A/N: Sorry for the long delay (especially after that cliffhanger I pulled), but writer's block combined with exams kept me from updating for quite a while. Anyway, here's the next chapter!

Chapter 9

Emerald Chess was a short green-coloured feminine Duel Avatar wearing a long, flowing dress with puffy sleeves and silver outlines criss-crossing across its front. She was armed with a sceptre, but I couldn't quite determine what the detached head floating beside her was for. I had to admit though, the cute mustache over its mechanical lips made it look rather... harmless. That and her clearly non-combat appearance didn't give her that big a presence on the battlefield.

Electric Circle, in stark contrast, took the form of a tall electric yellow Duel Avatar with a clear circle theme - rings floating around his arms acting like the sleeves on his light cloth armour. He was holding a pair of more menacing-looking energy rings that crackled with electricity as he took the moment to look over us through a pair of circular eyes.

A defence type character and a jammer type character... What kind of weird lineup was this? No offence type character?

"Yuki, these guys are tough," Kyrius said in a serious tone.

"Uh, Emerald Chess doesn't look that intimidating..."

"Don't let her appearance fool you. She's a master strategist - that's why she's called Emerald Chess. I've heard about this pair before, although I never fought them since they only ever tag duel together," my partner admonished me.

"I never thought I'd see the day the so-revered soloist Shadow Phantom partnered up with someone for a tag duel," a high, feminine voice called out. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it was Emerald Chess.

"Times change," Shadow Phantom answered back curtly.

"Must be changing a lot then. I see you rejoined Nega Nebulous."

Kyrius stayed silent.

"Well, how about we start off this battle then? We're not here to talk, we're here to fight," Emerald Chess raised her sceptre high into the air.

When she brought it down, four circles of light appeared around her and four dwarfish toy soldiers rose up out of the ground through them. I noted with some amusement that they were wielding weapons like toy hammers and small pickaxes - frankly they didn't look outfitted for war. That... and they were a bit on the cute side.

"Just remember, Ruby. Don't underestimate her," Kyrius brandished his scythe.

"I know," Kyrius's warning snapped me back to reality as I hefted my gun.

Nobody moved for several seconds until Emerald Chess lowered her sceptre to point it directly at us.

"Off with their heads!" she ordered.

Immediately the toy soldiers leapt into action, charging directly towards us. Kyrius reacted by dispatching each one of them with a single slash. At the same time, I sprang backwards to get a little further from the combat zone before deploying my sniper rifle, aiming it towards Emerald Chess.

"Your opponent is me!"

Suddenly a crackling ring of electricity flew out of nowhere and knocked my gun off target just as I pulled the trigger. My shot flew wide, burying itself in a wall a good distance away and taking a big chunk out of it. Electric Circle charged at me, forcing me to disengage from supporting Shadow Phantom to take him on in close combat.

My opponent lashed out at me with his foot as he closed into range. I heard the attack before it came - energy crackling was never ever a good sign after all. Just before his attack connected, I blasted the ground with a howitzer shot, kicking up rocks and dirt to throw his attack off. A yellow ring of energy formed around his heel, slashing clean through one of the bigger rocks I had kicked up a little higher than where I had just been.

"That looks mean," I winced.

I ducked under the next kick-slash and feigned a sweeping kick, instead opting for a punch to the gut. The yellow Duel Avatar managed to intercept the punch, but then I pulled him in and whacked him over the head with my oversized gun. The impact knocked him over onto the ground.

Just as I switched my gun to gatling mode to pulverise the guy, something hard flew at me and interrupted my attack by unbalancing me. Electric Circle seized the chance to launch a kick at me from his position on the ground. Thankfully it was just a normal one, but that didn't mean flying into a wall didn't hurt!

I managed to get a good look at the thing that had hit me just now, and was more than a little surprised to see that it was one of Emerald Chess's toy soldiers. Apparently she had used it as a projectile... what the heck?

The toy soldier thing immediately started attacking me, but I effortlessly batted it aside. At the same time Electric Circle launched an attack, riding towards me on spinning rings on the back of his feet at high speed to launch another kick. Left with no respite from the flurry of attacks, I was forced to completely drop all attempts to attack myself.

One kick came after another, until I was forced to keep backing away as the attacks left me without enough room to raise my gun. That was until I had a brainwave and fired a grappling hook at the top of one of the castle towers nearby. Just as Electric Circle launched another kick at me, I reeled myself aside and capitalised on his moment of distraction to fire my gun at him in howitzer mode.

The shell blew him a good distance away, giving me enough breathing space to check out how Kyrius was doing. Frankly he didn't seem to be doing too well - somehow Emerald Chess had summoned a pair of armoured knights on equally armoured horses that were practically driving him about the battlefield. He wasn't used to fighting more than one opponent it seemed, and it was throwing him off quite a bit.

I quickly fired off a quick salvo of rockets towards one of the knights, causing it to stumble and buying Kyrius enough time to start pushing off an assault by the other knight. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod in thanks, which I returned before Electric Circle recovered and rode back towards me on his roller boots.

I responded by firing a high-explosive round at the ground directly in between the two of us, throwing up a cloud of dirt and smoke, creating a smokescreen. At the same time I activated my jamming ability and fired a grappling hook at another nearby tower. That way I could escape more easily...

But I hadn't counted on the guy being able to blow the smoke away quickly using a pair of thrown spinning rings. With a muted curse, I set my point-defence guns to spray him with bullets before he could react to keep him from following me. The minuscule damage he sustained barely deterred him, although he did bring his arms up reflexively to shield himself from the attack for a moment.

That short moment gave me a much-needed reprieve to slip out of sight even while dropping a few landmines on the rooftop I had landed on. I checked to make sure my jamming was still active before switching to sniper mode. Emerald Chess was still engaged with my shadowy partner, but now she was standing right beside what looked like a large rock tower resembling a large rook chess piece with a large green orb on top of it. That same tower was projecting a large sphere of energy around it that appeared to be blocking Shadow Phantom's attacks...

Shadow Phantom himself was still trying to simultaneously fight off two knight pieces at once and having trouble with them due to their relentless combined assault. It didn't help that Emerald Chess was summoning more pawns to keep him busy. As I watched, she raised her sceptre and depleted half her special gauge while one of her pawns suddenly... dissolved into a pile of sand.

Soon enough that pile of sand reformed itself into the shape of a hulking armoured figure equipped with a massive tower shield and a sceptre. It lumbered forward and raised its sceptre to point it at Shadow Phantom, who only just noticed in time and dove out of the way as a streak of green lightning shot out of the end with a loud crackle, impacting the ground and leaving being a patch of scorched earth.

"I could use some support here!" I jumped as Kyrius's clearly disgruntled voice rang out through our communication link.

I knew if I could take out Emerald Chess, I'd be able to stop the chess pieces' attacks... Thankfully my special gauge was just about charged enough - I just hoped I had the time to charge up my attack.

The explosions from behind me and a loud curse told me I didn't have long to do it.

I hurriedly levelled my gun at the green Duel Avatar while it folded outwards into its railgun form, with the spike on the bottom driving into the floor for added stability. The smell of ozone and the crackling of electricity from the high-powered railgun rails would give away my location quickly, so I really needed to make it quick.

"25 percent..." I muttered as the barrel began to emit a ruby red glow.

Thankfully Emerald Chess wasn't paying attention to me and was just standing there behind her energy shield. I let the charge build up while staying mindful of the series of explosions going on behind me indicating Electric Circle's steady approach. By the time he reached my location, it was already too late.

"Railgun Strike!"

A plume of plasma from the muzzle of my gun accompanied my shout even as the railgun spike exited it with a loud sonic boom. Electric Circle was knocked back a good distance into a wall despite his best efforts to shield himself, the impact putting a good dent in his health bar.

The spike closed the distance between Emerald Chess and myself within half a second, effortlessly penetrating the energy field between us and punching clean through her doll-like Duel Avatar. Or at least I thought it did - the plasma plume lingered too long for me to see her clearly.

I held my breath and waited. Nothing ever survived my railgun strikes, but it didn't truly satisfy me until I saw the results of the attack. I chanced a glance up at the status bars at the top of my HUD...

... To find out she was barely even scratched by the attack.

If my Duel Avatar's jaw could drop, it would be several feet underground by now. How in the world did she survive a hit from a tungsten spike moving at Mach 5!? There was absolutely no way anyone could take my ultimate attack head-on without breaking a sweat!

At that moment, the plasma cleared, allowing me to see that the energy field surrounding her previously had disappeared, which shouldn't be the case if only Emerald Chess had survived... I scanned around in shock for several moments for any indicators of what had happened, and then noticed that Emerald Chess was standing where the rook had been several moments ago.

...

"If her moves follow chess tradition, then that's definitely castling," Kyrius had also noticed the difference.

"Well great," I grumbled as my gun automatically shifted back to its default sniper rifle mode and began the long and tedious cooldown process.

Emerald Chess was slightly disorientated by the near escape, but quickly summoned a second rook and ducked into its energy shield again.

"Damn. Don't feel bad, Yuki. We didn't know her capabilities until now. We'll just have to try to overload that shield through some other way."

"I probably won't get a second chance."

"Why?"

I couldn't reply immediately as I hurriedly leapt over a sweeping kick from Electric Circle.

"I see why."

"Yup."

"Lead him back to me, we'll swap targets. Just try to..." Kyrius paused for a moment before continuing somewhat hesitantly, "... hold Emerald Chess off until I can finish off Electric Circle."

"You don't sound very confident in my fighting ability," I noted sadly.

"Not that I'm saying you're weak, but Emerald Chess is way too strong for you," he hurriedly got out in between dodging lance charges. "We need to switch before you get overwhelmed!"

"Trying!" I gritted my teeth and ducked as a flying ring nearly took my head off.

Electric Circle had me completely cornered - I couldn't move without having to dodge his attacks while being almost completely incapable of countering while my gun was cooling down. The most I could do was try and ram the hot, smoking barrel into him, but he kept dancing just out of reach, his flying ring attacks easily keeping me on the defensive from a safe distance.

Didn't help that my point-defence guns barely even fazed him anymore.

"What's the matter, can't attack?" Electric Circle taunted.

I clenched my jaw shut, determined not to respond to his provocation. Instead I took it out on one of the rings flying my way, using my gun as a baseball bat again to send it flying right back at him. He met it with another thrown ring that deflected the attack.

It took a while, but I managed to draw Electric Circle a bit closer to where our partners were still fighting it out. He had also noticed, and had ben trying to force me away without much success. As I rounded a corner of the castle I discreetly palmed a landmine from my backpack dispenser and lightly slapped it onto the wall.

Right as Electric Circle came around it, the mine blew up almost in his face, stunning him a little and allowing me to dash towards Kyrius. He had managed to take down a Knight, but now there were two of those sceptre-wielding armoured things on the field chasing him around with their chain lightning. If her arsenal was based around chess pieces, it probably made sense that those were Bishops. The Pawns, Knights and Rooks were pretty obvious after all.

"Switch!" Kyrius called out loud, stepping aside as I dashed in and tossed a landmine at one of the Bishops. It made a clean impact on its large round belly and exploded, but didn't seem to deal much damage.

Emerald Chess didn't even seem surprised at the turn of events as she pointed her sceptre towards me. The remaining Knight and the two Bishops rushed forward while I gripped my gun tight around the barrel to use it as a club.

Kyrius was already engaging Electric Circle in combat, and was having a far easier time as he used his stealth to great effect against a single target. He would disappear around a corner and wait for the guy to follow him before abruptly reappearing behind him and launching attacks at him.

That was until the sole Knight changed course and began heading for Kyrius again.

"Look out!"

Kyrius threw himself out of the path of the Knight with a loud grunt only to get nailed by one of Electric Circle's flying rings, which wrapped around his scythe arm. It began to deal miniscule, but steady damage even as he swung his scythe around to release a wave of energy right towards the yellow Duel Avatar.

... Except what came out wasn't an energy wave but rather a double slash forming an X in mid-air. Given the range it of course completely missed.

"What the..." Kyrius began in astonishment, but before he could finish he was tackled by both his opponent and the Knight.

What the heck had just happened? It wasn't like him to mistake one skill for the other...

"Ugh!"

I almost didn't dodge that lightning bolt in time - as it was, it singed my Duel Avatar's helmet and depleted my health slightly. Thankfully my gun's cooling cycle was finished now so I quickly swung around before the Bishop could fire off another bolt to blast it in the face with a rocket salvo. It staggered back from the impact, allowing me to deal the finishing blow by jumping onto it and ramming my gun barrel into the helmet while switching to sniper mode.

One quick pull of the trigger and the Bishop disintegrated into dust soon afterwards.

"Gah!"

Kyrius's shout distracted me enough for the remaining Bishop to barrel into me, knocking me towards my partner who had gotten caught with several more of Electric Circle's rings. In my stumble somehow the peep managed to nail me with a ring. I had to hold back a gasp as arcs of electricity jumped to my armour, giving me a small electric shock.

I quickly realized the precarious position we were in, being pinned together and switched my gun to cannon mode to try and blast Electric Circle to escape. Instead, my gun shifted to gatling mode. The same thing that had happened to Kyrius... Wait a second, it must be the rings! Somehow they were disrupting our commands and causing us to unleash different attacks than the ones we actually wanted to use...

No wonder Electric Circle was a jammer type Duel Avatar...

"Sorry about breaking your winning streak, Shadow Phantom," Emerald Chess said victoriously. "No hard feelings. Checkmate!"

I didn't know why Kyrius froze at those words, but when the detached head floating beside Emerald Chess flew high into the air above us and transformed into a humongous King chess piece, I knew it was all over for us. The piece crashed down on us, and my vision spiralled into darkness.

"That didn't go too well..." I grumbled.

"Nope it didn't," Sanno shook his head.

Kyrius himself appeared to be deep in thought, eyes closed and a finger at his chin.

"I know that voice..." he mused.

"We did it!"

I froze. That voice was clearly...

"Keep it down! You know this isn't really something to be celebrated out in public!"

"Sorry, onee-chan..."

Kyrius's twitching eyebrow told me he definitely knew the owner of the voice. The origins of the two voices were in fact standing a short distance away, conversing beside a convenience store nearby.

The two appeared to be the same age at about 15, a boy and a girl. The girl had long dark brown hair falling down to just below her shoulders let loose, and stood about 150 cm tall. She was dressed in casual clothing, an orange tee paired with a white knee-length skirt with a loosely-buckled belt going around it. Brown slippers and a crown-shaped hairclip completed her getup.

Her brother in comparison had short, slicked back black hair and was about 10 cm taller. He wore a simpler outfit consisting of an orange tee and black knee-length pants. Unsurprisingly the two outfits matched each other - going by how the boy has addressed the girl earlier it was probably safe to assume they were siblings.

"I didn't think I'd see you here, Miss Amato."

Now it was my turn to twitch my eyebrow when I saw Kyrius approach the girl.

"Me either, Igzelier-san," the girl responded with a handshake that was a little tight it seemed.

The boy just looked on a little confused.

"Who's this, Kyrius?" Sanno asked as we made our way over to them.

"Oh, this is..." Kyrius gestured at the girl, "Kanata Ama-"

"Amato Kanata! Still the same as ever, getting Japanese surnames and given names mixed up I see," the girl bristled.

"Anyway, she's Amato Kanata and he's Amato Shirogane," Kyrius continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "They're fraternal twins."

That explained the lack of age difference...

"How do you know them?" I asked.

Kyrius's eyebrow twitched again.

"Since he won't answer, I'll tell you myself. I beat him in a prefecture-level chess competition two years back," Kanata swelled with pride.

"My sister also went on to win the nationals and later an international competition," Shirogane added, "Now she's a chess grandmaster."

"A chess grandmaster!?" I gasped. No way!

"I see you went on to greater heights..." Kyrius barely seemed fazed by the bold statement.

"And I see you've been wasting away..."

The tension in the atmosphere was unmistakable.

"Shouldn't you introduce me to your friends?" Kanata asked.

"Uh... I'm Tsukihara Yukina," I offered after a moment's hesitation.

"Uehara Sanno, at your service," Sanno was back in his pervert mode again, if the flashing in his eyes and his tone were any indication...

"Nice to meet you!" Kanata flashed us a wide, jovial grin in stark contrast to the heated staredown she had been having with Kyrius a very short moment ago. It confused me a little, but I took her offered handshake.

"You really don't see silver hair often..." she remarked.

"Genetic defect, apparently," I gave the extremely familiar reply to that particular statement.

"Well, I won't deny you're quite pretty with it..." she nodded. "Perhaps ruby-coloured hair might also be your thing?"

... Yup, she knew.

"Likewise, you could use some emerald highlights," I replied.

She smiled knowingly in reply. "Not every day you find out someone beside you's a Burst Linker now."

"Yeah. That was a really good fight, even if we did lose," I let a sigh escape my lips as I glanced at Kyrius.

"By the way, just curious..." Kanata leaned in close to whisper in my ear, "You're interested in him, aren't you?"

...

"Wha... Wha... What are you talking about...?" I stammered, trying and failing to hold back the blush now overtaking my cheeks.

"You know, it's pretty obvious from the way you keep staying close to him and glancing in his direction while rubbing your fingers... Body language says it all."

I ducked my head in defeat. Dang, she was reading me like an open book...

"You tend to pick up on stuff like that in my line of work," Kanata chuckled.

"I suppose so..." I groaned.

"Not the first time he lost to me in chess either. You wouldn't believe how irked up he got whenever he did."

"It seems like he still does get irritated at it..." I chanced another glance at him and blushed a little before turning back to Kanata.

"Indeed he does. Incidentally, you should tell him to work on taking on multiple targets at once. I can tell he's not very good at it."

"Well, he HAS been fighting solo for a very long while..."

"Explains it. Hard to match a man of his reputation to how he acts in real life."

"Just curious, but why are you helping us? We were fighting each other mere moments ago..."

"My chess mentor taught me to respect all opponents equally on the playing field, regardless of how badly or how well they play. It's the same for Burst Linker duels, no? Besides, maybe I'll be able to have a match again with you two in the future that will be more fun than this one," Kanata explained.

"I suppose..." I nodded in understanding. "Thanks for the tip, I'll make sure to convey your words."

"Also, that's a really nice hairclip you have there. Where did you get it?"

I blushed as I gestured back in the direction of the shop Kyrius had bought it at. "Kyrius bought it for me."

"I see... Perhaps you left a better impression on him than you thought you did," she mused while staring closely at my new hairclip.

"What do you mean by that?" I blinked in confusion.

"Nothing..." Suddenly Kanata's eyes flashed over to something on her Neuro Linker's HUD before she continued, "I really should go, I still have some things left to do here."

"Okay. See you around then, Kanata-san!" I nodded.

Kanata just smiled and walked over to where her brother was talking with the other two guys in my group to give him a small tug on the sleeve. Shirogane quickly excused himself from the conversation and ran off to join his sister as she moved across the street, disappearing into the crowds of people.

Well, she wasn't really a bad person...

"At least they were quite nice about it," Sanno quipped as he approached me.

"Not people I would've expected to be Burst Linkers," Kyrius sighed in disappointment. Looked like he was still upset over the loss.

"Don't get too worked up over it!" I lightly scolded the foreigner. "We just have to work out the kinks so we can beat them next time!"

"Maybe I'm better off soloing," Kyrius grumbled.

"You just need to get used to working together as a team," Sanno patted his friend on the back. "Besides, you usually don't expect to have to take on multiple targets like that in the usual one versus one duels."

"Well, Kanata-san did say that you needed work on that," I nodded.

Kyrius's eyebrow twitched again.

"Want to go get a drink? That battle made me feel rather thirsty," he walked off in the direction of a... stationery store nearby.

...

"He's annoyed," Sanno noted.

"Yup, he's definitely annoyed," I agreed, repressing a chuckle. Kyrius was actually somewhat cute when he was flustered.

Soon it was time for lunch, so we started hunting for places to eat at. Of course we did briefly contemplate my favourite French restaurant, but the other two didn't really feel in the mood for it. In the end I had to be dragged from the front of the restaurant while staring at it longingly.

"Come on, Yuki, we'll show you somewhere else to eat. I get the feeling this place is the only one you ever eat at here," Kyrius grinned.

"Hey!" I huffed, "I'll have you know I only ate here like... 6 times in the past month?"

...

"Guilty as charged!" Sanno laughed.

"I work here, of course I'd know!" Kyrius followed suit.

I ducked my head in embarassment.

In the end we sat down at a quaint little ramen shop where I was introduced to the ramen there. I had my misgivings about the dreary atmosphere there at first, but all doubts evaporated when I saw the bowl of ramen the cook put down on the counter.

Frankly put, it was huge and filled with all manners of toppings.

"Whoah, I can barely see the bottom of the bowl," I picked at it with my chopsticks.

"Good luck with that! It's on the house if you can finish it," Sanno chuckled. "Kyrius and I have been trying for the past few weeks since we found the place, but we haven't succeeded once."

"Interesting..." I stared at the bowl in awe.

"Think you're up for it?" the cook grinned jovially at me, having overheard the conversation. "So far only ten people in my shop's history have managed to finish my Super Special Ramen!"

I suspected the reason the two of them had brought me here was because they knew about my bottomless stomach and wanted to test to see how much I could actually eat before calling it quits. Well, I fully intended to live up to their expectations, so I simply grinned and took up the chopsticks.

"Itadakimasu!"

It was about half an hour before I realized that I was already about 3 quarters of the way through the bowl of ramen and the two guys had already stopped barely halfway through theirs. That and the fact that they were staring at me open-mouthed with their tongues lolling out almost made me burst into laughter.

Of course, when I had my mouth stuffed full of ramen while trying to laugh, I'd naturally choke.

"Mmmmph!" I gestured wildly at a nearby glass of water while holding my throat.

Kyrius quickly got the idea and passed me the glass. I took several deep draughts before putting it back down, satisfied that the blockage was gone.

"Sure you can continue?" Kyrius asked, apparently having misinterpreted my choking as a sign that I was at my limit.

"Well... I can still keep going for a bit," I nodded, taking another look at the bowl. I could almost see the bottom... To be honest, I was starting to feel a little full so I needed to start pacing myself. Still, I was sure I could finish it.

It took about 10 more minutes of slow eating before I actually found myself shaking as I lifted the last bit of ramen up to my mouth. Kyrius and Sanno watched with bated breath, and I found myself dreading the last bit... Too much meat! Nonetheless I gulped and finished it off.

Once I was done chewing and swallowing, I flashed a V-sign with my hand and forced a smile. I was definitely not going to do that again anytime soon - I swore I'd be dining on vegetables for the next couple days just after all this meat... Ugh, I needed to stop thinking about it or I'd end up doing a semi-digested ramen fountain.

And the very thought of that made me want to vomit even more.

"Not bad!" the cook broke out in applause.

"Wow, you actually finished it..." Kyrius gaped.

"Too much meat..." I groaned, patting my bloated belly.

"Damn, you really do have a bottomless stomach..." Sanno shook his head in disbelief.

"This hit my limit though," I confessed.

"You seem to eat a lot more French food than this though," Kyrius remarked.

"Of course I can eat a lot of it, it's my favourite food! This ramen, not really."

"Can I ask for your name?" the cook asked. "Just to put up in my Hall of Fame."

"Of course," I agreed as I brought up my Neuro Linker's messenger and typed out the characters for my name on it. "I'm Tsukihara Yukina."

A quick flick and the cook had received the message. He smiled as he turned to regard the screen on the wall. Soon it updated to include my name alongside the names of the other people who apparently completed the Super Special Ramen Challenge. I wondered if I should feel a sense of accomplishment about it...

"Right, if all that's done then I suppose we should go..." Sanno was making to leave when the door closed in front of him.

"Before that, you two forgot to pay up," the cook grinned.

"Not again!" Sanno blanched.

"Incidentally how many times have you two tried to finish it?" I arched an eyebrow at the word 'again'.

Kyrius did some quick mental recalling before replying calmly, "13 times."

I gaped in surprise. That really was a LOT of attempts...

"To be honest I'm starting to get sick of the stuff..." Kyrius whispered in a hushed tone, "But Sanno's too persistent."

Inwardly I was laughing - how did they think they'd be able to finish something like this with so short a time interval in between? The lingering taste would just make it harder for them to finish with each successive attempt! Unable to hold my amusement in, I let out a light chuckle.

"Hey! Don't laugh!" Sanno moaned as he paid the bill.

"Well at least Sanno's always the one paying," Kyrius grinned.

"Not you too! Ugh..."

"Come again soon!" the cook laughed as the door opened to allow us to exit.

Sanno was slumped forward on his way out as he stared blankly at something on his Neuro Linker's HUD. Most likely the window indicating his remaining balance in his wallet. Well, served him right for not thinking clearly about how to clear that eating challenge! Somehow the scene was comical to look at.

"So... Where to now? We still have quite a bit of time to kill," Kyrius asked, sparing only a sideways glance at his best friend who was still grieving for his savings.

"I dunno..." I checked the time. Only 2:48 pm... Yeah, we did have plenty of time to kill. "Did you finish all the homework Hasegawa-sensei asked us to do?"

"Yup," Kyrius nodded and we turned as one towards Sanno. Our classes mostly shared the same teachers after all... we had Maths taught by him on the same day, just on different periods so he was bound to give us the same homework.

His agape expression told us all we needed to know.

"You know... He DID tell us he wanted it in his email by tomorrow morning..." I sighed.

"Oh crap," Sanno paled even more.

"Can't be helped..." Kyrius scratched his head and sighed, "Let's head to the library. It's better to study there. Is that fine, Yuki?"

"I don't see a problem with that," I nodded. "I do want to read up on some things too anyway."

"Then it's settled," the class president declared.

"Oh thank you, kind goddess!" Sanno abruptly rushed towards me in glee, his arms spread out wide to envelope me in a hug...

I quickly cut it short with a fist right to his gut before he could get close. "Get away from me, Erohara-baka!"

His fingers still brushed across my chest, making me squeak in surprise. My cheeks reddened once my mind had processed what had just happened... and automatically I lashed out with my open right hand.

*smack*

The reaction ended up with the pervert lying on the ground with a fresh bright red handprint on his left cheek.

"You deserved it," I muttered, folding my arms.

Quick as a flash Sanno was back on his feet hugging Kyrius's legs while proclaiming his eternal gratitude. The latter was already looking rather distressed, but had no real way to dislodge him. Plus we were starting to draw a bit of attention... I quickly stepped a bit further away from the scene while shaking my head when Kyrius gave me a pleading look.

It was at that exact moment that I suddenly caught sight of a familiar, petite figure watching from the other side of the road. Her small figure clad in a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with a white collar and a red ribbon tied around the neck paired with a beige skirt with a chequered pattern, she stared at the scene unfolding beside me with a neutral expression on her face. Her short red hair worn in twin tails left me with no doubt as to her identity.

She noticed me staring and gave me a nod of acknowledgment before turning away. Within moments the crowd engulfed her, and she was gone by the time they had dispersed. I only inclined my head slightly before turning back towards Kyrius and Sanno. It had been ages since I last saw her... I just hoped she wouldn't mind my current situation too much.

"I'm counting on you to watch my back, Lava!"

"Leave it to us, Red King!"

"Heat Blast Saturation!"

"Volcanic Wrath!"

"Full Salvo!"

The combined shockwaves from all our attacks rippled across the battlefield, knocking the rest of our opponents off their feet as the attacks solidly impacted on their intended targets. While my weapons began their cooldown process, my legion leader removed her fortress External Armament and floated down beside me.

"Think we got all of them," I nodded.

"Didn't think we'd face this much resistance taking this territory," Scarlet Rain breathed.

"Me neither..." Lava Blaster agreed.

I shared a look with Scarlet Rain and grinned as I turned to look at my mentor. She stood on a mound of dirt nearby, surveying the damage done to the battlefield. It probably helped that all our attacks were wide area attacks. Lava Blaster's own finisher had all but liquefied a wide tract of land, leaving melting hulks that had formerly been Burst Linkers floating on top of a veritable sea of magma.

"Still as destructive as ever," Scarlet Rain casually remarked.

"I'm pretty sure bisecting a hill counts as destructive enough yourself," Lava Blaster gestured at the hill in the distance that had pretty much been split in half by our legion master's attack.

"Whereas I didn't do much," I grumbled. My own attack only left lots of craters in the ground and nothing more - my attack power was too lacking to destroy any major terrain features.

"Don't worry, Ruby. You'll get your time to shine," my mentor patted my head gently as she hopped over to us.

I put a hand to where her hand had been and blushed slightly in embarassment. Sometimes I did so hate her for blatantly showing off her power...

"Yuki..."

"Huh?" I blinked as I was forcefully snapped out of my reminiscing back to reality.

Kyrius was standing in front of me waving a hand in front of my eyes. And his face was close enough for me to look clearly into his eyes... Wait. Wasn't this a little bit too close? Okay, perhaps a little bit was an understatement. Way too close!

...

"Uwaaah!" I shrieked in surprise and took a step back only to end up tripping over the curb running along the sidewalk.

Immediately Kyrius reacted by grabbing my hand and leaning backwards so I didn't end up on the ground. He managed to do it in time too, and quickly pulled me back up to my feet gently. I was so stunned, but just about the only thing that registered in my head were Kyrius's warm hand...

...

Was I actually touching them? No, this must be a dream... Yes, it was definitely a dream, because there was no way this could happen in reality...

"Yuki, are you alright?"

No, it wasn't a dream.

As Kyrius let go of my hand, I actually reacted by reaching for his hand, but I snapped myself out of my stupor quickly enough to stop the action, instead turning it into a head scratch.

"I'm... I'm fine..." I whispered.

"Really?" he didn't seem to buy it.

"Really!" I forced myself to laugh while shifting both my hands to my back where I cradled the one Kyrius had grabbed with the other.

That lingering bit of warmth seemed to spread to my heart as I did so...

"Well okay then. I guess we'd better go and catch up to Sanno," he nodded and turned to look for his best friend.

Needless to say, my mood quickly shattered once he changed the topic.

...

"Stupid blockhead Kyrius," I muttered.

"Tadaima," I grunted distractedly as I pushed open the door to my apartment.

"Okaeri, Yuki-chan!" My brother called out from the living room. "You sound exhausted."

I dragged myself all the way to the living room and tumbled onto the 3-seater sofa not occupied by my brother. Ryusei couldn't have put it a better way - I was seriously knackered. It wasn't in the physical sense from the walking around, but rather I was mentally exhausted after trying to teach Sanno.

Honestly, it was like teaching an impatient monkey with perverted hobbies. Then again, that probably was quite the apt way to describe him. Without fail, every time a girl walked past he would inadvertently sneak glances at her and comment on her appearance.

Somehow that had ended up with him giving a very colourful reply to what was supposed to be a Maths question.

"What's the probability of getting a total number of less than 6 when you roll a dice three times and sum up all the numbers obtained?"

"Uh, that's... whoa, that girl's bra is showing."

*thwack*

Even just thinking of it made me sigh in exasperation. In the end it had taken Sanno three whole hours to finish a piece of homework that normally should've taken only half an hour. Seriously, I had no idea how that guy survived in school so far. Even though I had a book ready to smack him with, he still managed to get distracted countless times.

"Well... At least I got something out of it..." I blushed as I gently fingered the hairclip Kyrius had bought for me.

"Oh? That's a nice accessory you got there, Yuki-chan," Ryusei remarked as he leaned in for a better look. "A snowflake? Suits you well."

"Thanks, onii-chan," I grinned.

Then my brother paused as he was looking away. The next moment he was staring intently at the hairclip again.

"Yuki. You do know we can't really afford expensive stuff like this."

"Eh?"

Oh, he must be talking about the fake diamonds...

"Onii-chan, those diamonds are fake ones," I assured him.

"Really?" my brother frowned. "Because I can tell the difference between a fake and a real diamond, and those are certainly real diamonds."

...

"Are you sure?" I asked hesitantly.

"Dead sure. How much did it cost? There's no way you wouldn't be able to tell from the price tag..."

I was about to answer when I suddenly realized I didn't have the answer to give him. When Kyrius bought it he hadn't said anything about the price... Wait a second... Could it be that he... he...

"Yuki-chan?"

...

"Eh... Are you alive? Earth to Yuki-chan..."

...

*thump*

"Whoa! Don't faint here!"

A/N: I know this is a wee bit shorter than my usual 8k words a chappie, but writer's block does that to you. =X I'll be going on vacation in a week and a half or so from the date of this update, so don't expect to see an update till around the... 20th or so.

Originally I planned to feature a territory battle or two before going into the Chrome Disaster arc, but I don't know if I can fill up another chapter with that and some other stuff. Never mind, I'll just start right with the CD arc next chapter.