I'm back. Again. Let's skip the formalities and just get back to the story, shall we?


New Blood AS - Winds of Change

Chapter 6: Totally Natural


Makimi stifled a yawn as she stared out into her desolate restaurant. It was looking like tonight was going to be another quiet, customer-light night ahead of them. It was really a pain having such little to do during prime business hours, and coming in just to do absolutely nothing all night long wasn't something the employees particularly liked. True, she had plenty of good days, and between her own tenacity and the dedication of her staff she could keep her restaurant afloat, but there was still the part of her that wished she had the money to give LO-Ri the re-modeling it needed.

With the music playing through relatively old and tinny speakers her only accompaniment, she stared at the financial spreadsheet she had been working on. The part of her that was desperate for money couldn't help but consider re-opening her fighting school; a plan she had initially abandoned in order to achieve her dream of opening a restaurant. But that was something she only mused on briefly. Maybe an hour or so of training can get her mind in order…

Any such thoughts were interrupted as her employee-slash-student walked into the door, lazily giving a greeting to the female greeter. "Yo, Makimi…" Zyon announced, already in the midst of removing his school uniform. "What's up?"

"Lack of business, that's 'what's up'." She shut her laptop. Makimi was always glad to see her favorite student; even he did try her nerves sometimes.

"Not that I'm complaining, but you're here earlier than usual today. It's slow, so I don't really need you active till the dinner rush, so feel free to hang out upstairs till then…" She noticed the somewhat bleary look on her student's face. "What's eating you? Takiga chew you out for sleeping through math class again?"

"No, it's not that." He slumped into the chair right next to her. "Ran into a certain somebody that I was hoping I wouldn't have seen."

"What? Who was it?" Makimi didn't like to see Zyon in such a sour mood. "You know you can talk to me about this stuff."

Seeing as there was no other way around it, he decided to humor her. "Fine, I'll start from the beginning. It was when we were walking to school this morning…"


"….And then Kensou freaked out when he found out the fish had went into his pants!"

Zyon found himself having to deal with the awkward situation of having Athena Asamiya tagging along with him as he and his sister walked to school. As Tera and Athena discussed what was going on with her friends back in China, he just turned his music up on his CD player and kept his sights straight ahead, humming along to the song to drown out the talking. Every now and then Athena would glance over at him, perhaps trying to get her friend to open up, but Zyon ignored her for the time being.

He wasn't really showing it, but the whole issue with those supposed NESTS agents was still eating away at him in his head, and he was concerned that there might be repercussions for what his sister did yesterday. It was doubtful, but Zyon had to protect Tera. If it meant that he would had to be in close proximity of an extremely alluring girl in order to do it, then that's his burden to bear. He'd gladly just drown the two out with music.

Either way, there was no need to ponder such stuff now. He had to go to work straight after school to get ready for his friend's arrival, and that meant any homework will have to wait till late that night if he couldn't convince Makimi to let him do it before work…

"Kazuki-kun?" A voice called out.

Zyon froze on the spot. "The hell?" There were only a few people who still referred to him by that name. He turned to Tera, who wore the same confused look.

Athena, fearing a potential swarm of unwanted visitors, teleported herself out of eye range .But what came out of the shop wasn't a crazed fan or an overly-pushy photographer, but an older woman. Granted, said woman nearly smacked Zyon with the door in her rush to come out and see him, but she was all intents and purposes a normal, unassuming lady.

"Kazuki-kun!" She wrapped her arms around him tight enough that he could hear the discs rupture in his back. "It's been so long! I'm so happy you are okay!"

"Of course I am. I've always managed on my own." Zyon gently tugged her off him. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in town for a bit. I've heard you moved here from your cousins' place a few years ago, but I didn't know it was right here." She smiled. "And I see that Hitomi-chan is here as well."

"Eh heh…My name is Tera now." She said hesitantly as she accepted the young woman's sign of affection "But I'm glad to see you too." She returned the gesture.

"I've always wondered why you two chose to change your names so suddenly." The woman turned to Zyon, "I figured your aunt and uncle would be disappointed to separate yourself from the rest of the family."

"Well, if you had a family like I had, you'd want to move as far away from them as possible too." Zyon wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. "Besides, I still keep in contact, but they're in another city now. Nothing I can do about that at the moment. Anyway, it's been nice talking to you, but I have to get to school… you know, learning and stuff."

"Are you sure? I mean, me and Yuudai had another child while you were gone…"

For the slightest of moments, Zyon's body stiffened. "You did?" He said, trying to keep his voice as even as possible.

"Twins, actually! Fraternal ones, granted, but they still look very similar." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a brown wallet. "I've actually saved some pictures for just the occasion."

She presented to him a picture featuring two cute, cuddly young fraternal twins; the happy looks on their small faces could normally brighten up even the most dour person, if not briefly. Zyon, however, only felt a lot of bad blood and broken memories creeping back up.

"Oh, they're adorable!" Tera couldn't help but squeal, "Zyonii, don't you just want to….Zyonii?"

Zyon was already two blocks ahead by time she noticed he had left, drowning out Tera's protests with his music as he turned the corner.


"So they had twins? That's great!"

Zyon could only groan in response. Makimi seemed to be more interested in gushing over potential baby pictures than his own issues, but the glum look on her student's face brought her back down to Earth. "Er, sorry. I guess this was a surprise to you as well."

"Yeah, it was a surprise alright, and now Tera's in a fussy mood because I ran off." He continued, "I had to skip out of school early to keep her from nagging my ear off about it."

"I can't exactly blame your sister for being upset." Makimi stated. "Don't you think it's time to get reacquainted with them already, instead of trying to avoid them every time they come over?"

"If I would, I could. But..." Zyon paused. "I'm done pretty well for myself separating the two of us from my torrid past, so I'm not in any hurry to re-open any wounds right now."

Makimi scooted closer to her loyal friend/student. "I know. But how long are you going to isolate yourself from them? From the sounds of it, they still consider you family."

"They have kids now, so they have a new family." Zyon refused to budge on this issue. "They don't need me around; I'm a stark reminder of why those kids will never get to know their sister."

She gulped; Makimi knew exactly what he was referring to. Zyon's past was very risky ground to tread on, so she tried to play it as cautiously as she could."So it's still a matter of that, huh?" She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You know, whenever you're ready, both me and Takiga will be there to support you, but we won't push you if you don't feel like you're ready."

Zyon couldn't help but smile as his boss gave him a hug. "I will. Sorry to burden you with all these ghosts from my past." He got up and headed towards a door in the back that led up to the part of the building where Makimi actual apartment was, "I'm going to take a quick nap before I get to work."

"Don't take too long. We already had one fire here without you." She taunted. Zyon gave her a half-hearted shrug as he disappeared through the door.

\ \ \

"So, how is everything going?"

Haru found himself being greeted with Luka's voice the moment he picked up the phone during their preparations for tonight's dinner. With Vio busy working herself into a panic trying to find the best outfit to wear, Haru was the one answering his questions.

"It's going well so far. Raven and Krysten seem to have been keen on getting to know us. We're going to meet the entire team in a half an hour or so, in fact." He took the cordless phone with him to the couch. "They seemed pretty eager to introduce us to them."

"Already? Geez…" Luka was obviously amazed by their quickness. "Good work, though I can say that they're probably a little too friendly for their own good if they opened up to you that much in just a short period of time."

"Raven seems to be very friendly and sociable to everyone. Krysten is slightly more introverted, though he opens up once he becomes more familiar."

"Have they talked about KOF yet? I'm just curious."

"A little, but they claimed they went straight home after they were defeated by Terry Bogard and his teammates. No mention of Irena or Krizalid or any of that clone stuff, so there should be no concerns about them leaking any information out to the public."

"I'm not worried about that." Luka said, "Considering the level of the incident, every law enforcement agency on God's green Earth would be busting down their doors if they so much as hinted such things, and it's clear that they're not looking for the extra attention. Remember, you're gathering information about the kids' backgrounds and fighting styles, not what they did at that tournament. We already have most of that info from the reports Irena gave us a few months ago."

"Alright, then we'll keep doing what we're doing."

"How's Vio? She's been well, I hope."

"She's doing okay. Everyone has been nice to her so far, so she's starting to relax a bit..." Haru looked up the steps that lead to their respective bedrooms. Vio burst out of the bathroom, growling something about the way every outfit she put on was going to get her laughed at before slamming the door to her room shut. "…but she still has her moments, though."

"That's to be expected, I guess. Just make sure she doesn't get too frazzled…" Luka cut himself off with a loud yawn. "Anyhow, since all seems to be well, I'll be off now. Finished my mission early, so I'm going to sneak off and visit Foxy for a bit."

"Really? Aren't those two currently on a mission?"

"If I know Kula, she probably already completed hers by now. Besides, it will be a nice to make sure she's okay; I think my superiors seem to insist on forcing her into so many assignments in an attempt to rush her development as a fighter."

Haru grunted. He would be the first one to admit that he was never a fan of how NESTS treated Kula at times. All the field testing, constant experiments, and the lab testing wasn't something a girl like her should be dealing with, but situation had changed so much, they needed to get her as ready as possible in the next few months.

Luka was seemingly aware of his subordinate's frustrations, however. "I know, I know. But that's how it is, I guess. As one of the people in charge of the Anti-K' project I have a little wiggle room, but I still have to bow to the higher-ups 80 percent of the time." he said, "All I can do is hope that Foxy and Diana can keep her safe from harm. But I'll worry about her for both of you. Keep your head in the game, Haru."

"Yeah, sure." Naturally, Haru wasn't entirely convinced, but now wasn't the time to dwell on it. "Listen, I gotta go. Duty calls and all that."

"Sure. I have some business to attend too myself. I'll talk to you later Haru." The phone hung up with a soft click.

"Haru? Who was that?" Vio called from the second floor.

"Luka. He got done with his mission early, so he decided to give us a call to see if we're still sane."

"He's already bothering us with calls? I hope Lulu doesn't make this a habit."

"We both know he's concerned about you. It's all he can do at this point." Haru said, "Even if he didn't want to, Dad would probably be bugging him about it anyway, so it's something we'll deal with."

"I know. I care about him dearly, but I just don't want him pestering over my every move. I am a highly intelligent girl and a respected agent of NESTS; I am capable of handling thing on my own, thank you very much." She paused as she looked at her outfit. "I look like shit, don't I?"

"It's fine. Everything's fine on you. You really think they're going to laugh you out of the restaurant if you make some fashion faux-pas?"

"I have pride in my look. I'm not like Irena, who's idea of getting dressed is diving into a pile of clothes and-"

The doorbell rang, elating a slight 'eep' from Vio as she dashed back into her room and shut the door. Haru quickly answered the door, and greeting him was a black-haired teen who looked a bit peeved. His expression lightened up when he spoke, though. "Yo. Are you Haru?" He asked.

"Uh…yeah. You're Xion, right?"

"Yep. Raven really doesn't have much method of transportation besides his brother's bike, so he begged me to pick you guys up and take you to LO-Ri….at the very last minute." He coughed. "As usual."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Xion-san…"

"Xion is just fine, man. We're the same age, right?" He shrugged, before finally taking a good look at the place. "This is a pretty spacious house you got here."

"Oh, it's not that great." Haru dismissed, "it's just a house."

"Don't be so modest with me. My place is basically a train wreck in comparison." He gestured to his car outside. "So, are you guys ready?"

"That depends." Haru turned back to the upstairs area. "Yo, Vio! You almost done?"

"Y-yes! Wait, I mean no!" She poked her head out the door, "Ugh, can't you wait a bit while I try to sort this shit out!" She shut the door.

Haru shook his head. "Yeah, she'll be a bit longer…"

Xion gave him a sympathetic look. "Hey, I deal with those types of girls all the time. No big deal."

/ . / . / . /

"Wow, this is….kind of a mess…" Haru spoke when Xion led them into the restaurant.

LO-Ri wasn't a bad-looking place per say...it wasn't a fancy restaurant, it was a place that was trying real hard to make itself a fancy restaurant. It was clean and the smells of the food coming from the kitchen were admittedly mouth-watering, but random Oriental paintings and dragon statues and lanterns where thrown haphazardly throughout the whole damn place, as if the person in charge of decor just decided to put anything even vaguely Chinese-looking.

"…It's still in development." Xion said. "Though she's been saying that for the past two years."

"But the food's good, right?" Vio asked. "Please say yes. This place isn't giving me any good vibes whatsoever."

"The food is great! The problem is that the owner is a former fighter who had no experience in actually running a restaurant and absolutely sucks at making smart business decisions, so it's up to the rest of the staff to cover her ass so they don't get put out of a job. She's also has somewhat of an ego, and between that and Zyon's behavior, LO-Ri has gotten a...reputation, so to speak. You should be good as long as you behave."

Vio and Haru were obviously quite perturbed by that statement, but neither of them had time to respond before a young man spontaneously burst out of the kitchen, coughing up a storm as a small plume of smoke followed him out.

"Might want to go easy on the way you add those spices next time!" He said to an unknown cook in the back as he quickly ran through his hair to get the remnants of ash out of it.

"Oh, you finally made it? Lemme guess; Raven told you to pick them up at the last minute because they don't…"

"…have a car? Yep. I saw it coming, so it wasn't a big deal." Xion motioned to the two standing behind him. "Aren't you gonna introduce yourself?"

"Oh, right. Glad to have the privilege of seeing you guys in person after how much Raven has been talking about you two." Zyon bowed; something he wasn't keen on doing a lot of the time, but it was appropriate in this case. "My name is Zyon Kasanari. It's certainly a pleasure to meet you." His eyes immediately locked with Vio's. "Especially you, cutie."

Vio felt her face turn red. "T-Thank you…" The young girl suddenly found the floor more interesting than looking into his eyes. Why did every guy have to think she was cute?

"Now, now. No need to be shy, my lovely young girl. I certainly am not the type who bites unless they ask me to." He smiled, purposely ignoring the pointed look Xion was giving him. "Anywho, let me show you to your table. I still have a few more orders to finish up before Makimi lets me go for the night, so I'll join you guys in a bit."

Zyon helped them to their place before running back to the kitchen, at which time Raven and Krysten had arrived on the scene and every worker in the restaurant let out a collective groan. The two of them had caused their own share of incidents at the restaurant—a lot of it a result of them trying to deal with other rowdy customers—and had a tendency to cause damage every time.

"Welcome to …Uh-oh, it's you two again…" The greeter frowned the moment Raven and Krysten appeared in her peripheral vision. "Zyon told me that you were coming, and with friends this time too. I'm prepared to call the cops if you try anything close to what you did last time…"

"Hey hey, what's with the attitude?" Raven crossed his arms, "We didn't do anything too rough..."

"You threw a guy through the window!"

"That was Krysten's fault."

"Don't blame me. Maybe if that one guy wasn't so fat, the glass wouldn't have broken."

She huffed. "There's dealing with rowdy customers, and then there's turning the restaurant into an impromptu fight club." She replied, "Zyon and Makimi are more than enough to deal with any nonsense around here, so could you and your brother please show some restraint this time, 'kay?"

Raven rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll be good little boys and not have the police visiting here again."

It was that moment he finally acknowledged the others that were waiting for him. "You made it! I hope Xion didn't bug you too much because we waited till the last minute to let him know he had to pick you up. Honestly, he should be used to it by now."

Xion just grunted.

"Anyway, what happened to Anya-san? She didn't come with you?" Raven asked.

"She was going to, and then she changed her mind at the last minute."


(A few hours earlier…)

"So you don't want to go with me back to LO-RI?" Xion asked, to which Anya shook her head.

"It would be rude of me to impose on your friends little get-together." She replied. "And besides that, it'll be more than a little awkward for me. I'm sure they'd be poking around with all sorts of questions about stuff I prefer not to discuss at this moment."

"Hey, I'm sure that they wouldn't pry too much into your-" Xion stopped talking to consider his words. "On second thought, they most definitely would, but they're still pretty cool about things. The three of them aren't exactly normal themselves."

"Even so, you've been so courteous, I think you more than deserve some time away from having to babysit me day in and day out." Anya smiled brightly. "Have fun with your friends! I'll be fine here. As long as I got video games and food, I'm functioning fine."

"Well…" His conversation was cut short by the sound of Aira slamming open the door. As this was early evening, that usually meant one thing.

"Xion, me and Akiyo are gonna stay here for a few." She announced as she walked in, with the bandaged young boy following close behind to make sure the door was closed in a quieter fashion than it was opened. "Akiyo got into a big fight with his brother, so I'm keeping him company while things simmer down."

"Xion-san! I brought Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 again, so if you want a rematch from last week…" Upon sight of the girl, he stopped a bit. "Wait, is this the 'Anya' that Aira told me about?"

"Yes, Akiyo. This is Anya Sorenstein." Xion didn't even bother being surprised. This was Aira, she was never good at keeping secrets.

"It is nice to meet you." She greeted.

"It's nice to meet you too. Shiori told me about you when I mentioned going over Xion-san's place today."

I guess Shiori is the one that needs to keep her big trap shut in this case. Xion shook his head. "Sorry, Aki. I'm meeting up with Zyon and the others at LO-RI today, so you'll have to keep Anya company this time around."

"Ditching us to go eat, huh? I should have expected such treachery from you, Xion." Aira sat down on the couch right next to her. "You better bring us some food back or else."

"Yeah, yeah, I know the routine." Xion waved her off. "Give you food or your friends will give me hell for a week. Just make sure you leave everything around in 1 piece this time."

"Don't worry! I'm going to be too busy beating her at wrestling to do that."

"Bite me, Akiyo. Someone who lacks peripheral vision has no right criticizing my playing style."

Xion headed towards the door. "Anya, if these two get too rowdy, you have my expressed permission to toss their asses out the balcony."


"Seriously? You're going to let those Aira and Akiyo keep an eye on her?" Krysten muttered. "I wouldn't be surprised if they're gone by time you got back. Those two operate in a completely different wavelength."

"It's more like her keeping en eye on them, actually, but I wouldn't worry too much. As long as they don't start throwing water balloons off the balcony at cars again, things should be okay."

Eventually Zyon came out with their food and the six of them all started to eat. The SSC as a whole mostly made small talk; for a while. This was the first time since the tournament they had been together as a group-a result of their rather conflicting schedules-and there was a good bit of catching up to do. Vio finally gathered up the courage to ask them about how the four of them initially met.

"Really? It's not that exciting." That was the answer Raven gave her. "It was all one big misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding?"

"I suppose I should fill you in on the story of how our little group first got together." Haru and Vio quickly perked up at the sound of some information they could use.

"A few years back, someone from Zyon's school had come to ours and started harassing some of the students over…well some incident that had happened in another school some ways away from any of ours Naturally, I intervened before things got ugly. However, one of those punks had ran back to his school and told everybody that we had ambushed them out of nowhere."

"Honestly, I didn't really believe them." Zyon added, "I only went along with the whole thing out of boredom. Plus my cousin had called me about something similar going on with the schools where he was at, so I didn't have much of a choice but to investigate. So I invited Xio-kun and we went down to the nearest school to ask a few questions."

Xion grunted as he dug the meat out of the crab he'd just cracked open. "Okay...First, you didn't invite me, You dragged me out of class in the middle of the day because you claimed that the two of us were getting the jump on some guys who attacked some of your classmates. Second; what questions? We didn't do any investigating; some asshole recognized your uniform, talked smack, you sucker-punched him and nearly started a brawl!"

"Then when the two of us ran out to defend those students, the two of you ran away." Raven added. "I think it was a good 10 minutes we spent chasing you through town."

"Well, be that as it may, the four of us did end up getting into a massive fight. Out by that park, remember?"

"I remember. It was pretty fun, wasn't it?" Raven mused, "Except for the lighting. That kinda hurt."

Krysten, who had been eating mostly silently the whole time, paused to interject in the conversation. "Xion and I had a real good view of the whole thing once we realized how ridiculous this whole thing was and stopped fighting each other. You, on the other hand, had gotten way too into it and you ended up getting drained so bad that you collapsed. It was a mess having to drag you back to school and to the nurse. It's a miracle we didn't get in major trouble."

"Actually, Zyon did get in trouble. Takiga went freaking berserk when she found out about it." Xion added. "Seeing him sit there pouting as she cursed him out was the icing on the whole cake. She was seconds away from outright strangling you."

"Can you blame her? If the person who I'm technically supposed to be watching over seemed to be a trouble magnet, I'd go insane too."

Zyon sighed exasperatedly, "Alright, I get the point! It was a dumb idea on my part, but that's not what's important. We ended up making amends later on and the four of us became friends at the end, and that's that."

"So you guys just beat up each other, and then became best friends?" Vio asked.

"Yeah? Isn't that how most lasting friendships are made?" Raven said. "Hokuto says that sometimes the heat of battle is where understanding between two people can be at it's clearest. Some junk like that, anyway."

"Hokuto? She's your sister isn't she?

"Yeah. My older sister." Raven paused. "…Okay, not technically. But she was one of the first people I met, so I consider her my sister. After all, she did let me stay at her home when after she found me."

"What about Krysten?"

"He came around a bit later." Raven motioned to him, "Wandering around town when the two of us passed through. was a mess; he was practically mute for the first month he lived with us.."

"Basically we had to leave in order to satisfy Hokuto's elders. So we moved all the way over here, and that is the end of that." Krysten said with an air of finality. "Long story short, we're here now for the moment. She still supports us from afar, and we still she her from time to time, but this is we're we are."

"Sorry we can't tell you more. Secret family stuff and all that jazz."

Haru and Vio found themselves opening their mouths to form questions that never came out. Hidden clan stuff? Secret techniques? Was wherever they came from the place were they learned how to fight? The video of Raven's short fight with Krizalid seemed to signify more than mere martial arts mastery were at play here. Then again, most of the people they worked with also had their share of weird stuff that he knew. The two weren't exactly normal themselves.

"Of course...If you are ever up to it, I'd be willing to 'spar' with you." Krysten said somewhat tensely, eyes glued to his plate. "T-that is, only if you want."

"E-er, yeah. I'd think I'd like that." Vio answered a bit quickly than she would have liked.

"Or if you want, you could hang with me. I'm always looking to have some fun, so to speak." Zyon added. "I have no problem getting physical with girls!" He laughed before Krysten discretely punched him in the ribs. "Hey!"

"Knock it off, idiot." Krysten gave him a pointed look. "Or I'll drag you into the kitchen and dunk your head in the tank you keep the crabs in."

Vio merely blushed, deciding to focus on food in order to ease away the awkwardness.

/ / /

"Knock, Knock…" Luka mumbled as he stood in front of the hotel door.

His mission—a routine reconnaissance job that had turned into an impromptu assassination for various reasons- had been a thankfully brief and uneventful affair. His task done, he decided to drop in on the place where Foxy, Diana and the brand new Anti-K' was currently residing in. As tired as he was, he was in somewhat good spirits, and was hoping for some time with his favorite bee.

Indeed, Diana finally opened the door, and was quite shocked to see him still standing. "What are you doing here?"

"Easy mission, early exit." Luka said as he forced himself in. "And since Kula seemed to have finished her with time to spare, I figured I had a rare opportunity to pop over here."

"There's the person I want to see…"

That 'person he was referring to was one Kula Diamond, who was silently sitting on the floor as she watched cartoons, as she had been doing for most of that day. She looked at him, a smile forming ever-so-slightly on her small face.

"Hello, Princess." He knelt down beside her. "How are you feeling? Did your mission go well?"

"Yeah. It was easy." Her voice had an inkling of dullness to it, as if her emotions had to warm up for a bit before showing itself. "I just went inside and killed him." She said casually.

"And how did you do that?"

"Caught him in the throat with a blade I made." She said, "There was...a lot of blood..."

"Yeah there's always the blood part. Cut the wrong area and your guy sprays all over the place like a broken water hose. Trust me, I've been there." He hummed, placing a hand on her brown-haired head. "Either way, I'm happy you're alright. Once we get back home, I'll see that they give you a break. Sakari should be getting some assignments soon, anyway. I'll just dump some stuff on him."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that." Diana said, "But I'm also sure that your main reason of coming all this way is to see Foxy, am I correct?"

"Maaaaaybe." Luka failed to hide the sly smirk. "Where is she?"

"Still passed out on the bed. I don't know about you, but in this part of the world it's actually still quite early, you know?"

"Right. In that case, I suppose it's my duty to wake the lady up." With a grin that reeked of lecherous thoughts, Luka stalked into the door that led to the main bedroom, but Diana quickly grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and forced him into a seat.

"Actually, your duty right now is to sit here and listen to this information I have for you." Diana said, calmly pouring him a cup of coffee. Luka, knowing that any attempt at resistance would only result in misery and time in a ICU ward, reluctantly complied. He did not want to ruin his lucky streak when it came to not getting any injuries during missions.

"Right around the time I reported our mission a success, Foxy inquired HQ about what exactly was happening with the rouge agent right now." She started. "And from what we heard, some other, more loyal agents discovered him a few days ago."

"Should I be happy that he's being taken care of, or concerned about why we have more agents over there?" Luka said "I'm pretty sure I had the assurance of our superiors that no other agents would be tittering about the area as long as Haru and Vio were there."

"They assured me that they wouldn't purposely make contact with either of them, but that's not the concern. The agent managed to get away, but not before he sabotaged an attempted…recovery...of one Yuki Kushinda."

"Yuki who?"

"Apparently she's Kyo Kusanagi's girlfriend, from what I heard. They're hoping to use her as a lure to get him out of hiding, but so far they keep getting cut off whenever they actually attempt it, and now it seems they gained the ire of one Zyon Kasanari, member of the SSC."

"Oh…" Luka sipped his tea. It took about ten seconds before it hit him. "Wait, what? How did that happen?"

"His sister had gotten attacked when she had stepped in to defend Yuki. She actually was the one who deterred the agent, but Zyon felt the need to 'send a message' on his own terms, I suppose. Now he's in intensive care."

Luka held back various curses, not wanting to swear in front of Kula. "So I guess I'll be going to HQ to chew them out and have these guys pull back?" He sighed in resignation.

"As I said, they're keeping their distance. Besides, It's doubtful Haru and Violeta are in any real risk as they were quite a ways away from where this happened." Diana assured as she sipped her coffee. "My issue has more to do with how the whole situation has the potential to lead to one massive blowup. And if that happens, who knows what unwanted attention this could give us?"

"And I just called those two and they didn't say anything was wrong. I guess I'll have to pull in my contingency plan if worse comes to worse."

Diana slightly raised an eyebrow. "Contingency plan? Do you mean Sakari?"

"Yep. Ready and probably waiting to test his new 'parts' out. If need be, I'll just have him dispatch this rouge agent himself and be done with it." Luka perked up at the thought of the nanomachine project he'd spent a good portion of his life trying to bring to fruition. "The chance of getting battle data so early is too irresistible to pass up."

"Figures." It had become a bit of a common fact that Luka was a bit obsessed with the nanomachine project. NESTS had given him their full endorsement, but sometimes he had a habit of shoving everything important aside so he could focus on only that. Kirou Tsuyomi was probably the one who suffered from this the most, usually stuck having to cover for him whenever Luka would disappear into his lab for hours at a time.

"I understand the kid has become your little 'pet project'," She continued, "but don't forget your primary job right now is with the Anti-K' efforts."

"If our princess keeps up her current pace, that shouldn't be too much of a problem, either." He motioned to the young girl who was currently engrossed in the television. "In that case, it would be just a matter of which girls can handle the process without turning the testing room into a deep freezer."

Their conversation was interrupted when the last piece of the group finally emerged from the bedroom. Foxy, disheveled and with her pale hair sticking out in a way that she would normally feel was unbecoming for a lady like herself, strode into the room.

"Luka…" She murmured. "What are you doing here early this morning?"

"Actually, it was near night when I left the airport. You know time zones and junk. But anyway, I'm here to see you, babe."

"You know I don't like being called that." Foxy said with a playful swat of the arm. "How long you're here for?"

"I've got about…" Luka added it up in his head. "…Thirty hours before I have to report back to HQ."

"They were pretty generous with you for once." Foxy turned back to the bedroom. "Diana, why don't you and Kula get started on breakfast? Me and Luka need to talk for a bit."

"Talk', huh?" Diana resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She didn't exactly care for Luka and Foxy's rather 'intense' relationship at times, but he made her happy. As long as that happened—and as long as they gave her a bit of a warning when the two were about to go at it like rabbits—Diana wouldn't complain. "Kula, sweetie, let's go and see what delicious things they put out in the breakfast buffet today!"

Kula nodded silently, turned the TV off and took her hand and the two of them left the room. "Don't be in there all day, Lulu." Diana half-joked, half-warned as she closed the door.

"Idiot. Maybe you should give a little warning before you come barging in unannounced." Foxy half-scolded. "I look like a total mess right now."

"Hush. You look lovely when you wake up." Luka wrapped an arm around her waist. "I'm the one who looks like they spent the night in a back-alley doctor office."

"Did you get hurt again?"

"Nah. Not this time, thankfully." He unbuttoned his shirt to show it off. "See, no need to deal with bloody bandages getting us tangled this time around."

"I'm glad for you, but I wish they wouldn't put you on such dangerous missions. You came on as a scientist, remember?"

"I know, I know. I've told them the same thing, but a job's a job." Luka lifted Foxy into his arms. "But at the moment, I believed that there's some more important things that we need to take care of, right?"

"God you're such a pervert..." Foxy sighed wistfully as she was carried into the bedroom.

/ / /

After a long and eventful dinner, which included Zyon convincing one of the waitresses to sing a song on the Karaoke Machine, it was time for everyone to go.

"II suppose we'll see you at class tomorrow then." Raven yawned. He was holding about three bags of extra food, as Makimi usually gave them some leftovers in an attempt to have them eat something at least slightly healthier than pizza and ramen for dinner everyday.

"Yeah. I guess." Krysten said. "The four of us don't really get much a chance to see each other, so it was good for you to get to know them."

"Thank you so much for all of your courtesy." Vio bowed embarrassingly. "It was great to meet you guys."

"It 's cool. I'll probably be seeing you around sooner or later, anyways." Zyon said. "But I'm sure Xio-kun is ready to take you home, since who knows what's happening at his house right now. Aira is probably dangling Akiyo over his balcony for all we know."

"Ugh. Don't even remind me."

Just as Xion was about to start the car, however, Zyon tapped on the window. "Xio-kun! Actually, before you leave, I kinda need to talk to you and the others right quick." He said.

"Hm. What is it now?"

"It's pretty serious, and I want to get your input now while the you and the rest of the guys are still here."

If Zyon was serious, then it had to be something significant. "Alright." XIon turned to the two kids sitting in the back seat. "Sorry, gotta go handle this right quick. Go ahead to the car if you want."

The two hesitantly went back into the car, but clearly, there was information that they needed to be privy to. "Wanna try and listen in?" Haru suggested.

If there was a chance of secret information, they weren't about to lose it. Vio pressed an ear against the rear window…

"Tera got attacked?"

"If you wanna get technical, Yuki was the one who was attacked. Tera actually was the one who saved her, but still…" Zyon sighed. "It was still a bit of a close call, so I'm concerned."

"And you say it has something to do with what happened last year? With NESTS and all of that?"

"I don't know if it was NESTS. But what little I could make out from where I was hiding I could hear them mention Kyo Kusanagi. Now, Kyo is Yuki's boyfriend, so it could be something different, but it would be a bit far fetched for them to not know that he'd was still gone after all this time. They didn't seem to recognize me, so that's some good news at least."

"Sounds to me like they're using her as bait to get to Kyo." Raven replied. "If they're not here for us then we should be in the clear, right?"

"That doesn't change the fact that there are agents prowling about." Xion inferred. "We need to keep an eye out. If things get too hectic, then we could end up getting dragged in anyway. And then everyone else starts coming out of the woodwork and this entire thing spirals out of control.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right, this time. I guess we wait it out. If nothing happens to us after a few days, then we shouldn't have anything to worry about."

"And if it does?"

"It just does. I accepted the fact that there would probably be consequences for our little stunt last year. Whatever happens happens, remember?"

"I certainly hope you're right about this, or this is gonna turn real bad real quick.."

Haru watched as she took her head away from that window. Her face was expressionless; a sign that he knew was something to be concerned with.

"Haru?" Vio voice was dead even, which was never a good sign.

"Yeah?"

"Before we left, did Luka or anyone else happen to mention anything about any other NESTS agents that would be roaming around the area with us?"

He recounted the mission details he had received not too long ago. "No. Considering this is an undercover job, there shouldn't be any people other than us there unless it was an emergency. Why? Are there agents here?"

Vio nodded, face still blank.

"What?"

"…And apparently Zyon's sister was involved in a botched 'retrieval' mission."

"WHAT?!" Haru placed the palms of his hands against his forehead. "This is terrible for our mission! They could blow our cover! How in the everlasting fuck could this happen?"

"I'm gong to make a guess and say that the bosses must have gone over Luka's head to get this approved. It wouldn't be the first time." She continued, "I'd imagine he's going to throw a fit when he learns about this."

"I'm more concerned about why you're not throwing a fit right now."

Vio snapped her head towards him, her expression finally giving off some idea of the frustration she was feeling that moment."Trust me. I am extremely pissed." She growled, "But I'm choosing to bottle up my anger for the moment to prevent any suspicion."

"That's not very healthy, you know. Just make sure you let your anger out in a way that doesn't involve me having to patch holes in the wall." Haru noticed Xion heading back to the car. "Crap, he's coming back. Act natural."

The two of them quickly regain their composure as Xion slid back into the car. "Sorry about that. Let's get going already." He said.

"Everything okay?" Haru asked, just out of curiosity.

"Yeah, yeah, just some personal issues. Zyon just getting into trouble as usual."

The car slowly pulled off the lot. Vio stared blankly out the window for the entire ride back. After giving him their farewells and entering back into the house, Vio marched up to her room and closed—or to be more accurate, slammed – the door.

"Keep it cool, Vio." Haru said, and got the sound of what was probably one of Vio's plushies thrown against the door in response. Haru scratched the back of his head in resignation as he went to his own room, silently hoping that his superiors had a handle on things before it got out of control. If not for the sake of the mission, at least, then for the sake of not wanting to face the wrath of a pissed-off Violeta Nakahara.

/ / /

And that's game for now.

I apologize once again. A lot has gone on the past few of years, and it put a big dent into my motivation to write. I won't say I'm completely out of it yet but I think it's best that I push myself to get back on the stick and get the juices flowing again. So yeah, I have some ideas In my head, but of course, there's two other stories overdue for updates, so I'm going to get those up too before I even consider posting something new…

Either way, I've been staring at this thing so long that I'm just going to post this as-is, so to speak. If there are any significant errors or scenes or sentences that seem to cut off abruptly, feel free to point those out so I can update them ASAP, but I'm tired of looking at this chapter, honestly, and I need to move on.

Next Chapter: Xion finds himself in quite a pickle, while Krysten and Violeta get themselves more acquainted when she insists on having a spar with him..

Sayonara. Until Next Time.