Chapter 8

Disclaimer: If I owned DN Angel (which I so obviously do not) several things would be different. For example, no matter what it took, I would have the anime follow the manga exactly. This means that Keiji Saga and Argentine would both make their respective appearances, and Towa would be allowed to freak out about Argentine as she pleased.

This being said, it should be quite obvious that I do not, and never will, own DN Angel.

Lumi's POV

I didn't know where I was. I had never flown over this part of Azumano before, and now I had lost sight of Krad. My wings ached and my eyes stung from not only my tears, but the wind as well. I was ready to drop out of the sky. It was well past midnight and I wanted to sleep. And did I mention winter was coming? My skin felt like ice! I was glancing around hopelessly when I saw it.

There was a tiny, almost microscopic glimmer of gold in the air. Krad had been past here, and I followed without thought. Soon, the gold specks became a trail, and the trail became a ribbon that glittered and curved like the northern lights. I followed it easily, wondering why my eyes felt so strange. They had reverted back to their normal violet, I could tell without looking; but they still felt so odd. And the more I thought about it, the dimmer the trail of light became, until it disappeared completely. I stopped dead in midair and hovered, working my wings in a slow figure eight like a drunken hummingbird might. I looked around wildly, hoping that I would spot that glimmer again, but to no avail.

For the second time in five minutes, I was lost. Fortunately, fate seemed to favor me. Or at least, fate seemed to favor me when I was lost. Or maybe it didn't favor me and I just got lucky. Either way, after hovering for about another minute, I decided to go in the general direction I had been heading before.

I hadn't flown ten feet before something slammed me into a building so hard I saw stars. I felt a hand at my throat and tried to struggle but couldn't move. I was actually paralyzed with fear. Mura…

Instinct mistress, she said. Think about it. There wasn't time to think. But I forced myself to move; to reach up and grab my attacker's shoulder and try to force them away from me. I felt my hand begin to warm up and I realized what Mura had been trying to tell me. The computer mouse I had melted at Daisuke's house, and now this. I was beginning to gain control of fire. Fire, which had almost killed me; which had burned my wings from my back, that was Honoo no Namida's power. Fire, which terrified me beyond belief.

My hand ignited and the figure leapt back from me. I did not see the flash of white I expected, I did not hear Krad's shout, but rather, I saw a tiny flicker of green and heard a gentle swish of silver wings. I saw chocolate brown skin and hair only a bit lighter: Syerdtsye. I screamed and darted off.

My wings felt clumsy and heavy and awkward, as though they were not beating in unison. But I was not being followed, I felt that. She did not dare follow fire. Did she fear it? Had I truly been so lucky? Or was there something else? I had the terrible feeling that it might be something else, some horrible other thing.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize what had happened to me. There was something sticking out of my left side. Something long, and sharp, and undoubtedly poisonous. Syerdtsye hadn't bothered following me because I would be dead in only a few minutes. I pulled the object out of my side with a gasp of pain, and examined it. I wanted to know what caused my death.

Sitting in my palm was a dull-tipped, two foot long piece of metal that looked like a curved knitting needle. I remember wondering if Syerdtsye knitted before it all went black.

Satoshi's POV

I stared at the writing on the door for several moments, wondering why on earth I'd never seen this room before. It was large and empty, but for the three solid doors I had mentioned before, and, but for the glow of the Rutile of Grief, completely pitch black. The walls were made of cool stone that seemed to shimmer in the glow of the Rutile, and when I brushed against them, I realized that they were damp with water.

I turned my attention to the writing. Say my name and I disappear. It was etched deep into the wood in elegant script, almost like calligraphy. Unfortunately, at the time I had no idea what it was. I walked over to the next door. Two in a corner, one in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter. What am I? I blinked. Were these riddles? Had whatever artwork that trapped Daisuke and Dark in here seriously thought that whoever found them wouldn't be able to solve them?

You cannot outrun me. You cannot hide from me nor can you touch me. I am a part of darkness, but my existence is in vain without the light. What am I? Apparently, they had a good idea as to what would stump somebody. I held the Rutile as high above my head as I could, in hope that it would cast more light into the room. The first thing that came to mind with the last riddle was Dark. The second riddle had made me think of where he and Daisuke might be, but there was no way of finding them locked in this room. And the first had made me think of the strange apparition I'd just seen. I was beginning to question my sanity. I decided to turn my attention to the first riddle, for no reason but that it was the shortest.

"Say my name and I disappear," I said to myself. My words were quickly eaten up by the walls of the room, and silence pressed against my ears again. Wait… could it really be so simple? "Silence," I said.

The door shuddered for several moments, then slowly seemed to vanish into the ground. Behind it was a small pedestal, and on that pedestal sat… I blinked. That certainly couldn't be all that was there!

Because on the pedestal sat nothing but a paintbrush and a jar of ink.

I stared at the brush and ink before carefully stepping into the small chamber and removing them from the short pedestal on which they sat. When I was back in the main room, the door reappeared. It was now blank. I turned to the next riddle. Two in a corner, one in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter. My mind went completely blank. The Rutile still glowed faintly, and there was a steady, constant drip of water coming from one of the corners of the room. I wondered how long I had been in here, where Lumi was, and if the sun had risen yet. I wished I had a watch with me, but there was nothing but a steady drip of water and the Rutile. I gazed at the door, then down at the brush and ink. Then I looked at the door again.

"Okay," I said to myself for no reason other than to break the terrible silence that surrounded me, "So whatever this thing is, there are two in a corner." I glanced over to my right, as though maybe I would see the answer sitting there calmly; gazing at me with its eyes, if it had any. "One in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter." I stared at the writing for the longest time, and then, just when I was about to give up, I gazed at the brush and ink. They had to be clues for this riddle. So why would I need a brush? Am I supposed to paint? Or… The answer came to me in a flash. "Two in 'corner', one in 'room' none in 'house' but one in 'shelter'." It was an 'R'. I uncapped the inkwell and quickly dipped the brush into it, carefully painting a large (if not somewhat shaky, I was nervous), 'R' onto the wooden door. I knew in an instant I had done the right thing, because the door faded. But unfortunately, there was another verse written on a door that stood behind it.

Getting out of here will cost nothing
Relinquish one breath from your lips
Always confusing one for another
Yet always remaining the same.

"You had to do it, didn't you Gray?" I asked the door, and it melted at the name. "First letter of each line, far too obvious." I'd seen it at once, but I wasn't sure why it was there. Still, I hoped maybe the extra barrier would mean I was on the right track…

"Mmf?" I never thought I'd be happy to see Dark, but here he was, tied up and gagged, with a flickering candle in the middle of the room, casting long, fluctuating shadows on the glistening stone walls. I sighed and untied his gag, and almost instantly he was talking. "You could've come faster," he commented, "For a police commander you're not all that observant, you know? I mean, trying to catch me is one thing, but I'd think you'd be able to find a locked door pretty quickly." He stretched his jaw as I worked at untying his hands, and by the time the ropes (practically burning my hands with the magic channeled into them) fell away, he was grinning and looked like his old self.

"Daisuke's not here?" I asked, not seeing him but wanting to be sure. Dark shook his head as he untied his ankles, then stood up and stretched. I picked up the candle and walked out. "Then you're going to have to help me figure this out." As soon as Dark had cleared the entrance to the second corridor, the door sealed itself behind him. If this surprised the thief, he didn't give me any reason to think it had.

"Figure what out Creepy?" He asked, causing me to remember why I normally wasn't happy to see him.

"This," I said, gesturing with the candle towards the third (and, I hoped, final) door. Dark stared at the words for about three seconds. You cannot outrun me. You cannot hide from me nor can you touch me. I am a part of darkness, but my existence is in vain without the light. What am I? I couldn't help but wonder if he even cared.

"Sounds like me," he said at last. "Dark." The door didn't move. Despite wanting to sigh from the sheer volume of his ego, I had to admit Dark had a point, and that that was exactly what I had thought when I'd first seen the riddle. I wondered briefly if the candle could be another clue, like the ink and brush had been, when the Rutile stopped glowing. Dark and I were instantly cast into a flickering light that came from the candle, which was mysteriously bright. Our shadows flickered and jumped like paper in the wind.

Lumi's POV

I was standing on nothing. Everything around me was white, whiter than the purest white I had ever seen, whiter than Krad's wings, or the snow, or cotton. The air around me was white, like I was in a thick fog, and I wondered briefly where I was. It looked like the room from my other vision, if that could have been called a room, but I knew it wasn't, and if it was, Gray wasn't there. Because Gray was dead, and the dead are dead. I touched my hand to my side, and felt sticky, half clotted blood and a deep wound. I wondered if this was what came after death, or just… something else. I couldn't decide what, but… something else, yes. It must have been.

I was still wondering where I was when it started raining feathers. Some of them were black, others red. They all had writing on them, red on the black feathers, black on the red. As if they were something from Alice in Wonderland, they read 'Read Me'. I stretched out a hand to catch one of the black feathers, but it slipped through my hand like a shadow. I tried to grab one of the red ones, to the same result. I stooped to pick one up, but they seemed stuck to whatever the floor was there. I could not pick them up, or hold them.

'Read Me,' they read tauntingly. 'Read Me, Read Me.' A breeze picked up stirring my auburn hair (odd, when had the color changed?), but the feathers did not stir, and then the answer came to me. I was supposed to see them from above, from where they were coming from. If there was a ground here, there certainly must be a sky. I spread my wings and, with a bit more effort than normal because of the pain in my side, took off. I think I only flew about a hundred feet up before the pain forced me to glide, but even at that height the message was legible.

One word. 'Godspeed.'

Then there was the sound of a thousand daggers unsheathing, a horrible, awful 'fsssh' of metal on metal, and then–

– I sat up gasping for breath, freezing cold, in some sort of cave. A small, furry mound of white fur and gold feathers yawned next to me, and I absentmindedly stroked Ryoushi's head for a moment before I realized who he was. "Ryoushi?" I asked, stunned. He sneezed, and I looked around me. The walls of the cave were covered in glittering clear quartz, and light that wasn't there reflected off the crystals. The cavern itself must have been at least a mile high, and a quarter of an acre around. It was like sitting inside of a chandelier. "How did I get here?" I asked, touching my side. It was healed, as though the incident with Syerdtsye had never happened. A chill ran through my spine.

Ryoushi stuck his nose against my hand and whimpered. I looked where he was looking, and my heart stopped, then jumped to my throat, then started beating at double time. "Mata meguru," I whispered. "History's repeating. No…" It didn't take me a second to recognize who else was in this cavern with me, and realize what had happened. Krad had found me. He had healed me.

And as Ryoushi walked over and nudged his master, I stumbled after him. We were not losing Krad again. He was our last tie to Gray. That was all that was going through my mind then. He knows something I don't. He knows where Gray is. I didn't care about Krad. I hate myself for saying that, but I didn't. Gray still haunted me, and she would haunt me until either I brought her back, or died trying.

So I set to work trying to heal the psychotic half of the Black Wings. He had answers, and right now, answers were all I needed.

Godspeed.

…

AN: Oh Lumi… I'm actually feeling kind of guilty about what I'm doing to her. I'm trying to make her seem a little more… real, I guess, and I think I'm trying to bring out the trauma she's still feeling about Gray. Anyway, I know this chapter is really overdue, and I hope it was at least passable as a chapter… Anyway, please review, and forgive me for the long wait…

Oh, and what do you think the answer is for the last riddle? Don't look it up, I'm curious what you think. Please forgive me for the long author's note! Have a great Thanksgiving!