Jormei ran, plasma beams cutting through the smoke and darkness. Bits of glittering shrapnel reflected in the intermittent light down the alley, like a strobe light parody of a dance floor, flickering with his every frantic heartbeat. From behind the cries of his friends burned his soul, their pain ricocheting through the widening gap between his heart and his flesh. Blood that was not his ran sticky and hot over his neck, and the weight on his shoulders stirred, groaning.

"Put me down."

"We're almost there. I can see the grate... Just hang in there, Ariel."

"Please, Jormei."

Armored footsteps thumped down the alley after them, in retreat. Jonathan's order to get below echoed behind them, his red and black armor seeming to be part of the night and the fire as he fought at the mouth of the alley.

"You'll die." Jormei's voice was raw.

"Either way. You can't heal this, Jormei. I won't die underground."

Jormei let his younger twin slip from his shoulders, lowering him to broken pavement. The muddy rainwater turned russet with blood, staining Ariel's braids a dirty kind of bruised purple. Gauntleted fingers clutched at Jormei's shoulders, aqua eyes blindly seeking sky. "I can't see... are there stars?"

Jonathan reached them at last and scattered to an untidy halt, sending glass skipping away. "Oh god."

Jormei lifted his brother's hands to his face, and nodded. "Yes. Everywhere. Galaxies like you've never seen. " He was grateful that the armor on his sibling's skin could not detect tears.

Erik emerged from the smoke, limping heavily, Ian practically carrying him. Erik's eyes were ice-bright in the dimness, his armor a dull orange glow. Ian held a hand to his side and awkwardly sought support against graffiti-spattered brick, fist to his mouth to stop a sob not inspired by pain. None of them glanced back to see if they'd been followed.

"I always know when you're lying." Ariel managed a smile through his cough, lips reddened. "Haven't been stars here for years, not that you could see... Listen. Bring them back, all of you." Ariel groped out for those he sensed but could not see. Ian stretched out a hand but could do no more; Jonathan grasped Ariel's forearm firmly, his mouth a tight line. "Bring them back. For me." His breastplate, still blue under a smear of blood and ashes, sank once, rattled faintly, and stilled. No glamour, no glow, no whirl of light came to steal him back to the sky. He just died. The silence lasted a second of eternity, rent abruptly by Jormei's anguished wordless cry.

From somewhere inside all of them a jagged edge reared, sliced through bone and armor and muscle, and eviscerated one fifth of their souls.

Hearts that cry diamond tears
Spirits that walk for a thousand years
Hear them calling on the darkest morning
Pulling me under, my thoughts disappear
The color of the pure in soul
Like water shall fill the cloudless sky
---Erasure

Kento rested his head against the side of the pool, catching his breath. He was getting too old for these late night parties, but Yuli had just gotten back from his term abroad, and there'd been stories and presents and a lot of Kirin ichiban to get through. Yuli had taken off early to catch the train back to Tokyo, bright and cheerful and not the least bit hung over. Kento snorted into the water. Yeah, he could do that too, when he was nineteen.

Nineteen, right. He hadn't finished his laps.

"Are you done yet?" Sai's voice cut through the heavy summer air, dim over the loud splash of Kento's limbs plowing through water. He glubbed faintly and surfaced, nodding.

"Yeah, why? You wanna show me how long you can hold your breath?" Kento grinned cheerfully, rolling onto his back and kicking idly past Sai's feet. Sai rolled his eyes, busily lacing up one well-loved converse trainer.

"Oh, honestly. Out, out. We should have left ten minutes ago. Sage will be livid."

"And boy, Sage livid is so different from Sage happy or Sage tired or Sage rollerblading naked, is it? Man looks the same no matter what." Kento hauled himself out of the water, rivulets rushing down his body to puddle on the deck. His towel was warm from sunshine, and he shook a grasshopper off it before scrubbing at his dripping limbs.

Sai snorted delicately. "If you really think that, then you've been in a coma for the past six years we've been together, haven't you?" He freed his fingers from a knot and stood, brushing at his tank top. "C'mon. I've brought your clothes."

Kento sighed and stripped out of his trunks into the pair of cutoffs and T-shirt Sai had brought, shaking water out of his hair as they crunched across gravel to the parked jeep. "Why can't he pick himself up from shopping?"

"Because Rowen had to have the car this morning to take Yuli to the station." Sai jiggled his keys impatiently. "Sage was in such a good mood, I'm not about to be responsible for spoiling it."

Kento nodded. "Well in that case--" he was interrupted by an off-key but enthusiastic noise from the back porch, punctuated by the slamming screen door.

"You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby--" Rowen jammed down the back steps, oblivious to his audience, the beat leaking out of his earphones into the humid air.

"Rowen! Turn that down! You're going to go deaf!!" Sai scowled as Rowen completely failed to take note of him, too busy bopping his head and humming while tugging his sneakers on at the back door.

"Too late." Kento started to lean his arms on the hood of the jeep, but the hot metal was too much for his bare-armed liking. "He's been deaf for years. 'Specially when it's his turn to do the dishes."

Sai's eyebrows came together in a way that usually had Kento running for cover, minus whatever he had just tried to swipe from the fridge.

"Rowen! TURN YOUR MUSIC DOWN!"

Nike and Sony went airborne in separate directions as Rowen fell promptly on his startled ass. "Wha' the fuh?"

"Thank you." Sai smiled faintly. The walkman lay blissfully silent in the grass a few yards away. "We're going to get Sage, are you coming with us?"

"Nah," Rowen picked up his stereo, pressed a button, frowned, rapped it smartly against the porch post and beamed as the tape started up again. "I'm takin' my bike out for a while, it's too damn hot to ride in a car, or sit still either."

"Well, be careful. It's going to storm soon." As if predicted, a cool warning wind whipped the trees above their heads, smelling of rain and static discharge. Thunderheads coiled in dark anticipation on the horizon.

"All the better. Don' worry about me." Rowen grinned, saluting lazily. "I'll be back before dinner."

"Of course," Kento grumbled, hissing as his legs contacted burning vinyl seat. "Damn Ryou, he's probably drinking pina coladas and doing swan dives in Mt Fuji right now. Bleah."

Rowen shook his head. "Actually he's sitting in a bonfire out back. Want me ta get him?"

Sai and Kento exchanged a glance.

"No."

Thunder ripped across the violet and black sky like a platinum dragon, blazing fire in its wake. Sage hovered on the front porch, not drawn there by his element, but fretting quietly. It was well after dinner and Rowen wasn't back. It wasn't unlike the archer to loose track of time, but he only missed a meal if he was studying and something about the summer thunderstorm felt wrong to Sage. He shivered in a rush of cold wind, trees fluttering their silvered undersides like giggling girls trying to flirt with him. The hair on his forearms stood up, every trained alarm in his body warning of something.

"Now, by the pricking of my thumbs..."

Sage didn't jump, but his quick spin spoke of more surprise than a twitch would have. "You too, I see."

Sai shrugged, shutting the porch door behind him, and looking up into the tumultuous sky. "Although I don't know if it's something wicked this way comes. But something." His hair ruffled in the breeze, making him look strange and mystical as he peered at clouds.

Sage tossed his hair irritably. "Ryou says I'm getting paranoid-- expecting things."

Sai lifted one shoulder. "I think we've earned the right to our paranoia." Sage opened his mouth to agree, but was stalled by the sight of a single headlight cutting through wild rain and tree trunks.

"He better have a damn good excuse." Sage turned on his heel and stalked into the house.

Sai leaned on the paint-chipped porch railing and sighed almost dreamily, stray droplets dampening his hair. Even after all this time, there were still games Sage and Rowen played, like Sage not wanting Rowen to know he'd been worried. It wasn't as if they were fooling anybody, much less each other. The wind kicked rain into Sai's face, and he shivered. Sage did have a point, though. This wasn't a usual storm. Sai wouldn't have been happy if Kento had been out in it alone. Ryou was probably right; too many years of battles and the supernatural had left them all jumping at thunderclaps.

There was a roar of a laboring motorcycle engine, and Sai's eyes widened as Rowen wheeled into the drive, scattering muddy gravel into the yard. He dismounted before the bike was done spluttering, leaving it where it lay.

Ryou glanced up from the blaring television as Sai sprinted from the back door through the kitchen, heading for the pantry, door slamming behind him with a gunshot bang. "Hey, what's up?"

"We're not paranoid," Sai snapped as his only explanation, a second before Rowen kicked the door open and yelled to clear the couch. In his arms he carried a limp figure, rain-drenched with midnight dark hair plastered to his pale face. But it wasn't the wild look in Rowen's eyes or the unconscious boy in his arms that brought the room to their feet and the shocked gasp from Mia. It was the scratched and muddied body armor sculpted to his form, armor that save for being black where it should have been white was identical to that of the old Korin Yoroi.

"My... my god." Mia shakily righted her cup and ignored the ice water that had spilled on the carpet. "Is he--"

"I don't know." Rowen carefully placed his burden on the couch. "Sai could you get some--"

Sai appeared in the room, steaming cup already in his hand.

"--tea." Rowen finished.

"Wherever did you find him, Rowen?" Sai managed to make it sound as though Rowen had discovered the rare Saint Seiya manga he'd been hunting.

"He kinda exploded out in front of me... never seen anything like it, and from me, that's somethin'." Rowen glanced up at Sage. "Sage, his armor--"

"I see it, Rowen." Sage's voice was completely calm, violet eyes narrowed. He strode over to the sofa, leaning over Rowen's foundling. "...It's black."

"Black, nothing." Ryou gestured to the breastplate. "We've had enough of black armor, thanks. But it shouldn't even exist anymore. The original yoroi was destroyed."

Sage tossed his hair irritably. "Was it? You know, I hadn't noticed."

"Stop it, both of you," Mia ordered. "His armor can wait."

"Is he evil?" Kento wanted to know. "Who is he?"

Rowen shot Kento a look. "Gee, I dunno, I guess I shoulda asked him before saving his life. Whatever funkadelic kinda bike he was on blew sky high not ten seconds after I got him away from it, and he was already out cold. And he wasn't wearing a nametag, ya think? Christ, and I thought I caught hell for bringin' a dog home."

"This armor and mine are the same." Sage's voice brought the tempers in the room to bay, while Sai lifted the young man's head and smoothed the wet hair carefully. Sage's yoroi ball glowed in his hand, pulsing in tandem with the faint light of the black and green armor.

"But... how is that possible?" Sai carefully wiped a smudge off the boy's face. "When the original armor shouldn't even exist?" Sai blinked at his fingers, and at the blood dripping on the sofa. "Forget that. He's hurt, Sage."

Sage's brow furrowed; he leaned over Rowen's charge appraisingly. "I can heal that in no time--" His sentence died unfinished as the room filled with a green glow, the familiar armor flaming verdant for a few seconds before vanishing altogether, as if the light of Sage's armor orb was more than it could bear. The stranger's cuts were healed, but on his bare skin were scarred memories of many others.

"Did you do that?" Kento inquired quietly of Sage. Sage shook his head.

Mia grabbed the chenille afghan and draped it around him with practiced skill, having nursed any number of injured warriors under her roof. "Whoever he is, he's not evil." She paused, placing her hand over Sai's to keep the dark hair swept back from the delicate-featured face. Her line of work was about nothing if not connections, and she had learned to see them even when others did not. Her eyes moved sideways from the stranger to Sage, but after judging the tension in the room she chose to keep her observations to herself. "I'll go get the guest room ready."

"What's this?" Ryou moved back the afghan to examine a sleek silver bracelet, the only thing that had remained on the stranger after the armor dissipated. It fit tightly around the boy's wrist, and seemed to have no hinge.

"Lemme see that..." Rowen scooted over to get a better look. "Doesn't look like much, does it? Hm." His curious fingers brushed the underside, searching for a catch.

"Let go!!!" The bracelet was jerked from Rowen's hand, and the young man shot from one end of the couch to the other. Violet eyes blinked at them in fear and confusion. "Who are you? Where am I?"

"Whoa whoa, just slow down--" Ryou took a step forward but stopped as the young man tensed, power moving visibly through his frame. Even naked and crouched on their couch he managed to seem intimidating. He shifted slightly, ready to bolt.

"No one is going to hurt you," Sai soothed. The stranger's eyes twitched toward him, but the rest of him was still, trembling like a touched bowstring.

"Where am I?" Each word was pronounced carefully. Rowen tilted his head. The Japanese he used was slightly strange, but the accent was not one he could place.

"You're safe," Rowen said, standing up from the carpet. "I found you."

He appeared to consider this information carefully, eyes flicking over the room. "I don't belong here."

"Damn straight," Kento muttered, but went quiet when Sai glared at him.

"Who are you?" the boy demanded.

"I'm Ryou." Ryou gestured around the room. "This is Sai, Rowen, Kento, and Sage."

Sai leaned forward, hands on his knees, his smile encouraging. "What's your name?"

He blinked hard at Sai, but harder still at Rowen. "I-- I don't..." He shifted down to the couch seat, scowling at the blanket across his knees. "...remember..."

"You were hurt, hit your head." Sai edged a little closer, then sat down across from him when he didn't flee. "And however you got here must have rattled you some, but you're safe now, and we can help you." Sai pressed the mug of warm tea into the boy's shaking hands, and folded his fingers around it. "You have to trust us." Beneath Sai's bangs was a brief flicker of blue light, his power hummed faintly. Their foundling looked dazed now, unsure as a newborn fawn. "You don't remember your name?"

He shook his head slowly, dark hair flopping over one eye. He brought the mug up to his lips and drank automatically, not seeming to taste it. The bracelet flashed in the light as he did so, strangely engraved letters lighting briefly gold. Sage tilted his head, deciphering them.

"Is your name Jormei?"

“Jormei?” He hesitated, tasting it in his mouth a few times. "I think so."

Sai talked softly at him while Sage tugged Ryou over and gestured to Rowen to listen in. Kento just watched Sai warily, making sure he wasn't going to get attacked anytime soon.

"His name doesn't make any sense." Ryou looked at the other two, hoping for answers. "If it is his name. It's not Japanese."

"I think it is." Sage ran a hand through his hair, one of the few nervous gestures he possessed. "Although it's corrupted slightly. It might be an older form, but I'm not certain of the spelling, I don't think it's entirely foreign--"

Rowen blew at his bangs. "You have point, right?"

Sage sighed in exasperation. "Jormei. Jomei. It's too perfect not to be."

"Jyomei?" Ryou blinked. "Like, expelled?"

“No, like the emperor.” Rowen's vocabulary was a little better than Ryou's. "A bringer of light." He whistled. "Damn, that's archaic."

"It fits." Sage glanced back at the couch, where Sai was carefully removing the mug from Jormei's fingers. Whatever the tea had been dosed with was putting him quickly to sleep. "Even if it didn't, I would be certain. His name doesn't matter. I know a Korin wearer when I see one."

"But if he is," Ryou said, "then where did he come from?"

"And," Rowen added, "where are the others?"

The three of them looked at Jormei, and at the network of scars over his back. None of them felt compelled to answer.

Jormei made his way thought the cursed tunnels that were both his haven and his prison. He hated them, locked in their shallow darkness and unable to touch the sky. Ariel felt the same, he knew. He put himself in danger so often, daring death or capture or worse from the ever-present guard just to spend a few moments outside, or even just under an open grate, desperate to feel wind and see the sky, even if it was constantly smog- or cloud-blanketed.

Jormei understood, sunlight was terribly rare in the city, maybe everywhere. And they didn't even have the luxury of the dingy yellow rays. Daytime was just too risky. Sometimes he would call his full armor and fill the tunnels with blazing light, pushing away the shadows as far as he could manage. It only helped a little.

Jonathan and the others were slightly better off. Jonathan's fire lived around them and helped keep them alive, as did Ian's water and Erik's careful sculpting of the stone that kept their pursuers befuddled or perpetually lost in the immense labyrinth below the city. Without their Yoroi they'd be history in an instant. But then, Jormei snorted irritably, it was why the gods and everybody was after their asses.

Jormei tripped over a bit of broken pipe, swearing softly at having to grope like a rat in tunnels. He summoned a dim glow from his right hand, using it to see by as he carefully gathered the treasures he'd dropped. He'd risked a terrible lot to get them, Jonathan would be furious but he'd also be thrilled. His burden wouldn't look like much to most but for Jormei it meant a few seconds of happiness for Jonathan, and if need be his life was forfeit to that cause. He counted the tiny items carefully, and with a satisfied nod, tucked them into the inner pocket of his leather jacket worn over his black and green sub-armor.

Birthday candles. Twenty-one of them.

Some birthdays ago, when it was nothing more than all their birthdays were: another day of survival, Jormei and Jonathan had been up late long after the others had fallen asleep in the stone hollows Erik made for them. Jonathan told him that he'd always wanted a cake with candles on it, that somewhere in his dreams or memories he had had one, someplace safe and warm and loved. They used to do it all the time long ago, he told him. Jonathan was obsessed with the past, and the though of his element's dim glow on a cake had made him smile wistfully in the way that made Jormei's soul ache.

Or maybe, thought Jormei as he clambered down the third from last iron ladder on the left, it was what it represented: the ability to do something so silly as light candles just to sing a song and blow them out, to be safe and free enough for such a bright ritual. They'd make a wish before sending out the flame, he had said.

Jormei knew it was ridiculous, but prayed anyway that it might work, that blowing out ttwenty-one miniature candles could change the world; give his only loves freedom, sunlight, wind and stars.

Jormei's thoughts ground to a halt as a distress call flared in his mind, red with the imprint of Jonathan's aura. He sent his location, and the number of sentinels after him. Jormei didn't even need to check his mental map to know that he was closest. He jumped across the dark pit below him to grab the ladder on the wall opposite, crossed six tunnels and three grates and emerged two alleys over from the sound of combat.

“Surrender yourself into custody and you will not be--”

SHABOOOOMMM!!!!

"Surrender that, bastard,” Jonathan said, grinning wolfishly through the explosion, smoke still trailing from his fingers as bits of droid blew outward into the street, sparking like defective fireworks in the darkness. There were few lit streetlights here, this part of the city was long dead, buildings leaning drunkenly against one another. Jonathan vaulted out between two of them, a quintet of agitated hoverpods in pursuit. A rain of laser-fire hissed when it contacted his body-armor, singing small pinholes in the biker jacket he wore over his sub-armor. One drew back its gun muzzle to fire again, and jerked as Jormei sent a surge of electricity through it, making all it's antennae and spindled legs stick straight out before it shut down with a defeated whine, exploding as it hit pavement.

"Way to go, loverboy!" Jonathan made a grab for a pod's thorax, ripping his fist into its internal circuitry and spilling silicone and fiber-optic guts into the street. The droid jerked and twitched on his hand before he flung it away, blowing up an old storefront.

Jormei focused translucent white currents from his heart down to his palm, balling it with the force of his soul and sending it screaming into the nearest of the three remaining droids. Lightning flashed a green residue over his armor and in his eyes as the pod exploded. The other two waved appendages in metallic conversation before separating, one zooming after Jonathan, the other letting loose a barrage on Jormei.

The Halo warrior took a flying leap over an abandoned car, one of the fat plasma beams clipping him in the small of his back and numbing his legs for a moment before the pain shrieked in, dumping him ungracefully to the sidewalk. He didn't have time to be grateful for his armor; that shot would have disintegrated anyone else in a heartbeat. He tossed his hair out of his eyes just in time to see the droid hovering ominously over him, single red eye throbbing as energy congealed on the end of the muzzle, targeting for a final blow.

Jormei couldn't move properly just yet, still paralyzed from the last beam. "Jona-!"

The droid was engulfed in white gold fire, fusing its plastic and metal bits and sending it crashing down. A red blur snatched Jormei and and leapt away as the droid's destruct went off, causing the empty transport shell to flip over into the street.

Jonathan settled the other warrior to the dry floor of the tunnel before reaching up to tug the grate back in place, then helping him limp behind a sliding stone panel of brickwork. Jormei slid to the floor, shaking with useless adrenaline as Jonathan sent quietly to the others en route, letting them know everything was safe and they could go back to their scavenger routes.

"You okay?" Jonathan's warm arm smelled of soft leather singed faintly with ozone. "Took a spinal shot with the plasma, huh?"

Jormei shivered and nodded, his teeth gritting with pain that was lessening at an agonizingly slow rate.

"Loose the armor," Jonathan suggested gently, and Jormei shifted into well-loved denim instead, feeling vulnerable as always without his shell. Black gauntleted fingers kneaded his calves, welcome heat untangling his frazzled nerve-endings.

"Unnnn....."

"Better?"

"Yeah..." Jormei was thrilled to discover he still had toes. "Thanks... almost ate it there."

"You always say that."

"This time it's true." Jormei started, remembering. "Oh, shit!" He dug in his jacket pocket and his heart sank, fingers pulling out crumbled bits of wax clinging to wicks. All the candles had broken. Even the least damaged of them had snapped in several places, from the force of his fall probably. "Dammit!! " he flung the useless things to the ground, sobbing with fury. "Everything in this fucking world is broken!!" He slammed his fist into the brickwork, forgetting he wasn't in armor, and then tucked his throbbing hand into his armpit as he folded in pain. Jonathan was so quiet for so long that Jormei began to wonder, lifting his head from his folded arms.

Jonathan was smiling at him softly, reaching for his injured hand and turning it palm up. "Not everything." Into Jormei's hand he placed one single candle, the fractures in it mended with carefully controlled heat from Jonathan's fingertips. "Now, let's go see what the others managed to scrounge for a cake and I'll pretend to be surprised, okay?"

Jormei nodded tearily, reaching out to put his arms around Jonathan, nuzzling his dark hair. "Jonathan-"

"I know, Jormei. I know."

Jormei opened his eyes.

The pillow under his cheek was damp, he had no reasons as to why. He'd dreamed something sad, he supposed.

"Not that it matters," he mumbled to himself, sitting up slowly. His head still hurt, but just a little. "'good pain lets you know you're alive.'" He smiled, then stopped, just about to remember who it was that always said that. His wiped memory returned only blank white where a face had been forming. "Damn." He scowled around he room. Everything seemed very antiquated to him, although he could not imagine what suitable replacement should be there instead. At the same time, the plain cotton sheets and warm blanket tangled around him felt almost sensually luxurious. He rubbed the wet tear spot on the pillow.

"Maybe I don't want to remeber," he postulated, stepping out of bed and moving experimentally to the chair, where clothes were laid out for him. "If it can make me cry when I don't even know what I dream." The garments were simple, a pair of jeans and a soft gray shirt, they seemed vaguely familiar. He pulled them on and sneezed as a curtain billowed open from the window, teasing his nose. His bracelet flashed up at him in-

"Sunlight?" Jormei stood, briefly frozen, as warm honey daylight poured in from the open window, too early yet to be sticky hot and sweet with last night's rain. He wasn't sure why, but as he knew the phone and the shape of the furnishings were very old he knew that the gold spilling warmth on him was incredibly rare. He stepped to the window and looked out, hearing sounds of laughter from below.

The one who had introduced himself as Ryou was hauling out a long green hose, and it appeared that the soft spoken one with friendly green eyes was trying to talk him out of possession. Ryou held the hose away at arms' length, his head tilting back and forth as he spoke indecipherable words, obviously a friendly taunt. He laughed out loud as Sai gave an audible "Oh yeah?" and went for shirtless ribs, aiming to tickle. Ryou gave up the hose but reclaimed it when Sai dropped it soon after, surprised by a sudden kiss. Their arms wound around each other slowly. Water came on with a loud PISH, right into Sai's shorts where Ryou had stuck the nozzle.

"Ryou! You little shit, come back here!"

Ryou tore off around the side of the house, sliding on the wet grass and scrabbling to his feet, trying to evadepursuit. Not trying very hard, though, Jormei thought, smiling. The scene had made a bright place somewhere in his heart, as if he'd been hungering a long time to see such a thing. Even Sai's fading vocal indignation didn't tarnish it; in fact, it made laughter bubble out of the lost boy.

"That wasn't fair! You know I'm faster! When I catch you I'm gonna--"

"Gonna what, I wonder?" Jormei thought, grinning. He got the impression his five hosts were all very... close.

"Oh, you're awake!" Mia smiled at Jormei, setting a tray down on the desk. "I was just bringing you some breakfast, are you hungry?"

"I think I could eat for a week." He flashed her a smile. "But I don't remember you from--"

"You were already asleep last night... I'm Mia. Well, the boys had western fare for breakfast so I hope you don't mind crepes, but I don't suppose you know whether or not you like them, do you?" she took the cover off the tray, and Jormei's stomach contracted with hunger. Crepes covered in syrup and melted butter were artfully arranged on the plate, next to a glass of milk.

"They're... so pretty. I didn't know food was pretty..."

Mia smiled. "It's not when I make it, but our Sai is a bit of a gourmand, if it didn't taste better than it looked it'd be a shame to eat it. You have what you like now, and if you need more just wander down to the kitchen and help yourself... if you're up to it?"

"Yes, ma'am." Jormei nodded, put at ease. "Thank you very much."

Mia waved a hand. "Please, Mia will do nicely, you say ma'am and I feel eighty. The guys are about someplace, feel free to roam about, but don't go too far and get lost, alright?" She winked at him and stepped through the door, humming to herself.

"Let's wash the tiger" had to be Byakuen's favorite game. It was even better than "where the fuck is the remote control?" In the summer was when it was best, because it was hot and everybody wanted to wash the tiger and cool off. Byakuen thought his humans monstrously silly for all their samurainess... didn't they know he kept himself impeccably clean? Of course, if they did, then he couldn't play THEIR favorite game, which was "Let's wash the Troopers." And the tiger, and the side of the house, and Mia trying to read in the hammock. The best way to start the game was to steal the hose and run right between them instead of away, it never failed to freak them and make them scatter. Byakuen whurrfled softly in laughter, waiting for Ryou and Sai to come back, out of breath for reasons beyond running. Byakuen may have been an immortal being shape-shifted into animal form for his protection, but damn if he didn't love to play.

Hello, was that Sage coming around the corner? Byakuen's ear twitched back, his hindquarters lifting and wiggling in preparation to pounce, slinking from his cool grassy nest and following the scent of green-magic that meant Sage. Heh... Captain Courtesy was going to get a free bladder check... just what he needed, little twerp acted far too old for his double ten of years.

The footsteps crunched nearer, just about to make the tun to this side of the house. Byakuen tensed...

"ROWLL!!!"

"AAAHH!!"

Byakuen wurffed in puzzlement. This wasn't Sage? Why did he reek of Korin-green? He snorted experimentally at the dark hair of the human pinned underneath his massive weight. Korin-scented-stranger made a very faint "help!", his eyes as large as sushi rolls.

Jormei didn't dare glance around to see if he'd been rescued, the beast sitting on his chest as terrifying and strange as a dragon from the far side of the moon. He had white and black stripes, what had stripes like that? A Zebra? Shit, this wasn't a zebra, zebras looked like horses. This thing had FANGS the size of Jormei's HEAD, and was sniffing him. I'm dead, Jormei thought, and I don't even know what me is. This monster is gonna eat me. He tried to move, but might as well have been tied with iron cables.

"Hey Byakuen, whatcha- aw hell, Blaze, let him up before you squish him, you fat cow. "

The monster was shoved at slightly, but didn't move, brown eyes reproachfully informing Ryou that he wasn't done investigating this critter just yet. "His name's Jormei, he's safe, and he's our guest if you didn't give him a coronary, now get off."

The tiger made a noise of dismissal and leapt off the foundling, who scrabbled to his feet shakily. The tiger strolled just far enough away to show his entire lack of interest in the situation. Jormei swallowed hard.

"I could be wrong, but that isn't a cow."

Ryou quirked an eyebrow in confusion, then laughed. "Nah, that's just White blaze... our resident tiger... he was just saying hi. Summertime makes him frisky, you okay?"

Jormei nodded. "I didn't know that's what tigers looked like. Is he safe?"

“Far as I know." Ryou slung the coil of hose from his shoulder, grinning at Jormei's panicked look. "Yeah, yeah, he's safe. How ya feeling? Remember anything?"

Jormei made a negative noise. "But I think I like crepes."

"Sai's a good cook." Ryou twisted connectors together. "I could manage, if I had to, but not as well as that." He winked.

Jormei's stomach plummeted to his bare feet, deja-vu washing over him in the wake of Ryou's words and slight gesture. He clutched the side of the house as the world spun giddily.

"Jormei? Are you sure you're ok? What's wrong?" Ryou's hands closed on his shoulder, warm and supportive and maddeningly, uselessly familiar.

Jormei nodded, exhaling. "But I was wrong, last night. I don't know how, but I do know you."

Ryou opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a wry voice from behind. "Well well, Ryou... making our guest at home, are we?"

Ryou's hand had moved slightly in surprise, he removed it now from Jormei's shoulder and swiveled to smirk at Rowen. "Why yes, I was... but who are you? You can't be Rowen... your eyes are open and it's not noon yet."

"Oh that's just FRIGHTFULLY amusing, Ryou, do remind me of it later and I'll give you a chuckle for it."

Ryou nodded as if in understanding. "oooh..... You must be Sai. But your accent sounds terrible."

"Oh YEAH? Well you couldn't pull off a British accent if your life depended on it."

"Neither can you, apparently..."

Rowen stopped in mid retort when he realized he was the focus of a wide-eyed stare. "Do you always fight?" Jormei asked cautiously. If he was the cause of a disagreement, however inadvertently, then he should not stay... it wasn't right.

"Fight?" Rowen grinned. "That's not a fight... fights are determined by how much blood goes flying. That would have to be classed as 'good morning'."

"For you two uncivilized pigs, that is." Sage flipped delicately down from the roof, black training pants ruffling like dark angel wings. "Between the two of you you might have enough manners to stain a thimble."

Jormei had in fact been relived that his hosts really hadn't been fussing, but his stomach quailed strangely at Sage's appearance. The blond warrior turned to him with a cool smile. "Good morning, Jormei. How are you feeling?"

Jormei managed a slightly unnerved smile, trying to edge away a bit from Sage without being obvious. It wasn't that he didn't like him, in fact he had seemed very nice, if somewhat reserved in manner. But the closer he got to Jormei the more the molecules in Jormei's body seemed to want to fly apart and unravel his DNA like so much yarn. "M'okay..." He responded. "Don't remember anything though, besides last night, and even that's muddy... If I fumble your names a bit I'm sorry?"

Rowen made a dismissive noise. "Don't even worry 'bout it. " he raised an eyebrow at the faint paw prints on Jormei's shirt. "Take it you've met Byakuen?"

"Uh... he met me." Jormei brushed at his shirt self-consciously, stopping when he noted the tiger eyeing him.

"No problem," Rowen waved away a bug. "If he didn't like you ya wouldn't be around ta be concerned."

"Toma," Sage stressed, the name laden with meaning. Something passed almost visibly through the ether between them.

"All right, all right... geezz." Rowen picked up the hose where Ryou had abandoned it. " Are we washin' the tigah or what?"

Two hours later Rowen, Ryou, and Jormei squiged into the kitchen, much to the horror of Sai, who had just mopped.

"Ah! You're making a mess!! Out! Out all of you!! Don't come back till you're dry!!"

"Humph..." Ryou left a drippy trail across the floor on his way to the bathroom. "For the master of torrent you sure are bitchy about water..."

"What was that?" Jormei's voice was unusually sharp, closer to his edgy tones of the night before and not the shy soft murmur they'd gotten accustomed to. His eyes narrowed, the open expression on his face changing to suspicion.

Rowen shot Ryou a hard look. "Just Ryou's brain farting again, isn't that right, Sai?"

"Ummm..." Sai wavered between truth and guile.

Jormei blinked a few times, shaking his head. "Uuhh... I'm sorry, what was I saying?" the wariness vanished as rapidly as it had come.

"Poor thing, you look dazed... Here, sit down..." Sai steered him to a barstool by the counter. "You've gotten an awful sunburn, love... I'll have to have words with your companions for not looking after you." He glared at the drippily contrite duo.

"Well since you aren't chasing us out-" Rowen made for the fridge. "There's some of that lemon iced tea that-"

"Out! Both of you! You're walking mudpies!"

"Aw, maaan..."

Sai's look softened. "Change clothes and come back down and I'll have something good for you too, alright? Even you, Ryou." The smoky green irises let Ryou remember that this morning's incident had not been forgotten.

The two soggy troopers slinked off to the shower, not as dejected as they might have been since Rowen suggested softly they save water by sharing. "And ixnay on the oryoiyay!" he added in a hiss as the door swung silently behind them.

Jormei blew softly on his brightly burned skin, not even his chest and shoulders spared since he'd removed his shirt once water and fur started flying. "Ow..."

"You must not be used to sunshine!" Sai placed a glass of iced lemonade in front of Jormei. "Those two degenerates can have some when they come back down, but since you're injured you get first pick. Now lets see about getting something for your back."

Sai rummaged in a cupboard as Jormei took an experimental sip of the yellow beverage in front of him. It was tart and sweet at the same time, magnificently cold, and it made his jaws ache just a little at the first taste. He'd polished off the glass by the time Sai returned.

"Goodness! You must have been thirsty!" Sai unscrewed the lid off an earthenware jar filled with a pale green cream.

"S'good." Jormei smiled, then inhaled sharply as the cold substance on Sai's fingertips contacted his bright red back. "Oooooow......"

"It'll feel better in a minute..." Sai smoothed the unguent in tenderly, mindful of Jormei's sensitive flesh. After a few seconds the sting vanished and a sweet coolness suffused Jormei's skin, he could almost feel his body sighing in relief.

"That feels... great." He let Sai doctor up his burnt chest and arms and back and even his reddened cheeks, the ointment smelling herbal and fresh.

"Yes, well, it's good for burns and scrapes and things. Rowen went through a bout of tinkering with homeopathic remedies and this is one of his successes."

Jormei watched Sai put the jar away. "Any failures?"

"You saw that bald patch in the back yard?"

"The crater? About a foot wide?"

"That was his hair removal stuff."

"Oops."

"Exactly. More lemonade?"

"Lem-o-nade?" Jormei struggled with the word.

"Yes... what you just had?"

"Oh! Is that it's called? Yes, please."

Sai washed the medicine taste off his hands and poured another glass for his guest, then went back to cutting strawberries to top the cheesecake. He gradually became aware of purple eyes watching him. Jormei was memorizing everything he did, like a curious, hyper-intelligent child. Sai chose the brightest, most perfect berry from the bowl and offered it. "Want one?"

Jormei reached out fingers and gingerly took the fruit as if it were live ammunition. "What is it?" he asked innocently, examining it from all sides.

Sai carefully put down the knife he was holding. "It's... a strawberry."

Jormei nodded, stowing away this information. He picked off a seed and ate it, then several more. He decided he didn't like the green bits very much but ate them anyway then bit into the firm red berry, his eyes going wide in surprise. "It's good!" he announced to a mystified Sai, juice dribbling down his chin. He wiped it away and delicately licked his fingers, eating the rest of it very slowly as if it were a sort of heavenly delight and not a mere humble strawberry.

"You've... Never had one before?"

"Never heard of it..." Jormei cleaned the last of the juice off his fingertips and looked very hard at the full bowl of berries.

Sai handed him another one, smiling as Jormei ate it every bit with as much care as the first one, eyes shining thanks.

Memory loss shouldn't have made him forget such common things, only personal details. Sai wondered. Where are you from, poor lost Halo? Where you have never seen sunlight or tasted lemonade or strawberries?

"He didn't know what tigers were, either. I mean, I know White Blaze can be scary but he didn't know what a tiger LOOKED like." Ryou and the others were gathered in conference in the kitchen, dinner long since cleared away and Jormei tucked between white sheets in the guest bedroom. Mia had been clearing out the attic all week and was exhausted from her project, simply asking her housemates to let her in on what they decided.

"And he almost remembered today, loose lips," Rowen reminded Ryou.

"You've never complained about my lips before--"

"Should we tell him?" Sage asked quietly, examining his nails.

"Yes," Kento said, at the exact moment Sai said "no."

"Why not?" Ryou inquired. "If we tell him he's certainly going to remember."

"That's exactly it. Ryou, he didn't know what STRAWBERRIES were... he's never seen sunlight. He had those awful cuts when he got here and there were a few terrible jagged scars on his back that I saw when I doctored his sunburn... Ryou, he's happy. Wherever he is from is not, and you know I'm right. Let him keep his oblivion, if only for a little while."

Ryou wavered. "I don't know, Sai... what if it's urgent-"

"Then I'll take the blame." Sai took Ryou's hand, almost pleading. "Please Ryou. For me."

Ryou nodded. It was not a request that Sai invoked lightly. "Alright. One week. If he hasn't remembered by then, we tell him. Agreed?"

One by one they all nodded, Sai last of all. "Thank you."

"We'll see." Sage murmured, gazing upwards to the corner of the house with the guestroom. "We'll see."

"Don't be such a misery, Sage." Sai took the notepad on the counter and began jotting things down.

"What's that?' Kento leaned over his shoulder.

"A list. If he's only got a few days of happy, they're going to be the best I can manage to make them."

“Pit sweet fucking pit," Erik waved an armored hand. "Pick a hole, any hole..."

"I like this one..." Ariel climbed up the stone niches shaped in the rock and poked his head into one of the several dens Erik had sculpted. "It's got a little shelf for my things."

"You and your trinkets." Jormei was eyeing the selection of holes. He wasn't very picky, where he slept was where he slept. He preferred to choose last. "How do you keep up with them?"

"I loose some now and then..." Ariel's voice floated out of the hole. "But since I find new ones it doesn't matter."

"You got a preference?" Erik asked Jonathan, who was investigating the craftsmanship of the magically sculpted stone.

"Nice job this time. I could manage, if I had to, but not as well as that."

Erik shrugged. "Whatever. Although I'd love to see what kind of bed you'd sculpt out of lava." The Hardrock warrior stepped from handhold to handhold to get to the highest of the stone pockets. "Hey, Ian? I like this one."

Ian tossed down the pile of bedding he'd been lugging from their former lair. "Must you always be on top?" he sighed, picking through the old blankets and coats for the ones they used to line their shared sleeping area. "that one is just fine. I'll be up in a moment."

Jormei tilted his head, meeting a soft blue-eyed gaze. "Jonathan?"

"If you haven't picked one yet... that one's nice... for a hole." He gestured to the hollow next to Ariel's.

Jormei shrugged indifferently. "I suppose I'll take that one."

"Oh." Jonathan became terribly interested in his red-armored feet. "I kinda liked that one myself..."

"Well if you want that one I'll just--"

"Since-" Jonathan lifted his smile to Jormei, eyes sparkling. "Since we both like it so much... we could just share it?"

Jormei felt his toes tingle just a little. They'd been close up to now, but not lovers. Jonathan held out a gauntleted hand.

"If you like? Want to see if there's room for two?"

Jormei slipped his hand into Jonathan's, his heart thundering so loud in his chest he could barely hear over it. Wildfire wanted to be his, to show him the things that made Erik and Ian cry out softly when they slept during the day. A warm arm slid around his shoulders, soft lips tilting just down to meet his--

Squeak!

"What was that?" Ian stood up straight, bedding falling out of his arms. "Erik! What was that noise?"

There was a thoughtful pause. "What noise?"

Squeak!

"THAT noise! I can hear a rodent a kilometer away, have you got one of those THINGS up there?"

"... no," Erik said, and there was a ratlike chitter of agreement.

"ERIK!!!! I WILL NOT SHARE SLEEPING QUARTERS WITH A RAT!! PUT IT OUT THIS VERY INSTANT!!"

"aw..." Erik's voice, from within the cave, went up a few notches. "Ian doesn't wuv you, oh no he doesn't... " he stuck his head out of the entrance. “It's just ONE, Ian... it won't take up any room and he doesn't bite."

"It's a VERMIN!!! They carry DISEASE!!

"but I gave him a bath!" he held up a fat sleek black rodent, its tail wrapped securely around Erik's wrist. "See? He's a nice one!"

"Eggguh! I don't want to SEE it!"

Erik turned to converse briefly with his pet, the rat happily setting tiny claws on his human's chin and touching noses. "HE likes YOU... I don't see why you have to be the difficult one."

"Ugh!! It kissed you! That's it!! You can sleep with your rat, because it's him or me!"

Jonathan and Jormei, quietly observing the latest installment of this argument, turned solemnly to each other and burst into laughter. From Ariel's bunk there was only the sound of muted snoring.

"Will it hurt?"

"A little, maybe? Do you want to stop? Or... you could, if you like?"

"No..." Jormei exhaled softly, turning his face into the soft fabric of his blanket. "I want... you to."

"Here..." a warm mouth nuzzled against his. "It's easier if we kiss."

"Is it?" Jormei's eyes glowed in the dim, dim light of their armor orbs; the torches outside had long since burned out. "I..." their parted lips brushed, sharing heat in the quiet darkness. The muted noises from the next hollow had stilled into three sets of even breathing. An awakened Ariel had stepped in to mediate the rat dispute and had wound up mediating something else. The memory of sound through stone burned away trepidation in Jormei like the fiery traces of Jonathan's fingertips. His decision had been made long before this moment.

"Please... please, Now."

"Hold on to me."

"unn!"

"Easy..."

"I can't-"

"Relax."

"nn...Jonathan? Jonathan! It's too-" his voice dissolved into a soft whimper.

god.

"yes..."

Silence seeped in between their melded bodies, light from two small lit spheres shining strangely on their tense bodies. Words became a communion of two souls, fire meeting light and blazing into a nebula brighter than a thousand suns...

"Jona—thunnnn....." Jormei's hips bucked against the sheet wound tightly around his thighs, the soft shimmer of release waking him and making him forget the vague syllables that had drifted from his lips. "Wha- oh, hell." Bleary eyes tried to focus on the floor. Whatever he had dreamed had felt good, but he'd made a mess of himself, even if by some miracle managing not to soil the sheet.

He wobbled unsteadily to his feet. The room was filled with a hazy, velvet gray light; the sun wasn't up just yet. Jormei yawned into the bathroom; glad Mia had explained to him how the shower worked without needing to be asked. For some reason, the thought of asking one of the guys to demonstrate was mortally embarrassing.

"And NOW would be even worse... " he muttered, sticking his head under the stream of water as he wrenched it on. He liked it quite cold, at the moment he attributed it to the fading heat between his legs and the sticky humid air. He pressed his cheek against the cool white tile, letting the water thrum against his chest. He slid to the tub and rested his head on folded arms, the water rushing cold and sweet over his body. His fingers sleepily fumbled at the tie to his hair, the dark strands plastering to his skin as his eyes slipped closed.

"Jormei?"

"What is it, Ian?"

They had been very young, scrabbling in the dark.

"Have you ever been kissed?"

Jormei tested the iron ladder with his adolescent weight. "Once?" His night-seeing eyes found Ian's in the dim light of their armor. "Jonathan kissed me. He lied and said he'd tripped and fallen into me, but you know how bad he is at lying. I think this one's safe." Jormei tied a scrap of crimson cloth to the ladder, proceeding to the next one. Ian lingered, slender fingers in their black armored casings worrying at flecks of rust on the ladder.

"I wish he'd kissed me," he murmured, almost as if he didn't want to be heard. Jormei knew better, shimmying down the pole he'd just scrambled up.

"Jonathan?"

Ian shrugged, still prodding the ladder. "Anyone," he murmured.

"You mean Erik hasn't?"

Ian shook his head. "I think he might be afraid he'd break me."

Jormei smoothed a few of the red strips. "Why don't you kiss him?"

Ian's flush was visible even in the shadows. "I couldn't do that! I don't know what I'm doing!"

Jormei sighed, walked over and gripped Ian by the shoulders. His lips found Ian's before the young Torrent wearer could blink, fusing hot mouths in an innocently sexual kiss. Ian melted into him, pressing close and for the first time resenting the armor that kept him safe. The kiss ended as quickly as it had happened.

"Now you do," Jormei informed him with a wink, and that was that.

"Here you are!"

Jormei jumped wetly, bashing his arm on the side of the tub. Sai's voice floated from beyond the vinyl curtain. "I was afraid I'd wake you, but you're as much of a nearly bird as Seiji... How do you feel about going out today?"

"Out?" Jormei turned off the now very cold water and fumbled for a towel. One was placed into his hand. "Thank you... out where?"

"Shopping? You haven't any clothes, so we thought we could see to a bit of a wardrobe for you?"

Jormei stepped out of the shower with a nod, towel grasped around his waist. "Why are you doing all this for me?"

Sai looked back at him within the mirror, his eyes tracing the one scar that wound in a slow curve over Jormei's breastbone. "Because we want to." He turned, flashing a quick smile to break the seriousness. Not, Sai told himself, to take his mind away from the sleek shape of him against the white tile. The sunburn had faded, leaving their lost boy's skin a glorious pale gold. "And we haven't got anything better to do." Sai gestured to the clothing folded on the vanity. "These are for you, and breakfast is downstairs... just come down when you're dressed."

Jormei reached out and touched his shoulder before Sai could leave, offering a smile. "I don't know for certain. But I don't think I've ever had such kindness from strangers. Thank you, Sai."

Sai let his hand touch Jormei's briefly, brushing the silver bracelet. "You're welcome."

"Somf wemf we foonin?"

"Rowen," Sage suggested gently, "It might be a good idea to remove the donut before trying to ask questions."

Rowen took a bite from the pastry clamped in his mouth and handed the rest of it to Kento, who gratefully claimed the powdered sugar windfall. "I SAID, so where're we goin' today?"

"Shopping." Ryou made it sound like a trip to the dentist.

"Oh, come on, it'll be FUN!" Sai buttered an English muffin enthusiastically. "We're going to the mall and to paisley peacock for clothes and-"

"I think I have to organize my sock drawer," Ryou hedged.

"You HAVE a sock drawer?" Sage's tone radiated disbelief. "No one said you had to go, Ryou. Gods above, we all prefer you happily elsewhere than bodily dragging you through the mall."

Kento nodded in agreement. He wasn't into going mad over clothes like the other three were, but he was content to be left in an arcade for six hours. But if Ryou was staying home- "I might stay put too," he offered Ryou. "We could catch a game or something?"

“You aren't coming with us?" Jormei blinked in surprised disappointment.

"Well-ah, no I wasn't PLANNING on it..." Ryou faltered as Jormei regarded him unwaveringly. "Well, not shopping. We can go with you to the club later?"

Rowen blinked. He had been half asleep and brushing his teeth and Ryou had been in the shower at the time, but he was fairly certain that ten minutes prior, Ryou of Wildfire was protesting vehemently at being forced into a packed club this evening. Now he seemed quite cheerful at the prospect. Rowen surveyed Ryou's glance and Jormei's brightening countenance, and hid his smug smile in his upended bowl of greeny-pink lucky-charms milk.

"Alright then," Jormei nodded, and calmly ate his grapefruit, rind and all, as the mystified troopers watched. He licked his fingers when he was done, pausing and flicking his eyes over his companions, his tongue still protruding a bit when he realized he was the focus of five intent, almost hungry stares. They all seemed to shake themselves as one when they found themselves discovered, and busied themselves with the remnants of the meal. He could almost sense their thoughts around him though; they held conversation with their eyes over gathering dishes and polishing off crumbs.

~God I want-~

~isn't he so-~

~doesn't even how how-~

~wonder if he-~

~Beautiful.~

The last fragment made Jormei pause, certain it had come from Ryou. Then the moment was gone, their minds and the words behind the set of their glances closed off to his moment of perception.

The lost boy remembered it though, and wondered.

"Where's he gone off to again?" Sage shifted the shopping bag he held and glanced at his wristwatch. "We're not going to have much time to get him ready."

"Not to mention getting changed ourselves." Sai placed his own bag on a bench and fanned himself. It was blazing hot outside, and they'd spent most of the day in the air-conditioned comfort of the mall, browsing through various levels. They'd lost Jormei several times, but always quickly found him again, usually staring in fascination at something utterly commonplace. Once he wouldn't budge until someone told him how they got ramen to be all squiggly like that.

"There he is!" Rowen, taller than the other two, made quick work of scanning the crowd for someone his height.

Jormei stood in front of one of the many shop windows lining the streets, this one holding a display of cut crystal and glass and various other bright, shining trinkets. He did not seem to see what was in front of him, rather looking beyond the prisms and pewter and delicate glassware. His fingers rested lightly on the glass, and he did not appear to notice Rowen's approach.

"Why do you keep all these, Ariel?" Jormei, out of his armor for a change, hissed as the sharp edge slit his finger. "Damn!" It stung but not badly, it was just annoying to be wounded by anything that looked so innocent.

"You have to be careful with them." Ariel took the bit of blue glass from his brother's hands and placed it on the rough stone shelf among his other small treasures. "Let me see. Is it bad?"

"No... I've got it." Jormei hummed a little under his breath, watching as his skin fused back together, leaving only a small red jewel of blood. "See?" He held up his mended finger.

"Sometimes I wish I had your healing skills... they seem to be a lot more useful than being a good shot." Ariel began to arrange his collection in a pattern only he knew, the way they would catch the most light, or perhaps to represent a pattern of stars he'd seen on a piece of paper somewhere, who knew? "I didn't know why I kept them, at first?" Ariel smiled down at one of his favorites, a clear purple stone. It had once been on a necklace, still having the remnants of a silver wire harness wound about it. "I just was... drawn to them? But I think I know why?"

"Is it because they're not part of this place? Where we live?" Jormei leaned over next to his brother, a blue braid tickling his ear in the close quarters as he watched the items being set in small groups for display.

"Not really... mostly it's because they shine. They're sharp and clean and they reflect things. They aren't covered in dirt or grime and when I look at them I can see myself." Ariel put down the purple crystal and lifted the largest piece in his collection, half of a light transport's view mirror. It shone their faces back at them, wide-eyed in the gloom.

"I need to see something now and then that isn't spoiled." Frowning, Ariel tilted the mirror so he could not see his own haunted eyes anymore. Jormei laughed softly, leaning his head on his brother's shoulder, watching the angle of his jaw and neck in the reflective surface. Seeing himself was something of a novelty.

"You're just like a bird I heard about once, that collected things because they're bright. A raven? Or a Blue... blue something..." Jormei chewed his lip, trying to remember something besides eat-sleep-love-hide-survive.

Ariel was silent a long time, finally setting the mirror back down among the other bits of glass and metal and stone. "Birds can't live underground."

He didn't want to talk more after that.

"Jormei?"

He jumped, blinking rapidly and trying to recover his thoughts. "I-- I'm sorry, Rowen. I didn't mean to wander off again."

"Hey, It's okay." Rowen gave him a warm smile, and nodded at the window display. "What's in theah that's so facinatin' anyways?"

"Oh?" Jormei glanced back at the display, shrugging. "Nothing, really. It's just pretty... all there together. The colors and everything." He was being very careful, he'd found that if he was too enthusiastic over something it invariably wound up being purchased, and the four of them had several bags already. Jormei didn't wish to be a burden, so he'd tamped down his urge to pick up things and wonder at them. Sometimes though, he just couldn't help himself.

"Like little pieces of stars." Rowen smiled down at their adopted charge. It wasn't often he felt the need to shield someone, but he'd realized Sai's point of view after today. Jormei drank in everything around him as though starved, it was impossible not to want to show him all that was lovely in the world, and selfishly gain that beautiful smile over and over.

"Stars?" Jormei glanced up at Rowen. Stars... What about stars? "I... need to get stars..." He murmured it under his breath, trying to think.

Bring back stars... For me.

"Jormei-?" Rowen could almost swear he saw something stirring in those violet eyes... a memory, a darkness...

"Hello everyone!" Sai's greeting scattered the gathering shadow, and Rowen wasn't sure if he should be relieved or disappointed. "I don't know about the rest of you but I think lunch is in order. Are you hungry, Jormei?"

"Again?" Jormei grinned. "But we already ate once today!" He missed the three-way glance behind him: Sai compassionate, Sage introspective, and Rowen surprised.

"Most people around here eat rather frequently, Jormei." Sage tilted his head to one of the better streetside restaurants, indicating his choice of dining. He expected Rowen to put up a fight in favor of McDonalds, but the archer was gazing over his shoulder back the way they came, thoughtfully.

"Yeh... that one's fine, Sage... hey, y'know, I f'got something... hang on ta these... I'll be right back." Rowen absently pressed his parcels into Sage's hands and arrowed off back through the crowd.

"Really?" Jormei let himself be led into the coolness of the establishment, eyes darting about to see what the other customers were being served. He was still in awe of the extravagance of eating more than once a day, noting Rowen's exit but too entranced by a plate of sushi rolls to comment. "You'll have to tell me what tastes good, all right?"

"Just don't order anything that swims," Sai quipped, and Jormei grinned along with Sage and Sai even though he didn't get the joke.

"Hey... howzit goin'?" Rowen knocked once on Jormei's door and let himself in the rest of the way, a small bag held behind his back.

"Fine, I think... what's so funny?"

"You ah... ya gotcha shirt on backwards."

Jormei raised his eyebrows and held out his hands, at a loss. "Sai said something about Kento not being seen dead in something... and kind of left me on my own... help?"

Rowen laid the paper bag on the bed, and helped Jormei extract himself from the green shirt. "No problem, kiddo."

"I thought the ruffly bit was supposed to go down my back." Jormei wriggled as the fabric seemed to get hung on his shoulders; he was blinded in emerald sleeves. "Rowen?" His voice was muffled.

"Hey, hold still, will ya?" Rowen managed to get one arm free. Jormei obeyed and leaned slightly back against him, so that when Rowen got Jormei's head free their eyes were only inches apart. Jormei's ponytail had come loose, and his hair tumbled about his shoulders in a dark cloud, one swatch of long bangs trailing over his left eye. "um..." Rowen began, but stopped, forgetting what he was going to say.

Jormei just looked at him, unreadable, motionless, not pulling away or pressing closer. Had it been anyone else Rowen would already have him pushed up against the nearest wall and been well on his way to ravishing him.

"I may not remember anything," Jormei murmured, "But that doesn't mean I don't know when someone wants to kiss me."

Rowen's hand seemed to move over Jormei's cheek of its own will, sliding back into the cool weight of hair tumbling down his neck.

"Just cos I want ta... doesn't mean I should." Rowen felt Jormei shift, one hip moving with the barest bit of insistence between Rowen's legs. Rowen couldn't stop the soft noise of pleasure.

Jormei watched Rowen's lips as he spoke, his long dark lashes making his irises almost black with shadow. "Oh, I think you should..."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Well, then..." By this time there was no distance between them to close, and Jormei gave in fully to Rowen's kiss. His one arm was still ensnared in the shirt, he wound the other around the archer's shoulders, kneading the base of his neck. Rowen couldn't resist the warm heat he was being offered and thrust himself into it, plundering Jormei's mouth ruthlessly while the foundling whimpered in response.

They'd given him the grand tour today, that was true, but it wasn't what Rowen wanted to show him. He wanted to kiss Jormei until his lips were swollen from the force of it, wanted to push him onto the bed and feel those tense thighs around his hips, to pleasure the lost boy, his lost boy, until both of them were too weeping and spent to even pull their bodies apart.

Then do it.

Rowen's eyes flew open, his lips pulling away from Jormei's. "What?"

Jormei didn't acknowledge the shock, toppling Rowen to the cluttered bedspread. The scattered tissue paper

from his new garments crackled as their writhing bodies fell onto it. Rowen was frozen, even as Jormei straddled him and bit hungry kisses into his neck, his hips rocking wanton and desperate into Rowen's. ~Need you... need something, anything... please Rowen... please... I'm all alone...~

There were only four other voices that Rowen should be able to hear in his head.

Jormei's was not one of them.

But nonetheless there it was, vibrant and needy, echoing in his thoughts. It was familiar, something of the pattern reminded him of Sage, but as if it had been re-woven from a distant memory and then raveled, torn and shredded about the edges. Only tattered threads of it remained; Rowen was awed that Jormei was even sane. But then, maybe he didn't even know himself what the damage was. Jormei didn't know who he was: A Samurai Trooper and wearer of the armor of Halo. So how could he know, as Rowen did, that no matter where the other four he belonged to were, they were all undoubtedly dead. Alone was an understatement.

Rowen, moved to tears, did as he was asked.

It was not elegant or slow, and anything but gentle. It was need, raw and wounded, fast and violent and over just as suddenly. Rowen fought the thick haze of desire and pain to find the exposed patchwork of Jormei's soul, using their connection to quietly tie off loose ends and mend a few of the holes. He could not do much with the crimson and orange and green threads, but the darker blue ones he wound to himself temporarily, so there would be something to hold Jormei up if his glass ceiling shattered. It was, he supposed, better than nothing.

Then his body took over and he couldn't think anymore.

"I'm sorry," Jormei whispered, spent and breathless and sprawled over Rowen's body. "I didn't mean to... attack you like that. I don't know-"

"S'okay." Rowen hugged him, his fingers finding the spiderweb of scars on the younger boy's back: thin, silvery smooth traces on the satin skin. "Sometimes... ya just gotta." He kissed the soft black hair, thinking of Ryou. His stomach lurched slightly. What if there WAS no Ryou? If that tie was just severed, frayed and broken? No Kento, either... or Sai. Or-

Rowen did not let himself complete the thought, jerking himself up out of the mental spiral of desolation and fear that it had started him on. He turned his head to find Jormei staring at him steadily, his eyes- damn it, they were Seiji's eyes, darker but undeniably his-peeling away his shields as easily as Jormei had his clothing.

"You know, Don't you." Jormei did not make it a question. "You know who I am, and you are protecting me. I can feel you... inside my skin... What did you do?"

Rowen reached up to caress one sun brushed cheek; already the slight tan was fading back into milky alabaster. "Something to protect you. You won't let yourself remember, not before you can deal with it... I just made sure theah was something to catch you when ya do."

Jormei leaned into the touch, then bent his head and nuzzled his face into Rowen's shoulder. "Thank you."

Rowen opened his mouth to respond, but Sai's voice outside the door stalled him. The two exchanged a glance. Jormei gathered up his clothes and drifted into the bathroom, glancing back to give Rowen a shy smile as the archer buttoned his jeans and tucked his shirt back in.

"And don't you dare put on that-- Rowen!" Sai gave a little startled jump in mid sentence as he came through the door. "I didn't expect to find you here... where's Jormei?"

"Ah, he's in the loo. Ya bettah help him with his outfit." Rowen slid past Sai into the hall, and the warrior stopped him with a look.

"What is it?" It was a tone that demanded answers, but gentle and worried as only Sai could make it. Rowen shook his head and squeezed Sai's shoulder, leaving without saying a word.

"What? You don't like the eyeliner?" Sage came back from the sort of meditation one gets when putting on makeup, his eyes flicking to Rowen's inside the mirror. Rowen was leaning in the doorway of the bathroom joining their two bedrooms, called theirs although possession was loose when one of the others needed a shower or a shave. He shrugged, an eloquent lift of one shoulder.

"S'fine."

"You hate it."

"I do not I just-" Rowen bit off his anger, knowing it was fear misplaced, and that there was no reason for it. "I was just... lookin' at ya."

Sage blinked once, still watching Rowen in the mirror. "Something's happened. Something important. Are you all right?"

Rowen chewed his lip briefly before stepping closer, wrapping his arm loosely around Sage's waist. Sage observed him carefully, the painted violet of his iris tracking Rowen's motions, reflected in the glass.

Rowen knew him, his eyes and hands and lips understood the slow curve of Sage's throat and the slightly snobbish arch of a brow, the perfect mouth that could be cruelly sensual or invitingly mean. But that was just the face mirrored back at him, not who Sage was. Sage used it as an identity, but it had been a long time since Rowen had been fooled by that.

The archer reached over and with one finger ghosted the strokes of Sage's courtesy kanji on his forehead. It was invisible but Rowen knew the path of the lines on his lover's skin as if it was tattooed there, now flaring to life at the touch and blazing green, waking Rowen's own as it glowed.

Sage took a swift intake of breath as Rowen painted the green-magic into existence. The contact was perfect and sensual, an understanding that didn't need words. So somehow it was more intimate than the sweetest kiss when Rowen leaned over and pressed his radiant brow to Sage's, melting the light between them and filling the air with a muted emerald and sapphire illumination.

Seiji.

Toma.

As simple as true names, the hum of their bond weaving and touching lightly on the other three, reminding themselves of who they were to each other and the burden that came with their link. But most of all it reassured Rowen, who in the briefest touch with Sage had told him everything he had experienced with Jormei. The raveled connections of the lost boy's soul were more dreadful to look upon than his own corpse, or worse yet, those of his friends. Rowen had been more rattled than he cared to admit openly. He sighed faintly in relief, the hum of their ki vanishing as the light of their symbols faded back into anonymity.

"I'm fine," he whispered softly to Sage, pressing his lips to Sage's, stroking his fingers through the thick wild gold hair. "I have you."

Sage answered the grateful smile in his one visible lavender iris, his breathing slowing down again.

"But you still hate the eyeliner, right? "

"Sai?" Jormei was trying not to fidget with his carefully arranged hair as Sai poked through the mayhem on the bed for hair gel. "What do you think of Rowen?"

"I know I bought the damnable-- ah, here it is. Rowen?" Sai shook the tube thoughtfully. "Well, he's... he's Rowen, I guess. Some people march to their own beat, you know... I think Ro has his own personal orchestra."

"Are you in love with him?" Jormei asked quietly.

"With Rowen?" Sai started to laugh it off, then stopped. "I suppose you could say we're all in love with each other, maybe. Just in different ways. We make a whole, the five of us together." He gave Jormei an apologetic smile. "It's nothing I ever tried to explain."

"I think I understand." Jormei idly shifted a few of the CD cases on the desk. "I wasn't sure, today... but the way you and Sage and Rowen all looked at each other today... maybe it reminded me of something... I don't know." He scowled faintly at the Duran Duran album; it was the one playing.

Sai stepped over and gently ran his fingers through Jormei's hair. They were quiet, and "New Moon on Monday" filled in the silence between them as Jormei leaned back and sighed contentedly.

"Am I putting you to sleep, love?"

"No... feels good." Jormei smiled dreamily, eyes shut. "You have great hands, you know. Like Ian. Ian had fabulous hands. He gave the best back-rubs too, usually only to me, you know, cos I was the healer and I did that kind of thing for everybody else. But he always did it for me. Never had to ask either, he always knew. We were all like that... didn't talk much... they might've found us if we were too loud... learned to read a thousand emotions in the blink of an eye..."Jormei yawned the last three words, then blinked up at Sai apologetically. "Oh, I'm sorry... I must've dozed off on you for a minute."

Sai managed to shut his mouth, shrugging nonchalantly. "It's been a long day."

Sai stepped back and let Jormei stand up, the foundling wandering over to the bed and picking up the bag Rowen had left there. "Jormei... Who's Ian?"

Jormei looked at him blankly. "Who?"

For some reason that vacant lack of recognition was rather painful to Sai. "Nevermind."

"I've got amnesia, remember?" Jormei laughed and weighed the bag in one hand. "You know Rowen forgot this... Wonder if it was for me..."

"'Course it was." Rowen whistled at him from the doorway, Sage drifting past him to circle Jormei appraisingly.

"Sai, I must say, You've done wonders." Sage was in black, something he wore rarely but it was always silk when he did, and always devastating. Sai smiled at the two of them, billowed silk in green and sable, gold and onyx hair and the same aristocratic pale skin.

“Don't let Anne Rice see the two of you together."

Sage flashed a feral grin and ran the tip of his tongue over his canines. "Oh and why not?" Jormei looked mildly confused and curious, obviously playing the perfect Louis to Sage's Lestat.

Rowen pulled down his collar suggestively and winked at Sage. "AB?"

Sage looked snooty. "O negative, or nothing." He could take vampiric teasing now, once it had brought up too many memories of his former nemesis of darkness.

"I don't get it?" Jormei asked, looking to Sai for explanation.

"Don't worry, love, they're just being morbid."

"Sorry I f'got about this." Rowen took the bag from Jormei and pulled a flat paper packet out of it. "these are fa you."

Jormei gave the envelope a puzzled look. "What are they?"

"Stars." Rowen grinned. "I got some in my room... check it out." He clicked off the light and the stickers glowed with phosphorescence, dim pinpoints of a galaxy in Jormei's hand.

"Oh... they're beautiful, Rowen!"

Rowen sheepishly disentangled himself from the enthusiastic embrace. "Aw, it was nuthin."

"Why is it so dark in here?" Ryou and Kento came in with a spill of light from the hallway, Ryou flipping on the switch and making the other four blink.

"Are we almost ready to go?" Kento turned for Sai's approval. "Alright, now will you be seen in public with me?"

"Yes, love that's much better."

"'His name is Ryou and he dances on the--'"

"Don't even start that," Ryou warned Rowen, as the archer began an off-key serenade to the song finishing up on the CD player. Rowen looked wounded and rummaged in the paper bag for something else.

"Rowen bought me stars," Jormei announced, waving the envelope of stickies.

"This is for you too." Rowen produced a small velvet parcel and offered it.

Jormei hesitated, glancing at the five of them. "But, You've given me so much already." His gesture summed up the stuff crowding the room: new clothes, the stack of CDs, odds and ends and confections that had all caught his eye that afternoon.

"So then what's one more? Go on, open it." Rowen folded Jormei's fingers around it.

He smiled faintly, and obediently tugged the drawstring free. Something sparkling purple and silver and coldly edged tumbled into his palm, facets shimmering like--

Something broke away from the crumbling edge of pavement and bounced down the dark alley with a glittering 'spang' of sound. Jormei bent to retrieve it, peering at what his armored toes had connected with in the darkness. The loop of wire that had made it a pendant had broken away but the rest of the wire wrap remained, delicate hypnotic swirls black with age. The chunk of crystal shone valiantly despite the dim light, surely Ariel would want it.

"Do you like it? Erik said it was a real amethyst... well, he said that it said it was an amethyst, whatever that means, and it's really really old... What's an amethyst?"

"A kind of crystal. You found it up top? It's the best one I've ever gotten, Jormei... I love it."

Rowen had bought him Ariel's amethyst. He had handed him the future from a Tokyo shop window full of light and promises.

"Jormei?"

Whose voice was that, coming from such a long way off? And whose arms around his shoulders? Why was it so bright in here? It was dangerous, Jonathan should turn the glows down--

Fire engulfed Jormei's memory. Jonathan was dead. All of them were dead, their last screams ringing eternally in his ears along with the terrible rending sound of the portal opening to pull him to their last hope- No...

that was his own voice, his own life whirling back to him like a reversed whirlpool.

If they were all gone, then who was holding him?

A strand of cobalt light went taut in his mind, strained to break, but held firm as the rest of his being tumbled into oblivion. They called for him but he was past hearing, his eyes fixed glassily on nothing. Jormei's memory spilled open before them like a jewel box with a broken catch, pouring contents both bright and sharp and tarnished and terrible into their minds.

Memory.

He tried not to see anything, pressed into the farthest corner of the cold metal bunk. His fingers wound tightly on the cord that kept the bed bolted to the wall, his head resting on his knees, whole body motionless.

He was cold, but he had always been cold, not knowing any other way to be. The loose fitting pants he wore were the only sort of clothing he had ever known, thin scratchy fabric that did little to heat his body. This was existence. He couldn't wish to escape it, or long for freedom, he didn't know what that was. There was only this room, ten feet wide and six tall, the giant training room and the hall that led to it, and Them. Nothing else.

Mice made small scurrying sounds in the opposite corner, but he ignored their presence. They put them in here to see what he would do with them. He'd been so happy when they'd done it at first, too young then to know it was merely a test. He just wondered if he had done so well in the training that they had rewarded him with such marvelous things. Their small furry bodies warmed his hands, the tiny rapid patter of their hearts fluttered against his fingertips. He'd loved them, even if he didn't know the word for it. He had a favorite, a white one with black spots.

Naturally they waited to kill that one last.

One by one, inches from his face, he heard the insignificant snap of their spines breaking and the glitter fall from the shiny black eyes. Their delicate claws curled and went limp.

He screamed and screamed and screamed, until there was nothing left for him to scream with. His reaction was carefully keyed into black data-pads and They murmured amongst themselves. They were eternally anonymous, genderless things in white suits that hid every inch of their bodies, black matte visors covering their faces. The only skin he had ever glimpsed was his own, that and the small pink hands of the mice he would not allow himself to see.

Now he didn't touch them. They thought he was stupid, but he knew their patterns by now. If he noticed the creatures again, they would order him to kill them himself. He recognized the cycle from training routines. Give, then take. Watch. Give, make him take himself. Give and watch it be refused. Murmur. Make note. Shove him back into the narrow room for another cycle, activate the force field that was the border of his world. He didn't know why, maybe he was going to be one of Them someday, and this is how they were made. He knew he was a genetic creation, they made that painfully obvious. They used words he didn't understand, but the intent was clear enough.

One of the mice scaled up his back and curled against his neck. He didn't twitch. It wasn't there. If it was there, he would have to kill it. They were always watching him.

Help me, he thought quietly, not sure why he did. This was all there was, wasn't there? But he dreamed of something other. They could not control his sleep, and in it he saw giant structures made of a rough gray-brown material, with fluffy green tops. A room so huge he could not see the walls, the floor as soft as mouse-fur, all green, and the domed ceiling painted blue. That room had to be somewhere along one of the halls- how else would he know of it? There were others in the dream with him, he could not see their faces. They were not swathed in white like Them. The dream ones had skin. There was a light, too... so bright, so intense, he knew it should hurt to look at but it didn't. He wanted it to take him, warm him, flow into his blood...

Something chimed softly into his reality and he blinked, not realizing he had fallen asleep. The mice were all cowering in a far corner, away from a small shining object that bounced out of nowhere and then stilled, glowing in the dark. The sphere twinkled appealingly, and even though he knew it was another test or lesson, he couldn't help reaching for it. It rolled just out of reach of his fingertips and waited, sparkling. Tongue protruding in concentration, he made a lunge for it, only to have it bounce through his grasp and roll through the force barrier as if it wasn't there. He had followed it out before realizing he should not have been able to do that, not without being burned very badly. The force field hummed with life. But he as unscathed and scared suddenly, outside of his room without Them anywhere to be seen.

The orb made a pleasant, impatient noise, spinning in a small circle. If he had known what music was he would have realized it was singing, wordlessly. When it rolled down a corridor, his bare feet pattered after it in pursuit.

So intent was he on his green twinkling object he didn't notice the small blue light that whizzed by, or the slender figure racing after it, immediately in his trajectory, colliding hard.

"OW! Why don't you look where you're going?!"

He groaned as he picked himself up off the floor, both of them having landed rather heavily. A few inches off, the tiny green globe purred satisfaction. "I didn't intend to hit you," He said, beginning the closest thing to an apology he knew, but the rest of it died as he saw what he had hit. "You're... like me!"

The other one snorted. "Yes, with the exception of this bruise." An elbow was rubbed ruefully and he was fascinated, watching skin and bone and muscle that wasn't his. "What's you're name? Are you one of the Others?"

"Name?"

"Yeah, your name. You know, who you are."

"Oh!" He drew himself up, knowing this one. "I'm third of five."

"Third? Your name, not your designation." He wrinkled his nose in disdain, and third stretched out a hand to it in wonder. "What you are called... or want to be called. Not what THEY call you."

"I'm... I'm just third of five." he hung his head, feeling terribly inferior. He knew it... there were others like him but he was kept away from them because he was stupid.

The other one touched his face and his lips curved in the strangest way, Third didn't know why but it made him remember the first time he'd picked up one of the mice. "They call me five of five, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I call myself Ariel. You can call me that too."

"I can?" Third held Ariel's hand to his face, wondering at the touch. Ariel was warm.

"It's not your fault you don't have a name... I can give you one." He whispered it like a secret.

"Really?" Third leaned closer, his fingers patting over Ariel's chest and shoulders, Ariel touching Third's face back with equal curiosity but more restraint. Third was entranced. Like him, but his hair was longer and the forward parts of it were a wild blue. their faces may have been alike, but neither one had ever seen his own reflection, and could not tell.

"Jormei... there's a name for you. You like it?"

Third nodded eagerly, tasting the sound of it in his mouth a few times. "Jormei. I'm Jormei."

Ariel touched lips that were still murmuring. "Write it down so you won't forget."

"Write?"

"They really DID keep you in a hole, didn't they? Didn't you learn anything?"

"Of course I did! Watch this." Eager to prove himself, Jormei put his hand against Ariel's rapidly darkening bruise, the injured arm so much easier to mend than a wound of his own. It was only a moment and the mark was gone. "See!"

Ariel's eyes were huge and blue in his pale face. "How did you do that?"

"I just fixed it. It's not hard. Didn't they teach you to mend things?" It was Jormei's turn to feel superior.

"No, they only taught me words. And numbers. And how to fight." Ariel stretched his arm. "They didn't teach me magic."

Jormei started to ask what that was, but the green orb chimed impatience. It had a fellow now, a cobalt one. Both boys reached for them, and they rolled away, flashing around a corner.

"C'mon!" Ariel grasped Jormei's wrist and hauled the newly named boy after him.

My God.

Everything he feels-

We feel.

I'm frightened.

It's alright, Jormei. We're right here. We won't let anything happen to you.

That's not what I'm afraid of.

What else do you remember?

"There it goes!! Got you!" Jormei made a grab for a flash of light that pinged across an intersecting hallway. He put his eye up to a crack in his cupped hands, as any other child might have to watch for a firefly's blink.

"You!"

Jormei glanced up just in time to see the fist, marvelous bare fingers and all, connect soundly with the side of his face. He went down like a rock.

"That's mine! Give it back!"

"Ooohh..." Jormei touched his nose gingerly, more interested in the blood leaking from his nostrils than the fact that he'd lost his prize.

The angry voice turned on Ariel and then soared upward in pain, yelping in shock.

"What do you think you're doing you..." Ariel audibly searched for an epithet. "You! You can't hit him!"

"And why the fuck not?"

Jormei's vision returned to single images and he studied this new creature. He was loud, and instead of being dark haired, it was an unruly blond mop, roughly shorn to be even with his ears. His face was flushed and his eyes were not the dreamy color of Ariel's, but a harsh, sharp blue.

"Because-- he's my twin brother!" Ariel folded his arms and took a defiant stance, as if to say, 'that's that.'

"I am?" Jormei wondered aloud, now that he'd convinced his nose to stop bleeding. "What's that?"

"Yeah!" the larger, paler one took an aggressive step forward. "What's that to stop me from- ahhh! Owww!! Quit it!!" He swung out wildly, trying to use brute force to stop Ariel's fleet darts and dangerous quick punches to any number of pressure points.

"Who taught you how to fight?" Ariel was perched calmly on the small of the other one's back. "You're much too blunt about it."

"Yeah, well THEY don't care how I kill things as long as I DO it. GET OFF ME!!"

"What's your name?" Ariel asked conversationally. Jormei stood uneasily and kept a wary distance.

"Screw you!"

"Not very melodic. But I can call you that if you like, and if you want me to let you up and not do-"

"OWWWW!!!"

"--thattanymore, then maybe you should tell me what it really is."

Jormei looked for the flashing orbs as the loud one thought this over. He was surprised to discover three of them now, green orange and blue, humming together. The one he had caught hadn't been the green one after all, but the orange one. He picked it up, and unlike the others, it rolled readily into his palm.

"Erik. First of Five," Ariel's captive admitted grudgingly, and the two-toned haired boy darted away to let him get up. "And now I'm gonna-"

His rush was stopped short by a glowing orange crystal held up directly in his face, and a tremulous smile on a slightly bloodied face. "Is this one yours? I'm sorry. Here. You can have it back."

"Huh?" Erik didn't seem to understand Jormei's language.

Jormei reached for one of Erik's hands and dropped the sparkling ball into it. "Here. See? You just had to ask."

Erik stared hard at the orb, as though trying to puzzle out a riddle. "You... just gave this to me?"

"Why not? It wasn't the ones we were after."

"No one's ever given me anything before." Erik murmured. "They made me... do things for it."

"We're not Them." Ariel informed Erik, rather surlily.

Erik's brows were lowered in intense concentration. "Anything that is not Them ... must be the enemy."

Ariel sighed with impatience. "Would your enemy have left you alive?"

"Enemy?" Jormei wished they would stop using words he didn't know.

"No..." Erik brightened at this. "I guess not- HEY!" The orange ball bounced out of his hand, spinning down the hall with its fellows.

"Let's go!" Ariel enthused, pelting down the hall after it, not glancing back to see if he was followed.

At some point they got separated; the objects they were chasing took diverging paths and lead them down different corridors. Erik, intent on his prey, captured his quarry as it rolled to a halt near an alcove. "Just what are you, anyway?" he asked it, and for the first time noticed he was alone. "Great." He really hadn't meant to hit so hard. He hadn't known the smaller one would go down and leak quite so badly as all that... he wasn't near as tough as the perma-crete targets that They had for him to destroy.

He wasn't sure if the small sound or the brief flash made him turn around, but the back of his neck prickled and he knew he was not alone. "Who's there? Blue-Hair?"

There was a noise of soft motion and Erik poked his nose into the darkness around the corner This hallway was not well-lit.

"Come out or You're dead!" Erik waited and there was no response. A fleeting shadow tried to dart past him but he reached out and caught an arm, hauling it into the light. "Try to run away from ME, will you?"

He should have cringed. He should have whimpered and struggled to get away, like the things Erik didn't like to kill, or struck back at him, like the things he didn't mind killing so much. He didn't do either. He just looked at him, huge eyes silent and blank and even without fear. He was smaller even than Bleeds-too-easy, and his soft lavender hair fell loosely into his haunted eyes.

"Can't you talk?"

Blink. The arm he held was tugged at limply, a lackluster request to be let go. Erik lowered him back to the floor, but did not release him.

"Hey, found something besides little glowy jobs?" Ariel, out of breath but proudly displaying his captured orb, examined Erik's prize. Jormei eyed the situation from a distance.

"He don't talk." Erik let go of the other boy's arm, and the silent one just folded to the floor as if that had been all that held him up.

"You didn't hit him, did you?" Jormei reached for the new boy's face, to look at him, but he made a quiet distressed sound and hunched back against the wall, eyes wide and faded.

"Of course not." Erik retorted. "He hasn't got anything I want."

Jormei reached out his fingers, as he would to an injured mouse. "Hello."

The other boy just looked at him, his eyes flickering back to the outstretched fingers. He turned and hunched against the wall, tucking his head between his knees and curling up as though he wanted to hide against the flat surface.

Erik snorted. "Brain dead. They must not've put enough juice in his genetic soup."

Jormei glared at him. They had used that term about him, even though he'd never really understood it. Probably Erik didn't either, but that didn't make it any kinder.

"Shut up already! Can't you see he's scared?"

"He doesn't look like he has the sense to be scared."

"No." Ariel's frown of thought was fast becoming familiar. "He just doesn't care enough to be. Can't you feel it? Like a ripple... in the air. "

Erik closed his eyes and concentrated, then made a startled noise. "What IS that? I know where you are without looking?"

The quiet one began making a soft keening noise, vacant eyes on the floor.

"Oh." Jormei's hands hovered over his shoulders, hesitant to touch him and send him into panic. "Don't, don't, please? We won't hurt you... We're just like you... See?" He picked up a slender hand and pressed his palm against it. "See? Like us? We won't hurt you."

Grey eyes that held a memory of blue looked pointedly at the rusty smear of blood across Jormei's nose. One lavender eyebrow arched suspiciously. Jormei laughed sheepishly.

"That ah. .that was just a little accident. C'mon. I'm Jormei and this is Erik and Ariel. Do you have a name?"

He chewed his lip thoughtfully, and slowly shook his head.

"Do you have a number?" Ariel did a quick process of elimination. "Are you Second of Five? Or Fourth of five?"

At the last suggestion he jerked himself away from Jormei hard enough to injure himself and hunkered down, shaking with panic. "Guess that answers that question." Jormei petted Fourth's shoulders and started. Now that he had scurried into better light, he could see the pale skin was mottled with bruises, some fading and some very recent. "Oh... no wonder you didn't want to be touched."

Fourth's eyes filled with tears and he blinked very rapidly to stop them, sticking his chin out in defiance.

"Hey... that's it. Be tough." Erik's tone was not condescending; he admired anyone who could visibly take pain. "Give him a name, blueboy... if we call him by his number he'll go into panic, and we don't want to leave him here. They'll just hurt him more..." His shoulders straightened, and something stirred vaguely in his eyes. "And... that isn't Right." Unconsciously, his hand clenched on the orb in his hands.

"It doesn't all have to hurt... Really." Jormei swept a hand over Fourth's arm, and the skin blossomed white and unmarred in the wake of his touch. Grey eyes fluttered wide, lips curving upward in a way that Jormei had decided meant something good, and his other arm was thrust towards Jormei eagerly, eyes intent on Jormei's fingers as the Third brushed the pain away.

"I take it back." Erik said grudgingly. "Maybe he isn't stupid."

"Of course he's not." Ariel snapped his fingers. "Ian. I read it somewhere. I don't know why, but I think it suits him... You like it?"

Fourth fluttered a hand to his chest questioningly as Jormei finished mending his ankle. It had been broken long ago, and healed wrong, it was a wonder he could even move at all.

"Yeah, Ian. That's you."

Lavender hair was tossed lightly. "Ian."

"Hey, you can talk!" Ariel beamed.

Jormei stood, tugging at Ian's hands. "Let's see if he can walk, too." He pulled the other boy to his feet, and Ian, unused to being able to stand flat-footed, almost toppled over in surprise. Something dropped from his clenched fist and rolled down the hall. Ian made a noise of protest and ran after it. He fell almost immediately, too used to moving with injuries to move normally.

"Damn." Erik picked the other boy up and righted him. "Don't worry, we'll go get it- you'll get the hang of not being hurt in no time."

Ian's smile was adoring. "Erik."

That was when the alarms began sounding.

They ran as one, some animal instinct that urged them to flee. Erik swooped down to capture Ian's lost bauble, and tossed him the orb as they scattered down bewildering lengths of hallway, trying to escape the ever-present sound of pursuit.

In each clenched fist the small marbles hummed, quietly transmitting information and weaving a connection, reawakening dormant dreams in the boys that carried them.

Suddenly they knew what freedom meant, and death. And they knew one was well worth the chance of the other.

Jormei saw him first, at the end of the corridor, smoking piles of white clothing all that remained of a contingent of Them. A body his size, sculpted with red and black that shone in the dim haze of the hallway. Black waves ran the length of his back, cut raggedly and tumbling around his face. Jormei didn't realize he had stopped running.

I know you.

Blue eyes, not like the others, or even his own, for Jormei had a sudden vivid image of what the other saw when he looked at him. These Eyes were different, blazing and hot like

Fire.

"I'm Jonathan of the Wildfire, once called second of five." He held out a black encased hand, a red ball flaming in his palm. "And you are part of me."

Buso! REKKA!

The light burst from his hand and swirled around him, and suddenly there was much that Jormei knew without ever learning.

Yoroi. Samurai. Jin. Gi. Chi. Shin. Rei. Tenku. Kongo. Suiko. Rekka. Korin.

"Buso-!"

He knew it would be green, and the light he dreamt of so often was a blade of liquid lightning in his hands, and oh yes, he knew lightning. And he knew the Blade, they had trained him with one similar, a mere toy compared to this. And as they poured in a horde from the corridor beyond, he could have laughed. Stupid? Me? I'm not the one that taught my enemies--and yes, I know that concept now-- how to kill them.

It could have taken an hour, or five minutes, but there were shapeless dead masses in the hall, and Jonathan was pointing with his katana. "If you want to be free, we have to go now." His forehead burned with light, and without question, they followed him.

It was glorious.

"Doors. That's the only way out."

"There sure are a lot of them down there, are you gonna be okay, Ian?" Erik turned to his adopted charge, and the boy who had barely spoken more than his armor call and two stilted names nodded grimly.

"Out?" Jormei's blood sang. "Away from here?"

"Away from here," Ariel confirmed. "Forever."

As one, they leapt down from the balcony into the crowd standing between themselves and escape.

Ian wasn't as skilled in combat as the others were, but he held his own, keeping the length of his trident between him and his adversaries. Mostly he beat them out of the way and let one of the others finish him off, but this one just kept coming back at him. Ariel was trying to figure out the door and the others were guarding his back, trusting Ian to hold his own against the few of Them remaining.

"Come back to your cell, Fourth of five." It reasoned, in flat metallic tones, beckoning. "You don't want to go out there."

"'Fourth of five,'" Ian spat, his eyes going cold. The others, done with the battle for now, watched in shock as mimicked eloquence came from their previously silent companion. "'Fourth of Five is responding poorly to training. Physical punishment is having no effect in either direction. Does not react to pain-pleasure stimuli.'"

It began to look for a way out, slowly realizing it was cornered and alone, facing an onslaught of memorized cruelty.

"'Feared miscalculation in genetic mental factors. Suggest termination of Fourth of Five due to irreparable personality malfunction. Humanity level well over specified norms. Possible interference of genetically transferred virtue residual phenomena. Termination postponed due to resultant setbacks in age and training to match up with other subjects. DNA possibly irreparably contaminated. Regeneration of new fourth of five may however be integral to success of master plan. Recommend mass termination and initiate sixth launch of genetic copies.' Sixth! Is that how many rounds of us there have been?"

It looked at him silently, unreadable but possibly confused. "Current project is longest running. Prior experiments did not advance past embryonic stage. Return to your cell, Fourth of five."

"I am not fourth of Five," the trident leveled towards its head. "I'm Ian, of the Torrent, and you can terminate this combat simulation!" The point of the trident crunched through the front of the visor, the man-catcher blades on either side snapping together with a wicked click. Smoke welled up from the decapitated shape, limbs twitching before becoming nothing more than an empty jumpsuit dangling off the end of his trident.

Erik managed to shut his mouth, then jerked his thumb in Ian's direction. "Tell me we're keeping that one."

Ian shook the cloth off the end of his weapon, making a moue of distaste, and waved at his companions. "I got one! All by myself! Did you see?"

Jonathan grinned.

"I got it... I got it... hold your sword a little higher, Jormei." Ariel fidgeted with small electronic chips in the door's control panel, illuminated by the massive weapon.

"Um, Ariel?" Ian asked quietly, looking the way they had come. "Are you almost done?"

"Don't pester me, kid, I'm working."

"Oh, it's just that... I thought you might want to know about... those."

A fleet of assassination pods thrummed down the hallway, barrels lowered and raining plasma fire.

Jormei... It was Sai, laced with sorrow and deep confusion, wondering how on earth things could have possibly changed so much. Jormei had no answers, it was hard for him to respond anyway. He was lost in the swirl of his memory, taking them with him.

They escaped the droids, somehow. Erik had gotten hurt badly but still practically dragged Ian away from the fray before more could show up. The doors had blown open when Ariel discovered he didn't know quite as much as he thought he did about hot-wiring. For a moment they all stood in awe at the dirty, rain streaked street lit by wan florescent streetlights. It was beyond their wildest imaginings.

Then they just ran.

Jormei would have nightmares about that run his whole life, the strange alien outside world, so different from his cold sterile room, the deep red of blood glistening on armored plate. He healed wound after wound after wound, until he could barely stumble along after the others. His limbs burned with exhaustion inside his armor, and he almost didn't care if They caught him again when an arm lifted him and slung him over a pair of shoulders, burning an image into his mind of red armor and a quicksilver smile.

The ceiling of this strange world had gone from black to gray when Ariel tripped over the grate, his eyes going wide at the depths below.

Five sets of heat readings vanished from the scanners of the search droids, and Erik sealed the stone behind him.

"I wonder," Jormei said, staring at the remelted rock, "Which prison is worse."

How old were you?

Jormei fought the haze of his memory to answer Rowen's question, using knowledge from here to say it properly, time was a nebulous thing then. After Ariel taught Erik to count, the Hardrock wearer had begun keeping track of the days, marking a certain segment of wall every time the sky turned to gray above. He gave up after the scores became uncountable.

Nine.

That they survived was either a miracle or a credit to those who had bred them, they were nothing if not resourceful. Constantly on the move, living with what they could scavenge, the half-remembered dreams clicked into place in Jormei's recollection. Jormei could remember the first time he laughed, it was something Ian did when Erik offered him some sort of shellfish he'd found in one of the tunnels filled with salt water. Jormei had been briefly afraid there was something wrong with him, to make such an odd noise. Days and years fluttered by in a blur, shorter now than the time he'd lived them. Ryou's voice cut through the collage cleanly, honestly blunt as always.

Jormei, we need to know how you got here.

The darkness seemed to whirl, Jormei recoiled from the memories. I can't.

You must, if you want us to help you.

Why can't you, love?

Because it's my fault.. .

"Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn!!!" Ariel's fist exploded into the rock, sending shards flying.

The others stood back in silence. Ian tried to busy himself with 'borrowed' power packs and rations, pretending the fight wasn't going on. Ariel had been yelling a lot lately.

"Jormei what the hell were you thinking? You almost got yourself killed and for what? Because you were too stupid to think about what you were doing before you did it, that's what! How many fucking times do i have to tell you to think before you-"

"I did think, Ariel, stop yelling at me! We have to take risks, our whole existance is a risk and dammit you aren't always right! What does it matter to you anyway? If you cared about anything besides your stupid rocks--"

The blow came so fast that Jormei didn't even feel it until he hit the opposite wall, and then the pain exploded in his skull like edged glass. The silence was stunned and absolute. Ian, no longer able to ignore it, made a move to step between them. Erik held him back with a faint shake of his head.

Ariel blinked at his fist in confusion, his eyes flicking to his adopted twin in a crumple against the wall, horror dawning slowly on his features.

"Oh Jormei, I didn't mean to-- I thought I--"

"Don't touch me." Jormei's voice was neutral, not cold, as he slowly righted himself. Ariel's gauntleted hands ghosted his movements, wanting to help, afraid to make contact.

"We can't live like this anymore." Jormei turned to them, wiping his hand over his mouth, frowning at the wet smear on black metal. "We're being crushed, bit by bit. Why else have we managed to live this long when they could find us? Because they can wait until we kill each other and then take our armors and make nice new copies of us whenever they please."

"I'm sorry." Ariel looked miserable, shaken. "I was just so scared that you-- Jormei, if anything--"

Jormei reached out, wrapping his arms around his younger twin and smoothing the two tone hair. Ariel was crying, pressing his face to the green breastplate. "I don't know what's wrong with me, I feel like I'm just... raveling. All I can think about is keeping us together and just wanting to rest. I'm so tired of running, just so tired..."

Warm arms wrapped around Ariel from behind, Jonathan brushed at the tears and managed a tight smile for the two of them. "We've got a lot of supplies on this run, we can lay low for a while and... and then we'll be rested up for next time. We can survive, Ariel, We can do it. We have each other, right?"

"It's not enough anymore, Jonathan." Ariel stared at the wet smear his tears had made on the halo undergear. "This is just starting, we don't know how long we can live. How long can we stand this, trapped here, suffocating under this dead city in the dark and the cold with the corpses of the dreams above us pressing our souls from our bodies... We're all drowning by inches. Buried alive."

Jormei chewed his lip frantically. Ariel was right too often, was right now, and the slow cold horror of it, of decades beneath this stone, unable to die and surrender their fate to some other helpless beings all threatened to destroy his ability to think. There had to be a way. There is always a way. Ariel knew so much, surely he could-

"Listen, Ariel, you can think of a plan to get us out of here, can't you? You're so smart, and you know so much about the city and their technology you could use it, you know, to figure out an escape? You don't have to worry about anything but that, the rest of us will take over your runs and make sure you have anything you need, won't we, guys? There has to be someone who can help us, someplace... all we have to do is get to them, the whole world can't be like this, can it?" The words were coming out of Jormei in a rush, he was afraid of how desperate he knew he sounded. "Just figure out a way for us to get to them, that's all. It's something else to think about, something to keep you busy."

Ariel's smile was cold and grim. "You mean keep me sane."

Jormei couldn't lie. "That too."

Ariel looked at his adopted brother's expression, the composure he was clutching with both hands to prevent it from flying to pieces. He hadn't had a chance to heal the bruise yet, it made a purple mark on one perfect cheek; a wound in the shape of Ariel's clenched fist. "Alright, Jormei." Ariel touched the bruise, then leaned over and brushed his lips across it in a final apology. "I'll do it for you."

"Do it for all of us, Ariel." Jonathan's armored fingertips were warm against Ariel's hair. "Whatever you need, supplies, power units, information... we'll make sure you have it."

Jormei glanced over at Ian and Erik. Ian was fidgeting with appropriated equipment, tilting his head down to let his bangs hide his worried expression. Erik was sharing his fifth of food with his latest pet rat, offering it crumbs as it sat on his wrist. "Sometimes I wonder if we'd have been better off staying with Them."

"Never say that." Ariel shook his head firmly, gesturing to his forehead where a faint kanji glowed. "We were given these for a reason, we just have to find out what. And By whom. And if we're all there ever were."

"But if we stay here," Ian spoke up quietly, shy about his words as always, "We'll all loose our minds sooner or later. "

Erik rubbed the rat's back with one finger, offering it another morsel. "What makes you think we haven't already?"

Jormei found a way to straddle the two parts of his mind, keeping his fingers in the pool of recollection and letting the rest of him be hauled to shore by his benefactors. It was probably best that way; he'd barely lived through the events the first time around.

The Government used a spatial teleportation device to transport supplies and people to various areas of the globe. Ariel managed to sneak in a few times to study it, and was able to determine that he could provide us with portable locator units that would take us to the nearest available aid. He didn't bother telling us that the bracelets we'd been given were loaded with a temporal program, or that the catalyst necessary for such a journey was large electrical power: Power that was only contained in the halo armor. In other words, if I didn't make it through the portal to start the reaction, no one did.

"Jormei?"

"I'm over here, Ariel." Jormei slid one handed down the ladder to Ariel's makeshift lab, bearing a package of rations in the crook of one arm. "I brought you dinner, how much good can you do if you forget to eat? And oh, Ian ran across a stash of tea today, can you believe it? He and Jonathan are making it right now-" Jormei peered over the rough stone ledge Erik had made as a table. "What're you doing?"

"Just a sec... got it." Ariel leaned back with a contented sigh and closed the chip compartment on the item. "Here... I got something for you."

Jormei placed the bundle of rice crackers and salted meat on the table, edging to peer over his adopted twin's shoulder. "Oh! Is that what you needed the morphsilver for?"

"Sure is." Ariel lifted his adopted twin's wrist and snapped the band on it smartly. It was designed to conform to whatever it was clamped on, so that it would still be secure even when Jormei was not in his armor. Jormei watched as the hybrid metal melded itself together, forming a solid hoop.

"It's pretty. What's it for?" Jormei carefully sounded the lettering on the band, delighted to discover it was his own name.

"It's a transmitter. And a homing device."

"Homing?" Jormei whipped his head up with an alarmed look. In a life of constant pursuit, 'homing' was not a good word.

"Calm down, geez. It's not to home in on you. It's to locate the signals of other armors." Ariel shoved aside datachips and tools and tugged over the wild-fire warmed food Jormei had brought him.

"Other armors?" Jormei paced a step forward in excitement. "You mean there are others, like us?"

"Somewhere," Ariel responded. Jormei thought it was trying to eat with his mouth full that made Ariel's answers short, it never occurred to him that he would be evasive. "Anyway, I've only got that one done, so far. I'll have to get a few more supplies for the rest of them."

"We can get them for you," Jormei offered immediately, but Ariel shook his head.

"Nah, you guys are running your butts off being errand boys. It's nothing much, I can get it tonight."

"Well come up, once you're done eating. Ian's sculpting a hollow for a bath, you'll join us?"

Ariel grinned. "You think I'd miss a chance to scrub tunnel dirt off me? No way." He stood up and made sure he'd polished off all the crumbs, slinging an arm around Jormei's waist. "Y'know something, kid?"

"What?" Jormei paused with one hand on the ladder. He'd long since stopped protesting that he was older than Ariel, they all were, but he called them all 'Kid' anyway.

Ariel leaned over and brushed his lips against Jormei's. "I'm really glad we aren't actually brothers."

Jormei blushed crimson, not expecting that, and managed a baffled grin when Ariel swatted him across the ass to start him up the ladder. "Move it or loose it, dreamy-eyes."

The bath was somewhat more intense than usual, Jormei could wonder now in retrospect whether or not they all felt some vague premonition. Sometimes their ritual was nothing more than the chance to laugh and toss water on one another, sometimes it was all warmth and soft noises and whispers even in their minds.

Ian had filled the deep basin Erik had made, the cool clean water heated warm with a touch of Jonathan's hand. It sloshed around their hips and chests as they molded their bodies together, needing this as much as food and sleep and the air Ariel circulated for them.

Jormei blinked away water from the ends of Jonathan's hair, running his hands over the smooth planes of shoulder-blade as the wildfire warrior's breathing evened out slowly. A few feet away, the violence of earth and water had slowed to small tremors and ripples, Erik's hand running through wet lavender hair as Ian's tears melted quietly with the water on Erik's shoulder.

Ariel had just watched. Jormei was puzzled, wondering why the archer hadn't been the link between the two couples as he usually was, and Ariel offered him a soft shrug in response.

Sometimes I just like to see you together. Ariel levitated himself out of the pool, stripping water off his limbs with brisk motions and bending to pick up his armor orb, murmuring a command that swathed him in black and blue plate and the ever-present jacket. "I'd better go." He flung drippy two-toned hair out of his eyes, raising his hand to them as he went.

"Be careful!" Ian called after him, and Ariel's devil-may-care laughter echoed along their skins.

He never made it back, did he. Rowen didn't know how he knew, he just did, and the shuddering of Jormei's fragile soul confirmed it.

I should never have suggested he do what he did.

Fire. Noise. Explosions.

If any of them knew what hell really was, they would have called this it.

"I see him! He's by the gate!" Jonathan ditched his stolen hoverbike in the alley, kicking open a grate so they would have a clear path to the underworld. "Ian! Hold here! Erik, take point! Jormei, come with me-" They scattered across the ruined Ginza to the portal's pass gate and the crowd of droids that had something cornered there. Plasma ricochets vaulted up from the wall.

The warriors stumbled as they heard screaming in their heads, any true vocals drowned out by the clamor of alarms. From behind them came a thunder of rushing water, Ian was in full armor and holding their escape. Spikes of stone rose up from beneath approaching craft, spearing it in place as Erik wielded his element.

We're almost there, Ariel! Jormei's heart skipped when he got no response. The torture droids were ripped apart with a force even they did not expect, emotion adding extra power to a pair of katana and a furious Korin ken.

Ariel realized muzzily that pain wasn't lancing through him in new waves anymore, just a dull warm throb. From somewhere nearby, he could hear Jonathan's scream of rage and fire slicing in deep welts through buildings. Funny, he hadn't really expected for them to catch him this time, much less to need to be rescued. Wouldn't it just be silly for him to die over a handful of equipment that was practically useless to anybody but him?

Jormei fell to his knees by Ariel's still form, his breath hitching in his throat. The leather jacket had been completely burned away, the ends of the azure and sable hair were singed. The warrior was curled in a dark glossy pool, the unforgiving cement not even deigning to soak up his blood. Ariel's shoulders shuddered, and his unmistakable chuckle managed to reach Jormei's ears despite the din. He lifted his head weakly, and Jormei could tell from the haze over the turquoise that Ariel was blind.

"Oops?"

Jormei reached out with shaking hands to start to heal him, but the demolished gate vomited forth a horde of slender death pods.

"Jormei, get him out of here, now!" Jonathan could barely manage to get the command out, hard pressed to stay alive.

Jormei banished his heavy full armor, gathering Ariel in an untidy embrace and hefting him over one shoulder. The others waited for him to get halfway to the grate and safety before starting to break free. Ian, once Jormei got past him, rushed forward to aid Erik, who was about to have his escape cut off.

"Put me down," Ariel commanded, brokenly coherent.

Jormei shook his head, still running. They were so close, he could make it, really. That wasn't Ariel's life flickering like an ember in the rain, he was just panicked. "We're almost there, I can see the grate. Just hang in there, lil' bro."

"Please, Jormei."

"You'll die."

"Either way. You can't heal this, Jormei. I won't die underground."

I can't. I just can't. Don't make me, please! Jormei crumpled forward, out of his memories, into a sudden and unexpected embrace of armor.

"I have you." Ryou said, blazing with quiet power and sympathy. From Jormei's wrist came the soft smug bleep of the bracelet, announcing softly to any who cared that the armor trace it had followed here had been verified.

Jormei's sobs caught in his chest, his eyes huge as he looked at them. He was the only one still in street clothes, preparation for the night on the town that seemed centuries and not moments ago. The yoroi that had cursed his life and saved it was wrapped serenely around the bodies of his friends, and he knew so well who should be wearing which, it all made so much sense now that he almost forgot again the death that had plummeted him to this place and time. Almost. He scrubbed at tear blurry eyes, fighting back the wave of nausea.

"The others... I have to tell you-"

"Not tonight," Sai knelt beside him, cool-sweet of his armored arm soaking through Jormei's thin shirt. "I don't think you can handle it now. It's all right... you're safe. You've found us."

Jormei shuddered, the tremulous hold on his sanity threatening to break, but gold green light arced through him, undiluted and radiant, a Halo that had not lived his whole life in darkness.

"You are truly one of ours. I don't know what has gone so wrong in your future, but we will do everything in our power to repair it. I swear it." Sage's oath was followed by murmurs of assent from the other four, and Jormei felt as if the weight of stone that he'd lived his whole life under had been suddenly ripped away.

His last thought as he tumbled into unconsciousness was that it certainly didn't do to impress one's ancestors by passing out on them all the time.