The Secret Soldier

Chapter Four: Flowers (Part II)

By: Saikyou

AN

Well people, I officially only have two exams left! That means that I'll be able to update more because I'll have more time! But that also means more time to have writers blocks… Oh well, I shall write when I do but more that before. Hopefully, there will be a chapter update every week or so. Notice the key word in that sentence, hopefully.

Anyway there was a question in a review I received from makeyourselfduo.

Your Question: Why was Rose so surprised when she found out that Duo was Shingami when she had already met him?

My Answer: Rose was surprised because she didn't actually know that Duo was Shingami. All she knew was that whoever Shingami was, was the gundam Pilot of Gundam Deathscythe, thus the reason she was shocked. In other words, she wasn't expecting Duo, of all people, to be a gundam pilot, also the fact that he was her 'mysterious' online friend didn't help.

Does that answer your question?

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing! Or the song.

This chapter is dedicated to my friends family because of their terrible loses. I wish for you to have great strength to pull through this horrible thing as soon as possible.

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"The rhododendron means 'take care'." Rose said as she stood up and walked over to the dining table where the two flowers lay. Picking them up, she showed him the rhododendron.

"She's telling me to take care… Because she injured me? Or because of her mission?"

"Then the bittersweet, this one means 'truth'." She held out the bittersweet for Duo to see.

"That's the flower she was holding back there. She was holding a flower of truth, trying to indicate she wasn't lying…" his head shook slightly in annoyance. "I'm going back to my room…" Duo said slowly as he got up and headed to the door.

"Don't forget your flowers," the purple-blue-eyed female spoke up as she walked over to him and handed them over. "If you need anything, just come over." She said as she closed the door behind him.

"Very smart 02…" she said in a voice that sounded something like the one she had first spoken in when she was saving Duo. "It seems that this won't be as hard as I thought. You already figured out the deal with the flowers, but I have a feeling that you'll be coming back to me at a later date for help…" she walked to her bedroom where her computer was. "Sally was right… They are interesting…"

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Everyone just stared at the ground below. No one could believe what he or she was seeing. When could have this have been done? The only possible answer could be that groups of people worked very quickly and skillfully to do something like that.

But everyone knew who had done it, for there was only one person who would do it. And they were currently eating their lunch in the cafeteria.

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"Maxwell," Duo stopped and turned around at the sound of hearing his last name. "What exactly did you do?" Wufei asked as he caught up with the braided American.

"I didn't do anything!" his sudden reaction was as Wufei rolled his eyes.

"I'm talking about what was painted outside on the ground." He pointed out as Duo took down his defenses.

"I sent her a bunch of flowers from her 'secret admirer' and when she found out it was me, she got all pissy." Shrugging casually he slowed his pace down. "I'm going to bed." Turning towards their rooms, he entered the entrance on the other side of the dorm and began to casually stroll down the carpeted floor, ignoring the fact that he was leaving a trail of muddy footprints.

"I'm sorry, but you're looking for who?" Rose's voice came from through her door.

"Shingami, you probably know him as Duo Maxwell." A different voice responded loud and clear. That was what made Duo stop in front of her door. The fact she was talking about him, and the fact that the second voice was very familiar.

"Oh, sure I know him, he live in one of the rooms further down the hall way."

"Yes, but he doesn't appear to be there, would you mind delivering this to him for me?" the mystery person asked.

"Sure, that shouldn't be a problem. Is there a name you would like me to give with it?" the purple haired female asked, as there was a moment of silence.

"Yes… Tell him that an Angel of Light will always be watching over them…" there was a slight laugh.

"Them?"

"Yes, them. Now if you'll excuse me!" there was a suddenly swoosh followed by a thud, indicating that the person had just jumped out of the window.

"It's her." Quickly knocked on the door, there was a sudden mutter,

"What is it? Visit Rose day or something?" the door opened and she saw who it was. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"

"I heard my name." Was Duo's simply and truthful reply as Rose rolled her eyes.

"Ah, eves dropping I see…" the purple haired female sighed slightly as she stepped to the side. "Come in, come in." she muttered as she waved him into her room and he did so. "Here's your delivery Maxwell." Tossing an envelope at him, she crashed down onto her couch and watched him examine it slowly.

"A woman with brown hair and blue eyes gave this to you, right?" the braided male said as he looked up from the large brown envelope.

"Uh-huh." Was the calm reply as she cleaned her nails of dirt.

"I see." He spoke as he began to open it as he sat down on the floor in front of the coffee table.

"You could sit on a chair you know."

"Na, the floors more comfy." He shrugged as he dished out the contents onto the table.

"Whatever you say, so what's in there?" Rose looked up from her nails and inched forwards on the couch as she looked at the stuff.

"Two CD's, one labeled status and the other labeled images. A diskette labeled information and finally a wad of papers." Duo said as he sorted the stuff out as Rose grabbed the papers and turned the cover page over.

"I know what you're thinking, what the hell is all of this stuff for, but I'm positive you might find some of it interesting. There's information on the creation of the gundams and quick descriptions of the pilots to this day. Also, there's some data on myself that you will want to read and a bit more about my mission.

The printed pages after this contain information of the pilots and the missions they've done so far. On the floppy disk (or diskette as some call it), there's the information on me, but I've put passwords on the more important files, like information on my gundam. I'll warn you, even if you are a great hacker, it won't be easy to get past those firewalls that I created, so it would be safer for you to wait until I gave you the passwords. Finally the two CD's. On the CD which has images written on it, you'll find pictures of the gundams being created. So you'll see the frames, the gundaniam armor, the weapons, etc… being created. And the designs for the gundams should be there too. Then on the last CD, the one with status on it, you'll find a ton or two of information from data I've collected about the pilots missions since when they landed.

Have fun Shingami,

K. Mitsukai.

P.S – Oh yeah, I'm always watching so don't do anything stupid. Also, this girl, Rose, she'll be the one who I deliver packages like this through, so it's your choice to tell her or not." Silence hit the room suddenly as they both stopped. "Tell me what?" Rose asked slowly as she placed the paper she had just read down and Duo swallowed loudly.

"Well look at the time, I should be taking my stuff and going." Shoving the stuff back into the envelope, he stood up.

"You're a pilot, aren't you." He froze in his spot. "A gundam pilot that is." More silence. "And your four other friends, they're the pilots of the other fours gundams." His silence again confirmed what she was saying.

"Oh shit. She's going to go tell everyone now and then the guy's will blame me and Heero will kill her. Greeeeeat." He mentally sighed as he waited for her to say something, but what she said was not what he expected.

"Your secret is safe with me. I'll take a guess that if your friends found out I knew they would blame me and then I would get killed or something, right?" Rose laughed with a smile on her face as she stood up.

"Yeah." Duo forced out a laugh, he didn't need to tell her how right she was when she was just joking.

"Now," she grabbed his arm and began to drag him down the hallway of the rooms. "We have some work to do." Kicking open the door furthest down the hall, she turned the lights on in the room to reveal a large computer system. Duo whistled.

"Nice." He had to admit it was pretty good for a girl to have a piece of equipment like this.

"Didn't take me long to make, only about a week or so." She sat down on the computer chair with wheels and moved the mouse. The blank screen turned on to reveal a rather clean desktop with a picture of a dark red rose tilted to the left and a black gun titled to the right to make an 'X' shape because they were crossing.

"Er… Interesting background…" he sat down on the chair next to her.

"I'll explain, that gun was my mothers', okay? And my parents both loved roses, thus the reason for the background." The purple-blue eyed female explained as she grabbed the envelope and took the CD's and the floppy disk out. "Now, the fun begin."

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"I can't believe this." Duo yawned as he stretched her arms into the air. He was sitting at the cafeteria with a laptop in front of him and an empty cup of coffee next to the laptop on the table was lying on its side.

"You can't believe what?" someone asked, making the braided American jump slightly, seeing as he wasn't expecting to see anyone around at this time.

"Quatre, what are you doing up at… 6:30?" he checked the clock on the laptop. He couldn't call it his, because he didn't own it.

"Duo, you of all people should know I'm an early riser." The blond smiled slightly as he walked around to the other side of the table and sat down in the chair opposite him. "I'm more surprised to see you awake, because you're the one who normally complains about having to wake up early." Quatre laughed slightly as Duo's eyebrow twitched.

"Ah," he yawned out. "Shaddup."

"Now, what are you doing this early in the morning, I doubt it's homework or anything to do with this school."

"Like hell I would do homework…" was muttered out slowly.

"So what are you doing with that laptop? I didn't even know you had a laptop." The Arabian spoke clearly and in a wide-awake tone as he crossed his arms on the table and lent on them a bit.

"Well yeah, it's not my laptop is it?" he snorted.

"Duo, you didn't steal it, did you?"

"No, no, I've been given permission to borrow it technically. I wouldn't sit still in that room anymore so she gave me her and the diskette to work on…" Duo replied as he rubbed his eyes slightly, grabbed the empty coffee cup, looking in it, cursed about it being empty and then chucked it on the floor.

"What's on the diskette and whose letting you borrow the laptop?" Maybe he had misheard Duo when he was speaking about the laptop because he could have sworn that his friend was telling him that a girl gave him her laptop because he wouldn't sit still any longer.

"Information on Kiyoi," Was the violet-eyed males' simple reply as he yawned once again. "'Bout her mission," yawn. "Her training," yawn. "What she specialises in," yawn. "And the last thing what I can't get into."

"Which would be?" Who was this person?

"The info about…"

"Merry Christmas." A large cup with a hand holding onto it lowered down in front of his face and his hands automatically grabbed it a he sniffed the small drinking hole.

"What took you so long?" Duo complained after taking a gulp of two of the hot liquid in his cup.

"Do you know how hard it is to convince the people in Starbucks to make a tall double expresso?" they complained back as they walked to the right side of the square table and pulled out the chair. "Not very easy Maxwell."

"So how did you get it? Pull out a knife and demand it or go on the other side of the counter after causing some havoc outside and make it yourself?" he paused for a moment. "Of course, you would still pay like a law abiding citizen."

"Actually, I did none of those." Placing the cup holder down onto the table, they sat down as well. "I simply told them that you were trying to beat the world record of staying up for so many days strait and you were starting to loose it and needed a jolt to wake you up." Smiling slightly, they nodded.

"Interesting idea, but I doubt that it would work at any other time of day, but what worked, worked, right Rose?" the American said as he began to drink his expresso.

"Very true." She turned. "Good morning Winner, I figured you would be awake by now so I got you a normal coffee, seeing as I don't know what you like." Rose said as she handed him one of the drinks on the cup holder, grabbed the last drink and then tossed the holder where Duo's old coffee cup had landed.

"You two seem…" he stopped as he thought of a word. "Friendlier." Quatre nodded mentally.

"That's what happens when you have mystery people popping into your room, giving you a delivery for Maxwell, leaving. Then in the next moment Maxwell is at your door and asking about who the person was. Then he opens the envelope and you read a letter for him on a piece of paper which basically makes you realise that the braided baka has something to do with the gundams. And then when you think about it, he actually is one of the pilots." Quatre was the only one of the two males who stopped drinking and looked up.

"She knows? But how?" his eyes glanced over at Duo who was doing something on the laptop. "Maybe he didn't hear, because if he did he would have…" his thought was suddenly cut off by the words,

"And so are you." The purple haired female grinned as she watched him choke slightly on what he was drinking.

"You speak to much you know." Duo replied as calmly as ever (AN - surprise surprise) as he typed something into the laptop and it beeped a few moments after he pressed the enter key.

"I get it all from you." She sipped her frappachino slowly as she used her free hand to rub Quatre's back. "All right?"

"I'll be fine." He sat up properly. "And as you should know, I've been through much worse." That's when Duo stopped and looked up.

"You're making jokes. The world is coming to an end." He blinked.

"No, if Heero made jokes, Trowa spoke a lot, Wufei wore glasses and was a scholar, Quatre was into fighting games and you were serious. Then the world would come to an end." Rose explained calmly as she grabbed the laptop and turned the screen towards her. "I see she was right." The five words snapped Duo back into reality as he realized what she was talking about.

"Yeah, I was able to start breaking down the first firewall, but it appeared that halfway through destroying it I accidentally started a program that reconstructed the wall in five minutes and then completely disappeared." The brunette explained as he placed his cup down, due to the fact it was empty, and he was fully awake once again.

"You didn't start it." She scrolled down in all of the data to the firewall that she had gotten onto. Stopping suddenly, she used a pen from her pocket and circled something on the screen as she drank her frappachino. "That did." Turning the screen for Duo to see, she lent back. "So Quatre, want an explanation?"

"That would be nice, seeing as Duo is currently occupied." They both glanced over at Duo who was glaring at the screen and muttering something about trying to figure out how the program worked. "Go ahead."

"Simply, this all started yesterday, you remember how you helped me drag Duo upstairs? Well apparently, that was because this Kiyoi person knocked him out while he was on a mission after saving him. So she left two flowers, a rhododendron and a bittersweet. She was simply saying 'take care and I was telling the truth'.

So, yesterday afternoon, some person comes through my window as if it was normal and asks me where Shingami is. Of course I didn't know at the time who Shingami was, so then she told me Duo and then I knew him. She gave me a large brown envelope with the name Angel of Light and the message 'an Angel of Light will always be watching over them' and then jumped out the window.

That's when Duo knocked on my door and I gave him the package. Inside were two CD's, a floppy disk and a wad of paper. By the way, the CD's and the papers are in my locked room, so no one should be able to get them. Anyway, I picked up the papers and read this letter that was meant for Duo and then found out a few moments after reading the letter that he was a gundam pilot and that you guys, you, Heero, Trowa and Wufei were the other four pilots.

Then from there, I dragged Duo into my computer room and we started to go onto the CD's and crap, blah blah blah. He was itching to get out of the room after a couple of hours so I gave him my laptop and he took off to work on the floppy disk. About an hour ago I came in here and found him working so I offered to go get coffee and I did. So here we are. Any questions?" the spiky purple haired female explained in a few minutes with a sip of her frappachino now and then.

"Why did this Kiyoi person leave flowers?" Quatre asked slowly, it was something that was confusing him slightly.

"Well, instead of leaving a note which anyone could read, I presume that she's leaving flowers and as you might know, different flowers have different meanings. Basically, by leaving certain flowers, she's leaving messages." Nodding slightly, she stretched her arms into the air. "But that brings up the problem."

"Problem?"

"Yeah, every time we get flowers means there's a message, meaning we'll need her to tell us what they mean." Duo spoke up as he turned his attention away from the screen. "But then what happens if the message is something that's warning us about something else coming, but because we don't know what it means, we can't do anything and it's game over."

"Ah."

"So basically, we've thought up the idea that I teach Duo all I can about flower meanings seeing as I know a lot about them." Rose explained slowly as she leant forwards on the table. "Though to do that, Maxwell's going to either have to skip classes or change his schedule to work with mine."

"He's not going to skip classes, we'll ask Miss. Relena to have his schedule changed to work with yours." The purple haired female twitched slightly.

"Ah yes, Relena. She was Darlian's adopted daughter, but she's actually a Peacecraft." She spoke slowly as she drummed her fingers on the table a bit. "Yes, have her do that." The female nodded slowly as she stood up. "I'm going back to my room to freshen up. Quatre could you get the classes changed before classes start this morning?"

"I'll try." The Arabian said with a slightly nod as he then sipped some of his coffee.

"Thanks. Duo, my first class is this afternoon with all of you guys; it's History I believe. Bring my laptop with you, I'm going to want to start getting down the meanings of flowers I know. Ja ne." with a two finger wave, she turned on heel and headed towards the doors to exit the cafeteria, leaving the two males alone.

"You're not going to tell the other guys in case they kill you."

"Yup."

"Thought so."

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"Excuse me, Miss. Relena!" the light brown haired female slowed her pace as she turned around to find Quatre jogging after her.

"What is it?" she questions calmly not knowing what to expect for an answer.

"I would like to request something of you." Relena nodded and waited for him to continue. "Would it be possible to had Duo's and my schedule's changed to match Rose Marisha-Ten's please?" he asked politely as she smiled. "If I go to the classes with them, we'll explain to the guys that I found out Duo switched classes so he could get her back for what she did so I switched classes to make sure Duo didn't do anything stupid…"

"Of course, but is there any pacific reason why you're suddenly wanting to switch classes?" the blue eyed female looked at her watch. "Would you mind if we walked? I need to get to a meeting."

"Of course," the two began to walk next to each other at a good pace. "And the reason has something to do with why we're here. Duo and I think there's something suspicious about Miss. Rose, so we decided to keep an eye on her."

"I see…" the Peacecraft spoke slowly with an ever so slight nod. "I'll have your classes changed for tomorrow." Stopping at a door, she placed her hand on the doorknob. "Oh yes, would you please inform your friends that morning classes have been cancelled because of the staff meeting? There's a meeting every month, we normally send a notice out to the students a week before, but because you only arrive this Monday, you never received it."

"Okay, thank you." Quatre smiled as he walked off and Relena entered the room.

"Good morning everyone," she spoke as she took her seat at the head of the table. "I'm glad to see that you're all here, now to get to business, are there any certain concerns at the moment."

"Vandalism." A female teacher with rectangular glasses spoke up. She had dark brown eyes and mid-back length strawberry blond hair which was being held in two braids. "A large black rose with the words 'revenge is sweet' was painted on the ground by the schools' main entrance." The history teacher explained with a slight nod.

Oh, this was going to be a long meeting…

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"Hana no youni hakanai no nara, Kimi no moto de saki hokoru deshou, Soshite egao mitodoketa ato, Sotto hitori chitte yuku deshou…"

Everyone in the classroom looked up to find the source of the singing, looking at their classmates to see if it was one of them. But no, it was someone who was passing the classroom.

"Who the hell would be in a good enough mood to sing in this place?" Duo grumbled as he took his seat next to Quatre. Taking out the laptop he opened it and turned it on.

"Duo, you can be in any mood to sing." The blond pointed out slowly.

"Kimi ga zetsubou to iu nano fuchi ni tatasare Soko de mita keshiki wa donna mono datta no darou…"

"Whoever it is has a very strange choice in songs to sing."

"What would you know about music, huh?"

"More than you most likely."

"You want to bet?"

"Acting like a five year old again I see Maxwell." The feud between Duo and Wufei came to a sudden stop. "And you Chang, I expected you to be the type to not fight about something so stupid." Rose spoke as she took her seat next to Duo, seeing as it was either there or right in the front.

"And you speak as if you know me." Wufei replied in a calm tone, he wasn't up with fighting with yet another woman.

"Maybe I do." Duo's heart suddenly skipped a beat as he heard those words. Wufei lent forwards on her desk and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "But then again, who would want to know someone like you Chang?" she moved the mouse of her laptop and the blank screen changed to her desktop.

"Good afternoon class, sorry I'm late." The strawberry blond haired teacher said quickly as she entered the classroom and walked over to her desk. "The staff meeting ran longer than I expected and then half way here, I realized that I had forgotten something for class."

"Don't worry about it Miss. Sears," a girl with black hair in the front of the class spoke up. "You never mind if we're ten minutes later for class as long as we have a good reason." She chuckled slightly.

"Thank you Miss. Reynolds, now class, we'll just be recapping a bit about what we learnt last week so that our six new students can learn what you already know." Miss. Sears said as most of the students opened notebooks, but a few took out laptops and plugged them in. "Alright, let's see… Can someone tell me when the first construction of a colony was started?" Quatre raised his hand immediately, followed by a couple of other students. "Ah, Mr. Winner, you seem to know the answer, please share."

"After Colony 020, the construction of the first space colony began at the Lagrange point 1, also known as L1."

"That is correct, would anyone like to add onto that?" all hands went down at this question. "Come now, I remember giving you all this note." Still no hands. "No one? Then I guess I'll have to choose someone. Ah yes, Mr. Maxwell, because you didn't get to answer your question the other day, why don't you try to answer this." Duo gulped. This was one of the many reasons why he hated school because they expected answer strait off, if he was given a little time he could most likely make some answer up.

"Uhm…" he fiddled with the end of his hair as he racked his brains, G must have mentioned something like this before…

Flashback

"Do you understand?" a male with gray hair asked the brunette who sat at a table with a notebook.

"Uh-huh…" was the boys response.

"Then repeat what I just said."

"You said something about some colony and how the colony was something by using something, or something like that." The purple-eyed boy said as he continued to doodle on the paper.

"Boy, it's important that you know the history of the colonies, so pay attention!" he snapped with annoyance.

"Whatever you say G 'ol buddy 'ol pal." Duo responded, he then looked up form what he was doing and saw the look on the professor's face. "I'm uh… Going go er… Place… Uhm… Bathroom!" the braided boy suddenly dashed off, while in the process, he knocked over the chair he had currently occupied.

"That boy is useless when you try to make him study…" G muttered slowly as he watched the pilot of 02 run away.

End

"Mr. Maxwell, we're waiting." The brown-eyed teacher spoke calmly, bringing Duo out of his flashback.

"Well…" he slurred it out as to waste more time.

"Achoo!" Rose's sneeze broke the moment of silence as Duo looked over at her and then noticed something. "Excuse me."

"The uh… Colony at L1 was based on the er… Results of research that were conducted at a permanent space station… Yea…"

"Very good Duo. I've had a sudden idea though." The teacher in the room sounded happy as she announced it.

"We're going to…"

"Took you long enough to notice the screen." The purple haired female muttered under her breath as she deleted the words that Duo had used for an answer. "I mean, it was only in size 36 font, on bold and underlined…"

"To do that we're going to have…"

"How was I supposed to know you were going to do that, huh?" Duo asked back in slight annoyance. "You could have tapped me, or kicked me under the table, but no, you had decided to let me try and notice myself."

"You all should know…"

"I thought you're supposed to be observing everything around you and notice things, because you're a pilot that is." Rose shot back.

"I ain't perfect you know!" he grumbled in response.

"Now let's start, because only six of you don't have partners and only one of you is a female, I'll have to just pair you up according to what I learnt from the quiz we had the other day…"

"Would you two be quiet, I'm trying to listen." Quatre whispered to the two that were fighting quickly and they fell silent.

"What she doing?" Rose asked suddenly in a hushed voice.

"Pairing the six of us up with a partner for a project, I'll inform you about the rest later." The female mouthed a thanks and Quatre nodded.

"Well, we'll have Heero and Wufei paired up," Wufei was thanking any spirit he could think of for not being paired up with Duo.

"Hn…" Heero nodded ever so slightly.

"Then we'll have Quatre and Trowa paired up," the two just silently nodded. "And finally, Duo and Rose."

"What?" the two suddenly shouted at the same time.

"Why her?" the braided brunette asked quickly, where as Rose was just playing the part of being annoyed.

"Because Mr. Maxwell, out of the six new students, you scored the lowest on that quiz from the other day, where as Miss. Marisha-Ten scored the same mark as Quatre for second highest in the class." Miss. Sears explained calmly as she began to tidy up her things.

"Who scored the highest Ma'am?" a guy in the middle of the class asked.

"I was actually surprised to find it was one of the new students, it was actually Wufei, he had quite some answers." She said with a smile on her face. "And because I want this project for next week Tuesday, you all are dismissed now so you can start to work on it. Good day." And with that she walked right out of the classroom.

"Peachy, real peachy…" Duo grumbled out slowly.

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AN –

Well, that was chapter four for you. Okay, I know the title is a bit weird, but there is only one more part to 'Flowers', well, depending on how much I write next time that is.

Wufei actually does wear glasses and is a scholar as explained in episode zero, it was said as a side note that if he ever planned to become a scientist like J, G, H, S and O, that he would put them to shame. Funny, eh?

Then the song is by Hamasaki Ayumi, it's called Moments. I find it's the best song that suits this fic, so you'll most likely see it again, either in Japanese or English.

Well, 'till next I update,

Saikyou Z.