“Seishin”

-------------------

I peer through the looking glass with a cautious eye, trying to see into the dim view of my future. And for some reason I see two mixed images, one on my right, one on my left. To my left I see a smile, a strong back, an air of confidence, a wife, children, hugs, happiness. It is what all those old 50’s shows emphasized without the aura of cheesiness. To my right I see a huddled figure, crouched over in the depths of his own shadows. His hands shake horribly as the fire of hatred burns around him, his eyes flickering with an unfulfilled vengeance upon the world. Anger, fear, darkness, alone... alone. And somewhere in the middle I see the shadow of myself, the ropes of light and darkness playing a game of tug-a-war with my body.

Afraid of the scene, I pull back to catch my breath. That is when I notice them, even though I hadn’t just moments before. The eyes in the darkness, the hands of softness and rough discrimination, the people who toss and shove me back and forth in the direction of the angel and the devil.

And I wonder if the choice is mine to make anymore.

...

“Voiceless Screaming

Pain of the past still hurts me inside

Knockin’ on my soul’s door

I climb the stairs that lead me to Heaven.”

---X, “Voiceless Screaming”

...

...

...

...

...

In G_O_D’s cradle, he stirred in his place gently, holding the stars in one hand and the moon in the other. In his bottle was the wine of the heavens and beneath those few long bangs of fair hair that flew over his face like birds were eyes that held the darkness of hell. A thousand memories had torn his mind asunder long ago, driven away every emotion through their insanity, made him His only judgment; an instrument set to sort out the madness. In the center of the inferno, his cold decisions alone held the delicate balance of the world.

If he could have felt anything, he would have hated it. Hated it because he had created fate for himself.

“Sei... Sei...”

A silent whisper. Sei barely heard it through all the screaming in his head, the voices of countless numbers who had lived and died. Through the massacre, that single tongue tried to remind him of his past.

“Sei... don’t you... remember me?”

“Sei...”

“Sei... you promised...”

“... ya... ku... so... ku...”

“... you’d come back... to me...”

“... Satsuki...” said Sei softly, his deep baritone rumbling across the void of the world. And just as quickly, a storm of new sounds consumed the old one, drowning it in a sea of pleas, wishes, hopes, and hatred. It happened every second of his existence a thousand times over. It was part of his duty, the one he had sealed himself to eons ago.

The stars gently tipped in his outspread palm, a gentle, subtle motion that anyone else would have ignored, let alone noticed. Yet, he easily felt the tremors that the crashing suns sent about with their movement, the waves of sharp hell that began their slow oscillations outward in an ever-growing ring of cold knives which threatened to cut loose the threads of fate. A sign. It had happened millions of times over in the past, and a million times over he had dealt the swift and final blow to end the problem.

But this one somehow felt different. It almost did not seem to exist on the normal plane of existence.

Sei stood, his tight jumpsuit of the dark skies covering his body like a blanket, his full pantaloons blowing on an invisible wind. In his mind’s eye, the void suddenly disappeared and the planet of Akuji came into full view, its dark orange splotches marking the boundaries between life and death. Sei’s eyes slowly narrowed as the stars now pointed to his target. Why did they caution him so strongly this time? They shook in their gentle light, quivering with a strange emotion that he vaguely recognized... fear? Fear? How could they fear for him? He could not be destroyed by mere mortals.

But the stars shivered in the cold night, nonetheless.

...

...

...

Edge gently tilted his eyes up to the morning sun and climbed over the tops of the barren hills. The dusty wasteland continued to rush by in a blur, Double still at the wheel of the hovercraft. Morning. The bright star in the heavens above graced their rock with its harsh rays of ultraviolet radiation. A human symbol of a beginning, a rebirth.

“Morning, sunshine,” said Double in the driver’s seat. “You have a good rest? You went through an awful lot the other day.”

“Ah...” mumbled Edge dreamily, rubbing his eyes as his opticals focused themselves against the rays of light. Morning. He hazily began to remember everything as he woke up to the new day, almost wishing that he could sleep again. The monster. Yujin. Fumiya. Madness. Adam. So now his horrid ‘other half’ was no longer a secret to his friends. What did they think of him? Why did they still take him along? Why had they not simply abandoned him, like any normal, sane person would have done?

“Double,” he said softly. “You... and everybody, everybody saw me in that form, right?”

“Yeah,” said the assassun, his tone tight with resolution. “But don’t worry about it. We all know that it was only a program that Yujin slapped onto the back of your head. You had no control over it, so why even bother to blame yourself?”

“Blame myself...” echoed Edge. That was what he had been doing, what Adam had warned him not to do? But how could he not when he knew he was the one at fault? It was his mind that had put them all at risk, his uncontrollable power that should be feared merely because it could not be harnessed. Did they not realize why they should be afraid?

“Double... what if I was aware of the way I acted?”

“What are you talking about?” said the killer, his eyebrows raising in query.

“What if I knew that I was trying to kill you?” said Edge, his eyes suddenly full of desperation. “What if I was in that... that thing, feeling all that hate and anger and knowing that I could do nothing about it?” He turned from the sun to his friend, pleading for something, anything, to answer his questions. “I felt everything, every urge, every hunger, every lust. And in that mind I wanted so badly to give in to that instinct, holding it back with only my hate for the ugly creature. I felt so useless… so helpless---”

He abruptly stopped when he realized that Double was turned in his seat, smiling back at him.

“Fool!" he said. “Do you think that just because you can not change something that you are an inferior creature? Things happen everyday that people have no control over. Look at the citizens of the world! Cramped up and abused by the government! But that doesn’t mean they have to kill themselves over it. Look at Kouryuu. Her rebels have made a choice to fight their oppressors and for decades they have changed nothing. It hardly means that they’ll stop anytime soon. I know the meaning of helplessness, Edge. I’ve had missions in the past when I’ve failed, when I’ve been spotted, even when I’ve been forced to leave teammates behind. Never deterred me from accepting the next job though. You can’t let one thing weigh you down from flying up with the rest of the world!”

“... is that so…” said Edge softly, raising his head. “Double… do you believe in fate?”

“What?” blinked Double, surprised at the question.

“Do you believe that our lives have already been decided for us? That maybe change is something we cannot achieve?” He was forced to draw back ever so slightly when Double burst out in raucous laughter.

“How ironic that a robot would ask about something like ‘fate’ when his creators had already planned out a future for him long before the first piece was sent down the assembly line!” laughed the assassin. “Take a look at you and I and your question has already been answered. We are government androids and we have already cheated our scheduled future simply by taking leave of our ‘God!’”

“You know what I mean!” said the young boy, rather annoyed by the tangent. “Seriously, have you ever wondered if fate exists?”

Double quelled his chuckles as his face sternly set itself in deep thought.

“I used to think like that a long time ago,” he said. “I used to wonder if I could have ‘saved that man’ or ‘killed that embassy member before his bodyguards had arrived,’ but I don’t anymore. You see, fate only exists for those who believe in it. For everybody else, they have made the choice that they can defy what everybody else thinks will happen by taking responsibility for their own actions. Worrying about the past clouds the path to the future. That’s why I try not to reminisce on old memories. Some people like the idea of fate though, like the idea that there is indeed a God that exists so that they can blame their pitiful lives on His choices. In the past before the Nuclear Cataclysm, billions of people built entire religions based off of His existence. Yet, that only led to disagreements and war, condemned all of them to death. That’s where fate will lead you to.”

“Ah...” said Edge. “Then what about God? Do you believe in the old texts, about the Sacred Goddess and Valkair?”

Silence. Edge slowly wondered if he had hit a nerve as he watched Double’s hand slowly reach up to scratch his head in disdain.

“God…” he said slowly. “What a question, eh? Heh, you know, I’ve always wondered myself, never really thought about the situation before... I think I might have to say that yes, I do believe that there is some wonderously powerful being that looks down upon us because I simply cannot believe that we could have all created ourselves. But screw all those religious textbooks. Screw religion and worship. If there really is a God, then he isn’t all-perfect, he isn’t all-powerful, and he sure as hell isn’t all-benevolent because if he was then everybody would be happy, right? Then hate and anger and death and famine wouldn’t exist, right? I think that there’s some son of a bitch up there who uses us to amuse himself, a great play-writer who creates his masterpieces in our lives. And maybe we should all admire him for the masterful tragedies that he creates. If all that is really so, then here’s my real reason for believing in God:” And Double stared Edge straight in the eye. “If God exists and He is using my life to screw His mind for pleasure, then I want---just once--- to defy His will, the fate He wishes to create for me, and make myself happy, because that’s what we all live to achieve. Happiness.”

“Happiness...” whispered Edge in awe, and he glanced down to Valkair’s Orb on the bottom of the hovercraft floor. The key to his happiness. That was the truth he sought.

Wasn’t it?

...

...

...

As the rays of the morning sun began to bake the cracked earth with hell’s flame, a single bolt of the moon’s grace slid down from the cloudless sky and thundered into the ground without a sound. The residue of dimensional rifts slowly cleared from the impact and Sei stepped forth to meet his new challenge on the mortal plane, the darkness of space’s void slowly shrouding his body like a cape of blackness, curling at the tops of his shoulders and twining down to his ankles.

Sei stood still as the grandfather clock’s giant hands reached out from beyond the dimensional barriers and pulled back the curtain hiding his foe. Instead of the strange blotch of stealthy darkness that had obscured his earlier identification, he could make out more details now. However, something was wrong. His eyes narrowed as he tried to bring the ambiguous shape that signified his game into focus, but his vision refused to comply. It was almost as if a mysterious swarm was obscuring his view with a fog of impenetrable space...

From his aura of vacuum, the stars flashed their fear and excited anger in fierce bolts of shining light. Strange. It was hardly natural for the suns to warn him in such a way. After all, he was God’s toy, a creature no longer of the material plane of existence but of something far beyond the understanding of mortal men. How could anybody expect a creation of the earthen plane to cause him any harm?

Sei...... run away... please...

A warning?

The stars whispered their gentle song to him in the form of Satsuki’s voice, knowing that he would be able to hear her through the shouts and screams of everyone else. They wanted him to hear their words.

“Sei... the prophecy... of... the Ikusa...... you will die, you will live... if you go...”

Die? A dire word to most, but what did he care about death and its effects on him? Nothing. To the man who had already been killed on the inside, death was a blessing. What could one petty persona do to him anyways?

Life.

Perhaps if he had never given up his soul he could care about his own existence.

As his feet slowly lifted from the ground, his body suddenly shot forward like a rocket, his body silently flying through the air as he stood perfectly upright, his arms crossed in patience. He saw his prey somewhere in the distance, the one he was designated to eliminate from the world in order to keep the barriers sealed safely for the rest. And he would carry out his mission with only his skill to cut through to his goal, unburdened by the passion of emotion, driven by a logic pure and simple.

...

...

...

“You’re still talking to him, aren’t you?”

Edge’s eyes widened ever so slightly as he nervously turned to the cold stare of Clef beside him. To his dismay, the child’s visage held no such sympathy.

“What do you mean?” said Edge tautly.

“You know perfectly well what I am referring to,” said Clef. “Adam. You’ve been talking to him again. I can see it in your face.” The young boy tried desperately to escape his mentor’s harsh gaze by staring at the floor, but it was all to little avail. “I have already informed you that further contact with that essence could be dangerous to your existence. It would be wise of you to avoid him in the future.”

“And just why is he so dangerous?” questioned Edge, a hint of defiance in his voice. “So far I’ve seen no reason why I should fear or avoid him.”

Clef’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly and Edge felt himself cave in beneath the murderous gaze.

“Do not take what I have to say quite so lightly,” he said dispassionately. “Adam is a dangerous man, hardly the type that someone like yourself should be conversing with. He has his own agenda, one that most likely involves your implementation to reach his goal. Perhaps his intentions may seem benevolent now but they will turn in the end. It would be unwise of you to continue connections.”

Edge sat back and sighed. Adam. The mysterious angel who regularly disturbed his dreams. He still did not know who he was, only that he had helped him stand on his own feet more than once, despite using questionable methods. And Clef wished for him to have no connections whatsoever with the seraph. Why? He stole a glance at the child and marveled at the juxtaposition of youth and intellect. Couldn’t he also question who this traveler was as well? The young boy who tutored him, the advisor for his journey. He had saved their lives too, but did that make him any more important than another living being? Did that give him the authority to dictate another’s banishment?

“Please come out of your brooding, Edge,” said Clef. “It’s a bad human habit. Your training beckons for your attention.”

Edge merely let his hands twist the air without a word.

...

...

...

“Sei, don’t do it.”

Why did the stars speak so often to him tonight?

“Sei, the prophecy, if you do it...”

Prophecy.

“...bringing together the Messager of Hades and Man’s Son...”

Foolish tales. Besides, if something were already foretold, then what could he do to change the future?

“... it is all a sign...”

His duty was the priority. G_O_D’s sacred word. He listened to nothing else.

“... for the end of the world.”

...

…

…

Yoshime sighed as she watched Edge sit cross-legged before Clef, deep in concentration as he molded the air about him into a spherical energy field. He was so dedicated, training as hard as his coach bid him to. He should have been resting though, especially after the tremendous toll he had suffered in his previous battle. Not that he wasn't able to take the physical punishment, but she sometimes worried just how far his mind was being pushed. After all, he had a mental capacity similar to her own, a human one, something that could be very brittle in its weakest state. But this was his journey, his adventure to find something worth fighting for. She knew the value of finding that purpose. It had been a long expedition for her to find her own. He wouldn't stop until he met the end of the road, just like herself. And she was his friend, so she would be by his side when he found his salvation.

She plopped down in the dust as she chewed on a ration, staring into the guts of the overheated hovercraft engine. If anything had to go wrong, it had to involve them getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere to refuel or find viable resources. Nowhere to hide from Double's complaints. Go figure.

Pulling her small personal computer from her pouches, she wired into the vehicle and prepared to make the dive. As long as the blueprint specs and functioning-scan software hadn't been burned out, she would be able to locate and fix the problem with relatively little trouble. With any luck, they could leave before the sun set. She didn't want to spend any more time than was necessary stuck in the desert with the most annoying personality on the face of the earth. Yanking the final cables from her bags, she proceeded to plug one end into her laptop and the other into the input lines on the back of her neck.

Immediately, a deafening screech filled her ears with the painful tearing of feedback. She doubled over in pain and opened her mouth wide in an empty cry of futility, her eyes beginning to dilate from the horrid pressure. Her head throbbing uncontrollably, she tore the connection from her head and whirled about wildly to find Kouryuu desperately trying to bring her to her senses. It took her a minute to realize how loud she was screaming.

"What happened?" said the rebel, holding Yoshime firmly by the shoulders. By then, the others had gathered in a small circle about her, save Terpfen who still stood his post at the other end of the hovercraft.

Yoshime blinked her eyes as she tried to bring reality back into focus. The static in that junction had been overwhelming, even greater than the backlash she had felt with the awakening of Zero's demonic possession. What had it been?

"I don't know," she said in confusion. "Some sort of outside interference tore through the system when I tried to connect, raised to painful levels. Really unusual since we're in the middle of nowhere. I almost thought it might be a complete software failure in the vehicle..."

Kouryuu looked about in suspicion as she scanned her own sensors over the mechanism before her. A slight wince bit into her face before she stopped her surveillance.

"I felt it too," she said. "But it isn't coming specifically from the hovercraft, more like all around us. Strong stuff, but I don't recognize it either. The frequency is way out of league for any of the governments to use. Could this be Toy's doing?"

"Impossible," said Asimov from the side. "Toy's method of contact exceeds conventional levels and wavelengths for the purpose of infiltration and secrecy. It couldn't be him."

"But then... who?" said Kouryuu, trailing off into the winds.

"He's coming."

The deep woman's voice startled the rebel, and she turned about to face Zero in full demon armor, dark flames crackling from her hide like blades of electricity. The pigtailed girl no longer held a face of innocence, but of fractured experience and bitter resentment, a proper complement to the angular armor and long spikes that graced her body. The rebel stared at the new appearance in confusion at the sudden exchange of bodies. What had just happened? Was she the only one being left out of an inside joke? What could have acted as the catalyst for such an abrupt metamorphosis?

"Who's coming?" said the rebel hurriedly. "What are you talking about? And why did you change forms

so suddenly?"

"It is an act that results from his close proximity, not a choice of my own free will," said Zero stolidly, her seductive voice curling the ends of her words. "It must be the Orb. He now knows we have it and he is coming to finish the solution."

"Who is coming?!" shouted Kouryuu, frantic impatience overtaking her rationality. First Yoshime, now this. They hadn't even had time to recover from the last event of insanity and already they were being tracked. There were too many other things she needed to worry about besides another faction that wanted their heads. She needed answers.

Zero didn't even blink as her mouth made the final movements that provided the answer.

"Sei is coming," she said simply.

Double cocked his head in suspicion.

"Sei?" said the assassin, all pomp and arrogance. "And who the hell is that?"

But Asimov's eyes had already widened in apprehension at the mention of the simple name, his body growing tense with cautious fear. Kouryuu could already feel the kinetic residue of his absorbtion field as he unconsciously cycled his power cells.

"Sei," echoed the golden warrior. "It can't be..."

...

...

...

"Damn you! Why won't you listen to me? You bastard, you and your G_O_D. Don't you care about anything else in the world besides the petty presence of circumstance...?"

He couldn't hear her angry words.

...

...

...

"He knows," said Zero, an empty laugh escaping from her motionless mouth. "He knows everything."

"What are you talking about?!" shouted Double angrily. "Knows what? Who the hell is this guy and just what does he have to do with all these crazy interference signals anyways?"

"Sei... is the Ambassador of the Sacred Goddess," said Asimov slowly, still in disbelief. He had poured thoroughly through Toy's many libraries in search of knowledge, taking in and storing every bit of information he could find. He had studied myths and legends, history and truth, from the first breaking of the world when time began until the nuclear cataclysm. He never expected all of it to hold a bit of veracity. "I've read the ancient scriptures of his legend, but I did not believe them to be true."

"He knows of the Orb's power, its ability to render apart time and space," said Zero. "He will come for it, come for us, and render us to pieces."

"They say his task is that of a judicature, that he has been employed by his master to cleanse the earth of its sins and maintain balance between the different facets of reality," said Asimov. "In doing so, he has been granted the very gift that he is meant to eliminate: the power to transverse dimensional gateways. But he is the equivalent of an immortal while we..." He set his jaw grimly. He didn't need to say the rest. What chance would they have against such a creature?

"But I need the Orb," trailed off Edge. "It's the only thing that can open the path to the Temple of Ordeal. Without it, I'll never find my answers."

"He will kill you for it," said the pigtailed girl. She resigned her head to a solemn bow, smiling cruelly beneath the eves. "And when he is done, he shall slay me as well."

Asimov's head turned about with eyes full of dread and pain. He stared at the marionette in disbelief, stunned by the words as well as her ease of accepting fate's harsh hand. Edge. Perhaps he owed something to the young boy for his pity, for his choice to let him join their group and continue his path to redemption. It was reason enough for him to hold his ground when the harbinger arrived. Yet, he seemed so insignificant when put beside this cold-hearted girl, this woman who stood before him and accepted a foreboding death rite with such contentment.

"What are you talking about?" he said. "Why would Sei have any reason to kill you too?"

Zero shook her head sadly, though her face remained chiseled in stone.

"Why do you think my body responded this way to his coming? He is the messenger of God. I am possessed by a servant of the Devil. He will kill me, as it is only his nature to do so. It is not an act done out of love or hate, only necessity. It is merely his instinct. Besides, he has already seen the era of the Clone Wars with his own eyes. Why would he allow another of those soldiers to walk the realm of reality again?"

The golden warrior stared at her blankly for a second, not knowing what to do. The child before him accepting her proposed destiny so easily, the girl who had watched the stars with him, the one who had asked him his dreams. He shook his head resolutely. No. How could he stand by and watch an innocent become lost in the midst of a higher being's petty squabbles? Again?

Her portrait was so complete, without holes or smears, perfect in its symmetry. And because of a human decision to manipulate her body and infuse the sacrilegious power of the Demon God within her heart, she would die. It was so unfair. Perhaps that lack of justice was present throughout the universe, but he believed in something greater. He still believed that there should, that there could, exist a sense of equity somewhere. Anywhere.

Look at the world he lived in. Look at the horrible things he had done in the past, killing without question, people whose names he could not even recall. It was sad. He needed something better. He needed to protect her.

"No," said Asimov, shaking his head. "No, I can't--- I won’t let him do that."

Zero merely looked up with him, her cold eyes almost piteous.

"Asimov," she said. "His powers are beyond yours, all of our comprehension. We have no chan---"

"I DON'T CARE!" shouted Asimov. Her voice dropped off, stunned by the sudden outburst. Let her be surprised, he would do what he needed to. "You've come this far, don't you want to see what we can do in the future? Don't you want to keep going?"

"But..." started Zero. The demonic hold was beginning to loosen, her voice slowly trembling back to her former self. "... but, the Orb..."

"I couldn't care less about the Orb," said Asimov, taking her sharp fingers into his own. "I won't stand by and let you die because... because of this. You deserve more than that. If it means that I have to meet my end by your side, then so be it." He let out a short laugh as he let his eyes catch her own. "It's something worth fighting for, na? That's what important." And slowly Zero's shimmering eyes came back into the world, the angles and anger and hurt fading away to reveal her innocence. And she smiled, an angel amidst the sea of blood, an angel he held in his arms with all his strength. He wouldn't let go. Ever.

"Asimov," said Edge, gently putting his hand on his shoulder. The golden warrior turned to meet the shorter android. "We'll face him together, just like you have with me, just like we will forever."

Asimov could only smile and nod, holding the pigtailed girl in his arms, wiping her tears away because he wanted to see her smile.

...

...

...

The backlash rippled through him as the oscillations contacted with his mind. Sei recoiled violently as he skidded to a sudden halt in the dust, clutching his head as loosened emotions spilled out. Emotions. They seemed so foreign to him as they tore him apart. Why was he allowed to feel such horrible things now? But they quickly quieted under his cold wall of oppression, and he raised himself to his full height once more. In the distance, that was where he felt it. A D_E_V_I_L, something old and hateful, a creation of man. That, he cared little about. Devil-spawn had risen and fell beneath his sharp fingers many a time. It was little worry. However, the presence of evil seemed to dimly illuminate the other whom he could not recognize at first...

... wings.

Three pairs, six beautiful wings that spread up to the sky…

“Who is it...?" he said quietly to himself. The air about him crackled with uncertainty as the stars screamed at him. She screamed at him.

"Why won't you listen to me... please, I care about you..."

Care.

Sei almost snickered at the word as his body rode the violent winds once again. He had lost everything worth caring about years ago.

The small gathering came into the view in the distance of the barren wastelands, nine humanoid figurines of varying shape and size. Outstretching his hand with a fleeting grace, he read their lives, their power, their stories. At least, he tried to.

"Hmm?" mumbled Sei questioningly as his silken threads of light were torn apart by an unseen force before they reached their prey. Fixing his stare on his enemy, his eyes tried fiercely to dig beneath their shells and into their very essence, but a beast blocked the way. A great monster hidden in the shadows swiped out angrily with his sharp claws, preventing him from reaching the one G_O_D had warned him of. Was this what the voices had feared? Was this the sole reason why they had asked him to defy his sacred duty? How pointless. All it meant was that he could not target his true game from afar, and would thus have to bring about bloodshed in order to finish his order. Nothing would stop him. Nothing could stop him, but God.

Slow motion.

To him, man's concept of time meant nothing.

He planted his feet on the ground and spread his legs wide as friction brought him sliding into their midst. A huge cloud of dust tore up behind him, though it lazily floated through the air at the same speeds that the lagging androids before him turned their heads in surprise. A massive battleship of a mecha, a wielder of the nuclear relic. A knight in gold armor, his eyes filled with loathing and hope. A cross-wielding young man, looking for something too far in the distance to see. A long-haired rebel woman, flaring katana blades already sliding from their scabbards. A crazy-haired assassin, his blood-red armor reflecting the glint of his rapidly changing body. A young girl, wielding no power other than the rifle in her hands and the courage in her heart. A mysteriously somber green-haired android, his body softly glowing with the power of the planet's axis. A boy, neither his voice nor body lending any expression.
Yet, even as the messenger’s form crouched low to deliver the first blows, the last one caught his eye. The boy, a stolid robot in simple traveling clothes. Sei always accelerated his velocity beyond the tracking capabilities of normal eyes, using his ability to breech the passage of time and space to further enhance his illusion of movement. Yet, this one looked at him. He watched him, followed him with his cold gaze as if his power meant nothing. His power. His lifeless power. He was God's toy, the one that was directed to those who deserved nothing else than death, lest the world fall apart at the seams. He was her [killer]. That was his power. And he had sacrificed everything he had to bear its title. When that failed, what else did he have to protect himself...?

...

"... idiot...”

...

He slammed his right elbow back into the face of the assassin and coolly drew his body back into a crouch to begin his next assault. It was all an elaborate play and he was the star. Even though he usually had the obvious advantage in his battles, timing was always a key element to the game. Without it, he lost the beauty of the fight.

His eyes widened in a mockery of surprise as a platinum blur slammed into his face, his flying body reeling backwards from the impact. Rolling with the blow, he fell to the ground and vaulted himself back up with a dancer's grace, landing on his feet and facing his attacker. The golden armored warrior stood before him taking in heavy breaths, moving as if the distortion in time and space meant nothing to his fists.

"Ch," cursed Sei as he let the stars angle themselves about his new threat. A light red haze clouded the fighter like a mist, enshrouding him, embracing him. It was almost as if the aura meant to protect him from harm within its incredibly thick substance. "An absorbtion field. Interesting," muttered the messanger, drawing one foot high along his opposite leg, bringing his sharpened fingers behind his head and before him like a gun. "But it won't help to prevent the inevitable."

...

"You're going to kill yourself..."

...

He felt it at the last possible minute. Abandoning his killing stance, he flew across the ground and swiveled about to a stop a good three hundred meters from his stand off. He watched in disdain as the patch of dust where he had once stood erupted in a swirling pillar of crimson flame and his ears were suddenly pierced by the angelic cry of a fearsome beast. A monster leapt forth from the inferno with the same grace as the golden knight, its spiky armor reflecting a glow of eerie lust upon the ground. The D_E_V_I_L.

He steeled his eyes and let his chest fill with the energy imbued within him by the sky. A blue haze crackled about him as the ground began to break up at his feet, the light bending like the multi-layered exterior of a prism. This was running on too long. Despite his honorable title, his immense power, and his infamous employer, he was still a killer. And a killer did not let his prey escape from him so easily...

The psychic interference was still too strong to pick out the one he was meant to annihilate. He would have to move in closer.

His feet glided along the ground as if it was nothing more than ice. His fingers caught the air's friction and brought forth a spark of mystic blue flame, his candle to lead the way. He was the wind riding the invisible chariot of wishes and it would be his move that would bring forth the new day. The knight was suddenly above him, ready to pounce with an energized fist cocked back and ready for the shot, but Sei merely sidestepped, his entire body jerking ninety degrees at the speed of light. The fool had only a second to react before the fingers touched his chest and a blue fire explosion erupted into the air like a storm, blowing the golden warrior back into his own time displacement as he sailed miles away. Sei whipped back to the group as he began to register each person's individual energy signature. One less trouble. The knight nor the demon held the title he sought. Seven left.

Speed. Time.

With a heavy twist, Sei brought the back of his left leg into the rebel's head and used the remaining momentum to bring his other through the gut of the assassin. Physical contact. But he still read nothing. Still using his pivot foot to spin, ducked into a low roll to spring up before the green-haired android, his palm aimed at his forehead. His aura abruptly began to synch, the pieces began to fall into place, and Sei emotionlessly smiled. This was the one marked for death by G_O_D. With this killing blow, he would end this mysterious tragedy that threatened to consume his stolid sanity...

And then the young boy looked up at him, and he saw the eyes of another creature entirely.

"Take this, you son of a bitch!!!" roared the assassin as he chopped his sharpened arm into the back of Sei's head. Even though his nerves had become dead eons ago, he was full aware of the blood dripping down the back of his neck, as well as the deep fracture sliced into his skull. He swatted the pestilence away with the back of his palm and suddenly realized that he had dropped out of temporal displacement. Whirling his head about, he quickly spotted the rest of his opponents recovering and quickly called upon the stars to cut loose the boundaries of time and space once more. Nothing happened.

"... what is this?" he whispered to himself. The mental distortion tore through his head again, spilling forth all those feelings he thought he had become callous to. He traced it this time, followed its tainted path back to the owner who let loose the weapon. He found himself staring at the green-haired android once more. Who were these people? They were, by no means, ordinary warriors.

" You... you're the one doing this to me...?"

His body doubled over as a bloodied claw tore through his stomach and spilled out his guts, the demon embracing him with the most corrupted of hellfire in a tower of suffering. He tried desperately to move his arms but found that they were frozen in place. His enhanced eyes watched as an emerald sea of binding energy tied his limbs together, holding them in place with thin wires of gravitational energy that bound his body and his power. He grit his teeth in desperation as he began to unweave the net with the guidance of the never-ending sky, but something else was holding him. It was the creature he had felt before. And it resided in this young shell before him, binding him with the flyer's bane, preventing him from soaring free.

Who was this? Who could possibly hold this kind of power to secure his own? His skill was the hand of G_O_D, and if he was felled in battle... what did that mean? What had he sacrificed himself for then? His love? His past?

His life?

...

"Can't you remember...?"

...

His past. Why had he done it? Why had he yielded his soul so easily?

He remembered.

It had been Armageddon, the Demon God had come forth upon the earthen plane. A voice had offered him salvation. Who had it been? He could not see Her face then. He could not see Her face now.

She had offered him an alternative to facing the horsemen, and there had been someone he loved enough to accept the choice. But she whom he cared for would not let go. He could not recall the rest. All he knew was that she, instead of accepting his sacrifice, had held on too hard, and she had joined him in the heavens, along with all the other souls...

...

"My name is Satsuki, and I love you..."

...

Sei's clawed hands strained to take hold of his pounding head, his mouth yearning to open in a horrible scream as his mind began to cleave itself in two. For too long, he had traveled the thin line between security and meaningless life. Now, plunging into a sea of lost passions, he lost his balance.

"You--- can't---" he stuttered, his body shaking as his aura flared about him in a blue blaze of fire, neon bolts of energy slashing through the sky between his imprisoned form and the swirling skies above. The darkness tore into him with hungry fangs, rendering his psyche asunder as his pitiful defenses crashed down like piles of dust. Familiarity. Like the D_E_V_I_L. Who could do this to him? Wasn't he the last of Her legions who rose up on the face of reality? Hadn't the legends been long past put to rest?

"You--- can't--- do this!!!"

He burst.

The wires snapped in two and the green-haired android fell backwards from the sudden recoil. Sei grit his teeth as waves of anger swept into his mind, forcing his taunt limbs to strike out at his captors with insane strength. His tightly shut eyes opened with chilling resolve. He had to kill him, kill the green-haired android, kill the force that was trying to destroy him. With his instinct revived from the deepest recesses of his mind, duty became an issue of survival. It was something he had not felt for a very long time.

...

"Do you remember what it was like to hold me in your arms? Do you remember what it was like to [dream]...?"

...

His fist smashed into the demon girl's face as he whirled about in a dance of death. 'The Last Dove,' his forbidden technique. But these ones were not ordinary lives. They held something that he could not touch, something that he did not understand. Given the omnipotence that he was granted, he did not like being deceived. It was a bad omen for himself, as well as for G_O_D.

"He watched him, followed him with his cold gaze as if his power meant nothing."

What did any of it mean?
He was one with the power of the old gods.

If his position was contested...

... what did that mean for the world?

He straightened the fingers on his right hand like the piercing blade of a knife as he swept his body low. His stabbing edge erupted in a conflagration of sapphire flame and he gracefully leapt at the young android with his weapon cocked and ready. He could no longer afford this threat to his foundation and himself.

Time to end the game.

"Perish,” he said coldly, bringing the tensed muscles of his pointed limb forward with a thrust that would ran through the heavens themselves.

...

"God has already sent Her angels..."

...

The world turned blue.

...

...

...

"Everything Pose."

--- hide, "Pose"

...

...

...

His knife could not touch the boy. As the android looked on in almost indifferent terror, Sei slashed down again and again in a futile effort to tear open the crimson metal, but he could not touch him. Finally, he merely stood back, glaring at his prey with cold eyes. His consciousness suddenly freed of its torment, he tried to assess his situation. Looking around, he suddenly noticed that action had completely frozen all around him. The assassin had been diving from above, his arms morphed into huge cleavers. The knight and the demon were approaching from either side, balls of flame gathering in their hands. They were all frozen in place, deprived of time's normal progression. The only one who could still move was the gravity-wielding robot, who now cowered below him in great heaving breaths.

"You..." he said coolly, his arm slowly releasing the cataclysm he had meant to destroy his quarry with. He had no cards left to play. He could not fight. "How can you do such a thing? How can you defy my power?"

"You should observe your hunt with more caution, Sei. I would have thought you would have been perceptive enough to notice me by now."

A dark shadow abruptly cast itself over the darkened moon and the stars cried out in their futile need. The messenger's eyes traced out the feathered wings on the ground and followed them up to the silhouette that perched itself above the android's head. The seraph's handsome face held nothing less than a forever mocking smile, his arms casually crossed over his chest, his six-foot no-dachi hanging at his belt. His jacket ruffled lightly on an invisible wind, his long pants tracing dark waves of light amongst the sea of azure. The pride in his eyes refused to accept anything less than the answer he sought.

Sei stepped back in apprehension. Had he been able to feel anything, his mouth would have been agape with shock.

"You..." he said hesitantly. An angel? One of God's angels? Already? "No, this is all another illusion. You're not supposed to be here yet."

"Am I?" said the angel, spreading his arms wide in question. "You would be surprised, my friend."

Sei stared upon the other immortal with a wash of doom drowning him. His hand strayed to his belt where his knife lay safe in its sheath, but he stopped himself short. If this was who he thought it was, then he was helpless. No wonder he hadn't been able to harm the android.

"Stay out of this matter," he said. "She has dictated my direction in this matter. Even your jurisdiction does not surpass Hers."

"Ah, but does it?" questioned the winged man, shaking a finger at the killer. "Am I who you think I am or do the wings on my back deceive you of my true identity?"

What are you talking about? Sei questioned himself, slightly confused within the mysterious haze. The wings. This man was one of God's angels... wasn't he?

"There was a prophecy that was put forth by the Goddess herself with the release of the star's bane, right after her ascension. Do you remember what it was?"

Sei's memory riffled through his vast history of events until he reached that time which was mentioned to him.

He froze.

And then he stared up at the wings again, questioning anew their owners.

Man wrote many, many manuscripts on God and her followers, about the days when a judgment would come for them all and evil would be purged from the world. It had been predicted that Her favorite sons and daughters would descend upon the earth with wings of light to purge forth the last corruption that had fallen from the sky.

But this man was not one of them.

"You have the sword," whispered Sei. "But..."

"It's something that will soon be passed on," said the seraph. "Even my life will not last forever."

"This is impossible," said the messenger. "God's last warriors on the face of the earth disappeared eons ago. That was a time of mere legend. How can you be...?"

"But I am," said the angel with a smile. "And you know that you can do nothing to stop me, for the most important priority of mine at the moment is guiding this young boy to the Temple of Ordeal. There, this sword---" He patted his lengthy sheath lightly. "--- will find sacred hands once again."

Sei backed away helplessly. He could not defeat this man. Nobody could. There were simply some ties between life and death too strong for mere power to severe. This was one of them.

He slowly turned to go, knowing full well that he could do nothing.

His power was nothing.

There was nothing left for him to do.

"Does She know?" asked Sei quietly, and he turned back to give the man one last glance. "That you're here?"

The angel only nodded with a smile.

"She will soon enough," he said.

Sei said nothing as he turned and began to walk off amongst the flying rows of statuettes.
His power was nothing.

And now this man had come from beyond the years of loneliness and death to couple in a bond of forbidden love.

As his body began to phase back into the confines of his own dimension, the stars spoke to him again, echoing with an empty answer.

...

“... it is all a sign... for the end of the world.”

...

...

...

"Snap out of it, Edge!!!"

Still sprawled on the ground, Edge's eyes flapped back open to the real world, Yoshime shaking him violently by the shoulders. As he gently calmed her rigid hands, he re-orientated himself to the newfound animation of his friends. The mysterious intruder was nowhere to be found.

"What happened?" he asked groggily. "Where did he go?"

Kouryuu eyed him a strange look from behind the young mechanic, sheathing her swords as she did so.

"Him?" she questioned. "Who are you talking about?"

"I mean him!" said Edge. "That guy who was trying to kill us! Didn't you see him talk?"

"Talk?" said the rebel leader. "All I remember was fighting something that moved like the wind, getting a brief glance of it when you held him in place, and then all of a sudden you went into some sort of catatonic trance until Yoshime here shook you out of it. It's not like we really did anything to him, but..." She trailed off as she rested her chin in her hand. "It was strange how he leapt at you and then suddenly disappeared. And you were passed out. That's all that happened."

The young boy stared off at the ground. Had he been imaging things? Had he been the only one who had witnessed the conversation between the killer and the seraph? Why had only he been allowed to listen to such a thing? Adam. God's assassin. The latter had obviously feared the former enough to leave him be, even though Edge’s name had been slated for death. Once again, Adam saved his life. But what did that mean for his own fate? Why did Adam protect him so? He was only one person, one person following the path of ancient myths with Valkair's Orb in his possession. And all of a sudden, there was something far bigger that he did not comprehend.

Consequences.

Action and reaction.

Perhaps he should have expected it.

But it did not explain whom the white bird was who perched so comfortably upon his shoulder.

"It was Sei, alright," said Asimov, gently cradling a normal and sleepily exhausted Zero in his arms. "He moved far too fast for it to be anybody else. Still, that doesn't explain why he left so abruptly. We're all still alive."

Edge only picked himself up to his feet in silence. What could he say? That the killer had hesitated only because he bore the spirit of some unsacred messiah in his soul? What could he say, indeed?

...

"Adam... what does it all mean?"

...

...

...

Iesu turned up to the hulking Terpfen as the massive nuke machine stared off into the distance of the wastelands. All the others were busy packing up the hovercraft again, always busy with something. Why not try to spark conversation with the only one who had time enough for it?

"Hey," he said, nudging the giant in the side. "What's the matter? You seem to be acting a bit more callous than usual."

Terpfen didn't even look down. He saw what the others didn't, a thing that was of his world and his time, not theirs. Relics. Soon enough, it would be unearthed. Facing its threat was inevitable. For himself, it would most surely mean deactivation. For the others, he was uncertain of the programming, but anything not recognized under the nation's insignia would probably meet an untimely demise as well. Unfortunate.

"It's close," he said. He was a nuclear weapon. He had stepped too far into its radius of detection. There would be no stopping the confrontation. "Approximate time to Nefpret confrontation: ten hours, twenty two minutes, forty three seconds. Suggested course of action: retreat."

No stopping the confrontation.

Iesu could only lend the goliath a confused stare as Terpfen stiffly shuffled back to the transport.

...

...

...

"Do you remember?"

Her words. Satsuki's words.

"I could not kill him," said Sei dully, his voice carried across a thousand oceans to Her ears. "I'm sorry, but he is something beyond our power, something beyond good and evil, beyond the jurisdiction of the balance I govern." He raised his eyes slowly in the void, gazing upon the happily laughing stars above. They laughed, the souls, because they knew that they would soon be scattered once again…

...

He is a creature beyond the passage of time and space, one of the untouchable archangels whom were created not by us, but by man himself. Man, his love and his hate, his mercy and his cruelty. Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end.

Uriel and Lucifer.

"Death's Angel, and the Angel of Death."

...

...

...

...

...

“***’Programa de Sueno’ loaded. Time until activation: 748800 cycles."

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

End "Seishin"