Chapter 2: Choices…

Seriyana mentally whistled as she surveyed the damage done to the Phoenix Temple. There were still burned and bloodied corpses in the hallway, so she had to step gingerly to keep the blood off her shoes.

"This is a lot of destruction," she finally admitted, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, it is," Suzaku replied, his tone bitter. "I’m the only Phoenix God left alive."

Seriyana stopped abruptly, her eyes widening. "You’re the only one left alive." She felt a sudden sense of kinship with him at the moment. Both of them orphaned by abrupt acts of war.

‘Yeah, and it was our family that orphaned him,’ a voice whispered fiercely. She mentally crushed that train of thought before it got any further. Suzaku – seeing the pained look on her face – immediately misunderstood the reason.

"Don’t worry, Atsumi. There are still some of the servants left." ‘Very few,’ he amended silently, not wanting to upset her. Seriyana tried hard to suppress a smirk, so the phoenix was worried about her eh?

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"This is your room, here," Suzaku stated, opening the third in a line of doors. Seriyana stepped inside and quickly surveyed the room.

It was an ordinary, nice sized room. One window sat in the far wall. The bed was stationed only three feet from the window, with a nightstand on the other side. A bureau was resting against the opposite wall from the bed, and next to it were two wooden chairs. The room was plain, no ornaments, and all the furniture was simple, sturdy, and straightforward.

Curious, Seriyana peeked out the window and nearly whistled aloud. It was really high up! (Ed: About 10 stories) "Say so long to the window escape plan," she muttered.

"What was that?" Suzaku asked, turning around to find Seriyana leaning out the window. "It’s not really this high," he admitted. " It’s floating in the air now so the youkos will have a hard time reaching the temple with a second wave."" Seriyana nearly snorted, the youkos weren’t coming back.

They weren’t coming back ever again.

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A young woman in a mist gray cloak shivered and drew her cloak tighter around herself in an attempt to block the damp, morning air. Her heat spell had stopped working early in the morning. It had only taken her a little while to realize that she had somehow triggered a dormant dispel shield.

And so she walked on, completely oblivious as the unnatural shadows behind her followed.

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Seriyana sighed as she closed the door to her room. Allowing her illusion spell to drop, she changed and slunk into bed.

It had been three days since she had been taken into the enemy temple, and they still hadn’t figured out what she was. While dropping the illusion spell was risky, it held a lesser danger to it than letting her magical energy become depleted and forcing her to drop her spell randomly.

Seriyana was so exhausted that she almost missed the knock on her door.

"I’m coming in!" Suzaku shouted before he started opening the door…

Only to be smacked square in the face by a rolled up sheet. He yelped in surprise.

"Baka!" Seriyana shouted, her voice a bit muffled by the blanket she was wrapped in. "Didn’t your okaasan ever teach you not to walk into a lady’s room at night?!"

"Well you didn’t have to hit me! Besides, I knocked!" Seriyana’s face flushed.

"That’s besides the point! What did you come in here for anyway?" Suzaku paused – Seriyana’s voice sounded different to him. Throatier somehow, richer too. He dismissed the though almost immediately, it was probably his imagination anyway.

"You seemed a bit despondent at dinner tonight." He started to close the door. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright." The click of the door shutting emphasized his words.

A few minutes passed before Seriyana felt confident enough to drop the blanket and collapse on the bed, sighing in relief. But one thing had made itself clear; she wasn’t safe with her true form anywhere now. Survival of the fittest, either Suzaku or herself would have to die.

And she would be damned if it would be her.

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The cloaked woman cursed as she stubbed her toe against a tree root. It had gotten unnaturally dark quickly, and since she hadn’t since left the dispel area, she couldn’t conjure a light spell. And it was cold too, with no shelter around for miles.

Yes, no one around for miles. No one to hear her scream.

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Seriyana smirked as she softly closed Suzaku’s bedroom door. ‘For someone who was just recently attacked, their security sure is lax.’ Shaking her head, she slunk to the bed, pulling a miniature dagger – no bigger than a pinky – out of her hair. It glowed softly before it stretched out to a more appropriate size.

‘He almost looks like a little kid.’ Seriyana involuntarily smiled as she looked down upon the young phoenix god. He was curled up into a ball with his blankets entangled around his legs.

But she was here to kill him. She had to kill him, there was no other way.

"Okaasan…wake up…" The dagger fell to the floor with a clatter as Seriyana closed her eyes in pain. ‘So familiar…’

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A couple of tears fell from Seriyana’s eyes as she took a couple steps back. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t kill him.

‘Grandmother was right,’ she thought bitterly, ‘ hanyous are weak.’ Barely keeping from snarling, she stalked out the door and down the hallway.

Then she stopped as she realized she’d left her dagger forgotten on the floor. A mysterious smile graced her face as she continued onward. ‘Looks like I’ll have to wait here just a while longer. It seems security will certainly get impossible to slip by for a while.’

And with a little mental chuckle she slipped into bed and fell asleep.

Next Chapter: Sibling ‘Love’, Suzaku gets suspiscious, and angry words are thrown. Plus a little bit more upon the fate of Ghalako. (Who will become very important on the series of events once things really start to roll.