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Log cast: Kagerou (Yui); Shahei/Dokuja (Tomo); Yurine (Soi)
Log date: 1/23/00 

All seems peaceful within the confines of the chamber given Kagerou, the
 sparse furnishings placed there mainly undisturbed save for a chair and
 the sleeping pallet. On the chair rests her backpack, the flashlight
 poking out. On the pallet, Kagerou herself rests, cmofortably sprawled
 in a much needed deep sleep. For the sake of not breaking it, the
 shinzaho, something she's taken to wearing at all times lately, is not
 visible, perhaps tucked away somewhere within the room for its own
 safety.

It's a shame, really, that things are so peaceful. Peace, like many
 things, is transient, especially in this land, in this time. Many times
 before has the blue-eyed girl from outside the book interrupted his
 peace, entered without preamble or invitation. But now Dokuja seems to
 be the hypocrite, the culprit... the intruder, if you will.

With a quiet hiss of the entry partition being slid to the side, the
 serpent enters. He leans slightly against the doorframe, his yellow
 eyes peering thinly into the darkened room. There is no movement for a
 moment or two, complete and utter silence. Then slowly he steps all the
 way inside, hissing the door closed behind him. And again he is still,
 staring at the girl, except the silence has abandoned him. Beautiful,
 welcome silence -- and it is marred by the unsteady drip, the splash of
 liquid against the floor. The blue silk of his clothing is darkened
 unnaturally, and the serpent brings with him into the peace not only
 noise, but a terrible wine-thick smell, the coppery taste in the back
 of one's throat. It drips, staining his breeches, his boots, the floor.
 It drips, and he pays it no heed. His mind is still clouded, you see.
 The drug is still at work, everything blurred together, yet
 frighteningly sharp. Everything makes sense now, you see. It always
 does in these situations. 

"Kagerou," he murmurs softly into the silence, then licks his lips. Dry.
 Too dry. His clothes are soaked to the skin, and his mouth is dry. Heh.
 Louder, he repeats, "Lady Kagerou."

A rustling at first, the soft sound of a denial of that awakening, and
 Kagerou argues with consciousness, snuggling deeper into the security
 of her coverlet, face buried in its folds. A second time though, and it
 cannot be ignored, her eyes slotting open negligibly in the ambient
 darkness. A shadow among the shadows, the soft intrusion of a wet sound
 not far off, the smell... Uneasily she opens her eyes to peer into the
 shadows, picking out the form now standing in her room. A louder
 rustling, the covers being shoved back, and a hand pressing into the
 soft mattress on the pallet to push her up to sit rather than sprawl.
 "My Lord Shahei," she asks, more question in her tone that she might
 have liked to imply. A hand slips beneath her single pillow, fingers
 curling around the delicately comforting form of the shinzaho, then
 releasing it as she seeks instead the tinder to strike, intent on
 lighting the bedside tallow candle.

A soft hiss as it strikes, the flicker of flame brought to life casting
 an aura of suddenly harsh gold into a puddle of light nearby. Cast in
 gold and muted shadow, she looks to him again, eyes adjusting,
 squinting to uncover just what about this tableau, aside from his
 unexpected presence, is out of sorts. "Dokuja?"

And there he stands, the serpent. His scales naked to the air, his
 cobra's hood spread, and his venom... It's there, a thickness of smell,
 a heady aura that clings to him like leeches, tangible beneath the
 bittersweetness of that awful dripping. The candlelight dances across
 his blue silken form, his silvery-black hair, and the stain. Like an
 inkblot or a terrible parody of modern art, the stain spreads across
 his front as if with a life of its own. The silk is ruined forever,
 darkened to a reddish violet, and the dripping... it continues
 maddeningly, unsteady, but constant. Following at his footsteps,
 dancing in his shadow. 

As if seeking to silence the quiet noise, Dokuja's hand creeps to his
 tunic and balls the wettened material in his fist, the moisture seeping
 out between his pale fingers, streaking crimson in the candlelight.
 "Yes..." is whispered out between his ironically dry lips. "Yes, it is
 me." The candleflame catches something else -- a wrongness in his
 golden eyes, their amber pools blurred, indistinct. An unholy glint to
 their glitter, a sharpness to his expression that shouldn't be present.
 "It is only me."

Kagerou's gaze drops drifts over his form, taking in the sight of the
 stains, his state; nose twitching, she pushes to her feet slowly, the
 headily unnerving scent compelling a wary unease from her. The
 combination of the two, blood and opium, serves only to increase the
 growing mote of apprehension forming, to twitch the corners of her
 mouth downward in a frown that is neither fully concern nor fear.
 "Dokuja...." she breathes, pausing to let her regard slip back to the
 dark stain clinging to the silk, the ooze of dark liquid through his
 fingers. Stepping forward, when in truth her mind would draw her
 backward, she lets her steps take her as far as the edge of the pool of
 dancing candlelight, the sweep of her sleep-tousled robe coming short
 of drifting ahead into the puddle forming at Shahei's feet. A hand
 moves forward, a finger seeking to explore one trail of blood as it
 trickles over his hand, to confirm perhaps, just whether her suspicions
 are accurate. And they are, as an almost morbidly fascinated flicker of
 a fear she cannot place a name to spreads like strong wine through her
 mind.

"Dokuja... what have you done?" Somewhere, in some deep part of her
 heart, in the space of her dreaming which took her down such dark
 spirals and into an all too deep sleep this night, something tugs at
 her awareness. Begs to be understood as she lifts her gaze to meet his
 own daunting regard. "What has happened, Shahei?"

The serpent laughs, low and hoarse, with no feel, let alone voice,
 behind him. "Did you know," says he in a conversational tone. Ignore
 the copper blood, the heady smell of opium, and it's simple
 conversation. Ignore the madness that dances in his golden eyes, the
 anger that mixes with painful glee and insanity, blessed insanity, that
 follows the trail of crimson that soaks his clothing. Where the
 dragonfly's hand touches, the blood spills. It stains her hands as
 surely as it does his. And the smile hinted in that empty laugh curls
 on the serpent's lips, his venomous fangs bared to the candleflame. His
 movements are lazy, languid even; as the girl nears him, his feet move,
 boots slick as they touch the gruesome puddle that has formed. 

"Did you know," he tries again, his voice whispersoft. The intoxicating
 smell is closer now. Too close. The same hand that grasped his sin,
 that squeezed the blood from his tunic into his palm, now reaches
 forward, towards her face. His skin is cold, but the blood -- gods help
 him, but the blood is warm. "-- that I thought you had all the
 answers?" A wry chuckle. He touches her cheek, caressing in an idle,
 gentle movement, crimson fingertips tracing the line of her nose. "You
 could give me power... the power to conquer all my foes... to shape
 dreams, oh, but I had dreams... to take over the world, maybe...
 wouldn't that be nice, hmm..? Taking over the world..."

He sighs, and his hand pauses against her cheek, the copper pain in the
 air tangible. "But you didn't tell me everything, did you, Kagerou? You
 shouldn't have kept such secrets from me..." He smiles faintly. The
 serpent's eyes meet hers, their pupils woven of black and golden
 threads. "I don't like it when people keep secrets from me. Terrible
 accidents happen otherwise. You really should have told me."

[Time] The first stars become visible as the last traces of sunlight
 fade from the sky.

A flicker of movement, one that nearly sees her flinching away from his
 touch, from that overwhelming mingling of scents assuulting senses
 muted by sleep, yet suddenly so aware of their presence. Eyes widening,
 the glimmer of cornflower blue darkened by shadow, a moisture forming
 in them that even she might be hardpressed to explain or quell. "What
 accident, Dokuja? What have you done?" The miko pleads, voice a breath
 above a whisper, the disturbingly warm, sticky sensation of blood on
 her cheek, an almost obscene contrast to the chill in his touch,
 compels her hand upward, fingers curling about his own, seeking to draw
 away with the gesture not only the contact but the growing sense of
 unease. Something is wrong. So very wrong, and the flare of raw fear
 that fills her regard reeks almost as much as the concoction of opium
 and blood that he provides. "Tell me, Dokuja."

It is at first merely a token moment of movement, but one that turns
 into a half step back, the soft scrape of bare feet against the
 flooring unnaturally loud, as is the rustle of her robe. The smear of
 blood remains, streaked across her cheek, the effect almost a ghastly
 thing in the flickering flow of candlelight. "Do not toy with me. Tell
 me. Please."

"A terrible accident," the poisonous serpent murmurs, letting her go.
 His fingers linger as she steps away, bloodied fingertips tracing the
 smooth, slickened curve of her cheek until she is out of reach. Then he
 stares at his hand, morbidly fascinated. He offers no response, too
 enraptured by his own hand, its chill ashen colour obscured by thick
 redness that dribbles between the crevaces of his palm, down the length
 of his wrist. Ever so slowly, he lifts his hands to his lips. A
 triangle of pink against the redness-- his tongue flicks out, dancing
 against his fingers before they disappear into his mouth, eyes closing
 with a soft breath drawn inward. When his fingers are released, they
 come out ghastly pale, only thin lines of red in his knuckles as
 evidence that they were ever bloodied. Licked clean, and by the
 pleasure gleaming in his golden eyes, he enjoyed it. 

The serpent smiles again. "I have done what I should have done a hundred
 years ago," he whispers. A slow step taken, closing the distance she
 created by backing away. "Why did you not tell me, little dragonfly?
 Why did you not tell me that I was doomed to die by the hands of those
 who I was supposed to fight alongside? Why did you lie to me?" Both
 hands lift from his sides now, one bloodied, the other clean, to rake
 fingers through his disheveled silvery black hair, a sharp, empty laugh
 barked out. "You shouldn't have kept secrets from me," he repeats
 unsteadily. "Because now a terrible accident has occured. And now my
 servants have a dreadful mess to clean up. But don't worry..."

He drops his hands, and again reaches out to her face. With the same
 hand. The clean hand. He smiles languidly. "Don't worry, Seiryuu no
 Miko-sama. I told him before not to try anything until after the
 summoning. But he didn't listen, did he? He had to come anyway... but
 don't worry, Miko-sama. He won't be harassing you anymore. I took care
 of it."

A glimmer of disgust darkens her azure regard further, a shadow of
 loathing suddenly burgeoning in their fear-stricken depths as he draws
 fingers clean of sin from his mouth. "Who...?" But no, it's there. Like
 the flowering of some sickly black flower it blossoms in her awareness,
 spilling like poison into her thoughts, filtering through the grasp on
 sanity she has so proudly, yet tenuously claimed. "No." A shake of her
 head, the unruly movement of already tousled blonde locks dropping them
 into her eyes, shading the truth of her horror. "No." A step away, the
 rustle of her robes as she catches the hem with a hell, stumbling back
 and onto her pallet, catching herself in a crouch, the flicker of
 emotions running wild acros her deathly pale face mocked by the
 grotesque golden light shot 'round by the room's single candle. "No."

And then the flower folds inward once more, a sudden sepulchurous
 darkness bleeding into her spirit as horrific realization flowers in
 its place. The sleep from which he drew her, the slumber which was her
 respite from the dreams which plagued her this night, it was the
 merciful sleep which was her surrender to the pain, the unyielding
 aguish which fought for purchase in her dreamings, the drowning upswell
 of grief for a loss so depthless as to be soul rending. The death
 throes of a heart that knew not its own breaking.

And then it comes; like the screach of a swordpoint across a shield, the
 sudden and unrelenting sound from a mind whose failure is not once, but
 twice realized, and whose penance would be nothing that even the Gods
 themselves could ordain. A sound drawn from the one thing to rise
 clearly from the brittle shards of her heart: the truth.
 "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A hand shoots out, the pillow thrust
 aside, the delicate metalwork of the shinzaho gleaming in the golden
 light briefly with ominous foreboding, caught in shadow once more as
 she clutches it to her chest, eyes wild as she focuses on the source of
 her own irreparable anguish.

Perhaps wandering a house that's not her own at such a time is not the
 wisest of courses; however, lifetime after lifetime, Soi has never been
 known to choose the wisest courses. The Lady Yurine, more than
 troubled, all but skulks through the seemingly deserted halls of the
 Yoarashi manor; dignified, ladylike, graceful -- the opression of an
 enormous, dim, empty house with weaken anyone's posture. Clutched in
 one hand is a rolled parchment recently claimed from the equal dimness
 of her business ventures -- selling one's soul for respect is not as
 poor a choice as some other's she's made.

"My lord?" Her voice echoes eerily down the halls, a catch here and
 there all but craving dark organ music in the background. Finding
 neither retainers nor her lord in the rooms she expects to find them
 in, she instead follows the sounds, shrieks catching anyone's
 attention. She swings open a door warily, more than prepared to be
 aghast -- welcome to Hell, Yurine.

"Yes," whispers the serpent. And thus with a word the truth is sealed.
 Yes, take this apple and bite into it. Enjoy it well, for God kept it
 from you only for your own good. This fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
 is only for you, that you might know all the anger and hatred and know
 your own nakedness. Be like God and know everything. Even if the truth
 exists only within the smug smile of a serpent who coils around the
 branch of the Forbidden Tree, the fallen angel who reached too high and
 was cast down as a result of his own arrogance. Take this apple, Eve of
 the Dragon, and enjoy it well.

The outburst is met with little more, only a smile and Dokuja drops his
 hand back to his side, the monotonous drip of crimson against the floor
 still continuing, still everpresent, a coppery background music to the
 madness. When the door opens, the serpent turns slowly to face his
 lady, tilting his head to her with the smile of a snake who has bathed
 too long in the sun. A bloody hand raises towards her, palm up, the
 candlelight dancing off the liquid streaking his ashen paleness. "My
 lady," he murmurs, his voice vague with drugs. "Why oh why am I not
 surprised to see you here?"

Madness lurks there, caught in an unseeing regard, glistening in
 reflection of the mirrored scales of the serpant who was the
 orchestrator of her final, irrevocable descent into an insanity which
 pecked always at the fringes of her mind. It sought entrance, sought to
 draw her into its twisted coils, to squeeze from her the last breath of
 reason from a soul eaten away by guilt over what could never be
 reconciled. Fingers curled in a deathlike grip about the necklace, she
 reaches up, knuckles grazing the play of dryig blood marring her cheek,
 carrying away on pale flesh the mark of the sin of not one, but two.
 Unheeding of even Yurine's presence now, aware only of the path which
 clears itself in her sights, those same knuckles draw across her
 opposite cheek, smearing the dark remnants across her flesh.

With a suddenness at odds with her apparent absence from this moment,
 from the here and now, she is on her feet, feet smacking against the
 floorboards as she darts for the doorway, brushing past Yurine without
 a word, and out into the hall beyond, her footfalls echoing flatly even
 as others awakened by the scream come to seek the source of the
 disturbance. Her way is clear still, as if pre-ordained and right, the
 only way her mind can see it now. This is right. This is right. Amends
 must be made, the blood spilled made priceless for its passing, souls
 brought to rights. But all for a price. But what price salvation?
 Stumbling, pushing up, surging forward until the doors loom up ahead,
 until the force of her run brings them swinging open, the bruises she
 might gain of it nothing of consequence. Not anymore. Not ever.
 Stumbling again, with a finality that chooses the place for her, she
 rests there, breath coming in sobbing gasps, tears running in rivulets
 down ashen cheeks, staining them pale red as the dried blood runs anew.
 She rests, physically, the rest of a soul in turmoil, of a heart
 prepared to do the only thing that could be right.

Wind riffles her hair, splaying blonde locks freely, like some unholy
 halo about her head as she sucks in laboured breath after painful
 breath, waiting. Soon. They will come. And it will be time.

With a sharp intake of breath, Yurine attempts to find the composure she
 was born with, that aristocratic flair that enables her to take
 anything as it happens with dignity, grace, decorum -- those things
 that are so important to her family, her title, her name. 

She draws a second breath, a third -- and nothing happens. No magic wand
 to set it all arights solely with a squaring of her shoulders and a
 raising of her chin; no anonymous benefactor to make everything all
 right now solely because she is Arainami and she wishes it so. The girl
 still runs past her, the metallic twinge of blood still stains her
 nostrils, her lord still stands there, covered in... in...

"I don't understand," she murmurs simply, too far confused to be
 horrified, to crestfallen in her lack of control to really care.

As the girl darts from the room, Shahei simply follows her with his
 eyes. A sigh escapes him, soft and mild, the same sort of sigh that
 should be filled with exasperation, a schoolteacher frustrated over his
 student's inability to learn. As he starts forward, there is a wetness
 to the silence with which he moves. Once his silken robes rustled and
 fluttered with his movements. Now they are burdened down by the thick
 red moisture, the evidence of his sin. He drips, and the puddle follows
 him. How much of it is his blood, and how much is someone else's? He
 doesn't seem to be injured, but... what does it matter anyway? The
 serpent sighs again, softly.

"It's all right, milady," he murmurs in reply as he pauses beside her,
 smiling past her into the hallway, still watching the dragonfly's
 retreating figure as she escapes into her own madness. Then he turns
 his head to look at his lady, smiling an odd little smile, the melding
 of opium and blood thick around him like a perverted brand of cologne.
 In much the same manner he treated the other girl, Dokuja reaches out
 and touches his lady's cheek, the warm blood and chill palm resting
 gently against her cheek. "I don't understand either, but..." His voice
 trails off, and he leans in suddenly, brushing his lips against her
 opposite cheek in a featherlight caress. It's a kiss, and yet, it's
 not, somehow. Then, as close as he is, he uses the closed distance to
 his advantage, moving past her cheek to whisper in her ear, "You found
 him first this time, just like before. I will never forgive you for
 that." 

And then he is gone and away from her, moving down the hallway in his
 ruined clothing, following in the wake of Lady Kagerou's footsteps.
 With a voice as light as the smoke the drug that has infected his mind
 spawns, he calls back, "Someone died tonight, you know. Won't you come
 and watch with me?"

"Come and watch...?" The lady begins incredulously, one long-fingered
 hand brought, slow and shaking, to her cheek. "I have always tried to
 understand you, my lord, but I have recognized that I cannot, when you
 stand there and.." Unknowingly, she repeats her miko. "My lord, what
 have you done? What has happened?"

There is a difference between evil and /evil/. She knows this, which is
 why she respects her lord and his business -- evil is normal, everyday,
 mundane. But this, this is not. Hesitantly she follows, one hand
 trailing along the wall to try and keep her physical plane on an even
 keel while her mind whirls out of control with no hope of recovering
 the spin. "Who have I found? What have /I/ done? Shahei? My lord?"

As she knew they would, knew in her own fractured soul that they would,
 they come to join her in this, her utter demise. Not all, no, but
 enough. She has the shinzaho, that delicate creation whose own power
 will allow her this final gift to those she holds dear. That last
 tangible tear from a dying heart that will bring restoration to the
 broken lives of whose burning demise she has ever been a seething
 flame, fanned on by fate. Now, as the winds of a storm which has
 lingered long on the horizon lick at her hair, caress her face with the
 chill clarity of understanding, of a sorrow so unfathomable that even
 the Heavens would cry themselves horase in thunderous accompaniment,
 the face of the girl who was once a child, once innocent of the pain of
 such loss, such inestimable grief, lifts, eyes bright with a
 crystalline regard that is at once feral and serene. No longer does the
 madness war within, it simply guides, its reassuring voice carrying a
 benediction that speaks to her even as the words spring to her lips,
 even as the first glistening drops of rain begin to cascade down to the
 waiting earth, striking her upturned face.

"I have known you before, and I would know you again. And in my heart
 lies the truth of your own downfall. Forgive me, my love. Remember me
 in your heart." Spoken to the skies above, to the flicker of starlight
 overhead as stormclouds scud across to obscure them, allowing only the
 briefest glimpses, her words ripple with a softness she would not
 willing show those about her. "I will remember you. Always." Tears like
 rain course down her cheeks, joined by the purity of the storm's own
 offering, the rumble of thunder from afar carrying with it the sudden
 peace which settles over her mein.

Drawing upon the strength of a conviction spurred on by emotion, and
 fueled by madness, she pushes to her feet, a slow graceful movement,
 hands slipping to her neck to fasten the shinzaho there, then dropping
 to her sides, eyes half lidded as the winds strike up their dance about
 her once more. "Forgive me," she says again, the words brushed toward
 the others on the winds that coil about the courtyard. "Forgive as I
 cannot." There will be no turning back.

The blood drips, and Shahei pays it no heed. He steps out of the manor
 and into the rain, staring up into the heavens as they bleed angrily,
 eyes closing against the onslaught of raindrops against his face.
 Already sticky with moisture, he is further soaked within moments,
 silvery-black hair clinging to his face and back, wilted threads of
 ebony. His arms hang limp at his sides, the rain rewettening all of his
 sin and bringing it crawling down his body in a washed out sea of red. 

"You have done what we all have done. You failed. I failed. We all
 failed. But that's all right... come, come watch with me, my lady.
 Please. Come watch the skies bleed."

Those words spoken, Shahei opens his eyes, unblinking against the rain
 as he stares in the direction of the young woman who begs forgiveness.
 Doesn't she understand? It makes so much sense to him, why don't
 they... He sighs softly, folding his arms against his chest as his lips
 purse. The cloud over his mind is fading slowly. The hazy clarity is
 disappearing, the knowing of everything... the Forbidden Tree is dying,
 and he cannot find any more of its apples. "It made so much sense
 before," he mutters, but to no one in particular, his hand reaching to
 comb his bangs back from his brow.

Well, he has said please; after a first brief shieing at the rain,
 Arainami's only hope for the future makes her way onto the lawn, eyes
 narrowed at her lord and the girl across the way. Does she weep, or is
 it only the rain? At the mention of failure, she cocks her head,
 glancing again at her arch-nemesis, best friend, rival, fiance -- the
 winds of lifetimes, the winds of change, whatever. Oh, the karmic tides
 pull at us tonight, don't they?

"I have... failed you?" she asks hesitantly, taking a single step
 closer. Then lightning strikes, thunder shaking the world as the strike
 illuminates it -- and with that illumination comes Illumination:
 terror, horror, blinding shock as all sinks home. Months of 
 half-remeberances, of taunts from her lord, both this one and the
 other, shock themselves into place with that one single bolt, her
 affinity aligning her thoughts and her memories with both the present
 and the past. So many pasts, truly. "...miko....sama..." Her
 incredulity drowns itself with her shock, another horrified look given
 to her lord before she drops her head in shame. So soon awakened to her
 life, her promise -- her failure. 

Does she weep, or is only the rain?

A gust of storm-laden air curls down from the sky, wrapping her in a
 shroud of chill reality, giving life to the flowing silk of her gown,
 the soft blue flaring in a wild dance, tangling itself about her, the
 sleeves rippling furiously as her arms lift from her sides, palms
 turned up to the Heavens beseechingly. Lifting her face, voice suddenly
 rising as steady as the keen of the winds throughout the compound, she
 speaks the words which will draw fate to its conclusion yet again. On
 her voice flies the dream that could not be, carried by the wings of a
 broken heart, a shattered soul, a mind so fractured that there is no
 hope for redemption.

"By the four constellations of the heavens and the four directions of
 the earth," lilts the ominous chant. "Dispensors of ancient law, truth
 and right by means of the Guardian of the East, the Seiryuu. Though
 conferred this upon us, we, now compose this!" Eyes lidding briefly,
 the strike of wind upon her face drawing her voice to a cry of despair
 taking flight, she continues, "We the Seven Stars, from the heaven to
 the earth revealed by Thou for the causes of your adoring subjects."
 Azure fire, stricken like motes of dust from the blackness until the
 will of the divine breaths into them brilliant light, dances about the
 courtyard, about Yui, the darkness shuddering away from this alien
 intrusion as though afraid to impinge upon its domain. "To destroy the
 main evils that exist here, plead that your divine might succor us.
 Only, please grant this one wish."

A crack of thunder, as of the sky splitting itself asunder, rocks the
 air, the keening of the wind a discordant descent as her voice lifts
 once more, the words torn from her throat in a maddened shout, "Descend
 and stand before us!"

And the brightness that was divine now becomes blinding, its breadth and
 width, though seemingly confined, immense in its presence. "Kai-jin!
 Grant that time flow back, reversed to the time before this new
 resurgence of the war began, that a chance be given that we might
 choose the path most fruitful for your cause." She will not fight it,
 and the God Seiryuu knows, and accepts this as his due, his cloak of
 azure fire a corona of light all around her in the wake of this, the
 first wish. But lest she forget, there is more. "Kai-jin!" And the
 world is a folding place, prepared to shift, yet hovering on the brink
 of its future past.

When first the dragonfly came to him, the serpent had wondered, How
 could a man such as I catch the attention of the Gods? My life is made
 on the pain of others, and supposedly they have chosen me to fight for
 them? What idiocy is this? Stare into the abyss for too long, and the
 abyss will stare back. But what the serpent stares at is no abyss -- it
 is light, bright and blinding, and painfully blue. Cerulean hellfire
 heralds the God's approach. "Is this a dream world?" he mutters softly
 above the roar of magic being wrought, inadvertantly repeating the
 selfsame words that his fiancee had spoken to him not so long ago. His
 hand slides beneath his blood-slickened tunic, touching the clamshell
 hidden there, fingers closing around its smooth, hard exterior. 
 "Kore wa yume-yo desu ka?"

Turning his head, Shahei looks back towards his best friend and 
 arch-nemesis, and he frowns ever so softly. The cloud is lifting from
 his mind, and in a dull sort of way, he wonders what he is doing out
 here and why he is covered in blood. Why does he feel so damnably calm
 when Seiryuu's hellfire dances all around him? He looks back as the
 cerulean dances and spins around the Seiryuu no Miko, and he frowns
 against the beating rain, a hand slowly lifting to his face to shield
 it.

The fable of Icarus is always given with the rejoinder that if you play
 with fire, you're bound to get burned. But maybe, just maybe, that
 isn't right. Maybe the true moral of the story is that Icarus got to
 touch the sun, and that was worth the fall. Damp eyes, damp cheeks,
 damned soul tilts upward, gazing at the glory that is her god, the Lady
 Arainami's stormy eyes clouded and overcast like her world. If you are
 one with the gods, then they will be one with you, and you must pay the
 price. But to be one of them, to be with them -- any price is worth
 paying. Isn't it? Isn't it?

The phrase echoes like a crack of thunder, answered by its like, the
 volume of noise an ear-splitting cacophany that threatens to tear the
 very world asunder by dint of its roaring voice. "Grant that the war
 begin anew. As the rain falls, let it wash away the sins of this past,
 the pain and sorrow which descends upon us even now, and let the
 eternal struggle wage renewed!" Arms lift, Yui's hands curl through the
 aura of blazing cerulean which seems to overlap her physically, the air
 about her shimmering with the life of infintesimal scales, and the
 sinuous movement of a phantom dragon which hovers on the edge of the
 world's periphery. Like warpaint the smeared blood, as it washes down
 her cheeks, carries the dregs of her own tears to the ground, mingling
 with the rain puddling at her feet, the impurity quickly absorbed in
 the writhing licks of flame which engulf her now.

"Kai-jin!" And her voice is the voice of the thunder itself, the roar of
 the dragon as his form becomes truth, her own eyes flaring with an
 unearthly light of a regard not wholly her own. Crackling like
 lightning, the electric pulse of her words soars upward, a clarion call
 that will seal not only the fate of two worlds, but of her own soul in
 a joining that was once denied and will not be again. "Grant that the
 Shichiseishi of the Four Gods be reborn, that your warriors, the
 constellations which mark your benediction on those who would adore
 you, live again in this our new War, that we would fight this battle to
 its end and see the will of the Gods done once more! Let the Seishi be
 reborn!!"

The wind whips to a frenzy, the great form of Seiryuu risen by the call
 of his miko, by the remaining strength of his chosen warriors, by the
 power of the shinzaho, Yui the girl no more her own; indeed, Yui the
 girl is no more. Great jaws opening to call to order a world that is
 torn by the misdeeds of many, held together by the will of so few,
 draconic form rising against the darkness of the storm backlit by a
 lightning so unnaturally blue it might be as blinding as the sun
 itself, Seiryuu breathes a sudden booming cry of acceptance, of
 benediction, over this world, over these many souls. Reality itself
 begins to suffer for it, shimmering in a surreal curtain of alteration
 that cannot be undone, that is now the will of the God himself.

		And there was darkness...

						...And it was good.

[Time] It is now midnight.