A/N: Here is the next chapter of this one! Hope you all like it! Please review and let me know what you think.

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The Final Piece
Chapter Six

"Suffer?" Goh repeated. "Himeno, this doesn't sound pretty. Just attack her, already!"

"I can't!" she screamed. "My family…"

Yayoi laughed. "Yes, Himeno. Your family is going to die. But not before you have suffered…" she added in a threatening tone, her eyes gleaming over with hatred.

"There's that 'suffer' word again, Himeno…" Goh worried. "What exactly is she talking about?" He was silent a moment. "If she tries to hurt you, I will protect you, Himeno. Don't worry about that…"

"Undo the Pret, Goh." Himeno demanded sternly.

"What? No!"

"What? No!" Kei's voice echoed what Himeno could already hear inside her head.

"Undo the Pret, Goh, or I will figure out a way to do it myself!" she yelled. "Get out! I didn't want you getting hurt…and I don't plan on letting you now. This is too dangerous!"

"That is exactly why the Pret is a good thing!" Kei scolded. "Himeno, you'll end up getting hurt!"

She turned to him. "I know, but you won't!" She paused, and took a deep breath. "Goh, get out." She repeated one final time. "Please?" she added at the end.

In a few seconds, the Pret was undone and Goh was out, standing in-between Kei and Himeno. He looked flustered, but did not say a word.

"Get away, you guys…" Himeno said, her voice low. Her fists were balled up tight, and her eyes were cast down towards the ground. "Leave here so she can't hurt anyone else."

"But you will…"

"Go!"

After looking back several times, the two leafe knights shook their heads in turn, and stayed where they were. Even if Himeno did not want them to Pret with her and help protect her, they could at least still aid in the fighting that was to come. After all, it was their jobs as leafe knights to destroy the Princess of Disaster…so they weren't about to leave Himeno alone with her.

"We are staying, Himeno." Said Kei in a tone of voice that dripping with finality. "You can be mad at us all you want later, but we aren't going anywhere right now. Got it?"

Himeno frowned and groaned under her breath.

Yayoi still stood, surveying the scene in front of her with a wide spirk playing across her face.

"What do you want, Yayoi?" asked Himeno in a defeated tone, for the second or third time since she had started talking to her.

"Himeno!"

Himeno paled. She heard the one voice she was hoping she would not hear until she got back to Leafenia. But she was wrong, and Yayoi had been right. He came to her…straight to her. And now he was in danger, just like everyone else.

She took a deep breath. "Stay back, Hayate!" she warned. "It's me she wants! I don't want you getting hurt!"

"That's stupid, Himeno! It's part of our jobs as Leafe knights to protect you! We're bound to get hurt sometimes! It's something that can not be helped! Why are you so worried about it all of a sudden?" Hayate demanded. "Why won't you let us help you?"

Yayoi began to laugh. "You really are clueless about everything, aren't you, Hayate?" she grinned at him. "Should I tell him, Himeno?" she whispered. "It would make for an interesting plot twist…"

"This isn't one of your books, Yayoi! This is real! This is real people's lives that you are playing with!" Himeno growled her response.

"What is she talking about, Himeno?" asked Hayate, a look of confusion on his face. Himeno, rather than answer him, only shook her head back and forth.

"It's best that you not know," Kei told him. "Do not pay attention to a word that this girl Yayoi says. She's just trying to break us down, and she's hurt Himeno's family…but she hasn't made a die-hard attempt at attack yet…"

Hayate blinked. "I still don't know what's going on!" he yelled.

Himeno took several steps forward. Her head was bowed as she looked at the bodies of her family members. Kei had offered to give them some leafe, but the leafe had not help at all. They still laid exactly where she had dropped them, completely motionless. She took another deep breath. "Yayoi, please. Please stop hurting my family and friends. If it is me that you want…"

"Himeno? What the hell are you doing that for? Why are you giving up?" Hayate demanded, running forward. However, for reasons unknown to him, Kei pulled him back.

"I'm not giving up," she whispered. "I'm offering a trade. I can't go through this again…and I want my family to be safe. Even moving to Leafenia didn't help that…" she admitted to herself.

Yayoi laughed even more. "I have already told you, Himeno! I do not want to kill you! I want to make you suffer! You will wish for death, but it will never come…"

Himeno took a step back. "All of this…?" she stammered.

Yayoi nodded. "Yes, Himeno…"

"You're over reacting, Yayoi!" Himeno yelled. "Don't do this! Please, don't hurt them!"

"Hurt who?" frowned Hayate. "What's going on?"

"Yayoi has been threatening Himeno with hurting you since she got here." Goh blurted, and Kei hit him in the side of the head.

"You idiot!" Kei yelled.

Hayate blinked. "Why in the hell would this girl be threatening my life?" he demanded. "What's going on? It would be nice if I knew even a little bit!" he frowned deeply.

Kei sighed deeply. He knew that they could no longer stand idly by as Himeno wanted them to. He knew that they would have to help her fight. And he knew that there was no merit in hiding the truth anymore…

He coughed. "Hayate…Himeno is in love with you. She has been for a while. She told me herself. That's why she doesn't want you to get hurt. That's why she wants us to stay away from Yayoi. She told me…but she didn't know that Yayoi already knew about her feelings. She wasn't supposed to know…no one was…and now she is using it against Himeno. " He finished.

Hayate paled. "That's…that's why she doesn't want us to help her fight?" he gasped. "Because she…she's in love with me?" he whispered, and Kei nodded.

"But don't tell her you…" began Goh.

Hayate cut him off. He was running to Himeno. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her towards him. "Stop it!" he yelled. She looked shocked, but he continued anyway. "I do not want you to go through all of this. There will be no trading…and no compromises. She is the Princess of Disaster, and she hurt your family. You are not just going to give up because of me. I won't have it. Do you understand?" Hayate chided her.

Himeno gasped, and blinked several times. "But Hayate, I…" she began.

"Let's Pret, Himeno." Hayate held out his hand, again cutting off someone's sentence as he did so. "Let's Pret, and we'll defeat her together. Then the two of us can continue this little talk we are having…"

"But I…"

"You can not do this alone, Himeno. No matter how much you want to, you cannot. I want to help you, so why don't you just let me?" Hayate continued.

Himeno seemed to be thinking about this a moment. Yayoi studied the two of them with interest, although for some reason, she did not attack. Himeno looked from her to Hayate and back again before slowly reaching out her hand to him.

He smiled. "Are you ready?" he whispered.

Himeno nodded. "Let's do it," she took his hand in hers.

A few seconds later, the wind Pretear was standing in front of Yayoi. Himeno still looked nervous, but now, with Hayate, she was stronger and more confident than she had been on her own.

She looked back at Goh and Kei. "Guys, please tend to my family for me. Take them into the house where it is safe and watch over them until we return…"

The two leafe knights nodded, and rushed to Himeno's fallen family members. Himeno kept her attention on Yayoi, who was no longer smiling.

"Are you ready to finally end this?" smiled Hayate.

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A/N: Wow, I just love those cliffies! Hope you liked this chapter! If you review, I will try and update soon:D