Ding Ding Ding Ding! Very good. I got all but question 3 answered! You guys are so great, that was fun! So, you got four of the last chapters coming your way. Please be sure to let me know what you think of them. I love the reviews I've gotten so far, they're more than I expected! I mean, really? These are like the Ghost Hunt episodes? Bam! I did something right! That's so encouraging.

Anyhoo, here are the answers:

1. Brown (or bronze, which is pretty close)

2. Fuzzy Chewbacca

4. The shortest Gerudo with light orange hair in "The Opal and The Genie"

5. Renge in "Ouran High School Host Club" with Tamaka's teddy bear dressed up as Kirimi.

There's still question 3 to be answered, so there's still one more chapter up for the grabbing. Thanks again for playing with me!

Chapter 9

He didn't look at me. Just kept his cheek resting on his knuckles, elbow on the arm rest.

I sat next to him. After a moment's debate, I tentatively rested my fingers on his hand.

"Gene…you know this isn't right."

The hand twitched, but otherwise he didn't move. The stillness of his face unnerved me.

A sudden explosion on the screen lit up the theater like orange lightning. The man on the screen dove in slow motion and managed to roll behind a dumpster.

"He would've hated this movie," he said in a pause not filled with roaring air.

"Did he like any movie?" I asked, unable to help my curiosity.

The corner of his mouth twitched as though to smile. "He'll hate me for saying, but…he loved this weird little known film called A Little Princess when he was a kid."

I blanched. "You're joking. I always thought he'd like horrors, right?"

The smile spread to half of his mouth now. "Nah, he thought those were comedies. No one could get properly scared with him cackling and repeating lines. No. You probably know he isn't much for TV."

"A Little Princess?" I screwed up my face. "With frilly dresses and—"

"Oh, the title is misleading. It's actually not that girly of a movie, surprisingly. It's about this girl who get's sent to a boarding school so her father can go to war, where he ends up dying, so she ends up as a servant, more like a slave. She keeps herself up through stories though, and, in the end, she finds her father alive and with amnesia and manages to get his memories back." The smile slid away. "Says a lot about Noll…if you think about it…"

Another explosion, accompanied by a rain of puttering gunshot, filled our silence. I wondered how many minutes had passed.

"Gene…" I started, hesitantly. "It's not right…"

"Excuse me, Mai, but how could you know? You've never died." He yanked his hand from my touch, all signs of softness gone and his face once more cold and still. "You've never been murdered. You've never been a ghost."

"But Naru's still alive—"

"No he's not. He's dead. It's me now."

My blood ran cold and my heart skipped a beat. "I'm not stupid, Gene."

"You must be, because I'm telling the truth. What do you think death is, anyways? Destruction? Is it when your heart stops beating? Or is it when you walk that plain of foxfires? But you don't know, having never died."

My hands had started shaking so hard, I had to clamp them between my thighs to keep them from shaking my whole body. He must have noticed, as he turned his face to me for the first time, and I saw a ripple of the compassion that was so unique to him. So easily moved.

I snatched at that and didn't bother hiding the despair from my voice. "Please, Gene, I love him."

That had been the wrong thing to say.

The compassion twisted to something new, something pained, angry, and far too desperate for comfort.

I had to strain to hear his low words past the yelling on the screen.

"I'd take better care of you. I wouldn't be as insensitive or cold, I'd understand your feelings, I'd better understand you. He might try hard now, but give him a year and he'll vanish into his work, you know that. He's a workaholic, he loves his world of facts. He says he's not comfortable with romance, but all romance is is being thoughtful and involved in another person's well being. He's arrogant, he's narcissistic—you know that. And I would love you for all the days of my life. I'd do everything to make you happy, I'd never forget what you mean to me, I'd put you first—"

He was talking about all of this as though it had already passed, as though we were all already dead.

"Gene—"

He had taken up my hand again, but it felt clammy against my fingers.

"Naru's gone," he said. "He's gone. I told you, we're identical twins, this is my body too. Please…"

I tugged my hand from his grasp. "If that's true, why are you so desperate for me to accept you? How would that change anything?"

"Because I love you—"

"How could you?" I couldn't help how the words snapped out like wire. "You're dead. Do you even know how long you've been dead? You said in that plain that time was irrelevant, so do you even know how old I am?"

He scoffed. "Of course I do. You're fifteen."

"Look closer, Gene. I'm eighteen."

That cold stillness came over him. The gunshots on the screen abruptly died, leaving the crouched protagonist crouched behind his new shelter, gun in hand. Cautiously, he peered around the corner. His pursuers had vanished. It was like they'd been spirited away.

"I don't see how that matters," he whispered.

"Then how about this," I said, my words spilling out of my mouth quicker than I could consider them. "You say I don't know death, but do you know life? What makes you alive? If you can't feel time, if you can't breathe and smell and contemplate the things that pass without your thoughts blurring into one another—affected by every other that passes through you-how could you possibly love me?"

"Because I've watched you, I know you—"

"How? Have you ever seen me eat? Ever seen me watch Sherlock? Ever seen me live? That plain of foxfires isn't like a movie theater, despite how many times you've lead me into it like it was one."

He ducked his chin and scowled in a way more violent than Naru could have ever managed. "This isn't philosophy, Mai. Naru's gone, and my life will mean nothing if none of you will even accept me for who I am."

"I thought we were talking about me?"

With a grunt of frustration he pushed himself out of the folding seat, his half-lit face sharp, angry, un-Naru.

"Go away, Mai. Just go away."

But I stood as well. We had yet to touch upon the most important thing, and he couldn't go until I said it.

"Why didn't you pass on?" I asked.

"I already told you, Naru held me back—"

"You know just as well as I that he had no power to do that. He isn't even a spiritualist."

"He didn't want to hold me back, it's just his very existence."

"Gene," I grabbed his wrist as he moved to leave. "You've forgotten, haven't you?"

"Let go."

"You stayed behind for Naru, why? I know you love him, I can see it in the way you talk about him—"

"Mai, I warn you—"

"—if what you say is true and he really is gone, you've murdered him, Gene. You got that? You're a murderer!"

So quick I hardly saw it, his wrist ripped from my grasp and he lashed out, slapping me, twisting up his other fist in my shirt, pushing me over the next row of seats. Even as he did it, I kept my eyes open, watching the terror that wracked him, twisted him, and the contrast of his black hair against his white skin made all the worse by the bleached lighting of the movie screen.

"…tell a man the truth, and he shoots at you. How's that for poetry?" said the protagonist on the screen. I heard a click of a gun and, for a brief, horrifying moment, with my back cringing from the cold floor, leg smarting from where it had caught between two seats, skirt nearly flipped up to my chest, and cheek throbbing in time with my spinning head, I thought Gene had gun.

But his hands were empty and open over the back of the seats.

His tortured expression would haunt my nightmares and quiet moments forever. He lifted his arms out, as though to fly, or though he was suddenly horrified that they were attached to him.

"Mai…" It came out a strangled choke."What in the…I…"

"In the name of Jesus Christ our God and Lord-"

Gene jumped wildly. John's voice broke through the rumbling ambiance of the movie like a bell on a winter morning.

"—strengthened by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of god—"

Gene was crashing into movie seats, stumbling out into the aisle.

"—of the Blessed Michael the Archangel—"

But the theater door had already slammed against the wall. Gene was gone.

And John was rushing to my side as I unstuck my legs from between the seats.

"Mai! Are you alright?"

"Forget me, get Gene!"

"He's got longer legs than me, Mai, he's probably out of the building by now. He's gone."