A/N: I’m really, REALLY sorry this chapter is so late. You see, I kind of got sucked into this new series of books, the Twilight series, you know, that teenage vampire romance everyone’s raving about? Yeah, I’m hooked, and I haven’t been able to concentrate on much else for a very long time. In fact, I’m going to the midnight party for the release of the last book tomorrow night! But, hopefully, after the series is done, I can get back to this one…unless this obsession continues. So, yeah, sorry, hopefully I’ll update the next chapter sooner than this one!!

Sorry again!

&

The chamber is filled with multiple pools of water that fall into each other through the underground irrigation system. There is a single large pool where water flows down in a fall about three yards above, and it is also into it that the water from all the smaller pools seem to be flowing, though there is a sort of crevice that makes a shallow moot all around this marvel.

But I’m too upset to truly appreciate the beauty of this sight.

I move away from the opening before removing my clothes, just to make sure Raziel doesn’t accidentally catch sight of me naked in case he’s standing there staring through that small tunnel, and I slip through an opening of the rising pools to enter the largest one.

The water is warm, soothing, and deep enough that I can sit down and feel it just beneath my shoulders when I shift back into my human form. I lean up against the rim of those rising pools that now act as cover for me.

The tears fall freely now, and I sob as softly as I can, not wanting him to hear me, to get the wrong impression that it was his words that hurt. Because that’s not why I’m crying.

I am remembering the beautiful babe that I held in my arms, soaked with blood, but so wonderful. My child, my baby…my son. I remember as it opened its mouth to cry I placed a hand over it to prevent it from taking in even one single breath. I remember the song I had sung in order to free the soul from the body, and take the blood.

The sun is sleeping quietly
Once upon a century
The distant ocean calm and red
Ardent caresses laid to rest

Raziel…would you have preferred to die like that? To have your life taken, not even allowed a single breath before the deed was done? Would you have preferred that to the eternity you now face as you are?

For my dreams I hold my life-
Full wishes, I behold my night
The truth, at the end of time
Loosing faith makes a crime

Would that Mychala Vel had sung this fatal lullaby to you, calling forth her power to descend upon you and take your life before you would know the pain of the world. She would have saved you from this fate then, but given the choice, what would you have wanted her to do? Kill you before you breathed, or do the unthinkable, make you a god with the Shaman’s Eye?

I wish for this night-time to last for a lifetime
The darkness around me, shores of a solar sea
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping, weeping, with you

Would I have done the same? Had the Shaman’s Eye not disappeared into you, had its guardianship passed down Mychala Vel’s apprentices and, perhaps, by chance, landed in my hands somehow, would I have used it upon the unnamed babe that could have been my child? Would they hate me for it?

Sorrow has a human heart,
For my god it will depart
I’ve sailed before a thousand moons
Never finding where to go

Raziel, if you knew that all of this was done to you by your own mother’s selfish wish to spare herself the pain of having to kill you, of having to watch you die, would you hate her?

Two-hundred twenty-two days of light
Will be desired by the night
A moment, for the poet’s pain
Until there’s nothing left to say

This was the first, the last, the only lullaby I ever got to sing to my child. These words are filled with a pain of something that I was never quite able to get over. Perhaps it is a good thing that blood witches can choose whether or not to get pregnant, because doing so is such a gamble.

I wish for this night-time to last for a lifetime
The darkness around me, shores of a solar sea
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping, weeping, with you

(Song is Sleeping Sun by Nightwish)

Perhaps I am simply not strong enough to free myself of this sorrow, to let it go, to content myself knowing that I sent my son to be reborn in another body. But ever since that day something inside of me died, and no amount of blood magic can raise it back to life. Perhaps if I knew how to control which chromosome from the male seed my child would receive, that would be different. But such a thing is frowned upon and considered intrusive in a way. By nature’s law it is the right of the male’s body to decide the gender of a child, but if the boys must die, why conceive them in the first place? Is this the price we have to pay for our magic? For our power?

What does the child receive from this then?

Here’s the answer: Nothing.

&
Raziel’s POV
&

I do not entirely understand why what I said has caused her so much pain, but I wish I had not said it.

I know, I can tell that there’s something more to this than those idle words, words I’ve said to myself more than once, and I wish I knew what it was. For now I feel a terrible guilt, knowing I caused her this pain, and the worst of it is I don’t know why, though I can guess.

Why do I care? Why do I care so much what happens to this woman, this Soul Singer, to Rayne? I barely remember her at all, there is only a sense of familiarity, only this inescapable feeling of, of being connected to her. Why is it that I felt so compelled to save her back in that clearing, and why do I now feel self-loathing at the fact that I am the cause, whether direct or not, of her suffering?

Am I so starved for companionship then? Is it simply that she is the only being that might possibly be my friend in this dismal setting which makes me feel this way? I want to apologize, but how can I do that when I don’t entirely understand what it is I did? I want to run, to leave now and hope my absence might abate her pain, but I am no coward, and in any case, I can’t leave her. She is a key figure in this world, I will need her close, and, also, I want her close. There is no denying that, even though I have tried. The prospect of companionship, of her companionship…I don’t know, I don’t really understand this bond between us, nor do I feel I can believe it was derived entirely from the past we might possibly have had when I was human.

Gods curse me, bond or not it has hardly been a day and I have become attached to a woman like some lovesick puppy. I don’t love her, no, and I don’t care what she says, she cannot possibly love me in this grotesque form. But we needn’t be in love to be…companions.

I do not feel attracted to her the way a man is typically attracted to a woman, I don’t believe I even have that ability anymore, so it was not her body that drew me into the shadows of that cavern filled with bountiful pools of water. It was her voice.

Outside I could only hear the faint hints of her song, and before I knew what I was doing I slipped through the opening she crafted and crouching, hidden, in a dark corner, ready to avert my eyes if she should emerge from one of those pools. It was the pain, the sorrow in her voice, in her words, that made me realize I somehow hurt her. No, I didn’t hurt her, this is an old pain that I somehow brought to light. I’m not sure how I know this, but I do, and it doesn’t make me feel any better.

I wish it were possible to sit here and listen to her sing for eternity. But the song ends, and I do not wait for her to finish her bath and realize I’ve been listening. I slip back into the cavern, and content myself with the sound of rain and thunder roaring outside as I wait for her to reemerge from the springs.

I wait.

When she comes out, I do not look at her. I don’t know what to say. Sorry? Sorry for what, exactly? Sorry for saying something out loud that I probably should have kept to myself?

She sits down next to me only a foot or two from where I’m sitting, and I’m suddenly struck with how odd it feels that she is comfortable enough with me to sit so close.

She truly does not see me as a monster at all.

“If you had a choice,” She begins, and my eyes are suddenly drawn to her face, which is staring off in front of her, her expression grave, and sad, “Between the life you are living, between the life you have lived, and the eternity you face, or to die before you ever took your first breath, which would you take?” She asks me.

“I—what?” I ask. I knew her pain had come from what I said about preferring death but…is she saying I could have avoided this by simply dying at birth?

“If you had the opportunity, if you could choose to die at birth, before you were an…an Undying, before a vampire, before, even, you were able to live as a human, to never see the light of day, to never breath even once, would you take it?” She asks me, her eyes turned to me, pleading, begging me to tell her what she wants to hear.

But if I were to lie, just to spare her from whatever pain she is in, just to comfort her…I would be doing exactly what I suspected her of doing not long ago.

I don’t understand why this question is so important to her, but it is, perhaps this has something to do with that past pain, and perhaps…she is simply hurting because, maybe, this option had been available. To die, before ever being born…to have even what life I did have stripped from me before I had even taken my first breath…

“I…I would want…to live.” I say, and a moment later, I realize this is true. For all the wretchedness of my situation, for all the pain I’ve had to suffer, everything I’ve had to endure, and whatever it is that awaits me in the future, I would prefer to have a life rather than be robbed of it before ever having the chance to even truly exist in this world. “I would choose to live.” I repeat, more confidently now, “I do not enjoy this life, if you can call it that, this existence, but I would rather exist than to have even that robbed of me at birth. I’d rather suffer this ‘travesty’ than not to have had a life at all. Maybe…maybe I do want to die, just to be released from this but…no, if my only two options were to die at birth or to live an eternity like this, I’d choose to live.” I say.

I look into her eyes, she is smiling at me, even as a single tear trails down her cheek. A sudden, inexplicable urge to wrap my arms around her, to hold her tightly, to comfort her, washes over me. But I am able to suppress it, thank the gods.

She doesn’t explain whatever pain I seemed to have somehow eased with my answer, and I don’t ask her to.

I then realize, with a jolt of confused comprehension, that her song was not sung because of me, but for me.

She is not, herself, in pain to see me like this, she truly does not care what I look like. She is in pain because I am in pain.

But, why?

&
Rayne’s POV
&

“You know, you’re really difficult to be subtle with. I don’t hear anyone shouting ‘Soul Singer! Soul Singer!’” I say, reappearing in the physical realm, having had to back-track a bit because Raziel had found a barricade of vampire hunters. I strike out at the last still-standing vampire hunter with my implement, now a sort of chain weapon with unlimited range capabilities and a huge amount of varying techniques and moves that can be used with just this one blade. Raziel pulls down his scarf to take their souls, while their blood is drawn into my body, most of the true vitality lost after death, but there is still lingering power, and my vampire self doesn’t need fresh blood to be fed.

“You can disappear into thin air and still have the benefits of the physical realm.” He points out once we’re done.

“Not really, I just don’t have your limitations in the Window World.” I say. “It’s not like I can do anything to influence the physical world there either. The Window World’s main purpose is to be able to hide beneath the fabric of reality while still having a clear view of that reality. That’s how it’s nigh impossible to find the Soul Singers unless they want to be found.” I explain.

“Why do you feel the need to disappear in the first place?” he asks me.

“I am trying to be stealthy here!” I answer pointedly.

“And I couldn’t care less about being stealthy. So there’s no point.” He tells me.

“I guess not, just try to keep up this time.” I say.

“Hmph, you try to keep up.” He challenges, and then he breaks into a run down the path, clearly thinking to race me.

I watch him get several yards ahead of me and continue onward. I wait until he bothers to look behind to see if I’m coming, and then I take off after him at top speed.

The next moment I am several yards in front of him, waiting for him to figure out what happened and look round. “You’re so slow my grandmother could beat you!” I call, and he turns, wide-eyed, to stare at me.

“How did you—did you teleport?” He demands.

“Heck no, that was pure speed baby!” I answer proudly. “Unfortunately that kind of speed is only good for running really fast and for long distances.” I admit guiltily as he closes the yards between us at a swift jog.

“Pity that.” He says sarcastically.

“So where are we going, exactly? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were headed back to the Sarafan Stronghold.” I say as we pick up the pace again, and this time I decide to just stick with him in the physical realm. Better to help him out and do my fair share of the fighting than to have to wait for him in to catch up in the Window World.

“We are.” He answers simply.

“Uh, may I ask why?”

“I need to return to the past, before Janos Audran’s death. Vorador told me that he would have the answers I seek, and Moebius’s time-streaming devices will provide me passage. We will need to visit a shrine, however, for the way back into the stronghold is blocked and I have the feeling I will find the means to enter it in that shrine. Unless, of course, you can take me back in time.” He says, looking at me questioningly.

“So far I figure I can propel myself through time, but I’ve never done it before on my own. Still, I wouldn’t be able to take you with me, so I’m afraid the time-streaming devices are our best option.” I answer.

“Is there anything you can’t do?” He asks me, eyes back on the road.

“I can’t cook worth crap.” I answer.

“Oh is that why you’re not married?” He asks innocently.

“I’m going to hit you.” I say, taking a swing at him, but he ducks out of my way, laughing.

The path back to the pillars, and then to the Sarafan stronghold that Raziel is walking takes an underground detour, which is, consequentially, filled with water. And while I can stay under water for long periods of time without needing air, I still prefer to follow him by way of the Window World do to the fact that my time under water is limited, at least until he’s back outside. I tell him I’ll meet him at the pillars, but mostly I’m staying near him as he swims through the underground ruins that I had completely bypassed before by simply jumping over the earth’s obstacles.

I am on the landing of the chamber beneath the ground where the pillars stand as Raziel jumps out of the water and onto the platform. I am rewarded for sticking around when the Elder God speaks.

“Ah my wayward child returns.” He says.

“Having unearthed more than you’d like, I suspect. What am I to make of these ruins that litter the land, and these images here in this chamber?” Asks Raziel.

“Merely the deceits of a failed civilization. You are being mislead, Raziel, this ancient race hoped to manipulate the future with these scrawled misdirections.” The Elder God replies simply, “You must tread carefully, there are dark forces at work in this world, bent on subverting your true destiny.” He says.

I let out a snort that neither of them hear.

“Oh I have no doubt of that, the question is, am I in their presence right now?” Raziel asks.

“Your arrogance will spell your demise, Raziel. Deny my will, and the arc of your destiny will reach a sudden conclusion.” The Elder God snarls. What destiny would that be? Oh, you mean the one you forced onto him because you had nothing better to do with your time!?

“Your threats are unmoving. Even now I’m beyond your reach.” Raziel says defiantly.

“My reach is longer than you realize. This is a very dangerous game you’re playing, Raziel.” The Elder God warns.

“And what of Rayne? I assume you know all about her.” Raziel says.

“Stay away from her, Raziel!” The Elder God snaps suddenly, “I warn you, meddle in her destiny and you will regret it.”

“And just what destiny is that, hmm?” Yeah, I’d like to know this too!

“That is none of your concern, Raziel. She will spell your doom with her own misguided intentions and misdirections.” He says.

“Oh really? So far as I can tell she’s about the only person in all of Nosgoth that I can trust. Are you saying she’s disingenuous?”

“She is a Soul Singer, Raziel, a blood witch! Her hands repair the Wheal and perpetuate the turning to continue this world’s history. But she is, herself, being mislead. Following her will mean your destruction, steer clear of the path she tries to lead you.” The Elder God answers.

“That’s funny, because she has not set a path for me at all, but is, in fact, following mine. She’s likely the only one that hasn’t tried telling me what to do all this time.” He says.

“I’m warning you, Raziel, stay away from her! She has her own role to fulfill, and it does not involve you.” He hisses.

Do I now? I have the distinct feeling that this is a role which has been orchestrated for me for his ends, rather than the one I seek to play out for my own. Just as Raziel’s has.

If I had any doubts that the Elder God was a phony, this erases them. Mychala Vel is right, he can’t be trusted, even by himself, to know what is best for Nosgoth. He has his own agenda, and something in my gut tells me that it I won’t like it when I discover it.

I do not mention having spied on his exchange with the Elder God when I meet up with Raziel at the Pillars above ground. I want to let him know, but I don’t want the Elder God to realize what I just heard. The way I see it, the less he knows that I know, the better.

&

“You’re right, that crystal is a problem.” I say, musing at the pinkish glittering orb above the huge double-doors that bar our way back into the Sarafan Stronghold, now occupied by Moebius’s citizen army.

“Would you be able to open the door without needing to activate that crystal?” Raziel asks me.

“Sure, but I don’t think having a big-a(beep) gaping hole in the doors would be particularly subtle.” I say, just as a shout rises up and one of the hunters runs after us. “Not that subtlety is one of our strong suits at the moment…” I add, shooting out my blood implement and slicing right through their head with a simple gesture. Raziel snickers. “I could probably duplicate the force needed to activate the crystal, but it would probably take as long to figure out without something to go by as it would forging the Reaver in that shrine. Assuming, of course, that it gives us what we need. Still, it’s up to you. Do you want me to get us through, or obtain the power to do that yourself without needing to rely on me?” I ask him.

“I prefer the latter option.” He says, and he leads the way to where the shrine is located. With his Reaver imbued with the elemental power of darkness by way of those fonts, Raziel is able to open the door into the shrine and we enter.

“Whoa.” I say, looking around at the murals on the wall, “It’s these pictures again…”

“So you’ve seen them too? What can you make of them? It seems to me as though these winged beings were, in fact, the architects of the Pillars, and that the Pillars appear to banish or diminish their enemies somehow.” Raziel says.

“Yeah, those are the ancient vampires, I think, and their enemies were called the Hyldan. They raised the Pillars in order to lock the Hyldan away in hell, and Klossa Vel with them.” I tell him, my eyes roving around the images. “She isn’t depicted in any of the murals, though. But I guess she wouldn’t be. The Soul Singers of this time prefer complete anonymity, I guess that’s a good thing. It’s easier to avoid being demonized or deified if no one knows you exist.” I say.

“And what of the blood witches?” He questions.

“So far as I can tell, we don’t play nearly as active a role in events of the future as we seem to in this time. Of course, there’s precious little to be active in, to be honest, and our Matron was lost without an heir long before I was born, scattering our people into an individual society where we rarely communicate with one another or join for any particular reason. I suppose there is a difference between Soul Singers and blood witches besides the name.” I say.

“What, exactly, did you do in your time if you were not involved in the world’s progression?” He asks me.

“Survive.” I tell him with a wry smile, “That’s the only thing we could do, survive, and that usually meant staying hidden. The most powerful blood witches typically stayed hidden because they could hide. The less powerful found…other means of acquiring safety, some of them which would make the Matrons turn over in their graves if they knew what had become of us. They don’t last long, known blood witches are targeted for their power either as an acquisition or to be eliminated. I lasted as long as I did because I was good at staying hidden. And this was before I was able to pass back and forth through the Window World on a whim.” I explain.

“You couldn’t before coming here? Why?” He questions.

“The Window World is not meant for vampires. Every time I passed back and forth I would get these splitting headaches that use to make me nearly incapacitated until I could recover. It was a risk I learned not to bother taking, because I could always try returning to the physical world in an area that only seemed safe. After completing the Cardikamon, an ancient rite that was lost in my time, my body is malleable for just about anything, and so my vampire blood is no longer an obstacle. It also gives me the ability to change my body’s superficial shape, deviating from my human or vampire forms. Observe.” I say, and I lengthen my cloven claws until I have 3 curved sword-like appendages extending from each palm.

“I’m starting to understand where Vorador’s metaphor came from…” Raziel says with a single widened eye.

“It came from his experiences with the Matron, not me.” I tell him with a frown.

“And this is suppose to comfort me?”

“No, it’s suppose to keep you from trying to run away with the mistaken impression that I’m a god in a corporeal form.” I answer. Because that’s you, Raziel.

“And of this Matron you speak off? Is she a god in corporeal form?” He asks me.

“I’m going to be safe and say no, because while the Elder God can’t exactly reach out and smack us if we get out of line, we’re still not gods because we can be killed, and Matrons, though the current one has lived for a ridiculously long amount of time it seems, do pass away, hopefully leaving heirs so that the line will continue. And by heirs I mean they choose someone to take their place and there doesn’t have to be a blood relation.” I point out. “I’d like to say that Mychala Vel is like a goddess in flesh, but she’d probably crack her staff over my head again if I did.” I say.

“Wait, you’ve met this Matron of yours!?” He exclaims, his eyes wide.

“Who do you think gave me the knowledge of time-travel, Moebius?” I ask, snorting.

“Oh, have you met Moebius?” Raziel asks curiously.

“Unfortunately, yes. Back about 500 years ago when I first arrived after using the time-streaming device. Mychala Vel propelled me into this time so that I could complete the Cardikamon and learn to travel through time myself. Do you know what his future self’s ghost asked me to do if I came across him in this past?” I ask, grinning.

“What’s that?”

“Slap him.” I answer. Raziel stares at me for a moment.

“Please tell me you honored this request.” He says, looking as though he’s about to bust out laughing.

“The look on his face was priceless!” I say snickering, and Raziel does, indeed, bust out laughing at this.

We get to work on igniting the forge. It isn’t difficult to figure out what to do, not after Raziel had had experiences with a forge like this before and thereby has a rough idea of what needs to be done. It’s just coordinating our efforts that gets difficult.

“You want me to turn it where?!” I shout.

“I need you to turn it in my direction!!” He answers in frustration.

“Well where are you!? I can’t f(beep)ing see you, Raziel!! Godd(beep)it, I’m not omniscient for the last—oh, there you are!”

He smacks himself in the face and mutters something under his breath.

“What was that!?” I demand, knowing very well it had something to do with ‘women’ and ‘incompetence’ “I will rewrite your DNA strand to turn you into a tub of ectoplasm and then force-feed your goop to Kain!!” I shout.

Yeah, he would probably have had an easier time if I just stood back and let him work, but oh noooo, I have to pull my weight, I have to help.

What’s more…

“Hey what’s that eye thing doing—”

“RAYNE NO!!”

ZZZZZZZZZT

“HOLY (BEEEEEEEEEEEEP)!! THAT HURT!!” I cry, clutching my shoulder which got hit by the blast from that eyeball. “Oh yeah!? You want a piece of this huh!? Motherf(beep)ing b(beep), spin on this!” I yell, sending a destructive blast of darkness at the eye, shattering it to pieces.

“I’m surprised you weren’t killed!” Raziel shouts, grabbing me by my good shoulder and shaking me, his eyes blazing with fury, “Next time you see one of those, stay away from it!! And don’t go approaching anything like that unless you know what it does!! Those things slaughter the skeletons and send me right back to the spectral realm!” He says angrily.

“For the love of deus, Raziel, isn’t the pain in my shoulder enough negative reinforcement? Oh and now it’s turning black, that can’t be good—eeEEP!” I cry out as Raziel suddenly scoops me up right off my feet and carries me bodily back to the entrance of the shrine. “I can walk you know.” I say grumpily, even as I feel my body’s strength being drawn out of my limbs and into the healing of that wound.

“Yes, right into another trap no doubt.” He snorts, and he sets me, very gently, onto the floor. “Stay.” He orders flatly.

“But I—”

“You’ve helped enough! Stay right here and focus on getting that thing healed. You won’t be any use to me dead after all!” He says.

“Fine.” I grumble.

He’s gone, and now I’m both bored and in pain.

I place a small cut upon my shoulder where the black mark continues to spread using a claw and I draw the taint of whatever beam that eye-thing put into me out through that cut. I destroy it with fire, and while I still feel slightly weakened, after the cut heals I have nothing to do.

Nothing, except what I had been loath to do even when Raziel wasn’t around.

For the first time in a while, I take the Soul Reaver from out of subspace, and I hold it in one hand with the blade laying across my lap. Yes, now that I am looking for it, now that my mind is not focused on something else, I can sense it, but it takes knowing it’s there to find it.

The Shaman’s Eye, that same force I felt in Raziel is also in this sword. But more than that, more than the eye, there is something else, something that slowly begins to awaken and pulse beneath my hand. And now, only now, do I realize what this extra sense is, this consciousness unconnected, yet at the same time bound unknowingly, to the Shaman’s Eye. It’s Raziel himself, Raziel’s own soul.

And suddenly, inexplicably, I realize, without truly understanding how I came to this knowledge, that the reason I have been feeling such a strong connection with Raziel, the reason he seems to be feeling that connection, and, perhaps, more than that, is not because we are lovers, but because we were.

The Raziel in this blade, in this Soul Reaver remembers me, loves me, even though he isn’t entirely in his right mind, even though he is little more than the ravenous spirit of the blade, the soul trapped within, only partially aware of the outside world. He remembers, and his memories, his connection with my past self has been effecting this past, this loop.

This is why the human Raziel felt he knew me! This is why the Undying Raziel knows me, remembers me, even though all his human memories should have gone. They did leave, but the one thing that has stayed the same is that the Soul Reaver is with me. In another dimension, yes, in sub-space, yes, but this is the Shaman’s Eye we are talking about, this is the greatest artifact ever bestowed upon the blood witches. Some have gone so far as to say it is the source of our power. Having two at once might not necessarily create a paradox, because the Eye needn’t be bound into one form. But that doesn’t mean it won’t effect the second Eye, the second Raziel. Having two would cause something to happen, perhaps not a paradox specifically, but the power of just one incarnation of the Shaman’s Eye would be enough to warp history itself.

I feel the power of the Shaman’s Eye in the blade, needing to but be called, awakened, and I could then access that monumental force that only a Master Soul Singer would be able to use. But I feel Raziel, and I can hear him, trying, desperately, to reach me, to speak to me.

“Rayne I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” Is all I can make out, and a rush of longing washes over me as I feel the love emanating from the blade, and the guilt I feel at its misdirection. I am not the Rayne this Raziel fell in love with, but how can he know that? How can he understand in this state?

I take a small bit of the blade’s excess power into my body to use as nourishment, to regain the strength I lost, and then I banish the blade. Tears fall, though I am able to stem the flow and brush them away. But I can’t stop myself from wondering…

Am I, in fact, falling in love with Raziel? And if so, is it because I feel this way, or because my past self did?

&
Ending Notes and Stuff!
&

Kioko: You know, this MIGHT be a surprise…but it’s not.

Rhea: Yeah, because you TOLD EVERYONE!! (Glowers)

Kioko: Heheheh.

Rayne: Hey, uh, where’s Raziel?

Rhea: Heheheh, behind that curtain over there. Hiding.

Rayne: What the crap? Raziel why are you hi—(Pulls open curtain)—ding?

Raziel: (Glaring) (Is various shades of red and pink)

Rayne: …Where’d the paint come from?

Rhea: XD That’s not paint.

Rayne: 0.0, Then what—

Raziel: That’s the LAST TIME I ask ANYTHING from ANYONE!!

Rhea: Remember in the last chapter when we told the reviewers to give Raziel girly kisses?

Rayne: X,X THAT’S LIPSTICK!?

Kioko: Which is…ironic as I was under the impression that the kind of girls who played video games like Legacy of Kain aren’t the kind of girls that wear makeup like that.

Rayne: What makes you say that?

Rhea: The fact that neither of us wear makeup, but that’s a bit of an unfair stereotype, Kio-chan.

Kioko: (Shrugs)

Rhea: I know another gamer girl and she wears makeup.

Kioko: Okay, fine, it just seemed weird, okay?

Rhea: Okay. BTW, I’M HUNGRY!! LET’S GO GET SOMETHING TO EAT!!

Rayne: Chinese Buffet?

Rhea: Well I was thinking more Japanese hibatchi…

Kioko: Well if you want to part with enough of your precious shinies in order to pay for all of us…I’m game!

Kain: You know, these Ending Notes aren’t nearly as funny as most of the others.

Rhea: That’s because I’M HUNGRY!! Mah dragon tummy es growling! NEED FOOD!

Kain: You suck.

Rhea: …(Pulls out a gigantic hat and stuffs it over Kain)

Kioko: R&--oh whatever, no one cares.

Rayne: She cares.

Kioko: So?

Rayne: Haven’t we done this joke already?

Kioko: Many times!

Rayne: Heh, oh well! Can’t argue with that logic!

Elder God: -.- just how many times am I going to have to recycle THAT JOKE?

Kioko: As many times as we feel like!