariel with a sad expression. "I'm seeing just how far Heaven has gone in this plot."
With that, she thrust her hand deep in his chest, wrapped her fingers around that which was not his syncron, and destroyed it.
"G—g-g-gaaAAAHHH!!" Syariel cried out in pain as his wings flared high, wing tip to wing tip. The pure wing of his wings fading to an off-white as a darkness crept slowly across his wing tips and then down in streaks along various sections of feathers, until a pattern of the two wings together formed what looked much like that of a black sun, half on each wing. Wings that slowly began to fade away as his human form returned to him, as his body no longer possessed its ability to keep its form.
Sakyriel let him fall to the ground, having seen something she had never seen before. An angel that was in half sin, and half light. He was neither Angel nor Fallen.
"I... see."
"A False Angel." To-myciel stated from behind her. She stood on the rooftop with a reserved expression. "Touched by sin, but existing without acceptance of it. He and his kind are no longer acceptable angels."
Sakyriel slid down to a knee and cupped the barely breathing Angel's jaw in her hand. "Then he is of his own entity. Much like theirs."
"Theirs?"
"That is not open for discussion with you at this time." She looked sad as the light in her eyes began to die. "But it may be for him. Allow me thought of this."
To-myciel nodded. Her human form returned to her. "It's his mission to persuade you, regardless."
"I will not be persuaded." Her wings disappeared, as her hair began to shorten and her form grew smaller. "As for his syncron? I'm sure this is for purposes of loyalty?"
"It is."
"Then I may need to address that again, later. But it is not something for you or me to decide. For when it comes down to it, in this dispute or the potential war to come... whichever side, or no side at all... it is his decision to make.
"His... choice."
A/N (1/23/08): I'm going to try to release this weekly until I get through it. It shouldn't be much longer than a few chapters more. After all, I'm trying to go quickly. :P