Greetings everyone. I'm sorry for the slow update, but here it finally is. I'll most likely be writing more once I have vacation.

Disclaimer: Nope, even after all this time I still don't own Tales of Symphonia. Namco does. -Mumble mumble- Enjoy!

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As soon as the host body's breathing was stable the seraph stood up from his spot near the campfire. Noishe was still awake unlike Anna, and looked up at him with a questional look in his purple eyes. "Don't worry, I'll be back soon." He said in a hushed tone so that he wouldn't wake the project, resulting his voice sounding even deeper than usual. It was better to leave now that she was asleep, otherwise she might get ideas about escaping again. He turned around and walked off in the woods. He trusted Noishe enough to have him keep an eye on the project while he was absent. If necessary, Noishe could be stronger and faster than a wolf, and shouldn't be underestimated by anyone because of this. Noishe wasn't afraid of monsters, for Martel's sake; he was even bigger than most of them in this area. And, since he seemed to have grown attached to this woman in such a short time span he was sure that the Protozoan would protect her. Even though it was dark in the area where Kratos walked, he could see everything just fine. At least there were some good points about this angel transformation. In one soundless and swift movement he drew his sword, holding it loosened in his black gloved hand. Like that, he walked on for quite a while, his crimson eyes scanning the area around him thouroughfully.

About half an hour later the auburn haired man returned, being happily greeted by Noishe who was wagging his tail, but keeping silent for the rest in order not to wake the woman who lay against him. Kratos' sword was sheatened again, and in his left hand he held a dead owl and some kind of large rat upside down. The fire had burned up most of the wood already, and so he put some new dry branches at it. Afterwards he just sat down and lay the motionless feathered and furry creatures next to him. It was the breakfast for the project, as well as a snack for Noishe. The bird was reserved for the female, since this was more of a delicatesse than a rat. On top of that, the rat was larger, and she wouldn't need that much to eat, unlike Noishe. Eating too much at once for her could still be dangerous, but at least she was save from starvation now. Kratos picked up the owl, and started picking its feathers out. It took him a while to get used to it again. The last time he had done this was with the previous Chosen's journey, but soon he got the hang of it again. Like all the others, this Chosen's group had ended up dead. Some Chosens had come further than others, like Spiritua, who had completed the World Regeneration journey, but in the end, her mana signature wasn't compattible with that of Martel. End of story.

The next morning Anna was awoken by a delicious scent of roasted meat. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, giving off a yawn afterwards. She blinked a few times to get her eyes adjusted to the light, and noticed that the half elf was holding some meat on a stick above the embers of the fire. She cringed as soon as she felt his piercing gaze upon her, even though his eyes were hidden behind the auburn veil for the biggest part. She averted her gaze quickly, as if watching him was something she was not supposed to do, and her gaze fell upon some other piece of roasted meat that lay in the grass, which seemed larger than the one he held above the fire. She sat up right, not leaning onto the furry creature anymore now. Noishe took this oppertunity to stand up and walk over to the large piece of roasted meat, eating it eagerly. Even though Noishe could just eat raw meat he preferred it when it was roasted. Kratos knew this, otherwise he wouldn't have roasted it for the Protozoan in the first place. She sat there for a while, and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. She lowered her hand again as Kratos stood up, and handed her the stick with the meat on it. It seemed to be good enough to eat, there were barely any scorched places, and yet it seemed it had been roasted long enough. As soon as she took it a bit reluctantly Kratos walked back to his spot again and sat down, with his eyes closed. She took a small bite of the meat, and chewed carefully, but soon took another, bigger, bite. She continued eating for a while, looking at how Noishe ate before she fixed her gaze upon the tall man. Wasn't he going to eat anything? Or had he eaten already? She looked around to see if there were any remnants of his meal, but they were nowhere to be seen.

"Aren't you going to eat?" She asked after she swallowed some meat, and frowned slightly. She had asked it more out of curiousity than out of concern. He hadn't eaten anything when they were still in Luin either. At least, not when he had been in her presence. No one could do without food, that was for sure. And he didn't look like he was starving either; his body and muscles were well developed, she could tell as much even though his clothes weren't that tight. It wasn't like she actually wanted this man to feel good after all that that organisation had done to her. Not at all. He apparantly was so high in rank with those Desians she assumed he was responsible for all they had done to her. "..." As he remained silent she let out a small sigh. She would take that as a 'no' then. He stood up as soon as she and Noishe were done eating, and swept some sand on the embers of the fire with his foot. Anna threw the empty stick away, but didn't stand up. It seemed that half elf wanted to move on to Asgard again. The host body was disorientated in this area, which was quite far away from her familiar Luin. She didn't want to travel around with this guy. As she had vowed silently to herself; she'd resist as much as possible, and also in this case.

The stern man waited a short while, making clear with his cold gaze that he wanted her to stand up. However, she didn't. This annoyed Kratos, who was used to people listening to him instantly. Speaking to her to get her moving wasn't one of his favorite things to do. Noishe had already joined Kratos' side, and gave a small whine as Anna seemed determined not to move from er spot. "..." The auburn haired man walked threatingly over to her, towering out above her. Without saying anything, he took the collar of her darkred cape, and pulled her up, which wasn't so comfortable for her. If she didn't want to listen to his unspoken words then she would simply have to comply with his rough way. "Fine fine!" The host body exclaimed as she desperately tried to loosen the strong grip around her throat from the darkred cape. With that, Kratos let go off the fabric, resulting in the brown haired female falling back at the ground. That guy was such a brute! She started muttering under her breath as she followed the Desian, wishing bad things to happen to this filthy half elf. Kratos could hear everything she said, but gave no response to her malevolent wishes. She had no knowledge of his angelic hearing, and he'd like to keep up the act of not being able to hear even her most soft words. That way, he may discover some valueable information without her knowing. Information was something that the man valued even more than his strength. Besides, it was not like he cared what she thought of him anyway.

As they walked Noishe soon walked next to Anna rather than Kratos for now. Said man wasn't so pleased about that, but didn't complain. Noishe was free to choose whomever he wanted to walk next to. Still, as more time passed by he didn't think it was good for the protozoan to get so attached to the Angellus project. She'd die for the greater good soon enough anyway, and seeing Noishe sad wouldn't make Kratos feel any better either. And so, after the green and white furred had walked next to Anna and showed signs of affection by licking her hand sometimes, Kratos found it had been long enough. "Back." He ordered Noishe, not bothering to look over his shoulder at the two of them as he spoke. Noishe gave a long whine, and returned to walk next to Kratos who walked about 10 steps in front of Anna. "What was that for?" Host body A012 asked a bit offended, seeing as he had taken her good company away just like that. Did he want to pester her? Was Noishe too good for her? Or was he too good to walk next to her instead then? Not that she wanted him to walk next to her. Not at all. But she mistook his unspoken concern for Noishe for the air of superiority. And that, was something she disliked. He barely said a word to her, and never replied to her question. As usual, he didn't reply to the question she had asked just now either. Was she too low for him to treat her properly? Of course, in his point of view half elves like him would be higher placed than a human like her. That must be it. It felt strange for her to think up reasons why this wasn't a personal matter to make herself feel better.

It nerved Anna to see him act to superior. She was at least just as good as he was! It made her desperate to try and make him see she was more than just 'an inferior being'. Kratos had never literally accused her of being one, but since she still was convinced he was a half elf she was certain he shared the same opinion as all the others. Anna was prejudged towards half elves. It wasn't strange, since she was simply indoctrinated. At a younger age, she had believed everyone to be equal, no matter what race you were, but that had changed as the stories from the villagers seemed to come true. The Desians, half elves, did horrible things to all of them, and she had come to believe all Desians were like this. Of course, she also knew that not all half elves were bad. The half elf Desians were bad, but then again it happened to be so that almost all half elves were Desians too, which made it all in all confusing to keep her benevolent thoughts about them. And so, it was hard not to be prejudged in a time like this. "You really think you're everything, don't you?" She said to Kratos, pity present in her voice. Like she had expected, he ignored her like he always did.

Kratos listened to the host body as she accused him of feeling superior, but gave no answer to that. She knew nothing of him, and it was better like that. Dark secrets banished to the corners of his mind, and emotions hidden deep underneath the surface of his face. "Bossing around, ignoring me, being heartless...You're all the same." She mumbled, frowning in an annoyed way. "You base your opinion of one entire population on one person?" Kratos replied calm, not slowing down his pace. It wasn't clear to him what she exactly meant with 'you'. She could be referring to males in general, or his race. It'd be unlikely she'd be talking about the human race though since she was a human herself. Maybe she thought he was of a different race? "And now you're gonna tell me that you don't do that?" Anna snorted. "Correct." The auburn haired man said to her, noticing that it was already starting to get dark, the sky filled with purple pink and orange colours again. "Yeah right, as if I'll believe that." The brown haired female mumbled, averting her gaze to Noishe who gave her somehow some kind of comforting look and whined lightly. It turned out that the protozoan didn't seem to like this verbal fight between two people he liked. The host body silently hoped for Kratos to reply to her comment, but pity enough for her he didn't. Wasn't there anything she could do to make him talk? This was just so frustrating!

At any rate, Anna felt a bit more relieved after lashing out at this man, even if it was just a little bit. She hadn't had the chance to do so in a long time, and the cropped up thoughts about half elves had slightly subsided. It grew darker, and the female had a hard time to watch where she was going. It was just pitchblack, and there wasn't that much moonlight this night either. Currently they were walking through a forest. She was tired and thirsty. She hadn't drunk anything today yet, and her lips and throat felt dry. Well, at least it had somewhat improved from that cell she was in, but certainly not much. A second later, she tripped in the dark, and grazed herself because of a tree at her temple. Tears welled up in her eyes because of the nasty stinging scratch. She was still lucky it was only a scratch though. "We'll rest." Kratos stated as he finally stopped his everlasting pace. "You were just waiting for me to fall, didn't you?" Anna muttered as she touched the light wound at her head, blaming the half elf for it since he hadn't stopped earlier when it was still light. "Ow!" She said as it stung even more as she touched it. Getting out the bark would have to wait a bit. Kratos, with angelic patience didn't seem to be bothered by her constant flow of comments. Anyone else of Cruxis would've beaten her up(with an exception of Yuan or Mithos), even if she was the most important project at the moment. She didn't realize how relatively lucky she really was. Once mroe she attempted to get the bark out, without result.