Following the minor clash between the once-friends To-myciel and Sakyriel, all three had reverted to their human forms and To-myciel vanished into the night. With the message delivered, and their positions reinforced, To-myciel was no longer needed and thus had departed.
Later, Sakura, having no idea where she was, woke up next to a still-sleeping Syaoran on a bench in a park near her house. Figuring that he had brought her this far, and simply fell asleep next to her while waiting for her to recover, she felt a feeling of a deep warmth in her chest. Unwilling to wake him from such a peaceful state, she snuggled against him and fell asleep. The two did not wake until morning.
Upon re-awakening, they found themselves in a world of confusion. Not totally oblivious to all of the energies of the heaven's and in-between realms, a great majority of humans had actually witnessed the strange displays of light from the combat the evening before. Though no one could see the angels themselves due to their ethereal aspect of being when operating in the Mortal plane, theory and conjecture itself was damaging enough.
To mitigate the damage, To-myciel stayed behind after all, entering into the same school system as Syaoran and Sakura as a transfer student by the name of Tomoyo. While there is no interaction between the three, Syaoran takes no joy in her presence. Sakura wonders if the harsher feeling emanating from him isn't due in part to her, thus causing her to keep her own distance.
However, these days of awkwardness were quickly replaced with those of suffering, as Syaoran's time left to live quickly dwindled. Unconscious of his exact difficulties, Sakura attempts to rekindle their relationship by narrowing the distance, unaware that her counterpart Sakyriel has already got her own agenda.
Chapter 3: Decision
Syaoran felt his head spin as he dropped his shoes by his locker, grabbing its open edge for support as a feeling of nausea overcame him.
He grabbed his chest and clenched his eyes shut... the world feeling as though it was slowly being pulled out from underneath his stationary feet.
He was getting worse. He was already feeling the cross effects. The strain upon his body that resulted from being apart from his Syncron. He didn't have long left now... he had to finish his mission or abandon living, as he had no other choice left to him.
If only that bitch would take heart! Then she could erase these traitorous feelings welling up in his being...
"Syaoran!"
Just as the soft voice cried out from somewhere in the murky darkness that had become his vision, he lost his handhold and began to fall, bored aloft—surprisingly—by the very person who had just called out.
"S-Sakura?"
"Ta-Take it easy... I've got you now." She said through a strained voice as she attempted to support him with her weak strength. No one nearby even attempted to help.
"...'s ok Sakura." Syaoran said kindly as he attempted to stand on his own. "I've got... got..."
"That's no good at all!" Sakura's high voice before moving her mouth closer to his ear, her voice changing its tone completely. "Besides, we need to talk."
Sakyriel!?
"S-sure." He grimaced as they headed down the hall. Unaware of another person watching them from a distance through narrowed eyes, before slipping away un-noticed.
Syaoran collapsed back on the roof of the school building, the nurse's room meaning little for a condition without cure, as well as being a great place of privacy. Though he wasn't sure of when the transition had occurred, it was definite that the girl before him was her angelic self.
"So... what did you want with me... Sakyriel?"
"Ara... am I so obvious?" The woman in her human form said with a smile. She looked around once, confirming their privacy from potential prying eyes. "I'll cut to the point... you are dying... are you not?"
Syaoran didn't even flinch... so obvious it must be to one of the former generals, and lead fallen, whose eyes had no doubt witnessed thousands of death's syndromes prior.
"Ah... That's right." He said bitterly. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to save my life by coming back to Heaven's side, or would you?" He closed his eyes as he drew in a breath, putting his head back against the wall behind him. "I guess that would be impossible."
"Yes."
"Figures." He coughed violently, his deterioration evident in the blood that flowed from his lungs—now laced heavily upon his breath. He grimaced as he wiped it away with the back of his hand. "It's probably too late by now... anyway." He looked up to the sky as what little life remaining seemed to stand still.
"No." The still-girl Sakyriel said from her stationary position. "That is your choice... even now."
"Choice?"
"To live with what little time you have left, as a being loyal to Heaven and all its misfortunes... or to abandon it for favor of life, and new possibility." She held out her hand.
"W-What?" There was nothing offered but emptiness... but it had such pull he was tempted to seize the air above it for sake of trying.
"This..." she started slowly, "Is the path of new life. As well as the seal upon this girl's strength... the other purpose of her being."
"Seal?" Syaoran stared at the empty hand, a strange pattern of darkness emerging on the upward facing palm. An intricate etching that he had seen before in the night's prior.
Black Runes...
"Shed the light... embrace the darkness that is. Of the Syncron of the first of the Fallen... he who provided the means that led the rest of us to follow, even before that of Lucifiel..." Her eyes narrowed as an obvious pained crossed her face, her hair blowing freely as the winds began to emerge from the eroding seal. "The dark angel... bringer of death...
"Azrael."
"Stop!"
Syaoran looked over to the stair top, the entrance door to the roof opened fully, Tomoyo—the accursed human form of To-myciel—standing before it.
"That—!" She declared wide-eyed. "That you had such a thing! What is the meaning of this...? Kyrie!"
"Ara... aren't I Sakura now? Tomoyo..." She smiled innocently with Sakura's face, her hand still being encased in the darkness, the very weather in the sky above changing to the same form of darkness as black clouds engulfed the sun. "Besides, why are you asking me? Shouldn't you be asking him?"
"Syaoran?" Tomoyo said meekly as she looked to his slumped figure, noting the still flowing trail of blood from his mouth. "What... What did you do!?" She accused Sakura.
"What I did? I did nothing. That is the price of your demands for loyalty." She pointed with her free hand to Syaoran's dying form. "Didn't I say this before? That in the end it was his choice?
"Well... I'm forcing the choice now. Death with you... Or life in death, with me. Unless of course, you choose to re-unite him with his core before he dies." She smiled as the pain lessened. "Of course, as this is my prize from the Core Wars, I'm free to do with it as I wish."
Tomoyo grimaced. Of all possible Syncrons... that she had that one was beyond absurd! Was this her answer to the proposal? Or was this the key to something greater?
Wait...
"What do you... what do you mean by that—! Prize? A prize you said?!" Tomoyo looked at Sakura's face accusingly. "Impossible!"
"Heh." Sakura's innocent face betrayed by a smile it would never carry. "Figure it out? A bit surprising, I must say, since you were always a bit slow on the uptake... oh great liaison between the Heavens and Mortal realm."
"It can't be..." Tomoyo said softly, her words nearly lost to the winds that buffeted her. "Then the Core Wars..."
"...Were orchestrated by me." Sakura said simply.
Both Tomoyo's and Syaoran's eyes widened at her confession. However, a resigned feeling seemed to hold over Syaoran's heart. At this point, the knowledge of centuries ago seemed just as distant as his pledge to return Sakyriel to the service of Heaven, while much closer was that existence of darkness upon Sakura's outstretched hand. An existence that seemed to be drawing him...
"Why..." Tomoyo started. She looked to the Syncron and Syaoran. She looked to the still human Sakyriel, in Sakura's form. She cursed internally.
With the seductive power of the Death Sphere, she dare not expose her Angelic form to it, lest she risk losing herself to its destructive influence. It was Sakyriel's greatest front, to think that her creation of her human side was simply a cover for this!
"Why would you go to such lengths... for not only that, but for what purpose!?"
"For what purpose...? Indeed." Sakura looked up, her hair blowing freely, her arm disappearing into the darkness that had already consumed her hand. "About that... I wonder."
"You..." Tomoyo uttered softly. "About Twilight... about the war to come..."
"Such was an inevitability; though it was nothing I had any awareness of until near the close of Dawn, mind you." Sakura said, the black runes spreading across her face as the glyphs crept up her neck. "Not until after witnessing the power of the hybrids. Then it was not so distant at all. The fact that the war of Heaven and Hell was no longer limited to the Angels and Demons... or even the Mortals they wished to have a monopoly over... instead it would be finished with those caught between realms.
"Don't think that the Fallen exist without their Hellion equivalent. Not that either are limited to anything but choice. And who says our loyalties are anything to the side of origin?"
She smiled despite the look of discomfort that settled in her face. Her eyes went to Syaoran.
"Now it's your game. Take it or leave it, but let me warn you... if you don't take it soon, and the marks consume this body, then the life of the girl 'Sakura' will be consumed as well. Not that it will do anything more than expose me, but I'd rather keep my cover if I can."
Tomoyo looked aghast. Her hand shaking with a suppressed level of emotion as she regarded the two before her. "Not only do you involve others, but you use threat of the annihilation of your own counterpart? How far will you fall!?"
"Heh..."
Tomoyo stopped at Syaoran's amused laugh. "Syaoran?"
"Ridiculous... the both of you." He said as he closed his eyes to the black Syncron before him. "You make it sound like I have no concept of the ramifications of my actions... and that I must be 'played' by the both of you into making a decision?" He opened his eyes slowly as he looked at Tomoyo and smiled. "Of course, this is greater than me, a mere lieutenant... a mere sword of the generals... to make without guidance. But after hearing all of this?" He stretched his hand out towards the sphere.
"But aside from my life... the life of a counterpart... or whatever the hell else you can drag out of your ass... There ain't no way I'm not seeing this to the end!!"
As his hand fell forward, he heard Tomoyo scream out one last time, just before his fingers found the sphere and wrapped around it. And Sakura... the last thing he saw, vanished into a black fog that enveloped his mind, as his beaten body submitted to the torrent's onslaught.
"It's done." Sakura said softly as she watched the black sphere sink into Syaoran's chest... instantly reverting him to his angelic form. The black half sun marks on his wings looking all the more pronounced.
She started to laugh as the darkness that was painting her form cracked and broke away, revealing her Angelic self to the darkened world.
To-myciel did much of the same. Her elegant face crest fallen with anxiety.
"What you have done here... on this day... do you even realize?" She clenched her fist in anger, her wings flared out violently. "Kyrie!"
"Of course." Sakyriel stated simply. "I presented the key to the lock you so neatly presented me. And he turned the key that leads to the awakening of all that is the end." She looked up satisfied. "Don't think you weren't aware of your own hand in all this? You were never meant to prevent Twilight... you—like me—were only there to see its initiation."
"It hasn't begun yet!" To-myciel declared vehemently. "I—!"
"Will do nothing." Sakyriel stated calmly. "This game is mine already. For the offset is already mine." She stooped down to collect the still unmoving form of Syariel. "If you have nothing else... then I must away." She shifted the dead weight of her prize and smiled. "Until we next meet."
And without further sound, they were gone.
In their absence, a solitary To-myciel was left momentarily to consider the situation, as well as the events to come... just before she departed into the blackened skies.
A/C (3/9/08): A lot of things happened that delayed this release, so I made my compacted story even more so by concluding it with this one. Though the whisperings have ended, look forward to the continuation in "Unto Twilight".
Thanks for reading!