"When it all comes down - Will you say you did everything you could?
When it all comes down - Can you say that you never gave up?
Were you standing by to watch it fall away?
Will you hold on or let it go? ..."

-"The Eco-Terrorist In Me " - Rise Against-


One...Two...Three...Four... he was counting to himself. Counting always calmed him. He mentally counted off two entire minutes before opening his closed eyelids and looking out at the world, a world where he didn't belong. Where he will never belong.

The wind blew about strongly as clouds seemed to be gathering once again. Looks like the typhoon is back he thought to himself. He checked the skies and estimated about one and a half to two hours more for the storm to really pick up again. Enough time for him to take a walk and return back to his "home".

Normally, he would go to the Kinomiya Dojo on a Saturday and force his "team" to practice their skills, but not this week. Takao and Max had gone for a week-long trip to the more Southern part of Japan while Ray had to go back to his hometown in China for a village ceremony.

And so, he resolved to taking walk by himself. He stopped walking for a moment and looked up at the sky.

" I walk alone...and I always will " he said out to no one in particular.

And with that, Kai Hiwatari continued walking.


"Uh huh" she muttered into the receiver, "I'll get the something later."

A voice half screamed from the other side.

"All right, all right " she sighed in defeat. "I'll go out now then, okay Mom? "

Another scream.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll go and get something. Not going to starve to death or anything like that you know," she replied back at her Mother, who was frantic and rather upset that her irresponsible daughter had skipped another meal because she was too busy, or more like lazy to make one.

A few more screams later, Hiromi finally managed to cut the conversation. Her parents were away visiting her grandmother, who is currently lying on her doorstep to the other side while Hiromi was stranded at home. The typhoon had hit Tokyo about a day after her parents had left and they wouldn't be coming back until another week or so.

Good thing that it's the holidays she thought. Although, what good is a holiday if there's a storm raging on?

Hiromi had a quick shower, thanking the hot-water supply, dressed and locked the doors before stepping out of her home.

"Time to do some inventory" she said to herself and went off to the nearest department store.

It never even occurred to her that her pink and red umbrella was actually up in her room and not in her bag as she thought.


Walking. Or am I more like drifting? he thought.

Maybe I'm just weightless. That means that I don't occupy a space. I'm non-existent. I'm intangible, untouchable, non-existent and just drifting off.

Nothing new there, he mulled over.

Just would be easier if I knew for how long.

He stopped near a large tree that was well away from the main path and didn't make him visible to the people on the road. He lay down with his head near the roots of the tree and gazed at the gloomy sky for a bit. It will be pouring in less than an hour, but he didn't care. He was far too absorbed by the darkness of the storm to actually care about anything else at all.

Far too long he sighed and closed his eyes.


"What an idiot am I?" she asked herself exasperatedly, "I had to forget the stupid umbrella didn't I?"

Hiromi, who had just finished buying things to make dinner and was putting her items in her bag, noticed only now that her umbrella was missing.

"Is there a problem Miss?" the security guard at the store asked.

"Ahh, I forgot to bring my umbrella and the storm is picking up." she explained.

"Oh my, it's just your unlucky day. We usually have an extra umbrella in the store in case of occasions like this. But another young girl who was here yesterday had borrowed it. She hasn't returned it yet too." the security guard explained rather apologetically to our frustrated "little" girl.

"Oh no..." she groaned.

"Well, I should try to get back home fast. Maybe I can outrun the storm," she replied, "maybe I will be able to get back."

"I don't think that idea's a rather good one Miss." the guard said. But Hiromi had already made up her mind to outrun the storm.

"I can only try you know," she said, "thank you anyways."

And with that, she started to pack her items i her bag as quickly as possible, determined to get back home before the storm hits her.


()

"Give up Kai! " the voice bellowed overhead, "You don't have what it takes, and you never had the strength to go on."

"You're just another weakling!"

()


Kai opened his eyes, and frowned. Every second he didn't control his thinking, his mind always drifted off to the past, the cold and the darkness engulfing him like he was being eaten up by amoeba.

Like a stray wind, his thoughts would always drift off to the darkness of the Abbey where he grew up. And also where I lost my humanity.

Funny to think that I used to be a happy child. Now, laughing hurts my face. I don't recognize home, I don't even recognize my own face in the mirror. It's all just spun out of my control. I'm a victim of my own hate. I'm victimized.

"I'm victimized."

"I'm victimized."

"I'm vict - "

Kai stopped his self-induced hate-filled rambles and stared at the sky, which decided to abruptly stop his rambles with the sound of the storm.

"Hn" he smirked as the first few raindrops hit him through the gaps in the leaves of the tree he was lying under.

Lightning ripped the sky, and for that split second, Kai Hiwatari's face held a fractional ghost of a smile.


She was screaming by the first strike. Down on the ground with her bag full of groceries, Hiromi knew that she should have just listened to the security guard. But no, she had to let her strong-headed determination get the best of her. And now here she was, half-way through a park which she thought would serve as a shortcut to home.

Instead, it was a war-zone.

"Why do I have to go through this?" she asked herself.

" Remember children, open ground is a very dangerous place to be in when its lightning " she recalled her primary school teacher, Mrs. Kincaid telling this when discussing safety in school. Hiromi was always a straight-A student, only problem was that she didn't live in the outside world, just in her books and theorems.

She got up on shaky legs. Another thought came to her head.

"I'LL NEVER GIVE UP !" the voice in her head screamed as she replayed the scene in her head. She remembered his expression, the way he never lost his focus even when his opponent was laughing at him, taunting him, just lying in wait until he faltered. But he never did. That day, Kai walked away. The blader with the windy bit-beast, didn't.

"As long as you remember to get back up each time you're pushed down, nothing can really push you down" he once said to Rei when his bit-beast was stolen.

Hiromi stood up straight and looked dead ahead. She was going to make it. No matter what.

And with that, Hiromi ran as fast as her legs would carry her while bullets cascaded all around her. The sky isn't going to win the war she told herself.


He sighed as he watched the war unfold in front of his eyes. He was always like that. Waiting until everything unraveled so that he can pick up the pieces from the beginning. He liked doing that. Destroying everything just so that he can build everything up again, because he knew that the second time he built up everything, it was stronger than what it was before.

Kai kind of liked going back to the basics and redoing it correctly, over and over again.

Back to basics... he thought.

Back to basics... back to basics...back to basics...

He drifted off once more and expected that he will think of the Abbey, but instead what came to his mind was totally the opposite from the pain, anger, loneliness and darkness of that cursed Abbey.

Pink and chocolate-brown. Something warm and tender, something that's the opposite of him. Pink and chocolate-brown.

Pink and chocolate-brown

Pink and chocolate-brown

Pink and chocolate-brown

I wonder where she is? he thought. He sat up and just gazed out to the expanse of land stretched around him. Under a tree is not a good place to stay when it's raining, he reminded himself.

Hn, not that I CAN go anywhere in this storm, even if I wanted to he thought.

And that just summarized everything. He resolved to going nowhere and just staring out at the park. I guess I'm grounded here he thought.

Once again though, his thoughts drifted off to pink and chocolate-brown.

"Where is she ? " he asked out loud.


A bird's eye view, shall we?

From about a hundred feet up in the air, all I see is a wide and expansive area. Green spots and sand. Except that the most of it was mixed with a grey hue, darkening everything and adding to the gloom. Trees - some tall, some not, as I fly all around. Noticing a small blob on the earth, crawling at a speed that isn't worth the fight it takes to move.

I don't see a difference at all. No unmoving blobs or trees make a difference to me. It's just the same, everywhere, every time.

Not different at all.


Or so I thought I was Kai thought.

"Maybe I am indifferent." he stated out of his thoughts.

"Maybe"


Hiromi just kept on walking. She could barely move her legs, it was as if they were made of Lead.

She had collapsed twice already, but every time she did so, she stood back up. But every time she did that, her strength to go on reduced. Exponentially. Hiromi was relying only on mental strength now, her physical strength being depleted almost completely.

Almost she thought.

Alm-

Hiromi was cut off from her determined thoughts as a flash of pure white streaked through the dark skies, illuminating everything around her like crystals held to bright light. It was blinding, it really was and that caused her to close her eyes shut tight as possible and let out a scream as wild as a banshee's.

This was it. Her last night on earth.


Kai was bolted out of his thoughts too. He thought that he heard someone scream. Either that, or he was hallucinating. Not that it wasn't impossible.

He looked out and did a quick recon, his gaze resting on a large stone in the middle of the area.

Wait a minute, he thought, that's NOT a stone!

Second thoughts, careful planning and studying the battlefield thoroughly were a few of Kai's secrets for success. And he never strayed from that.

But not today. Not. Today.


When it rains too much, floods are prominent. Hiromi too was flooding, although that amount of water was nothing compared to the flood that was falling on to her. She couldn't make it. She just couldn't go another step forward. She just had enough.

" I'LL NEVER GIVE UP ! " was all that rang through her head. Over and over again.

I'm sorry for giving up, Kai, but I'm just not as strong as you she thought.


"Hey! Hey you!" she barely heard someone scream. At first she thought that she was hallucinating but then again, that was impossible.

She looked around and saw through her teary eyes, someone running towards her.

"I'm over here!" she barely managed to speak out.

"What are you - " , caught in mid-sentence, Kai Hiwatari was speechless as he recognized the stranger's features.

Pink and chocolate-brown a voice said in his head.

"Kai? " was the stunned reply he got.

Seizing control over his mind before it ran off to some other thought, Kai helped her up and led her through towards where he was earlier. He was running. She was stumbling along. Both of them were crawling. But nonetheless, they were moving. And they were moving forward.


While the rain pelted and the wind howled like a wild animal, the human ice-block Kai Hiwatari was staring down at the mess of chocolate-brown all over her head. She was looking down. Too bewildered, scared and embarrassed of her "savior". Kai, on the other hand was void of any emotion. Or so, that's what his face showed.

Inside he too was scared. Though as to why he was, he had no idea.

Stray droplets of rain hit the two from the spaces in between the leaves of the tree as the wind helped to freeze them to death.

A single leaf fell from the tree and spiraled towards their feet, landing right in the middle of the distance between them. He looked at the leaf momentarily and smirked.

Silver apricot, he thought, Ginkgo.


She looked up to his face and stared back at him.

"What were you doing out there ?"

He got no reply.

"I asked what were you doing out there?" he tried again, raising his voice a little.

Still no reply.

"Look, if you think that I'm going to keep on asking the same question and baby-sitting you then you're sadly mistaken. It's not my fault in the very least that you were so carelessly and recklessly roaming around in the middle of a thunderstorm. If you think that's how- "

Kai was cut-off, again, by a roll of thunder that practically burst his ear drums. It hurt. But what hurt more was the ear-piercing scream that the girl next to him let out while clinging to him.

Stunned, yes. In that flash of a second, Kai's thoughts had already moved out, his mind more a machine on loose gears than a readily functioning one.

She clung on to me? She...she...couldn't have...I'm nobody...I'm non-existent. But she is clinging on to me. Holding me tight...as if I'm her ...lifeline. But...I don't...help...I don't know...how.

Does this mean that she...is needing my ...help?

Does ...this... mean ...that she ...trusts me?

Kai reacted ever so slowly as Hiromi started flooding her eyes out again. He didn't wrap his arms around her. He didn't know how to.


The bird just flies ahead. If I had better eye-sight, maybe I'd see the two under the Ginkgo tree. Maybe I'd see how scared she was, and how helpless he was. Maybe he just didn't know. Maybe.