This chapter doesn't feel right. Something feels very wrong with this chapter. Still, I'm putting it up 'cause I can't really do much more with it.
I was originally going to include a little fantasy Mr. Ninja Mole has about Uriko in his sleep and his little conversation with Cronos afterwards, but I cut it out. Maybe I'll stick it in the next chapter. I dunno.
About that whole thing with delaying the fic. You probably also get those moments when you really feel ashamed of yourself and your fandom. Now, I'm an incredibly paranoid and self-loathing individual, so this comes rather naturally. Besides, the fanfiction.net downtime counts as a delay, right? So, on with the fic!
*sigh* Something feels very wrong with this chapter. Well, I can always fix it in the future, right?
Alright. I'm really bad at describing things well and I suck at love stories. There. But I write them anyway. Practice? I guess so. You need practice to write decent stories, I suppose...
Hey everyone! Now that the search is back up, look up a writer by the name of PinkTokki! She's a good friend of mine and she's funny!
What else? Oh, right. Go and vote on the future of Cuddly Moles and Kenshin is sexy.
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This place was familiar. It was probably his clan's residence, he reasoned.

Early in the morning, when all were still sleeping, he had stepped out of bed and had begun to familiarize himself with his surroundings. He knew who he was, and he knew his mission as well. The fact that it was normal for him to forget things was also coming back to him.

Everything still felt foreign, though, especially that strange odor. It was unlike any of the scents coming from his fellow ninja. The large, furry creature sniffed about, careful the long claws on his hind paws did not scratch the floor. He managed to pinpoint the scent and he silently approached the room from where it was coming. When he was sure that person was sleeping, he proceeded into the small room to kneel by the bed.

Just as his nose told him, it was a female human. She was curled up sleeping on her side with the blankets just past her chin. He could see long brown hair done in a braid trailing from the back of her head, but not much else. Something about this girl was important, but what? He sniffed the back of her neck, his warm breaths and whiskers tickling her skin. She moaned and curled up even more away from him. To bring her into closer view, he used his wide, flat paws like paddles to gently turn her over and cradle the upper part of her body. The bright white claws gently tugged the sheets, but he made sure not to stir her from her sleep just yet. She had a round, youthful face surrounded by the long bangs of her brown hair. As for the the rest of her, she was a rather petite girl with small features and attributes. He continued to take in her scent and mull over it in his head. It was definitely foreign and she smelled nothing like his clan. Still, why was she sleeping there? Also, why did he feel there was something important about her presence?

His examination had finally brought her to awaken and her light brown eyes fluttered open. A frozen moment of still and utter silence reigned for the few moments she registered the hulking, wide-shouldered creature with its long face, pink nose, and red eyes, which sat upright on its hind legs and had human chest and stomach muscles underneath its brown fur and held her with giant, furry paws that bore pointed talons that must have been a foot long.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Day 1:
4:30 A.M.
I'll bet that girl just woke up the whole building. Why do I have the feeling that shriek will be coming back to haunt me? Damn kids. I guess I should see if she's still alive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She had let out a piercing shriek prior to his pounce. He swiftly grabbed the intruder and got on top of her to prevent her from moving. The beast held her down with his left paw firmly placed on her chest and the other's ivory daggers rushed towards her eyes, which she immediately shut in fear. When instant death did not come, she nervously peeked one eye open and found blunt human fingertips positioned on front of her face. Glaring yellow eyes glowed through the darkness and fixated themselves onto her.

"Who are you?" a young voice hissed. He got no answer from the panicking girl, who hoped to find a way out of his grip, which was still considerably strong. He brought his face in closer to hers.
"You're not one of us."
He lightly sniffed the air between them.
"I doubt you're a zoanthrope at all."
It was then she could make out his facial features. Without taking the time to think over an explanation for the previous events, she stuttered the first name that came to her mind.
"K-K-Kenji..."

He wrinkled his nose and gave her a suspicious look. "'Kenji...?' You, I know not."

Both of them turned their focus sideways to the entrance of the room. The master was standing in the hallway. "Is there any trouble?" he inquired with a knowing tone.

"An intruder, master," he obediently replied, then he quickly stood up, violently dragging her up with him, and he placed a tight grip from behind on either side of her arms, "Who is she?"

"Nobody important, really. She'll be staying here for a while, so why don't you let her be?"
He quickly nodded and released her, almost pushing her off to one side.
Bakuryu then asked if they should start their morning rounds early. The disciple replied in the affirmative and followed him out, stopping to bow and give a quick apology to the stranger before leaving.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the time when most would rise from sleep, Yugo Ogami stumbled into his apartment, having abstained from it the whole day and night. He was a wreck, donning rumpled clothes and dark bags under his eyes. Leaning on the kitchen counter, he stared at the floor with barely anything going through his mind except the pure anguish of a repeated tragic event. Somehow, he regained some lost energy when he heard the telephone's ringing. He bounded towards the phone to answer the call, ripping the receiver from the mounted set and eager placing it to his ear.

"Kenji!" he practically screamed, but then his hopes were denied. It was his manager on the other line. He once again lost his fire and leaned into the wall.
"No... I'm not coming to today's match..." he answered in a soulless voice, "I know... I know... It doesn't matter, really... forget about it, okay?"
He ignored the angered voice coming from the speaker. "Just... leave me alone..." he whispered before hanging up.

Yugo's lifeless body drifted to his room, where he glanced at the pictures on his dresser. While there was only one of his lost parents, there were many pictures of his lost brother. It was the last his shattered soul could take. His heart collapsed in on itself and he dropped himself into a sitting position on the bed. Burying his face in his hands, he began to sob pitifully in mourning of his missing pack.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uriko finally decided to step outside of her room after sitting up in bed for quite some time. She was still wearing she same clothes from the day before, the white frock with the collar clipped together in the front with a red clasp that looked like a brooch bearing a large plastic jewel. She supposed if she was to change her clothes, they would have left a spare garment in her room for her to find when she woke up. The tiny room was completely bare except for the bed, but then again, there was not that much room for anything else in there.
She walked up the hall, which was mostly silent. One room she passed by seemed to have noise coming from it. The peeked in and found it to be full of people, seated on the floor. Most of them were dressed in yellow, like that "Bakuryu" and... Kenji? Right, the outfit Kenji had with him was something like their getups and what he was wearing earlier that morning was definitely a more complete version of it, more like what she was looking at now. She could have sworn his face was the one she saw that morning. Still, something was not right.
The people there gave her looks and seemed to be talking about her, so she decided to move on. Uriko passed through a door to what looked like the outside, but it turned out to be an imitation of the real thing. It was an indoor garden, complete with a little pond and a path around it. She walked along the path and let the greenery surround her.

"That master person must be loaded," she whispered to herself. A voice whispered back, "We've been faithful for so long; they owe us a lot."
Instead of screaming in her shock, she merely spun around and saw a stern youth behind her. He was dressed like all the others and around his neck was a large red scarf, which happened to overlap part of his face.
"It's you!"
"I'm sorry about before. I did not know about you. I don't know much right now in the first place, so try to understand."
She gave a silent affirmative answer, not taking her eyes off the section of his face she could see. It had to have been he! Still, his eyes looked like they were functioning just fine, so perhaps she was wrong. The Kenji she knew was blind, after all. Her mind might have been playing tricks on her.

"I do not believe we have met. You must tell me if we have."
"What do you mean?"
"I am terribly forgetful. I think this happens a lot, but everything important tends to return in due time. The Doctor does this to me from time to time."
"R..right..." she muttered and stood there nervously and shifted her feet. The boy watched her intently.
"Is something the matter, Miss Kenji?" he asked politely. Uriko did a double take and made a peculiar questioning noise in her throat. She got an equally peculiar look back from the youth on front of her.

"Anyway," he started in the same quiet voice he had used for the whole conversation so far, "We did not see you at breakfast, so..."
He produced a neat package from the folds of his outfit. It was a small rectangular something in the typical sealed wrappings of a candy bar.
"I brought you this. One of these has the calories and vitamins and minerals to equal one balanced meal. If you want, I'll come for you when it's time to eat, so you could have something more appetizing."
"....Thank you."
This was rather awkward. Was she a guest or a prisoner in this place? It was hard to see at this point. Nobody appeared to be harming her just yet, and this was a rather nice place, to be truthful.

"Right. I guess I'll be going, then?" he continued. He seemed to be just as nervous and unsure as she.

"I'll see you later then, Miss Kenji?"
She knew her ears were not playing tricks on her this time. She quickly piped, "There! What did you just call me?"
"Oh. Are you one of those types who doesn't like using honorifics?"
"No, it's just- Why do you keep saying that name... I mean.. Who are you, anyway?"

"You don't recognize me? Oh, how silly of me!" Just then, he had noticed his scarf was covering up his face. With one finger, he gently pulled it down so she could see him clearly.
"I am the Young Dragon, the heir to this clan. I... woke you up this morning..."
Her eyes grew wide as her suspicion was deemed true. "Kenji!" she squealed, throwing herself onto him. In such a strange world, he was the furthest thing from a complete stranger she had.

He was confused by her action. "I already know your name," he told her, thinking it was her -rather friendly- way of introducing herself. She wriggled out the embrace and put her face right on front of his.
"No, No, No! You're Kenji!"

"What?"

"It is you, Kenji! I knew it! And you can see, too!"

"Kenji" distanced her from him and asked, "Is this some kind of nickname from before? Have I known you before?"
"Kenji, it's me! Uriko! Uriko Nonomura!"

"Sorry," he explained, "I don't remember anybody with either of those names."
He then turned and told her he had to leave for now.

He left Uriko standing by herself if the greenery. Bakuryu's words from the previous day echoed through her mind, rousing up heated blood and violent emotions. She immediately sought out the Fire Blast Dragon, who just so happened to be walking through the main corridor at the moment. Uriko took an offensive stance and pointed at him accusingly.

"You! First you bring me here and then you brainwash Kenji! What's with that?"
A slight smile tickled his face. She certainly did have a temper, did she not?
"I see you're catching on. This is sort of an experiment of mine, if you really want to know. The doctor is the one who does the necessary conditioning. I would prefer I do it myself with tried-and-true traditional methods, but I am forced to let him do it his way. I have not been able to see inside my own heir because of this. He seemed to react strongly to you, so I am curious to see how he is affected by you and how you two interact. This is why you live."

She shook in her rage. "How dare you do this to him?! He doesn't want to..."
Bakuryu lightly tilted his head and taunted, "Doesn't want to what, Miss?" Uriko, still pointing a shaking finger, stuttered, "To...to..."

He calmly explained, "He is my heir. He will inherit my position as master of this school of ninjutsu. From that moment on, he will no longer be the Young Dragon. He will be master assassin Bakuryu, as I am, and as my master was, and his before him, and so on."
Uriko shook and then thrust her finger again more as if to say, "Yeah, that!"
"He doesn't want that!"
"Does it matter? Fate has selected him as my heir, and the tradition must be upheld."

"Not unless I do something about it!" she declared and shifted her stance.
"Young lady, those are fighting words."
She flew at him with every punch and kick she could pull off the top of her head. She was not even thinking of any form or combination technique; she nearly wanted to kill something. The old master lazily blocked all of the attacks, which he could see coming very easily.
"Not bad," her opponent noted, "how long have you been training -- a few months or years?"
He stepped back and focused his energy into the floor with the thrust of one hand. The next thing Uriko knew, she was immobilized as a shockwave of pain and paralysis stabbed through her core. She stood, shocked, for a few seconds before she fell limply to the floor.
"Amateur."
He casually walked away, through with dealing with a hotheaded teenager. Uriko, on the other hand, lay there for a few minutes until she heard a familiar voice.

"Miss Kenji, are you okay?"
She could barely even speak. "Kenji... I can't move..." she managed to groan. Her only friend brought her into a sitting position and gently rubbed one of her shoulders and then moved to lightly massaging her upper arm, asking, "Who did this to you? Are you not our guest?"

She took a deep breath and she could feel her muscles relax already with his touch. At least he was polite, she thought. Assassin... Kenji was an assassin? She felt a chill run through her. Those hands had killed others. She was in the hands of a killer. A feeling of betrayal began to surface. Mister Mole was a murderer, as was Yugo's little brother. He had been next to her as she slept, as he had probably been with many people who are now dead.
But, she reminded herself, it was not his fault. "They took me back," Kenji had said. These people must have been the "they" he was talking about and, surely enough, "they" took him back once more. Such dread was on his face when the master had come for him.
"Kenji..." she moaned.
"Is it wearing off now?"
"Train me."
"I.. I can't take students. I'm not the master yet."
She cringed and forced out a lie from her inside she hoped she would not regret making.
"Practice... It's practice for when you are. You'll know what to do when you get your heir."
"I don't know if I'm allowed to teach Ninjutsu now."
"You can keep your Ninjutsu. I wanna perfect my Kenpo with you." The young teen reached up with one hand and lightly cupped the side of his face. Her gentle fingers barely brushed his skin as she caressed him. Those milk-and-coffee colored eyes narrowed and she made herself almost seductive in her plea.
"....please..?"
Her hand could feel the warmth rising in the youth's face. The Young Dragon's mouth moved slightly, unsure of something to say, an her stared at her with wide eyes. It was a risky move, but her act seemed to be proving effective.
"I... I guess it's alright."
"Thanks."
She let herself fall into his chest. Just she and Kenji were against the world now. He was all she had now. She would perfect herself with him, and he would remember her eventually, and they would escape together, just the two of them. Such a silly dream, but what else was she to do?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Mitsuko Nonomura's voice echoed from the office at the police headquarters. The fact that they could tell her almost nothing about her missing daughter had her completely and utterly outraged. She made the officer cower at his desk while Alice sat silently in the hallway.
It was her fault Uriko was gone. She had that bright idea to prove to her mother Uriko could fend for herself just so she would not have to deal with her little sister and she was gone. How selfish!
She let out a long sigh. It was all she could do now. She could not even cry anymore, unlike that man sitting opposite to her, the only other one there besides her. He looked so buff and strong with all those scars on his arms and face, and yet tears flowed from his eyes in regular intervals. Just about everything he saw seemed to remind him of whatever made him so sad and brought him back into another bout of despair.
Someone walked up to him and told him Inspector Gado would be taking a little longer. So he was waiting for him as well? He was probably not aiming to yell in his face for not telling him anything, as her mother was planning to do. She decided to talk to him.
"What's wrong?"
".... My little brother... he's disappeared again."
"Ah. My little sister's gone missing, too."
"The first time was about a year ago. He came back just about a week ago and then vanished the next day."
"That's really bad... Uriko-"
For some reason, something set him off just then and he began to sob again. Alice dug into her pocket and produced a handkerchief. Cloth handkerchiefs were very unsanitary, so she only carried this one around for luck. Nonetheless, she handed it to the man.
"Here."
He accepted it and wiped his eyes, not noticing the rabbits embroidered onto its fabric along with her name. Alice's mother soon emerged from the office and curtly told her they were leaving. There was no arguing or dawdling when she was in this kind of mood. She followed her out, abandoning her keepsake.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Young Dragon, where are you going?"
The boy, startled at first, quickly bowed.
"Forgive me. I thought we were through training, master."
"We are. You seem to be in such a hurry, though."
"What-"
"It's that girl, isn't it? Don't act so surprised; it's too obvious you lust for her. She must be the first girl her age you've ever had in such close reach."
The master looked up at his heir knowingly. The child looked confused. He lost so many years every time the doctor was through with him. He could only kill, it seemed. Otherwise, he knew barely nothing. What would he do when there was no more master to follow like an obedient little dog?
When the boy left, he took out a little book he carried on him and jotted down some notes. He always was near her or looking at her. When it was time to eat, he ate with her. The two also seemed to be sharing frequent sparring matches, at which the girl seemed to be improving vastly in so short a time. Every chance he got, he would meet with her to train, and sometimes they would sit in the garden and talk. He still showed very few signs of remembering her or anything else other than his apparent crush. That girl's urgings could not summon back any memories of their time together. In her sleep she had told the master she had cared for him in a time of helplessness and he had decided to stay with her. If that was not pitiful enough, it seemed this was exactly what happened at the start of his five year absence. He had been with a "big brother" all that time, one the master decided to not hunt down after even a second time for some reason.

The girl had quite a fiery sprit, as well as an interesting challenge: she was going to take Kenji back and escape, even if it meant making him fall in love with her. How intriguing, and also very risky, he thought.
"Merely lust," he whispered to himself, "Perhaps a new stain on his soul will replace the old one."
~~~~~~~~~~
It was night and the halls were dark. A human wandered through the blackness for a certain object of his thoughts. He had such a fascination with her he could not understand. She was so different from the other ninja. Not only was she his age, but she was good company. She told him all about the strangest things, like track club and softball and tests. None of the others ever even mentioned those. She also spoke of a big brother he supposedly had, a "boxer." "Boxing," she said, was a way of fighting with the fists. It completely blew his mind that nobody was too seriously hurt or killed in these fights. This Yugo person even had a good friend who was at the same time a rival he often fought in these "boxing matches." Were people gathering to watch sparring matches? This was all too strange.
He stopped by the tiny room that was hers and peeked in and found nobody. He decided to look around, his nose guiding him to the exit of his clan's quarters. Sure enough, there she was looking at the metal door that contrasted the look of the quarters like a snowball in the summer.
"Miss Kenji?"
She jumped up with a squeal. She did that a lot. When she saw him, she calmed down."
"I'm Uriko! And what's behind there?"
"That's the door to the rest of the building."
She looked back at the door and whispered, "What's in this building?"
"Hmm... other quarters... the main lab..." he listed, according to his vague knowledge.
"Why don't we ever leave these quarters?"
"I did... sometimes... I think. There hasn't been much going on lately... and I've been busy with you."
The braided girl eagerly grasped the handle. "Let's take a look around, then!"
"No!" His sudden objection made her jump. "We shouldn't go out at night."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. But it's midnight right now and you shouldn't go into the labs at night when everything's dark. I at least remember that."
Uriko looked around and sighed. "It's midnight?" she echoed, wondering why there were no clocks in sight around here.
"So what are you doing up at midnight?" she asked the young ninja.

"Nothing really. I just woke up and I felt I should check up on you."
"Did you think I was in danger?"
"Well... no. I just thought I should see you." He then took a deep breath and asked, "Miss Kenji, could you tell me about you?"
"About me?"
"I want to know more about you and me. I was your pet, right?"
"You could say that," the sighed. She told him about the worms she dug for him and the little box she made for him, how he sometimes wound up in her bed and how Alice was so damn sure he was rabid. She told him about the conversations they had in the middle of the night. He had asked her so many things at night.
"You only saw me as a little mole, then?" he asked sadly.
"Only until just before we were taken back. You were so cute and fuzzy. How was I to even imagine you were really a ninja?"
While she continued to talk, he watched her face and her moving lips. It was peculiar how he dreamed of a kiss, only a small kiss. He thought of how he would take the opportunity and press his to hers ever so lightly and then step back. She would always give him a strange look and he would quickly walk away. Their friendship would probably be ruined after that one little thing he wished to share. What if she liked it? Every so often, his mind toyed with a more intense scenario, but that was just plain nonsense and he told himself to dismiss it.
On the other hand, perhaps... he could just...
The young lady was turned away from him at the moment and he was positioned so he could easily turn to her face from behind. What if he were to slowly move in... like so... He tilted his head and was almost there; all she had to do was turn her head ever so sightly in his direction. He purposely let her feel his breath so she could notice his presence. But when she turned to him, something came over him and he nearly froze in place. Panicking, he let his instincts take over.

He did kiss her in the end, if it could be called a kiss and if it could count as its aim was off somewhat. He was just barely touching the edge of her lips with with mouth and pink nose and his nervously twitching whiskers tickled her face. His small eyes were shut tightly in his panic.
She indeed looked at him strangely when he drew back. What was going to happen now?
"Was that a mole kiss?"
He looked at the floor in shame and made an embarrassed version of a familiar sound.
"Squeak..."
To the surprise of both teens, the girl smiled and put a finger to her chin. "If you want to kiss me... perhaps you should ask first." With another shameful squeak, he nodded and stood in place as Uriko returned to bed, voicing the possibility of him showing her around the building later on; she was tired of being cooped up in one place.
Hanging his head, the large humanoid mole returned to his bed and lay down on his stomach, resting his head on his large paws. This was the way he usually slept. He let out a wistful sigh and gazed up at the ceiling.

He had the feeling this would not be the end of the strange things she would make him do.