Ugh, I am finally done with this chapter. So sorry for keeping you waiting and please forgive me if it's bad. I'm becoming really busy and worried with some things, but I hope you enjoy this!

I just wanted to put an author's note that I should have put at the beginning: This is an Alternate Universe (AU). I'll just give you a semi load down: Battle Bladers did happen and later on the Legendary Bladers did their mission of taking out Nemesis but lost Ryuga during it, which crushed them a lot. Hope that clears up why most of them don't recognize each other entirely. And about Julian and Zeo switching sides unlike the anime, I couldn't help but make Julian evil and I hated seeing Zeo being evil so I put him on the good side. Yippee!

Disclaimer: I do not own Metal Fight Beyblade or any of its characters nor do I own the two OCs belonging to Chained Princess, Elizabeth or Diamante. Thanks for helping me with this, Liz!

Japan

Katherine sighed as she stared at the large expanse of a whiteboard standing in front of her, perched on an easel, a dry erase black marker in her hand. She erased some words off the whiteboard and scribbled a series of names onto it.

"All right," she announced through the room. "Time for our meeting meant only for two people. I still say we don't include some people in our little investigation."

Liz groaned in annoyance, raking a hand through her dark blue locks. "Kat, we have to. You know what Sophie will say. And besides, they would be good assets to us, would they not?"

"Well, we don't have to include Wang Hu Zhong, do we?" Katherine then glanced around the small motel room they were currently occupying. It was only around two minutes away from the B-Pit. The diverse gang of Bladers had told them to leave while they discuss about them, so the brunette had to quickly check into a motel with her blue haired companion. Not that she paid for the stay. Being a Nephil with the ability to control people's minds had its perks after all. "Neither do we need those two humans. What are their names again?"

"Masamune and Madoka," replied Liz. "Although you didn't have to play around with their minds so much." She pinned the brown haired girl with a glare.

"Excuse me? Please list down the examples of your accusation," Katherine challenged, a smug smile on her lips.

"You told Masamune he was a Nephil when I'm pretty sure he's not . . ."

"Hey, I can have my fun, right? The boy was handling all this 'angels and other supernatural crap exists' thing pretty well. I wanted to see how much longer until he'd crack. Did you see his face when he thought he could read minds?" She laughed, which immediately faded when she noticed Liz's fierce glower directed at her. "Okay, sorry. But something was off about him, that's all."

"Yes, whatever. And Madoka seems very nice actually."

"Bah, nice. She's human, Elizabeth." The dark bluenette quietly growled at the mention of her full name. "But she didn't seem to have a clue about all of that Nephilim stuff. You think they kept it from her?"

"It's pretty obvious actually."

"Ooh, I wonder how she's dealing with it right now."

"Apparently the Kenta boy and Chris didn't know about the truth either."

Katherine frowned. "But the strangest thing is that the other little boy didn't seem at all fazed by this stuff. What was his name? Oh, right, Yu."

"Didn't Yu work for the Dark Nebula once? You know, that former organization for fallen angels."

"Yes, but he's human." Katherine wrinkled her nose, but her brown eyes were not as cold as they were usually. "But he's just a little kid. Maybe I should cut him some slack."

Liz blinked. Katherine never cut anyone slack, although there was this one exception with little children and even the blue haired girl couldn't bear to hold a grudge against an innocent little boy, especially one with the most adorable face she had ever seen. But Liz had noticed something odd in that boy Yu's aura; there were faint patches of darkness in his otherwise white aura, which was also flecked with other bright colors. The dark patches usually represented negative emotions, like anger, depression, even insanity in rare cases. That boy must have had a semi traumatic past.

But if you had work formerly at the Dark Nebula, something bad was bound to happen to you. Liz just wondered about what it had been.

"Anyway, Team Wang Hu Zhong doesn't need to be part of the group," continued the brunette girl, crossing the four names under the said headline.

"Why? Dashan comes from a very well known Nephilim bloodline and so does Chao Xin. They should at least be kept to keep watch on activities in the East part of the world."

"Yes, but Beylin Temple has better things to do, such as train all of those Nephilim refugees and stuff." Katherine then paused and suddenly wrote their names back on the whiteboard. "And those would be perfect for an army. Highly trained in the martial arts and everything and Dashan being a good general could be useful to us."

"I don't intend for us to have an army," sighed Liz, still sitting on the only chair in the room. It wasn't totally uncomfortable but this motel really needed to revamp their services. "Why would we need one?"

"Uh, the reason's pretty obvious, Lizzy girl. This Black Hand wants a war obviously, but also the Legendary Bladers. These people want them for something, so we need more extended branches of security, such as armies."

"Well, if you put it that way."

"But," went on the brown eyed woman, "if we need to fight, better that they die than we, the masterminds of the plans. Due to our genius minds, we're more valuable to take out, so might as well let the useless collateral damage die first."

"That's absurd!" The midnight blue haired girl was so surprised she jumped out of her seat like it had thrown her off itself. "We can't let other people die just for us. Do you have any regard for human life?"

"Not really." Katherine shook her dark head with a tight smile.

Liz rolled her eyes. Katherine could be so brutally honest that she was blunt. "Well, what did you deduce from the group of Nephilim that we can work with?"

"Let's see." Katherine scrolled down her list and pointed to a name. Gingka Hagane, it read out in blue ink. "This boy. He's a redhead, which means he's prone to getting skin cancer. Ryuga also doesn't like him because he is constantly glaring at him and Gingka defeated him at Battle Bladers." She paused for a moment, probably remembering when she watched Battle Bladers herself. Liz knew how she felt. When she was younger and was happily with Ryuga, some things began to change, such as the Dark Power infecting him and transforming him into a power hungry beast, a wild, uncontrolled spark flying in his amber eyes. The sight still made Liz shiver with terror and repulsion.

Katherine seemed to finally break out of her daze. "He also Beyblades a lot, due to the current shape of his fingers and how his right shoulder constantly, yet subtly, twitches. He has a very giddy and unusually optimistic view of life since most of the mature Bladers look at him uneasily. Not to mention the annoying pitch his vocal cords can reach so easily and having the hugest grin on his face." She shuddered and Liz couldn't help but smile. Katherine always found optimism and happiness horrifying so much that it was somewhat comedic.

"Anyway, that doesn't mean he is one of the faint of heart people. He has faced many bad things in his life because of the straight, stiff and confident position of his back, like he wants to prove how worthy he is. So I guess he wouldn't be too bad. But personally, he gets on my nerves."

"Yes, but this isn't about your personal feelings."

"Whatever. He is also the son of Ryuusei Hagane."

"Ryo?" Liz asked, surprised. "The famous Nephil Blader? Really?"

"Yes. Couldn't you tell by the last name? Not that it's not already blatantly obvious, what with the red hair, golden brown eyes and all. But yes, Gingka is not remarkably tall like his father, but that's probably because of him being a second generation Nephil."

"Okay, so you're allowing Gingka to be in our little posse?" Liz was joking; there was no way she would let Katherine call the shots about this because she was a very uncompromising person.

"I guess we don't have much a choice," the other girl shrugged in reply, making a sturgeon face. "He's a Legendary Blader, so Sophie's going to force us to keep him."

"I hope you mean the royal 'we'."

"You're the Brit here, Elizabeth."

"Right oh, Sherlock." Liz had just wanted Katherine to take a warm up with her incredible deductive skills. The hordes of information she had just spoke out reminded her of the old Kat. When she used to be called Katerina, she was a very intelligent girl and loved learning just like Liz, which attracted the bluenette to her. She used to be called Sherlock as a nickname by her and Ryuga since Kat too was born with a brain made to deduce. "Anyway, enough about Gingka. We have to keep all of the Legendary Bladers."

"Yeah. Then let's dump the rest."

"No. They're important as well."

"How?" Kat whined. "It better not be because of sentimental value, because we can't afford that at this time." She rubbed her fingers together in a money meaning gesture. "They had better have some worth, though."

Liz pursed her lips in irritation. "Not what I meant," she snapped. "Look, Ryuga is a very powerful Blader, even before he was a Legendary Blader." Katherine snorted at this and crossed her arms, but Liz continued anyways. "And Kenta is now currently a Legendary Blader, so you've got to keep both of them. As for Madoka and Masamune, them too. Madoka is a mechanic and can fix the Beys if necessary and she seems to keep the Bladers under control very often. As for Masamune, you do have a point that something is off about him."

"So what? We don't need their help," Katherine snapped in her usual emotionless voice. Liz hated when she went into what she called 'computer mode'.

"Yes, we do. Good luck convincing Wales and Sophie."

"Speaking of off things, I've noticed a series of those kind of things."

"Like what?"

"Sophie always looks at Wales like she knows him. It's that familiar glint in those green eyes of hers." Liz hadn't really noticed that. If anything, Sophie stared at Wales like he was a deceitful little animal. Katherine didn't bother to notice the bluenette's puzzled look. "Then there is always the absence of the other three Legendary Bladers. Where do you suppose they went and why are they gone? If I remember correctly, this Legendary Blader thing is supposed to be a team effort. Another thing I noticed that contradicts this is that everyone of the Legendary Bladers in that room seemed to be rather wary or some negative mood toward each other. The blond one-"

"Chris," Liz provided, listening intently.

"-was giving the other Legendary Bladers uncomfortable glances whenever they mentioned anything about Nemesis or whatever, as if he didn't like hearing about his duty and such. And when the brown haired boy with glasses-"

"Yuki," Liz said again.

"-mentioned that the three other Bladers were missing or not there, some looked relieved. The other part had dark looks on their faces, like they didn't exactly feel warm and fuzzy about even hearing their names. Especially the one with the dark blue hair-"

"King," groaned the bluenette again, leaning back in her chair. "At least make some attempt to remember their names, will you?"

"I'm saying that only the redhead, the little green haired boy who stole Ryuga's Star Fragment and the glasses boy are the only ones who seem to like each other."

"Gingka, Kenta and Yuki," nodded the other girl. They did look close, but the others were hard to say. She hadn't noticed anything between the remaining Legendary Bladers during the meeting in that room. Now she closed her eyes, trying to remember the aura content in that room. All of their auras had their own color and seemed to be attached to each other in some kind of inexplicable way, which proved their connections together as Legendary Bladers, but Katherine was right. There were a couple of dark patches spotting up the connections, which only occurred if they had bad relationships with each other. However, the three said boys that Liz had mentioned before didn't have anything blocking up their auras. In fact, Kenta's was the only pure aura she had seen that day. He was fiercely loyal to his friends, especially Gingka.

She opened her eyes. "You're right."

"Of course I am. So anyway, their friends aren't problems but I think that Wang Hu Zhong is leaving since they only really came here to find me and voila, I'm here, therefore they are heading back to China, correct?" She looked at Liz with an excepting glint in her dark brown eyes.

"I'm not entirely sure, but maybe. But can we not focus on all of this right now?"

"What then?"

"Let me see. Hmm, Nile would be a good topic to discuss."

Katherine merely stared at Liz with that emotionless expression, as if the name 'Nile' wasn't ringing any bells in her head. "What about him?" asked the brunette, voice strained.

"You stabbed him with a devilcraft knife for absolutely no good reason. I know you hate him, but going after him just for revenge isn't the wisest of decisions."

"It was for a good reason, I don't hate him and it was not a revenge mission. What do you take me for, a 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' bitch? Because, personally, I don't give a damn if you do. Or anyone, as a matter of fact." She shrugged again, as if it couldn't be helped. But auras didn't lie. Liz saw Katherine's perfectly clear. It was yellow, like the color of most intellects, but it was tremendously bright, almost blinding with showing off that intelligence. There were patches of deep violet. That color represented spirituality and passion, much like Katherine underneath. When she had first met her as Katerina, her aura always flared purple. Now it was spotted with dark fragments, visually showing the anger and torment she felt inside. There was so much, it made Liz sick.

It reminded her of Diamante so much. Her aura was so black it was almost impossible to tell if she had any mortal feeling. Katherine was also susceptible to that too. Even though she had been acting all upbeat and somewhat cheery, she was constantly rude and didn't even seem to notice if she hurt some one with her extremely accurate deductions. Sophie had always said that Katherine was almost devoid of social graces and had no friends except for 'us sorceresses'.

And right now, that bright aura dimmed with sadness and fatigue, so lying to Liz was pretty much useless. She would easily see through it.

The midnight haired woman tipped her head up to look at the ceiling. Why did Katherine have to be this frustrating all the time? "I'm saying that I don't get why you just chased after Nile and stabbed him when you could have, I don't know, slipped him an anonymous threatening letter instead."

"Again, it was not because of our relationship history or something like that. I didn't chase Nile around with the knife. I was more subtle than that." Liz shot her a look, but the talking girl ignored it. "And as for the threatening letter, that would've been a good idea. I could have dotted the 'i' on 'kill' in the sentence, 'I'll kill you later' with a heart. It does give a personal feeling, don't you think?"

"This isn't a joke, Katherine. Why did you do it?"

Katherine finally dropped the dry erase marker in its tin and plopped herself down on the large armrest of the chair Liz was sitting on, curling her bare feet under her. "Because," she whispered, her voice finally betraying some emotion, which was expressing wistfulness, sadness and caring. "Because I didn't want the Black Hand hunting him. It's better that way if they thought he wasn't a problem anymore."

"Why would they go after Nile?"

"I don't know. What if they found out he was my old flame and thought he would help us rebel against them? He'd be dead then."

"How would they find out?"

"I don't know. They've got powerful wizards and more minions than we can count. It was bound to happen." She bent her head so that her dark, loose ringlets fell around her face like a curtain. "Look, I know it was a dumb move, but it was worth it, okay?"

"Really?" The other girl raised an eyebrow. "I don't get why you do this. You're always trying to get people to hate you. Why?" She looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

She didn't get one though. "What do you think I should do?" asked Katherine, easily dodging the question.

"Maybe you should go talk to Nile. See if he'll forgive you," Liz suggested in a gentle voice.

Kat scoffed. "I doubt it."

"Just go and try."

Meanwhile, Madoka wasn't having a good day either. She thought all of these guys were her friends, but maybe she was wrong. Right now, they were stationed inside one of the many rooms inside the B-Pit, all of the boys sitting in a circle while Madoka paced around. Kenta eyed her worriedly, Gingka looked sympathetic, but the rest were nonchalant and merely offering grunts and shrugs as responses.

"I can't believe you never told me about any of this!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration at all of the sitting boys in front of her, her aquamarine blue orbs blazing with emotion. "You all are Nephilim and I don't even fully understand what that is. And to know that it was also involved in Battle Bladers."

Gingka had recently told her that Battle Bladers was a fight to the finish for Nephilim, which was organized by the Dark Nebula, an organization run by fallen angels who were sadistic enough to watch all of their poor Nephil vessels have their energy drained by the Dark Power, taking part as Ryuga before.

The redhead now looked at Madoka with remorse and pity present in his golden brown eyes. "Madoka, we would have, but it's usually better if humans didn't concern themselves with us too much."

Kyoya scoffed. "You're one to talk," he snapped directly at Gingka, venom injecting into his tone. "You had to butt your way into that, didn't you?"

"Yeah, if it weren't for you," Chris joined in, "we wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place."

"What do you mean?" Gingka looked absolutely offended. "If it weren't for Ryuga and Doji attacking my village and stealing L-Drago, I wouldn't have involved myself in any of this."

"Oh, really?" The snowy haired male glared back, meeting Gingka's sharp gaze. "If it weren't for Doji filling my head with lies, then I wouldn't have attacked your hellhole of a village in the first place."

"So you're blaming Doji for all of this?" Gingka stood up. "If you didn't have a weak will and weren't so greedy for power like any other moron out there, then you wouldn't have helped Doji, you freaking idiot!"

"Gingka!" Kenta exclaimed in surprise, gawking at his best friend. Madoka couldn't agree more. This was so out of character for Gingka.

Although Ryuga's action wasn't. He shot up into a standing position from his chair so fast that the chair fell over. "What did you just call me?" he growled in a low and dangerous voice.

"He called you a freaking idiot if my ears don't deceive me," King quipped from his seat.

"You're a dead man," was all Ryuga said before attempting to lunge at Gingka. Fortunately, Madoka jammed herself between the two before a real fistfight could break out.

"Stop it, both of you!" she yelled fiercely, her eyes lighting with blue fire.

"No, let them fight, Madoka," said King, looking amused.

"Yeah," Kyoya agreed with a twisted and sadistic grin. "I'm betting my money on Ryuga."

"Can't argue with you on that. Without his Beyblade, Gingka's pretty much useless in combat."

"Hey now!" protested the redheaded boy.

"No, they're right," Ryuga snapped.

"Whatever," Chris muttered. "I'm not listening to any of you."

"Not like you did before," King said.

"Excuse me?" The blond boy glared at him menacingly with violet eyes, but that didn't faze the blue haired boy in the least.

"Would everyone just calm down?" Madoka suggested loudly, finally able to push the two rivals who were busying themselves in a staring match.

"Yeah, guys," Kenta agreed, walking over to stand by Madoka's sides, her only ally in this raging battle. The tension in the air was so palpable that Madoka felt it lay on her skin, raising several goosebumps. "This isn't really helping. This is becoming like last time."

Madoka then turned toward Kenta, her eyes both curious and angry. "What happened last time?" the brunette mechanic demanded rather than asked.

"Well, uh . . . None of us like talking about it." The grassy haired boy looked very uncomfortable, staring straight at the floor with his dark brown eyes.

"Is this about the time you were all in one of the rooms in the WBBA building and most of everyone stormed out, looking really pissed off?" Madoka remembered that day. All of the Legendary Bladers were exhausted after defeating Nemesis, not to mention dejected by the 'death' of Ryuga. They had all called a meeting in private and Gingka had kindly pushed her out of the room, saying they all needed to deal with Ryuga's then thought 'death'. He closed the door, but the brunette had stayed a few feet away and suddenly heard shouting coming from the room and even the occasional object hitting something she had believed had been the wall. Hopefully.

At the end of it, everyone except Gingka, Yuki and Kenta had come out looking really irritated, annoyed, even furious and fed up. After that, Madoka had never seen Aguma, Tithi or Dynamis -especially Dynamis- ever since. Kyoya had walked off into the wilderness sometime ago and King went back to Greece. Chris returned to his island or wherever he came from. They had all parted ways, obviously loathing each other.

Until Ryuga's return.

Then everyone started filing in again but there were still some tension between all of them. Madoka wasn't entirely aware of what went down in that room, but it had been pretty bad. And now it was back.

"Yeah. Not like it's any of your business," snapped Kyoya coldly, staring at her with an icy sapphire blue glare with those lion like eyes. "Aguma had been right. We shouldn't have let a human like her in on it."

"Well, we didn't until a couple of days ago," replied Gingka angrily. "And since when do you agree with Aguma? You hate him."

"Doesn't mean I can't use his advice at times," responded the pin haired boy grudgingly, turning his head away from the group.

"Everyone," Yuki finally spoke up after being extremely quiet the whole meeting. "We need to calm down. If we just do-"

"Do what?" King said in a brusque tone, standing up along with the two rivals. Usually, Tsubasa, Yu or Masamune would have stepped in by now, but they were unfortunately not here. Even Nile could tell there was something bad going on and 'didn't want to be around when the fort burst into flaming smithereens', so said his words. "I don't get it," the blue eyed Blader continued. "How can you be so loyal to a guy like him?" He nodded toward Gingka with a look of disgust on his face.

"A guy like me?" reiterated the Pegasus Blader. "Look at you. Always bouncing around, saying you're the king of everything."

"At least he doesn't brag about saving the world so many times," Kyoya defended King, standing next to him. "Face it, Gingka. You only save the world not because you're selfless or pious or any of that shit. You think you're such a big shot and you always take the credit."

"Yeah," Ryuga stepped in. "We are barely acknowledged by anyone and are always staying in your shadow when it comes down to these kind of things."

"Not my fault," Gingka said, glaring at each of them. "It's not my fault you guys never make any effort to make yourself known. You expect me to do everything."

"We expect you to do everything?" King looked offended along with the rest of them. "We aren't even allowed to make a move with your permission, Mr. 'I Think I'm The Boss Of Everything'."

"Yeah, who made you general?" The white haired man glowered at his redheaded rival. "I might not remember much about this Nemesis time, but I've heard that I didn't want to be part of this group and I'm suspecting that it was because you were involved."

"No, it was because you thought you were too good for us, when really, you were just having your head in the clouds," Gingka said.

"Oh yeah?"

"Why are you all ganging up on Gingka?" Yuki jumped in. "You four aren't much better."

"Yeah, cut him some slack, please," pleaded Kenta with his big brown eyes almost sparkling with tears.

"Oh, great," King groaned. "The Two Musketeers. Why do you keep defending him?"

"Although they have a point," Chris shrugged. "You and Kyoya could tone down your ego sometimes. Just a little piece of advice."

"Sorry, what was that?" the midnight blue haired boy said.

"Yeah, you didn't want anything with this," the greenhead agreed.

"Well, it's your fault Aguma ran off."

"Why are you talking like Aguma was our friend? He was a pompous dude who had nothing better to do than flex those ridiculously large muscles. I mean, come on! He only joined to save the world so he was able to rule it. Not Nemesis."

"King's got a point." The greenhead nodded. "And Tithi was just a little kid. Why the hell did the angels choose him of all people. He wasn't even in his double digits."

"Well, King's no better than Dynamis!" exclaimed Chris, his blond hair flying into his eyes.

"We told you never to mention his name," growled Kyoya, his own teal locks falling into his eyes, giving an even more menacing look that put Chris's to shame.

"What happened to Dynamis?" asked Madoka gently, trying to be the only calm person in the room.

"You don't want to know."

"Well, Katherine or her friend are no better," argued Chris.

"Don't you dare bring my sister or Elizabeth into this!" Ryuga yelled ferociously, a dangerous glint -no, a bursting flame- lighting up his eyes. Everyone flinched back.

"Oh, please," Chris scoffed. "Your sister doesn't fucking even care about you."

The whole room burst into a hubbub. Madoka yelled for Ryuga and Chris to stop fighting and for Chris not to use such harsh language; Yuki and Kenta both cowered back in a corner, the only Legendary Bladers who weren't arguing; Kyoya had managed to get mad enough at Gingka to lift him off the ground by his shirt collar and King's hair turned white with rage as he glared at Chris. Everyone was throwing the worst comments imaginable at each other and it was more than Madoka could take. She was about to scream when the door suddenly swung open, the tinkling of the bell almost comedic sounding after the loud bang when the door had made impact with the wall. There standing in the threshold was Katherine.

"Don't you guys have anything better to do than be at each other's throats?"

Katherine had been walking towards the B-Pit when she had heard the sudden commotion. Hearing every word had both angered and intrigued her. It had meant her deduction was correct. Oh, wait. Of course it had been.

"What do you want?" Kyoya snapped at her. Katherine met his sapphire blue orbs and couldn't help but make a stream of deductions. Likes lions . . . The color green is somewhat important, significant and has sentimental value to him . . . Hates Gingka Hagane . . . Is a fierce person and doesn't give up . . . Likes to be alone . . . Despises ducks . . .

Katherine blinked. Where did ducks fit into that personality? But, really, she didn't have time to discuss. "Where's Nile?" she demanded, staring at the brunette owner of the store.

"He's upstairs," explained Madoka, gesturing at the ceiling. "Speaking of which, I have to check on Zeo." She gave all the boys a menacing glower as if to say Don't dare fight.

Katherine raised her eyebrows in amusement, but kept the rest of her face neutral. She walked up the stairs towards Nile's room, her heart rate slightly bumping up its speed. She knocked on the door and heard a familiar voice say, "Come in."

She did so and saw Nile sitting on the bed, reading a book. He looked up and jumped up to a stiff sitting position. "Oh, hey," he greeted glumly like he did back at the hospital.

"Hey."

"What do you want?"

"Look, I don't do long speeches nor do I want any so I'll be blunt."

"Aren't you ever." He chuckled without much humor.

"You left me, Nile. It stung, but I got over it. But I'm here to assure that I did not stab you because I was angry at you."

"What did you stab me for?" He raised an eyebrow at the brown haired girl.

She hesitated for a moment before answering. "I wanted to protect you from the Black Hand. If they thought you were injured or that I bore some animosity towards you, then they wouldn't try to hunt you themselves."

"Why would they hunt me?" A cyclone of emotions that Katherine surprisingly couldn't keep up with swirled around in the emerald green depths of his eyes.

"I- I just know, okay? You've got to trust me. Now that that's out of the way, what do you say?"

The brunette braced herself for a load of harsh words, for him to push her out of the room and slam the door in her face, but he didn't. He rose from the bed, walked toward her and wrapped his arms around her frame. Despite being taller than most people, the girl was still shorter than Nile and placed her head on his shoulder, feeling the warm feeling of his skin. She remembered back when they were young and in love. She knew everything about him and hugging him felt so normal compared to the chaos that was going on right now. The feel of his chocolate brown and orange locks, the way his skin smelled like sunlight somehow, the familiar bumps on his back, something that made Katherine smile and frown. She was about slip her hand under his shirt when Nile gently caught hold of her wrist.

"I don't think so," he whispered. "At least not today." He pulled away and gave her a once over. "You don't look that different, you know. But did you go goth?"

Katherine just frowned, not dignifying that with an answer. That made Nile laugh, a smooth, rich sound that was so infectious that Katherine herself joined in, just like they used to.

Little did they know that a certain green haired boy was leaning against the wall outside the room beside the door and out of sight, listening to every word they said, an unfamiliar feeling gnawing at his heart.

Madoka entered the other room where Zeo was sitting.

"Oh, hi, Madoka," he greeted with a bright smile. "What's up?"

"Nothing. Just came to check on you." The mechanic felt her heart melt at his dazzling smile and hoped her smile was just as bright.

"What was going on downstairs? Sounded . . . violent."

"Yeah, uh, I run a tight ship and don't like slackers," Madoka said the first thing that popped into her head. She didn't want him to worry about the rest of the gang.

"Cool. So, uh, I hope this isn't demanding or anything, but do you mind if I stay here? I could help you with all of this Black Hand stuff and I also want to catch up with Masamune."

"Oh, no problem!" the brunette girl replied a bit too quickly. "We need all the help we can get. So make yourself at home."

Rome

Julian lay in the bed of the healing den. He still felt very sore and very exhausted, but right now his body wasn't the problem. Right now he was thinking of one of the intruders that came that night. The one who had brutally attacked him.

He didn't understand why he kept thinking about her. She had attacked him, worse, stabbed him in the wing scars, paralyzing him for several days. But the way her eyes were so blue that they were black and how her midnight hair framing her face made her look softer than she really was . . .

She was also powerful and Julian liked, no, loved power.

The blond Italian didn't know what was coming over him. He hated her, but couldn't but feel some sort of attraction to the girl. There was also some familiarity to her face, something he felt he saw every day . . .

"Mr. Konzern."

Julian's cerulean blue eyes snapped open to see his black haired assistant standing over him. "Oh, hello, Diamante," he said. "What is it?"

"Are you all right now?" she asked in her emotionless voice.

"Yes, a bit."

"What were you thinking about right now?"

"Hmm?"

"You looked very perplexed, sir."

Julian couldn't help but let his pale cheeks turn red, but he quickly tried to hide it. "Oh, nothing."

"Is it about Elizabeth?" Her voice was strained now, venom inside of it.

"No. Why would you say that?"

"Just remember, sir. She's evil. You can't have anything to do with her."

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped, but Diamante was only trying to warn him politely. He sighed. "I am not thinking of a troubled soul like herself. She attacked me for no good reason, therefore I have no reason to be thinking of her."

Diamante's face bared no emotion, but there was something sad tinging her dark eyes.

"What is it?" Julian questioned, raising a fair eyebrow.

"It's Wales," she said. "He's gone over to the rebels."

Something pierced through Julian's heart. How could Wales just betray him like that? He also felt furious. What didn't Julian have that the rebels did? But most of all, he was extremely worried. Oh, no, he thought. He's found her again . . .

Now Diamante was perplexed at her boss's expression, but a shrill ring from the front of the office reached her ears and she inwardly sighed. She was getting swamped with more work by the minute. She bid Julian goodbye, but he merely waved her off, his head still in his palm. Finally, she reached the annoyingly persistent device and picked up the phone out of its cradle.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I have completed the first step in my mission," a voice said. A voice that made Diamante smile, an extremely rare thing and made the black haired girl's face very beautiful, much like her mother's face.

"Excellent."

Sorry that it was a bit long, but hey, I needed to give you something to think about considering it took me a very long time to type this. Again, thanks for reading and please leave reviews if you like this! ;D

Also read:

A Time to Love by BlackCatNeko999

Promises Are Meant To Be Broken by Chained Princess (this story's co writer)

Sayonara!