Author's Note: Woo! Third chapter already! I had no idea this would go so fast, or that I'd have so much motivation for this fanfiction. Thank you to everyone who has left me comments. All your support is really appreciated! As of yet, I still don't know exactly how long I'm going to make this, but it could be as long as 10 chapters. Maybe more if I end up continuing it further than I'm planning right now. But I won't disclose any more than that! I hope you enjoy the third chapter!

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The moment Neuro had left her alone, Yako let herself cry. She sobbed all the way home, so that once she arrived, she had cried out all her tears and regained most of her composure. She didn't want to be questioned by her mother; after all, how would she explain herself? Yako's precautions proved unnecessary, however, as her mother turned out to be asleep already.

Without even bothering to eat (somehow, she had lost her appetite,) the girl plopped down on her bed immediately after reaching her room. With a long, relieved sigh, she drifted quickly off to sleep.

Yako slept soundly all through the night and into the day, far past noon. She probably would have slept longer, too, if it had not been for her mother waking her up.

"Yako," said Katsuragi Haruka, shaking her daughter gently awake. "Yako, wake up."

The girl grumbled slightly, but pushed herself to her elbows.

"Huh…Mom?" mumbled Yako sleepily. "What time is it?"

"Yako, did you miss school?" Yako's mother looked worried. "Are you feeling all right? It's already 4:30."

Upon hearing the time, Yako shot up quickly, throwing her blankets from herself.

"Crap! This is bad!" She shrieked suddenly. Neuro's going to kill me…! Realizing that her mother was still looking at her worriedly, she calmed herself down. "Ah…yeah. I'm fine, Mom. Just overslept, I guess."

"Ok, if you say so," Haruka raised an eyebrow in suspicion; she suspected her daughter was sick. She stood up, crossing the room. She stopped at the doorway before leaving. "Call me if you need anything, ok?"

Yako smiled.

"Sure thing, Mom. Thanks."

Once her mother had left, Yako got out of bed quickly. She bit her lip. What should she do? She was late, and it wouldn't be forgiven, she was sure. She realized that she was still in her day clothes from the night before. Well, since she was already late, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to be a bit later, so she could at least take a bath and have a meal. Stumbling somewhat sleepily into the bathroom, she stripped herself of her clothes and began to shower. By the time she had sunk into the warm, comforting bath water, Yako was already feeling more relaxed. Sighing with content, she leaned back, closing her eyes. She smiled as she thought of what she'd prepare herself to eat.

When she had finished her bath, she stood and stretched, draining the water in the tub.

"Ahh, I feel so refreshed!" She said to herself as she pulled on her clothes. "But so hungry…"

Yako made her way to the kitchen and began to prepare herself a large meal. She hummed happily as she did so; perhaps, she reasoned, if she was able to forget last night's events, things wouldn't be so bad. It was then that Neuro's words echoed to her inside her head. Do not forget anything. By not forgetting, you evolve. She sighed. Well, she supposed, remembering that incident would do her one good thing, at least; she would never fall for something like that again. She shuddered to herself even now as she thought of, in hindsight, how stupid she had been. But she shrugged to herself and forced herself to smile once more. She needn't forget about it; simply not think of it.

Haruka had been in the sitting room watching TV when she heard a knock on the door. Snapping off the TV, she stood and opened it to find a tall, friendly-smiling person standing before her.

"Ah! You're Yako's assistant, are you not?"

"I sure am. Is Sensei here?" inquired Neuro, his eyes full of innocence and lacking the malicious intent he held behind them.

"She is," answered Haruka. "Do you need something from her?"

"Well, you see, Miss, Sensei told me to come and get her." Neuro told the woman, still smiling. "She said if I wasn't on time, she'd kill me!"

Finding the second half of Neuro's statement rather strange, Haruka shrugged it off and moved out of the doorway to allow Neuro inside.

"Very well then, please come in."

"Pardon me for intruding."

Yako was just starting to eat the food piled up on numerous plates surrounding her at the table when she looked up to see her mother standing in the doorway and—she gulped, swallowing a bit too much food at once—Neuro standing innocently behind the woman.

"Yako! Your assistant is here to pick you up." said Haruka cheerily; clearly, Yako could tell, her mother could not see the sadistic intent behind Neuro's façade.

"That's right, Sensei!" Neuro added good-naturedly, making his way over to Yako, who was still sitting at the table with a pair of chopsticks. The demon grabbed the girl's shoulders with both of his hands, and Yako was sure she could feel spines protruding into her from Neuro's grip. "So, let's go! You told me we mustn't be late, right?"

Yako was not about ready to give up her meal just yet.

"But, Neuro—!" she began, but she was interrupted as the demon jerked her to her feet.

"That's not fair, Sensei! You told me work is more important than food today," Neuro leaned over the girl's shoulders to glare at her, his eyes glowing dangerously as he exposed his fangs only to her. "isn't that right?"

Catching Neuro's more-than-obvious threat, Yako loosened her grip on her chopsticks in defeat.

"Yes, yes, of course." said Yako, throwing one last look of longing at her un-eaten food before she was dragged to the front door.

Haruka hurried forward and handed her daughter an umbrella, opening the door for the two.

"Here, take this, it's raining."

And indeed it was, Yako saw as they started towards the office. Rather hard, too. Unfortunately for her, Neuro had yanked away the umbrella the moment they were out of sight from her home. She was being poured on, and her clothes were already soaked. She tried to get the umbrella back from her demon companion, but as he was much taller than her, he simply held it out of reach.

"This is part of your punishment, you sickly parasite." Neuro informed her as they walked, holding a clawed hand over her face to prevent her from jumping at the umbrella; he did not seem at all bothered by the rain, himself. "Your silly little escapade has wasted my valuable energy and time. I am debating whether I should've rescued you in the first place."

The girl gave up her struggles for the umbrella; it was useless now, anyways. She was already sopping wet. Despite what Neuro had just said, Yako could tell that the demon was still in a better mood than usual, and quite energetic from their visit to Hell. The girl's curiosity brought up a question at this thought.

"Hey, Neuro, tell me…if you can get yourself to Hell and back, why don't you just do that when you're weak and need to heal?"

Neuro pushed Yako down into a puddle of muddy-looking water and used her as a bridge to cross it, stepping indifferently across her back as if she were just another stretch of pavement (so much for a bath and clean clothes.) He ignored her shout of "Hey, you're heavy!" and proceeded to answer her question.

"I do not expect you to understand, with that molecule-sized brain of yours, but I shall explain. To put it very simply, transporting myself to Hell takes a lot of energy in itself. If I do not have enough energy to get there, I am stuck in the human world until I regain enough energy to do so."

Yako had pushed herself back up to her feet and caught up to Neuro again, feeling pitiful for being glad that Neuro had said "molecule-sized" instead of "atom-sized."

"Ah, so that's how it is." She said. She then grinned teasingly. "Even you have limitations, huh, Neuro?"

Clearly, Neuro did not appreciate Yako's teasing comment, for immediately upon hearing it he grabbed the girl by the head and twisted her neck painfully.

Upon reaching the office, Yako found that when they had entered, Neuro's clothes were already dry from the rain still pounding outside. Her own, unfortunately, were still heavy with water.

"Hey, Neuro, how did you do that?" asked Yako intently.

"Who do you think I am?" Neuro raised an eyebrow at the girl. He crossed the room and sat himself down in his usual spot behind his desk, tossing the folded umbrella aside. "That was a simple trick."

"If it's so simple, then do that to mine as well," said a now cold Yako; the building was air conditioned, and the cool air blew against her wet clothes, making her give a slight shiver.

"No."

"I could catch a cold like this, you know."

"Then so be it." Neuro smirked devilishly at the girl. "If you really want me to, I shall dry your clothes for you. However, this involves rapidly boiling the water they have obtained and thus, as the clothes are flush with your body, this may scald your weak human skin…"

"I'll pass," Yako told him quickly, shaking her head.

"Fine, then." said Neuro, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his midriff. He closed his eyes and fell asleep slowly; he only required 3 hours of sleep daily, and although he was plenty tired enough and had time last night to sleep after he had sent Yako home, he had found, for a reason unknown to him, that sleep just simply would not come.

As the shivering Yako finally found that the demon was asleep, she took the time to step into a small closet in the office to ring out her wet clothes. It was small and filled with boxes, but there was enough room for her to stand. She took off her clothes and twisted them tightly, letting most of the water drip out. As she put them back on, they were still damp, but at least they were no longer soaked.

When she left the closet, Yako had nothing else to do but sit. Planting herself down on the couch facing the windows, she smoothed out her skirt and looked across the room at the sleeping Neuro. She smiled softly at his peaceful expression. Really, when Neuro was asleep, it was hard to tell that he was a sadistic demon from Hell. Yako watched him for several moments before a wet Godai burst into the office, slamming open the door and giving Yako quite a start (surprisingly, Neuro did not wake up.) She turned around to greet Godai and found that he was carrying several bags of food.

The former-Yakuza hurried into the room and set down the bags on the table in front of Yako.

"That monster…" he began, "I heard from him…he told me what happened."

"Ah, that…well, it's over now anyways, isn't it?" said Yako, waving her hand like it was nothing. She eyed the bags of food.

"Didn't I tell you to be careful, you shitty brat?!" snapped Godai, looking, if possible, angrier than usual. He noticed her gazing at the food he had brought. "Go ahead, help yourself. I figured you'd be hungry."

Yako beamed, grabbing the bags and digging into them.

"Thank you, Mr. Godai!" She said cheerily, her mouth already full of food.

"Well, I didn't use my money to buy it, so it's no problem." mumbled Godai. "In any case…I hate hanging around here, so…see ya."

Yako waved to the man as he left the office, leaving her alone was again with only the sounds of rain against the windows and Neuro's deep breathing. Godai really is a good person, Yako told herself as she opened packages and stripped wrappers off of breads and snacks, shoveling them into her mouth. Neuro, not so much… She stopped eating for a moment. It was Neuro who had rescued her last night, wasn't it? Neuro who had saved her life on countless occasions (even though for most of them it had been his fault she'd been in the way of harm in the first place.) Shrugging to herself, she continued eating the food Godai had brought, until there was nothing left of it.

Once she had finished off the food, Yako was once again left with nothing to do. After a few moments she stood up and began to quietly pace the office, growing impatient with her boredom. It was then that she realized that she had not thanked Neuro for rescuing her. She bit her bottom lip. She decided she would wait for the demon to awaken on his own before trying to thank him.

A few more minutes of pacing, however, made Yako grow even more impatient. She stopped and looked at the demon. It did not seem that Neuro was going to awaken any time soon, and as Yako was a generally good and polite person, the desire to thank him was growing by the second. Squirming on the spot, the girl debated with herself. If she woke him up, he would possibly be annoyed at her for ending his nap. But she did not feel she could wait any longer. Her decision was made.

Yako quietly walked up to Neuro's soundly sleeping form, leaning over him. Looking closely at the sleeping demon, her face inches from his, Yako could hardly fathom that this person, who looked now so benign, calm, and untroubled, was the same person who bullied and beat up on her daily. When he was asleep and not trying to kill her, she decided, he almost looked…cute? She shook her head of the thought; that was unimportant now. She needed to thank him. Yako reached out her hand to shake him awake, but she stopped with her hand on his arm. Was this really a good idea?

Before she was able to make a decision, however, the demon's green eyes shot open.

"What is it, Servant Number One?" He softly inquired, his eyes clearly displaying the message: This had better be important, slug.

Yako jumped slightly when Neuro awoke so suddenly, and she backed up about a foot or so.

"Um, well, Neuro…thank you." She muttered, smiling softly. "For last night, I mean."

Neuro was quiet for several long seconds, in which the only noise between them was the splatter of the heavy rain. He looked almost confused, as if he didn't know how to react. The strange moment passed, however, and his fanged mouth curled into one of his usual frightening smiles. Grabbing the girl by the head, he roughly slammed her face into the floor.

"That is all very well," He told her. "So in that case, if you understand, do not cause any more trouble, you low animal."