AN: Man, it's been forever since I updated this. I'm very sorry about that, but now I've finally forced myself to sit down and finish this. I know a lot of you guys wanted more chapters and everything, and you guys had really great ideas - and I mean, seriously - but I've lost the inspiration to continue with this. Sorry. Please, don't be mad at me! Anyway, this at leaves wraps some things up... or not. You'll just have to read to find how this ended up. I hope you enjoy, my dears!

Light

The Iron Fist never stays in the same place for long, though they keep their wonderings within the boarders of China. It's still a ginormous place to search – and the needle in the haystack metaphor is certainly apt here.

I am tired. Drained throughly, and Reiji seems to sense that. He is my partner for this assignment, as he seemed to be for most of my missions for these past few months.

Reiji walks to the door of our hotel room, my wary eyes keeping close watch on his every move. Then, he stops in the doorway, door already half-way closed behind him, and turns. He stares me straight in the eye, snake-like pupils cold and disconcerting – as if seeing my very soul and through it. The strange moment doesn't last much longer, because eventually Reiji turns his back to me – and he's never done that before, left himself so open and vulnerable for me to attack – and disappears through the wooden frame completely.

The door clicks shut with an air of finality.

Two hours later I get a call from my begrudging partner. He says to meet him in some abandoned warehouse at the edge of the town were staying in.

Reiji comes to the rendezvous point half an hour later, with about six-seven bladers behind him. Well, that was fast. It seemed he made a few more pit-stops after his meeting with the Iron Fist – who, apparently, thought it under their pride to join us in order to beat their rivals. Just like we – they – planned, the first step in their dreadfully perfect trap.

Reiji grins at me, I see some of the bladers surrounding him shudder.

The former Dark Nubela member was always quite efficient, though I see he had some 'fun', since the bladers he's recruited all look like they're about to pee their pants. Wimps. Reiji isn't even that scary, once you get used to him.

He'll never stop being creepy though.

Reiji is grinning, shadows twisting around his limbs like chains, and his teeth shine like poisonous fangs.

A snake will always remain a snake, no matter how many times it changes its skin.

I thread through the dark maze of hallways of Pluto's home like a wandering ghost. People pass me by in the corridors, some that I know and some I do not. They give me looks that range from curious to smug to disappointed – and I don't know how to feel about that, I really don't – and then they whisper.

No one steps in my path though. No one even attempts to steer me off this road I've chosen.

Not even myself.

„I have a new assignment for you two," I hear Pluto's words echo from the depths of my despair „I want you to set a trap for Gingka and his little gang."

I remember him smiling, the awful expression seared into my mind's eye. „Why the long face, Tsubasa? You should be happy! You're finally going to see your friends again!"

It had been a week since then, two days since the bait was cast in the form of the unsuspecting Iron Fist and the designated stadium where Reiji had told them to „come in three days with their answer on Pluto's invitation". I don't want to think about the meaning behind those words. I don't want to remember the rest of the plan. I don't want to think about the hero jumping to the rescue, ready to "save" his friends. I want to stop thinking.

I don't want to feel.

Pluto's headquarters are as quiet as a tomb.

I pass the twins in the hallway, they just two figures in my peripheral vision, and I expect them to keep on walking. But they stop there, standing just a few paces away from me–

Reiki and Dan fit together almost perfectly, their darkness drawn to one another, blending tighter like mist – completing and defying and bringing sparks of light in the gray fog.

So close, yet so far away.

Their gazes are identical in the way their shine with a mellow, somber light. It takes me a moment to recognize it for what it was. Sympathy. Understanding. Pity.

It's something I don't want to see, if merely because it remind me that this nightmare I've found myself in isn't merely a dream.

That, come noon the next day, my friends would think themselves my enemies.

That night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. It had become a habit in the months spent in this prison. Sleep evaded me on most nights and even when it didn't, I took special care to evade it.

The monster living in my head – or should I say monsters?

„Don't let King Hades hear you!" a sadistically jovial voice resonates in my head. I'm so used to it by now I don't even twitch. My face twists into a scowl.

„Go away." I hiss. The dark room is empty, void of any purple blobs or violet masses, but it feels better talking outloud than in my head. „Leave me alone, dammit!"

But that's the problem, isn't it? I'm always alone.

I feel something in me snap.

I run out of Headquarters.

My steps are quick and reckless and my breath is haggard. But I can't stop. I can't slow down. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder how I haven't tripped any of the alarms sneaking out, but it's overwhelmed by the feel of my feet pounding on the ground, the taste of every strangled breath I take in, the sound of blood rushing in my ears. The sting behind my eyes. The cold seeping into my bones.

I really should have grabbed a jacket, but the thought hadn't even cross my mind until I'm already half way to my destination. Two miles from any sort of civilization.

My thoughts swim around my mind, disjointed and confusing and even when they try to form any shape of coherency they only break apart once more to fade into the background.

Time passes irregularly and I move as though in a trance. I don't even realize how far – close – I've gotten until the bright neon lights of a lonely dinner by the road blear into my vision.

For a second I stop, blinded, and suddenly I'm stumbling. I sway, the world spinning, and fall to my hands and knees. Every muscle in my body aches and twitches uncontrollably. I was shaking, my cloths drenched in sweat and welcoming the frigid night air into my system with open arms.

No! I was so close! I couldn't break now!

No! No! No, no!

The word was chanted in my mind like a mantra. I get to my feet, legs shaking so hard I thought they might snap like a pair of twigs, and stumble forward clumsily.

Somehow, I make it to the dinner.

I lean by the door, trying to compose myself. I didn't go in, not yet. I was shaking, badly, my ragged breathe turning to fog in front of my face. How haven't I noticed how cold it was?

Shaking my head, I breath in unevenly and open the door of the dinner.

It's late, so there aren't many people in. The small dinner next to the road, near a town I can't remember the direction or distance of, not even the name, but the closest to Pluto's base. My last chance.

The few people in there, mostly men, about a dozen of them, were stoned. The bar tender didn't even look up from whatever she was doing behind the counter. I felt myself relax, even though I wasn't sure why.

I go to the bar and ask the middle-aged woman across me could if I use their phone. She looks up, gives me a once over, frowns at me. Then tilts her head slowly towards the phone to the left of her, on the far end of the bar. I rush to it and the rest of the world just seems to disappear.

The phone rings once. Twice. Five times before going to voice-mail.

I know he isn't going to answer.

I don't know what I had expected him to do. To rush over here and rescue me from this hell. To whisk this mess away, make it so none of this ever happened. To tell me what to do, how to make this even the slightest bit better.

To pick up the phone, maybe.

But I knew all along he wouldn't do any of that.

Still, it breaks me.

„Ryuuga..." I choke out, it's so close to a sob that I don't even care „save me, please."

Because I'm already in over my head and I can't back out. Because you put me here you jerk! I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, so drag me out of this hell-hole now! I need you!

Please!

But that phone call hadn't accomplished anything but to kill the last remaining amber of hope left in me.

I can't escape, I know that now.

„Do you wanna trade places for a day, Tsu-chan?" the voice surprises me, as well as the hand that comes to caress my cheek when I look up.

I don't realize what's going on until I see myself in front of me, almost blending with the shadowy background. Until his – its – my? – hand touched the wet skin of my face. I hadn't even noticed when I had sunk to the floor nor when I'd started crying. I wasn't even aware when the world had turned into a dark blob.

I wasn't aware that I was nodding until my silvery hair slid past my shoulders to curtain my face, and someone's arms wrapped around me through the surreality of it all.

I wasn't aware of much of anything after that. Not for a very long time.

I slip between darkness and consciousness so swiftly and imperceptibly, I have to wonder if I'm dreaming or not.

Gingka's horror-stricken face haunts me for many nights. Sometimes I wake up screaming or choking, trying to get to my friends before the darkness does. Sometimes I manage to remember that it already had. Pictures and sounds and memories float in and out of my mind, sometimes like a passing image and sometimes striking themselves into my brain-cells like a lightning bolts. It hurts just thinking about it. It hurts to remember and I can't even recall why.

What have I done? What had happened to my friends? What had I done to my friends?

But I drown in the shadows before I can find my answer every time.

Ryuuga still hasn't come.

Argo's darkness has an almost crimson tinge, aggressive and loud – I sometimes feel as though I can hear his aura shouting even if he's on the other side of the building.

A set of malicious eyes gleams in the shadows.

–„why are you doing this?"–

They're familiar, but I can figure out why –

„Traitor!"

From where do I know them from?

"Well, I guess I'll be seein' ya' 'round, Tsubasa."

No, that... isn't right.

„I thought we were friends!"

Friends? Have I any friends left?

Darkness, there was only darkness.

„Why are you pushing us away?"

No, what? Weren't you the one you pushed me away?

„If there's anything wrong, you know you can tell me."

Wasn't I the one who wanted to be left alone?

"I wanna go home, Tsubasa."

Tsubasa? Tsubasa...

"I don't know what's been bothering you these past few months, but you need to snap out of it!"

Am I still the Tsubasa you knew...?

„How could you?!"

... or have I changed?

„We want to be there for you."

Were those words meant for someone else? But, then, why do they still hurt me?

"Did Yuu really annoy you that much?"

No, no, Yuu's my little brother. I loved him like the family I never had. I love him.

„Aren't we friends?"

Yes, yes we are. Don't you remember?

„DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT KID WORRIES FOR YOU?!"

Yes, why didn't I see it before?

„Traitor!"

Before it was too late?

Luminous eyes dance with an unseen light, bright, bright, gracious light–

Then, only darkness.

.

.

.

The next time I open my eyes I see–

light, finally.

.

.

.

The End

AN: You are free to shoot me now. Yes, I know it's one of the most vague endings ever. Yes, it was a cliffhanger. And maybe I'll write a sequel to it one day. Probably not, so don't get your hopes up. And please don't flame me or anything because of this. Just... please. Anyway, I hope that some of you actually liked this and if anyone has a second to spare I'd appreciate any sort of feedback on this. Thank you!