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Ashes filled the air, choking my small little group as we strode undisguised towards the intimidating Roulette building, surrounded by a forest of flames that teased and licked against the air close to our bodies. Neither one of my distinct personalities was filled with any inkling of emotion which struck me as odd; I was about to fight the most epic battle in existance and I felt like a blank slate waiting for the chalk to draw lines upon its face. Both halves understood this though, clearly and effortlessly: It was destiny. Whatever passed, passed.

What was important was going to be taken care of.

Salagia had infected my world -- our world-- and I had a duty to fufill... alone. Even if I had been some sort of heavenly divine figure, I was still Seoul and Krao and the other's were still my friends as much as I hated to admit it. Krao, Cosette, Goyro, Barra, Kyanhmar... Okay, maybe not Goyro. Almost fluidly as I stood there, I metamorphosised back into Seoul: shorthaired, dirty looking Seoul. Everyone ogled me a bit as I did so, I'd like to fancy Cosette did a little more staring than the others, but of course I was wrong. Stupid Krao and his one eye.

"Krao, before we do this I have something to ask." I lit a cigarette with a serious look of comtemplation, letting it jut from my lip like a yellowed tooth on a hillbilly. Not that I would have married my second cousin right then and there nor did I have one to marry. "Are you gay or am I just imagining things?"

"Well maybe a littl- Wait, what? I am not gay!" Krao roared, seizing Goyro by the waist and hurling him on a collision course straight towards my face. The dog kid's face gave the illusion that he was breaking the speed of sound, cheeks flapping in the breeze as he neared his forcibly chosen target. I sidestepped, taking a long drag from my cig as did, watching leisurely as Goyro soared by and into a lamppost with a loud ringing noise. No apology followed as Krao smacked me upside the head for once, leaving my vision reeling from the sharp impact. I was choked by a sudden stream of laughter as Krao glared at me, ripping off his eye patch to get the full "angered" effect.

"Well I just figured with all the hugs, the girlish use of the "f" word, and the teddy bear...!"

"Mr. Snugglekins was a secret!" Krao jabbed me solidly in the chest with his pointer finger, using it exactly as the name implied.

"So the little eye patch he wears is a secret too?" I snickered.

"Would you two stop bickering like toddlers? We're in front of the Roulette building." Cosette sighed, rolling her eyes while using her hands as wedges to propel us apart. By then Goyro has already peeled himself off the metal pole and way working his way back to our little spat arena.

"Fine, fine... butIstillthinkI'mright." Krao pickedme up by the scruff of my shirt and threw me over his shoulder with a grunt before I could put my futher input on the subject.

"Yes, Seoul. I'm completely gay over heels for you. Now shut up." Krao growled sarcastically, tossing me like a sack of potatoes through the rotating doors of the building. My head smacked dully into the glass as I whirled through the office vortex and flew out of it as quickly as I had entered. I stood up cautiously, now behind enemy lines, before realizing the bellhop standing directly in front of me. The short man's suit was a vibrant red edged with gold borders and brass buttons, his cap resting perfectly on the crown of his head as he watched me with no indication he was going to speak or even attempt to move. Almost robotically he motioned towards the elevator far in the distance across the gray swirled marble floor, still silent as he retrieved his arm and walked away through a door, shutting it quietly with only the rustle of the nearby indoor plants to signal that anyone had even passed.

The elevator was a shorter distance away than I had thought and as I stepped into it I foolishly realized I had left the other behinds. Alas, it was too late to wait any longer than I already had for the doors began to close at the ridiculously slow pace that elevators seemed to move at. Resigned to be alone regardless of the circumstances, I watched between the crack as Krao stumbled clumsily through the turning glass wheel and dashed towards the elevator, tripping and catching himself each time he was about to fail in catching up to me.

"Seoul! Goddamnit! Don't you even think about leaving me!" Krao gasped, his breaths short and ragged as he jammed his hand in the contraption and opened the doors with a ripping motion of his arm.

"I wouldn't dream of it." I smiled to myself. I was Seoul to this idiot no matter what... I was Seoul to myself no matter what. I had one personality even if I had acquired another; I had already shoved my other self away in choosing the one I currently resided in. I would finish this as the person I had become not as the one who had perished. "Krao."

"Yeah?"

"Want to play Cowboys and Indians one last time? Whoever wins gets to be the sheriff of this here town." My tone carried no playful intentions as I watched the digital reading on the elevator change on its own, I having pushed no buttons.

"Are we going to die?" Krao's voice quivered, his hand trembling as it came to rest on the brass bar to right, his fingers curling around the cold handle until they were white with strain.

"Maybe. I can't promise anything. You don't have to stay." I looked at him, a melancholy tint to the surface of my ice blue eyes as I glanced at my friend, terrified of something larger, more complex than he could ever imagine.

"I'm not leaving." He didn't even bother to look at me as his eyes hovered over the changing red numbers on the digital readout.

"Thanks for everything." I muttered awkwardly, shoving my hands in my pockets to rid them of the odd tingling sensation that pulsed within them as the top floor came inevitably closer. Krao gave only a nod in return, running two fingers from his free hand over his X-shaped scar with a shadow of a smile.

The recorded sound of a bell chimed above us as the door spread apart hesitantly before us, the smell of decay and death smothering the clean air of the compartment until it restlessly settled back down to inhabit its new territory. Dead bodies littered the floor, leaving only the occasional empty space they were so thickly knit together in heaps. There was no blood in sight as far I could see, and I assumed there wasn't going to be any if I continued on father into the depths of this temporary graveyard; Salagia wasn't one for bloodshed.

Agonized faces of the dead plastered every corner of the floor, some of them still left at the monotonous tasks they were doing before they had been wiped clean. One woman was still stapling a paper, her hand positioned above the tool as if she were going to complete her actions at any second. I manuevered around her corpse carefully, Krao mimicking the action as we made our way towards what seemed the logical place for Salagia to be waiting at: the rooftop.

Shoving the body of a dead security officer to the ground, I flipped my gun out and pumped one round of lead into the glass window of the door that lead to the staircase to the rooftop. I jammed a fist through the hole, unlocking the door with little effort as Krao observed silently from behind me. With a deft click, the door gave way and opened for us as we looked at each other for what might be the last time as the tinkle of broken glass falling from the remenants of the windowframe filled the air. I put one foot forward before beginning to pick up my pace to ascend the staircase in a more efficient manner, Krao once again shadowing my actions once more until we had reached our final destination.

Wind whipped my hair against my worn visage as my eyes met Salagia's across the cement level, neither of us making any sort of movement towards the other. Salagia was truly a monster in this world, his body having melded together into a sort of fleshy snake-like tail that shifted from side to side as his thin, white hair waved fluidly in the breeze intertwined with the ashes that mingled in the air. His skin was a yellowish offwhite shade while his eyes almost seemed painted on his face; a hungry blood color that almost made it seem as if his eyes wept the fluid almost constantly down his hollow cheeks. The fallen angel's blackened lips curled into a jagged smile as his sharp canine teeth peeked over his lips and dug into the dark flesh, his spindly fingernails creeping down his cheeks in anticipation of what was going to occur in only moments.

"Salagia." The only reply he gave was an almost shivering stretch of his wings, the eyes implanted in them rolling around ogling everything that was taking place, their yellowed faces orbiting slowly towards me.

"Enough talking." Salagia's shoulder twitched slightly in a shrugging motion and I heard a gurggling screech rip from behind me as Krao slammed into the stone wall and crumpled to the ground, red pooling up beneath up like a gruesome backdrop to a macabre painting. The fallen angel tore his appendage from Krao and I went numb as blood exploded from his form and splattered the wall in an arc. The splatter caught me across the face in a slap, red dripping down my cheek mix with tears that erupted with my sudden fury.

"NO!" Wings burst from my suit in a flurry of midnight feathers as I slammed into Salagia and drove my hand straight into his chest with a sickening crunch as I passed through ribs and organs alike. My face twisted into a montrous, inhuman mask as I tore through Salagia's back and forced my hand into open air then back in less than a second with a primal screech that propelled all the air out of my lungs. I hesistated, emptily staring at the black liquid that coat my arm up to the shoulder, clenching my fingers into a fist as Salagia stared incredulously at the gaping hole below his collarbone. In the very depths of my conciousness I realized one of my eye's view had gone completely black so I lifted a hand up to test for it's presence only to find it sealed shut by a deep laceration that ran from my temple to right above my tattoo.

"A parting gift." Salagia hissed through his teeth, resting a hand over the chasm in his chest with a wearisome smile as his shoulder began to disentigrate into black ashes. "See you in Hell, old friend."

The fallen angel disappeared from in front of me with the next strong breeze, a trail of black drifting across the silouette of the charred city until it was too scattered to be visible. I skidded towards Krao, my vision blurry as my breaths seemed to grow shorter and shorter the closer I came to him, his struggling wheezing carrying it's gravity in the winds. I crouched down low on one knee, trying to examine the wound without puking on him as its full presence threatened to unreign my sanity even further. Seeing my distress, Krao rolled over onto his side away from me with a bubbling cough as he made an effort to laugh.

"Looks like you'll be needing my eye patch..."

"No, you'll still need it, Krao. Shut up. You're not dying."

"Seoul... We both know I am."

"This isn't real." I choked out, holding back what seemed to be an amazing amount of waterworks as I looked around at my burning city, my burning home. "Damnit... why did that idiot have to set it on fire before we got here?"

I grabbed the loose fabric on Krao's shoulders, dragging him out of the pool that had formed beneath him and leaving a grim trail of crimson behind as my companion feebly tried to complain. Propping him up on the edge of the edifice, I smiled gravely if it was possible before grabbing him and leaping over into the naked air before us. Far past questioning, Krao half understood what I was doing as we fell with the wind screaming its roaring warning in our ears as floors whisked by faster than I could count them.

This isn't real...

I closed my eyes and held onto Krao's arm loosely as the ground grew closer and closer. I understood now why I had come here, why I had needed to defeat Salagia, why I had to help Krao but not the others. It wasn't their time yet, not yet.

This isn't real...

My conciousness slowly drifted away until I wondered if I was falling anymore or floating somewhere beyond the surroundings that I had formely known. Somewhere I could feel light gently warming my face, the slight tickle of my short hair against my cheek... I followed that sensation through the enveloping darkness until I felt as if I was filling something as I stood there, blind to everything except what I was feeling. Wavering slightly, I opened my eye only to be blinded by the sharp, ceaseless light that seemed to be above me accompanied by a dull noise that repeated itself every couple of seconds or so.

Beep, beep, beep

"His vital signs are rising." A man's voice spoke as I tried to see past the halo of light that shielded my vision. "So are the other boy's. I never thought this would happen..." The man sounded dumbfounded as the swoosh of his clothes signaled that he had walked away urgently across the room. I made a quiet, croaking noise as the light faded away into clarity, my eyes adjusting to the room, to the pain I felt welling in every nook and cranny in my body. I looked around with my eyes, keeping my head still as to not warrant the doctor's attention as I surveyed the hospital room I seemed to be in. Adjacent to me the doctor scanned over a clipboard with a bundle of papers attached under its clip, glacing every so often towards the red haired teen that lay in the bed nearest to him.

"K-krao...?" I creaked, slapping the oxygen tubes away from my face and out of my nose as I sat up . The red haired boy's eyes opened to reveal that his green irises were locked on me as I steadily kept my eyes trained on him. Shakily, I ripped the IV out of my arm, the sound of the tape being wrenched off my arm alerting the doctor to my presence and current state of awareness.

"Why...why am I h-hear?" I stumbled out of bed, clearly frightening the man as I limped across the room towards Krao who was ripping all the medical devices off himself as well. "Who are you? What happened?"

I looked down at my wrist, ignoring the slow trickle of blood and looking instead at my hospital wristband and trying to make out the words into something comprehensible. Coma ward?

"C-coma?" My mouth formed the words with doubt as I looked around the whitewashed room, squinting at the loudness of the reflected light.

"Stay calm... this is the coma ward. I'm Dr. Kreiger. I've been treating you for three years." The man put out a weathered hand meaning to comfort me but instead I slapped it away with a confused expression.

"Three years? No, I just fell off a building... Three years?" If I could weep I would have but my eyes were dry as I took another step forward.

The doctor's face twisted in puzzlement at the mention of a building, driving me into a manic state until Krao came up behind me and placed both hands on my shoulders.

"We found you two three years ago on our doorstep, completely comatose from the moment we started treating you."

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