Hiro and his group stood silently in the Sainan graveyard, no one wanting to speak as the casket holding the body of Kurosaki Mea was lowered by two adults Hiro vaguely recognized as staff members at Sainan High.

He had half-expected it to be pouring rain during the entire ceremony, but it was bright out. Not a cloud in the sky, as if Mea's cheerful personality had extended to the world itself.

He hated it. It was too bright, too blinding for his eyes. The sun was an idiot for being so happy. How could any sane person be positive when they were watching the unmoving body of the most optimistic person on the planet being lowered into the ground?

The sun sickened him. He had never been a very happy person, especially not with the events happening since late December, but this...He had thought he could tolerate quite a lot, but clearly, he had been wrong. This was too much even for him.

He hated the sun. Let it rain, let it pour. Because if it was raining, he would have had an excuse for the water streaming down his face.

He hated himself for his own weakness, hated that he had failed to keep his promise to never cry. But he had always known that, if he had to ever attend another funeral for someone close to him, he wouldn't be able to hold back.

It just brought up too many painful memories. Hiro didn't see Mea being buried, he saw his parents, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday and not seven years before.

He grit his teeth, the other primary emotion he'd felt back then also rising to the surface. Yami, who stood next to him on his right side, glanced at him, sensing the shift in his emotion from the light touch of her fingers to the palm of his hand.

Nemesis, standing on his other side, didn't seem to notice, too preoccupied in her own thoughts as she watched the body being lowered, one side handled by Mikado-sensei and the other by Tearju-sensei, who was already red-faced with tears. The poor blonde had never been good with keeping herself together, this had to be breaking her heart, and Hiro couldn't find a way to criticize her for it. She deserved to cry, at least this once.

"This is her fault." Hiro said quietly, under his breath, though it was loud enough for the girls to either side to hear. "Tsubaki will not get away with this. She made a mistake doing this to Mea. She made a mistake coming back from whatever hole she was hiding in."

BREAKBREAKBREAK

A beeping sound came from one of the monitors in front of the man, and he woke up from the nap he'd been taking, removing his head from the hand that had been propping it up.

He scooted the throne-like chair he sat in forward so that he could reach the screen with the annoyingly stubby fingers he had. It irritated him to no end how short he was, but he could do nothing about it.

He groggily pressed a button on the screen, still only barely awake from his rest, and when he saw the face of the person who'd directly called him, he grinned and leaned back in his chair.

"Well, well, well." he said, suddenly very alert. "It's not every day that I get a direct report from you, Abbadon."

The girl barely reacted to the codename, used to being referred by the man and his subordinates under it, as her real name was a secret even to the other project members.

"I decided that a secondary report was not enough to tell you of the new developments." she said, in a voice filled with a barely-controlled stutter, but honestly, who wouldn't be nervous around this man?

The man blinked, tilting his head as he looked at her. "What could possibly be big enough that you can't just file a report like you always do?" he asked. He didn't show it, but he was genuinely concerned about the situation. For Abbadon to speak with him directly meant that something major had happened, and considering the already-delicate balance of the project…

"Tsubaki made her first move, and Kurosaki Mea was killed as a result." she said, her voice dropping low, a note of sadness in her voice. The poor girl wasn't exactly the most emotionally-controlled of people, but that was exactly why the man had chosen her to be his representative. She knew what it was to act normal.

But even then, her top priority was the project. She was the perfect spy. "The project is a failure, sir. Without Mea, it cannot continue in a complete state."

The man sighed, rapping his fingers across his temples as he thought. "That's...quite a blow to our goals." he finally said, sighing. "Mea was integral to the next stage…But we cannot accept defeat. One rogue alien will not be the downfall of the project I've dedicated so much time and resources to. What is Yami's status?"

"She activated Darkness after the attack, but was unable to kill Tsubaki."

The man grinned. "Well, then in that case, do not interfere. Hiro may be able to salvage this yet."

BREAKBREAKBREAK

It didn't feel natural to Hiro, being back in school after all that had happened the last few days. He'd told Principal Dunois that he'd be out for a while, and she seemed to understand, and something in the way she'd spoken when she accepted his checking out made him wonder. How much did she actually know of the behind-the-scenes of the aliens at the school? It was obvious she was well aware of most of the aliens at the school, being the principal, after all, but it seemed like she even knew about Nemesis's identity…

Well, no matter. She had made no move to tell anyone about Nemesis, and he had a feeling she'd let it remain a secret even if she did know, so there was no reason to worry, so he purged the thought from his mind and tried to focus on Saero-sensei's lesson.

It was hard to focus. He had a lot on his mind, trying to sort out everything that had happened while he was gone, and he had lost a lot of sleep over Mea's death. It had hit him harder than he thought it had, and he bet he looked like death to anyone looking at him.

It didn't help that Yami was especially close to him, now literally sharing his seat with him. To anyone watching, it would be clear that they had become somewhat closer than before he'd left the school, though neither gave an explanation for what had happened.

The kid who sat next to Hiro looked at him, and gave a perfect example of Murphy's Law.

"Yo, Nakamura-san." he said. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard an explosion a couple days ago and your house went up in smoke."

Hiro and Yami, and across the room, Yukihime and Nemesis, all stiffened at the statement, and Hiro turned his head to stare at the kid.

"How did you know about that?" he asked. The kid made an exasperated sound, raising a hand in a shrug.

"I'm Okamoto Rin. The guy who lives in the house next to yours? Who you had to ask about the Darkness incident since you weren't there that day?"

Hiro blinked, not recognizing him, before nodding in understanding. "Oh, yeah, I remember you…"

Okamoto sighed, faking a hurt expression. "Am I that forgettable? I thought we were sort of friends…" he said.

"Nakamura-kun, your house exploded?" came the quiet voice of the easily-forgotten girl sitting behind Hiro, and he blinked, turning around.

"Ehh...kind of, yeah...It's not actually as bad as it sounds, Yami just kind of made a mess of the kitchen." Hiro said, after hesitating while he thought up a reasonable excuse.

"Hey, I was just trying to help out! How was I supposed to know modern appliances and Trance don't mix?!" Yami retorted, with the same calculated response that he'd had.

Okamoto blinked, tilting his head, and gave up trying to get an explanation, returning to watching the blackboard. Haruhi, on the other hand, just continued looking at Hiro, or at least, looking in his general direction, though she avoided direct eye contact as usual.

"I bet you're a good chef after living alone for such a long time." she said, slowly, as if she was afraid of him reacting as he had to Yukihime when she'd referenced the same thing. "You could teach her."

Hiro and Yami glanced at each other, and Hiro nervously laughed, a drop of sweat forming on his forehead. "I don't think that's a very good idea…" he said hesitantly.

"Yeah, stuff tends to explode when I try to do it…" Yami added. "I'm even worse than Nemesis at it…"

"Hey, I heard that!" came the indignant call from the petite girl across the room.

"Excuse me, but if I may continue the class…" Saero-sensei said, catching the students' attention once again.

Hiro felt bad for the teacher. He had to deal with all these students blatantly ignoring his lessons, himself included, and the stress of it made him look a lot older than he really was.

Well, he knew that the adult had a lot less issues than some of the students here. He knew it was no excuse for taking over the class time to talk about it, but he doubted that the man was surrounded in aliens and having problems as massive as Darkness manifesting again.

Hiro sighed to himself. At least Yami had enough sense not to reveal that particular event. He had no idea how the school would react to learning that the entity that had caused so much trouble the June before had appeared again, even if there had been no direct casualties and the issue had been quickly solved. That would be a nightmare for sure.