Aaaaaargh. Kill this chapter immediately. Please. It's not fair to inflict it on people. My only excuse is that I have some kind of block.

Wheee. Count 'em. Four pages. *sob* I am so terribly pathetic, and I apologize to you all. Repeatedly. Sora plushies for everyone.

Bing.

A tear, reflecting the light as a prism might on  a sunny day, hit the grass. It was soon followed by another, and another. More and more came, soon accompanied by choking sounds of sorrow. Sinking to the ground, the source of the tears dropped the bouquet of flowers and sunk their head in their lap, eyes blurred, shaking desperately.

The sun reflected on their hair, showing the richness of the blonde strands covering her face. She buried her face in milk-white hands, sobs wracking her frame.

The deep green grass glimmered behind her, dancing in the same breeze ruffling the hair, betraying a mood of happiness that was so unfitting for this occasion, for this place, for this.

Rising out of the ground before the crying woman, a grey stone stood; old, dilapidated, and generally uncared for. A crack wound its way down one corner, a weed climbed its ragged way up another. There was no sign of anyone coming to visit, not even a vase of withered flowers. For her, that would have been a meager symbol that someone, at some point, had cared, but not even that had been granted.

'It's not… it's just not *fair*!' the woman snapped, voice hoarse. 'I'm going to… I have to stop it.'

The gravestone, as one might expect, did not reply. The only sign of the woman's pain was a name, half obscured by grass, etched roughly onto it.

Morgana.

**

'Sora?'

Sora regarded her narrowly for a second, swinging his bag onto another shoulder that was barely wide enough to accommodate the strap. 'Yeah?'

'What was it like?'

She wished there was a better way to phrase this. Subaru would have thought of some way of gently prying it out of the boy. Bear might have coaxed it out, Mimiru, with her sunny nature would have cajoled it out if she were so disposed. Hell, even Crim could have managed it better, even counting for his dislike of the boy.

But with the shrewd ten year old, it was a tricky business, asking this kind of stuff. Too gentle equated as too patronising with him, too tactful meant you thought he was not strong enough to handle the bare truth. In some way, An knew that he would have preferred a bald statement.

'What was what like?' the boy replied, a hint of curiousness in his languid tones.

An took a breath. 'The staff. What was it like? Were you… asleep? Or trapped, like me?'

Sora stared, for a few seconds, then laughed. A cold chilling laugh, the kind that echoes around the moon of a nightmare.

'You're the only one who's ever asked that. Everyone tiptoes around it. Like I'm some kind of kid who can't take anything, any mention. Isn't that funny? I spent so long trying to prove I wasn't a mere child and then this happens.'

There was silence for a few seconds. An was slightly shocked at the bitterness in his voice, but then again, this was the kid who had once said that being a bastard made him special. One does not expect the norm from a kid like that.

'It was horrible, frankly,' Sora said. 'The worst thing I have ever been through. I don't think you ever heard her last words to me. She said that she'd teach me there were worse things than death. I suppose it was some kind of sick irony for her.'

He sounded as though he were talking about a troublesome homework assignment, or an annoying classmate.

'Were you being tortured?' ventured An.

'Nope. But I'm sure you can imagine what was going on, huh?'

The conversation, it seemed, was closed. An did not want to ask what exactly had gone on, Sora seemed unwilling to discuss. A stalemate of sorts. They continued on in silence, traversing streets and passing apartments with a seeming mental block.

'Bear's apartment should be here soon.'

Sora merely stared at the ground, shrugging in recognition of her statement. The rest of the journey passed in silence.

**

'So, got any ideas?'

Crim put down his staff and smiled at the Wavemaster. 'Not a clue, my dear friend.'

'Not even one?' she asked, scowling. Although one might be forgiven for considering it a pout, as long as you didn't mention such a consideration to BT.

'No. I couldn't come up with any leads on her. She's as elusive as Helba, only some people ast least have heard of The Queen of Dark.'

'You could ask Subaru to look,' BT replied hesitantly, resisting the urge to stick 'the leader princess' in from of the Heavy Axe's name, although now most of her problems with Subaru were solved or at least not spoken of, especially as she now knew that the girl was more interested in An than Crim.

'Yeah… She doesn't have more power than I do, you know. Not now, anyway, and she wasn't even much more powerful to begin with.'

'Not powerful with a legion behind her. Yeah, yeah, yeah,' BT responded, looking out over the sunburnt landscape. Weird, spiky, digital fossils poked their misshapen heads from the ground, the sky glared above them, and the noticeable lack of foliage all contributed to an arid desert atmosphere.

'Have you gotten any news concerning ….*Sora*?' Crim asked, not quite able to suppress a shudder.

'No… I think An's trying to deal with the brat.'

'Be nice.'

'Why? He killed me. Repeatedly,' BT said, and the scowl, or pout, seemed to surface again. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Crim.

'Yeah, but I think things have changed.'

'How so?'

Crim shrugged and settled himself against a bone. 'Well, cruel though it may sound, maybe that spell in Skeith's staff might have done him well. After all, he was really getting far too uppity.'

'Oooh. Naughty Crim.'

'What? I dislike him just as much as you do… I'm just less bitchy about it - ow! That thing is *pointy*!'

**

'Does he ever *say* anything?' Ryo hissed.

'Well… This is Sora we're talking about, remember?'

'Still.'

'It's just, he's Mr.-I-Can't-Be-Pinned-Down-Or-Forced-To-Give-A-Straight-Answer.'

'… I'm just going by Sora now, you know,'

An jumped roughly three feet in the air from the sofa and spun around.

'What's on?' Sora asked, gesturing at the TV and settling down, giving no indication that he cared about being talked about behind his back.

Ryo, meanwhile, was trying to keep a straight face.

'Sora, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…' An said, getting up and sitting back down. When she saw Sora's expression of extreme non-caringness (or boredom, one might say, if one actually had a good handle on writing unlike the esteemed author)

'Yeah, yeah, yeah.'

**

'Sora?'

A sleep-clogged voice echoed through the apartment.

'Yeah?'

'What the f… What are you doing UP?'

'Relax, Bear… Ryo… Sakuma-san…' Sora's slanted eyes betrayed a slight sense of confusion.

'Relax? It's three am, what are you doing up?'

'Oh, yeah… About that…' Sora grinned and popped another few popcorn pieces. 'I couldn't sleep.'

'So your solution is to eat all the food in the house and watch movies?'

'Problem? Oh, nice movie collection too. Oldies, huh.'

'Yes, problem!' Bear snapped, being much less civil at 3:17 am on an early Saturday morning. 'Sora, you're going to be sick!'

Sora regarded the floor as he seemed to make a tally. 'I didn't eat that much, you know. Only… Four bowls of popcorn and a box of Pocky.'

'Only?'

'I'm actually still kind of hungry. You don't have half enough food here, you know.'

Bear was still unable to comprehend the situation.

'Do you even KNOW what is wrong with the scenario here?'

Sora stared at him. 'Yeah, your popcorn sucks.'

'No, I mean… Normal kids don't watch old movies at three in the morning!'

'I bet An did,' Sora said, cool eyes still trained on the adult.

'That's none of your business, just get to bed!'

'Why?'

'Because…' Bear was quickly losing all patience with the annoyingly serene kid. 'Because I say so,' he finished rather lamely.

'Well, if that isn't a reason, I don't know what is. Good God, how can I fail to go now?'

'Shut up and go to bed right now. I'm not in the mood to be irked around, Sora.'

Said boy seemed to regard his choices for a few seconds, then reluctantly got up.

Bear stared.

'You are SO cleaning this up tomorrow. Mimiru's coming over to spend the day with An. She'll think we live in a pig sty.'

'Okay, okay,' Sora muttered. Bear peered closely at the boy. It was fairly obvious at this point that Sora was a lot more tired than he'd been letting on. The boy was practically swaying on his feet. Dark rings circled his eyes, which were nearly shut.

'What are you doing?' Bear couldn't help asking again. 'I mean… You really can't see what's wrong here?'

'…I was allowed to do this at home.'

**

'This is one majorly funky place. I mean, bad, morning breath funky.'

A cool female voice echoed around the sucking blackness.

She crossed the place-that-was-not-the-net-slum slowly, the air of a cat in every predatory step.

'So empty… Really, not pleasing…'

Behind the visor, the woman sniffed. Her pixellated self showed no hint of this.

'Soon, though… Ah, well. Time to visit the love birds… Hmm…'

That blue haired manslut is always with the blonde one, she mused. That's going to have to be remedied. She's too smart for her own good.

**

'Do you ever hang out anywhere else?' BT asked, rather rhetorically, gating into the digidesert that was Crim's calling card, so to speak.

'Easier to train here,' he said, sparing her a glance before picking up his jacket and slinging it back on his shoulders (much to the dismay of all the Crim-fangirls.) 'Less n00bs.'

'It makes you too easy to find, you know.'

'Why should that worry me?'

'Because the ever-so-amazing Crim of the Crimson Lightning isn't indestructable, you know,' BT said, leaning against a fossil.

'Nearly though.'

'You won how many fights against that ten year old? One? What a wonderful record.'

'And how many did you win, exactly?'

BT scowled. 'He didn't stalk you.'

'I should have been worried if he had, frankly.'

'…I should be worried right now.'

BT and Crim swung around to face the interfering voice.

It was her. The Twin Blade.

'What're you doing here?' BT snapped, resisting the urge to tack on something that would turn this into a NC-17 fic.

'What? I'm not welcome? I'm shocked… Shocked and appalled. My heart is broken.'

Crim bared his teeth unconsciously.

'I actually came 'round…' The flickering woman trailed off. 'Never mind.'

She immediately gated out.

BT and Crim looked at each other.

'Okay…' BT said. 'That was… Strange…'

**

'Meep.'

Mimiru stared around the apartment, eyes glowing.

'Did you just meep?'

'Yes, An. I meeped. And a mightily good meep it was too.'

'And the reason behind this… meepage?' An said, struggling to hid a smile.

'Well, you have the brat in your house! I want to see!' she sang, bouncing. 'I want to see, I want to poke, and most of all I want to get that little shi-'

'Mimiru.'

'That little… ehm… darling child back for all his stupid crap!' she said, folding her arms and frowning. 'Can you believe he was… ten? Nine?'

'Well, yeah, it was obvious actually. What're we doing today, anyway?' An asked, wondering if it involved one of the famous Mimiru-style shopping trips, which involved sugar, An becoming very churlish after roughly the fitieth shop and Subaru muttering about being hijacked.

'Well… There's the most adorable dress…' Mimiru said, her patented wheedling-face on. 'And I neeeed a neeeeeew one… Aaaaaaannnn…'

'Fine, fine,' An muttered.

'Now, let me at him!'

'He's still asleep.'

'Dude, I wonder what he looks like, I mean, Ginkan and BT and Crim don't look a thing like their avatars. Okay, BT kind of does, and I didn't really get to see Ginkan's face in The World, but still.'

She was referring to a party that Bear had once thrown. They had decided that, after being through so much together, festivites were in order. Mimiru still wasn't over the face that Ginkan really WAS under sixty and that Crim had come all the way from Korea (albeit on a business trip). It was true love, she declared, that BT and Crim had come, and so, they'd have to get married immediately and have loads of children. Of course, she announced this in front of the two, causing both embarrassment to both parties and the severe threat of personal damage.

'And me,' An said. 'I don't look like Tsukasa at all, do I?'

'Of course not. Tsukasa's much more pretty. C'mon, if I can't annoy the little bugger can we go *shopping*? Like, now, and not later this century?'

'Fine, just let me get my jacket,' An said, surrendering and slouching towards her room.

A smile crept over the former Heavy Blade's face; that of a predatory cat. With exaggerated slyness, she slunk over to the living room, creeping behind the door and looking in slowly.

Sora was lying, fully dressed, on the sofa, obviously asleep, head hanging over the arm rest.

Kids, Mimiru reflected, didn't need much sleep. And there was the nagging fact that someone was needed to carry their bags…

She made her way over to the boy, hoping the noise of her footsteps wouldn't wake him. Because she owed herself this, at least. All the crap she had put up with. The immature fights. The death threats. The sneaking, the bouncing, the infuriating smirk… That bloody smirk…

'HEY, SORA!!!!' she screamed in his ear.

Said boy's eyes opened, and he launched himself roughly fifteen feet into the air with a display that would have made his character jealous, before landing on the floor. His eyes had the wild look of a crack addict.

'Hiiiiiiiii, Soooooooo-rrrrrrraaaaa,' Mimiru said, leaning over him and leering. In the part of Sora's mind that wasn't sleep-clouded or now shakily recovering from his awakening, he noted that this expression was reminiscent of himself.

He stood up, ignoring the question, and brushed himself down.

Mimiru was annoyed.

'Well? Aren't you going to say anything?' she demanded, after a few seconds of silence.

'An,' Sora called. 'I think one of your pet monkies is here.'

Oh, how terribly pathetic. What was it with him and sarcasm, lately? That good friend of his had flown the coop, seemingly.

'C'mon Sora!' Mimiru chirped, eyes glinting (rather maniacally, it seemed). 'You're coming with us!'

The grip on his arm was rather strong, and all Sora could do was nod mutely.

It was times like this, more than anything, that made him wish for The World again.