N/A Here I am with the fourth chapter. Just so you know, in Italy my readers say that I'm a sadist, because I use a lot of cliffhangers. Get used to them guys!

Kisshufan4ever: Could I ever let Kisshu die? He's my favourite character of the series, after all. I hope you didn't have to wait too much, but I also have my Italian fiction to update.

Ichigo: I'm glad my story's going well, hope you'll keep on liking it.

Softballchik43: Hope you didn't have to wait too much.

Stumbling dragon: Thank you for the compliments, they really make me want to update sooner.

Aqua-Princess of Imagination: Thanks, that's all I have to answer, thanks :p

Taffy Gregorovich: I'm really glad you loved it. To tell the truth, I thought that the chapter, no sorry, the whole fanfiction was pretty childish, since it was my first long one. I thought that, in English, it was Pie. In Italian is Pai. Thank you for the review.

Kusshulover3: Hope you'll like this one.

Ok, let's go.

Chapter 4

"He's still alive".

Nine pairs of eyes widened, but only eight of them showed a kind of hoping joy.

Masaya actually was terrified by the idea that his lie could have been unmasked.

By that time though it was too late to go back on it. He couldn't do anything else than staying there watching the events slipping through his hands.

Ichigo, on the contrary, was skeptical: the alien in his desperate state, must had imagined that. Hesitating she went near Pie and said:

"Pie, maybe you've imagined that. You see, the wound on the chest had been inflicted by Deep Blue, while Kisshu was fighting to protect me. He had been thrown in my arms lifeless and had died. I've heard his breathing break, his heart stop and…"

"Come here and touch yourself." He interrupted her.

The girl reached out and the alien gently but with decision grabbed her wrist and made her pose the hand on Kisshu's heart.

After a few moments she retreated her hadn like it had been burnt, surprised by what she had felt: a pulse… light, very weak, but she had felt it.

Almost mechanically she put her hand near the semi opened mouth of the amber eyed alien and felt a delicate breath brush her fingers.

She retreated her hand again, confused.

Pie came near her and said:

"Now do you believe me?"

She nodded

"Then why do you look incredulous?"

She seemed to ponder well on the words before answering. She wanted to explain her confusion.

"I swear he was dead. Now he's breathing though. Yes, the Mew Aqua may have given him a little bit of life again, but why has it not healed him completely?"

"Maybe he didn't deserve it."

Everybody turned to give Masaya a withered glance, Strawberry included.

"I mean.." he tried to defend himself "The Mew Aqua is something of pure, of kind and look what he have done, how many mean things: he had tried to destroy the human race, he had tried to kill the girls, Strawberry and me. Maybe the Mew Aqua had perceived his true nature."

"His true nature?" screamed Taruto, whose anger had raised to the tenth grade of the Richter Scale. "Kisshu is one of the most kind people I've ever known- You don't know him, you've always hated him. It's true, he may be a crazy, pervert stupid and so on, but I assure you that he has a big heart. Do you really think that he had really wanted to kill you he would have done that? Maybe he was the only one between the three of us capable to swiftly get rid of the human race. The only thing which had stopped him was love, yes, love, which he felt for that old hag!"

He had said everything without drawing a breath and gave the impression of being not over yet. When he started to talk again though, everybody realized that his determination had vanished a little bit, leaving its place to a terrible sadness.

"He had suffered so much. He's not our blood brother, our family had taken him when he was eight. He talked very little, it was like he was absent at the beginning. Then, one day, one of the caves we lived in collapsed. It was near our house and we heard every single rock touching the ground. When everything finished we realized that he was trembling from head to toe. With a great effort, I and Pie managed to make him say that his whole family had died in one of those collapses and that his mother had shielded him with her body, dying for him.

He has always looked for affection and his behavior was just a protection. He would have never been able to kill any of you and all because of her." He finished pointing at Strawberry, who had tears in her eyes, just like the others of the Mew Mew Team. Nobody would ever have expected that.

He, so strong, cheeky, wayward had behind his back a history more painful than anybody would have imagine.

Purin went near Taruto and strongly hugged him.

Lettuce kneeled at Pie's side and, even if she would have like to do what her youngest companion had done, she only managed to place a hand on the shoulder of the alien.

Silence had fallen once again, even Masaya didn't know what to say.

Suddenly Ryou's head sprang up like the boy had realized something.

"Hold on a second, if what Masaya says is the truth, and the Mew Aqua recognizes the nature, why is he between us?"

Everybody's eyes looked pointed on the boy.

"Well" Ichigo answered, "I gave it to him".

"Then how can you be alive?" Ryou asked her.

"He had told me that he had taken a little bit of Mew Aqua from his body and to have given it to me".

"But it's humanly impossible." Keichiiro said.

"Well, if Kisshu did it I can't see why I couldn't…" Too late Masaya realized to have said too much.

"What did you say?" Ryou asked him, with an incredulity that masked, his triumph.

Masaya was with his back against a wall. And now what could he say to defend himself?

END OF THE CHAPTER