Hey everyone,

This chapter is a little shorter, so you don't have to worry about being stuck reading for long periods of time until your eyes burn out of your skull. This is the last chapter from this bundle that I'm submitting, and I probably won't have another bundle ready for the next week or so, unless I get my Internet back or I visit the school computers daily to submit chapters.

Uzuki Cheverie

Time Gate: The Adult Chapters

Chapter 21: High School Breakout

It hasn't been our lucky day. But then again, all of our 'luck' went down the drain when we accepted this stupid mission. So I guess you can say it hasn't been our lucky semester.

First of all, we've had to deal with the Assassins, which you can bet wasn't all that fun. We've also tried to blend in with regular society, and so far, we've totally screwed that up.

And now, to top off all the dangerous, horrible things that have happened, now I've got to deal with the Society, who have decided to politely drop in and come after us! And apparently the Reapers decided to split up, so I'm running for my life with Zelda, and the Reapers are Goddess knows where.

It's at times like these that I'm grateful for being a Kokiri and not having to go to school.

So now I'm running for my life from this red-haired Reaper, trying to keep up with Zelda; that's right, she's faster than me too now! The only thing is, she's not being weighed down by a school bag.

Wait, why am I still carrying this thing anyway . . .?

I take the bag off my shoulders and fling it at the Reaper, hitting him square in the face. Poor guy, being stuck in his human form . . . oh well, at least I managed to get away.

"Link, over here!" Zelda calls to me from around the corner. "I found a hiding spot!"

I look at the hiding spot that she's talking about, and then I scowl.

"There is no way I'm getting in there."

"Just get in, you sissy!"

A Short Interlude

The red-haired man gets back to his feet, tossing aside the surprisingly heavy school bag and beginning his chase again.

"Stupid kid . . ." he growls to himself as he runs down the hallway. "It sucks to be a member of the Society . . . everybody runs away from you! All I want is a little conversation with the guy, but no, that's apparently way too much to ask for!"

He turns left, certain that the two had gone down that way, only to be greeted by an empty hallway.

"Huh? Where did they go?" he asks himself, clueless as to how the two fairies had managed to escape so quickly in a hallway with a dead end and only one classroom. He opens the door to the single classroom; the music room. He searches behind the teacher's desk, behind the drum sets, and in the large cabinets, but he doesn't find them.

He stands up from his knees and scratches his head curiously, his red curls wrapping around his fingers as he does it.

"Impressively done . . ." he sighs to himself, shrugging his shoulders. "A conversation is all I asked for, too . . ."

Then he leaves the classroom, closing the door behind him, and walks down the hallway, past the long row of shut metal lockers.

Chapter 21 (continued)

"Did you have to stuff us both into the same locker?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not enjoying this much either! It was the only locker I knew the combination to!"

We see the Reaper pass right by us.

"There, he's gone!" I grunt. "Now get me out of here!"

"Be patient! Wait for him to go into the next hallway!" Zelda growls.

After waiting the longest time, Zelda finally opens the locker door and exits it first, allowing me to finally breathe. It was not fun at all being stuck in that horrible . . . awkward position.

"Don't ever make me do that again!" I yell, trying hard not to be too loud.

"Do you think I enjoyed it either?" Zelda hisses. "We have to find the rest of your group right now."

I pull out my C.T. crystal and change it to the tracker, the names of my friends showing up in a bunch of different locations throughout the school.

"Uzuki is in the gymnasium," I say. "Her name isn't moving, so she's either hiding or . . . well, she could be dead."

Zelda snatches the crystal out of my hand. "Way to look on the bright side of things." She looks at the tracker herself as he tries to locate everyone else.

"We try not to get too attached to each other," I mumble. "In case any one of us dies."

"Sure thing," Zelda growls at me. "Based on what I've seen, two of your members are dating, one of them has a crush on the other, and there's one who's like a mother to them all; that doesn't look like limited attachment to me."

"And I'm sure you Assassins can do better?" I challenge her.

"Sure we do," Zelda replies. "Did I ever tell you about the time Makoto stabbed me in the back with a knife? Or when Taishou broke my arm? Or even when Higashizawa tested one of his own potion creations on me?"

I swallow from her cruel analysis of life with the Assassins. I can tell that they don't appreciate one another very much.

"I love every single damn one of them, though," Zelda says, making me think otherwise. "The broken bones and deep cuts just shows how much they care."

I can't help but raise an eyebrow in doubt at her statement. It's nice to know how much the Assassins care, really; they love her so much that they want to be the death of her.

"It looks like Mitsuhiro made it outside in one piece," Zelda says as she watches the names on the tracker. "Uzuki's still in the gymnasium."

"I really hope she's just hiding," I say worriedly, thinking of all the possibilities as to why she hasn't moved. I start to remind myself that Uzuki tends to go towards stealth when it comes to situations like these.

"Shuto's just made it outside too," Zelda clarifies, her eyes zoned in Shuto's name. Then she goes to find Yashiro. "It looks like Yashiro hasn't made it out yet. She's travelling around the school though. She might be having a hard time getting out."

"Where is she?"

"It looks like she's upstairs."

I take my crystal back from her and slip it back around my neck again. We can take care of ourselves just fine, but the Reapers and I tend to stay together as much as possible, so whenever we get split up, we try our hardest to get back together again, especially if there are several enemies involved. But with Zelda here, it makes me wonder if the Assassins are going to bust in here to help us like they did with the Christmas party. I think that's the only time the Assassins and the Time Keepers have ever actually worked together. Of course, we both have the same enemy when it comes down to it; we just have way different methods to solving it, not to mention the Time Keepers are the ones that are at more danger because of me and the Reapers, who are now wanted criminals in the eyes of the Society. It makes me wonder why the Assassins would drag themselves into our mess. Maybe they felt that they had to serve their kingdom as well, even though the enemy doesn't need them for anything at all?

"Zelda, you should get out of here," I tell her. "I'll go find Uzuki and Yashiro."

Zelda glares at me. "What, you don't think I can handle it in here with the Reapers running around?"

"It's not like that, I-"

"Link, I'm probably stronger than you, anyway," she hisses. "I'm staying here. I'd like to kick a few Reapers around."

I shake my head at her in rejection. "No, Zelda. Just get out of here, okay? Get somewhere safe."

"Link. I can handle myself just fine."

I glare back at her, my hands tightening into fists. I can't jeopardize the Princess' life.

"And what if you don't make it out, Zelda?" I ask her. "What'll happen then? The Assassins will have lost their faithful Zero; and the kingdom will have lost its Princess. You're more important than the rest of us, especially me."

She stares at me in awe. "What's wrong with you? You can't just accept the fact that I'm not the same Princess you knew five years ago, can you?"

"That's not what it is, Zelda, I-"

"You can't stand to watch me in the middle of the battlefield, fighting to the death with the creatures that are trying to destroy our world!"

I grab her shoulders and pull her into a hug so tight I'm sure that I'll probably break her ribs if I hug her any tighter.

"Zelda, I can't lose you," I whisper, my fingers digging into her tunic-style jacket. "Please, just leave. I don't want to lose you . . . just get out of here alive."

When I let Zelda go, she continues to look at me, her eyes a little calmer than before, and then she turns around and heads down the hallway, towards the lobby. I really hope that silent departure means that she'll listen to me. If she doesn't, I'm going to be pretty mad at her later.

When she's gone, I start to head down the same hallway, but instead taking a right into the gymnasium, where I'm sure Uzuki is hiding. When I enter the gymnasium, it's completely empty. If there was anywhere for Uzuki to properly hide, it would either be in the teacher's office, or in the storage room where all the gym equipment is kept.

I start down the small that splits off in four directions; the office, the storage room, the girl's locker room, and the men's locker room. Before I can make it very far down the hallway, however, I immediately hit the ground. Through the office window I could see a person standing on guard – a higher-up from the Society – staring straight out the window as well. I lay on the floor, a little nerve-wracked, waiting for the Society Reaper to open the door and attack me. But the door never opens, and I begin to believe that he may not have seen me. When I raise my head to peek through the window, I see that the man is actually facing in the other direction, but he's wearing a mask on the back of his head. He's looking down at an unconscious Uzuki, who's lying against the wall with little tubes inserted into her arms in specific places. I don't know what it is, but they're doing something to her in there that definitely isn't good.

I get back down to my knees and pull out a smoke grenade from my bag. I've started carrying them around more often, now that I know how useful they can be. I pull the ring off it and chuck it through the window, the glass shatter onto the floor and catching the man's attention. The grenade goes off before he can find me. There's a huge bang, and smoke begins to seep out the broken window and underneath the door. The man stumbles out of the room, coughing his lungs out and trying to regain himself, but before he can come to, I jump him, putting him into a tight chokehold and holding his head back by his hair with my free hand. The man lets out a shriek of surprise, and as hard as he tries, he can't get out of my hold. I see that he's wearing a mask on the correct side of his face as well, and I begin to realize that this could very well be Ikkashi, one of the members from the higher-up's squads – possibly Jun or Iwata's – and the one that has the reputation to where masks over his face wherever he goes.

I tighten my hold on him and clamp my hand over his mouth, pinching his nose with my other hand so that no air can get into his lungs. He eventually goes limp, and falls down to the floor in a heap, completely unconscious. You may not be able to kill a Reaper easily, but knocking a Reaper out is as simple as knocking a human out. Reapers still have to breathe.

After letting him fall to the floor, I nudge him in the side to make sure he's really out and not just trying to play out an ambush on me. There's no sign of energy in him, so I turn around and head inside the office, where Uzuki is unconscious as well, her body lying against the wall. I immediately rip the tubes out of her arms, a black liquid gushing out from the tubes the moment I do. It's hard to tell whether it's her blood or something that Ikkashi was putting into her, but I don't waste a second to wrap the spots up where the tubes were inserted with a couple layers of bandages.

"Uzuki," I whisper in her ear as I gently shake her. She doesn't wake. Whatever Ikkashi did, it's knocked her out cold. I don't hesitate to lift her up into my arms, her head resting against my left arm and her legs hanging over my right, before heading out the other office door, the one that leads into the hallway. Being in the middle of the hallway doesn't settle well in my head though. If a Reaper finds me, especially when I'm carrying Uzuki, it's going to be hard to escape.

I walk down the hallway with Uzuki draped over my arms, trying to be as quiet as possible when I walk and sneaking past each classroom door in case there happens to be a Reaper inside. As I'm walking, I start to hear the sound of footsteps, and they don't belong to me. When I look back, I see a Reaper walking into the hall from another corridor. He hasn't noticed me yet.

"Oh, shit . . ." I hiss to myself, and the moment I do, the Reaper spots me and breaks into a run. With Uzuki in my arms, it's a little hard to run, and if this Reaper gets any closer it's going to be harder to fend him off with my weapons because both of my hands are currently occupied.

The Reaper starts to gain a good amount of distance towards me, his black robe trailing behind him and the sound of his boots hitting the floor getting louder the closer he gets to me.

"Get back here, Nohansen Hyrule!" he screams at me.

Great, now he's calling me by my last name.

"That's Link, to you!" I yell back at him as I throw a fireball back at him. I never really use magic much; I'm so used to using shuriken and my sword that it's hard to get the hang of it when I really need it. But I manage to get him right in the face after a couple shots, and it hits him hard, knocking him onto his back. He screams in pain as he tries to get the burning chunks of ember off his face, and when he does, his face is throbbing and completely red.

"I'm going to kill you!" he screams as he begins chasing after me again. Thanks to the damage I did to his face, he's not as fast as before, and I manage to keep a good distance between the both of us. But soon, another Reaper – the same red-haired one that nearly got Zelda and I earlier – is standing between me and the Reaper behind me. I can't stop, but I know that if I keep running I'll eventually just run into him. I prepare another fireball in my hand.

"Saru, get him!" the man from behind me commands in a threatening voice. "Don't let him get away!"

The red-haired man smiles at me, but before I can chuck the fireball at him, he steps out of the way, allowing me to run by. I look back at him, to see why he could have possibly let me go, but all I see is the same smiling face of his, and then he makes a secret Hylian prayer with his right hand, pressing his index and ring fingers against his forehead before resting his palm on his chest. It's the prayer that means, "Good luck. May you find peace in your travels." It can be used for anything really: people leaving for pilgrimages, people who are passing away, and people that are leaving behind families. But this particular prayer, the one that he's given me now, obviously means that he's praying for my safety from the Society.

I nod at him before turning my gaze around again and high-tailing it for the lobby door, cutting off the Soul that's pulsing through my arm and dousing the fireball that had been raging in my hand.

And then, I'm outside. In the bright sunshine, completely free to run as far away as I can from the school that has now become the perfect arena for a game of manhunt.

A Short Interlude

"Goddammit, Saru, why did you let him go?" the burly blue-haired man yells angrily, furious veins popping out of his angry-red forehead.

Saru twiddles a toothpick between his teeth. "Cause' I like the kid. Isn't that reason enough?"

The man punches Saru across the face, knocking him straight to floor. Saru sits up, rubbing his face, and spits his toothpick to the floor, the end of it that was in his mouth bloody from the impact of the man's punch.

"Fuck, Grimmex. Have some respect, yeah?" Saru spits as he gets back up to his feet and stretches his stiff shoulders out.

Grimmex takes a step towards Saru and grabs him by the front of his robe, his black eyes staring deeply into Saru's.

"I don't need to have respect for a disgusting Twili-Reaper who's ranked lower than I am," he sneers.

" . . . Ranking and species doesn't make a fucking difference to me," Saru mutters. "I let the kid go because I'm on his side."

Grimmex releases his hold on Saru's robe, and crosses his muscular arms. "And how are you going to explain that to Mikumo? He'll have your head. Besides, there's no point in taking that fairy's side; he's going to be the death of us if you let him free."

Saru shakes his head. "No, he won't. Grimmex, stop letting Jun and Iwata use you. You're just their puppet; you don't make a goddamn difference to them."

"I'm fighting for my Realm," he growls.

"So? Why are you fighting for your Realm?" Saru challenges.

"To stop the Realm of Light," Grimmex replies.

Saru lets out a groan of defeat, and rolls his eyes. "The Realm of Light didn't do flipping shit to us, dude! You're chasing after the wrong enemy here!"

Grimmex walks up to Saru again, but keeps his hands down. Instead, he gives a threatening glare to the red-headed Twili.

"Excuse me?" he growls. "I think I know who the enemy is, Saru."

Saru sighs. "You obviously don't, you fucking retard. If you did, you'd know that if Ganondorf-or-whatever comes back to life, he's going to end up conquering both Realms, and then our asses are screwed."

"The Great Ganondorf wouldn't betray us like that."

Saru laughs out loud. "Are you listening to yourself, Grimmex? Ganondorf doesn't give a shit about any of us! The only thing he wants is the Triforce so that he can take over Hyrule! Jun and Iwata probably figure that if they bring him back to life, he's going to give them some 'special spot' on the throne of ruler of Hyrule! And what's going to happen if he takes over Hyrule? He's probably going to take over this world too!"

Grimmex scowls at him and turns around, not saying a word.

"It's just food for thought, Grimm!" Saru calls from behind him, watching as he heads down the hall. "Ichiru's on my side too! And if the Society wants to kick me out, so be it! Uzuki and the others convinced me otherwise when they arrived in the Dark Realm as Reapers! They're going to kill you, and I'm just going to stand behind them every step of the way!"

When Grimmex disappears down the hallway, Saru rubs his head and sighs.

"Fuck. That idiot . . ."

Chapter 21 (continued)

I've made it a safe distance away from the school. Mitsuhiro is out here too, and when he sees Uzuki hanging from my arms, with bandages tied over the spots where the tubes had been, a look of relief washes over his face, and he graciously thanks me.

"Link, thank the Goddess Nayru you found her," he cries as he strokes her unconscious face. "I have no idea what I'd do if I lost her again . . ."

"What about Shuto? Where's he?" I ask as I hand Uzuki over to him, spreading Uzuki out into his muscular, pale arms.

"He's having his own panic attack right now," Mitsuhiro replies. "Yashiro still hasn't come out yet."

I pull out my C.T. crystal and check the tracker again. Sure enough, Yashiro is still upstairs, but she has indeed moved. I have a feeling that Yashiro is trapped running in circles; the upstairs hallway is basically built like a circle, leading downstairs at one end and going back up in the other.

"I wish I could track the Reapers too," I groan in defeat as I close the tracker and drop my crystal underneath my shirt again. "That way I could know how many there are."

"I ran into Grimmex at one point, on my way out," Mitsuhiro says. "I also caught a glimpse of Viscen; he was patrolling one of the main hallways, so I had to come outside through a window."

"Grimmex? Which one is that again?" I ask, thinking back to the Reapers I ran into while inside the building.

"The big guy, with the blue, spiky hair," Mitsuhiro clarifies. "He's from Jun's squad. And Viscen is from Luxerus' squad."

"Oh, yeah, Grimmex chased me for a good while down the hallway," I tell him. "I also found Ikkashi guarding Uzuki. I managed to take him out though."

"Wow, you took down Ikkashi of Iwata's squad?" he snickers at me. "That takes guts, bro'."

"Well, I just knocked him out," I tell him. "I threw one of Uzuki's smoke grenades through the office window and jumped him when he came outside. He had these strange tubes hooked up to Uzuki. I don't know if he was taking blood out of her body or putting something inside her . . . I just ripped the tubes out. It was probably a dumb idea; those tubes could have been keeping her alive."

Mitsuhiro snuggles Uzuki's head up to his neck. "You got her out, though. That's what matters. We'll worry about what those tubes were later." He points past me, towards the school. "Did you meet any Reapers in there? You said that you met Grimmex."

"Grimmex and a red-haired one with these weird face tattoos," I mutter. "The red-haired one chased Zelda and I – hey, where's Zelda?" I look around, realizing that I had totally forgotten about her.

"She took off the moment she was outside of the school," Mitsuhiro says. "She probably went to get help from her Assassin buddies."

"For once, it would be great if the Assassins showed up," I chuckle as I lean forward to crack my back. "I wouldn't mind seeing Makoto right about now. He could at least help us take care of this mess."

"You said you met with a red-haired Reaper . . ." Mitsuhiro begins, his face stern as he rubs his chin, staring at Uzuki's lifeless, peaceful face. "That might have been Saru, from Mikumo Sato's squad."

"I don't know who that is," I mumble angrily. It annoys me when the rest of the Time Keepers, specifically the Reapers, go into some kind of conversation about the members of the Society, the ones that they knew when they were in confinement when they were reborn. I have no idea who these people are, so it's a natural habit for me to tune out of the conversation when it comes up over dinner time. I know I should be paying attention though; these people are my enemies, and soon, I'm probably going to have to kill him.

"Oh, sorry," Mitsuhiro apologizes, realizing my lack of knowledge towards the subject. "Um, Saru was a Twili to begin with, but he went through a strange process that infuses Reaper blood into a Twili's . . . so he has Twili and Reaper powers, but he's not dead. This means that he's immortal like the rest of us. He ended up going undercover at the Academy – much like we're doing now – when we were alive, and he also befriended us while we were Reapers for the first few weeks . . . that is, until we turned on the Society and left them behind. I can't imagine what his attitude towards is right now."

A Twili-Reaper. That means that when he was chasing me . . . how did he do that? Was he in his human form, or his Twili-Reaper form? I've never seen a Twili in light either – their bodies work the same way as Reapers – and whenever I did, they were shadows.

"He might not hate you that much," I tell him, trying to ignore the argument that's arose in my head. "He was there to block me off when I was running from Grimmex, but instead of stopping me, he stepped out of the way and prayed secretly for my safety."

Mitsuhiro begins to chew on his lower lip. "That's going to get him in trouble," he mumbles. "It's considered an act of rebellion; he's probably going to get punished, maybe even executed."

Executed. For letting us go. It wouldn't be surprising at all. To let go the most wanted people of the Dark Realm, to show aid towards them, is definitely a crime in itself, and knowing the Society's vicious and uncaring ways, they probably won't care if they lose one member, even if he's a higher-up. They can always easily replace him with someone else.

I take my eyes off Mitsuhiro for a moment to look at Shuto who's standing a good distance away, pacing back and forth. It's been driving me a teensy bit crazy for the past few minutes, since I noticed what he was doing.

"Shuto!" I yell at him. "Calm down! I promise you, Yashiro will be fine!"

Shuto scowls at me, his teeth clenched together as he grinds them against one another. "You don't know that, Link!"

"Come on, she's ranked higher than you for a reason, bud," I laugh. "No offense to your fighting skills, of course."

"But she's in her human form, Link!" Shuto cries out. "She doesn't have her strength or sword or anything like that to defend herself! She's different than Uzuki and Mitsuhiro; she never got into real fights with Reapers as a human! Uzuki got into fights with Reapers a lot when she was alive, even without knowing it; she also got into fights with creatures I dare not speak of!"

Mitsuhiro nods at me. "He's right. Yashiro may be intimidating in her Reaper form, but that's only because she has her Reaper forms to back her up. In her human form, she's even easier to take than Russell Hendry; and back in high school, he was a nerdy bookworm who weighed less than eighty pounds." Mitsuhiro makes a light smile at Uzuki. "Uzuki here, she really did well in Strategics and Defense. She studied a bunch of different fighting styles even before she got into that class, and the class only accelerated those skills. The same goes for me. I learned lots of fighting skills because I had reasons to fight, reasons to defend myself, much like Uzuki. Yashiro just didn't have that opportunity, so in her human form, she's one of the weakest of us all, next to Shuto."

I kick the toe of my boot against the ground as I take my crystal out again, turning on the tracker to check if Yashiro's even made it close to the exit. Like before, she's upstairs, but in a different spot. The Reapers must be herding her around like a sheep. But if they are, why aren't they doing anything? Are they trying to box her in to a specific spot?

Shuto groans loudly as he re-ties his shoes and pulls out his flute case, scrambling to open it and put the flute together. "That's it!" he exclaims angrily as he gets back to his feet, kicking the flute case aside. "I'm going in there to find Yashiro!"

Mitsuhiro slips towards him, standing right in front of him so that he can't go any further.

"Hold it there, Shuto," he says. "Take a breather, alright? She'll get out of there. We don't need to lose another one in there."

"But she's in trouble! I just know she is!"

"And you're not going to help by charging in there headfirst! Besides, you're in your human form; what do you expect to do with that flute?"

Shuto looks down to his instrument with an ashamed look in his eyes. Then he shakes his head, and glares at Mitsuhiro.

"I'm going to get her out of there, Mitsuhiro," Shuto snarls, his eyes staring straight into Mitsuhiro's. "And you're not going to stop me. You'd do the same thing for Uzuki. And Link would do the same thing for Zelda."

I can't help but cough in rejection at that statement. I can't say whether I would or would not; so far, after working with her, I've seen that she can handle herself almost better than I can.

Mitsuhiro stares at Shuto in amazement, and then nods in agreement.

"I guess I can't argue with that," he says before stepping out of Shuto's way. "Go ahead. But if anything happens, contact us immediately, alright? We don't need to lose you too."

Shuto smiles and then bursts into a run, heading straight back for the school again, his lab coat flapping behind him like a flag, his hand wrapped tightly around the metal head of his flute.

Then, out of nowhere, Mitsuhiro lifts his hand, pressing his index finger and ring finger against his forehead, and holding his hand to his chest; the same thing that Saru did for me when he let me go.

"He's going to make it out of there . . . right?" I ask with extreme concern after seeing Mitsuhiro's prayer.

"We just have to believe in him," he replies, and looks back down to Uzuki's face, giving a final smile before turning around and heading in the other direction.

Without saying a word to argue, I follow in his steps, the C.T. crystal clenched tightly in my hand, never letting go.

An Interlude

"Yashiro!" Shuto screams as he runs down the corridor that leads upstairs. He knows that he shouldn't scream, or speak at all in this situation, but his worry gets the best of him and forces the hasty words out of his mouth. When the words are out, he flinches, stopping where he is to see if a Reaper has found him.

No one arrives. There's no ambush or appearance of any Reaper.

"Yashiro!" Shuto calls again, knowing that if he continues to act so irrationally that it will probably lead to his downfall. "Where are you?"

He lets out a cry as he sinks to his knees, his body trembling and his eyes scrunched tightly together to prevent any tears from falling. "Where are you?" he asks again, this time in a desperate whisper. He brings his flute up, resting his head against the metal.

This can't be happening . . . he thinks to himself as he reopens his eyes, certain that the growing tears have subsided. Yashiro, where are you? Have you gotten caught by the Reapers?

He takes out his crystal and turns it on, Yashiro's name appearing on the tracker. He keeps his eyes on it, Yashiro's name not budging from its spot.

Then, within a second, it disappears.

Sweat begins to form on Shuto's forehead as he stares at the crystal, waiting and wishing for Yashiro's name to reappear. He waits for minutes on end, but it never shows.

Shuto gets up to his feet, his flute in one hand and the crystal in the other, as he takes off down the hallway again, a mix of adrenaline and fear coursing through his body like an intense inferno.

Before he can make it to the stairwell at the end of the hallway, his crystal rings, and he slides to a stop. The call claims to be from Yashiro, but when he answers it, Fara's face shows up on the screen.

"Hello, Shuto Kaniji," she says to him with a deceitful smile. "I see that you're back in the school."

"You . . . !" he hisses, his eyebrows lowering and his eyes narrowing in fury at the woman.

"No need to get in such a huff," she giggles. "I have Yashiro here. She's perfectly safe. I knew turning off her tracking signal would catch your attention."

"What have you done with Yashiro?" Shuto screams, his grip on the crystal tightening.

Fara shrugs her shoulders. "You're not going to get any answers from me with that attitude. Why don't you take a look for yourself?" Then she holds the crystal out, taking her face away from the screen and focusing the eye of the crystal on Yashiro, who's huddled in the corner of the room, completely tied up in rope.

"Shuto, help . . . !" Yashiro cries. Fara grabs a handful of Yashiro's short hair and pulls on it.

"Oh, shush, shush, now," Fara sighs as she grabs a strand of thick tape and covers it over Yashiro's mouth so that she can't speak. "We can't have you calling for backup. That will just make things harder for the rest of us."

"Fara, why are you doing this?" he yells. "Are you from the Society?"

Fara rolls her eyes at him. "Of course I'm from the Society, you four-eyed idiot! What was your first freaking clue? What matters is that I've kidnapped one of your precious Time Keepers. What are you going to do about it?"

Shuto snarls at her, his teeth grinding together so hard that you can hear them and his grip on the crystal so tight that it's on the verge of cracking.

"Do something about that anger, Shuto," she giggles with another one of her sick smiles. "If you want the girl back, meet me at the old abandoned building in Castle Town. And come with the Time Gate."

Shuto's stomach begins to churn. Yashiro, the love of his life, for Link's Time Gate? It would be risky, not to mention hard to come to a decision about it.

"Why do you want the Time Gate?" Shuto asks. "You can't use it; only Uzuki and Link can use it, and anybody else that can control time."

"We have our reasons," Fara sneers. "Those are the conditions for getting Yashiro Takahashi back; if you don't bring the Time Gate to me by three o'clock today, I will kill her myself."

Shuto glares back at her, his body beginning to tremble, all in fear for Yashiro's life.

Then Fara smiles. "I'll see you later, Shuto Kaniji."