Chapter One

Not Knowing What to Make of Things

It was familiar.

The smell of gunpowder was on the breeze as weapons fire rang out in all directions, and the air was thick with dust. The broken pavement and pockmarked earth was covered with haphazardly laid out obstacles for him to overcome. Low walls of sandbags, broken lines of razor wire, destroyed and burning vehicles.

It was familiar.

Sousuke Sagara was running across the uneven terrain, the feel of his Gore-Tex lined combat boots striking the rocks and dirt was normal to him. The protective vest that he wore felt no heavier to him than a sweater. In his right hand was the comfortable weight of the G-36 assault rifle that Kurz Webber had given him for his last birthday. In his left hand…

This was not familiar.

There was an irregular tugging at his left arm as he ran. He felt as though he were pulling something behind him. He felt something warm grasped within his fingers, something that was grasping back. Something he knew that he did not want to let go of. He looked over his shoulder to see what he was pulling behind him.

He saw the frightened face of a teenaged girl. Her blue hair was a mess and her face was covered in smudges and a small cut on her nose. Her brown eyes were darting around slightly, but mostly were looking at him.

What the hell is she doing here? The rounds zipped past them, and Sousuke knew it wouldn't be much longer before those little pieces of metal found their mark.

His heart was racing. The young soldier felt fear, fear that she would be hurt.

He could detect movement nearby. Enemy soldiers, firing what sounded exactly like AK-47s. They were in an increasingly precarious position, but he knew that if they just made it a little farther, everything would be fine. A violent explosion reverberated through the ground as the wind pushed him. Somebody had just fired an RPG, shattering a nearby truck. But they were almost there, now. They only needed to avoid the enemy for just a bit longer, then they would be safe. It was so close, he could almost taste it.

Something was wrong. His left hand was empty. Looking behind, he saw her on the ground. She was struggling to get up, but couldn't.

Skidding to a stop, Sousuke began to run back to help her. He was more terrified than he ever remembered being in his life.

She was calling to him, but he couldn't hear her voice. He called for her to hold on, that he was coming to help her, but he seemed to be moving so slowly. She froze as her eyes seemed to catch something behind him. He turned and watched as a man wearing Soviet camouflage walked slowly past him, AK-47 leveled at the girl before him.

Sousuke tried even harder to get to her, but as fast as he ran, he gained no ground. "Kaname!" he called, now becoming desperate, "Kaname, run!"

She watched with wide eyes as the Russian soldier approached. He was only a few steps away from her now. Raising the G-36 that he held to his shoulder, Sousuke pulled the trigger. Nothing. Frantically he checked the weapon and again attempted to fire, still to no avail.

Looking at the scene before him again, he felt as though his heart stopped when he saw the man pull the charging handle on his weapon, sending a round into the firing chamber. "Kaname!" he called again, his throat starting to hurt, "You have to run!"

She turned toward him, and their eyes met. He could see fear that he had never expected to see in those eyes and tears that made his heart cold. Sousuke reached his hand out as far as he could, and he saw her reach toward him.

Flash, flash, flash.

Everything was silent. He heard nothing, but he didn't need to hear. His mind desperately didn't want to believe.

As the rounds struck her back, the expression she wore changed. The fear seemed to dissipate, and her eyes seemed to loose their focus on him. Kaname slowly sank to the soil, her face gently came to rest on the earth.

Sousuke couldn't breathe. He couldn't think straight. He saw the lifeless form of Kaname Chidori, and he felt completely without hope. He just felt like screaming.

0312 Local Time

Tokyo, Japan

Sousuke Sagara's Apartment

"Kaname!"

Sousuke quickly found himself back on the floor as the pain in his head increased sharply. The military style cot that he had been sleeping under, as was his habit, lay on its side nearby, and the young soldier held a hand to his forehead where its metal frame had made contact, slamming a fist onto the floor with the other.

"Damn it..." he growled to himself, noticing a tight, sort of scratchy feeling in his throat. Was I yelling in my sleep? Why would I do something like…? His thoughts trailed off as the memories of his nightmare flashed across his mind's eye.

Kaname.

He suddenly felt very nauseous. Sitting up to go to the bathroom, his head seemed ready to explode, and he decided that the floor was the better choice.

Why would I dream something like that? He had experienced bad nightmares before, of course, but it had been several years since one had affected him for more than a few moments after waking. This was easily the worst he'd ever had.

After several minutes of Sousuke trying to calm himself, and trying to get the images from his dream out of his brain, he finally felt as though the pain had subsided enough to stand. Gingerly getting up from the floor, he slowly made his way to the sink, and filled a glass with water. He slowly took a few sips as he pulled a bottle of aspirin out.

Making his way over to the windows, Sousuke looked out across the space between his building and the one opposite. He looked at the unlit windows of Kaname Chidori's apartment.

He wanted to make sure she was there, to ensure that she was safe and sound, but he knew that was foolish. There was no reason to believe she was in any danger and it would just make her angry for waking her. It was only his irrational emotions trying to override his reason.

He would see her in a few hours when they went to school. Sousuke decided that he would wait until then.

Taking another drink of his water, wishing the pills he had just taken would hurry and kill the pain in his head, he realized that it would be impossible for him to go back to sleep. He was far too agitated.

Moving back away from the window, he made the decision to clean and oil the G-36 that Kurz had given him. Just in case.

1602 (4:02 PM) Local Time

Tokyo, Japan

Jindai High School

The bell had rung just a few moments before, and Kaname Chidori was putting the last of her history notes into her bag. It had been a difficult day for her, the most tiring that she had endured in a long time. Of course, the source of all her troubles would have been impossible for any observer to miss.

Sousuke had been acting strangely all day. From the moment that she stepped out of her building that morning, he had been zealously over-protective of her. It was almost worse than when he first arrived at their school and he hadn't known any better.

He had threatened a man on the train to school, hit a punk from another high school with a Taser before Kaname had even realized that he was there. He forced her to the other side of the street when he saw a suspicious package laying next to a building they walked past on a regular basis, then detonated the package with a grenade. He even tried to get her to put a Taser gun in her pocket! And all this was before they even made it to school. The day just went downhill from there.

She glanced over at the source of her agony, and noticed him staring at her with a strange look in his eyes. His features instantly went neutral when he saw her look his way, but she knew that she had seen it. It was the same look that made her feel a little weird when they met first thing that morning, and the same look that she had noticed periodically throughout the day when he thought she wasn't paying any attention.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to stay at your place tomorrow night, Kana?" Kyoko Tokiwa smiled brightly as stood next to Kaname.

"Of course," she replied with a smile of her own, "We'll stop and get something to eat on the way home tomorrow, too, okay?"

"Okay," the pigtailed girl said as she patted her best friends back, "Good luck with Sousuke. See you tomorrow!" She was halfway out the door before Kaname thought to ask what that was supposed to mean. Glancing back at the cause of her exasperation, she saw him swiping his hand across his bag, getting every last piece of dust off of its surface.

Something was definitely up, and she wanted to know what it was. After all, whatever was bothering him had made her day into a hell. Most of the other students had left the classroom already, and Sousuke was obviously waiting for her to move first.

Sighing and silently asking God "Why me?" for the hundredth time that day, the blue haired girl picked up her book bag and left the room. As she expected, Sousuke was hot on her trail. This was just one more indication that something was wrong, since he had stopped walking behind her months ago. The fact that he wasn't beside her just added to her suspicions that something was wrong with him.

Standing silently in the train, she pretended to ignore Sousuke out of irritation that he hadn't told her what was going on. For his part, he just sat about three meters away, pretending to read the same damn newspaper that he had used when he first spied on her. The soccer player pictured on the front page seemed to mock her.

Getting off the train, she gritted her teeth as the black haired soldier followed her. Finally having had enough, she stopped suddenly, turned, and rushed him.

Sousuke was obviously at a loss as to what was actually happening, because he had his pistol out looking everywhere but at her, probably thinking she had seen a sniper or something. She easily caught him off balance when she grabbed his collar with both hands and began shaking.

"I don't know what the hell your problem is today," all her irritation and stress was flowing out in a torrent, "but I want to know right now! Tell me what is going on!"

"K-Kaname?" he sputtered as his head whipped back and forth, "I don't…"

"Sousuke…" she growled threateningly as her hand dove into his jacket and reappeared with a stun gun, "This may be non-lethal, but I will find a way to kill you with it!"

With wide eyes, Sousuke made his decision when he saw the electrical arc from the stun gun reflected in her eyes, "I can't tell you out here. We need to go somewhere secure from eavesdropping."

Her temper cooling marginally, she let go of his collar. As he adjusted his neckline and swallowed several times, she flatly spoke as she picked up her book bag, "Fine, we'll go up to my place."

Sousuke, feeling like he had just avoided a hail of bullets, took a deep breath and began to follow her. That breath caught uncomfortably in his throat as she spun on him again, waving the stun gun in his face, "I am not going to fix you dinner!"

0847 Zulu (5:47 PM Tokyo)

30 KM off the Eastern coast of North Korea

Depth 150 Meters

Bridge of the Tuatha de Daanan

Teletha Testarosa was quietly listening to the pass down from Commander Mardukas as she prepared to come on watch. Usually such a thing didn't take very long, but with the joint training going on in South Korea, and the heightened state of alert by the North Koreans, things were quite a bit busier than usual in their area of operations.

It wasn't an inconvenience to her, however. She saw this as an excellent opportunity for training. Since the Tuatha de Daanan was easily the most advanced submarine in the world, it was difficult for her to find real challenges for her crew to hone their skills on. The best she could normally do was to play cat and mouse with the occasional American submarine that came through her waters, but even that was about as difficult for her ship as it was to talk and make a sandwich at the same time.

This joint exercise was making her life a little more interesting. Japan, America, Britain, and Australia had sent fleets to South Korea for the naval part of the joint training. With such a large force of ships in such a small area, the de Daanan had little difficulty finding adversaries to pit itself against.

Still, even against so many ships, it all seemed too easy. For once, she found herself wishing that she had not designed the de Daanan so well. They had to try to be detected before anything would happen.

It wasn't all bad, however. Eavesdropping had its moments. Seeing just how close she could get the ship to the keel of the USS Abraham Lincoln (it turned out to be 24 meters). She had even surfaced the ship amidst a British battle group in the middle of a moonless night for 13 minutes. She popped a dorsal hatch close to the bridge and stuck her head out into the cool ocean breeze to accentuate the event. All in all, it had been a very fun and exciting few days for the young captain. She was a little sad it would be over soon.

"…and the Dallas is somewhere in this sector, though we haven't seen her in three hours. She seemed to be searching for Soviet submarines in the area," finished Commander Richard Mardukas, her second in command, referring to an American attack sub. He had been explaining their situation to her for almost half an hour, giving her all the information he had that might be pertinent during her watch.

"Thank you, Mr. Mardukas," she said as she handed back to him the logs and maps he had been reviewing with her, "I have the bridge. Go get some rest, Commander. I'll see you in ten hours."

"Good night, ma'am," he replied, then made his way to the hatch at the back of the bridge. Just before he reached to open it, however, another man stepped through.

Lt. Commander Andrey Kalinin stepped onto the bridge, giving a respectful nod to Mardukas, and receiving one in return as they passed each other. Kalinin was the head of the ground forces that made their home on de Daanan. All of the arm slaves, ground troops, and the helicopters that supported them were under his command. Technically, they were hers, but she tended to defer to his judgment on such things.

"Madame Captain," he greeted her in his usual hard, cool voice, "I have the intelligence report ready. I apologize for the delay."

"It's not like you to be late, Mr. Kalinin," she smiled slightly, indirectly telling him not to worry about it, "If you don't mind my asking, what held you?"

"It was actually something in the report," he replied, pointing to one of the reports in the file, "It doesn't bear any relevance to our current situation, but it was bothering me. I was late because I was attempting to gather more information about it. I believe you'll find it interesting as well."

Tessa scanned over the document. "Komsomolsk? There's a great deal of military related industry there, if I remember correctly."

"That is correct," Kalinin affirmed, "The city is a quite important component for Soviet defense infrastructure. Not vital from what we can tell, but it is important. They are very secretive about what they have there."

"In the last eight hours they have moved in several battalions of infantry and armor," she said, more to herself than to him, "Estimated 20, 000 men? What could they be doing there that would require such a mobilization on such short notice? There's no reason to conduct training in the middle of an industrial city like this." She looked up at the grey haired soldier, "They can't be doing this in response to the joint training in Korea, or they would have done this days ago. This makes no sense. Why would they send a force like this to Komsomolsk when it would just disrupt the city's industrial complex?"

"If you look at the satellite images of the area," he suggested, "you might partially answer your last question."

Forgetting all the other intelligence data on the Korean operations and the allied fleets, Tessa now saw why Kalinin had been so interested in this. Two photographs were paper clipped to the report, photos that were taken by spy satellite just a few hours before. Both were the same picture, but lines and labels had been added to one so the viewer would know what they were looking at.

The image was of Komsomolsk and the surrounding area. Judging by the relatively low resolution of the picture, she knew it was not taken by a Mithril satellite, nor was it American. Possibly one of the European nations…but that wasn't really important at the moment.

The young officer stared at the image for only a few moments before she spoke, "They aren't even in the city. They look like they've set up a defensive perimeter around it. But why would they do that? Is it some kind of exercise?"

The older officer grunted slightly, "That's what I suspected at first as well. Look closely at the line they have formed around the city."

Unsure what she was looking for, she squinted as her grey eyes followed the troop lines. She didn't see what he was getting at, then she noticed it. "These tanks right here," she pointed at a spot on the image, "They look like they're facing the wrong way. They have them pointed toward the city."

"Very good, Captain," Kalinin nodded, "Because of the poor resolution on this older satellite we cannot get a clear view of most of their forces, but there are two other spots on their line – here and here – where their forces seem to be oriented toward the city."

Nodding slightly, she still wasn't sure what to make of it all, "So, if these spots aren't flukes, and the entire line is facing toward the city, what possibilities does that open up?"

"The most likely reason for such an action would be containment of the population," he stated calmly, "it could be because of an industrial accident, an insurgency of some sort, or possibly NBC contamination."

"But there's no way for us to know without more information, is there?" she asked.

"Not at this time," he responded, "However I am still making inquiries into the matter, and have requested another, higher quality satellite to gather more intelligence. I am expecting a response shortly."

"Very good, Lt. Commander," she said approvingly, "I can review the rest of the reports myself. Please go and see what else you can find out about Komsomolsk, and let me know the minute you find something."

"Aye, Madame Captain," he stood at attention then turned to return to his work.

After Kalinin had left the bridge Tessa dove into the other reports. It was nothing very surprising. The joint naval fleets were going to perform a night landing on a South Korean beach. This was to coincide with a practice bombing mission from the various air forces, and light armored units would practice repelling invaders. She thought it odd that there would be no arm slaves participating in the exercise, but it could have been for any number of reasons.

The news on North Korea was no surprise either. They continued to move their forces counter to where the South and its allies had theirs. They bellowed and threatened, but no one expected them to actually do anything. Tessa really only looked at the reports because they were in such close proximity.

Closing the folder, she spoke, "Helm, bring us to heading two-one-five, speed three-zero knots. Maintain current depth."

The helmsman repeated the order as he maneuvered the sub toward the south west. Almost all the ships training here would be moving to rendezvous for the practice beach assault. Captain Testarosa decided that would be where the day's best training would be.

"Madame Captain," came a call through the intercom.

"Yes, Mr. Kalinin," she responded, "What is it?"

"I have more information on Komsomolsk," he said rather grimly, "before I bring it to you, I recommend we place all ground teams on immediate standby."

She suddenly felt a chill. Kalinin was usually very methodical, not one to overreact to information. If he thought that they would need a ground team ready, chances were that things were about to get very serious indeed. "Very well, Lt Commander," she responded without hesitation, "What heading should we take?"

"East," he replied.

"East?" she asked, slightly confused, "East will take us…"

"Yes, ma'am," he interrupted, "That is where we will need to go."

Another chill ran through her, "Understood, please come to the bridge as soon as possible."

"I will be there shortly, Madame Captain."

With that, the comm shut off. "Helm, new heading, zero-niner-zero. Speed forty knots."

East takes us straight to Japan, she thought to herself. Why would they need to take response teams to Japan because of what was happening at Komsomolsk? She hoped very much that Kalinin would be able to make sense of all this, because she was having no luck at all.

1810 (6:10 PM) Local Time

Tokyo, Japan

Kaname Chidori's Apartment

"I don't believe this, Sousuke," she said, shaking her head, "You have been acting like a maniac all day because of some stupid dream?" It was just like him to switch to uber-military mode at the drop of a hat.

Sousuke was sitting on the couch, looking extremely uncomfortable, "This is very embarrassing, Kaname. I would appreciate it if you didn't share this information with anyone else."

Flashing an unusually large smile, she looked at him in a very predatory manner, "You want me to keep this 'classified', is that it?" He nodded, sweat visible on his brow. "Well then, I guess the only question is, what's in this for me?"

Sousuke hesitated for a moment, "If you require compensation for your silence, I can provide you with high quality armaments for an excellent price. I have several contacts who give me discounts due to the volume of goods I – urmf. What was that for?"

Kaname, who had just hurled a pillow across the room and hit him square in the face, was seconds away from throwing something more substantial. Looking around, she saw that there was an iron within reach, but decided against it. What if the iron broke? A good iron isn't cheap. "What the heck am I going to do with a cache of weapons?" she demanded, trying to calm herself, "I'm not a military nut like you."

"Not weapons, huh," he muttered, rubbing his chin in thought, "Hmmm, I know! I still have some contacts in the Middle East. I could have them send a hand woven Persian rug, very fine craftsmanship. Given current exchange rates, I'm sure we could get a reasonable price." He looked at her, and realized that she didn't care for that gesture either. "A price which I would cover entirely by myself. No cost to you at all," he hastily added, but to no avail.

Kaname leaned listlessly against the wall, sighing, "Sousuke, you're making this too hard. All I wanted was a little gesture."

"Gesture?" he repeated, not sure what she was trying to say.

"Yeah, just a simple gesture to make up for the pain in the butt you've been today," she spoke, "You know, like 'I'll take you to the movies', or 'Hey, let's go to dinner, I know a nice place we could go."

Sousuke spoke up hopefully, "You know a nice place? I would be willing to…"

"Shut up!" she interjected loudly, silencing him. She felt like an idiot for thinking he would understand what she wanted him to do. It was Sousuke after all. "I just wanted you to do something nice for me. I mean, I cook food for you all the time even though you never asked me too. That's a nice gesture." She quickly hardened her voice, turning her head away angrily, "But of course, if you don't appreciate it, I just won't give you any."

"N-no, I appreciate your cooking very much," he replied in earnest.

As irritated as she was with him right then, she couldn't help but feel a little better hearing a compliment, even though she practically had to force him to say it. "Well then, that's good to know," she smirked, only a little sarcasm hanging in her voice, "It's always nice to feel appreciated."

Looking over at him, she could see the cog wheels of his mind turning. Her curiosity piqued, she was about to ask what he was thinking when he spoke up first, "Perhaps I could prepare some meals for you."

Kaname smiled a little at him, "So you're saying you want to make, say, dinner for me?" He nodded. "You know how to cook proper meals?" He nodded. "And not just heated rations like last time?"

"No, I would not like a repeat of that incident," he replied with a discernible grimace, "I can prepare a few different Afghani dishes. They aren't very complicated, but they are things that I enjoyed while growing up."

Her face brightened as she nodded to him, "Alright then, if you fix me dinner, I'll keep your little dream a secret."

"Very well," he smiled a little, too, "I'll be able to procure the ingredients within a few days."

"Okay," she said as she moved into her kitchen, "for the time being I suppose we'll just have to settle for my cooking, then."

"That sounds good," he said, rubbing his eyes and the small knot on his forehead when he thought she wasn't looking.

She caught it though, and Kaname wondered about this rare sign of fatigue from the professional soldier, "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"About three hours," he replied, not seeming to be overly concerned about it, "It's nothing for me, I've gone days with only an hour or two of sleep each night."

"Three hours?" she asked, rather surprised considering how much energy he managed to expend during the day, "Why did you only sleep for three hours?"

"I was awake until midnight studying for the test this morning," he explained, "then I woke up from that, er, well I woke up at a little after three. After that I stayed up until we left for school."

Kaname wasn't sure what to think. It occurred to her that he wasn't just acting weird because of that dream, it had really bothered him. He was seriously upset about what he had seen happen to her. It pulled at her heartstrings and, after a few moments, she walked out of the kitchen and made her way over to where he was sitting on the couch. Setting herself down next to him, she leaned into his shoulder.

"Sousuke," her words were gentle, "You don't have to worry. Nothing is going to happen to me. You said all this happened on a battlefield, right?" He nodded in response. "Well, as long as you keep me away from any full blown wars that might erupt, I'll be perfectly safe."

"I suppose you're right," he agreed slowly, "I'm taking this dream far too seriously."

"Exactly," she nodded.

He looked over at her to say something, and their eyes met. He immediately lost what he was planning on telling her. Neither looked away for several seconds, then Kaname finally realized that their faces were mere centimeters from each other. Suddenly feeling hot, she quickly looked at her hands, fidgeting in her lap, and she leaned back away from him.

Sousuke realized what had happened a split second after it registered on her face. He too looked away, his body rigid while trying to maintain a calm composure. Clearing his throat, his words still seemed to come out uneasily, "Er, thank you, Kaname."

Without realizing it, she let out a small, nervous laugh, "Don't mention it."

There was another silence, even more awkward than the first. They sat next to each other on the couch, and Kaname found herself at a complete loss as to what to say or do next. She felt more and more self conscious as the seconds ticked by, and she acutely felt the butterflies flitting about in her stomach.

She felt his hand touch hers. At first she was so surprised that she didn't do anything but feel her breath catch in her lungs, unsure as to whether it was real or her imagination. This was Sousuke after all. But then she felt his fingers curl under her thumb and across her palm, his own thumb dragging gently across her knuckles. Still uncertain as to whether it was real or not, but hoping that it was, she turned her hand around to press their palms together, and she softly let her thumb move back and forth across his.

Neither of the teenagers looked at each other, nor did they speak. They simply sat there, blushing like mad, and let the minutes slip by. Kaname felt a warmth in her chest that she never wanted to loose. She realized that she didn't want to let go of his hand, not ever. She knew exactly what she wanted to say to him at that moment, and what she needed him to say to her. She felt all these things that she had never admitted to herself, and knew them all to be her truth. It was all a little scary.

They both jumped as they heard a ringing sound. Kaname had heard the sound of his satellite phone before, but never had it been so unwelcome. Sousuke pulled the device out of his pocket with his free hand and stood to go into another room, probably so he would not bother her, but her hand would not let go.

She knew he was looking at her, but again her courage disintegrated and she found it impossible to even glance at him for a single moment. Her ears felt hot and she knew that she looked like a fool, but she didn't care.

The detestable phone continued to ring. Kaname knew that this was when he would tell her that he's going away for a few days and not to worry. It would be when he wandered off to fight and left her there alone.

She felt his hand tighten around hers again as he sat back down beside her. "Sagara here," he answered, professional as ever.

His face remained neutral throughout the call, and he only spoke a few times. "I see," and "Very well then." Then, "I'll meet them there, sir. Sagara out." Hanging up the phone, he took a deep breath as he turned to face her. "It's an emergency. I'm sorry, Kaname," his voice held genuine remorse.

He began to explain further, but she had already heard what she needed to hear. Putting a finger over his lips, she spoke instead, "When will you be back?"

"Most likely late tomorrow, possibly the day after," he replied.

She nodded, "Promise that you'll find me and tell me when you get back." It wasn't really a request, but not a demand either.

"I promise," he said as they stood together. Not sure what else to do, Kaname stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace without a word, and they held on tightly, as if there wouldn't be another chance.

Reluctantly, they pulled away from each other as Sousuke spoke, "I have to go."

She nodded as their hands pulled away from each other, "I'll see you tomorrow."

He gave a quick nod, then left.

A/N

Man it has been a while since I did any real story writing. It was really hard to get this thing started. I had actually written an entirely different chapter just as long as this one, but then realized that I hated it and had to start over.

I'm hoping to have the next chapter out within a few days (since I already wrote most of it), so keep and eye out.

Anyway, author's notes!

Alright, I know that romance isn't really in the description of the fic, but this sort of happened on accident. I was just writing along, and suddenly that scene appeared. Not sure why, but don't worry. I don't have much else planed that is even remotely like that (not planned, though it may pop up from time to time).

That being said, how did it work out? I'm really hoping that they weren't OOC. I mean, there's always been something between Sousuke and Kaname, they were just waiting for something to bring it out. What do you guys think?

Things will become much more action/adventure oriented next chapter. In the end there will be a little something for everyone in this fic, plus some omake style chapters slipped in every once in a while for holidays, and maybe one or two other times that I need a little break from the serious.

I'm not sure how this worked out, but at the time I post this story it is just after midnight and now October 4, my birthday. Hazzah!

Obviously some familiarity with the FMP universe is going to be helpful, but it isn't absolutely necessary. It will definitely help to understand the dynamics between Sousuke, Kaname, Tessa and all the others.

Thank you for giving this fic a try, and I hope you continue the story as I struggle to write it. You might even check my other FMP fic while you wait!

Reviews are greatly appreciated (and almost always responded to in the authors notes of the next chapter)!

Thanks again for reading!

Gunso