A/N: This story will have slash in it. There will also be spoilers in this story. On another note, I have some of the pairings made, they will be; Carly/Spike, Rad (Naruto)/Skyfire, Kira/Skywarp, Alexis/Carlos. More pairings will be decided as the story progresses, but these are the definite ones.

"Japanese"

"Speaking"

'Thoughts'

'Demon speaking.'

Memory/Flashback

Where are all the things you fought for?
All the dreams you shed your blood for?
Are they shabby now and fraying at the seems?
Was this your boyhood vision
To endure the world's derision
While the culprit sits and laughs behind the scenes?

Well, they say nothing grows
'Til the oak has hit the ground
So let's clear the way, my boys
And let the giant come crashing down

26. Crashing Down

"Ah, do I have to go to school?" Rad whined pitifully.

Machiko leveled Rad with a look that caused him to shrink back. "Yes, you do." She said evenly. "We have to pretend like nothing's happening and not draw attention to ourselves. And that includes going on with our daily lives."

"So that means Kira's going to be bored to tears for the whole day." Rad deadpanned.

Kira paused in poking his breakfast with a fork, and gave Rad an eye roll. "You know I can't cry." He said flatly, but there was an underlining of bitterness in his voice.

Rad winced as both Machiko and Atticus looked down at their coffee mugs. Since Kira looked completely human, it was easier to pretend that he was human and avoid the unpleasant things he said about himself when they touched a sore spot about his other half.

Highwire, while ignorant of the taboo, knew enough to not question what was wrong, seeing that they all looked uncomfortable. "Shouldn't we be heading to you school now?"

Rad looked gratefully at the Minicon. "Yeah, see you guys later." He said as Highwire changed into bike-mode and Rad wheeled him out of the house, a hat on his head to help obscure his hair and concealer on his face to hide his birthmarks. Though while Kyuubi hadn't liked it, Rad had gotten the demon to help supress his chakra so that it would be unnoticed by the Konoha ninjas.

Looking back, he supposed he should have asked what the ninjas looked like, but then again their headbands would be a dead give-away.

The sound of a puppy barking caught his attention as he noticed three kids his age all playing with a puppy, shock running through him as he recognized them, while Kyuubi snarled. The emo-looking kid standing back was Sasuke, the boy that owned the dog was Kiba, and the girl with pink-hair was Sakura.

The girl had been his first real crush, though her constant insults and brush-offs had embittered him to the idea of love. Romantic love that was, as the love he shared with Kira was more paternal and didn't really 'count' as it were. Just like getting a kiss from a girl didn't count if it was your mom.

Rad forced himself not to give anything away as he wheeled Highwire passed them, though the dog scurried after him.

While he was certainly more forgiving than Kira, he never forgot. Never.

"Hey, Akamaru, leave the guy alone." Kiba mock chastised as the puppy went back to its owner and the boy stuck his hand out. "Sorry about this little rascal, he can be a handful."

'I so don't want to speak to them.' Rad thought, but knew being standoffish would be not only rude (not that he really cared), but more importantly, it would be suspicious. So plastering on a convincing fake grin that had managed to fool everyone in the Academy and returned the handshake he replied, "No problem."

"Where are you headed?" Sakura questioned tilting her head.

'They don't recognize me.' Rad thought.

'Good.' Kyuubi replied bluntly.

Sure, the furball had a point, it still stung somewhat to not be mentioned, even as having a passing resemblance to who he used to be. Again, deception was a ninja's best weapon, and these three had the discretion of a rock.

They were far too forceful and upfront about wanting to meet him for one thing.

"I'm going to school." Rad said calmly. "Don't you have school too?"

"No, we already graduated and-"

"Uh, what he meant was that we don't have to go to school at the time. It's a vacation really." Sakura interrupted Kiba as he was about to make a slip up.

Though Rad knew Sasuke had yet to say anything, he knew better than to assume the guy wasn't paying attention to anything Rad would say that warranted suspicion. He pretended to ignore Kiba's mistake. "A vacation, where you from?" he asked conversationally.

"Japan." Sakura replied guardedly. "Have you ever been there?"

Now Rad knew he had to be careful about what he said. "Yes, long time ago, with my father." It wasn't even that much of a lie as Kira had been practically his father and he had no objection to calling him that occasionally when they had been in their apartment.

Sakura and Kiba deflated as he was sure they had been expecting another answer. "Your father? How nice, what about your mom? Any siblings?"

Seeing as he could twist the 'siblings' plural, Rad answered. "My mom was already from Japan, but she didn't want to go, and I don't have any siblings." 'I have one brother.'

"No siblings huh? You're lucky, my older sister's really scary and she bugs me a lot." Kiba answered.

"Don't you get lonely though?" Sakura asked sympathetically.

"No." Rad answered bluntly. "Why would I? I have friends, and they more than make up for it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be late."

"Well, that was a bust." Sakura deflated. "He didn't give anything away. Think the demon knows where here?"

"It's be surprising if that wasn't him, but Akamaru said he smelled a little like the demon, he said it was strong enough to indicate direct contact." Kiba replied.

"So it means that the demon is still in that house." Sakura responded. "You think Kakashi-sensei is having luck with the adults?"

Kiba snorted. "More likely he's not even trying to talk to them and is just waiting for the demon to come out of the house." He said in frustration. "I still don't get why he won't just go in and kill it for real. It's not like the thing actually cares for the people it's using and I bet they'd be happy that it was gone."

Sakura nodded. "But could sensei be able to kill it even? It's supposed to be tough, and from what I heard and saw of it, it was scary." She shivered.

Their hidden headsets went off and Kakashi's voice came through. "Anything from the boy?"

"No, he didn't give anything up." Kiba answered grumpily.

"Have you talked to the adults' sensei?" Sakura asked.

There was a pause of static. "No, they left too quickly before I could speak with them." He said lazily.

"You!"

There was a crackling sound before the communicator went dead.

"Oh man, the demon must have shown up!" Sakura shrieked and both boys flinched at the sound.

"We have to go help sensei!" Kiba yelled and Akamaru barked in agreement.

"Do you really think we'd stand a chance against a demon?" Sakura asked in disbelief.

"Well we can't just stand here and let that thing kill our sensei!" Kiba shouted back and started running in the direction back to their stakeout, hoping that their sensei was okay.

"Hey, Alexis, you okay?" Carlos asked seeing the brunette girl's dejected expression as they arrived at the school.

"No, Kira doesn't like me." Alexis whined pitifully.

"He doesn't? How come?" Carlos asked trying not to sound too interested.

"I told him that I knew what he'd been through and he got so angry at me for reading his journal." Alexis replied sadly. "Sureshock said that I shouldn't have idealized him, and she was completely right."

"Well, the guy was older than you by a good few years, so maybe it's for the best?" Carlos questioned. "And you might meet someone that cares for you that isn't a story book idealized person." He added jokingly.

Alexis smiled. "Thanks Carlos."

Rad wheeled Highwire to the school bike rack and looked around for his friends. He felt like he should say something to Alexis so that she doesn't feel like he hates her too. He should just tell her that Kira doesn't do too well around people and that he's just upset that she invaded his privacy.

Yeah, that should work.

"Rad!"

Rad looked around to see his two (that he didn't know he had) admirers. "Oh, it's you two. School's out in three days, can't you leave me alone?" he asked turning to walk away.

Feeling spurned, Billy grabbed Rad's arm. "Hey, we're talking to you."

Rad looked back and glared at him. "Let go of me." He said warningly.

"Or else what?" The taller of the two sneered.

"Hey, the kid said to let go." Another male voice said and they all looked up to see a brown-haired teen giving Billy a glare. "So I suggest you do it."

Billy scowled and harshly released Rad's arm before he and Fred left.

Rad looked up at the teen. "Thanks man, name's Rad."

The teen looked amused. "My name's Spike."

Rad raised both brows. "Seems we both have unusually names, what are the odds?"

Spike played along. "I'd say one in a million, but since we both got strange names, the percent went down drastically."

Rad chuckled. "You go here?" Then he realized how ridiculous that was. "Sorry, force of habit."

"No, I don't go here, I go to the high school." Spike replied. "Just came over to help a small fry out."

Rad sweat-dropped. 'Even strangers call me names.' He thought before rolling his eyes. "Like I never heard that before."

"Ugh, this place is probably the worst place on this planet; this mud is getting stuck in our pede struts." Skywarp complained. "Why the slag are we even here?"

"Mighty Megatron received a from the missing Decepticon gestalt, and for your idiocy at getting knocked unconscious by "his" organic, you two are here to prove you're not worthlessly incompetent." Starscream sneered as both the black and blue seekers glared at him.

"He just got us by surprise, that's all." Thundercracker retorted.

"Why am I here though?" The big white shuttle-mech questioned pushing the branches out his way.

The white and red seeker glared at the larger mech. "You wanted to see the organic life, Skyfire, so here it is." He said testily. He couldn't quite get over the fact the other mech had denied him what he wanted from the failed artic mission. He'd wanted the yellow organic's power and when he had literally come within inches of having it, Skyfire held him back and out of his reach.

"Well, this place is something." Skyfire said trying to be upbeat. "And I don't think I've ever seen an organic that large before."

"What?" All three seekers asked and Skyfire pointed to a red and yellow form crouched in the grove out of the mud with a distinctively lion-ish form.

"That's not an organic, that's one of the Predacons that Megatron sent us out to get." Starscream said approaching the hidden form. "I know that you Predacons like to 'hunt' so our might leader thought you'd enjoy tracking down and capturing something that was highly important."

The form shifted slightly. "Exactly what prey are we to be hunting after?"

"This organic." Starscream holding up a hologram of Rad. "He may not look like much, but he is very powerful, he almost accomplished offlining our leader."

"Something I'm sure you will never come close to." The lion transformer retorted as he looked at the hologram and went used the gestalt bond to speak with the other Predacons.

"Starscream, I thought Megatron wanted the other or-" Skyfire started, but stopped when the seeker glared at him again.

The lion transformer turned his attention back to them. "We have come to an agreement. We will capture this organic, but we must be allowed to do it on our time."

The red seeker smirked. "Just don't fail."

"Speaking from experience I see." The Predacon muttered before rising completely and running away, the second in command glaring at him for the remark until he was gone.