A/N: A couple of announcements.

My exams are starting from June 10th, and going up all the way till July 21st-ish, so at that point of time I shall not be uploading chapters. I will be writing, though, since it'll be my only distraction from my studies, so when my holidays come around, I'll make up for the lost time. Internals plus externals this time T-T Wish me luck.

Due to this, my coming home will be reduced, and I'm not planning to take my laptop with me. I'll be able to upload once in two weeks because of this, and once my exams come, I will not upload at all. But that does not mean I am discontinuing this - I'm sticking with this story till the very end.

Another announcement is rather exciting for me, and hopefully, you ^-^ I've started writing a RoChu oriented story, which has the working title 'Disguises', but I'm planning to go with another proper title. Wang Chun Yan is a princess who escapes an assassination attempt to her life with the help of her brother, Honda Kiku. Leaving their country, where everyone thinks Wang is dead, they go to the neighbouring country, where they approach the mercenary with the most dangerous reputation, Ivan Braginsky of the Zima siblings. After he refuses to help them, and has his office blown to shreds by the men behind Honda and Wang, he decides to help them, against his better judgement. After giving him more trouble than Ivan needed, when the two of them have to return to their country, and need disguises, Natalya, Ivan's sister, decides to disguise Wang as Honda's mute concubine, and Ivan as Wang's slave! How that works out for them, and the ensuing trouble that follows, is the rest of the story. I've written a chapter and am working on the second one, but I'll be uploading it during my holidays...make sure you check it out when it comes! ^-^

Thank you, Pinkdoughnuts and TheEnglishMuffin, for reviewing the previous chapter! I've written my replies in the section at the end, so please check it out! And people, please keep reviewing - reviews make me happy!

Without further ado, enjoy.

-O-

Sestra - Rus - Sister

Dorogoy - Rus - My dear

Da - Rus - Yes

Otets - Rus - Father

Net - Rus - No

Chapter 21

"Where the hell are we?"

Matt looked around, frowning. "I'm not sure...but this place looks familiar."

I looked around as well. It was a well furnished house, and we seemed to be standing in the kitchen, from where we could see a part of what seemed to be the living room.

I walked out of the kitchen. Mattie went through the kitchen, but I knew he wouldn't find anything - Tony only showed those parts of the dead old man's memories which had something to do with him. "Mattie, come in here."

Mattie stepped away from the kitchen while I looked at the living room. It was a small space, which could probably entertain two people, three at the most. By the number of coasters and cups and saucers on the table, I guessed it entertained only two people regularly.

It wasn't very furnished, but whatever furniture there was in the room was classy, elegant. It looked expensive as hell, and something I definitely wouldn't enjoy.

"No pictures, no memorabilia," Matt spoke softly as he moved around. "It's not someone's home, that's for sure."

I looked down at the floor - the carpet looked rich, like it would be worth someone's annual salary over a couple of years.

"But someone sure as hell lives here comfortably," I said. The wall had green, textured wallpapers, with floral trims and wooden panelling. The cabinets close to the door were made of black oak, which made it pretty clear that if the owner wished to own more furniture or a place three or four times this size, they could.

The bell rang.

Mattie froze like a deer in the headlights, and suddenly began running helter-skelter. "Alfred, we need to hide!" he whispered furiously, and dived behind the curtains.

"Relax, they can't see...Old hag Alice?" I squeaked. Holy cow, but she was hot.

She emerged from a door at the other end of the hall, wearing a robe tied loosely over a flimsy material that clung onto her torso and barely covered the top of her thighs. Her hair was piled on top of her head messily, and ringlets of her hair fell out of the pile and fell around her face. Her fringe covered the bushy caterpillars on her face, and her green irises sparkled , enhanced by the smoky look she'd done to her eyes. And that cloth beneath the robe didn't leave much to the imagination - if I didn't know who she was, I would have fully appreciated how gorgeous and smoking hot she was.

Mattie squeaked out her name, which made me look away from her to see him hiding behind the curtain.

"Broski, she can't see you or hear you. Come out," I said. "You look like an idiot."

"It's my first time doing this," Matt protested. "How was I supposed to know?"

I just rolled my eyes and looked at the door. Alice's face was lit up, and she looked excited.

"What is she doing here?" Mattie asked as he came to stand next to me. "But this is like how she would decorate the place."

She giggled as she touched the doorknob, and I must say, when the Old hag wasn't an old hag, she was actually very pretty.

And when she opened the door, she wasn't laughing anymore. In fact, she looked like she'd seen a ghost.

Our faces weren't much different than hers - for us, we were seeing a ghost.

"Hello, wife," said the man at the door, and all I could do was stare at a slightly older version of me, with a French beard and hair tied at the neck.

Oh, and he was bleeding all over the floor.

"Dad!" Mattie cried out, but I grabbed his arm, pulling him back before he could run to the door. "You can interact with the things in this time and space, broski," I told him. "So don't."

Matt stopped struggling, but I knew he would run if he could. The funny thing was, I would've let the old man bleed all over the floor.

Alice looked shocked, like he was the last one she wanted there, and he used her shock to push through the doorway and into the house, with no resistance from Alice. She just closed the door behind her, and turned around to see him sprawled on the floor, leaning against her black oak cabinets.

"W-W-What happened?" Alice squeaked. I really hated that accent of hers.

"I am shot, wife. Get me...the most potent...whiskey you've got...and a needle and threat. You do...have those things...in here?"

Even through his pain, his presence was...deafening. He seemed to occupy the whole room, and in the feminine surroundings, he didn't look the slightest bit out of place. He was truly a formidable man.

Alice bolted, and I understood her fear on a personal level. I looked at the man who was my father - even with the wound, his breathing was almost normal. A pool of blood was slowly forming around him, and all he did was stare at the ceiling and clutch at his wound.

"I think I know this place."

I turned to Mattie. "You've been here?"

"Not exactly," Mattie said, frowning thoughtfully. "I oversaw the basic design plan of an apartment complex like this one. Do you think I could go to the other rooms?"

I didn't know, actually speaking, but... "I'll come with you," I said. I'd never really had time to explore the scene of a memory - I was either being chased by a demon or trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I went where Matt wanted to go, followed by him, and he peeked into the other rooms. As far as I could see, there was a master bedroom and a guestroom (which was being used as a study in this case), a kitchen (which we had already seen) and a door leading to a balcony. The details were hazy, like our vision was clouded beyond a point, but Mattie looked satisfied with what he'd seen.

"Yes, this is the place," he said as we came back to the living room, "or this is one of the places. Dad had given me the responsibility of certain properties, and I converted one of them into an apartment complex. This room is..." Matt went to the door, and ran his fingers on the wood of the doorframe. "There. Room no. 417. I" -

The doorbell rang, and Mattie jumped ten feet into the air. I turned to the cabinets - the old man was busy stitching himself up, but at the doorbell, he stopped, and looked at Alicia, who has been squatting by him, holding a bottle of half-full whiskey.

Her green eyes grew wide, and the fear returned into her eyes, but it was a completely different kind of fear than when he'd come into the room. Her eyes darted from the door to him, then turned downwards as she thought furiously.

"Alice."

She jumped ten feet into the air, and I wondered whether Matt had picked up being a jumpy dumbass from the old hag. But his tone startled even me, the tone which he used to address her - he sounded...cruel.

He was an asshole to me, but he'd never spoken to me like that, ever. And now that I thought about it, he had always been...sad, apologetic, gentle, and kind. But his actions had always been otherwise.

"Y-Yes?" Alice asked, and I swear I could see her tremble. The doorbell rang again.

"Open the door. And look normal."

Both those sentences sounded like gunshots, even though he'd whispered them out. With one bloodied hand he took the whiskey bottle from her, and when their fingers brushed, she snatched her hand back as if she was burnt.

"Hey, Matt," I called out softly to Mattie, who came back from the door.

"I gave this room to Francis...do you remember Francis Bonnefoy?"

"Not really," I said, as I watched Alice walk to the door. "But I think I'm about to be reminded."

"Wha" -

"Mon ami, tu me manque enormenent," I heard being hurriedly whispered at the door, and a squeak from Alice before everything went silent.

From where we were standing, we had the same view as the old man did, which currently wasn't much because the door opened towards the cabinets, blocking the view of the entrance to the house.

But we didn't have to wait long. Francis and Alice stumbled into the hallway, eating each other's face. Alice's over-robe was missing, and he was removing his coat. He threw it on the chair, kicked the door close with the back of his leg, and took Alicia's face in both his hands, deepening the kiss.

I looked at my blood family present there - Mattie's jaw looked like it was about to reach the ground, and the old man was drinking the whiskey, before putting it down and finishing with stitching the wound.

Francis was busy unbuttoning his shirt as his mouth roamed her neck. Mattie just looked away. The old man made a knot, cut away the string and poured the remainder of the whiskey over his wound.

I squirmed. Nasty. Nasty everywhere.

"Alice, how about you give our guest something to drink? I'm afraid I finished the whiskey, but I'm sure he'll need something stronger."

As soon as the old man spoke, Francis' head came up, and he pushed Alicia away almost violently. All he could do was stand there, with his shirt half open and a prominent bulge in his pants.

Alice had tears in her eyes, along with shame and anger. Francis had just plain shock. Mattie leaned against the wall, trying to take everything in. Me...I didn't really feel anything. I didn't know Francis, and I hated both the old hag and my old man.

My old man...I turned to him. He was smiling, tapping the empty whiskey bottle on the floor, again and again. But his eyes...

Those eyes were ablaze with Hell's wrath.

The old man began to glow, and the scene before us grew hazy, the boundaries of the objects disappearing. The colours before us swirled, and finally, the scene disappeared into a canvas of red-black that was my psyche.

"What just happened?" Mattie asked.

"The old man knew about the old hag and Francis...I guess he finally decided it was enough," I said. "Do you remember me telling you about the other two memories I had seen before? The old man knew, but God knows for how long."

"I think I do," Mattie said, and looked at me. "I think it's time for us to go back to the real world."

"This is worse than a hangover," Matthew groaned as he held his head in his hands.

"I told you that you can't over-exert yourself the first time itself," Shree chided softly, rubbing his back soothingly. "It'll get better next time."

"I hope so," Matthew groaned, and looked up at the others who had assembled there. "I'm sorry, but this is a terrible headache."

"It's okay, comrade," Ivan said understandingly. "Take your time."

"I was doing my katas," Natalya grumbled, but sighed. She got up from her seat in between Elizabeta and Ivan, and walked to Matt. "Straighten up," she said, and with a groan, he raised his head. Nat got him to rest his head against her stomach, and placed her thumbs against the sides of his forehead. "Tell me where it hurts the most," she said, and moved her thumbs across his forehead, pressingly lightly.

"Umm...Ow! There! There," he said, cringing, and Nat began running the pads of her fingers across his forehead in a definite pattern.

"You're in good hands, comrade," Ivan said. "Literally. No one gives a head massage like Natalya does."

"I don't want to know how he knows that," Alfred muttered, and Shree, who was sitting next to him, giggled.

"Okay, so let's get this straight," Eliza said. "You two saw your father confront Alice and Francis, and catch them red handed?"

"Well, he was the one who was literally red handed, and he spoke to them like he would to a guest, but...yeah, that's about it," Alfred said. "Do you know what all of that is about?"

Eliza shook her head. "I don't, but" -

"I do," Gilbert said, and all of them turned to him. He raised his head, and they all were surprised to see seriousness in his crimson eyes. "Their affair had been going on for two years, on and off. Johnny had put me on their case, making sure that nobody else knew what was going on."

"Wait a minute," Alfred said, frowning. "The old man knew, and chose to let it happen?"

Gilbert nodded, choosing to ignore Eliza's shocked stare towards him. "I didn't know what was happening, either," he said, "but he said he had a meaning to his madness. It started around the time when Johnny had invited Francis to one of the high profile meeting dinners. The two of them met there, and...I guess it started either then or two weeks later, when Johnny had called Francis home."

"If she was so unhappy with her marriage, why did she agree with it in the first place?" Nat asked as she massaged Matt's head. "Why did she stay married?"

"I'm sure it wasn't that easy, sestra," Ivan said.

"My dad is - was the most powerful man back then," Matt said, with his eyes closed. "The kind of lifestyle that Alice maintained would have only been allowed if she stayed with dad. That was one of the reasons they got married - dad had the money, and Alice's father, Arthur Kirkland, had the connections. They were an old, powerful aristocracy, but by the time Arthur inherited the legacy, his forefathers had spent all the money and had left no fruitful investments. When dad came along, it seemed like the logical thing to do for the both of them. But Alice hated it, from day one. The way dad handled things, though...she can't hate him anymore, or at least after the divorce."

"What do you mean?" Alfred asked.

Gilbert answered that question. "He allowed them to go on the way they wanted to for two years. He knew of all their movements, and he provided backstories for all their...trysts. Finally, when the divorce did happen, he gave Alice a huge sum of money every year, which was hers to spend - it made sure she lived comfortably until the end of her life. He also made sure her reputation was untainted, and all the necessary stories were in place, so that people didn't ask questions."

"B-But..." Eliza asked. "Why?"

All of them sat silent, thinking about all that they had heard, not looking at each other, deep in their thoughts. Finally, Alfred barked out a laugh, turning their attention to him.

"Of course!" he laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. "It makes perfect sense."

"What does, comrade?" Ivan asked, looking at Alfred with interest.

"It's about when the dead old man had me in that cell," Alfred said, getting up. "He used to visit me whenever I was conscious, and talk to me about things in his life, sitting next to me in my cell. He'd tell me all these things which would seem completely random, but...it makes sense. Once, he'd told me about how the cell he'd put me in was a ruse, and he wanted to know how I would get out of it. I don't remember what I said, but he told me that he liked that - he liked to know what people would do to achieve their sense of freedom, and what they would do if they were trapped in a box. He basically wanted to know how many people would struggle to get out of the box, and how many people would become comfortable within the box. He said that everyone in his life was in such boxes, and that it surprised him how many people grew comfortable within the boxes he put them in. It surprised him even more when the people he expected to escape stayed within the boxes, finding ways to make it more comfortable for themselves. I told him he was sick in the mind, and that I couldn't get sicker even though I was the one chained to the wall...he said that my box looked like a box, and that mine was the easiest - I just had to escape the cell. But the boxes others lived in...they were the lives they chose to live, influenced by him. I just thought he was messing with my head, but...he was talking about old hag Alice and the Francis-dude. He thought she would leave with Francis, but she never did. The comforts she got because of the dead old man was her box."

"And he made sure she stayed in that box, by paying for her comforts for the rest of her life," Ivan said slowly. "That is almost devious, comrade."

"The dead old man is more than that," Alfred said. "He liked to use everyone as his experiments. He wanted to see what everyone did in certain situations. It got to such heights that he thought of himself as a god, playing with people's lives...he was a sick man. He was the sickest man I knew," Alfred said bitterly. "And I understand why he did those things. I'm...I'm the son he chose to continue his sickness."

Nat's hands slipped to Matt's shoulders as she watched Alfred walk out of the room, and she looked at the doorway with utter bewilderment. "Where did that come from?" she said out loud, not even realising it.

"It's from somewhere deep rooted, dorogoy," Ivan said, and Nat turned to him. He got up. "And something that has been told to him again and again. It is something he has seen in people's faces, heard from the demon within him even before he knew there was a demon in him. The very fact that he understands how his father's mind works makes him feel like he is sick. But, somewhere, within us, we all think like that. Those who express such thoughts are monsters, and those who think such thoughts feel like monsters." He walked to the door as he spoke, and stopped before the entrance. "Let me share a philosophy with all of you, which I have understood from my life. We all have monsters within us. Mine and his just happen to be from a different Realm. The rest of the world call it the Mind. How much we feed that monster and how well we control it is what makes us - some of us human, and some otherwise."

Ivan left the room, and all of them looked at each other, unable to decide what to say to the other person.

"So..." Shree said slowly, looking at everyone else. "What was going on before the three of us got here?"

"Priest Ivan was explaining the route we are going to take," Eliza said, looking glad for the change of subject.

"Could you fill us in? We'll pass on the message to Alfred once he's...you know..." Shree said, and Eliza nodded understandingly.

"Yeah, we're back on the road tomorrow," Gilbert said. "It's going to be awesome."

"Yeah?" Shree asked, turning to him. "And why is that?"

Gilbert grinned. "Because we're going in a bigger car, that's why."

Alfred fell square on his butt, but the rest of his body hurt too much for the fall to register in the slightest. He allowed his shaking arms to hold himself off the ground, then just gave up and let his arms give way. He fell on his back, the thought of getting up far from his mind, and just focussed on getting air into his lungs. A shadow fell over his shut eyes; he refused to open his eyes, and wheezed instead.

"Already tired, comrade?" Ivan asked. Alfred would have glared, but he was too busy wheezing.

Ivan didn't say anything more - he'd broken more than just a sweat, and had his fair share of fatigue. He pulled off his vest, and wrung out the soaking cloth over Alfred's face. Alfred spluttered, but just turned on his stomach instead of retaliating.

"What if I were to kiss you now?" Ivan said as she sat down next to Alfred.

"One...I'm on...my...back...and you...should have...done...that before...unloading that nastiness on...my face," Alfred gasped out.

"You have a point, comrade," Ivan said, and the two of them sat silently, trying to catch their breath. After a point, Alfred's breathing evened out, and he became so quiet that Ivan couldn't help but notice it.

"What is it, comrade? Have you passed out?" Ivan asked, poking Alfred in the side. "Have I succeeded in killing you?"

"Nobody kills this hero," Alfred said, but it wasn't with his usual boisterousness, that Ivan's wonder whether there had been any meaning behind Alfred's unusual aggressiveness during the spar was made concrete.

"It isn't my place to ask you this" -

"So don't."

"I feel like I must, comrade."

When that didn't get a response, Ivan continued. "What is it that in on your mind right now?"

Alfred kept quiet, and he remained quiet for so long that Ivan wanted to pull him onto his back just to see the expressions on his face. At one point, Ivan wondered whether to tell him to forget about it, but just as he was about to say that, Alfred spoke.

"What is going to happen to me?"

That was not what Ivan was expecting. "What is going to happen?"

"If we don't figure out why Tony is here. What will happen to me then?"

"Do you mean before the seal is completed?" Ivan asked. When he was met by silence, Ivan took it as a yes and continued. "Then Tony and you will be bound to each other. Since you didn't summon him, he can pull you to his Realm as soon as the seal gets completed. Depending on who is mentally, emotionally and spiritually stronger, one of you will stay in your Realm, and summon the other. If you are stronger, your body will host Tony's entire being, not just the part that has been sealed in you. Otherwise, you will leave this Realm and reside within Tony's psyche, just as he does yours."

"What then? How will that be?"

"Well, you'll be summoned bodily - you in the sense the one being summoned. The one summoned will reside bodily within the other. He will live in the thoughts and imaginations of the summoner, and also within their true pasts."

"True past?"

"Da. We never remember memories the way things happen. Memories change over time. Something you enjoyed once might turn into something you hate. Something you hated might become a happy experience over time. But, somewhere within us is the past, as it happened. That is something only one can access through intense meditation, or by someone summoned into someone else's moda."

"So, Tony can see all my life? Whatever's happened till now?"

"Well...not quite, comrade."

Alfred turned on his back, a frown on his face. "But you said" -

"Da. But that is only when Tony has been summoned in his complete form. The part of him that resides within you may not be strong enough to distinguish the memories in your mind from the past that your brain has recorded. Comrade, the way you speak about your demon makes me think that your otets sealed the better parts of Tony's being within you."

Alfred got up. "What do you mean Tony's better parts? And about how I speaking about Tony?"

Ivan drew up one knee, and placed his elbow on his knee, resting his head on top. "You speak of Tony as a friend. You have a name for him. And he doesn't try to kill you when you go to sleep every night." Ivan raised his hand when Alfred tried to get another point across. "Patience, comrade. Your father must have held the entirety of the demon within him before he sealed a part within you. By that time, he must have been able to distinguish all the different parts of the demon's personality, before choosing his...sympathetic part to seal within you."

"You're saying I don't know Tony."

"Net. You know the Tony residing within you. But there is a lot more to that than you know."

"So, he's not a nice guy - that's what you're saying."

Ivan shook his head. "You must understand about our Realms, Alfred. They are arranged both horizontally and vertically - there is equal distribution of power, but there is also a...hierarchy of the beings in each Realm. As you go higher, there is a lesser range of emotions that an intelligent being feels. Usually, what is considered kindness by us is considered a weakness, and we consider cruel is considered normal.

"Also, if you summon a being in a Realm lower to yours, there will be not much disturbance in the balance of energy between the Realms. If you summon a higher Realm creature, there will be a disturbance. That is why a contract is made, and the demon resides within the body of the summoner - the contract draws life energy from the summoner and expels it into the Realm of the summoned, which dissipates the energy void. The seal contract is also capable of drawing energy from the summoned and giving it to the summoner, which is how the summoner gets his energy."

Alfred silently listened to him, and took his own time to digest what Ivan had told him. Alfred was belligerent, Ivan observed, especially when it came to him, but whenever Ivan explained the nuances of the Universe and the energy balances, he listened without interruption. He wasn't very quick in understanding, though, but Ivan was surprised that he understood his explanations at all - most priests never got so far in understanding a per cent of the things Ivan explained to Alfred. Alfred was a very quick learner, and he was very sharp - he made Ivan perform the katas or recite the mantras until he had observed all there was to it, and then performed it as many times as it took him to do it to perfection. It was a pleasure to have a student like him - Ivan had taught many students, but most of them were just terrified of Ivan, and Ivan didn't have much patience with such students.

Alfred, on the other hand, challenged him, mocked him - qualities he'd never seen in others before. At the same time, he respected Ivan, and it was a respect untainted by fear. It was something that Ivan wasn't used to - in fact, it was something that Ivan could get used to.

"If Tony were to reside fully in me, I would have more power?"

"Net."

"So, whatever I have, it's not Tony's complete power?"

"Hmm...yes and no."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that the power you show is more than the demon's power only," Ivan said, and sighed when Alfred looked at him as if he'd had the entire conversation with the latter in his native tongue. "A large part of what you expend is your own spiritual energy. You spiritual power for someone untrained is...amazing. You have been trained spiritually, but you don't know it."

"You mean like you guys?" Alfred asked.

"Da. I guess that you have been taught, but not formally. You and your brother both have significant spiritual energy than most uninformed people have - it is of the level of some of the middle grade priests-in-training."

Ivan found it hard to believe himself. From what Nat had told him about the Fitzgerald brothers, and the letters he'd received from Mathias, Om and his elder sister Katyusha, the brothers had no prior exposure to their way of life, or so they'd assumed, since they didn't seem to know what was going on. But Shree told him that Matt had a lot of exposure to Maninya, the language that was a part of their scriptures, and he picked up languages quicker than anyone she knew - it was surprising, because Shree had been surrounded by intellectually gifted people all her life. And Ivan had first hand seen both the brothers in action - Matt's eyes showed that he followed the conversations any of them had in their native tongues or the common language they had picked up in the Academy; Alfred's control over his spiritual energy grew by leaps and bounds, and he only needed to be taught something once and properly to replicate it perfectly.

To Ivan, something didn't seem right. Shree and Nat would have agreed with him, but they were blinded by obvious reasons, and he knew there was no way he could appeal to them.

"Let's continue," Alfred said, cutting through Ivan's thoughts, and got on his feet. Ivan slowly rose, his thoughts moving in a different direction.

There was one obvious question, that everyone was ignoring. Nat ignored it because her immediate concern was making sure the demon returned to its Realm. Shree ignored it because, even thought she wasn't as involved in the events as Nat was, her primary concern was to ensure that Alfred and the demon remained in good terms, and that Alfred learned how to access the demon's powers. According to Ivan, maybe Matt, Gilbert and Elizabeta had originally come along with the question in mind, but they had forgotten it along the way, getting completely involved in the events after Johnny Doe's death.

The question was so obvious to Ivan that it seemed laughable to him that none of them had tried to answer it before. Maybe it had flashed to them, but because of the problems piling on one after the other, they had not seen it important to answer. And Ivan understood why - the topic of Matt and Alfred's past seemed painful to them, and they never divulged about their childhood. All Ivan knew was they lived with their mother from birth, and after becoming teenagers, they began to living with their father; when Matt was declared heir to his father's worldly possessions, Alfred was declared heir to his otherworldly possessions.

Ivan's question had to do with the demon. Neither he nor Alfred has any choice with regards to having a demon bound within them - it was either done completely against their will or with no information at all in their direction. Ivan's question was simple -

Why did Johnny Doe summon the demon?

A.T: I realised I'd never put this out there. The system of temples and Houses that I got I came up with from the Udupi Shri Krishna Matha in Udupi, India. Manipal is twenty minutes from there, and every time I go to Manipal, I make sure I go to Shri Krishna Matha. Basically, you have a huge temple for Shri Krishna, and two other temples in the complex. Within the complex, you have mathas - I don't know exactly how to explain it in English, but they are basically priest families which are given temple lands owned by the Shri Krishna temple, and these lands fund the functioning of their matha. The matha is from where I got the concept of Houses. There is a term of five years or somewhere around that time period, and one matha is given the responsibility of running the entire temple complex for that term, and the privilege to do the puja for the temple deities. Each matha has its own deity, and the matha heads are extremely spiritually powerful people. What I know isn't even a per cent of the actual story, but it inspired me to make the House system for this story.

The scriptures and the basis of Realms and Universe I've loosely based around the Vedic teaching.

I'll put a disclaimer here, though. Neither the House system or the scripture or the Realms or anything in this Universe can be seen as an authentic source for study of either the Udupi Shri Krishna Matha system, or for the Vedas. What I have done and what I have created are from ideas that grew out of being exposed to the temple and the Vedic scriptures. I've taken a train of thought that came out of this exposure, and made it my own by putting my own spin on it. Please do not consider anything in this story as something you can call as a representation of the Udupi Shri Krishna Matha or the Vedas. Yes, the ideas are very similar, but no, I'm not trying to replicate them, so they are not representations of the real thing.

In other news, I'd been to another National Service Scheme Camp, which was very successful - out of twelve competitions, we came first in four competitions, third in another and overall, we came runners' up, against 15 other Universities. After that I was in Manipal for three days, a stay I enjoyed thoroughly. All in all, I needed the combined break of one and half weeks - the negativity in my college was getting to me. I'm glad I am where I am, and I'm glad I have a few people who are fond of me and I'm glad I enjoy what I'm doing, but the kind of negativity I get after staying in my college for too long was getting to me, and I needed this break. I decided to expect nothing good out of my college except for what I decided to go there for - the course and teaching.

Well, I'm back and refreshed. Another six weeks for my exams to start. T-T.

Do check out the RoChu story when it comes up - I'll inform you about it here, but do check it out. It's going to be something different, and I know I'm going to enjoy it thoroughly.

Well, thanks for reading another chapter. Please leave reviews - they really make me happy!

All my love,

R. K. Iris.

Review answer section:

Pinkdoughnuts:

Yo! Thank you for your review - they come around like clockwork, and it makes me so happy to see them!

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed writing that. I had that in mind for a really long time now, and to get the feel of IvanxAlfred, I read through a load of crap before I got to some really good ones. Skye had mentioned that she wanted to see a NatxIvanxAlfred triangle, and I wanted it, too - we just wanted the triangle to move in a slightly different direction, though.

I'd love to change Alfred from, "No homo, bro" to something slightly more approvable for the rest of us ^_-

I'm really sorry to hear that! I hope your eye's become better now. *prays hard*

I hope you had some wonderful holidays! As always, thank you for your review!

-O-

TheEnglishMuffin:

Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehe.

Where I'm taking this? Trust me, you'll enjoy it. And Ivan's got plans with both members of our favourite couple(s) - so I'll let you think about that one ^_-

Alfred and Matt's past, as well as Nat's, is slowly going to unfold. Ivan's question in this chapter, and the questions he's going to pose further ahead in the story, all have their basis in the three of their pasts, although none of them know it. And like Ivan says, Nat and Shree are too involved with the Fitzgerald brothers to be objective enough to see this. Gilbert and Eliza only know how much they've been shown, although Gilbert's been shown a lot more than Eliza has been, but even his knowledge isn't enough in context for him to be able to answer Ivan's questions well enough.

There will be enough going on to make you forget about their pasts temporarily - if everything were to unfold in the beginning, there wouldn't be enough to run the story by. Unlike My Friend Natalia, there isn't a clear villain here trying to stop our protagonists from achieving their goal, or trying to destroy their lives. To me, Johnny Doe is not an antagonist or a villain - by the end of it, you'll understand that he was as much a slave to circumstances as the rest of them are. The boxes discussion that Alfred brings up in this chapter is his way of trying to understand that by summoning a demon and binding the demon to him, did he actually escape a box or did he just lock himself up in another one? By experimenting with others' lives, he tries to answer that question.

Before I end up telling you my entire head rant for this story, I'm going to stop here.

Thank you soo much for your review, darling - it really brightened my day! Have a wonderful week!