I had to get this out of my system, it just wouldn't leave me alone. And being a big Noblesse fan that I am, I caved in and wrote it.

Beta-ed by LovelyWeather. May your eyes rest in piece after correcting my horrible grammar and spelling.

Summery: He, out of all of them, knew his limits the best. That's why he kept pushing them.

Char: M-21, Frankenstein (if you want to be picky about it =P)

Genre: General

Limitless

The first detail he noticed was that he wasn't surrounded by a white void this time. It was sort of a relief because, if anything, the darkness soothed his hazy mind. But really, who'd want to be surrounded by such a sterilized color when he's dying or, most likely, already dead?

The next fun little fact he picked up was that he was cold. Or, more precisely, the smooth surface his back was pressed up against and the air tickling his obviously bare feet were cold. This was a good sign. His body was still emoting warmth, meaning he hadn't bled to death.

The following thing he increasingly became aware of was the back of his head pressing against the same cold surface. He usually felt lightheaded in these sort of situations, but now his head felt as heavy as an anvil.

Soft mechanical humming was ringing in his ears and it told him that the metal surface beneath him was most likely moving. And when a sudden bright light burned his eyes behind closed eyelids, he confirmed that he stopped moving.

A series of near-death experiences taught him to pick up on these little clues just to assure himself if he was or wasn't dying. Comforting, wasn't it? So when he added one, two and three together, he came to the conclusion that he was pretty much alive and decided that it was time to try and open his eyes.

A thin bent line of a particular light blue color was hanging above him in a hard contrast to the grey cylinder-shaped background*. His eyebrows twitched in a slight frown as he turned his head to the side with a hiss. It was gouging his eyes out.

"Don't move." A familiar voice instructed from somewhere above him.

M-21 groggily lolled his head back to that god-awful light above him. An apology died on his lips when he realized just how much his damn head hurt. The whirling noise the scanner was making became irritatingly louder. He needed a distraction, and what a better way to distract oneself than to list off his physical injuries and how he had gotten them?

He started with the first painfully obvious problem. Sensitivity to loud noises and light. A concussion.

A hand lunged towards him from the smoke and grabbed his face. He fell backwards, unable to overcome his enemy's momentum and his head was slammed into the concrete ground with such force that a dent was left behind.

'Ouch.' His face twitched at the memory. 'Moving on.'

His lungs felt heavy and it was taking quite some effort to make them draw in air.

The heavy combat-boot swung around, hitting him straight in the chest and against the wall. Spider-like cracks blossomed along the concrete as his enemy continued his onslaught with a string of punches that were the size of his head.

He chalked it up to four... most likely five, broken ribs. 'What else-?'

Shoulders? Felt normal. Upper arms? No stinging gashes or bullet-holes. Minor scratches bellow his elbow... Hmmm, his fingers were strangely numb.

He grit his teeth as he lunged forward. His hands were on fire. The sharp nails painfully pulled back to their original shape, but he wouldn't let them. He refused to let them change back. Not yet.

A feeling of content seeped through his chest and pulled his lips into a gentle smirk. 131 seconds. He had counted. He was able to maintain his physical transformation when he was well beyond his limit. Even though he didn't feel his hands, the result was still pleasing.

131 seconds.

2 minutes and 11 seconds more than he could usually take.

He was making progress.

The satisfaction, however, was short lived upon noticing a rather hot and throbbing sensation bellow his ribs. A wary sigh escaped him. 'Damn it.'

He vaguely remembered the man from the group of Vampire Hunters stabbing him.

Yeah. Vampire hunters. Really, who knew?**

It seemed as if the cover for the Hospital massacre wasn't convincing enough only to vampire Nobles, but also to these guys, who were quite content with blaming Regis and Seira for it- once they discovered the two by chance that is. Of course, the boy threw a fit upon being compared to 'such indecent and inelegant creatures' by an 'unrefined and uneducated fruitcake***'. But, all in all, the other party wasn't convinced in the slightest of their innocence and, from their one-sided thinking, surely as hell didn't seem to care if proven wrong. That's how it all began. And, he guessed, the whole ordeal ended by now.

Checking up his little scoreboard of injuries he concluded that the damage he sustained this time wasn't that bad. He could easily try and ignore the concussion, numbness and broken ribs and go back to living and doing his job while his body slowly regenerated. But the stab wound? Well he's wasn't really used to those. Recalling the incident with Shark, he established that probably a three-days rest was in order, unless he wanted the children in Ye Ran high-school to start screaming their heads off when/if his wound reopened.

A silent sigh. 'Three days...' his mind echoed. 'Three days.'

Three seemingly insignificant days to recover from a twenty minute battle. That meant losing two hours a day for training, resulting in losing another feeble yet important amount of seconds of prolonging his transformation. And that meant that he was another three days away from being capable of getting a simple list of names.

Aggravation seeped under his skin. There was only one way to get that list, and that was: straight from the source. Doctor Crombell.

But he couldn't. Not yet. The unknown whereabouts of the scientist would have been the main problem if it weren't for another obstacle. And that obstacle was: Crombell's strength matched Frankenstein's. Seeking him out would have been nothing short of suicide when he himself couldn't even lay a finger on Mary in her normal state. The same Mary who was, from what he concluded, incapacitated and maimed by the said blond scientist without so much as breaking a sweat. And in her enhanced stage at that!

M-21 didn't need someone to spell it out for him. True, he had been a whole lot weaker then, but even now it was obvious:

He still had a long, a very long, way to go.

And that thought was... depressing.

"How are you feeling?"

The sudden question startled him out of his inner-reflecting. He carefully took his time to think up of a decent answer. "...I've been better."

"Hm." A pause. "You don't say."

His gut clenched. The monotone and dry intonation in Frankenstein's voice were a clear proof of annoyance. But why at him?

He guessed that it was the fact that he was spending as much time here healing his injuries as the scientist did regularly. He was almost certain of it.

The occasional glances Frankenstein threw his way with that undefined expression that was laced with pity was proof enough (subconsciously he refused to acknowledge it as worry). The issue of his physical injuries did seem like a common hint the man liked to leave in their conversations. But he's been careful enough to tip-toe around the subject. Frankenstein, of course, didn't prod into the matter any further, but M-21 knew he wouldn't be able to avoid it forever.

So the perplexing behavior was either caused by the subject which was about to arise, and he hoped it wouldn't, or he accidentally bled onto the carpet upon his arrival here. If it was the latter then he was sure that Frankenstein would have him pay in blood, which was, now that he thought about it, slightly ironic.

The noise made by the machine above him died down and was replaced by a more gentle humming of the metal table beneath him.

As the surface beneath him moved and revealed a light grey ceiling, M-21 slightly pondered which of the two possible outcomes would be worse. So when the machine stopped, he decided that: he really didn't want to find out. And that was exactly why he was so oh-so-carefully avoiding a pair of cerulean eyes that were now glaring down at him.

. . .

The tension in the room stretched like a rubber-band about to snap at any given moment and smack the poor idiot who made it so taut back, as the blond kept on glaring daggers at the enhanced human- who, in return, seemed quite set on deliberately avoiding his gaze... This went on for a while.

A little later on, Frankenstein finally gave a wary sigh and turned away with a barely audible squeak of his pink slippers.

Confused, but silently grateful, M-21 took the opportunity to push himself up into a sitting position as fast as he could without re-opening his injuries. A feat that was easier said than done when pain clawed at every existing muscle in his body. He withheld a sigh of relief when he finally sat up right. Then he gently twisted his body until his feet fell and touched the cold white tiles of Frankenstein's laboratory.

"You mind explaining to me-" Startled, M-21 raised his head towards the blond who was leaning against a counter across him with his arms folded. "-how, out of all of you, YOU, specifically, always end up down here with the greatest deal of injuries?"

He waited a moment. The man across from him didn't move. And it looked like he had no intention of doing so unless he received an answer.

Griping the edge of the steel table he was sitting on, M-21 cautiously planned his next move. "I'm the one who handles hand-to-hand combat. I take most of the heavy hits," he hopelessly shrugged, holding back a wince of pain caused by that seemingly easy task.

The blond raised an eyebrow upon taking off his glasses and leaving them beside him on the counter. He stared at the bandaged wound bellow the man's ribs before meeting his eyes. "And the one that was meant for Regis?"

M-21's eyes followed Frankenstein's.

The silver-haired boy huffed heavily as he clutched his bleeding shoulder. Getting up has proven to be difficult as the muscles in his legs shook in protest and weighted him down. Thus the reason he could only widen his eyes when his name was called out by the hacker.

"Regis! Watch out!" He looked up.

. . .

He never saw the enemy.

The tip of the bloodstained blade stood menacingly only inches away from his face. He stared, mesmerized, as red pooled around from the said blade and seeped into the black material of-

His irises waned.

A gaging noise came from the man in front of him, followed by the sound of liquid splattering across the ground-

Pale lips trembled-

The blade was roughly pulled back with a grunt and a slice-

The man before him fell-

"M-21!"

Oh.

Grey eyes remained on the bandages, before looking back up at the scientist. The blond kept hi gaze steadily at him, waiting for an explanation.

They told him.

M-21 could feel his jaw tighten as he tried to maintained his pokerface. He didn't want to do this, but he really didn't want to have this conversation. The headache made him desperate enough to want to end this.

He frowned, sharpening his voice slightly. "Are you really asking me why I took a hit for a comrade?"

Calling Regis a 'comrade' might have been a bit far stretched. Sure, he got along with the boy occasionally and, sure, they almost began tolerating each other's existence, but neither of them would actually go as far as to admit it openly, no matter how true it was. He was sure the noble would rather die before doing so. Still he was hoping that the scientist would get the impression he was stepping on thin ice and back off. Not without a glance of that damnable pity in his eyes however.

The blond didn't relent and steeled his expression with a frown."Pushing him out of the way wasn't an option?"

M-21 cursed mentally. He wasn't about to step down and if the blond didn't pick up on that fact soon, then they were gonna be here for a looooooong time. His eyes narrowed. "I didn't have time. Besides, he was hurt and barely standing."

Frankenstein's frown only deepened, his face and voice hardening with each word. "You mean like you are now? He can regenerate M-21."

"So can I," he slowly exclaimed, keeping himself from growling in frustration. "My body's stabilizing, remember?"

"Exactly!" The blond snapped, shocking the man across him. "Its stabiliz-ing! Meaning, its far from being stabiliz-ed!" He began advancing towards the injured man, trying and not really succeeding in controlling the tone of his voice as he did so. "Even though your physical condition has improved from the time in the organization, we still don't know if or when some unwanted side-effect might pop up! Your whole system is delicate as it is, and yet here you are, abusing your regeneration ability by jumping in front of every possible weapon known to man and pushing your physical transformation to the point of passing out!"

The silence that followed his exclamation hit like a heavy, old gong that vibrated off of the walls long after the sounds was made.

The blond pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath as he tried to collect his thoughts. He wasn't used to lashing out and losing his composure. Letting his hand fall down he looked back at the enhanced human who was once again deliberately looking away.

He waited a moment until the man in front of him met his look out of the corner of his eye. Face and voice once again in place, he emphasized, slowly.

"You could've died."

M-21 averted his eyes again. It took a tremendous amount of effort to refrain himself from pointing out that he didn't. But death always had a reasonable grip on him. And it would have been stupid not to let the gravity of the scientist's words sink in.

"They're all really worried."

He turned his eyes back to the man towering above him who once again harbored that irritating expression. He almost glared at him.

Almost.

A defeated sigh left him as his shoulders sagged just a bit in defeat. "I'll be more careful."

A pause. "Please, do try." The edge of Frankenstein's lips tilted upwards into a soft smile before he turned back and headed towards the counter he had been leaning against not too long ago. M-21's eyes followed him as the blond reached for a glass vile.

"I stained the carpet, didn't I?"

A small crash followed.

*See chapter 141 if you find the descriptions lacking.

**At no point did this actually happen in the manhwa. It was my own idea, because using the agents hired by the Union or Dr. Crombell seemed a little far-stretched to me and I couldn't explain how they found them. I'm thinking of doing a full fic on the subject: so hands off the plot-bunny, ya hear! D:(

***Fruitcake: 1) A derogatory term for a homosexual man; 2) Someone who is completely insane; 3) A cake made with bits of fruit and drenched in scotch. You decide.

Any comments or complaints? You know where to tell me. I'd be glad to hear them.