A/N: So...this would be the last chapter of the first part of this story, in case you don't remember. I just want to say that, I'm okay that not many people are reading this story, (though I've gotten some PMs that tell me I've got a couple more followers of this fic, even though I haven't updated in, like, forever, haha) but thank you so much with a starclamation point on top to those of you that do. You support means a lot to me:) Thanks for putting up with the long wait, and hopefully this chapter makes it worthwhile.

~Hugs and chocolate pop-tarts to: Frozen Voices, alex, serenie-beanie and especially to October Autumn:)

Raye^^

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Chapter Nine -- Shadowless

"You're Shadowless."

...

"Yes...Yes, I am."

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

It seemed to take me awhile before I was able to control my tongue to the point where I could form an intelligible sound. However, it appeared that I could only manage one syllable before my voice gave out on me again.

"How?"

She said not a word, but reached up and tugged on one of the fuschia streaks in her hair. After offering a moment's resistance, the brilliantly-coloured lock slid from between the strands, and she dropped it onto the floor. She repeated the action over and over, without making a sound, and soon a pile of fuschia, turquoise, and chartreuse lay at her feet; some of the strands curled slightly around the legs of the piano bench.

I watched, offering no words of my own, but I was reeling inside; my heart was racing. I was coherent enough to notice, however, that without the distracting neon colours, a distinct blue sheen was visible in her black hair.

But she still had Sakura's face...no sooner had this thought crossed my mind than she reached into her black satchel and pulled out a cloth and pulled it across half her face.

My stomach clenched. The cloth was now covered in powdered streaks and smears of tans, golds, and pinks--flesh-toned makeup that had been applied so expertly as to completely change the contours of her face, so that even with eyes the same shade of blue, she would appear to be a completely different person.

Should I be surprised? a part of me thought ruefully. She is an artist.

And now she looked up at me again, with only half the makeup off, so that half her face was Sakura and half was Shadowless. The sight induced a horrible sickly feeling within me, something close to nausea, and I turned my head away, though she continued to stare at me with Shadowless' calm regard.

I finally had to say, "Your makeup...the rest..." My voice cut off again, choking out any other words. She understood, though, and, exhaling softly, she slowly, almost sombrely removed the rest. Even watching out the corner of my eye, I could tell how she did it with a sense of finality. So Sakura was gone forever, then...

Not quite. As I looked back, she was reaching up to her left ear and pulled off a small black rubber tip. The blue diamond sparled mockingly at me amongst the fragile pink skin and short, soft black fur.

Now Sakura was gone, never to return, and it was like she'd never existed at all. There was only Shadowless; it had been her all along; it was just another lie, another pretense, another deception, and that was the last thing I needed right now.

I tried to start "You---you--"

She wouldn't look at me as she started singing:

"Sleep soundly now,
Forget the trials of the world;
Forget it all.
Succumb to the oblivion
That the darkness holds in welcome
Answer the lure of slumber's call..."

She was singing over me, over my protests, drowning me out, drowning me...

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

Who are you? What of you is real? What was a lie?

I've had enough of lies.

So many...in such a short time...but I would have never, ever guessed that Sakura...

...not Sakura.

Shadowless.

But who is Shadowless, really? Does any fragment of Sakura remain?

It's still me, Jinsei.

What...?! How...?

You know--knew -- me as Shadowless. And Hiwatari Sakura. Those are both my names. I never lied to you.

You never told me ---

But I didn't lie.

Fine. But you didn't tell the truth either.

I know.

So…are you going to tell me why you pretended to like me?

I wasn't pretending.

…Yeah, right. What's really going on here?

You mean you haven't figured it our yet?

No, I haven't. I can't find any answers to save my own life, here --!

Shh…Jinsei. Just wait a little longer; I will give you all the answers you want. Your life does depend on it.

…So this is life and death now/

No. This is life and existence.

…I don't understand.

You will. A part of you already does. Think back, to the night of our first meeting –

You mean when I met you as Sakura, or as Shadowless?!

So much venom…although I don't blame you for being angry. I meant as Shadowless. Now think back to when you and Miyamoto were discussing the outcome of our encounter with your sensei.

Wait – you were there, listening?

No.

Then how do you --?

For the moment, I can hear your memories, the same way I can hear your thoughts now.

But how can you even --?

Wait. First, think about –

No! I'm done waiting! The longer I wait, the more this whole thing adds up, and the closer I get to losing my mind! How are you able to do this? Answer me, Saku – Shadow – whoever the hell you are –

Jinsei, you need to calm down –

Like hell I do!

Jinsei, I will tell you, just –

Then tell me!

Jinsei! If you just calm down, you will see –

Answer the fucking question!

All right! …All right…I'm so sorry; I don't know how to say this without shocking you even more – but, Jinsei – you and I – oh, no…

?!?!?!

…you're starting to wake up…

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

I came to very slowly, at first aware only of being supported by a firm but soft surface. I felt well-rested, as though I'd been sleeping for a long time, and I was strangely calm and at peace, my anger and frustration seeming only a vague memory. A moment after this had registered, I found myself able to open my eyes; my lids lifted slowly, feeling rather heavy, yet the clarity of my vision did not belong to someone who had just awoken.

I was lying on a couch and filling my sight was Sakura – Shadowless --- Sakura-Shadowless. My…what? My enemy? My girlfriend? My key to the truth?

'Jinsei?"

She spoke in Sakura's voice. Shadowless' had been pitched very slightly lower. Her true voice belonged to the one I knew the best of the two. This was comforting to me, even if the words came from Shadowless' mouth…

I then noticed I was back in my apartment, and I sat up abruptly, expecting a head rush, but there was none.

'How did you get us here?"

'I got a taxi; I told the driver you'd had an attack of narcolepsy and I was taking you home."

'He believed you?"

"It's not that far-fetched, you know. Even considering the truth." She gave a small smile. I didn't smile back, but I did relax a little more.

'How did you get me up here? Even with the elevator trip – it's a long way down the hall."

'I'm stronger than I look," she said simply, smiling again, this time ruefully. "Didn't you know?" And she reached out towards my face, where she had punched me in the jaw. Though there was still a grey bruise, it had long since stopped hurting. Yet, when her fingertips were only a hair's breadth from my face, the skin began to feel strange – not sore, but sensitive. She hesitated and dropped her hand. I noticed her black arm warmers and remembered how the last two times I'd seen Sakura, she'd been wearing fingerless gloves and a peasant blouse with overlong sleeves.

The day before that, not long after punching me, Shadowless had ripped her palms open sliding down the flagpole chain.

That had been a clue. Along with the eyes – identical shades of blue.

And somehow – she'd known about me. What I was. Who I was involved with.

But, even before that…the second day of knowing each other…

"I am a firm believer that names should be an accurate representation of what is being named."

'I've always been good at visualizing things…I just have to create what I see in my mind…every detail is critical."

Words of a Fighter Unit. All of them.

And I'd been…attracted…to them both. At least one question had been resolved – I'd had feelings for them both because they were the same person. And that kiss with Shadowless had been more intense because, as Sakura, she'd been holding her energy back so I wouldn't guess ..

But most of all – the music. The songs Sakura spun out of nothing, the way the music seemed to possess me, surrounding me in a hypnotic trance, reaching into my mind and loosing my soul into another world, one that could not be seen, only heard…

…just like Shadowless' incredible singing voice.

Sakura-Shadowless – her gaze was not steely or scrutinizing now. It was calm but anticipating, as if she knew what I would say now. And she probably did. It was quite obvious.

"I want answers."

Somehow, I couldn't be angry, not with her. She'd lied to me, and I still didn't know why, but my words came out level, nearly inflectionless, a statement rather than a demand.

'I know," she said softly. "But it would be best to leave here –"

"I want answers." It was a precise echo of before.

She paused for a moment, thinking.

'All right," she replied. It was a statement, too. "What would you like to know?"

"Everything."

"Just ask your questions then, and I will answer as best as I can."

"Okay." Strangely, my voice broke slightly, and my heart was pounding slightly as I looked into those blue, blue eyes.

'How and when did you learn the truth about Seven Voices Academy?"

She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

'I was ten years old when I saw a girl lying crumpled in a ditch. I rushed to her and pulled her out – she struggled and kicked, but she was so thin and frail that I got her out in the end. But she couldn't stand, couldn't support her own weight, and she collapsed and curled upon the ground. She was wearing grey coveralls that were too big for her, and all you could see were her face and hands; her skin was deathly pale and you could see every bone in her hand. Her hair was a faded magenta colour and it hung in wisps about her face; there were patches of her scalp that were almost bare; it looked as though locks of hair had been pulled right out. The point of one of her ears had been ripped off, and there was a piece missing out of the side of the other. Her eyes were enormous and a pale green, but they were lifeless, looking almost grey, with all the light gone out of them. She may have been the same age as me, or younger…or even older, I suppose; she was so damaged and wasted, I couldn't know."

A slight shiver crept up the base of my spine. The words were simple, but they were painting a horrible picture in my mind…

"She was breathing very hard; her throat was so dry that her breath came in gasps and whistles. I had some water with me; I helped her sit up and poured a little into her mouth. I think she realized then I was trying to help, for she stopped struggling, but she chocked on the water and coughed most of it back up.

"'Can you speak?' I asked her.

"'Yes,' she replied. Her voice was so soft and so light, like a feather in the wind, spinning over and over itself and gliding up and down…

"There was only one thing I could ask.

"'What happened to you?'

"And she told me she had come from a place where there were many children, all part of a wordspell team. They were trained to use their powers and constantly underwent evaluation. They weren't allowed to leave the facility without permission. She was one of several who, based on the results of her evaluations, were chosen to undergo ceratin experiments."

As she said the words "experiments", it echoed again in my thoughts, this time in Ritsu's voice.

"They did something different to everyone. They kept partners separated for months, not allowed to even see each other. They took two teams, traded Sacrifices, and made them fight each other. These were only tests done for curiosity purposes –just to see what would happen…" The disgust was evident in her voice, and I, too, felt sick.

"As for actual advances, they were successful in abolishing the assigned roles of Fighter and Sacrifice, making it possible for Namesharers to trade roles even during battle. As well, after over a hundred failures that left wordspellcasters dead or comatose – they succeeded in changing a team's Name." Her voice, steady until that point, quavered slightly at the horror of the idea. I remembered now, like she'd been telling me to. Kaze and I were talking to Ritsu:

"She calls herself 'Shadowless'," I'd told him.

'It really doesn't matter what her name is," he'd replied. "Whether that is her true Name, or simply what she calls herself, it is irrelevant. I'll be changing it, either way."

Even then, I'd cringed away from the thought. But no more than that. I was stupid, blind enough to think that nothing of that nature would ever have anything to do with me…

"They hadn't perfected it, though, and from what I've gathered since, they still haven't.

"I was amazed that she could say that much, even though she had to stop several times as she was overcome by fits of coughing. She seemed desperate to tell her story, though; it was purely coincidence that I was there to hear it…

"What they'd done to her, though, was just as inhuman. You are familiar with 'Zeroes'?"

I nodded.

"Normally their nerve endings are modified in the fetus stage to feel no pain – or any physical sensation. But they'd taken this girl, her Namesharer, and several others, and tried to turn them into Zeroes.

"Of course, they were all failures. But that didn't stop them from performing repeat surgeries on their 'subjects' and then forcing them through all kinds of excruciating tests to see if they could still feel pain. She showed me her body – her skin was not skin, but patches of infected black scabs, half-healed red gashes, patches of burns and bruises, and pure white knots of scar tissue."

A short, wordless yell of shock and rage clawed its way out of my throat. She bowed her head.

"I asked her where her Namesharer was, and she told me they'd escaped together, but gotten separated when they'd been chased.

"'But we agreed,' she said, 'that it was better to be separated than to ever go back there.'"

What they'd endured must have been pain beyond imagination, if they would so easily choose the agony of living without their life partner.

"I asked her where she'd run from, but she was having trouble breathing again, and it took her a long time before she could say, 'Seven—Voices'.

'I'd known about them, known that they trained wordspell teams – but never had I imagined that they did things like that.

'I never got to ask her how she escaped, though. Suddenly, she gasped and clenched her fists; her limbs stiffened. I thought she was going to have another coughing fit, but she sighed and went completely limp. I waited for her to open her eyes – but she never did." Her voice was trembling again. "I couldn't believe it -- couldn't believe that she'd just died in front of me like that. I never even knew her name," she added. She had opened her eyes, and there were tears shimmering in the corners.

Do I reach out? My fingers twitched, but my hand remained by my side.

'Did you know her Name, at least? I mean, from when she showed you…?"

"It was 'Breathless'," she said quietly.

The Name meant nothing to me. I could have pretended it was nothing but a story, a retelling of someone's bad dream – but this was impossible. Me, Kaze, Sakura-Shadowless – we were all pieces of this nightmare…

We were silent for what seemed a long time. Finally, Sakura-Shadowless said, "Next question." Her clipped tone was really saying, "Please change the subject."

"Whenever you met Kaze and me, you kept dropping cryptic hints that you knew about our bond. How did you know?"

"All I had to do was look to see that something wasn't right. I put that together with what I'd learned about Seven Voices testing an experimental bond—"

"You were spying on Seven Voices?"

'Yes."

"How?"

She gave her Sakura-Shadowless smile. "You know I'm good at appearing from nowhere and disappearing into nothing."

"Is that one of your abilities that goes with songspell?"

'No. Only a practiced knowledge of how to use my surroundings. Next question."

"Why do they do this?"

"Partly to see if they can. But mostly to build the most powerful wordspell army in the shortest amount of time possible."

I was thrown. "An army?"

"Whoever controlled you could ultimately rise to power and control the whole country. And if this person could make more of you…why stop with Japan? Why not the whole world?"

I shook my head slightly, reeling. "So, Ritsu—"

"He's not acting alone. There's an organization he belongs to – Septimal Moon. They work together and make decisions on what experiments to try. Sagan is a member as well – you are familiar with her, yes?"

'Nagisa? But she and Ritsu never got along—"

'They're simply trying to make advances faster than the other, to gain the most approval. It's an almost sibling-like rivalry, really."

"That makes sense…" Finally, everything was falling into place – but it was happening so quickly that I had to backtrack to my original questions.

"Why did you keep baiting me and Kaze?"

'To test your skills. To see how far you would go. And," she smiled again, "to provoke you into chasing me so I could continue to 'drop cryptic hints' about Seven Voices, to create doubts and make you think about what you were doing. Next question."

'When you introduced yourself, you said your job was 'to keep the world shadowless'. What does that mean?"

"Replace the ideas of light and dark with Wordspellcasters and ordinary humans. If Seven Voices build an army of wordspell teams and humans build their own army in resistance, then that leaves the two planes fighting, and the world will be cast in shadow. But if Seven Voices and Septimal Moon can be collapsed, then the two sides can co-exist with no hate, no war, no fighting. No shadows."

"That's amazing," I marveled. Her Name gave her this understanding, and, with it, the responsibility to stop it.

'When did your Name appear?"

'When I was six, the same as with wordspell Fighter Units. But I didn't begin to understand what it meant until I met the girl from Breathless."

My mind was still unable to comprehend the weight of responsibility that one Name bore – for one person to carry it all…

One person..?

Or two…?

'Do you have a Sacrifice?"

An odd look crossed her face. "I'm not bonded, if that's what you mean. Next question."

"But –"

"I'll come back to that later. Next question."

"I didn't begin to understand what it meant until I met the girl from Breathless."

I thought back to her story and realized something odd about it, something from the very beginning…

"Where were you when you found the girl?"

'Next question."

"But—"

'Next question."

"Where did you live?"

"Next."

'Why aren't you--?"

"My past does not concern you."

This was reasonable. 'I'm sorry."

"No, it's your right to ask … and my right to not answer."

"Just – how long have you been on your own?"

She hesitated for a moment. "Four years, officially. But there were periods before that."

'You…ran away from home?"

'Yes. If it can be called a 'home'. Next question."

'All right…" I was becoming overwhelmed with all of this information, and I had to struggle to find my way back to what was probably one of the most obvious questions.

"Why did you pretend to be Hiwatari Sakura? I mean, why did you bother trying to be two people?"

'I already told you why I used my Name. But I used my everday name, and a different dace, so I could get to know you."

This threw me. "Why?"

"Jinsei…you already know."

The moment she spoke the words, they became true.

I did know.

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

"Which one of you…is the Sacrifice?"

She'd always kept her gaze on me, never Kaze.

The way we'd connected so quickly, our progression much faster than normal.

And that one time…

"As you wish – Master." I'd asked her to keep her hair so it framed her face. She'd been joking…

…or had she?

The way the music had been so easy for me, the piano, singing, although I'd never tried before.

The music had lived in me all along…

And from the very first time we'd met…

'I'm so happy to have met you…Jinsei."

I didn't understand, not then. I was bound by something false, blinded to the call of the truth –

Do you have a Sacrifice?

"Jinsei, you and I –"

Yes, you do.

But he was blind.

Was, but no more.

Of all the lies I'd suffered, what I'd felt for her was not one of them.

The only one for me, my destined partner, my one true love, my completion…

…my Namesharer.

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

She'd pulled off her vest and turned her back to me, lifting her hair. Her tank top was scooped in the back, and etched just below the base of her neck in simple blackletter was her Name.

Shadowless.

"Your Name should appear on you when you are brought into direct corporeal contact with your Fighter Unit."

I reached out, and it was effortless. My heart was soaring; I was at peace; all was right with the world.

I'd found her.

My fingertip brushed the pale expanse of her back, gliding over the almost liquid surface and moving over the letters as if they weren't even there – the Name was neither raised upon nor embossed into her skin, but woven right into it, a part of her. A part of us.

There was a faint tingling between my shoulderblades, the same degree of sensation I'd felt on the night of our first encounter, but no more. It wasn't going to be enough.

So I gently turned her around, pulled her close to me, and kissed her. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me back with a nearly feverish passion that thrilled me. Free from all the lies, all I could feel was an ecstatic, overwhelming love that exploded in my mind in a frenzy of colour and emotion, the silent equivalent to the most beautiful music in the world.

An electric jolt shot through my shoulders, and I inhaled sharply and froze. She murmured, "It's okay" ; her lips formed the words against my own. She ket go and stepped back.

Wordlessly, I tugged my sweater over my head. A mirror hung on the far wall and I moved over to it; she followed without a sound. Turning my back to the mirror, I unbuttoned my shirt and let it slide to catch in the crooks of my elbows. I looked over my shoulder, and there it was, identical to hers.

My Name.

My true Name.

At last.

I knew what to call her, then, too. She, alone, wasn't Shadowless anymore. Shadowless was both of us, together. She was –

'Sakura," I said quietly, turning to face her. She appeared blurry in my vision, until I blinked, and two ice-cold tears trickled down my face. I saw tears in her eyes, too, full of identical joy.

Without knowing exactly how, we were kissing again, and it was fiery and intense beyond all imagination, and I never wanted it to end. I could now sense all of Sakura's emotions and I knew that she felt the same. It was she who broke it off, however, though I could feel her reluctance.

'We have to leave," she said. "We can't stay here. Seven Voices will have detected us when we bonded. We should do a cloaking spell and leave right away. I've already put your clothes in a backpack; it's by the couch. You can come stay with me; I can take care of everything else."

A few minutes ago, I would have said, "Hey, no, wait. We need to think about this." But I was running on pure euphoria now, not that that changed anything. It was still clear that we needed to leave as soon as possible.

So all I said was, 'Okay."

Sakura smiled, and began singing softly. Her words were echoed by me as they sprang into my mind of their own accord, as if they'd been there all along.

"Steal the sense of the songs that bind;

Desert detection; leave all blind."

Our voices, at a very low volume, rose and fell in a simple harmony. But the thrill, the magic of it was not lost on us.

Sakura placed her hands on my shoulders and touched her lips lightly to mine.

'I love you, Jinsei," she whispered.

"I love you, Sakura," I replied, feeling the undeniable truth in every fibre of our beings. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close to me.

'What the hell is this?!"

Kaze?!

Sakura and I spun to see Kaze and Mizu standing in the doorway behind us. Mize was impassive, but Kaze was shocked and livid.

Dimly, I realized my shirt was still half off. My back had been to Kaze. My back, and my Name…

"No…" she breathed. Clenching her fists, she snarled through gritted teeth, 'How could you do this to me? How could you – teaming up with her, taking everything we shared and throwing it back in my face like that --!"

Anger began to wash over me in waves, gradually increasing. "You know as well as I do that I didn't have a choice. And if we ever had anything between us, it was all a lie, and even then it meant nothing the moment you met her," I said, gesturing to Mizu.

I was right, and she knew it.

"We only came to get my things out of here," she said quietly. "But—if you're here, we can take you back with us, back to Seven Voices. We can fix this; we can make it right. We can separate you –"

A sound I hadn't known I could make ripped from my throat – it was a cross between a growl and a snarl, something savage, almost feral. "Never," I hissed.

Kaze's dark emerald eyes went wide with hurt and betrayal. As I watched, they seemed to turn black with hatred.

"Traitor," she spat.

Mizu broke in. "We'll take you in by force then. We declare a battle by wordspell."

"Not a chance," said Sakura almost flippantly, casually crouching down to retrieve her vest from the floor where she'd dropped it. "We decline."

"But we insist,' said Mizu.

I noticed Sakura's eyes – she was looking past Kaze and Mizu, and at the sliding glass door, next to which lay her flower-embroidered black satchel.

"As do we," she said, and suddenly sprang up onto the couch, leaping over their heads, hitting the floor, and running the last few steps to where her bag lay. Sakura picked up her textbook-filled bag and, not without some effort, swung it at the door.

Mizu and Kaze shrieked as the glass shattered and threw up their arms to protect their faces as microscopic shards rained down on them. A security alarm began to scream.

"Jinsei, grab the backpack and let's go!" cried Sakura.

I ran to her, stooping to grab the backpack as I passed, the glass crunching under my feet.

Sakura vaulted over the side of the balcony, dropping eight feet before grasping the crude, rusting metal rungs of the service ladder that ran the height of the building.

I stopped, though, and looked back at Kaze, who seared me with her black gaze.

The sound of police cars could be heard a few blocks away.

"Let's go," said Mizu.

'Wait!" I said, "Come with us."

"What?" demanded Kaze. Mizu only stared.

"Come with us," I repeated.

'Jinsei!" cried Sakura.

'You have to," I said quickly. "Seven Voices is dangerous, your risking your freedom, maybe even your life if you go back there. Come with us; we'll explain everything – please."

Right before she and Mizu turned their back s on me, Kaze snapped, "Go to hell."

And then they were gone.

'Jinsei!"

I snapped to it, following Sakura over the balcony and down the ladder, still reeling. We ducked into an alley and made it out the other side just as the police cars pulled up to our building; I could see the red-and-blue lights flashing in my periphery.

Down the street, a bus was just pulling to a stop.

We still weren't safe; we had to get further away. The same thought flew through both our minds: Catch that bus!

We sped down the sidewalk, our feet pounding the pavement in unison. We ducked through the doors as they were closing and stood there, panting, as Sakura fished some change out of her satchel and handed it to the frowning driver, who muttered something about "crazy kids".

We slid into a seat and, as the bus pulled away, the exhaustion hit us both. Sakura closed her eyes and leaned her head on my shoulder. I gently put my arm around her, rejoicing in the warmth of her next to me.

Resting my head on the cold glass window, I couldn't help but think, This is where my life begins. I closed my own eyes, falling into blissful oblivion. But I couldn't shut out the sound of the sirens in the distance.

*~end of part one!~*

A/N: Yay! So…you have to review now. You must tell me what you thought. Or part two will be a rather long time in coming, mwahaha…

Okay, yeah, some things were a little random…like adding the references to Breathless (Ai and Midori). I wasn't going to do that at first but then I got into it and I'm like, why not. And the references to Septimal Moon were kinda last minute as well, but it works for what I wanted for this, so I'm like, whatever. And of course I had to have Sakura pick up her vest randomly at the end there. It's hand-painted, so, chya! But Jinsei's sweater is lost…hahaha.

So…please give me your feedback, and stay tuned for part two: Songs of the Soul. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you in part two! Peace!

~Raye Lynne:)