Chrono X Angel, Book 8: The Sands of Time

Chapter 10

The crisp, cool air that morning filled Usoko's lungs as she rushed through the forest. She wore her usual training clothes, a hot pink sports bra and black leggings with a pink stripe down the side, with her long hair tied up in a ponytail that fell down her back. Around her stood trees hundreds, if not thousands of years old, that stretched up to meet the sky like mini wooden skyscrapers. She was not being chased, however, nor was there an emergency to which the Pinkette needed to attend. This was simply a part of her morning training run that she had been undertaking for the past three weeks that her and Sarah had been in 1999. This particular area, located near the Oregon border, was a hotspot of supernatural energy that Tatsuya had instructed Usoko how to use properly in order to keep her own internal energies balanced. It had worked for the most part, and the almost daily need to fire off energy blasts into the sky had all but subsided. She was still in a precarious position of course, and there was no way that Usoko could stay in this place forever, but it had helped a lot to extend Usoko's time greatly while she waited for the conflux. She was excited as she ran, launching herself onto tree limbs and swinging off of them like a professional gymnast, strafing between trunks and around fallen logs, before leaping from a high cliff and soaring down to the lake below on her wings. For someone who claimed to hate untamed nature, she was certainly enjoying herself today. It was probably due to the fact that today was the day of the Celestial Allignment that Tatsuya had been preparing her for. After today, if everything went right at least, Usoko would have everything she needed not only to have fully balanced her powers, but enough strength to hopefully beat Kanata in their rematch. Usoko was really looking forward to that fight especially, but first it was time for another sparring session with her mother. While she would never risk going all out against her own daughter, even one she had not actually given birth to yet, Tatsuya was certainly not going easy on Usoko either. Her advanced age lent itself to a level of experience and knowledge that quite honestly frightened Usoko. In the three months they had been doing this routine, Tatsuya had not only been undefeated, but had also not beaten Usoko the same way twice. While getting a little sick of losing, Usoko had to admit she was definitely learning a lot just from watching her mother fight. She had already picked up a few new moves that she could not wait to try out against Kanata, but had even all but mastered the Divine Buster technique that the present-day spirit version of Tatsuya had taught Usoko. Touching down on the far side of the lake, Usoko shut off the boombox that had been playing the song "Dare" the whole time she had been running, another small way of Tatsuya's to encourage Usoko to keep going.

"Well done lass," smiled plushie Sarah, plodding up to greet the pinkette and holding a stopwatch, "T'was a brand new record that was, beat your old time by twenty whole seconds. Well played."

"Thanks, I was really trying to push myself today," replied Usoko as she grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off of herself.

"I could tell," called the voice of Tatsuya as she emerged from the nearby cabin they had been lodging in the past few months, "I think you're about as ready as you can be, given the circumstances. The time draws near, are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," replied Usoko, a slight undertone of trepidation in her voice, "Lets go over it one more time just to be safe though?"

Tatsuya nodded and plucked an ancient tome from the shelf, waving Usoko over so the two could examine it together. On one of its worn pages was the diagram of an Angel, much like her, with the six wings of the Seraphim form. Next to this Angel was a similar diagram of the same Angel, now with two wings again, only now they were larger and more angular, resembling the wings of a bird of prey. The other physical features seemed to remain the same in the diagram, but Usoko was sure there was more to this new form than losing some wings.
Archangel...

Her mother had said that Archangels were exceptionally rare, only able to be born during certain cosmic alignments such as the one about to occur this very day. The last time it had occurred was over fifty thousand years ago, at least that had been Tatsuya's best estimation.