"...'Vice-Commander' this is 'Hime'," Hijikata said through gritted teeth, "You may proceed."

"10-4."

Okita put the walkie-talkie in his pocket and faced his squad. "Alright, lets go."

Attempt Eleven: Whats A Reunion Without An Angry Mob?

"Vents, vents, we're traveling through the vents~!" Isa sang happily. She had been killing his ears-I mean using her vocal cords in a graceful manner for a total of five minutes now. And if Dino thought that this was bad, weeelllll, this was just the beginning. Isa continued to sing her song. "Vents, vents, metal-y box~es!"

Dino groaned. He was currently crawling through the ventilation system in front of Isa, who he now wished he was as far away from as possible. It may have only been five minutes, but this was torture. Isa was definately not singing material. It sounded like a tone deaf, six year-old little girl was screaming right into his ears as loud as she could. Loudly.

The girl started up her song again. "Vents, vents-"

"Stop!" Dino blurted out.

Isa stopped her movements and fell silent.

Dino looked behind him and started to panic. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. And it would be- All. His. Fault. Way to go, man. Smooth.

"Is my singing that bad?" She frowned. If indeed it was bad, she thought, then she'd been killing his ears unintentionally. That thought made her pretty sad, after all, Dino had been helping her this whole time.

"Ah-its just-I-" Dino stuttered. "I-I think that if you keep singing, someone might end up hearing us..."

Isa grinned. "Oh! That makes sense!"

Dino let out a sigh of relief. Saved...

"Alright! Let's keep moving, Tomato Head!"

The man sweat-dropped. "Tomato Head?"

"Yup!" She ruffled his hair like an owner would do to their dog. "Your new nickname!"

"H-Hey i'm not a dog-"

Boom.

The hideout shook from what seemed to be an explosion. Isa and Dino gripped the sides of the vents until the shaking stopped. When it did, Isa grabbed Dino's shoulders, and shook him back and forth.

"What the hell was that?" She cried, as her tail wagged in a frenzy.

"I dont know!"

Boom.

Another one hit the hidehout and after the shaking stopped from the explosion, Dino started to wonder.

The red-head put a hand to his chin. "It seems that the explosions are coming from the north entrance of the hideout," he said.

Before Isa could open her lips to speak, a monotone male voice resounded through the intercom. "Attention all Irre, this is a Code Red. I repeat, this is a Code Red. If you are in squads one, three and five, prepare for battle. If you are in squads two and four, continue your search with haste. That is all until further notice." A beep soon followed after the voice.

Isa blinked. "Whats a 'Code Red'?"

Dino blew a few strands of hair out of his face and sighed. "It means we have intruders."

"Intruders?" Then a thought struck Isa. What if its...

Boom. Boom.

More explosions continued to hit the hideout with great force.

"C'mon, we need to get out of here quickly! Its not safe!" Dino shouted to Isa, trying to make sure his words got to her over the loud rumbles and shocks the explosions were making.

"R-Right!" Isa shouted back.

The two quickly crawled through the ventilation system, looking for a vent plate they could escape from. After a minute or so more of searching, they finally found one and was able to slip their bodies through it. Unfortunately, the vent plate they escaped from was on the ceiling, which meant they fell quite a few feet to the ground.

Isa stuck her tongue out. "Bleh, that hurt." She rubbed the back of her head.

Dino, who was lying right under the girl, groaned. "...It did...more than it should've..." He shifted a little, trying to pick up his face from the cracked ground.

Isa gasped and quickly got off of Dino, finally realizing that she fell on top of him. "Oh my god! Are you okay, TH?"

TH? ...Oh right, Tomato Head... Dino twitched. "Never better." He gave her a crooked smile and a thumbs up, and then he...fainted.

The girl's jaw dropped. "Ah! TH!" She picked his head up from the ground and cradled it. "Live, my boy! Live!" she cried. But his head accidently slipped from her hands and she flinched when his head connected with the ground once more, making a thump.

"...Sorry.." she muttered, not that he could hear her anyways. Isa carefully took off Dino's black uniform jacket, leaving him in his button-up white shirt. She then folded the jacket and put it under the man's head as a pillow. "There! All better!" She grinned.

After examining the red-head to check for any more injuries, she decided to look at herself too. Her medium-length dark brown hair was a complete mess, her short-sleeved blue dress was ripped at the ends, making her dress look way shorter and her black converse now had holes in them. She sighed, thinking that she'd have to drag Yamazaki back to the mall with her to get new clothes. At least her hands were feeling better, but, they were still wrapped up in the white bandages Dino gave her. And the more she fiddled with the bandages, the more she realized that she wouldn't be seeing her hands without them for a while.

Isa examined her surroundings too. Just like the room they left, large cardboard boxes and other items were scattered around the floor of the room. She concluded it was, yet, another storage room. This also meant that they didn't make it very far across the second floor of the hideout. They were still a bit far from the entrance too. And Dino...well, fainted, so Isa had to wait for him to wake up. If she could, she would try to carry Dino, and hopefully be able to continue to move throughout the hideout. But, with the way she was now, that was impossible.

She was exhausted from the constant running, hiding and crawling she had been doing for the past couple of hours. She was also extremely hungry and thirsty too. And now the man who was possibly risking his life/job to help her, who she also became friends with, blacked out. Isa rubbed her forehead with one of her bandaged hands, slightly frustrated. Things couldn't get any worse.

And thats when a small explosion hit one of the walls of the room.

Okay, she thought, apparrantly it can.

Dark gray smoke from the blast covered the room like thick fog. Isa also felt rubble from the wall that had exploded from the blast fall around her. When the smoke started to clear out, Isa removed her arms that were protecting her face from the explosion. She opened her eyes slowly, and looked at the giant hole in the wall. Then a familiar figure came into her line of vision. Isa's eyes widened.

Brunette hair. Reddish-brown eyes. Bazooka in-hand. Monotone gaze.

Okita.

Isa got up from her feet and sprinted towards him. Okita didn't even have enough time to move or say anything because in just one second, she already had her arms wrapped around his neck in a tight hug. Okita was taken aback a little. Honestly, he really wasn't good at this sort of thing. So he just blinked and awkwardly put his arms halfway around her small waist. Soon, he got used to the hug and fully wrapped his arms around her. He had missed her, although he would never admit that to anyone. He would also never admit that he enjoyed this hug quite a bit and secretly wished for more of them in the future.

Isa lightly cried into his shoulder, relieved to finally see him again. "Thank you for coming for me," she whispered.

Okita... well being Okita, not exactly the most romantic person out there and certainly not the most experienced, just plainly nodded. He then broke the hug and grabbed her shoulders, looking at her straight in the eye.

"Don't leave my sight again," he said.

Isa sighed dreamily and rubbed her hands against her face, thinking that Okita meant he wanted to be around her more.

Okita stared at her and then added, "More things like this will happen if i'm not watching you."

Isa twitched in disappointment but smiled anyway. "Whatever you say~!" she grinned.

"I'm serious."

The brown-haired girl folded her arms. "I know, I know. Who do you think I am?"

"An air-headed demon girl that has a habit of running away," he dead-panned.

"Pff, no! That's completely wrong!" she pouted. "And quite rude, might I say."

Okita ruffled her hair. Isa blinked as a blush started to appear on her cheeks. Well, she wasn't expecting that one. And she swore she saw Okita's lips twitch upwards a bit! Thats almost a smile! In the past month that she has gotten to know him, shes figured out that hes not really such a... 'smilely' person (neither was Hijikata).

What an improvement! she thought.

As Isa was off into her thoughts, Okita took notice of her appearance. She looked like a complete mess. Her dress was ripped, and he frowned at the possibilities why. He also noticed that her hands were wrapped up in bandages. Okita mentally slapped himself, thinking again that it was his fault that she was in this state.

A static-like noise came from Okita's pocket, snapping them both out of their thoughts. "Hey! Any of you find that idiot yet?"

"Ohhh! Was that Hijikata-san?" Isa clapped her hands together in delight. "Hijikata-san! Where are you!" she shouted around the room.

"..." Okita stared at her for a few seconds and then took out a walkie-talkie from his pocket.

Isa looked at the device in his hand and raised a brow. "Whats that?"

Okita gave her a look but then quickly remembered that she didn't have things like that in her planet. Then he briefly started to wonder if her planet was living in an era some-what similar to the stone-age.

"Hey, you assholes! Why aren't you answering?" Hijikata's voice resounded through the small electronic device.

"Oh! Its like a cell-phone, right?" She grabbed the device from Okita and started to yell at it, thinking that Hijikata could hear her.

"Its something like that, except you have to hold a button down for the other person to hear you..."

"I hate your guts!" She yelled happily again at the walkie-talkie, not really listening to Okita's explanation.

Okita sighed and held down a button in the middle of the walkie-talkie. "Now say something."

"Sougou! What are you talking about? And why haven't you been-"

"Hijikata-san! I've missed your constant moody attitude!" Isa started to tear up again. "I'm glad you still sound like you're on your period!"

Hijikata growled into the walkie-talkie. "Shut up and tell me where you are."

Okita took back the walkie-talkie from Isa and pushed down on the button again. "That wasn't very nice of you, 'Hime'. Ask again in a more friendly tone please."

Isa laughed. "'Hime'?"

"Sougou..."

The brunette sighed. "Fine." His eyes scanned around the room. "It looks like we're in a storage room."

"So that means you're on the second floor. Lets meet up by the stairs leading to the first. If you're where that last explosion hit, it should be just down the hall."

"Roger," said Okita. He then put the walkie-talkie in his pocket, grabbed Isa's hand and expertly guided her out of the room.

"Wait!" Isa tugged back on Okita's hand. "I need to do something first! Do you have a pen and some paper?"

Okita was about to ask her why but decided against it, wanting to get to Hijikata as fast as possible. He took out a small scrap of paper and a black pen he stole from the Vice-Commander. "What are you planning on doing?"

Isa took the items from him. "Don't worry! I'll be right back!" She quickly ran back into the storage room and went over to the red-head that was still lying on the floor like a corpse. She kneeled down to his level and wrote something on the piece of paper. When she was done, she stuck the piece of paper into his pants' pocket and ran back out of the room to Okita.

He raised a brow. "What was that about?"

"Don't worry about it." Isa smiled. "I just wish I could've thanked him differently though..."

Okita was completely lost. "Who?"

Isa grinned. "Nevermind." She grabbed his hand. "We have to go find Hijikata right? Lets go!"

Okita nodded and ran down the hall with Isa. When they reached the end of the path, they spotted Hijikata and Yamazaki walking down the stairs.

"Hijikata-san! Yamazaki-kun!" Isa ran up to them and hugged them as hard as she could.

Hijikata struggled to break free from her grasp. "Agh-you idiot girl! Let go!" he yelled.

"No! Its been forever since i've last seen you two!" She squeezed them both even harder.

Yamazaki started to turn blue. "I-Isa...let go...please.."

"Whatever you say, my love!" She then released them from her death grip.

Hijikata and Yamazaki fell to the ground and were both happy to have air in their lungs again.

However, Okita frowned because he was secretly hoping that Isa would strangle them both to death. Pity... he thought.

"You psycho..." Hijikata slowly got up from the ground. "I didn't miss you at all."

Said psycho squeeled. "Aww! I missed you too!"

"Thats not what I said!"

"Heeeey!" a familiar voice shouted towards them.

The three all turned around and were greeted by a sprinting Kondo, whos face currently looked extremely constipated, and at least thirty Irre members trailing behind him. Great. This was exactly what they needed.

"C-Commander..." Yamazaki mumbled.

"What the hell! Don't come this way if they're chasing you!"

Tears flung from Kondo's eyes. "I'm scared Toshi!"

The only thing Hijikata could do at this point was face-palm. So he did. And soon Hijikata, Isa, Okita, and Yamazaki all ended up having to run with Kondo.

"Isa-chan, my darling! You're safe!" Kondo made an attempt to hug her while running.

"Uhm, Commander! I don't think thats the best thing to do right now!" yelled Yamazaki.

"For once, Yamazaki is actually right!" Hijikata yelled out to them, slightly panting now.

Isa started to pant hard. "I-I cant..." Her pace slowed down rapidly and she soon fell behind the others. Her body was completely shutting down right now. The lack of food and drink, sleep, and rest was now coming back to hit her at full force. And at a bad time too.

Noticing that she was falling behind, Okita quickly turned on his heel and ran back for Isa, who was now struggling to even move her legs. When he made it to her, he scooped her up in his arms and tried to catch up with the others. Isa only had one eye barely open now. She gripped Okita's shirt and muttered a quiet apology before she blacked out completely.

"H-Hey!"

"Quiet Yamazaki. She just fainted from exhaustion," Okita said monotonously.

Yamazaki sweat-dropped. How can he talk so calmly in a situation like this!

Hijikata glanced back at the mob of angry men wielding swords, guns, and other deadly equipment. "Looks like we'll have to use Plan R!"

"Whats Plan R?"

"Yamazaki! Why didn't you pay attention when we went over this!" Hijikata yelled.

"With everything thats been happening, I forgot!" Yamazaki blinked. "Ah no, now I remember!"

Plan R

Run. Like. Hell.