Connor was in a better mood the next day. He kept saying "You won't believe what I got!" and "It's so cool!" The funniest thing about my brother was his boyish charm. He acted as if he was a cool and tough individual, yet little things excited him, and I would get a brief flash of the little boy he used to be.

When I finally found out what caused his excitement, I found myself feeling elated as well.

"You have a pet hermit crab? Awesome!" I exclaimed as I rushed over and stared at it through the glass tank. The little creature quickly ran away and hid in its shell.

"I named him Ronald." Connor said in his signature I'm-a-genius tone.

Knowing that my brother was finally okay allowed me more time to focus on my dancing. Kyoya and I met regularly now, and by the end of our first week, I was proudly able to claim that I mastered the tango.

The buzz of the dance competition quickly filled the whole school. You would think we were a school of the performing arts with the way the halls were filled with music and dancing. The orchestra and band were busy learning several new pieces, considering they would be creating the music for our dances. I was going to be busy all night. I was the only student who was competing and playing music.

I was walking to Physics class when all of a sudden Stephanie, I mean, Ms. Clark grabbed me by the wrist into her classroom.

"So, kid, give me the latest scoop. Can teachers compete in this dance competition?" she asked.

"Sure. It's a school event. But, Ms. Clark, who would be your partner?" I asked.

"Tamaki, of course." she said as if it was a big duh, "Who else?"

I didn't want to tell her in fear of getting injured, but it just slipped, "But Tamaki wants to be partners with someone else!" I covered my mouth, realizing what I just caused.

"Really? Oh, does my little Tamaki have a crush? It's Haruhi, isn't it? That's adorable!" she exclaimed with a big smile on her face.

"I don't know if it would be called a crush. After all, Tamaki does call her 'daughter'." I informed her.

"Trust me. I know Tamaki. He has a crush." she said.

I never really thought of it that way before. Tamaki and Haruhi? I guess it was sort of obvious. How did I not see it before? Now it was going to be ten times harder to tell him...that Haruhi was planning on doing a ballet performance with Mori.

"On second thought, Tamaki might need a partner after all. You should ask him." I told Stephanie after thinking it through.

Shortly afterwards I left the room, in a hurry to get to class.

A couple of days later I discovered Tamaki was royally pissed at me, and I definitely knew why. He grabbed me for another meeting, this time in an empty classroom.

"What on Earth possessed you to tell Stephanie about me being partnerless? And even worse, she won't stop bugging me about Haruhi now! You good for nothing little..." he yelled, but then stopped.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm just so stressed lately. Remember when I told you the promise the agency made me?" he asked.

"Y-Yes." I asked, in a tone barely above a whisper. I was still shocked at how upset Tamaki had been a couple of seconds ago.

"Well, now they're saying it might take years of service before they can let me see my mom. Years." he gave me a pleading look, as if I could somehow change things. It was then for the first time that I noticed dark circles starting to develop under his eyes, "I don't have that kind of time."

"I don't think I can live like this anymore. All of this secrecy and all of these worthless promises don't mean a thing now."

I felt my heart skip a beat. I prayed under my breath that the conversation wasn't going to lead to the inevitable. It was then that he said after a tense moment of silence, "I think I'm going to quit."

"No! Tamaki, you can't! People at Ouran are in danger! I can't figure this out all by myself!" I found myself shaking him relentlessly, hoping to shake all of these premonitions out of him.

"I'm sorry." he whispered, pulling me into a hug, "You're better off without me. I'm an idiot anyway. But you're brilliant. I'm sure you can figure it out."

I watched him walk out of the classroom, and then I was left alone. Completely and utterly alone. The room suddenly became bigger, leaving me with a vast space of...nothing. That stupid idiot. Didn't he get that I needed him?

Out of Maria's POV

During Host club meetings, Tamaki and Maria mostly avoided each other. Tamaki was afraid that if he looked her in the eyes, her silent pleas would convince him to rejoin the agency. He felt selfish for making his decision, but he knew it had to be made. The agency was becoming too much of a strain on him. Of course, he didn't dear tell Stephanie his plans of quitting, for he didn't want to cause another natural disaster.

For once he had a chance to focus on being a normal student, if you considered being the president of a host club normal. For the dance competition, he would be doing a belly dancing routine with Stephanie. Of course, it wasn't his idea at all. He still remembered Stephanie's convincing voice.

"Come on! It'll be fun. Plus, what I wouldn't kill to see you in costume." she said with a smirk.

"Stephanie..." Tamaki whined, "The whole school already has suspicions of me being gay!"

"I thought that was only Connor." she said.

"Is he telling everyone about that?"

"Pretty much. Now let's go get fitted for our costumes!" said Stephanie excitedly, while grabbing his arms and dragging him to the nearest costume store. Stephanie was like the older sister he never had, although more annoying than most.

Maria's POV

I was heading to another practice session with Kyoya. This time we would be practicing with music and in costume. He convinced his dad to purchase me a blood red dress, and he himself wore a tux. For once, I felt like I belonged at Ouran High school. I had fancy clothes, a fancy dance partner, and I was dancing to fancy music. I should have felt happy. But everything was so wrong.

Kyoya motioned for the music to stop playing, and he stopped dancing. He looked down at me with concerned eyes and said, "What's wrong, Maria?" It was then that I noticed I was crying.

"Nothing. Nothing you can help with, anyway." I found myself saying heartlessly. Kyoya's face briefly showed pain, and then it was masked by his cool façade.

"Nothing I can help with, you say? You seem to forget who I am." he said with a genuine smile, something that was rare.

"I'm messing up our practice." I said apologetically.

"That's fine. If you're not feeling up to this, you can always go home and rest." he informed me. Now that he mentioned it, I was a little tired.

"Thanks. I really need a nap, dude. Catch you later?"

"Sure. You can 'catch me later'." he said in his usual proper tone, which made me laugh as I left.

Out of Maria's POV

Tamaki couldn't help but wonder what was happening with the case. Did Maria have any leads? It would pain him to know she was more successful without him, but her safety mattered more than anything. If anything were to happen to her, he would never forgive himself.

He wandered up and down the streets like a lost puppy, thinking that a walk like this would calm him. The stillness of the night air would make all the bad things go away.

Maria's POV

I didn't leave the school right away. I stopped by to watch Haruhi and Mori practice. They were actually really good, although both of them were in male clothing. I was pretty sure the girls who usually requested Haruhi at the host club would enjoy their act.

I stopped by to see what the twins were doing too. They were performing a sort of salsa dance. Both of them had ruffled shirts that were multi-colored. It was a v-neck and showed some of their bare skin. The girls back at the host club would squeal in pure bliss. I never really got what made them so worked up about the twins. And to complete the whole Latin theme, both of them grasped Maracas.

"Are you trying to start a rampage of hormone crazed girls?" I questioned jokingly.

"It's not our fault we're this good looking." said Hikaru.

"It's a blessing and a curse." sighed Kaoru.

After I left them I wanted to check out Stephanie and Tamaki's act, but I discovered they already left. I figured I'd follow their good example and leave too.

I was walking home a rather unusual way. I figured I would take a short cut on a side street, which was less busy and cut my journey in half. I got the vague feeling I was being followed, but that's the feeling I always got when walking down this road. I had walked it several times before, and without incident. It was probably just my paranoia at work again.

Well, at least that's what I thought before I felt two strange hands grab me into a choke hold from behind.

"Don't move. Understand?" said a male voice in a menacing way. Hmm. The killer was a dude.

I quickly elbowed him in the ribs, making him gasp and let go momentarily. That was all the time I needed to reverse the situation. I grabbed my attacker by the arm and twisted as hard as I could. I could faintly hear him cursing profusely between pained breaths.

"You don't move. Understand?" I said in a mocking, condescending tone. I examined my attacker. A thin man in a mask. It could have been any killer. How could I possibly know it was the killer?

All of a sudden, I heard a disturbing laugh disrupt from the killer. It was quiet at first, but then grew louder and more manic.

"Silly little girl." the voice taunted and all of a sudden yanked lose from my grasp, the sudden shift in weight sending me tumbling to the ground.

While I was in this vulnerable state, I heard the attacker shuffling around in their pockets. To my horror, I looked up to see gleaming metal reflecting the moonlight.

"This is unfair. I don't have a weapon. It's not a fair fight." I babbled on, hoping to lure the attacker into a hand only combat.

He leaned down and whispered menacingly, "Too bad I don't play fair."

He then picked the knife up and lunged straight for my heart. I moved away just in time, leaving me a short amount of time to catch my breath before another attack. Then another. And another. I kept rolling in the dirt, evading them all.

"It's a shame." he chuckled, "Your getting that pretty dress all dirty." he said with mock-disappointment.

I quickly dodged his knife again. I knew I couldn't keep this up for long. My time was running out. The killer went for another lunge of his knife and I stood still, submitting, waiting for my painful end when...

All of a sudden I heard a cry of fiery, and then a figure went flying through the air, kicking my attacker straight to the ground.

"Did you miss me?" my savior asked.

"Tamaki!" I called out.

"I missed you too!" he said, wearing his usual goofy grin.

"Tamaki!" I called out again.

"Okay. I get it. I'm Tamaki. You're Maria. Can we move on now?" he asked.

"Tamaki! Look out!" I called. It was then that the killer recovered from Tamaki's swiftly delivered kick and retaliated with a brutal punch to the stomach.

All of the breath left Tamaki's body at that moment. He fell to the ground, clutching his stomach. I charged at the killer with my full strength, hoping I would knock him to the ground. Instead, he just grabbed a hold of me and held the knife near my neck.

"It's a pity it had to end this way." he whispered, "You may have been my only worthy adversary."

What the attacker didn't predict was that Tamaki didn't dwell on things for long. He quickly recovered from the pain and jumped up suddenly, not leaving the attacker time to react when he punched him in the face, sending him to the ground, unconscious.

"So, I've been thinking about it." he said, out of breath, "And your right. You can't do this alone...you need me." he finished with a smile.

"Do you mean..." I started, not being able to mask my joy.

"Yes. I'm back on the case. And it appears we've found a killer." he said, gesturing to the ground.

"But the question is, would it be the killer?" I asked.

Tamaki all of a sudden took out a note, and handed it to her.

"I found this on your door." he said.

"You were at my house?"

"We'll talk about that later. The point is, it's a note from the killer. There's no way he would have found time to write that note, leave it on your door, then come back here, to attack you, arriving from the opposite direction from your house." he pointed out.

"How do we know he didn't just write it earlier?" I pointed out.

"Look at my hands. The ink is still wet." Tamaki said, showing her the smudges along his palm.

I bent down and read the note.

Note:

Dear Maria,

It appears there is another attacker on the loose. Be careful. I wouldn't want someone to get the chance to spill your blood before I could. After all, a precious creature like you can only die once.

Love,

Anonymous

I kept looking back and forth between Tamaki, the note, and the attacker on the ground.

"Then...who the hell is this guy?" I asked out loud.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed :D Next chapter is coming up soon