I was so not planning this, but after a talking-to from a friend who read it, I decided to expand this fic...!

Of course, I knew that this could have been longer, but I was evil to have wanted to leave this as a one-shot. Ah well.

So, on we go then!

Disclaimer: Pretear and all characters are not mine. Period. End of argument.

Before the Light

Chapter 2

"I wonder if Mawata's alright?" Himeno wondered aloud as she strolled through the extensive, park-like grounds of the Awayuki estate that had so recently been rebuilt. Two weeks ago it was still a wrecked ruin after the catastrophic encounter with Fenril, the tree of evil. Yet now it has been so quickly restored to its original form...almost. Himeno wasn't sure if Tanaka had added any more new...improvements. She started looking around with a slightly warier eye to the deceptively innocent greenery around her, not wanting to fall prey to any traps that laid concealed.

Again she marvelled at what money could do. A vast estate doesn't repair itself all that quickly, but it still amazed her how effective monetary incentives could be to increase workmanship and efficiency.

As usual, Hayate, the Knight of Wind, trailed along slightly behind and beside her. Himeno had to suppress a sigh of frustration at the thought of the handsome Wind Knight. He had promised that he would tell her something after the battle was over; but when it was over, he didn't say anything. Well, nothing of any particular significance.

In fact, he wasn't the only one. The other knights--and the now good Takako--were somewhat vague about something that happened after the battle, something that she could not remember. She had tried to corner Kei and get it out of him, since the Knight of Light was less likely to lie to her, but he seemed strangely elusive, always off by himself in some corner or buried in work. That was really quite unlike Kei, since he wasn't the anti-social type; a little cold sometimes, but not a loner.

"You could try to check on her again," Hayate offered, breaking her line of thought. Himeno paused in her tracks, causing Hayate to almost bump into her---which he didn't, of course.

"It's been 2 days. Well, 2 and a half. I'm beginning to worry..." Himeno fretted, her thoughts once again on her step-sister. "We should have known not to let her see Sasame and Takako acting lovingly around each other, especially not so soon after she recovered...poor Mawata... Why won't she talk to us about it?"

"If you're so worried, we can go look in on her now." A hint of irritation had crept into Hayate's voice. Himeno gave him an absentminded glare.

"If she opens the door this time..." Himeno turned back towards the enormous manor house, moving at a fast clip, Hayate again behind her.

"Mawata! It's me, Himeno!" Himeno called out, knocking on the polished oak door. There was no response. She knocked louder and called again. Still no response.

She tried the knob, but it wouldn't turn. She rattled it, trying by some force of will to shake it open somehow. The door refused to budge.

"...open...up..." Something between a grunt and a snort came from between Himeno's gritted teeth as she tried yanking on the knob, one foot braced against the door. Hayate watched her with a certain amount of amusement.

"...stupid door..." A vein was starting to throb in the pink haired girl's forehead, always a dangerous sign. Hayate had a feeling that if the door didn't open soon enough, the headstrong girl would just bulldoze it down.

Before that happened though, Hayate decided to intervene and save the Awayukis money for repairs. Not that they needed to save money though...

"I could teleport in and check it out." Himeno turned on him, an angry look written all over her face.

"Why didn't you say something sooner! Did you enjoy watching me struggle with the STUPID DOOR!" Himeno's temper, which Hayate suspected was never fully under control, boiled over in double quick time. For some reason, that always seemed to happen around him...

Sensing an imminent attack on his person, Hayate beat a quick retreat and disappeared in a flash of blue, before Himeno could even pounce on him to deliver her customary beating. Wisdom did come with experience, and after all that time with Himeno, Hayate knew better than to risk getting pummelled for no apparent reason.

Himeno stamped her foot indignantly as the Wind Knight escaped her wrath...again.

"...idiot..."

Hayate resumed his form inside Mawata's dark and stuffy room. Well, mostly dark room.

He blinked at the sole source of light in the room, not quite believing what he saw. This had to be some strange alternate universe or something. To verify that he was not dreaming, the blue clad knight pinched himself, wincing as he did so.

'Ok so I'm not dreaming...' Hayate was still in some disbelief at the unusual sight.

So what was it that so perplexed our favourite Knight of Wind? The answer lay in a chair by the curtained and closed window of the room.

Kei, Leafe Knight of Light, was holding Mawata in a tender, protective embrace, his forehead to hers as he knelt on one knee in front of the chair where Mawata sat. Kei, the enigmatic, somewhat icy character that even Mannen the Ice Knight had termed as 'cold-blooded', was infusing a clearly weak Mawata with his own Leafe energy, creating a glowing halo around the two of them.

In all the time that Hayate had known Kei, which was a long time, he had never been that close to his brother knight. He had known all along that Kei wasn't as unfeeling as his behaviour sometimes suggested, but he did tend to keep people at a distance, perhaps because of his unfortunate tendency to be very blunt with the truth. Hayate hadn't quite expected Kei to be, well, so, gentle? Kei's usually calm and unruffled expression was soft now, an expression Hayate couldn't really remember seeing.

Perhaps sensing his presence, Kei opened his eyes and turned to face his brother knight. His face was once again calm and stoic. Hayate wondered where the softness he had so briefly glimpsed went. Maybe he was just seeing things.

"Is she alright?" The Knight of Wind whispered quietly, not wanting to wake the peacefully slumbering Mawata as he edged closer. Kei nodded. "She is now."

"That's good..." Kei inclined his head towards the closed windows. "Do you mind...?" His voice was low.

"Oh, of course." Hayate strode swiftly to the tightly drawn drapes and pulled them open, sending rays of bright sunshine streaming into the once-dark room. He then moved to open the windows, letting a gentle breeze in to send strands of his own, long hair to fluttering.

Kei's tensed shoulders relaxed a little as the light bathed him. Not for nothing was he called the Knight of Light; he never did operate quite as well when surrounded in deep darkness. Hayate knew that, but he was still concerned.

"You will exhaust yourself," He predicted to his blonde counterpart. "Even with the sun's energy..."

"It has to be done Hayate. If I let go now..." Kei's voice was quiet, but determined. Hayate frowned. Kei never lied, and judging from Mawata's current condition, he might well be right. He sighed, there would be no persuading the blonde knight. Once Kei had made up his mind about something, nothing short of another apocalypse would stop him. And Hayate wasn't so eager to have to face another end-of-the-world situation right on the heels of the last one.

"If you need help..." Hayate began, but Kei just nodded. "I will call for one of you."

"Good." A distant rattle and a distinctive voice sounded from behind the thickly reinforced oaken door, reminding the blue knight the reason for his presence in the room in the first place. Hayate sweatdropped, most people's voices didn't penetrate a foot-thick wooden door.

At Kei's inquiring glance, Hayate said a simple word, by way of explanation. "Himeno." A ghost of a smile flitted across the other knight's face. Clearly, he knew what Hayate meant in that single word. No further explanation was necessary.

"I'd better go tell Tulip Head that her sister's fine before she breaks down the door." Hayate said apologetically. Kei's nod was so slight as to be barely perceptible. He still wore something like a knowing smirk on his face though. Hayate didn't like that look one bit.

As Hayate was about to teleport out again, Kei spoke suddenly. "Breaking down that door might not be such a bad idea; the lock's beyond repair anyway." Then he added something else.

"Don't dawdle so much Hayate, just do it and get it over with. She won't wait forever. You know that." There it was again, that implied smirk in his tone of voice that irritated the Wind Knight so much. He resisted the urge to throttle his brother knight.

Deciding that action spoke louder than words, he teleported out, startling Himeno in the process. The pink haired girl was giving him her patented Look of Death, but he brushed it aside, speaking quickly to preempt any action against him.

"Mawata's alright now." He pondered whether to tell her the rest, then shrugged mentally. After all, what harm could it do? "Kei's with her."

The Look of Death vanished, to be replaced by relief, then surprise. "Kei?" There was an evident note of disbelief.

"He's helping her now. I didn't get any details, but I'm sure Kei will tell us afterwards." Hayate shrugged. "Don't worry, Kei won't let anything happen to her. He's too responsible a person to do that."

"I know that Hayate," Himeno sounded exasperated, as if Hayate had completely missed the point, which in a sense, he had. 'Men...' Himeno thought with a sigh.

"What?"

"Why would Kei, of all people, be helping Mawata now?"

Hayate gave her the are-you-an-idiot look that always made her feel inadequate. "He's the Knight of Light, Himeno." He said it in a slow, explaining-to-children voice, as if Himeno were some small undiscerning child. Or a retard.

Himeno quashed her instinct to immediately retort as she frowned, still not quite understanding what Hayate was getting at.

Hayate folded his arms, assuming the superior role almost unconsciously. "Kei is very observant. As Knight of Light, his duty is to reveal the truth and to protect those in need. It's his calling. He knows when things are wrong, almost like Sasame does. He must have sensed that Mawata was not feeling well, and did something about it, since Sasame is too preoccupied to notice this..."

"Ohhh...so that's how it is..." Himeno nodded, finally getting it. Then her eyebrow twitched.

Hayate didn't even see her punch coming as it connected with a heavy-sounding thud on the side of his jaw, flooring the handsome knight. Himeno straightened, brushing her hands off on her clothes. "Arrogant ass...assuming he's so smart and everything..." She grumbled for a moment, then turned to more important things.

"Better get something ready for Mawata to eat when she wakes up...and to get that door open somehow..." She mused as she hurried down the long corridor to attend to the things on her mind.

Hayate pushed himself up to a sitting position, one hand cradling his hurt jaw. An ugly-looking bruise was already starting to form on that perfect face. Bright blue eyes stared after Himeno's retreating back. Then he sighed, shaking his head.

"...I'll never understand her."

Kei looked down at the now peaceful Mawata in his arms. He was glad that she was no longer plagued by the dark dreams he suspected had been following her. He would stay like this for as long as necessary, if only for the fragile beauty in his arms to get the rest her body craved. He ignored the first hints of weariness his own body sent him, and focused on making sure that the darkness would not touch her. Not on my watch... He mentally vowed.

His back ached from being in a slightly awkward position for the last few hours, but he persevered. He could not, would not, leave her alone right now. If he did, it would undo all his earlier efforts, and besides, Kei was not one to give up so easily.

Hayate had teleported in a second time earlier, just to check in on him, and made sure that he wouldn't collapse by lending him some of his own Leafe. The sun had since set, and the night, with its much weaker light from the moon, was not helping him in his endeavour. Yet, despite the strain, the only sign of weariness that he displayed was only in the tightening of the skin around his eyes and in the almost imperceptible stress lines across his forehead.

Still he endured. There was nothing much else that he could do. He was not Sasame, who could empathise with people easily, and help heal the wounds in their hearts. He could only ease Mawata's pain for the moment, that was all.

But he doubted that even Sasame could help the girl now. If it wasn't obvious enough earlier, it certainly was during the confrontation between Mawata and Sasame prior to her being sealed within Fenril. Mawata loved Sasame, but Sasame didn't love her back. He couldn't, not when his heart was so wholly devoted to Takako.

Rejection could be very a dangerous impetus. He had learnt that 16 years ago, when Hayate's rejection had steered Takako down the path of evil. And he sensed a kind of power within this girl, not quite like the power of Pretear, but something hauntingly similar. It disturbed him; such a power could easily have been bent to evil purposes, given Mawata's current emotional turmoil. He was going to have to keep a close eye on her in the future. Nobody needed a new Princess of Disaster; even if Mawata didn't have Pretear powers, he wasn't going to take any chances.

Yet he couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. He could not plug that hole in Mawata's heart---he didn't know how, and it irked him for the first time in his life. He was the Knight of Light, he revealed the truth to those who did not wish to see, when they had to. And the truth, he knew from experience, was often the harshest of all.

Sasame, Knight of Sound, the most understanding of the Leafe Knights, now he could have handled this much better than him. Unfortunately, the situation made sure that Sasame's intervention would only worsen the situation.

Kei didn't know what to do, and so he did the only thing he knew how: Serve and protect.

He would protect her as much as he could. It was the only thing he could do. He would not fail.

The Light never failed.

Ok so how was that? I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going with this, although I do have a general direction. So tell me how you feel.