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It was midnight. The orange light that flickered in the cabin's windows had winked out an hour ago. Reito had seated himself cross-legged on a boulder fifty feet from the shack two hours earlier and watched in silence, listening to soft murmur of voices inside.

All three had come out once to use the outhouse behind the cabin, but none of them had seen him staring at them from the shadows beyond the ring of light cast by their lamps inside.

The canyon rested in perfect peace under a half-moon's pale gaze. A pebble clicked on his right, dislodged by a lizard or small rodent that scampered away. Then peace again.

He could hear the silence. Feel its stillness. Smell its crisp purity.

The town of Paradise was a disappointment. Nightlife was evidently something these mountain folk didn't regard with much interest. Obviously they'd given up their affinity for grace juice.

He'd considered making a bit of a ruckus in the town before going up the mountain but decided that now was not a good time to leave a trail. There was nothing the hapless mountain folk could offer him that he didn't already have anyway.

He had bigger plans. Kruger.

They were in a test of wills, a contest of choices, and thus far Reito had made the superior choices. In all likelihood, Kruger was only now even learning that she had a choice.

The fast-approaching end to this game seemed rushed after nearly a year of patience. A shame that he wouldn't need to use his trump card after all. Part of Reito didn't want to end it so quickly. Perhaps he should extend the game. The decision momentarily paralyzed him.

Being human wasn't always the easiest way to make a living. He let the angst fade.

Reito stretched out his left hand, shoulder-high, and opened his palm, eyes still fixed on the dark cabin. Something whistled softly through the night. A stone slightly smaller than his fist smacked into his open palm.

He had half a mind to take this rock back to the compound and bury it in Youko's throat. Are we impressed with lowering the temperature and nudging bullets, Youko?

He tossed the stone into the air. Instead of falling back with gravity, it reached its apex two feet above his hand and was summarily snatched away by the night behind him. He heard it strike the distant canyon wall to his rear, hardly more than a tick.

He hopped off the rock and landed on the sand with a soft thump. Careless, but with odds like this he hardly needed to creep up on them like a mouse. Still, he walked soundelessly toward the door, hands ready.

He withdrew one of the guns from his hip, a Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber. Jacketed hollow-point 230-grain bullets with enough kick to knock a man across the room. Single-action, recoil-driven semiautomatic with a magazine of 10 +1. Custom blue-steel barrel. Reito's pistol of choice.

He stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, cocked the gun by his ear, and tried the door. Unlocked.

Here it was, then.

Reito twisted the knob and pushed the door open, leveling the gun as he did so. His eyes were fully accustomed to the dark, so before the door had completed its full swing, he'd taken in the table, the kitchen, the loft above the kitchen, and the bedroom door on the back wall.

Still not a sound.

Moving fast, he slid to the loft ladder, hopped up onto the fifth rung, and scanned the sleeping area. Bed with rumpled blankets. No body.

No body.

He spun and dropped, catlike. The wood floor creaked. All three must be behind the bedroom door, sleeping soundlessly.

Moving more on instinct than with calculation, Reito flew across the room, shoved the door open, and trained his weapon on an empty bed.

Empty bed.

Empty room.

Empty cabin.

"Don't move."

The voice, which he immediately recognized as Kruger's, came from behind.

"Drop the guns. All of them."

He could have leveled the her then and there, without even turning. But he did have a couple of challenges if he made a move now.

His first challenge was that any one of Kruger's bullets would kill him as quickly as any other person. The less-skilled person would undoubtedly get off a shot before falling from Reito's attack, and at this range, she wouldn't miss Reito's head.

His second challenge was that he didn't know where the others were. They'd obviously been more alert than he guessed. Shizuru might not be Kruger, but with a gun at close range, she could kill just as easily.

Reito turned slowly, gun hand raised.

He'd truned three-quarters of the way around when Kruger shot him in his leg. "I said drop the gun. The next one goes through a bone."

Reito felt the pain spread through his thigh. Flesh wound, right thigh, hardly more than a crease. Still, he dropped the Colt.

"The other guns as well. And knives."

No sign of Shizuru or the old man. Reito searched the darkness for any clue of the woman. Nothing. If Shizuru hid nearby, she was silent.

"Now," Kruger said.

Reito complied. The other Colt from his hip. The two 9mm's at his back. Two knives from his calves. He's misjudged Kruger, but if she knew the extent of Reito's skills, she'd have shot him while she had the chance. Instead, Kruger thought she had the upper hand and intended to question him. Or use him.

Reito let a shallow grin cross his mouth. Kruger still didn't know the truth.

He spread his empty hands. "Satisfied?"

The girl who loved the dark stared at him in the pale moonlight.

"Hello, Reito. You walk too loudly. I'm surprised you found us as quickly as you did."

"It won't be your last surprise," Reito said. "Why don't you kill me?"

"I'm going to. How did you know about this place?"

"Ishigami knows many things."

"He's ordered you to kill the president?"

"We never fail, you know that."

"Yet you failed now. It seems that Ishigami forgot to tell you about the trap door in the bedroom. Only a fool would build a cabin at the end of this particular box canyon without an escape route. Chris Abraham is no fool."

So Shizuru and the old man had escaped through some sort of hatch in the bedroom floor. They were probably on top of the cliffs already. This meant that there was no gun trained on him, other than Kruger's.

"You should have gone with them," he said.

"After you tell me what I need to know."

Reito grew impatient. One of the knives on the floor began to float. It lifted three inches from the ground and slid horizontally above the wood floor.

Kruger glanced down, eyes registering surprise.

The knife sprang shoulder-high and sliced toward Kruger in silence. Reito was prepared to dodge a shot from Kruger's gun, but it never came. Kruger was immobilized by indecision. Or she'd already concluded that shooting would guarantee her death, even if she did hit Reito.

"I know other tricks as well. I suggest you drop the gun."

Kruger studied the blade at her neck, then lifted her eyes. They exchanged a long stare.

Reito winked.

Kruger slowly lowered her gun. "You're affecting the zero-point field?"

"Drop the gun."

Kruger's pistol fell from her fingers and clattered on the floor.

"Actually, it's nothing so scientific as the zero-point field or any of Youko's theories. I'm surprised that you, of all people, don't know that."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Reito. I am the personification of man's worst fears. I am-"

A creak behind Reito stopped him cold. He dropped to one knee and felt the sting on his cheek a thousandth of a second after he heard the crash of gunfire from the room behind him.

Shizuru had returned for her lover. Her bullet smashed through the window as it exited the cabin.

He palmed a 9mm from the floor where he'd dropped it and was twisted halfway around when her second shot split the night. He rolled to one side of the door and brought his gun up for a clean shot.

From his peripheral vision he saw a blur.

Kruger was coming for him.

Reito's momentary lapse in concentration had let the knife fall from Kruger's neck. Now he was forced to consider both Kruger and Shizuru. But this wasn't a problem for Reito. As long as he had direct sensory input from each of them, he could...

The window behind Kruger crashed.

In that split second, Reito knew what had happened . Kruger wasn't coming for him. She had thrown herself backward through the window.

Reito was already in the process of shooting a bullet into Shizuru's head when this realization hit him. And with the realization came another: Kruger had just gained the upper hand. Evidently she knew enough about how these powers worked to know that Reito needed a line of sight or sound to affect any object. She was removing herself from that line of sight.

So. Reito would simply kill Shizuru now and go after Kruger.

Unless goin after Kruger proved more difficult than he'd estimated, in which case having Shizuru alive might prove useful.

All of this crossed his mind before Kruger crashed to the ground outside the window. Shizuru was screaming as her third bullet whipped throughh the bedroom doorway.

Reito reached around the door frame and shot the pistol from her hand.

She cried out and snatched her hand close to her chest.

"Stay!" he snapped.

"You want me, not her!"

Reito jumped to his feet and bounded for the door. He could hear stones tumbling outside as Kruger climbed the rock slide behind the cabin, but the sounds were scattered. The thought of Kruger escaping him now mucked up his instincts.

Shizuru reached for the gun behind him. Furious, he jabbed his finger back at her. "Stay!"

The gun by her hand flew through the air as if it were on a string. He accepted it with his open fist, stepped into the night air, and fired wildly at the mound of boulders behind the cabin.

He fired seven shots in rapid succession. But he knew as he pulled the trigger that he couldn't direct the bullets with so much confusion at hand. His bullets smacked into rocks unguided.

Reito cried out in rage. The girl was escaping. He could kill Shizuru and go after her, but Kruger undoubtedly had another gun strapped somewhere to her body. Kruger didn't have Reito's power, but her aim was astonishingly accurate. And she loved the dark even more than Reito. Kruger could sit in silence at the top of the cliff and pick him off at her leisure.

Reito threw one of his guns on the ground and walked back into the cabin, calming himself. Kruger knew Reito wouldn't kill Shizuru now. A hostage was too valuable given the circumstances. And Kruger made the judgment quickly. Much more quickly than Reito expected.

He stared at Shizuru, who was evidently still stunned by the flying-gun trick.

"Get up," he said.

"What are you going to do?"

"We're leaving for a place better suited to our objective. If Kruger doesn't follow, I'm going to kill you."

"She'll never do that."

"She'll die for you. Or do you think she was just pulling your leg?"

"She'll know you're just using me."

"It doesn't matter. She's foolish enough to love you; she'll be foolish enough to die for you."

The sound of a helicopter winding up on the cliff cut through the night. He cursed himself for not taking the time to scout it out and disable it earlier.

Reito eyed Shizuru, who had gathered herself and was scowling. He allowed himself a smile. The woman he'd allowed to toy with him for so many months was beautiful; he could never deny that much. And wearing her anger, she was downright fascinating. Little did she know how much she cared for him.

But Reito knew. Deep down where the black and the white traded blows, Shizuru was desperate for him.

He lifted his pistol toward her, thumbed the release, and let the spent clip clatter to the floor. "Round one, Kruger."

Reito slammed a fresh clip into the gun, chambered a round, and let go of the handle. The pistol hung in the air unmoving, aimed at Shizuru. He stepped away from the obedient weapon.

"Stay," he said. "If she tries to run, shoot her in the leg."

Reito looked at Shizuru, who had traded her scowl for a look of amazement. Some fear. Respect and admiration. She was smitten by him. It was a pity he hated her; they would have made a good pair.

So why was he making such a display about showing her his power? Was he trying to impress her? They both knew there was no need for him to release the gun. It would shoot just as well in his fist.

He was toying with her, rubbing her hopelessness in her face.

Or maybe he was trying to win her respect because he didn't hate her as much as he thought he did.

Reito grunted, stepped forward, and snatched the weapon out of the air, his bad mood at having lost Kruger now fouler because of this minor indiscretion.

He pointed the gun at the door. "Go."

"Where?"

"After Kruger."

"Where is Kruger going?"

Reito hesitated, deciding wether to demonstrate his flawless logic in determining Kruger's next steps, which he had indeed calculated in the last sixty seconds while unwisely indulging in this gun-floating trick. He owed her no explanation. But he gave her a short one anyway, perhaps to impress her once again. He chastised himself even as he spoke.

"She's going to prove her love for you."

-/-/-/-

Kruger ran down the mountain, propelled by her need to save. To liberate. To kill.

With each plunging step through the underbrush, her decision to put so much distance between her and the woman she loved haunted her. She had to force her legs forward, down, over logs, through the branches grabbing at her legs.

But her instinct told her that her decision was a good one. Perhaps the only way to save Shizuru. If Reito guessed her course and prevented her from succeeding, on the other hand, this flight away from Shizuru could prove disastrous.

The helicopter had wound up and left with Chris. He'd protested Kruger's insistence that he leave immediately, but a short discussion had persuaded him. If Ishigami had sent Reito after them, it would be for Kruger and Shizuru, not Chris. The last things they could risk was making the helicopter a target, which it would become if Kruger and Shizuru were in it. Shooting a helicopter out of the air would be an easy task for Reito.

More than this, Kruger wasn't interested in fleeing. She and Shizuru knew they would have to deal with this threat directly.

She'd come instantly and fully awake at the sound of a distant rock hitting the cliff. Not rolling down with a series of clicks as others had done through the night, but striking a far rock wall with some force.

Unnatural. Then she'd heard the soft thump of two feet landing on sand and knew that Reito was outside.

Now, Kruger broke from the brush onto the wide ledge that overlooked the sleeping, moonlit town below.

She'd been here. She'd seen something significant from this very ledge. The events that Chris had described hours earlier flooded her mind. She'd seen part of them from this vantage point. The only thing that was more difficult to believe than this story of Chris' was that Kruger had some power hidden in her bones today because of it.

But the details of her past weren't germane to her mission today. They would tell her who she'd once been, not who she was now. They wouldn't save Shizuru or her. They would not kill Reito.

Reito, who evidently wasn't the same man Kruger had always known him to be.

Kruger turned onto the path on her right and continued her descent at a fast run. A shiver passed down her spine. She'd seen Reito's knife lift from the floor as if manipulated by a magnetic field. Seen it floating toward her, picking up speed, flashing through the night. Her instinct told her to block the weapon before it reached her neck. Her mind told her not to. It understood something that wasn't apparent to her instincts.

It understood that if Reito could do this, he could easily kill Kruger at any time. Could kill Kruger at his leisure. If Kruger tried to stop the knife, she would only injure herself. Perhaps lose her fingers or a hand.

Her mind buzzed with the implication of Reito's power. Either Reito had perfected control of the zero-point field, or he possessed a power far beyond any Youko knew about. Or Chris, for that matter, because Chris had said that only two other's possessed such power, and both were being watched.

Kruger had affected the flight of the bullet with supreme focus, but Reito had done far more. Any direct conflict with the man would end disastrously.

She ran with a growing fear. What she was about to attempt was nothing short of impossible. Yet she saw no other way.

Her fear gave way to anger as she approached Paradise. The town was in deep sleep when she ran past the Paradise Community Center, toward the blue truck. A dog barked at her from a front yard. She sprinted past, eager to get out of this hole from her past.

The keys were still in the wheel well where they'd left them. The money behind the seats. Blowing a breath of relief, she slid behind the wheel, fired the truck, peeled through a U-turn, and roared out of the valley.

Miles flew by in a confusing haze. The tunnel in her mind obediently formed, leading to the familiar light. Success depended on reaching the target before it was removed from her scope of operation. I she was too late, the mission would present her with significant new challenges that would set her back days.

She had money. She had a set of papers that identified her as Shane Matheson. And she had the skills of an assassin - the fact that she could so easily form her tunnel now under duress assured her of this much.

Kruger drove north, through Delta, toward Grand Junction, slipping deeper and deeper into her tunnel, energized by a growing anger that suprisingly didn't compromise her focus. In fact, this new fury boiling in her seemed to make the light brighter.

She reached the airport north of Grand Juction as the sun edged above the mesas. The guns she left in the truck; the rest she took.

The only seat available on the 6:49 flight to Denver was a first class seat identical in every way to the rest of the seats on the nineteenseat United Express turboprop. The first-class seat on the Boeing 757 to New York was more comfortable, but comfort wasn't a thing she could easily judge. In her mind, the pit was still her safest and by extension her most comfortable place.

She didn't belong in the pit. Not now.

Now she belonged behind a gun, preparing to send a bullet into a target's brain to save the one woman besides her mother whom she loved.

She would kill anyone to save her. Anyone or everyone.

The decision satisfied a deep yearning in her psyche to justify the hours of torment during which Kruger had become Natsuki. The training would be redeemed - it would now help her save the woman she loved.

She was really Natsuki, she decided. She would be Natsuki and she would do what Natsuki would do.

She would force Reito's hand by killing the man she'd crossed the oceans to kill.

AN:

hooray! natsuki is back!

i bet you were all tired of kruger, kruger, kruger. no worries it will be natsuki from here on out...unless i change my mind.

I'm sure that most of you were expecting a full out battle between reito and natsuki, there will be...but not today. So far this is all i can give you. i hope its satisfying and it will keep me from being stoned to death by those of you who want...well...more than what its written.

but heres something to look forward to. on the next couple of chapters it will be a cat and mouse chase between reito and natsuki, both trying to save someone thats important to their mission and/or life. who will emerge victorious...i won't tell, you'll have to read and wait long periods of time for my updates MUAHAHAHA!!!

now to the reviews:

anon: yea, know that i look it at it is pretty funny.

littleleaf89: that reito and saeko scene will be somewhat explained in later chapters.

Also. what is this i hear about saeko dying or being killed? how can death be infered from that little paragraph!? its just impossible!

Chuckabutt aka Kara Papas: indeed

Krampus: i hope this chapter serve to quench some of your need for reito smacking

Luz Mclily: wow...thanks

Hoppy-chan: hoppy-chan, relax and enjoy the story everything will be explained in due time. (except for the age part, theres no hope in that) and if you still have some questions after the story is done, you can always pm me and ask 'what the hell?' and i'll be happy to answer.

ok thats all, thanks also to Sakura cc and Blitz17 for reviewing.