Next part! Comments, good or not, appreciated!

Windlily


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	Three dragons skirted the upper limits of the atmosphere following the
blue and green curve of the Earth east as they chased the sun.

	*I'm surprised they haven't sent anything up to challenge us.*
Tsuzuku's voice came quietly into his brother's minds.

	*Heh! They're afraid of us now! Our Eldest Brother scared them good!*
Owaru answered as he rolled and winked at the Red Dragon.

	*Just be thankful that they haven't, Owaru-kun. We don't have time to
deal with them right now.* Hajime's tone held a mild rebuke and Tsuzuku
heard the guilt tinged whisper of a thought that his brother believed
hidden.

	(I imagine they don't have much left to throw at us.)

	He agreed. The casualty and loss reports from the various militaries
that had sent up planes against Hajime's first Change had been
incredible.

	A space-side flicker of light caught the corner of Hajime's eye. He
focused on it and stopped suddenly in surprise. Tsuzuku and Owaru looped
to come back to him as he blinked at the large rectangle that pierced
the black backdrop. Golden light shimmered across the opening, like
sunlight on water. What was it?

	*Elder Brother?* Tsuzuku asked, his head scanning back and forth as he
came to hover at his right side, Owaru pulling up on his left.

	*What is that?* He asked his brothers.

	*What is what, Elder Brother?* Tsuzuku saw nothing but stars.

	*That! It's a rectangle of light, like a door?* A doorway. It was a
doorway. He knew it suddenly. A doorway to Heaven.

	*Where? I don't see it, Hajime!* Owaru moved restlessly near him.

	Hajime blinked and it was gone and as abruptly as it had appeared.

	*It's gone now. Did you see it, Tsuzuku?* He asked his second brother.

	*No. What was it, Hajime?*

	*Maybe nothing more than an illusion, Brother. Come on, I've wasted
enough time here!*

	Owaru gave Tsuzuku a puzzled look as they turned together to follow
their brother once more. Tsuzuku shook his head at the White Dragon,
just as puzzled. 

	Hajime kept them high until they were right over the place he wanted to
be, then dove for the ground. He could hear Owaru chortle in delight
with the dizzying speed as they plummeted then the laugh was cut off to
be replaced with a gasp of shock as their destination came into sight.
Tsuzuku hissed beside him and Hajime heard the mental echo of his
brother's horrified anger. His own anger and despair came out of him as
a thundering roar.

	They angled in over the destroyed fields and went to hover over the
ruins. The four springs at each cardinal corner of the village had been
fouled with the carcasses of the animals that had once been kept there
and the smell of smoke and blood hung in the air.

	*I will Change back. You don't have too, if you don't want to.* Hajime
informed his brothers in a tight tone. This was going to be awful. From
here the knots of bodies was a disturbing sight. It was going to be
horrific up close, but the ruins had to be checked for the slim chance
of survivors and the hope of some form of information still remaining.

	*No, Change us, Elder Brother. It will take all three of us to check
for survivors.* Tsuzuku answered with steel under his voice.

	Owaru nodded his agreement.

	Hajime nodded. *Each of you go for an outer gate and work your way to
the center. We'll meet there and then go through the remaining quarter
together. Look for books or scrolls as you check. They couldn't have
gotten it all.*

	They nodded agreement and a part of him noted that Owaru went for the
West gate and Tsuzuku to the South as he headed for the Eastern one.
Once they were in place he closed his eyes and pictured them all in
their human bodies. He willed that image into being. There was an
electric shock and the strange, uncomfortable feeling of his body
rearranging itself as his dragon left him in a streak of ethereal blue
lighting.

	He shivered as the cold mountain wind whipped against his skin as he
modified his fall into a slow float to the ground. He stood on the
cobbles of the road leading to the massive bronze doubled doors of the
gate. It was still closed and the Blue Dragon King of the East was
embellished across it in exquisite detail. The Gyushu hadn't bothered
with the Gate. They had taken down the walls on either side, leaving it
to stand forlorn. He climbed over the rubble of the wall and started
searching.

	It was a heart-wrenching and emotionally draining job yet he forced
himself to walk through every building. He tried not to look too closely
at the dead as he stretched his senses to the limit, listening for any
sign of a whispered breath or faint heartbeat and on guard for any
lurking enemy. The eerie silence was perhaps the thing that prayed on
his nerves the most. The fall of small bits of rubble and the slide of
loose roof tiles made him jump and whirl, ready for anything.

	The Gyushu had been thorough. Fire had gone through most of the
buildings he checked leaving nothing but blackened corpses and charred
and still smoldering furnishings. He was almost to the main building
that had been the palace in another time when he heard Owaru's muffled
and horrified yell. He ran flat out, weaving his way around the carnage
and hit the square in time to see Owaru stagger out onto the porch at
the top of the high flight of stairs that lead into the palace and lean
over a balustrade to get ill. He leapt up the stairs in three bounds and
rushed to his brother.

	"Owaru?!" He asked as he put both hands on his brothers shoulders as
Owaru leaned on the marble rail. "Are  you all right?" He questioned
softly.

	Owaru didn't turn to him, just shook his head 'no' and pointed with a
shaking finger toward the shattered doorway of the palace. He squeezed
his brothers shoulders as he stared into the darkness of that entrance.
What was there that had upset Owaru so much? Tsuzuku came speeding
across the square and sprang to vault over the rail on the other side of
the patio.

	"Stay with Owaru, Tsuzuku-kun. I need to check something out."

	The haggard, haunted expression on his second brothers face wrenched at
his soul as Tsuzuku nodded and came to stand beside Owaru. He growled a
muttered curse under his breath on all of the Gyushu and swore to
himself that he would make each one of them pay dearly for doing this to
these people and his brothers as he advanced on the doorway and stepped
cautiously through.

	The hallway was pierced every ten meters by shafts of sunlight that
fell on the mutilated ruins of the once delicate friezes that had graced
these walls. He stalked down the hallway glancing into the open doorways
he passed. They showed only the remains of an incredible vandalism.
Nothing was left unbroken or undamaged. Yet there was nothing here that
was worse than what had been outside. In fact, it was better in that
there were no bodies. That should have warned him. A subconscious memory
told him that the library was behind the doors that faced him at the end
of the hall. One of them was slightly ajar. He took a hold of it and
it's partner and pulled them open.

	The sight that met his eyes was one straight out of hell. He swallowed
hard against the bile that surged up, determined that he would not be
ill. The room was painted in blood. There was no surface, not even the
ceiling, that was left clean and the source of that blood hung in bound
groups of ten from the ceiling, throats slit. The precious scrolls and
books that had been kept here for over two hundred generations where a
crumpled, torn and blood-soaked carpet. But the worst thing was the
taunt that was spelled out using severed human fingers on the low table
placed just for them to see.

	'Too late, Dragon Kings
	 Better luck next time.'

	His disbelieving mind registered that they were women's fingers as he
heard steps come his way. He knew who it was.

	"Tsuzuku, get out of here!" He snarled. That Owaru had seen this was
something he would never forgive himself for. He would not let Tsuzuku
see it.

	"Elder Brother?" There was uncertainty in Tsuzuku's voice as his steps
faltered, then halted.

	Hajime took a breath, forced calmness into his voice. "Go back outside.
You and Owaru go and check the last quarter of the town. I'll be with
you in a bit."

	"Hai." Tsuzuku retreated, much to Hajime's relief.

	He closed his eyes and steeled himself, then opened them and stepped
gingerly into the room. He had to check, just in case there was
something they missed. Surely there was something they had missed.

	He had found six small books and three scrolls that might be
salvageable. He only had one small area left to go through. He paused
for a moment and wiped the sweat off his forehead against his upper arm.
His lower arms were covered in blood from the elbows down. As were his
feet and calves. He wondered if he looked like some lost soul wandering
in the lower hells as he leaned down to pick up a large crumple of
scroll. A flash of gold from under the tiny space of a tumbled stack of
bookcases caught the corner of his eye. He put the bloodied piece of
parchment next to his tiny pile as he went toward the bookcases. He
tossed the heavy wood furnishings away one-handed then gently lifted the
ornate scroll case that had been protected under it.

	It had an unbroken Dragon seal on it. His hands trembled as pried it
off carefully and prayed for a miracle. He opened the case and the fine
white roll of paper came into view. It disintegrated before his eyes
into a fine white dust that swirled into the air. It got into his mouth
as he gasped and stung his eyes. He coughed and swallowed against the
bitter taste as he fanned it away from his face with one hand.
Disappointment as bitter as the taste that clung to the back of his
throat swept over him and he flung the case away in fury. He winced as
it shattered against the far wall and cursed himself for his own
stupidity and temper. The case itself was a relic and he had just
destroyed it. He had to get out of here! The blood-filled room was
suddenly to close and more than he could stand! He grabbed the small
pile of writings and fled.


						*****

	Owaru was seething. A presence that stalked in and out of the shadows
like some ghost bent on a vengeance that it couldn't have. Tsuzuku knew
his younger brother wanted to lash out at something yet there was
nothing but the dead and the silence. Something about the dead he had
noticed though, there were very few children among the bodies. He
wondered were they were and hoped they were hiding in some place they
had yet to discover. Owaru joined him at the ruined walls beside the
North Gate and threw himself down to sit on a pile of rubble. He picked
up a small rock and threw it with deadly accuracy at one of the carrion
birds that had appeared to circle. He threw another, and another.

	"Owaru, they are just doing what they were created to do. Killing them
won't do any good. More will come to take their place." Tsuzuku chided
softly.

	"I know. But I don't care." He threw another and another bird plunged
to join the dead.

	Tsuzuku turned his back on him and jumped up onto the low ruin of the
wall, wanting a view of something other than this devastation. He was
slightly worried about his oldest brother and wondered if he should go
back and check on him. Hajime had been very upset by whatever was in
that room and Owaru had only said that there was something really
horrible in the palace but wouldn't go into any detail. And that was
very unlike his brother. A movement in the fields caught his attention
and he focused on it. It was stealthy and whoever it was was keeping low
in the longer grasses that surrounded the fields.

	"We've got company, Brother."

	Owaru brought down one more bird in a negligent throw as he hopped up
beside his brother. Tsuzuku pointed and Owaru gave a brusque nod as he
picked up the movement.

	"Go or wait?" He bit out.

	"Go." He grabbed Owaru's arm as his brother got a dangerous gleam in
his eyes. "But easy, Owaru-kun. It might be a survivor or someone from a
nearby village coming to see what's going on."

	"I hope it isn't." Owaru growled softly as they leapt down side by side
and ran, then parted, Tsuzuku going left while he went right to catch
their company between them.

	It was a pair of boys. One maybe twelve and the other maybe ten.
Tsuzuku sighed softly as Owaru seemed to just appear out of the grass
before them. They gave stifled shrieks and he grabbed them both as they
ran by.