A/N: DMG is pretty sharp… yeah, that last update was pretty cheap compared to the one before it. I just had it sitting there…and I'm like, screw it! I uploaded chapter four of Sheena's Problem, let's make it Double Update Day. Sorry for the excess melodrama, tell me if it was too much. I want to try my hand at drama, and what better fiction to introduce it in than RUNAWAY? And Meowzy-Chan… ahh… well, you'll see!

WARNING! AFTER I UPLOAD CHAPTER 24, I WILL ACCEPT NO MORE VOTES! IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW, THESE ARE THE VOTES FOR WHO WILL INTERUPT SHEENA AND RAINE'S FIRST PASSIONATE KISS.

Yuan and Genis: 5

Colette: 3

Genis: 2

Yuan: 1

Zelos: 1

CREON. Is not the city held to be his who rules it?

HAEMON. That were brave- you, a sole monarch of an empty land!

"Oof!"

Yuan was knocked back several feet, sending up a cloud of discolored sand as his sword went clattering to the side. Kloitz quickly followed up with a rib-smashing kick. Or it would have been, if it had hit its mark- Yuan reached up and grabbed at Kloitz's foot with both hands, twisting it viciously. Kloitz gritted his teeth and lifted his other foot, allowing his entire body to spin with the force of Yuan's attempt to snap his ankle. He landed face-first in the sand and twisted his body grotesquely to avoid the avoid being impaled by Yuan's newly recovered sword. He flipped onto his back and caught Yuan's chest as he lunged again, holding him back with his soles of his boots against his chest plate. Kicking out, he sent Yuan flying again.

"One fun thing about you, Seraphim…" He said, getting to his feet and wiping the blood away from when his mouth had a nasty connection with Yuan's mailed fist. Yuan saw the small cut had almost completely healed by now, and cursed him for having such an outrageously powerful Cruxis Crystal. "You're very resilient."

Yuan staggered up as well, grinning and trying his best to keep a close watch on Kloitz's movements through his rapidly swelling eye. Reaching out to Kloitz with both arms, he beckoned with his fingers, as if inviting an old friend over for a tight bear hug. The true message was clear, though: Come get some more.

Kloitz chuckled, pressing the trigger to retract the blade on his arm-blade. The other one had been physically ripped off by Yuan sometime earlier in the fight and was buried somewhere under the ever shifting sands. "Then let's make this last. Four thousand years of training really won't help you here… it wasn't as if your body actually changed. You are going to die here, Seraphim."

"Eh."

Sheena wasn't doing much better. Her revealing purple ninja outfit was torn and tattered from countless barrages of flying daggers.

"Goddess!" She cursed, setting up a guardian seal against another wave. "Do you have a multi-dimensional pocket? Don't you ever run out of ammo?"

"If you can't even touch me, how do you hope to be the Chief of Mizuho?" Kuchinawa asked, his rough voice having none of the passion she was used to hearing. Even when not in battle, he always seemed electric, as though he was merely waiting for an opportunity to explode into action. His image flickered for a moment and disappeared, reappearing behind her with a dagger held high. She squeaked, side-stepping and lashing out with her enchanted deck of cards to keep him at bay.

"Stop holding back!" he barked as she back flipped to safety.

"Pyre Seal!" she shouted, flaming cards flying out at Kuchinawa.

"Guardian Seal!" He countered, holding out his hands as the transparent blue shield came to life around him. Ken leapt out from the darkness, dagger held in one hand and the other armed with Kloitz's lost arm-blade.

"Hyah!" He shouted, forcing the older ninja back, towards Sheena. Sheena took the chance to reach forward, raking the cards deep into Kuchinawa's back.

"Life Seal!" she said, taking a small amount of his life force and giving it to herself, immediately feeling some of her fatigue vanish. She hopped back as Kuchinawa turned, angrily assaulting her with another rain of daggers.

"Raine?" She said, not moving her eyes from Kuchinawa's.

"Safe," Ken answered, sighing.

"…Good."

"Stop the chit-chat," Kuchinawa said. "Are you going to kill me or not? I'm a danger to Mizuho, remember? I betrayed you?"

"Kuchinawa," Sheena said, lowering her voice and glancing over at where Yuan and Kloitz had begun a fresh fight. "Why are you following that guy? You might have betrayed Mizuho once, but the first time was just to get back at me. I know in your heart, you're still my friend, and I- ahh!" Her image flickered once, emerging far away from where Kuchinawa had charged at her.

"Fine!" She shouted, stomping her foot. "I gave you a chance, Kuchinawa! Now it's too late!"

Kuchinawa responded by casually flicking his wrist, sending a dagger deep into Ken's stomach. Ken bent over double, clutching at his middle with both arms as he sank to the ground…And was blown away when his body disintegrated. A fake. Kuchinawa felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle with fear as he looked around for the real copy.

Five Ken's popped out of the sand with matching grins and matching daggers, circling Kuchinawa.

"C'mon, don't tell me you've never used copies before!" the Kens taunted as one, leaping forward from every direction. Kuchinawa leapt five feet straight into the air, letting the mindless clones collapse into each other. Slicing through another fake, he kept his guard up, waiting for the real Ken to appear while still watching Sheena slowly circle the whole mess looking for a good moment to strike. Where was the real one, dammit!

"Yah!"

Sheena struck, sensing an opening. "Cyclone Seal!" she said, gathering her mana into her cards, making them fly out to swarm around Kuchinawa. He tried to bat them away, leaping and doing an intricate back flip, but the cards circled and then closed in around him, connecting with a huge explosion that sent him flying into the walls of Shadow Triet. He hopped back onto his feet, charging at Sheena without a second's worth of pause, sending another deadly wave ahead of him. Sheena met it head on, twisting past every dagger and colliding straight with Kuchinawa, head butting him in the stomach.

He didn't expect that type of hard-headed attack. For the second time they found themselves in a brief tussle of flailing limbs vying for dominance, ending up at a standoff with both of their daggers pressed at each other's throats, breathing heavily. The Ken clones stood in a circle around the two, but if the real one were to attack his position would be revealed, making them lose another trump card. The expression on their faces was torn between logic and the urge to save their chief.

"It's not too late, Kuchinawa," Sheena breathed, feeling the tip of his dagger pierce her flesh. The blood welled and rolled down her neck, darkening her purple robe. "You can still join us. You don't have to go with him. You can come back with me to Mizuho." Kuchinawa looked away and squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain. Sheena swallowed involuntarily, but her mouth was dry. "Kuchinawa, please!"

His arm began to shake and his eyes popped open, burning with an unnatural purple light. "Do you think I have a choice!" He roared, throwing her off of him. She flipped in midair over the Kens as they charged, all ten of them puffing into smoke as they reached the ninja.

Kuchinawa looked around madly for the real one. Then he stopped. Sheena could practically hear the gears turning and clicking in his head as he whirled around to see Kloitz kicking a downed Yuan in the ribs.

"Master! Behind you!"

Kloitz half-turned to look over his shoulder when the real Ken leapt onto his back, wrapping his legs tight around Kloitz's chest, pinning his arms to his side. He yanked back on the silver hair, grinning madly. Yuan leapt up, retracting one blade and digging the other one deep into Kloitz's belly, poking out straight through his side and narrowly avoiding making Ken unable to ever sire children. Two screams rent the polluted, shadowy air of the shadow realm as Kuchinawa collapsed, writhing on the ground before falling still, his eyes rolling up into his head. Kloitz staggered around, ripping Ken off of like a leech and tossing him away. Sheena ran to his side, kneeling next to him but unable to tear her eyes from Kloitz who was just standing there, clutching the hilt with both hands, watching the blood pool around his feet.

Then he fell.

Only then could Sheena look away to tend to Ken. Not that she needed to- he had sat up, rubbing his blond head. He put a hand to his mouth, making a few strange faces before spitting out a hard, bloody object. "It won't be the last tooth you'll lose if you keep doing stunts like that…" Sheena muttered to him, looking at the ground.

They glanced at each other, pale and covered in blood and bruises, before losing themselves in a fit of nervous, insane giggles.

"Oh my Goddess…" Ken said, one hand to his mouth, his eyes shut. "I thought I was going to die. His eyes were changing colors like…from each color of the rainbow. Bam, bam, bam. Red, blue, purple, green…"

Yuan dragged his battered body up, throwing the two of them a look that spelled pure and utter contempt. "I hope you're not like this every time you see a dead body," he said, limping over to where Kloitz lay cooling in the sand. It was insane. Was this was what it was like to be non-angelic? Single blows from Kloitz were enough to give him a bruise. His entire body ached. His stomach grumbled for food. His eyelids fluttered, whispering to him to let himself fall asleep again, to fall into that dark place he had avoided for four-thousand years.

He knelt before Kloitz, rolling him over so that the sword hilt stuck up like a grotesque finger pointing up at the sky. Ignoring the sword, he looked at his enemy, his own eyes flickering with different emotions before he smiled thinly.

"I win," he said, grabbing a handful of Kloitz's hair, so similar to the Sage brat's. "I killed you first." He dropped the head, letting it thud back into the sand and picked up his large hand, trying to figure out how to unfasten his glove where the Cruxis Crystal was lodged instead of being in a proper Key Crest. "I finally got you, you bastard."

Kloitz's eyes snapped open and he grinned, manically. Shoving Yuan backwards, he pulled the sword out of his own stomach and ran him through, slicing between the plates of his armor, rupturing his internal organs. Lifting him up in the air by the sword point, like a plump fruit at the end of a knife, Kloitz watched him choke at the blood slipping between his lips. "Actually," he said, wiping the blood away from his own mouth, "My parents were married. Uah!" He lurched forward, dropping the sword as Sheena jumped onto his back, stabbing him over and over again.

"You'll pay for that, you son of a-!" she yelled before she was interrupted. Reaching over his back, he peeled her off of him, smacking the dagger out of her hand. Holding her by the throat, at an arm's distance, he turned to Ken.

"Aren't you going to defend your Master?" He asked, coyly, placing one hand over the gaping hole in his stomach. Twenty Kens sprouted from the sand, lifting their lips up in noiseless snarls. Sheena beat at him, uselessly, ripping with her nails at the iron grip around her throat, kicking him in the side. She might as well have been fighting a statue. Is this what Raine felt like in Mizuho? She thought as he waved one hand at the Kens, sending them all flying back with a wordless spell. The Kens melted and the real Ken lay still. Was he dead? Lilac eyes filled her darkening vision, glittering white teeth like a wolf.

"You honestly believed you could kill me?" He said to her, holding her up, smiling. "Here? In my kingdom?"

"Ah-!" Sheena clenched her teeth, scrabbling weakly at his cheek, trying to reach his eyes. He pressed it against his face with one free hand in a mock parody of a lover's touch.

"Adieu," he said to her. "When you see Raine in Hell, give her this, from me." Kissing her softly with grinning lips, Kloitz increased the pressure on her neck.

Shwip.

At first, she thought he had let her go. Then she realized that couldn't be, since she could still feel his hand wrapped around her throat. He backed away from her, clutching at the stump of his arm, howling like a rabid animal. A soldier stepped in front of her protectively, his shield carelessly still strapped to his back. But his sword was out- the blade was wet, crimson, dripping.

"This won't stop me!" Kloitz was gibbering, "I'll be back! I'll kill you all! I will be the last angel, and I will rule!"

Gentle, soft hands peeled the dead fingers from around her throat, but by then she was beyond knowing anything. Sheena passed out. Raine cradled her head in her lap, looking up at the two angels facing off. Kloitz stepped back a few more feet and the soldier flipped out a small purple handkerchief from somewhere under his matching armor, wiping his blade clean.

"That were brave," he said, sounding mildly amused. "You, a sole monarch of an empty land…"

"In other words," Zelos chirped, bouncing over to the soldier's side, "You are royally fucked, pin head. Say hello to the rest of your life rotting in the Meltokio City Prison!"

"I'll-" Kloitz started, but found himself unable to talk, choking on his words.

Plip… plip…A new puddle of blood was forming, dripping down from Genis's palm as he gripped hard on Kloitz's remaining hand, pressing the wound over the Cruxis Crystal.

…Plip…

Raging violet and aquamarine swirled together, locked in combat.

…Plip…

Their manic grins matched each other, like a man looking his reverse self in a mirror.

…Plip…

"-Kill you," Genis finished Kloitz's sentence. Already, the skin around their hands had darkened, turning red. The color slowly flowed up their arms, like a blush- or maybe a slow spill of blood.

"What's going on?" Raine demanded, putting Sheena down, fearfully watching her younger brother's seemingly paralyzed on the spot. "He said that would just freeze him!" She turned to the soldier, "Why are they both being affected!"

Kratos narrowed his eyes, the closest thing to a look of slack-jawed confusion he would allow. He sheathed his sword. "I suppose it kills the user of the spell and the subject of the spell as well. Mithos designed it, after all. He always did love a sacrifice."

"Wha- hell no! I'm not gonna stand for this!" Zelos whipped out his sword, but Kratos held him back with one arm.

"Genis already knew…" he said. "This is the only way to get the Cruxis Crystal off of a subject unwilling to let go. He used to know Mithos as well- maybe he knew this would happen."

"Well- well… The blood needs to be covering it, right? Just chop off a finger! It's better than losing your life!"

Kratos nodded, slowly. "Then let's do it."

"…Wait, I've got a better idea!" Zelos rushed forward, swinging his sword. "Sorry buddy but I can't letcha die yet!" He leapt into the air, twisting like a dancer as he slashed for Kloitz's head. "Yaaaaaaaaah!"

He was thrown back at an alarming speed. "GACKT!" Kratos side-stepped the projectile Ex-Chosen, snagging him by the back of his shirt so he wouldn't go flying over the edge of the Shadow Triet.

"Damn it! Something's protecting them!" Zelos said, unnecessarily. Kratos dropped him to the ground.

Laboriously, as if the motion pained him, Kloitz turned his head and grinned at them. By now the flow had spread up past their sleeves so it was impossible to tell where its current location was.

"..Bastard," Zelos breathed, sprawled out on the sands of Shadow Triet. Kratos made a small noise of anger deep in his throat, helping the Ex-Chosen up onto his feet. Raine went running past them both, straight into the shield.

"Let me in!" She said, pounding with both fists on the transparent bubble that surrounded them. BAM! "You don't have to throw your lives away! You're- you're being stupid! Let me in!" She kicked the shield savagely. BAM! "You're brothers! You're my brothers! I won't allow you to fight, do you hear me? I won't allow this! I won't!" Bam, bam, BAM!

"Raine," she heard one of them say in a harsh whisper.

Raine paused, pressing her palms flat against the surface, breathing hard. Her face was flushed from anger and from the exertion of beating her hands bloody against a solid wall. Then she took a step back, kicking with all her might.

"LET!"

WHAM!

"ME!"

BAM!

"IN!

B-krck.

Raine fell to the floor, yanking her boot off and examining her throbbing foot. "Goddess," she hissed in pain, feeling the shameful tears prick at her eyes again. "Damn it. Damn you." She put glowing hands over her toes. "Idiots."

Then the shield died.

Raine sat there for a moment, unable to believe her eyes. Canceling the healing spell, she limped over to them, grabbing at their entwined hands and ripping them apart. Genis fell to his knees, his eyes cloudy and unbelieving. Kloitz staggered back a few steps- into Kuchinawa's waiting arms. For a moment, he reached out to her with his red-stained arm, and then they disappeared into a puff of smoke.

Raine breathed deeply, one hand to her chest. She looked over her shoulder at Kratos and Zelos… and Sheena. They were fine. Then she sat next to her brother, pushing his silver hair out of his eyes because he never took care of it or tied it up into something manageable. Her mind wandered aimlessly, too tired to try and function logically.

"You're fine?" she asked, putting her hands on his shoulders. He was so much taller than her now.

"Yeah," Genis looked at his hand where the blood was still flowing. "You're probably going to hit me now, huh?"

He was fine.

"No." Raine pressed her forehead to his. "You're too old for that now."

Was she fine? No. She held him tightly, too exhausted to hide her feelings behind the cold wall anymore. "Just as long as your fine.." She murmured. "Everything will be fine." And then her insomnia left her, and all of the hallucinations and late-night visitors and Kloitz left her mind and she was free to finally sink down into slumber.

He picked her up. "Let's get out of here…" He said to Kratos, who nodded. Then he looked up, a hint of emotions on his face as he glanced around him, anxiously. Swallowing, he ran over to where Yuan lay bleeding his life out on the sands of Shadow Triet.

By some miracle, he was still alive. "So this is what I have to do to get you to visit me…" He coughed.

"Shut up," Kratos said, yanking the sword from his friend. "You're a fool."

"Yeah… I love you too Kratos…" Yuan said, trying his best to smile.

"I said: Shut up." Kratos pulled off his glove with his teeth and unfastening Yuan's armor. Pressing his hand against Yuan's stomach, he said, "If you don't shut up, you'll… Do you want to die?"

"What, here in your embrace after a hard battle? I can think of worse ways to go…"

Kratos was silent, glaring angrily at Yuan. "First Aid!" he said, commanding his powers to heal Yuan. He stood up, pulling Yuan up with him. Slapping his glove back on and turning away, he said, "That'll have to do until Raine wakes up." Yuan nodded, one hand pressed to his middle and wincing with every step.

They looked up to see Zelos hoisting Sheena up, carrying her piggyback style.Genis was a bit more respectful towards his sister, holding her as she might have held him when she was an infant, one arm supporting her back and shoulders and one hooked under her knees. Ken stumbled over to him, bleeding profusely, his blond hair matted and clumped together with the red substance. He checked on Sheena, sighing with relief when he saw that she was only passed out.

Raine pressed her face against Genis's chest, away from the light that burst from the rip in Shadow Triet. Kratos had made a new portal, without a sword and utterly silent. No screams assaulted their ears. They stepped into the light.

Yesh. Kratos has returned. But WHY? Why? Why am I so addicted to melodrama? (sings) Anyway. Leave your votes, leave a review, leave whatever. (gives cookies to R&Rers). No flamies. You flame, you no get cookies. See you on the next update!