Hey there all! Its great, so many reviews! And some new people reviewing too, thank you! I was extremely happy with the way 'invisible walls' came out, and the poem matched it well. Some comments now I think! I'm glad people liked the poem; I know it's not about death, but then not all of mine are. I do write about death a lot coz it's such a big transition in our lives, and it moves me, I'm not morbid but death does fascinate me to a degree, and people's attitudes towards it. Don't hate death, its inevitable, embrace it and you'll enjoy your life more!

Kai may need therapy I suppose, but then who could give the therapy Kai would need? He lost his family, has murdered, been tortured, is fused with his bitbeasts (which some people don't even believe exist remember), and is only just adjusting to life without his grandfather, who raised him. He doesn't really need therapy, he needs a home, family, and friends, yet he can't accept any of them. It's all up to him.

Mikaera, if you wanna chat, then send me your email address! Thank you to those who will read my novel in the future, I'm going to be writing my first with a very close friend of mine who loves reading and writing as much as I do. She's very talented though she doesn't think she is. It's going to be a fantasy fiction and it's in the planning stage! God of fan fiction ay? I could get used to that! I'll read your story soon! I promise! I don't know why the chapter keeps coming up as it doesn't exist, it did it to me when I went to check it, I guess you just have to persevere, I don't know how to fix it! I'm glad my story fits something so well ; )!

Now onto why I chose grey. Kai may be joined very strongly to the phoenixes, but he is still him. Everyone has a colour, something unique to them, and Kai seems to be a grey to me. Grey isn't all about despair and nothingness, there's a sense of hope to it, a tinge of other colours present, it's a deep colour and very underrated. Grey is a colour that others can grow from. Black is all the colours absorbed, and white is all of them reflected, grey is more human, a mix between the two. Kai is more human then anyone else in the story, he's lived with life and death, and knows the value and price of both. I can see where you come from completely, and it took me a while to see the true meaning in grey, but its still there. Here's something I wrote once, it's not a poem, but like two sides of a conversation, opinions, and it explains what I just said about the colour grey.

'What do you see when you look upon this wasteland?'

'I see how bleak it is, how grey it is. How lifeless it is. I can only see death and decay here. What is it you see?'

'I see beauty. There is beauty in the subtle colours and the vast horizon, and in the sheer nakedness of the land. Most of all, I see hope. From decay springs life. If there is hope here, then it needs nothing else.'

How do you like that? It shows that in something bleak and dead there is always more, just like grey! Thank you for pointing out my typos, after finding the time to write the chapter I usually don't have enough time to check it properly! The word memory had something else to it but it didn't show up on fan fiction when I put it up! I'll email you the chapters, it may take a while!

Kai knew he couldn't stay in the shower forever, but there was something so comforting about the rhythmic motion of the water. The temperature, the sounds, the feel. It was so good. But it had to end. He didn't even sigh as he turned the flow of water off and stepped out of the shower/ bath combo. He found a towel and wrapped it around his waist. He tried to scratch at the itch still present between his shoulder blades, but after contorting his upper body to no success for a while, he gave up and just tolerated it.

He twisted slightly in front of the mirror and glanced at the phoenix mark on his back. He couldn't call it a tattoo, it wasn't one. It seemed to glow and pulse under the drops of water still glistening on his skin. There was no mark between his shoulder blades though. He frowned and walked to his pile of clothes. Examining them showed no rips, no holes where his wings would have been. Yet they had felt so real.

He couldn't explain or understand it.

This time he did sigh as he dried and redressed himself. His gut felt heavy, something wasn't right. He wondered if it was the upcoming trial, yet something whispered in the back of his mind, barely audible to even him, that it was something even more personal. He barely suppressed a shudder as he left the bathroom.

Somewhere in town, a very subdued gang of people walked out of a tall office building. Each face was lost in their own thoughts. It had been a very serious meeting, one that involved something dear to all them. Only two people doubted the decision.

Ray wondered if they had decided the right thing.

Tadashi knew they hadn't.

Yet there was nothing that she had said that stopped the decision being made. The air suddenly felt chilly and she wrapped her arms around herself. It was going to hurt him; they were going to hurt him. It was too close to her own situation to feel it was necessary. Would they do the same to her? She didn't know, and she felt what trust she had gotten from them slip between her fingers like loose sand. There was nothing she had said that had been listened to, they only listened when Kai made them, they still didn't trust her. Now the feeling was mutual.

Kai went to his small pile by his bed in the dojo. He really should have taken spare clothes up to the shower, but he hadn't, and now was walking around in damp clothes. He rummaged through his now full bag for something to wear. He pulled out the dark grey baggy trousers and the black t-shirt with the white long sleeved one underneath. They would do. He took off the damp clothes and redressed in his new things.

New clothes, what a novelty. He didn't have new things at the abbey, his clothes the hand-me-downs of a previous experiment years before him. What he wore and still continued to wear as that outfit was like his uniform. Just adapted for everyday and street life. Unique yet similar to other teenagers and their fashions. He would always have that outfit, even if it was from Biovolt it was a part of him, his identity. It was stupid, he was more him buck naked then in those clothes, but he couldn't part with them. His past and person where in outfit.

He finished dressing and enjoyed the feeling of new, soft fabric against his tortured skin. It was relaxing, if only he could relax to begin with. There was the trial first, and then who knew after that? He didn't, and it wasn't a comforting feeling. He walked out of the dojo and through the house till he was near the kitchen. It was strange how much went on in that room.

A questioning "Kai?" made him pause and look through the doorframe.

Samantha was seated at the table, a mug in her slim hands and another full one opposite her seat. She indicated him to the spare mug. Kai sat down in the appointed seat gingerly, sitting was beginning to be easier but he didn't want to start it all over again. Something sweet and honey in colour was sitting steaming in the mug. He looked at it suspiciously.

"Its just fruit tea Kai, to keep you warm since you were wet for so long. It's good" Samantha remedied for him, seeing his doubt.

Kai held the mug in his own slim fingers and sipped it, enjoying the sweetness with the slightly sour tang it left, she was right, it was good. He didn't let his enjoyment show though, and glared at the redhead.

She sighed, why couldn't he trust her? "There is a reason I called you in here." At the lack of prompting she continued anyway, "the police left, but they still need your evidence. They asked that you write it down instead. Please do Kai, they need to know if they are going to put Voltaire away." She produced a notebook and a pen from her lap and held them out to him.

Kai put the mug down and took them without hesitation. Samantha smiled warmly and encouragingly before getting up and leaving him to it. He didn't pay attention as she closed the door almost fully and waited by the gap to see if he would write it all down. After finding his notebook when putting his new clothes away she realised what a writer he was, even if she couldn't read the language. The ragged look and filled pages had opened new doors to understanding him, and it had been her idea to the police to get him to write when they had left.

Kai sat there, book and pen in front of him. He didn't move, his mind elsewhere. Why couldn't he bring himself to trust Samantha? She was always looking out for him and he repaid her by shunning her. But there was something about her that reminded him of his own mother, her attitude, her nature, her manner, and most of all, her smile. He couldn't let her in, couldn't handle it when she would betray him. She would, he knew that, they all would. Everyone had and everyone would. How could he lose a family again? Besides, he steeled himself with the thought that he hadn't needed a family the day he lost his parents. From that day he had only ever needed himself and that's the way it would always be. No more hurt, no more pain when you were on your own.

He opened the notepad and dutifully began writing. He didn't notice the red- haired woman behind the door, didn't realise he had thought all that aloud, didn't see it as she clamped hands over her mouth and tears pour down her cheeks. Or as she turned and ran from the kitchen.

The others were silent when they got back to the house, and were even more subdued when confronted by a red eyed Samantha telling them to stay away from the kitchen. She wouldn't tell them why she had been crying, and they stopped asking when she grew withdrawn and defensive. They avoided the kitchen like the plague, ordering pizza when meal time came and went. Kai didn't ask for any and ignored anyone that asked. Every time they looked in to check him he was still writing, the only thing that changed was the amount of pages written.

Soon it grew late, and they were disturbed by the sound of the door opening. They all glanced round from the TV program they were watching to see Kai standing in the doorway. He walked calmly up to Samantha and dropped the book in her lap without making eye contact with her. He muttered a 'finished' and went to leave the house.

"Wait!" called out Tyson's dad, "where are you going, it's getting dark."

"Air" was another mutter as he left the room and then the house.

From experience, they left him too it, and to be honest with themselves, they felt guilty about the decision made that day.

Kai sat on the roof. The climb had been a lot easier since his ribs had just about healed. They barely bothered him anymore. He hugged his knees to his chest and watched as the remains of the sunset blazed out in a final show of pink and dusky blue before the night sky took over, the deepest, darkest blue with a near full moon casting half the sky with a ghostly light.

Writing it all had been much easier then saying it, and he had found that when he started he couldn't stop. Not till it was all free. Now he felt exhausted, but he couldn't sleep. He made the decision to stay there on the roof, where he could be alone to think, and their was a lot to think about.

He didn't go to bed that night, and missed it as the moon made its way in a graceful arc above his head. He was still in his own mind, having not moved all the night, as the sun peeked above the horizon.

He finally snapped back from his thoughts when the rising sun touched the roof and bathed him in early warmth. He looked up from his knees and breathed in deeply of the morning air. It tasted fresh, laced with the damp that made the dew. He felt so tired, even more then last night, but then he had a lot to think on, and sleep would have evaded him. He stood and stretched, loving the feeling as muscles pulled and joints cracked.

He began to climb down from the warming roof and headed to the dojo. He would sleep now. He stalked silently into the room and glanced at the sleeping bodies of its occupants. No one else was awake at this hour. He didn't bother to change as he slipped between the blankets and fell into troubled sleep. He needed all the rest he could get, tomorrow he was going against his nightmare, tomorrow was the trial.

Fade

Never to be good enough
All I do is wrong
Slowly turning cold and numb
My life sings a sad song

Always an embarrassment
Pride never meant when said
Guilty for every sin
Angry words replay in my head

I fade away to escape it
The shadows a haven when I'm alone
Darkness forms all around me
Till I become a forgotten, an unknown

Running away from my problems
Yet all I can do is walk
I feel the urges that pull me back
Away from the freedom I crave and stalk

I stop when I reach the middle
When the pull is as strong either way
It is here that I decide my fate
That in this world I can no longer stay

Rain falls from a heaven
Healing earth with life repaid
Yet even an angels tears
Cannot mend the wounds I've made

I cannot live my life as a lie
But Death will not claim my soul
I must now walk in both worlds
As neither will take me to hold

Haunted by my failures
A bit more of me disappears each day
And like the wind that never ceases
I will walk on till I find my way

I'll fade away in your background
Till the blade will part my soul
From your world my spirit fought
Empty freedom my only goal