"Nani?!?"

His mind tried to shift to coherent thought processes. "Ce-ko! Ce-ko! This isn't what you're thinking..."

"Oh, it isn't?" Celly asked archly, pain lacing her words. "Well, you're the master at decieving me. Why don't you tell me what I'm thinking?"

"Iie... you weren't supposed to hear that... I mean, I wasn't going to tell you... I mean..." Dionysus struggled to form his explanation.

Celly's eyes burned from her unshed tears and the anger and shame and humiliation that she was feeling. She walked over to Dionysus and slapped him across the cheek, hard, cutting off all his attempts at apology.

"Urasai! I don't want to hear anything else from you! After all this time, you were just using me! I can't believe it. I actually thought you *loved* me!!! I bet you got a real kick out of that!!!"

The tears finally began to flow down her cheeks and Dionysus vainly attempted to wipe them away. Celly slapped him again and pushed him away roughly.

"Don't touch me! Don't you dare touch me! I believed you when you said you loved me, and in reality you were just using me. Oh, gods, am I so cursed?!? You betrayed me, lied to me, decieved me, and you did it by preying on my need for companionship. You knew my weakness was my fear of being alone, and you exploited it! Stay away from me, Dionysus..."

Dionysus shuddered as her heard his beloved Ce-ko pronounce his full name instead of the nickname she had pinned on him.

"I don't want to see you anymore, Dionysus. Guardian or not, if I see you again, I'll kill you myself." Celly's words were laced with bitterness and venom. And that trace of hatred that Dionysus had never heard Celly use with him before.

Finally, as if she couldn't stand it anymore, Celly bolted form the room, crying all the way. Artemis and Dionysus could hear her booted feet pound across the floorboards of the Mori and heard the resounding crash as she slammed her bedroom door closed. The sound of springs creaking attested to the fact that the fuku-clad warrior had collapsed on her bed and was crying her heart out.

Dionysus stood numbly. Oh... oh god... he said in his mind. He couldn't feel anything anymore. Everything was numb. It was as if his whole body had been cut away, leaving only the bitter feelings in his heart to haunt him for eternity. His knees buckled of their own accord and Dionysus slumped to the floor. His eyes were unseeing and he didn't feel the sickening thud as his knees met the hard wooden floor. He was in emotional, physical and emotional torture. The his mind felt a lessening. He turned his attention to it. No! No! Gods, no, Ce-ko!!! In his mind he could heard the sound of glass breaking and before his eyes he could almost see the red string of destiny cut before him. She had broken their link... he couldn't feel her anymore! Oh... oh... oh god... god no... The constant connection he had had with his beloved was gone now. He couldn't feel her comforting presence in the back of his mind. All that was left was blackness and emptiness. He fell over and curled into a fetal position. The link that Dionysus had had with Celeste for over a thousand years was now nothing. The mental strain gnawed at him. No... she can't be gone! This... this can't be happening!

Artemis shook his head, shooked at what had just occured. But when his brother had slumped to his knees, his attention had been captured again. Artemis couldn't stand to see his little brother in such agony. He looked like only a shell of person. Then he convulsed, falling to the floor in a fetal position. Artemis rushed over, grabbing his brother by the shoulders and shaking him.

"Dionysus! Little brother! Snap out of it!"

But Dionysus' eyes remained lifeless and dull. Artemis could catch some of his brother's incoherent ramblings.

"This... can't be... masaka... no... why... can't be... happening..."

TBC...