Two hours earlier-

Natsu Tanimoto, a.k.a Hermit; hadn't botherted to go to school today.

He simply hadn't wanted to run into Kenichi and his buddies from the Shimpaku due to the fact that they pissed him off. No instead her chose to skip school and go trolling for fights. So far he hadn't had much success, but the day was still young. He was walking at a nice leasurely pace, five miles or so from the middle of town where he frequently came when he always got bored.

He was about to pass the place where he had met Honoka Shinahara, Kenichi Shinahara's baby sister for the first time and stopped for a second to look around as he relived his memories of that day with a small smile curving his lips. When he heard the familiar sound of someone that he was trying to avoid at all costs as Nijima stepped out from the corner of one of the department stores in his school uniform, his hand held computer in one hand, his backpack hanging from one of his shoulders.

"Ah Hermit. I knew that you'd be by here sooner or later."

Son of a bitch! Natsu thought almost frantically as he looked around to make sure that Nijima hadn't brought any of his fellow Shimpaku people with him and was only a little bit relieved to find that the guy seemed to be genuinely alone.

Nijima was (Kenichi's alien/demon) an manipulitive and annoying jerk whom was always causing trouble for the people around him. In short, Natsu hated him because he was a bastard.

Natsu slowly turned his head to look at the shorter, scrawnier guy with a look of annoyance on his half hidden face. He growled as Nijima stood there with his hand held computer in his hands, typing something before he shut it and slipped it into his shirt pocket and then looked up at the irked two hundered and fifty pound, six foot two, martial arts master of the killing fist.

"What the hell do you want alien freak?" Natsu growled at him as his fingers twitched. Nijima didn't seem to notice. Or if he did notice the slight movement, he simply didn't care. Although why he wouldn't care that Natsu was picturing his hands around the smaller guys skinny neck, strangling the life out of him was beyond Natsu.

"Sticks and stone, boy, sticks and stones. As for why I came here, I was hoping that since you're no longer with Ragnarock, and are more or less a mercenary that maybe I could hire you for a job." Natsu stared at the teen like he had just grown another head for a second before catching himself and giving a scornful laugh.

"Aww, is the widdle baby getting bullied?"

Nijima said nothing, he just stood there for a second letting Natsu laugh before shrugging his shoulders and turned on his heel and lifted a hand to his mouth and said in a loud voice that several people passing on the street around them heard. "Attention everyone! This hooded guy here is pathetic! He has more strength in his whole body than most people could ever hope to possess and yet he's a total wimp-"

Natsu stiffened where he stood and stared at the pointy earred freak in slack jawed disbelief. His mind too shocked to really register what his school mate was saying until the ever damaging words, "He's seventeen and he still wets the bed!" Left Nijima's lips.

If Natsu hadn't been so stunned by what Nijima had just said and done, he'd have murdered the fucker right there.

Snapping out of his funk with a furious scream Natsu started to run at the smaller teen when Nijima turned and looked at him. Natsu froze again, his mind automatically awknowledging that something was really wrong with Nijima today.

He'd never seen the guy look so somber. So blank.

He was normally laughing like a mad man and driving people crazy with his pranks. So seeing him like this disarmed Natsu's defenses a little bit. Shit. Was the guy actually getting serious for once about something? Natsu wondered as he let his head fall back on his shoulders, his black hood falling away from his semi long blond hair as Natsu lifted his head and looked at Nijima again and made a pissed off sound in the back of his throat then growled, "Fine! Tell me what you want and I'll let you know if you can afford me."

Nijima smiled a little bit and dug a thick yellow envelope out of his back pack and tossed it to Natsu.

Natsu grabbed the envelope out of the air out of reflex and frowned as he curiously broke the seal holding it closed and peeked inside and then gaped in shock. Holy shit there had to be close to ten thousand dollars in the envelope! He pulled himself together and looked at Nijima curiously before asking, "Where did you get this kind of money?"

"I robbed a bank."

"Don't lie. You're too cowardly to pull something like a bank robbery off."

"So what? Does it really matter how I got it? That's merely the down payment for your services. Do the job that I'm hiring you to do, and I'll give you thirty thousand more."

Natsu was at a loss for words for a moment before sighing and running a gloved hand through his blond hair. "Alright. What's the job?"

"There's someone closely connected to Kenichi that I want you to observe and protect."

"Who?" Natsu asked curiously, suddenly interested in what the pointy eared devil had to say. All because Nijima had used Kenichi's name.

"His sister-" Natsu's expression flickered a little bit, going from blank to slightly panicked then to angry all in the span of a millisecond. His mind racing. Honoka? Honoka was in trouble? Again? Why the hell couldn't that damn girl stay out of mischief?

And where the hell were her parents?

Natsu started to hand Nijima's money back to him, knowing what his job was now he would do it without being paid. But the alien simply shhok his head no and refused to take the envelope from him.

Why? Natsu wondered. Why wouldn't he take the money back? Surely he knew that Natsu had a soft spot for the hyper active munchkin.

"Natsu- I'm not talking about Hodnoka. I'm talking about Kenichi's older sister." Nijima said. Natsu looked at him like he was deranged as his mind reeled from the new information. As Nijima pulled out his little computer, started it up and then did something to the screen and then held it out towards Natsu so that he could see the picture on his screen.

Natsu studdered in disbeielf as he stared at the picture or a young Kenichi clinging to the leg of a young girl with shoulder length dark hair and vivid turqoise eyes.

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Two hours later-

Setsuna walked into the grocery store and grabbed a basket and made her way to the back of the store as she pulled out her shopping list and quickly went over what she was going to be getting.

And then walked to the meat section and grabbed a few things of beef, two things of chicken, some crab meat, salmon, one thing each of large and small deveined shrimp. Some clams and then walked to a shelf a few feet away and grabbed a thing of wasabi sauce, soy sauce, cocktail sauce. Followed by some coconut breading for the shrimp, some lemons, green onions, and angel hair pasta.

Then moved towards the middle of the store to look at some other things before going to the front to pay for her things.

She'd finished her errands sooner than she had originally thought that she would and now that her grocery shopping was more or less out of the way she still had... She looked around the store and found a clock hanging on the wall above the door a good ten or so feet away and sighed.

C-r-a-p.

She would still have another five hours or so until Uzu came home from school. She stood in line for what felt like forever when one of the people in front of her pulled a gun and pointed it at the cashier and said, "Your register. Empty it. Now."

Setsuna looked at the guy with an annoyed look on her face as she slowly set her basket down. Just because she had nothing to do for the next five hours didn't mean that she wanted to waste her time bitch slapping some maggoty little thug. She had better things to waste her time on.

Then again, if something wasn't done some innocent person might wind up getting shot.