"Why is she still alive?" Pai asked for the second time although, his voice held less annoyance this time round. He may have rethought the situation carefully and decided that the situation may not have taken a turn for the worse after all, "I guess we can continue with our research if she is not dead."

"That's all you can think about, huh?" Kisshu sighed, looking away from him.

"We need to get working. If we can manage to control her, we may be able to use her as a spy for the Mew Mews."

"That would sure be useful," Taruto grinned.

"What I do not understand is how could survive after you injected her."

"It may not work with Mew Mews."

"But she's still a human."

"But her DNA is not the same as any regular human."

Pai said took a small pause before continuing, "I injected a few more drugs in her yesterday. Its purpose is to weaken her so she can't escape for a while."

Kisshu seemed to take slightly more interest in the change of topic; he looked up, "Any known side-effects?"

"Like I said, it will weaken her so she'll most likely just be tired."

Taruto gave a quiet yawn. Clearly, this conversation was not very interesting to him, he may as well wander off and get some food. A few moments later, when Pai and Kisshu paused their conversation, he flew away from the room in the hope to find something which killed his boredom.

"I shall go check on her," Kisshu too made his way to leave.

"Kisshu, go see Deep Blue before you go. He wanted to see you," Pai told him as he was leaving.

Kisshu only nodded as he disappeared out of the room.


"Master," Kisshu went to his knees. There was a bright light in front of him which was too blinding to make out where he actually was. His eyes looked down to his feet and his head was bowed low.

"Kisshu," the voice replied.

"I believe you called for me," he said.

"Yes. I have," the voice said again, "I came to ask you a question, Kisshu."

A question. Out of all the things the voice could have brought up, Kisshu didn't expect him to say that. He knew that Deep Blue was never the conversational type.

"Right now, what is your most important goal?"

"To save our planet," he said instantly.

"I thought so," the voice said calmly, "And yet, I wonder if you lie."

"I-"

"I know very well what you are up," he interrupted, "I fear that you may have forgotten your priorities."

Kisshu did not say anything.

"Ichigo Momomiya," it whispered.

That caught Kisshu's attention. His eyes widened slightly but he kept his head low. He knew where this was going.

"It was you who kept her alive," he said in an accusing voice, "You prevented her parents' deaths and you also purposely gave her the wrong drugs. Pain, may she experience but she will not die."

"I-"

"You may fool Pai and Taruto but I am a lot more difficult to trick."

"I saved her parents so I could use them to threaten her. I saved her because she was too useful to us."

Kisshu said quietly, small tears slowly started filling up his eyes.

"You should have consulted it with me first."

"Do...Do you want me to kill her?"

Kisshu patiently waited for his response.

"No. You will continue with your plan, but when the time comes to kill her, you will not give it a second thought."

"Yes master," Kisshu obeyed. But the light had already faded away and the voice was long gone, leaving Kisshu in the darkness.


Ichigo had been awake for a few hours now. At first, she woke up and her first instinct was to go back to sleep but then she realised that she was not in her own room anymore and her desire to sleep soon fell. She was sure she was with the aliens again, but this time she was not in the same room as before. She was now placed in a more comfortable bed and the room smelled a lot more pleasant too. However, these did not change the fact that the room had no windows and it gave it a slightly sickly and suffocating atmosphere which was torturing Ichigo by the second.

Ichigo felt a burning sensation in her throat and stomach and started wondering what had happened to her. She was sure the aliens had something to do with her feeling quite sick. No matter how scared she was of what was happening to her, she could not help feel a tiny pinch of relief that she was still alive. She definitely thought that she was going to die that die. After the pain she felt. Her mind was worried of what she was going to face now that she tried to escape once and practically succeeded. She felt stupid and ashamed that her friends' work to try and bring her back had gone to waste.

Her guilt heightened when she remembered about the the way she saved one of the aliens for her own desire to bring find out about her parents. She knew perfectly well that Kisshu may have been lying and felt like she almost betrayed her Mew Mew friends because of it. Luckily for her, the guilt trapped inside her vanished, or more accurately - temporarily forgotten - when she heard the sound of keys and the door handle moving. Someone was coming in.
Kisshu entered the room and for a moment pretended to not notice that Ichigo was there. Not until Ichigo sat up and he realised that she was awake.

"You're awake," he merely stated.

Ichigo did not say anything. She did not nod nor look at him.

"Are you okay?" He asked but received no response, not even a small reaction.

"I suppose you have questions you want to ask," he said, rather stupidly.

Again, Ichigo ignored him completely.

Kisshu tried his best to contain his anger. It felt like he was handling a broken toy.

"Are you even listening?"

Silence.

"I guess you don't want to meet your parents?"

That seemed to do the trick. Ichigo's eyes widened and she slowly looked at him.

Kisshu smirked, "Well do you?"

"W...When you said they were alive...You weren't lying?"

"There's only one way to find out isn't there?"

"Where are they?" Ichigo asked, almost pleaded.

Kisshu held her arm and teleported her out of the room.

Ichigo seemed to have arrived in a strange place. It looked like a half-laboratory, half-library. There were shelved with booked stacked up but some of them contained jars of interesting looking creatures. Sometimes they moved, sometimes there was nothing remaining of them except a few bones. But what caught her eye was a long glass capsule at the far end of the room. Could have almost been mistaken for some sort of elevator until she stepped forward to take a closer look. There were two people floating inside among the black smoke. It was her parents.

They seemed to be unconscious, their eyes were closed and they looked so peaceful as they gently floated inside the glass.

Ichigo gasped and touched the glass, "Mum. Dad..."

Tears rolled down carrying the hundred emotions she felt inside. Relieved, confused, frightened.

What were they planning to do with them?

"Your time is up," Kisshu told her, holding her arm. Ichigo tried to get away, she wanted to spend a little bit more time with them but the images of her parents blurred out in front of her and was replaced with the boring, dull room she was in before.

There was a moment's silence between the two which Kisshu was the first to break.

"They're alive, so that should be one less thing for you to worry about."

Ichigo only looked at him, not knowing what to say. She felt like he was trying to help her and yet she couldn't fully trust his actions. Nevertheless, she felt a slight sense of gratefulness towards him which she couldn't understand herself. She should hate him but didn't have the energy to do so.

"Kisshu," she said, "Thank you..."

"I bought food, it's in that table next to your bed," Kisshu told her pretending he didn't hear her, "I shouldn't have shown you that. Just eat up."

Kisshu was about to leave when Ichigo held out his arm to stop him, "Wait!"

He was met with a sudden hug. Even Ichigo took herself by surprise. What was she doing?

When Ichigo realised what she had just done she quickly tried to move away from him as if she could undo her reckless actions. But Kisshu took notice of her embarrassment and the attempt to detach away from himself so he pulled her back into his arms and tightened his grip.

"If you're so thankful," he said looking down at her blushing face, "How about thanking me with a kiss?"

His voice had a teasing tone and Ichigo noticed a small smile creep up in his face. Was he enjoying this?

"D...Don't..." Ichigo looked down, too embarrassed to meet his gaze, "You can let me go now."

"You're the one who hugged me," he reminded her, "That was quite stupid on your part don't you think?"

"I...I was just glad my parents were okay, I wasn't...Sorry..."

"You can just make up for it with a kiss, it honestly makes things easier."

The playfulness in his tone returned. Ichigo mentally kicked herself a couple of times to try and get herself to snap out of it.

"That's enough now let go!" Her voice was a lot louder and more demanding, "I want to go back to bed."

Kisshu unwrapped his arms around her and held her wrists instead. With a strong push, Ichigo fell backwards in the bed, leaving her in an awkward position which consisted of Kisshu lying on top of her. Ichigo's face flushed and her cat ears and tail instantly popped out.

"Get away from me!"

Kisshu stared at her eyes for a few seconds and leaned forward. Ichigo kept her lips tightly shut and moved her face away from him.

"Pervert," she muttered.

Kisshu leaned closer and to Ichigo's surprise, his target wasn't Ichigo's lips after all, it was her ears. He bit Ichigo's right cat-ear and earned a shocked gasp from Ichigo. She gave out a quiet purr, as angry as she was, she couldn't contain herself.

"This may come as a surprise but I have in fact taken a liking towards you," Kisshu said. His smirk was gone and instead, he looked at her with a serious expression.

Ichigo pretended that his confession didn't take her by surprise, "Well...I don't like you at all. You kidnapped me and my parents and-"

"A minute a go you were quite thankful."

"I hate you," Ichigo blurted out. She didn't mean to. Maybe she shouldn't have said something like that, he may not be in such a bad mood today but she couldn't forget the times he had lost his temper. She may have taken it too far, he could try to hurt her.

"I know," he replied.

With that Kisshu got up. Ichigo's cat ears disappeared almost instantly.

"But unlike you, I keep my promises."

Ichigo didn't know what that meant and she didn't bother to ask him about it. She was too relieved to be set free from his grip.

"I can't protect you forever," Kisshu sighed.

"What was that?"

But Kisshu teleported out of the room before answering.