Chapter 25: Homecoming

"Mockingbird? Why do you want to know about him?" The older Man asked his subordinate without even looking up from his new comic. Jason didn't like going to Tamaki for information, it only validated his delusions that he was the one in control. Then again even if that wasn't part of Hagires plan he doubted his adoptive father cared enough to learn about Mockingbird before taking control of the young man. So that left him with the man-child in charge as his source of information.

"I just have a strange feeling about him." He attempted to brush off any suspicion his sudden question. "Does it really matter?" Tamaki looked over the page he was on and studied the younger mans expression before quickly looking back down finding the conversation rather boring.

"I suppose not, What do you want specifically?" Jason smiled at this and leaning back and taking a moment to think. Nothing before Deadman Wonderland would help him considering he would certainly remember if he had encountered him outside of the facility. After all he could vividly remember all four times he was aloud out.

"Any information gathered during his time at Deadman Wonderland would do fine." He waited for Tamaki to finish his page before the Director answered.

"Alright come back in an hour or so. I'll have what you want." Jason smiled and nodded before walking out feeling rather confident. That had gone rather smoothly, no bad jokes, no overly pointed questions, and beside that stupid comic he hadn't insulted him. Maybe Tamaki was shaping up to be a respectable Director after all? Then again it didn't matter Tamaki's death certificate had already been signed by Hagire himself.

Hunter leaned against the tree watching everyone. Toto was running from person to person generally just trying to spread good vibes to the other guests. Senji had gotten his hands on some booze and was currently challenging several men. Now Hunter didn't know where he had gotten the bottle of whisky but he supposed it was inevitable a bottle would show up eventually. Yo was watching his younger sister with a worried expression because Minatsuki was... Talking to an armadillo. Hunter decided that not questioning this behavior was the safer option and stopped staring before she had the chance to look in his direction. Haru was sitting on a bench being harassed by Chaplin who seemed to be trying to flirt with him, unfortunately for her Haru didn't seem to be even remotely interested. Rin was playing cards with Idaki and two deadmen Hunter didn't recognize. Hunter didn't know why but it felt like she was avoiding him, he hadn't seen her since Alex's party and that was almost three weeks ago. Then again it could have been his imagination and she was probably busy accumulating debt through gambling or whatever she did in her free time. Shiro was drinking out of a flask owned by her amazingly irresponsible older brother before wandering off no doubt to get Ganta who has been absent so far. So that just left him enjoying the shade. Or that's what he would have done if Alex hadn't chosen that exact point to make his presence known to the oblivious younger man.

"Sup man?" Hunter made a noise resembling a kicked dog getting a laugh from Alex who leaned against the tree. "Still jumpy eh?" Hunter took a breath of air before turning to his friend with a scowl. He couldn't help but notice his friends appearance had somewhat changed over the last month or so. His hair had grown out a bit, not much but it was noticeable as small curly bangs came down to the middle of his forehead as well as by the back of his neck. What had to be a more recent change was that he had also grown a small beard over the last few weeks, he could have sworn Alex kept his face clean shaven. This made Hunter briefly wonder about his own appearance, he ran a hand through his previously buzzed hair to find it had grown about an inch and was the same curly mess his father kept. Feeling his chin he could also feel the starting of stubble. Getting his mind back on track he remembered he was somewhat annoyed at Alex for jump scaring him

"Well I can't help it if you come out of nowhere." Alex raised his hands in defense holding in a chuckle before saying.

"Sorry, sorry." He then lowered his hands with a smile. "So what's up man? It feels like forever since we've really hung out or talked." Hunter had to agree. Ever since the party they haven't spent much time together. They had talked and seen each other of course but not on the same level they had before hand. Of course that was to be expected, Hunter had been spending most of his time in the gym and Alex was... Well he didn't really know for sure but he had a few guesses.

"Well not much really, I've been working out lately." Alex nodded vaguely remembering something along those lines.

"Oh yeah I remember Shiro telling me about that, you getting buff yet?"

"Well..." Hunter rolled his short sleeve. There wasn't much there but it was certainly an improvement on the skinny little twigs that had been there when they first met. He gave and approving smile and a thumbs up to the younger teen.

"Nice work."

"Thanks. What about you? What have you been doing?" Alex smirked in a way that made him look rather pleased with himself and said.

"You mean besides Minatsuki?" Hunter gave Alex a look that could easily be directly translated to 'really man?'.

"And how long do you think that will continue if she hears you ?" Alex shrugged, he wasn't very concerned with that at the moment.

"Ah it's fine, we aren't screwing right now anyway." Hunter raised an eyebrow at this. He didn't know much about Alex's and Minatsuki's little arrangement and he wanted to keep it that way. Minatsuki was dangerous however and if Alex was in danger he needed to know.

"Something happen?" Alex looked away and rubbed the back of his head, while doing this he noticed his hair was getting longer than he liked, oh well a quick trim could fix that.

"We had a fight a few days ago and now she won't talk to me." Hunter winced at this and grew a little nervous.

"Oh..." Alex on the other hand brushed it off almost completely.

"Besides that." He leaned in and whispered. "I've actually been working on getting some info on the people who sent us here." This pretty easily diverted his attention to the new information. He nearly shouted before covering his mouth and leaning in to whisper. Could he really be blamed though? They hadn't gotten any new information about Hades and the other one since the Undertakers, then the forgeries were revealed and things just got away from them.

"Wait really, how?" Alex shifted his eyes briefly and said.

"Can't say yet, but when I get something good I'll let you in." Hunter clearly wasn't pleased with this answer.

"Dude come on you know you can trust me." Alex sighed, he didn't want to lie to Hunter but he knew the boy wouldn't approve of torture even if it was that annoyingly resilient bastard Rokuro. So he thought up something on the spot.

"I do. But im working with a few ex-Undertakers who only trust other ex-Undertakers." He gave Hunter a smile and placed a hand on his shoulder before saying. "It's not that I don't trust you, its that they won't trust you. I can't risk them finding out I even mentioned them to you okay?" This seemed to convince Hunter who nodded. He didn't look pleased but it seems he understood the position Alex was pretending to be in well enough.

"Alright just make sure you keep me in the loop okay." Alex smiled as his best friend confirmed he believed him.

"Come on, this is a party right? Let's go have some fun!" Hunter nodded and looked around but he didn't really see many options.

"Alright, what should we do?" Alex also scanned the area. Ganta and Shiro were with Toto at a tree. Senji, Idaki, and Haru were drinking what seemed to be liquor. Minatsuki was keeping an... Was that an armadillo? Why was Masu trying to- actually that one was pretty self explanatory. Chaplin was getting frisky with a distressed looking Yo. And Rin was still playing cards with a female Deadman. That looked fun enough.

"How about cards?" He said pointing to the table getting a suspicious look from the younger teen.

"You gonna cheat again?" Alex placed a hand on his chest and put on a fake look of shock.

"What? I would never!" Hunter decided to ignore that blatant lie and agreed that cards would be fun. So they walked over until Rin noticed them and waved.

"Hey guys! how you been?" Hunter smiled and waved back.

"Pretty good!"

"Just fine." Alex said pulling out what Hunter had to assume was a second flask before taking a sip. Rin scowled at this and said.

"I thought we said no booze." Alex rolled his eyes and took a seat saying.

"Yeah, that was your shitty idea. Not mine." He took another drink as if to further make the point. " So what's up? Getting your ass kicked in cards now?" She smirked and raised her hand showing off several Cast cards.

"I'll have you know I've been the one doing the asskicking, thank you very much!" Alex smirked at this and took a seat across from her. This was a challenge and he would be damned if he was gonna turn it down. A woman sitting next to Rin leaned in at Alex and smirked. She had jet black shoulder length hair and wore a simple green Tank Top and jeans.

"Hey Rin who's this cutie?" The blond rolled her eyes and cut right through her friends act.

"Oh don't even pretend you don't know who Hawk is Hana." Hana however didn't miss a beat at this.

"Wait this is Hawk I didn't recognize him in new new get up." "That outfit looks good on you. But personally I think it would look even better on my floor." Alex was taken aback for a moment before letting out a small chuckle.

"A girl that doesn't beat around the bush? I like that, what's your name again sweetie?"

"People around here call me vulture, but you can call me Hana." As the two got to flirting Hunter sat next to Rin and stealthily asked.

"So your friend, she cool?" Rin gave a half committed nod.

"Yeah, she's nice but she's also a little..." She glanced in between the now dirty talking pair. "Loose." Hunter shrugged. There was nothing wrong with that in his eyes, as long as no one was getting hurt it was her life wasn't it?

"Well so is Alex so hey, win win for them."

"True... but I thought he was, y'know with Hummingbird." Hunter could see why she thought that. He had made the same tiny error at first too.

"No, no. It's just a casual thing."

"Oh, I see." She then seemed to look past Hunter with a look of curiosity on he face. "So what's with that face she's making then?" This confused Hunter until he turned around and all the color in his face vanished. Minatsuki looked livid and was heading right for the table. Hunter got ready to sprint out of the area as he knew anything in between an enraged Minatsuki and her target was going to get slaughtered, and he was pretty sure that was the best case scenario. The short haired brunette came to a stop behind Alex slowly getting the attention of everyone at the table up until the point where everyone but the man she looked ready to murder was watching in anticipation. That is until he noticed everyone was staring just above him and looked over his shoulder.

"Sup psycho, you still pissed or-" He was cut off as she grabbed him by his hair pulling back his head and and growling out.

"You. Me. Makeup sex. Now." Hunter let go of the air he had been holding in as Alex wasted no time getting out of his seat and turning his best friend with a smirk.

"Well I hate to leave you hanging Hunter but I have someone to do." Hunter rolled his eyes. Of course the moment Alex gets an opportunity for some sex he leaves. Then again Hunter was pretty sure he would do the same thing if he was in the older teens position.

"Very classy, make sure you wrap it up." As the two walked off Hana scowled getting a hearty laugh from Rin.

Jason looked down at the file. All of the basic information one would expect was there, Age: 18, Height: 5'9", Weight: 123 lsb, Branch of Sin: Love Labyrinth, Blood type: AB-. But he wasn't interested in any of that so he skipped to incident reports. Although none struck him as familiar a few did catch his eye. He had started a lunchroom brawl with Crow over the results of a Carnival Corpse, slaughtered two Deadmen (Crane and the Second Eagle) who were bullying Dove. Lastly he had almost escaped getting all the way to the docks before getting cornered by three Necro Macros.

"Find what you're looking for?" The fox faced man asked spinning around in his chair. Jason wanted to kick the damn thing out from under him but that would probably be frowned upon so he decided against it.

"Not yet." It was a long shot but Jason decided to try Carnival Corpses. Mockingbird had a very long list of fights, Three pages with four twenty-seven fight long collums worth in fact. Apparently he was a popular fighter. And a good one too, he only had three losses -two of which were very early on- and two draws. He had drawn with Crow and Robin and had lost to Game foul, Hummingbird, and The First Eagle. Another note to keep in mind is that he had beaten Hummingbird, Robin, and even killed Eagle in their rematches. As he went down the pages he found a section he had missed in his first skim through. Private Matches? He thought Carnival Corpse was already private so what was different? Well the combatants. There were several names he didn't recognize such as Caladrius, Alicanto, and Phoenix. Then there were other names he did recognize: Ares, Kratos, and Caerus. Gods, Greek Gods to be specific. Then he saw his own codename.

HADES VS MOCKINGBIRD

RECEPTION: POSITIVE

WINNER: DRAW

His eyes narrowed at this, Jason had no recollection of his fight with Mockingbird or these 'Private' Matches in general. That could wait despite somehow being less mature than Shiro Tamaki knew a hell of a lot about Carnival Corpses. If anyone would tell Jason about his own fights it was the new Director.

"Have I ever been in a Carnival Corpse?" The question came out shaky and his voice had a higher pitch than usual. Hearing this Tamaki stopped mid spin facing away from the hoodie clad man and asked.

"Yes many times in fact." The glasses wearing man looked over his shoulder with a inquisitive look on his face. Then in a almost teasing tone he asked. "Are you telling me you really don't remember?" Jason decided to ignore that and got right to the point.

"Do you think I could get a copy of my records? If you have them that is." Tamaki faced away from Jason with an excited grin spreading across his features.

"Why of course dear boy." The insane man smirked even wider, his grin easily going ear to ear. "Anything for my most valuable asset." He had thought Jason knew all about the Private matches. Oh he had so much to tell him about, the clients, the Worm Devourer, and last but not least Prime Deadmen! This was going to be fun, he just knew it!

Alex followed Minatsuki back to his room. She seemed angry about something, and he had no idea what. Had Yo said something to piss her off? Was she just naturally pissed? Or was it the one thing Alex was praying it wasn't that he had done something to offend her without knowing. He didn't know what he may have done but the idea of pissing her off even further wasn't a very appealing one. As they went into his room she pushed him onto the bed and got to work getting him ready, she climbed onto his lap and started moving her hands up under his shirt while kissing his neck. And for a moment that ominous feeling that she was angry with him faded, then she dug her nails into his flesh. This wasn't the same light scrapes she had given him before, if that was the case he would have enjoyed it. But no, her nails drew blood within seconds earning a pained yelp from the man under her. And then she raked them down making him scream.

"AH, FUCK! Minatsuki stop!" He pulled her hands off of him to see the blood on her fingertips. Minatsuki scoffed at this pulling her wrists out of his grip and folding her arms over her chest.

"What's wrong? I've given you worse than that." The scars that stunt of hers was going to leave said otherwise.

"You never tried to claw through my fucking chest before." Having his fear confirmed he sat up and narrowed his eyes at her. "What the hell did I do to piss you off so much?"

"If you don't know then there's no point." Alex was in no mood to play this stupid game.

"Minatsuki-" But she was having none of it and cut him off with another shrill yell.

"Don't 'Minatsuki' me! You should know damn well what you did!"

"Well I don't so just tell me so I can fix it!" He yelled just wanting to be able to put everything behind them. Minatsuki feeling much of the same way decided to just ask him outright.

"Why were you flirting with that bitch?" Alex paused and tried to think of a way to defend himself. And then he realized he didn't have to.

"Why do you even care?" This only seemed to confuse her so he continued. "We aren't dating, we're fucking. In fact YOU were the one who said you aren't ready for something serious. So why do you care?" Her face gave off the same feeling as a kicked puppy. Well that didn't quite do it justice. It was more like a stray puppy that you've been keeping just long enough to gain it's trust AND THEN gave a good kick. She quickly changed her expression to one of anger and snarled at him.

"You fucking asshole!" She raised her hand to hit him only to have it caught. She looked down quickly trying to think of a way out of this.

"Look at me."

"Why should-" He cut her off.

"Just look at me." Minatsuki reluctantly did as he told but didn't change her expression "Are you jealous I flirted with blue jay?" Her eyes widened and she quickly looked away. And then an idea came to Alex's mind. Apart of him thought this was a very stupid idea but it would certainly explain the jealousy, and why she had reacted as badly as she did to what he felt was a rather tame insult. "Minatsuki, do... Do you love me?" He hoped she'd laugh at him, insult him, and then make fun of him for falling for her act yet again. Instead she looked back with a pained yet hopeful look in her eyes.

"I don't... I-I..." She stumbled over her words in a way he thought he would never see from her. Oh good god she was in love, and with him for some god forsaken reason. "What about you? How do you feel?" Alex felt a chill run down his spine. Love her? The immediate answer was no or not yet at least, he cared about her probably more than he knew but he knew not romantically. Putting that into words however wasn't as easy as thinking them.

"Oh... I umm..." That seemed to get the point across however as her eyes once again reflected pain. This time however the look didn't leave his view until she turned away from him tears threatening to spill out. She had already known what his answer would be, but that didn't make it any easier to hear.

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have said anything."

"Look, Minatsuki. It's not you, I just don't know if I'm..." He was such an asshole. After all it had been him who had originally thrown out the idea of them getting together, he should have known better than to say something like that. He had no intention of making this something serious from the start and he should have made that clear instead of giving some false hope. But at the same time he couldn't bring himself to outright tell her no. "Just... Give me one day to make up my mind okay?" That seemed to help but only a little.

"Alright." She still seemed so disheartened as she stood up. "I'm gonna go." Alex frowned and brought her into a hug. He didn't really know why he did it, it just felt right somehow. Apparently it was the right move however as she returned the gesture holding him tightly.

"Good night Minatsuki." He let her go and she nodded before turning and leaving. Before she was out of the room however he barely heard her say.

"Good night." Alex collapsed onto his bed feeling like total shit. Guilt and Shame washed over him as he thought about his friend. He had hurt her, he never meant to, he thought she had the same outlook on this he did. But that didn't change anything she was in pain and it was because of him. His vision grew blurry as tears started rolling down his cheeks.