Hello loyal readers,

I didn't fall down a well or get kidnapped by aliens! Sorry for the long break. I had 3 graduations to attend the past two weeks (one of which was out of state and one of which was my own!), hence didn't really have much time to write, edit, or publish anything.

Today is the first in a two-part segment that has only tenuous connections to the main plot, but is mostly an excuse for me to write fluffy Ren x Kyoko moments + fun action sequences. It's also suuuper long – semi makes up for the fact that I was gone for so long!

These two chapters have been some of the most fun for me to write out of the whole story so far, and I'm excited to share them with you!

CH14

They had two weeks to prepare for their confrontation with the next Vie Ghoul mercenary. Yamashita Sadao, the high-profile accountant who kept the books for Delta's organization, met with a Vie Ghoul member every month. Reino said that his boss didn't trust the man, and ordered the assassins-for-hire to keep him on a short leash.

After another half an hour of bickering and threats, "Rho" had coughed up the location and time that the meeting was supposed to take place. Two weeks, 10:00 p.m., at the Kabuki Chou Hotel.

The very next day, amidst strategy meetings with Matsushima-san and intense sparring sessions with Hiou-kun focusing on how to take down an assassin, the President had called both Ren and Kyoko to his office.

Now, less than half a day later, Ren stood in the middle of a wide courtyard, still bewildered, letting hordes of students on field trips, clingy couples, and parents with small children wash by him. He was wearing casual clothes today – jeans cuffed up over tan sneakers with a burnt orange t-shirt under a long gray cardigan. A checkered triangle scarf, a black newsboy hat, and a disposable coffee cup in one hand completed the ensemble.

Ren was pretty sure that Woods-san had just ripped the look off a UniQlo advertisement. Kyoko, in his opinion, had fared much better.

Ten had outfitted the young woman in a creamy white cable knit sweater that stopped mid-thigh, worn over black leggings that tucked into suede boots with fur trim. Her typical perky auburn locks were hidden under a tastefully curled short black wig, topped with a cutesy peach bow headband.

Ren had to quickly glance away. He would have to take it up with Woods-san later. It was a crime! Definitely a crime how cute his partner looked!

"Tsu… Tsuruga-san…" Kyoko murmured hesitantly. Ren could tell that she wasn't used to referring to him by his real name while in public. "Are we really going to do this…?"

"Just think of it as more training, Mogami-san," he said after some swift mental gymnastics. Ren hoped he sounded more convinced than he felt.

In all honesty, when the President had told them to take the day off, Ren was insulted. How could he take an entire day off when half of the LME unit was preparing a mission just for him and his partner?

However, the President wouldn't take 'no' for an answer and had, in typical Lory fashion, verbally boxed the two agents into corner. After only a minute and a half of mental-warfare, President Takarada had handed Ren a briefing folder and sent them packing, telling them that they were to report to the enclosed location at 0900 sharp the next morning.

But the entire ordeal was suspect, because in their briefing folder, the agents had found two crisp admission tickets to the local theme park, Edo Land. Printed on the tickets, the park's cheery fox and pig mascots had seemed to mock the agents' confusion and growing despondency.

The only other thing in the folder was a sheet of stationary – most likely from a limited edition collectable set received by pre-ordering the most moe otome game of the season. Anime characters littered the paper's background, and on it the President had carelessly scrawled, 'You are a lovey-dovey couple. No work allowed! No need to say thank you~!'

Remembering the note and its implications, Ren felt a small, nervous weight settle in his gut. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn that the meddling 'Lovemon' had figured out everything that had transpired between him and Kyoko. Considering that Yukihito had the opportunity to save a copy of the security footage from the Prime Minister's birthday party before he deleted it from the government's internal archive, this was a real possibility.

At least the President hadn't thrown him a parade.

Thoughts drifting to Kyoko, Ren glanced down. The poor girl looked like she didn't know whether to be petrified in fear, murderously angry, or painfully bitter. The three emotions seemed to cycle endlessly over her face.

To rub salt in her wounds, couples swarmed around them, laughing and calling out to one another. Hand holding, arm clutching, hugging, smiling, kissing. Ren fought with his own expression, trying to shake off the look usually reserved for when he had eaten an incredibly large meal. He snuck another glance at the forbidden love of his life. How was he going survive the next 12 hours?

He still didn't have a satisfactory strategy to keep Kyoko at an arm's length. At least, not one that he could guarantee he wouldn't self-sabotage. It was like walking into a yakuza den without a bargaining chip. It was something that the legendary Agent T just didn't do.

But Ren couldn't help himself.

"Tsuruga-san… If it troubles you so much, maybe we should skip this mission," Kyoko muttered. Apparently, she had seen the grim look on his face. "Even if it is an order from the President, I'm sure that going on a d-dat—an outing with your kouhai would be an overwhelmingly miserable experience for you. We could tell the President that I came down with a terrible case of food poisoning, or that the park was closed, or that terrorists abducted us, or–"

Ren felt his face soften. He shook his head and smiled down at her, even though she looked as though she might commit seppuku at any moment. "No, let's go. The President probably has some hidden agenda, but it will likely be in our best interest to follow orders."

Besides, an irrational and self-destructive but extremely insistent part of him very much wanted to go on this date with her.

She nodded, slowly, begrudgingly. A smooth chuckle escaped him, and he held a hand out.

"Come on, dear. We're just going to draw attention, standing here and gawking."

It was astounding to Ren the number of unnatural shades Kyoko's face could turn in less than three seconds. Needless to say, she didn't move to take his hand. Rational thought swiftly leaving him, Ren couldn't keep himself from teasing her.

"Would you rather–" he leaned in, so their faces were only centimeters apart "—that I wrap my arms around you and hold you close?"

Oh, why hello Mio-san.

Chuckling to himself and secretly grinning like a fool, the dark-haired man turned on his heel and strode confidently forward, but slowly enough so that his partner could catch up once she had recovered.

Sure enough, a beat later, Kyoko had trotted up next to him, clutching her dark blue purse to her side. The look she flashed him was minutely familiar as Aiko, but there was also a determined smile on her face that was all Kyoko.

Her expression practically shouted, 'I won't lose to you again!'

Unable to hide the glint of excitement in his eyes, Ren grinned down at her.

After presenting their tickets at the Edo Land gate, the partners drifted along the flow of park-goers funneling into a small series of tents. Ren pretended to sip his coffee thoughtfully as he waited in line. Security officers in crisp uniforms stood at the head of the lines, checking bags and ushering people through metal detectors. It was certainly a sign of the times when even a nation like Japan was performing precautionary security checks at places of mass entertainment.

Once they had reached the front, Kyoko handed her purse to one of the security guards and walked through the metal detector. After a cursory check, the security guard returned her bag with a small bow.

Ren similarly placed his keys, wallet, belt, and coffee cup in the small plastic tray provided before walking through the rectangular gateway of the metal detector, collecting his items on the other side.

Off to the side of the line, the LME agent was stringing his belt through the loops of his jeans when he heard Kyoko give a sharp gasp.

"Did you see –?"

Alarmed, Agent T glanced up, instantly on guard. A group of middle schoolers clamored past the two, chattering about which rides they wanted to go on first. Several sets of parents were rearranging children in strollers, and one couple was asking a security guard for directions to the nearest restroom.

"Mogami-san, what is it?" His eyes darted to and fro, trying to pick up on the trouble Kyoko had seen.

A quick glance down showed Kyoko staring into the distance with her head cocked to the side, her bow tilting adorably. After a moment, she laughed lightly, looking up at him. Suave Agent T's heart might have skipped a beat.

"My apologies, Tsuruga-san." She smiled bashfully, playing with the hem of her sweater. "I think I'm having trouble with my day off of work. It appears that I'm just being very paranoid."

Thinking of his instinctive reaction to quickly scout for danger, Ren finished buckling his belt and grinned boyishly down at her. "I know exactly what you mean, Mogami-san."

Tossing his empty coffee cup in a nearby trash bin, Ren offered a hand to his fellow workaholic. "Shall we?"

Despite the long moment of hesitation, the beet red shade of her face, and the robotic jerkiness of her arm, this time Kyoko stepped forward and placed her hand in his.

-x-

It was apparent that the creators of Edo Land were aiming for a romanticized and commercialized experience, not an authentic one.

The main boulevard leading into the park, Tokugawa Dori, was modeled after a bustling commercial district in the historical capital of Edo. Semi-replica but too-clean townhouses with blue tiled roofs lined the street. Shops displayed vertical cloth banners with the smiling faces of cartoon pigs and foxes and words like 'Delicious! Udon!' Street vendors in rickshaws also hawked their wares to the masses – mostly cheap hairpins, jewelry, and picture frames that had the Edo Land logo or character mascots on them.

Speakers, barely disguised on the upturned corner of each roof, continually blared upbeat J-pop renditions of traditional Japanese songs. The music intermittently dimmed for a polite, cutesy voice to announce show times for "A Lotus in the Mire – a live-action play, based on the hit TV drama."

In the distance, tall spires and swoops of modern rollercoasters with vaguely associated Tokugawa-era themes anachronistically broke the already-thin attempt at period immersion.

"What do you want to ride first?" Ren asked, shifting the foldout paper map in Kyoko's direction. They were off to the side, avoiding the flow of people down the central thoroughfare. His unwilling date quickly scanned through the lists of rides.

"D-Daimyo's Death Dive!" Kyoko eventually announced uneasily.

"Are you sure you don't want to do 'Orihime and Hikoboshi's Love Canal'?" He asked with an inward grin, enjoying her struggle to hide her horror. A twitchy, broken smile was the only thing that emerged. Then realization struck her eyes.

"If you want to, we can," Kyoko said, her smile morphing into one with genuine sparkle. She tilted her head to the side, cutely. "But I've always loved terrifyingly high free-fall drops. You know that, dear."

And with that, Ren knew that Kyoko had brilliantly dodged a bullet.

However, she still complained after the ride that he had grabbed her hand. Ren insisted, with a smile, that he had merely been frightened.

The morning and early afternoon passed quickly, with the duo hitting the next two biggest rollercoasters, allowing their stomachs to settle over a stage performance of A Lotus in the Mire. Then they took a lunch break at a small bento shop and caught a photo with Buton-kun and Kitsu-chan, the pig and fox mascots of Edo Land.

It was some time over lunch, during Kyoko's usual lecture that Ren should be eating balanced meals, that Ren noticed they were interacting normally. Not as senpai and kouhai. Not as undercover government agents. Not as Katsuki and Mio or as Aiko and Ryota. Not even as an overly affectionate, lovey-dovey couple like President Takarada had ordered them. But they were acting like Tsuruga Ren and Mogami Kyoko.

Now, as Ren sat across the ferris wheel gondola from his partner, he felt content. The bright mid-afternoon sun streamed into the glass car as he listened to her talk animatedly about her best friend in the whole wide world, 'Moko-san'.

After proclaiming her friend to be the absolutely most beautiful and talented woman in all of history, Kyoko lapsed into silence, having exhausted her list of Moko-san Superlatives.

Ren just continued to enjoy the moment, watching her as she gazed out the glass window of their orange gondola at the rapidly shrinking theme park below. The dark curls of her wig glinted in the light, and she played with the soft fabric at the neck of her sweater. Her headband was slightly askew, and Ren had almost worked up the courage to lean across the gondola to fix it, when Kyoko spoke again.

"Tsu…Tsuruga-san… Can I…" Her voice died out before she started again. "I mean, would it be possible if…"

"What is it, Mogami-san?" He made sure that his voice was as warm and inviting as he could muster. A fluttery sense of hope leapt from his stomach to his throat.

"I, your lowly kouhai, have a great desire to ask you a question!" She twitched into a ramrod-straight bow, sitting with her hands gripped tightly in her lap. Her intense expression looked as if Ren would fillet and pan-fry her at a moment's notice.

He should have known better than to hope with this girl. Balking at the sudden intrusion of titles and rank into their otherwise smooth progression toward normalcy, Ren could only flash what he hoped was a reassuring smile and nod.

"Go ahead."

"Tsuruga-san…" Her amber eyes flashed up, filled with concern but also a great measure of fear. There was a pregnant pause. "What… happened during the interrogation?"

Ren's voice seemed to die in his throat. Even if he wanted to give an answer, where did he begin? Did he start with the years of failure and the Tragedy or did he start at the very beginning, with a small blue rock and a young girl by a stream?

Seeming to take his silence for rebuke, Kyoko quickly backpedaled, and Agent T had to react quickly to slap his open palm between her forehead and the metal floor of their ferris wheel car.

While the poor girl continued to apologize for prying and promised to never question his judgment ever again, Ren heavily considered lying.

'It was merely a tactic. A calculated move. Don't worry, Mogami-san. Your senpai, as usual, had everything perfectly under control.'

He should lie – throw up all the barriers he could lay his hands on. Push her away. Keep her away from his tainted past and his assuredly blood-stained future.

"Actually… It's shameful to say… but I lost control of myself." As soon as the words cleared his mouth, Ren inwardly cursed himself. But his regret was mingled with relief.

Kyoko looked surprised as she sat back up. "But… why?"

Ren paused again, his fear of her rejection too strong to allow him to continue in anything but half-truths.

"The type of person Reino was describing – he reminded me of… an old acquaintance. We used to be friends, but then I realized how toxic it was to be around him. So I… I left."

"Isn't that sad?"

"Maybe…" he said slowly. "But, I guess you can call it self-preservation."

The young woman was silent for several moments, a pained expression creeping gradually over her features.

"If that's the case, then maybe it was the same with Corn… The way that Beagle described him... Maybe all of Corn's friends left him too," she finally said, her voice low with melancholy. "I certainly wasn't much help. I never knew how much he was suffering on the inside."

Before he could catch himself, Ren leaned forward, his knees knocking into hers across the small gap between the seats. Kyoko stiffened at the physical contact, then froze when her senpai's hand cupped her chin.

"Was Corn a precious person in your life?" Ren asked her kindly.

"Yes," Kyoko squeaked, her eyes darting to the side. A blush crept over her cheeks. "He was irreplaceable! But –"

"Then I'm sure it was enough for him. I'm sure he knows," he interrupted, almost sternly, trying to block out her self-doubt with the force of his words. His thumb lightly stroked Kyoko's cheek. "I'm sure that wherever he is right now, he treasures you as well."

A slow smile blossomed on Kyoko's lips. Unbidden, the magnetism of the tender moment drew them closer.

Then the love-scarred woman became aware of their proximity, and she leapt back with a small yelp, her face burning a bright red. Caught in a cloudy mixture of amusement, disappointment, and relief, Ren watched the red fade to dark shadows over her visage. She began muttering to herself, a murderous aura swirling through the confines of the gondola.

"Mogami-san, please refrain from referring to me as an 'unholy and unparalleled playboy'. You really might hurt my feelings."

Appalled that she had apparently been speaking her thoughts aloud, Kyoko stiffened and whipped around to stare intently out the window.

Meanwhile, Ren had drifted into deep thought.

If Kyoko loved someone as pitiful as Kuon, then maybe he too could accept his past. But no. She didn't know the half of it. The Kuon – the Corn – who she knew was long gone as well, buried under poor decisions and anger and tragedy. Tsuruga Ren existed because even he himself had run away from Kuon – Mogami-san certainly would as well.

"Tsu-Tsuruga-san!"

Agent M's startled cry brought him out of his thoughts. Their car was topping its second revolution, and the entire park splayed out below them. Kyoko was glued raptly to one window, her eyes widened in concern.

In an instant, he was beside her, neither agent caring that he was leaning closely over her shoulder.

"Where?"

"In that back lot area, about due east!"

Ren's trained eye quickly swept about twenty degrees to the left. A small weight of dread began to work its way into his stomach.

In the park's much less glamorous back lot, visible only from the height of the ferris wheel, several figures chased down someone who appeared to be a park employee. The white and blue colors on his uniform and hat matched the ones they'd seen earlier that morning by the security tent.

The security guard tripped. Kyoko let out a little anguished gasp.

Catching up quickly, the figures – two? three? It was difficult to tell from their steep height – seemed to strike the man as he lay on the ground.

Ren noted that it was getting more difficult to see the struggle; their gondola had passed its apogee and was slowly crawling into a descent.

The last thing he saw were the figures dragging the man's body away. Then all was swallowed up in the tree-line.

A moment of stunned silence permeated the car before the two agents turned to look at each other.

"I thought I had misunderstood," Kyoko said haltingly as the ferris wheel continued to descend. "This morning, I saw several people jump over the fence to the back, bypassing the security tent. I'm not sure how many. It happened so fast that I thought maybe I was just being paranoid."

After another moment of silent shock, Ren almost laughed at the irony. So much for a day off of work.

The ferris wheel employee knocked on the gondola window as the car slid into its groove at the bottom and opened the door. With a short thank you to the employee, the two agents leapt out of the orange car and ran off toward the back lot.

-x-

It was a simple matter to slip into the employee-only area after one of the animal mascots and his handler had exited the door.

To Ren, it felt almost as if he had stepped into another world. In contrast to the highly manicured environment of the amusement park, the back lot was all asphalt, air conditioning ducts, and rollercoaster cars out for maintenance scattered disjointedly among corrugated tin-roofed buildings.

The late afternoon sun slanted harshly off the metal roofs, and after a moment of disorientation, the two glanced at the ferris wheel and began to jog northeast.

After a few minutes of running at a decent clip and expertly hiding from park employees in the shadows of various buildings, Ren glanced down at Kyoko.

"What's wrong?"

"This place is terrible." Her pout deepened as she glanced at a disemboweled kimono-clad animatronic. "I feel like the magic is gone now…"

Ren barked a short laugh, as much air as he was able to surrender given their brisk pace. He was about to respond when Kyoko suddenly skid to a halt.

"It's up ahead!" Agent M said in a loud whisper, automatically taking Ren's lead to follow him into the shadow of a nearby building. She pointed to a colorful red and green "Edo Land Christmastime!" banner that was slung over a box of what Ren assumed were other season-specific decorations. "I remember seeing that banner from the ferris wheel."

Ren merely nodded in response, his hand wandering to the back of his waistband. Then he froze.

A small groan.

With a trained silent tread, Ren and Kyoko moved forward, toward the source of the sound. Kyoko watched their backs while Ren checked quickly for hostiles behind the various stacks of crates in their path. Behind one such stack, they found the security guard lying slumped and bleeding against a crate.

Agent T nodded to his partner, who stepped forward, handkerchief already in hand, to staunch the man's wounds. The senior agent continued to secure the area, ensuring there were no lingering thugs to ambush them.

Once the area was safe to his satisfaction, Ren returned to Kyoko's side.

"How bad is it?"

Her handkerchief was already tied around the middle-aged man's bleeding forehead. Kyoko was just finishing up her cursory first aid check, using her cell phone's flashlight to check the man's pupils as she opened his eyelids with one hand. Ren noted that the man's stained white shirt was hastily untucked. She had probably removed it to check for other wounds.

"Not terrible," she said with a small sigh of relief, pocketing her cell. "There's always a chance that he could be in danger of internal bleeding, but as far as I can tell, he only has a mild concussion, a decent scalp laceration, and two or three bruised ribs, but it looks like they just beat him unconscious and dragged him over here so nobody would run across him."

"They dragged him through there," Ren said, pointing to a curvature of blood smeared around the corner of the crate stacks. Something about the situation was bothering Ren, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "You stay with him. I'm going to see if they left anything behind."

"Unghh…."

Another groan, louder this time, interrupted Agent T. Kyoko took this as a good sign and began to shake the man's shoulder.

"Oji-san? Oji-san! Can you hear me?"

"Wha…?" The man's eyes fluttered open. He began to squint at Kyoko, as if the world were out of focus. Then his hands flew to his head, and he began to retch. Acting quickly, Kyoko rolled the man onto his side, away from herself. Ren felt himself automatically backpedal a step as the bilious smell of the man's vomit permeated the air.

Though frowning, Kyoko continued to support the guard, rubbing his back comfortingly. Finally when the man was done, she allowed him to roll onto his back.

"Oji-san?" She began again, this time glancing down at the metal nametag pinned to the man's white shirt. "Goto-san?"

Goto-san grunted with a grimace. His bloodied hand came up to clutch at his head again, feeling at the cloth that Kyoko had placed over his head wound, which seemed to be starting to clot. The salt and pepper of his close-cropped hair was rusty with dried blood.

"What… happened…?" He groaned.

"You were attacked," Ren said, still keeping one eye on their surroundings. Something was still niggling at his instincts, and Agent T felt on edge.

Goto only groaned weakly in reply, panting from his minor exertion and the pain. "Those bastards…"

"Who were they?" Kyoko asked, peeling back the bloody handkerchief to check that the bleeding had indeed stopped.

Goto tried to shake his head but grimaced at the effort.

"Can you tell us anything? Anything you remember?"

"I don't…" the guard mumbled, then a moment of clarity passed over his face. "They were wearing these…arm bands… Black with a red circle."

Clearly alarmed, Kyoko glanced up at Ren.

"The People of the Rising Sun," Agent T confirmed her suspicion.

"They…" Goto was frowning, eyes crimped closed in concentration. "There was a backpack full of wires. And something… about a show… Don't remember anything else."

Ren had heard all that he needed. He helped Kyoko prop the man up against the stack of wooden crates, snagging the walkie-talkie that was hanging off the guard's belt.

Agent T requested medical assistance, gave their location, and handed the walkie back to the security officer.

"Goto-san, stay put. Help is on the way," Ren said authoritatively. "Tell the rest of the park's security to be on high alert. You also need to contact the police. Tell them you've been attacked by members of the Rising Sun cult. They're probably going to evacuate the park."

Goto just grunted his understanding, but he was becoming more alert by the minute. Alert enough to slur, "Who are you two, by the way?"

Kyoko stood, seeming to sense the cue to go.

"Oh, no one at all," she replied with a bright smile.

With that, both agents dashed away. Moments later, as Ren was trying to call Lory, they heard behind them the clamor of voices and vehicles as the park's medical staff arrived.

"Explosives?" Agent M asked as they ducked into a convenient hiding spot behind a rack of faux-silk kimonos and boxes of props. She peeked through them to make sure that the medics had found the security guard. "It is their M.O. after all… But I thought the Tokyo police got their stockpiles in the raids."

Ren nodded, "The police might have missed something. If the Rising Sun didn't have explosives before, they seem to have acquired some for today."

"The police might miss something today too." Kyoko scanned the back lot from behind the pallets. "We may need to find them ourselves. The President?"

"His number keeps on going to voicemail," Agent T said with a small sigh, pressing the button to lock his smartphone and pocketing the device. "He might be too busy playing his newest otome game. But considering that even Yashiro is ignoring my calls, it might be that the President black-listed our comms for the day."

Conveniently ignoring President Takarada's unit-wide plot to force the two agents to spend time with each other, Kyoko frowned, deep in thought. "We need some way to blend in – both in the front of the park and in the back. Any ideas?"

"A few…" Agent T mused, turning to the rack of costumes and eyeing a pair of navy blue hakama.

-x-

Japanese notes:
moe – That warm, tense feeling in your bosom when you see an amazing RenxKyoko moment.

Otome game – "maiden game". A genre of dating sim where the bland, generic female protagonist has a harem of hot stereotyped guys who all fall for her.

Daimyo – powerful Japanese feudal lord

Orihime and Hikoboshi – Also known as the legend of the "Weaver girl and the cowherd". This legend is the origin of the Japanese festival of Tanabata and is about star-crossed lovers. They quite literally must cross stars to see each other each year on Tanabata.

Oji-san – literally "uncle" but can be a respectful term for an older man who is a stranger.

Hakama – traditional Japanese trousers. Think the pants worn by the shinigami in Bleach. Fun fact: I went to Anime Expo one year with friends, cosplaying as characters from Bleach. Making hakama is freaking ridiculously difficult. So many pleats!

-x-

MAILBAG

Pancakesareabsolutelydelicious – Thank you so much for the compliments and for taking the time to leave a review! As for my name, it's a pen name! If any one had such a conveniently alliterative name, they'd probably be a cheesy tela-novella character. Lol By the way, your name makes me crave pancakes something fierce!

SilverInu93 – Reino wouldn't be Reino if he wasn't up to no good. ;) But no spoilers beyond that! Muhahaha…. Sadly though, Reino will be on the back-burner for a while as Ren and Kyoko cross swords with more of Delta's agents.

Shizuhoe – Yeah, I can see how the Heel Arc dragged on too long. I think it threw me for a loop because I had to remember that all throughout the Heel Arc, Ren is still finishing up Dark Moon and Kyoko is still filming Box R. Ah the tragedy of a monthly manga update… By the time any progress has been made, years have already passed! As for Lory's statement, I feel like Lory already understands that Kyoko's aversion to love is because she's afraid of getting hurt again. Plus, Maria had given him a brief rundown of what happened in the hall only moments before, so Lory knew what was said. :) And hooray! I hope this chapter and the next will fill that fluff-sized hole in your life!

Aikori Ichijouji – Thanks so much! It's such an encouragement knowing that a fellow author is still keeping up with my writing. As for Yashiro, in the Spy Beat universe, he works off an external server because if he accidental started typing at his work station without his gloves, he can down the entire LME network, stranding agents without support, backup, and intel, destroying priceless documents and evidence, and throwing the entire organization into disarray… I don't know if I'm ever going to find a place to mention it in-story, but that's what Ren was referring to as the "Osaka debacle" in Chapter 3. The day Yashiro forgot his gloves. Lol Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Guest – Haha! Hopefully it's making you sing in a good way! ;) Hope you enjoyed this most recent chapter!

MWEH and cleocat333 – Where you guys/gals at! Haha, hope you're doing well!