Disclaimer: Notith own I To Love Ru, erstwhile it wouldith had a betterith endingith.
Fair warning, some pretty graphic description ahead.

It took Rito a week before he could return home, and in that time he had many of his other friends come in and check on his progress. Saki, of course, stopped by with Rin and Aya checking to see how Rito had fared, and to let him know that repairs on her house from the spaceship being crashed into it were being taken care of thanks to the help from Galactic Police. She also informed him that the Taoist's Pearl was being escorted to Deviluke by 'Zastin-sama', with a little bit of swooning at his name, now that Princess Lala of Deviluke was the rightful owner of the dangerous item. He was happy to know Zastin was personally delivering the item to the vaults of Deviluke, where he hoped it would stay locked up forever.

Speaking of which, Rito now had his own problem to deal with. On his second day awake, Lala had informed him that the sword, the empty husk of what once was Bladix, was currently being stored within her care. She had tested the sword with every device she could think of, some specially ordered from off world, some medical technology borrowed from Mikado-sensei, and found the same thing over and over again. The nanites were gone, whatever power within them seemed to have either gone dormant without the pearl nearby or they had completed their task in the restoration of the sword. The blade itself was in perfect order, despite the uncontrollable reaction it had with the energy feedback loop.

Rito now stood in front of the door to the three sister's shared rooftop room, and hesitated to go inside. Whatever reaction he had with the sword, he had been told by Lala that it was impossible to replicate since the source of the nanites energy had been depleted, therefore Rito would not be able to absorb it and overload his cells and risk activating his power. That wasn't the part that concerned Rito, no it was the very fact that Bladix had been within him, and it was that that scared him. Who was to say Bladix wasn't still locked up within his psyche, just waiting to take over him when his guard was down. That gave him pause, because he knew that even one slip up could result in his life being taken over by a parasitic demon sword.

Just as he was about to enter, Momo walked out, and the door caught him in the face. Clutching his throbbing nose, he cried out in pain and confusion at the sudden feeling of the door meeting his face. "Rito!" Momo cries out, noticing that she just hit him in the face, rushes over to him and tries to see if he is all right, "What were you doing just standing outside our room?" Rito holds up his finger, which causes Momo to step back in confusion. Rito, through tears, straightens himself up and wipes a way the little bit of blood that had leaked from his nose at the impact, and gives Momo a pitiful attempt at a smile.

"I'm all right!" he says unconvincingly, "Just got caught up in the moment, Lala's expecting me!" Momo seems to freeze, just for a moment, at that. "Thank you for your concern, Momo, but I can manage," Rito states, before walking in to the Deviluke girl's room, "See you later Momo!" Rito brushes her off like nothing, and Momo is left standing there. He didn't see it, but her face fell at the casual rejection, and she didn't know why it hurt so much.

It hurt so much to see her acting so cheerful. It had been a week since he had seen or talked much to Momo, and he knew it was a bit spiteful on his part to brush her off like that. He- He almost could justify his reasoning, that he was mad at Momo for not telling him the truth, but the fault didn't lie solely on her shoulders. It was true the others didn't know he wasn't told about Haruna's moving, but it seemed he wasn't the only one who wasn't aware why she had moved. Nana and Mikan hadn't known she had moved either, but then again Haruna was really only friends with Lala and Shizu, beyond the ones she had in school. Lala being ditzy he could excuse, she had enough excitement in her life that probably made days blur together, if it wasn't an invention, it was some crazy plot to get her to marry one of her many ex-suitors. Momo though-

If he hadn't been confessed to by Momo, Rito never would have known she felt that way towards him, as he had taken all of her perverted actions as mere misunderstandings at the time. Now, he knew better, and it was making it increasingly awkward to have to deal with, especially since he now knew that she had been serious about the 'Harem Plan'. Perhaps she was serious about her intentions about making everyone happy, maybe at first, but since the confession, things had escalated. Momo tried to sleep in his bed every night, which in retrospect was probably why Nana suggested to Lala the necessity of the genetic lock on his private Cyber Hangout. It was to keep Momo out, and Rito, perhaps unintentionally, safe from her clinging tendencies. Maybe he was just fooling himself, though, since he knew that even younger sisters got jealous of their older siblings falling in love; if Mikan was anything to go by. He would have to deal with her, and soon, but for now he would focus on finding Yami-chan and Haruna, and dealing with them first.

Walking into Lala's room, knocking, he finds her already hard at work creating some new invention. "Ah, Rito!" she says, stopping her welding and removing her goggles, "Have you finally decided to give the sword a try?" Lala was the first to try and convince him to wield the blade, to see if Bladix still existed in some way within Rito, if not just a way to satisfy her intellectual curiosity. Rito nods, and Lala claps her hands together in joy. "Wonderful, I'll go get the sword!" she states, before walking over to her closet and digging inside of it, "When Zastin finally revealed you had been training with him over the summer, I started to wonder whether or not Azenda leaving Bladix behind, was just a coincidence..." She comes back with what is obviously Bladix, covered by thick bandages to prevent contact with human skin. "I used gloves to wrap the sword, just in case the nanites were still active, and this wrapping is made of a specially lined cellulose made on Plantas," she states, handing the blade to Rito, "The wrapping suppresses Tao energy, and a few other high forms of energy, like lead lining protects from certain forms of radiation."

Rito begins to unravel the sword, until only the hilt is still covered by the majority of the wrapping. "Thank you, Lala," Rito states with a smile, "It seems you thought of everything regarding the sword." Rito hesitates to finish unwrapping it, but Lala suddenly puts her hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Rito, if anything goes wrong, I can protect myself," she states, with a knowing smile, "I'm a big girl, after all!" Rito softly smiles at Lala's assurance, and then he makes his decision. Setting the blade across a flat surface, he fully unwraps the swords hilt, without touching the sword. Steeling himself, he reaches for the blade and grasps the handle.

Elsewhere, aboard the Lunatique

"You know, I'm about to go berserk if your computer doesn't give me what I'm asking for!" the former assassin Kuro, alias Black, states to his current roommate slash friend and former assassin, Eve, alias Golden Darkness, alias Yami, "If it doesn't give me my milk back, I swear I am going to trace its circuits to its faulty logic processors, and 'fix' them!" Yami hides a slight smirk behind her hand, as she watches Kuro cutely argue with her ship, as his face was pressed against the holographic representation of her ships onboard A.I. The Lunatique was giving him the stink eye in return, its 'mouth' in a grimace as it stared down the pissed off former assassin that was not its master.

"The milk was spoiled, Mistress, I would not allow you to harm your delicate digestive tract with rotten lactate byproduct, taken from a simple mammal's mammary excretions!" the scary faced A.I. tries to argue back, "Besides, my programming prevents me from allowing any harm coming to my Mistress, or those she designates as her allies, and that includes you, Kuro-san!" The former assassin merely growls in response, until he hears Yami laugh. Turning on her, he merely points in her general direction before he begins to rant.

"Maybe if you allowed me to go down there and pick up some fresh milk, I wouldn't be having this conversation with your damnable A.I., who acts like the Milk expired two weeks ago and was already curdling," he states with an indignant huff, "When it just expired yesterday, and was still drinkable this morning!" Yami merely smiles and brings her cup of tea to her lips, satisfied with the complex flavor. She knew he was merely itching to get outside, after being cooped up inside this ship after nearly a month of recuperation and regeneration. It didn't help they didn't know who Azenda was working for, or with, and she had decided it was safer for the two of them to remain moving on the Lunatique. It was touch and go after he was shot, and Yami had been the only one to make supply runs, since they both had recuperated just enough of their individual strengths to go, and in Kuro's case to be left, alone.

(Before)

Moments after Yami Left the Auction

"Mikado-sensei!" Yami, still in her Darkness form, calls out, "Mikado-sensei, Kuro- Black, has been hurt real bad, and is in need of medical attention or else he'll bleed out!" Ryouko Mikado merely looks on in surprise at finding the two former assassin's, one being injured, on her doorstep this late in the evening. Still dressed in her night gown, she helped Darkness shoulder Kuro's weight, and took her down to her medical lab.

After placing him in a regeneration unit, after stabilizing his vitals and blood loss, Mikado quickly found she was having to excuse herself after hearing the doorbell to her house ringing again. Yami had finally moved back into her regular form, slightly out of exhaustion at expending her energy, slightly out of the fact the adrenaline was starting to pass out of her system. She stared at Kuro, as he fidgeted in the regeneration unit while he was unconscious, whatever the nanites were programmed to do, was obviously still affecting him. Yami heard rushed footsteps out in the hallway, before observing the voices of a panicked Mikan, Lala, and others joining in. "Yami-chan!" Mikado states, appearing in the room, "I know you're worried about Black, but I need your help in dealing with something of urgent need regarding Rito Yuuki; I don't want Lala or Mikan involved, since Shinzu isn't here..."

Yami does all she can, not to rush out of the room, once she hears that something has happened to Rito. She sees Lala and Mikan both being held back by Rin and Nana, Momo holding a crying Celine in the back, tightly into her chest to try and comfort the child. Yami knows to brace herself, but when she walks into that room, she is shocked to see what has transpired. The stench of burning clothes and the sickening smell of cooked meat and blood, was nothing she wasn't too unfamiliar with in her line of work, but to see the brother of one of her friends, to see her target- no, to see her FRIEND Yuuki Rito in the state he was in...

She knew she was in shock, but she quickly filed that away for later, knowing Mikado-sensei needed her head and heart clear of any emotions and focused on the task at hand. At Mikado's direction, she transformed her hair into multiple instruments she then used to cut away at Rito's clothing, and peel them away from his burnt skin. She was thankful the damage seemed to be minimal to his right side, but the left was extensive, to the point she honestly doubted Rito would survive long enough to get treatment. She honestly wondered how he got hurt the way he did, considering when she left, all of Azenda's tricks had been taken with her, beyond Bladix, who she hadn't found on Azenda's person-

That was when she thought back to the nanites, and what Azenda had ordered them to do to her own nano machines. It was then that Yami realized just how dangerous an item the Taoist's Pearl could be, if it was used to set a booby trap ahead of time, within Bladix's empty shell. She couldn't think about that, though, as she helped Mikado-sensei dress his wounds, and apply healing balm and lotions to the scars that covered almost all of the area below his legs, before gently applying bandages. She figured out that the only place that wasn't damaged beyond repair, was perhaps Rito's face, which only had slight burns on his cheek, though she had to shave off a patch of his hair, to make sure the burns didn't go above his scalp. Satisfied that all was done with what they had at hand, Rito's left hand encased in a metal device to encourage healing of the muscles that were left, and to keep his hand whole and sterile as possible so as not to encourage infection, there was little left to do. Mikado had her place the young man into an identical regenerator to the one Kuro was in, before filling it up and making sure Rito was stable, and then making the viewing glass opaque so as to hide him from those who would view him form the outside of his tank.

"Thank you, Yami-chan!" Ryoudo Mikado states sincerely, "I know that must have been difficult to see, especially with what just happened this evening-" Yami doesn't know what to say, but she finds herself following her instinct on this. "Please, don't tell the others about Rito's condition, I don't want-" she stops, as Yami wraps her hands around the doctor's waist and begins crying into the lab coat she had tossed on over her nightgown, before she puts her hand on Yami's shoulders, "I know- I know it hurts, but crying helps, Eve, so don't hold it in..." Yami would find out later she had somehow cried herself to sleep in her grief, after waking up to find Mikan slumped into her shoulder, while both women were placed onto a long bench and were sat next to each other in Rito's room.

Noticing Rito's condition hadn't changed since they had put him in the regeneration unit, she gently manages to lay Mikan down, before moving back to Kuro's room as silently as she could. She finds Mikado standing in front of his regeneration tube, with a frown on her face as she looks over printed out notes. She absently notices Lala is in the room, sleeping in a chair, while holding what appeared to be Bladix, wrapped up so as not to expose the sword at all. "Ah, Yami-chan," Mikado states, noticing she had entered the room, "I'm glad you're here, I have some troubling news regarding Kuro-san." Yami enters the room and approaches Mikado, who puts the notes to her side, and looks to the younger girl. "I'm afraid to report that Kuro is in quite a difficult situation," she states, looking grim as she talks, "So far he is outwardly okay, but looking deeper into his body, I've found some disturbing results."

Yami can only taste bile, as she tries to swallow at that news. She didn't know what to be expecting, exactly, but with Kuro taking Azenda's surprise attack meant for her, she knew it wasn't good. Mikado merely sighs, as she levels with Yami. "It isn't good, I can tell you that much, but thankfully whatever is happening to him is progressing slowly, for now," she states, as she goes over to a wall and pulls up electronic images showing the skeletal, muscular, arterial, and nervous systems of Kuro, "These scans show that when the nanites deposited themselves into his body, they dispersed themselves to specific places." Masses appeared in each of them, dark and foreboding, and Yami felt like she could be sick. "They appear to be targeting specific nerve clusters surrounding memory, and physical movements, and they seem to be eating away slowly at his muscle mass," she reports, "Though they don't seem to be doing anything to his veins and arteries, they seem to have deposited themselves into his bones, perhaps to eat away at his marrow, or something else no doubt sinister."

Yami finds herself wanting to sit down, and then hunt down Azenda in the arctic circle, hoping she was found frozen to death, or eaten by some creature, but knowing more likely the cunning assassin had already made her getaway. "Is there anything, anything at all I could do?" Yami asks, "I know the nanites were programmed to attack me, could we somehow draw them out of his system by using my Trans abilities?" Mikado shakes her head, expressing her displeasure at that idea.

"That wouldn't be an effective solution, I'm sorry, as what damage they have already caused would still remain," she states, "He's already begun to be eaten away from the inside, extracting the nanites would be more liable to weaken him further; his bones might snap like twigs, his muscles could be damaged even more, he might even suffer brain damage if the nanites attempt to eat their way out of his nervous system!" Yami tries to still her raging heart, hot tears once again flowing because she had failed her friends- She failed Rito, and now to hear that Kuro was-

She seizes up, as she feels a pair of warm hands surround her in a gentle hug, to surprised to react to the sudden intrusion of her disquieting thoughts. "It's okay, Yami-" Lala states, burrowing her head into the living weapon's shoulders, "We'll get through this together, we will find a way to keep the nanites in Kuro from harming him any further." Yami didn't know when she stopped crying, or when Mikado sensei left the two girls alone. She didn't notice when Mikan joined them, upon hearing of Black's condition. All she knew was that Kuro and Rito were both in danger of losing their lives, that Azenda the Tyrant was responsible for it, and that she had the most kind, the most patient, and most loving pair of friends keeping her from breaking down and doing something she would have probably regretted.

Five Days Later

"Yami!" Lala states, rushing in to wake the sleeping weapon from her position in Kuro's room, "Yami, come quick, Mikado-sensei, something's happening to Rito!" Yami quickly gets up, and follows Lala and Mikado to Rito's room, where the glass that was once opaque, has become clear. Yami watches as Mikado reads the information she is getting of of her medical technology, showing a mixture of surprise and disbelief as she studies the new readings.

"Lala- has anyone been in or out of Rito's room, besides me, you, or Yami?" she asks, and Lala shakes her head, "It seems- it seems somehow Rito's cells are trying to heal themselves, they are giving off a unique form of energy that I haven't ever studied in human biology before..." Lala perks up at that, curious to know just how Rito is healing himself. Yami is equally curious, because she wonders if something similar could happen to Kuro, knowing that Rito's injuries were caused by a similar incident regarding the alien nanites. "I think I know why Ritois healing himself," Mikado states after a few minutes of contemplation, "Lala, I think you need to get Nemesis down here right away, I need her opinion on my hypothesis, before I am sure..." Yam deflates a little at that, knowing that if Nemesis was involved in somehow healing Rito, it had nothing to do with helping Kuro. "Yami, wait!" Mikado calls out, as Yami turns to leave, "I think if this is what I think it is, we can apply something similar to help Kuro, but we need Nemesis' opinion before we try it out!" Yami whirls on the alien doctor, the first spark of hope in her eyes she has had for days.

When Nemesis and Lala had returned, it took all of five seconds before the living weapon of dark matter came to her own conclusion. "Rito has become a living weapon," Nemesis says, a smile drawn out on her face, "How interesting, it seems I affected him more than should be possible!" Yami doesn't know what to say, and both Mikado and Lala seem puzzled at Nemesis' response. "You said something happened regarding Bladix's resurrection, and Taoist nanites?" she asks, "Show me the blade, I think I may have a clue as to why he was so affected..." Lala grabs the blade, which had been semi-hidden from view behind a chair. Nemesis gladly takes the weapon, and unwraps it from the bindings Lala had secured it in. "How interesting, this is what I thought he was," Nemesis states, eyes gleaming like she had jsut taken candy from a baby, "The fabled Ninth Sword, forged by the ancient weapon smith Chronos, from the days when the earlier Galactic War's had not yet consumed the entire universe..." She swings the weapon, before wrapping the bindings securely around it once more.

She then turns to Golden Darkness, and studies her from side to side. "What are you doing?" Yami asks, "Why are you staring at me?" Nemesis merely smiles in response, before poking her in the chest.

"You stink of Tao energy still, I'm assuming you must have a pearl on your person still," she states simply, "If the nanites that caused Bladix to be re-forged, run off of [I]that[I] energy, it was no wonder that when he came into contact with the sword, that he exploded!" Yami doesn't know what to say, before she retrieves the pearl from a wormhole, holding it up for Nemesis to inspect, but not touch. "Yes, that would do it; you exposed him to the purest form of energized Dark Matter, but didn't expect him to react like that," she mutters to herself, more than anything, "You didn't realize that by becoming my host, healing inside him changed his D.N.A. just the slightest bit enough, that when his cells tried to process the new stimulation after being aggravated by the nanites invading him at a cellular level, they naturally tried to defend themselves by activating their auto-immune defenses..." Nemesis snapped her fingers, and a cloud of energized dark matter appeared above her hands, before she closed it into a fist. "It seems Rito's body reacted by trying to convert the Tao energy into something he could use to defend himself at the cellular level," Nemesis states, before moving in front of Rito's window and smiling, "What it resulted in was something likeable to throwing kerosene onto a fire, it made a big explosion and light show, that resulted in the extensive damage you see here; I give him another twelve days before he's fully healed."

Nemesis turns around and faces Yami with a smirk. "Since we know what's got Rito so worked up," she states, as she saunters up to Golden Darkness, "Now let's see what we can do to help fix your boy toy, too!" Yami resists the urge to slap the smaller weapon, but Nemesis seems to sense her anger, and backs off, surprised. "I didn't think I'd hit a nerve, that badly," she states, before frowning and putting a hand on Yami, "I do mean it though, let me help you fix Kuro." Yami only nods, as she leads her to Kuro's room. Nemesis looks over Mikado's notes, before surveying the weakening form of the former assassin Black, as he floats in the regeneration tank. She puts her hands on the glass, before turning back to Yami. "Since I'm sure you didn't bother checking, did you try and see what would happen if you interacted with him?" Nemesis asks, and Yami shakes her head negatively, "Hmm, since it worked with Rito..." Nemesis claps her hands together and turns to Yami with a smile on her face.

After explaining it once again to the others in the room, Nemesis faces Yami in her Darkness transformation one more time, as Lala and Mikado watch from the sides. Kuro has been taken out of the tank, and placed on a medical bed, which Nemesis and Yami stand from on opposite sides. "Do you understand what you have to do?" Nemesis asks, and Yami nods, "Good, then let us begin." Turning her hair into liquid metal, she gently begins to encase Kuro's body entirely in metal. After a few moments, she quickly begins to drive the metal into Kuro's entire body, all at once, and into the foreign masses within the assassin's body. She feels her nanites beginning to be attacked, but she powers through the pain, as she feels like she is being torn apart, molecule by molecule. After a few minutes, she finally begins to feel the change, a shift in balance as her nano machines begin to adapt, converting the Taoist nanites into her own, and she goes until she stops feeling any resistance from the foreign invaders.

The next part is critical, as Kuro has now been without air for three minutes, and she knows if she does not act quickly, her friend will more than likely suffocate and die. With Nemesis' help, she begins to undo the damage to Kuro's body, fillng what space she can with nanites, and arranging what she cannot restore into the closest approximation of normal for the former assassin. Done with her work, after finally rearranging Kuro's body into a suitable, undamaged form, she retracts her nanites, and watches as Mikado-sensei takes over from there. In mere moments Miakdo is helped by Lala to jumpstart his stilled heart, and she begins compressions to get his lungs breathing again.

After a few seconds of pure panic, Yami is relieved when Kuro opens his eyes, and gasps for breath, startling everybody as the assassin awakens to the world once more. After a minute of getting his surroundings, with Mikado-sensei taking readings to ensure he hadn't suffered in physical or mental damage, she surprisingly let him go with no qualms. Then Kuro looked over his body, and notices a few differences to it, almost immediately. "Why the hell do I look like I am nineteen again?" Kuro asks in astonishment, "What the heck happened to make me younger?" Yami didn't say anything, she merely jumped onto her friend, and began to hug him dearly, confusing him as she began to cry into his shoulder. He was thoroughly confused by this, but to say the least he took it all in stride. Yami was the happiest she had been in quite a while.