Chapter: 9

Thirteen dead scientists/guards lay dead on the floor just to the side of the open doorway, their weapons looted from the corpses and anything of value was pocketed by the random assortment of rebelling teenagers.

Everything was going according to plan so far, not a single loss on their side while the enemy was just walking into a waiting spiderweb that was getting more and more dangerous every time it caught someone. Sora just couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in his stomach no matter what he did, or how ever many they took down. He just knew something was going to happen but he couldn't place just what it was.

Nearby, his fellow rebels were getting antsy. Their foe had stopped coming into the room more than ten minutes ago and there wasn't a single sign that anything was going to come through the door any time soon. The teen couldn't bring himself tell his people to go outside just yet, that feeling in his gut stopped any rash decisions he would have made dead in their tracks.

His fellow test subjects had already started to confront him about not making a move when he could have, he could even see some of them giving him impatient and angry glances every now and again. "Zero, what are we waiting for exactly? The halls seem clear and the cameras have been taken out, they can't see what we are doing, so why aren't we moving?" He heard Three ask him from just to his left.

Sora gave the tall girl a side glance for barely even a second, "I don't really know, just a feeling I have." A scowl was the response making him tense a little. If he lost her support then the rest would follow faster than he could say otherwise. "Something doesn't feel right about this, why would they just stop coming all of a sudden when they have no visual on our area? Think about it, by all rights they should be storming us to try and take us out faster." Then again Sora was up against someone that was considered THE genius of his generation, so maybe he had already caught on and was planning a counter-measure.

The girl seemed troubled by this but he couldn't tell what she had going on in that head of hers. Oh if only he could read minds, it would make his life so much easier when dealing with people in general.

"Listen, give it another minute. If nothing happens then i'll tell everyone to go, alright?" If the fuck wasn't going to make the first move then he would. Preemptive strike and all that. "Just tell everybody to be cautious, there's no telling what Hanzo has waiting for us out there." At her nod he left to go back to his usual spot by the grate with Kaede.

She shined him the sweetest smile upon his arrival, one that he unknowingly reciprocated. Sitting down he felt his nerves gradually calm from just being near her. The grate behind his head was making much more noise than usual today, he noticed. It's steady hum, which would have been annoying to most, was captivating to the teen in an odd way.

Sora felt a weight settle on his shoulder after only a few seconds of just sitting and, knowing who it was, he didn't even bat an eye at the feeling. Though he did feel his heart start pumping harder as if he had started running laps.

"Can you promise me something?"

He shifted his head to look at her in question, his eyes instantly locking with hers. "Sure." The teen shrugged, not really sure why she seemed so serious. Kaede turned the same shade of pink as her hair but kept the same look on her face, a weird combo no matter how the teen sliced it.

"Never leave me."

Sora's lips quirked upwards in a half-smile.

He opened his mouth to reply but caught himself when he heard a small groaning in the vent, the fans now blowing in stale air through the metallic tunnels. He could pick out the faintest hint of garlic in the air and he instantly pulled himself and Kaede away. This place never smelled of anything other than disinfectant, coupled with the fans actually being on for once could only mean one thing.

"Shit! Everybody run for the door, they're trying to gas us!" As if to punctuate his warning, one of the other people by the large grate in the back of the room starting vomiting and convulsing at a rapid rate. Apparently Hanzo didn't want to wait for whatever gas he pumped in to kill them, bastard probably put heavy amounts of it in the vents.

One by one more people started dropping causing mass panic within the area. Sora grabbed his shirt and pulled it up to cover his mouth and nose, silently telling his friend to do the same as he grabbed her hand so they didn't get separated in the chaos.

The teen didn't look back as he ran with Kaede to the only door and out of the death-trap of a room, he was sure that everyone in it would soon be dead if they weren't already.

Just outside was a long hallway stretching out to either side, to the right was where they always took everyone for testing, the left? Nobody knew, there wasn't a single person that ever went there save for the scientists.

As soon as they were through the door Sora slammed it shut to slow the gas from flooding the hallway and killing any survivors. If there were any still going in there then they could just open the damned door, it was never locked in the first place. Why lock the door when everyone thought that the place was in-escapable?

His eyes opened to see maybe ten others with them, all leaning against the walls trying to still their rapidly beating hearts. Each one looked even more pale than he naturally was, their wide eyes staring at nothing but air as if not really believing what they just witnessed.

Calming his breathing from the small amount of physical exercise, he heard a very small mechanical whirr coming from two different places. Right, there were more cameras in this place weren't there. Sora's eyes narrowed at the devices that were now trained on the twelve people in the hall. Hanzo knew that there were survivors, he would be sending some people to fix that problem soon.

"Everybody listen, we need to-"

"No! You listen, we all said that we should have moved on sooner but you didn't listen, you were too damned stubborn! Now almost all of us are dead and it's all your fault!" A furious Three cut him off, her face red with anger and stained with tears."You're on your own Zero, everyone who wants to live come with me." She turned off to leave and everyone else followed, giving him the nastiest looks they could muster in this situation.

She stopped after a few feet and swiveled back to face him and Kaede with her focus purely on the latter. "One-hundred, you don't need to follow this guy anymore. Come with us, we can keep you safe and get you out of here."

Sora really wanted to rip her head off right then and there! But...maybe it would be for the best if she did go with them. The thought of leaving her made him want to go berserk, yet he knew that if she went with him then she had a higher chance of dying along side him. That was something he would never forgive himself for.

To his utter shock, she didn't move from her spot beside him or even look like she wanted to go with them. "I'm staying with Sora, i'll never leave him for as long as I live. Sorry." Three snorted and resumed her walk down the right corridor with the other nine following obediently behind.

"Kaede you…" Sora couldn't believe what he was hearing. Still, he was very happy that she said that. He always figured that after they left she would want nothing to do with him ever again, but it seemed that wasn't the case. "Thank you." He said with a soft smile that seemed to love showing up in her presence, if only to make her blush.

She nodded happily to him. "I already said that I don't want you to leave me, so why would I leave you?" She did ask him something along those lines today didn't she. "Besides, I want to stay by your side Sora." Pink dusted her cheeks. "So which way do we-"

*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*

The sound of multiple gunshots came from the right hallway. "Ten shots, ten people." K piped up in his head, sounding almost like he was talking about an uninteresting story he read. "And then there were two…"

He could hear footsteps closing in on them from that direction and he started to panic. "Kaede we need to move now!" Sora grabbed her arm, pulled her in front of him, and made her go on ahead while he was closer to the still moving shooters.

*BANG*

Just before he turned his head to follow a bullet slammed into his skull between his eyebrows, sending him down to the ground with a fair amount of blood seeping from the wound. "SORA, NO!" Came Kaede's cry, it was so broken and frenzied that even though it was short it was nearly unintelligible.

The men came up to the horned-girl, guns at the ready if she tried anything. "Sir, we have captured one-hundred and neutralized the survivors. What are your orders?" All business that one.

"Good, bring her back to me and we can still use her to make the army they want. Burn the other bodies I have no more use for them."

His walkie-talkie buzzed off and he made a "move it" signal with his arms/gun. When she didn't move he raised one of his hands over his head, then moved it to hit her with the butt of the pistol only to grow confused when he didn't hit...ANYTHING.

Surprise shifted to horror when he noticed three things wrong. One, his arm was chopped off cleanly at the wrist. Two, his two other gun-toting friends were now headless. Finally three, the corpse was chuckling in a low and hurt tone.

Sora got up and stood on unsteady legs, blood still running down his face from the bullet wound between his eyes. "Y-you know, H-Han-zo always sa-said I had a h-hard hea-d." He chuckled but winced with each one, he could still feel the bullet in his skull but it never hit his brain so in a way he was glad he could still feel something, even if it was pain.

"N-no way!" The man screamed in fright.

He spun on his heels and tried to escape down the hall only to trip over the body of his fallen comrade. He cowered in fear while trying to make himself look smaller. "Stay back demon I beg you!" He practically screamed as Sora took a few shaky steps towards him, the blood now dripping off the teen's chin.

The maroon-haired teen bent down to pick up the gun, not really paying any attention to what he was doing. He was still in a state of delirium over everything. Sora wasn't sure exactly how he survived that shot or why he was even moving like he was. As odd as it sounded the only real pain he felt was a splitting headache and a small stinging sensation where he thought the hole was. He was sure that he should have been screaming in agony or something but no, just the headache from hell and the sensation of being stung by a bee between the eyebrows.

He turned the gun over in his hands, inspecting it every which way even going so far as to check the number of shells in the cartridge. Nine left, and one in the chamber.

Sora seemed to zone out for a moment, staring at the gun all the while. Eventually he aimed the barrel just under the man's throat and squeezed the trigger. The recoil made his arm jerk upwards enough to where the bullet went through the man's nose instead of the target. Just like K told him would happen, he noticed.

His hands buzzed with that weird numb feeling that someone would get from laying on their arm for too long.

Arms wrapped around his waist and he felt what was probably a head hit his back. "Sora! You're alive!" Just like that reality faded back into perspective for the teen, sadly that also meant that the stinging sensation quadrupled in strength. "I was so afraid when I saw you hit the floor, I thought that I lost you!"

Sora bit his tongue to stop himself from crying out at the sudden burst of sharp pain. His body turned around to face her after loosening her hold enough to move without moving her as well. "It's alright Kaede...I'm a-alive. I'm not going anyw-here." To be honest he wasn't really sure he could even walk properly right now, he could probably stumble around if he really needed to…

Then he realized the extra feeling coming out of his back. His vectors were working again for some reason. Knowing this he used two of his extra arms to reinforce his legs like really advanced splints, who knew they would be good for something other than maiming people?

"Come on, we need to get the hell out of her before more of them come." He blurted out, his voice still strained from the pain he was only now truly feeling.

"But you're still hurt, you need to take it easy!"

He took her hand once again and pulled her along, "There's no time to rest, the camera's are still on so Hanzo knows we are alive. He will just send more after us and if we stay in one place then something like that will happen again." His shock from being shot had faded by now allowing him to speak without stuttering again, though the pain still made him want to scream.

She looked like she was going to argue but kept silent.

The duo ran through the halls as fast as their legs could carry them. Countless corridors, long stretches of halls, several dead-ends, and rooms so plentiful that it could be a full town passed them by on their way to freedom. On the way they ran into dozens more guards/soldiers, they never lasted more than a few seconds under the threat of Sora's vectors.

Sora chopped through another man's head before he could even raise the gun in his hand to shoot, parts of the man's grey matter slid from the separated top half of his skull like jello.

Reaching an elevator, they picked the top floor and the machine jolt before moving up smoothly. The maroon-haired teen could almost taste freedom as he began to hear the subtle chirping of birds echoing from just a bit away and it was getting clearer every floor they went up.

He gave Kaede's hand a gentle squeeze as she leaned into him. Even after seeing what he could and would do to a person she still wanted to be near him, he couldn't have been more thankful just for that. The doors soon slid open and Sora immediately shoved her down with him as a hailstorm of bullets whizzed over them.

On command the three vectors that weren't in use shot up and started maiming every living thing in front of them with reckless abandon, not caring if they hit anything important as long as he and his friend were safe.

Blood sprayed across the walls, ceiling, and floor of the once clean and sterile top floor hallway as the arms cut off each and every limb from the aggressors one by one starting with their arms. They screamed in agony for every second of their torture and even though it was relatively quick, it seemed like time slowed to a crawl after the first arm went flying.

The deed done, the two ignored the mass of unrecognizable flesh in favor of finding the way out. Eventually they reached a small stairway that led up into a small cavern.

Sora quickly found himself agitated when he could find no exit or even a crack in the surrounding rock to exploit. "Damn, don't tell me this was a dead-end!" That couldn't be right, he could smell what he remembered grass smelled like and he could hear the chirping of birds louder than ever.

"Sora! Come here quick!"

Kaede's voice jolted him out of his state of near rage just long enough to get him over to her with no complaint. When he sent her a questioning look, she started knocking against the rock in different places. It seemed to him like she was just amusing herself and he was about to walk away, until he heard it. The knocks started to sound hollow.

In a frenzy, he joined her in knocking of the hard surface in an attempt to find the outline of whatever shape the hollow area was making.

"Alright fuck it, Kaede stand back, i'll take it from here." She nodded and stepped back while he forced his vectors into five different points in the wall. He forced the arms to move, slowly cutting away at the rock and inch by inch a small portion of light leaked through.

A few minutes later and sweat was coming off of him in droves as the slab of rock fell forward. Instantly he was blinded by sunlight but he didn't care, he could feel the wind on his face again and it felt euphoric! Never in his life did he think that he would actually see this sight ever again...it was almost enough to move him to tears. Almost.

He stepped out onto the green grass before him, savoring the feel of it against his bare feet, and took in a deep breath of unsterilized air for the first time since he was just a child. Sora felt absolutely giddy, like a child in an amusement park, he did it. They were finally free!

Though he had to remind himself that the two of them were the only ones who made it out from the looks of things. His only goal was getting Kaede out but that didn't mean that he didn't feel bad about leaving so many to die. He might have been able to do something about the group that left at the very least.

For the first time he noticed that his hair was long enough to obscure his vision, that or it was the first time that it actually mattered to him. With an excited smile on his face he smoothed back the front, it put him at a loss for words at how much of a difference such a small act could make on one's perception of the world around them. Colors seemed brighter, details seemed more vivid, and all around him the world just seemed to look better.

"Kaede come over here, you need to see this!" His head turned to his friend who was still in the mouth of the cavern.

The moment she stepped out, he felt his heart soar in his chest at the sight of her. The sunlight on her face illuminated every part of her, giving her a heavenly glow that just captured your attention the moment you caught sight of her. Her eyes sparkled playfully as she shielded her sight with her arm. She always looked so pretty to him, like a lone flower surrounded by nothing but the horror that was the labs. Now, now she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world to him.

She stepped up beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and gazed wide-eyed at the view before them. "Wow! It's so beautiful out here!" She took a couple of sniffs at the air, "And it doesn't smell like medicine!" Kaede giggled.

*BANG*

Sora jumped at the sound. "Kaede, someone's still out here, we need to-" His words died in his throat and the world slowed once again. Standing behind them was Hanzo with a pistol in hand, the barrel smoking, and a wicked look on his rugged mug.

A shuffling sound to his left made him turn towards it, his eyes wide and slightly terrified. It turned out that the noise was Kaede falling to her knees on the soft grass. Blood dribbling down her lips, and a large red splotch spreading out over her heart.

Sora's hearing turned to static while everything about him just stopped, his breathing included.

His terror increased tenfold when she hacked up a wad of dark red liquid. "No, nonononononononoNO!" HE dove down to her side and held her close to his own body tightly, not even minding the blood that started to stain his own white clothing. Tears leaked from his eyes in streams but he didn't look away from his best friend, who was smiling up at him despite the pain she must have been feeling.

The teen could hear Hanzo's feet crunching the grass and dirt beneath his feet yet Sora couldn't bring himself to tear away from Kaede for even a moment.

"S-Sora why are y-you crying? That isn't l-like you at all." Her eyes started to become unfocused as if she was trying to stare at him but couldn't pinpoint where he was. "It h-hurts a lot, a-and I can't r-really see you." She took a shaky breath. "You're s-still there r-right?"

A choked sob escaped his lips and he squeezed her tightly into his body. "Yeah, I-I'm still here Kaede. I'm still here." He could feel his world coming apart at the seams for every second he watched, but he just couldn't look away.

The pinkette's smile widened a fraction and she nuzzled closer with jerky motions, she didn't seem to have any strength left in her arms from the amount of effort it took. "G-Good, I ju-just want to be *cough* close to you. I-I'm getting a little t-tired Sora. Can I sleep n-now?" She croaked out.

He wanted to say no, to tell her to stay alive, to scream at her to not give up. He wanted to do so much, but instead he just settled on nodding with his forehead to hers so that she could tell what he was saying. Sora didn't trust his words to come out coherently in this situation.

The teen's sobs grew more strangled when he felt her hand touch his cheek, it was as cold as the grave and paler than the clouds above. "I have t-to tell you *cough* something. O-Okay?" He was on the verge of a complete breakdown by that point but still responded in the only way he trusted. He leaned his head down so that she didn't have to strain herself with what she wanted to say.

Sora's eyes shot open in shock, the tears momentarily halted in favor of his own surprise. "Really, Kaede? You-" Her eyes were closed and there was a peaceful smile on her face.

Her chest wasn't rising anymore.

The cocking of a gun met his ears, he knew who it was, he knew what was going to happen, he just couldn't bring himself to care anymore. He gently laid her onto the soft grass below and turned his blank yet tearful gaze onto the man he once called father.

Then something inside of Sora snapped, a dam or a floodgate that kept all the hurt and betrayal in his life, all the pain and sorrow came flooding through his veins like lava. This bastard took everything away from him, a nice quiet life, loving parents, and the only person that he ever cared about. Hanzo was going to PAY!

In a flash Sora's vectors cut the gun into four pieces along with a large portion of Hanzo's hand making the man scream out in pure agony. The next to go were the man's legs right on the center of the knee-caps, the sight of blood was starting to...excite the teen for whatever reason that he couldn't explain.

With another vector he started cutting off large chunks of skin, deep enough for it to hurt like no other but not enough to kill him. A splash of the red life-giving liquid landed on his cheek, so he got even more harsh. Sora pressed his right hand against Hanzo's throat and started slowly crushing it while his vectors went to work in tearing out each and every easily accessible bone in the man's body before breaking them with a harsh snapping sound that filled the area.

His left arm moved up to the man's right eye and dug into the socket, savoring every millisecond of time it took to torture Hanzo. A wet shlick signified the removal of the eye, which was now only holding on by the stalk. Sora smirked in the most demented fashion as he pierced the eye with his nails, making sure to give the man as much pain as possible before crushing the damned thing into paste.

The teen reveled in the screams that came from Hanzo, they fueled him in a way.

Hanzo was reduced to a blubbering pile of bloody mush by the time the teen was done. Sora leaned in close to his...prey, yes prey fit the best. "BurN In HeLL, baStARD!" He didn't even register how his voice sounded in his head nor even the fact that he could not hear K, who would normally be telling him the exact way to make the man suffer, before he cut a square in the man's chest and removed the heart within.

He didn't have the strength to do anything too drastic to it so he did the next best thing, he forced Hanzo's mouth open with his vectors and worked the organ down the man's throat.

The soon-to-be corpse dropped to the ground, gagging and crying but unable to move due to half of his spine being gone or severed. Sora went back over to Kaede with slow movements. In his daze, he picked her up in a princess carry and propped her up against a nearby tree. He would bury her properly later, but for now?

Sora glanced at the opening that led back to the lab facility blankly. He had a job to do.

Once he was at the mouth of the cavern he spared one last look at his best friend's corpse and a lone teardrop slid out of his now dry ducts. "I love you too, Kaede."

SMHM

A large tree in the middle of a lush green clearing stood taller than nearly any other for miles in all directions. In the brown bark was a singular name carved so deeply into the tree that it seemed as if it would remain forever. On the ground just in front of it was a small stack of flowers, some decayed beyond recognition, others were now in the soil and were feeding the tree as well as the surrounding grass.

Standing only two feet from it was Sora Inzei and his familiar Itachi.

The maroon haired teen crouched down in silence, unable to say even the simplest thing in front of her grave. With agonizing slowness he presented two flowers that were hidden somewhere on his person, a pink carnation and a purple hyacinth, and softly placed them upon the long since regrown grass.

"It's been a while hasn't it Kaede? Sorry for not coming by sooner King has me on a pretty tight leash these days." He chuckled airily. "I've got someone that wants to meet you. His name is Itachi, you know, the one I told you about." He half looked over his shoulder at the boy who was watching the affair silently, not thinking it to be his place to say anything.

Itachi bowed with his hands together in prayer when he realized that his brother was telling him it was ok to talk. "Hello to you Kaede, it is very nice to make your acquaintance." He tried to be as polite as possible.

Sora smirked faintly at the notion. "Relax Itachi, neither of us were very much for politeness. So just ease up a bit, alright?" The boy nodded and the maroon haired teen could see the tension starting to leave his body. Turning back to the grave he stared at the name sadly, in remembrance of that day. The closer he got to this place the more vivid the dreams became, and when he was here he could actually feel her touch again when he slept.

His hand drifted up to the scar on his face, it was hiding the one made by the bullet thanks to the length and how deep it went. Sora was pretty sure that it dug into his skull at least a little but he wasn't really sure since he never went to a doctor to find out before he was reincarnated.

The teen couldn't even really remember how he got the large mark on his face, everything after Kaede's last words was more or less a blur of red. He knew he did something to the lab due to the fact that it was now nothing more than a heaping ruin that would never be unearthed, he just couldn't figure out anything else.

Sora shifted his weight to his other foot, "I've got a lot to tell you this time Kaede, more than just the usual killing things anyway." He chuckled to himself, that was usually the only news he had to share with his deceased friend. "For starters king ordered me back to Kouh so that I could spend some time with the peerage. Then there's the group themselves, i'm still trying to piece them together but some of them are all too easy to figure out." The teen started ticking off his fingers as he went through. "There is a pretty boy that has a lot of hidden anger just waiting to explode, a perverted worm who would rather sniff discarded panties all day than actually do anything, a loli that has a sweet-tooth even bigger than yours, and a sadistic girl that practically reeks of fallen angel."

He wasn't too sure about what the smell was at first but after that whole debacle at the church it was all but confirmed for him, still wasn't sure what it meant though. Perhaps she was secretly dating one of them or something? Eh whatever, not really his business anyway.

Sora sighed as he thought of the last member of the rag-tag group he was unwillingly a part of. Annoying little girl that she was, Asia just seemed to burrow under his skin and wouldn't let go no matter how much he tried. It would only get worse when King finally got her way and reincarnated the girl.

"I hope that you are not forgetting the young blond are you, Mister Zero?"

The maroon haired teen tensed with wide eyes, how the hell had someone snuck up on them with both him and Itachi here?! Sora rose from his spot and turned harshly to the intruder/s. There were three of them - which shocked him even more since even if he didn't notice them Itachi should have.

The first was a tall man with a youthful complexion who had knee-length, silver hair that was straight with a single lock that fell to the right side of his face and split into two parts as well as gray-blue eyes. He wore a formal attire that consisted of an open, dark green, to the point of almost being black, double-breasted coat with large cuffs and four buttons outlining each storm patch on the fronts of the clothing. The buttons and the lining found on the sleeves and storm patches were moss green. Underneath his coat was a white shirt with a ruffled collar and center front. His pants were dark green that matched his coat and finally he had plain white shoes.

The next was a slim, young man with long, black hair and blue eyes. His hair was tied into a ponytail and his bangs were swept away except for strands of hair falling in his face. He wore a long, black jacket with gold trimmings, opened with an upturned collar and rolled-up sleeves, a long-sleeved white shirt underneath, and straightened with an unorganized blue necktie. Below, the man wore black pants and white shoes. Sora's eyes were instantly drawn to the sword on the man's waist, it looked like any old ordinary thing but he would bet that wasn't the case.

Finally there was a short girl with long, pale white hair reaching down along her back and down past her knees with her hair is split near the middle, it looked quite messy. Her eyes surprised him due to their heterochromatic iridum, with her right iris being colored blue while her left iris was colored green. She had a slender yet curvaceous figure that most woman would kill for with large breasts. She - oddly enough - wore two golden bells: one on her left ear as an earring and one being attached to another red collar on her right ankle, and a plain red collar around her neck. Covering her curvaceous form was a fuzzy, long sleeved, short pale yellow dress, with a large, bright yellow bow covered by a thinner, red bow adorned by bright yellow pom poms. Her boots went along with the colour scheme, and were covered by the same material and bows, save for the very bottom, which seemed to be smooth.

Sora felt a weight settle on his shoulder as well as the sharp poke of talons sinking into his skin letting him know where his little brother was. He was thankful for that much, the teen could feel the power rolling off of these people in droves, he knew that he couldn't fight these people and win in a straight fight so maybe Itachi's illusions could help even the field.

Fortunately for him however, the man in the middle with white hair raised his hand in the air, waved it nonchalantly, and spoke in a calm tone. "Now now there's no reason to be like that. I only wished to talk to you, we have no reason to fight each other."

"Why, who are you?" Sora refused to relax around this guy, he was giving off such a calming aura that it put the teen on edge.

The mysterious man smiled kindly, most likely trying to ease Sora's mind even if it wasn't working. "Allow me to introduce my companions and myself." He bowed with the elegance of royalty and a grace that Sora had never seen in a person. "My name is Adolf K. Weismann but you may call me Shiro. These are my friends and peerage members Kuroh Yatogami and Ameno Miya-"

"Noooooo, Shiro! I told you to call me Neko!" The white haired woman moaned out with a pout.

"Sorry, Neko I just thought that we should tell our new friend your name. Or do you want him to call you by that name as well?" He asked, seemingly genuinely curious about her answer.

The girl - Neko - nodded, then bounded off until she was right in front of Sora and Crow-Itachi. "My name is Neko okay? N-E-K-O. Nice to meet you!" Her sunny disposition kind of shocked the teen, not too many people were like that these days. Then as if to further his surprise of her, a pair of white cat ears and a tail of the same color appeared on her and even moved in random motions.

So she was a nekomata then? Kind of explained the name she wanted to use, but weren't the nekomata extinct? Or was it endangered? The ears on top of her head wiggled again and he had the sudden urge to pet them...these people were more dangerous than he thought.

Shiro approached and started petting her head between her ears making her purr in delight. "You'll have to forgive Neko, she gets a bit excited around new people." He seemed to ignore the black haired man's - Kuroh's - reply of "she's like this all the time" in favor of grinning at Sora. "You wanted to know why I would want to talk to you and not your King Rias Gremory, right?" The tension came back tenfold. "Well, I have a deal that I wish to make with you and you alone. In fact I don't think that your King would appreciate what i'm about to offer you." He would have to be more specific there were plenty of things that his master didn't like - the way he killed people included. She really needed to calm down sometimes, he was just having a little fun.

"Alright, i'm listening. What do you want?" Sora crossed his arms and gave Itachi the signal to transform back, he didn't like the way Neko was looking at his crow friend. However the instant he did turn back the boy was tackled by Neko who was hugging the boy into her rather large assets.

"He's soooo cute!"

"Aren't you going to help your friend?" Shiro asked, obviously amused.

"Itachi is a big boy, he can handle himself." Of course even as he said that, he could feel the boy staring at the back of his head in a pleading manner. The kid should have known that something like that would happen once he transformed.

Shiro laughed at that, seriously what was with this guy? He seemed way too laid back for someone so powerful. "At any rate I suppose I should tell you about what I came here for. How would you like to be free of your master, without becoming a stray?"

SMHM

Sorry for how long this thing took, life really likes getting in my way. But yeah the chapter is up and its a bit longer than normal.

Any questions? Comment in a review or pm me.

CARNATION Pink - I'll Never Forget You

HYACINTH Purple - I Am Sorry

Ja-ne!