Once upon a time, Kai was attacked by a dog. It totally wasn't his fault or anything, but the dog had attacked him in such a way that Kai could count all of its teeth as it tried to chew his head off. He never would have thought the image could be used to describe a possessed teenage girl, yet here he was, dodging beast-like lunges and attacks from a lethal Minerva Florence.

Her name -almost literally- meant prosperous wisdom and love, how ironic.

"Look, obviously it's not me you're mad at." Kai tried to reason, realizing too late that Alice had left him alone. Minerva answered with a growl as she attempted to claw at his face- he dodged out of the way and nearly fell down the stairs. "Alright," he then digressed, "Maybe you are mad at me, and that's alright. We can still talk this out maturely, don't you think?"

He did not get the answer he wanted to hear, so instead he retreated downstairs- leaving Minerva to nearly fall down the stairs this time. Alice wasn't downstairs either; where on earth did that stupid Stepford android go?!

"You're really dumb..." Minerva chuckled as she came down the stairs, hitting the railing and wall as if she were in a stupor. "Now I can really make you bleed..."

Before Kai took a moment to process what she was saying, Minerva grabbed a katana on one of the tables and started to slash at him. As impressed as he was at her technique, he was also justly terrified. He couldn't be impressed for too long, however, as Minerva almost made a swing that would have cut his arm off in one go.

Finding himself next to the armors, Kai quickly dressed himself in one of them then ducked from another attack. Minerva was not happy with this new dealing, so she tried to directly stab him instead. Kai dodge rolled out of the way near some shurikens while Minerva tried to get the katana out of the wall. It went in pretty deep, apparently, and when she succeeded in pulling it back out again, she ended up falling backwards from her own force. It seemed that as skilled as she appeared, there were still some errors in her control. For a fleeting moment, Kai wondered whether he ever took the time to train her, or if she were moving off of instinct. Regardless, Minerva found her footing again to stand up, still holding the katana in her hand. The blade, Kai just now realized, was facing behind her.

"You have a reverse grip?!" Kai shouted in surprise, just barely dodging a blow at his head. He landed against the wall where he took a moment to catch him breath. "Mina, look; I am truly, deeply sorry." he then said to her, "I really am; I must neglect you so, so much for this to happen..."

The girl didn't respond to him, instead making blows to his head as if something would connect. At some point, she hit a radio that was sitting on one of the weapon tables and it fell to the floor with a clatter. It fell on its side, pressing the button that turned it on; immediately, the radio started to blast some rock song throughout Midori Blaise, hauntingly allowing Minerva to move in beat with the music subconsciously.

"Minerva!" Monty suddenly shouted from the door. "Calm yourself!"

The teen snapped her head to glare at her friend, and threw the sword at him. Montgomery didn't even flinch as he shifted a bit to avoid the blade. Minerva growled, annoyed at his easy dodge, and prepared to throw a tri-winged boomerang at him before Kai made the mistake of tripping over something on the floor. Minerva snapped her head to focus on him instead, ditching the boomerang for a sai. Quickly, Kai looked around for a weapon he could use, and picked up at bo staff.

"Kai, you gotta knock her out!" Montgomery informed him as the teen picked up the katana from earlier to use, need he be.

"Okay." Kai agreed as Minerva tried to stab him, but he blocked it. Now her sai was trapped in the wood of the staff. "How do I do that?"

"She's extremely handicapped- take her from the opposite side and you should be able to land a punch."

"The kid's angry, I get that, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hit her!"

"Do you really have a choice right now?!"

Kai looked at Minerva as she focused all her weight to make him fall backwards. Already apologizing in his mind several times over, Kai pushed Minerva back with his foot and made a dash to the opposite side of the room. Now with the sai and staff in his command, Kai knew what he needed to do. With Minerva advancing toward him again, Kai pulled the sai out of the staff and threw it toward her. Just as planned, instinctively Minerva turned to look at it, allowing Kai the opportunity to smack her upside the head without her realizing.

One last glaring look from the child went straight to Kai's heart as she crumbled to the ground. Exhausted as the adrenaline wore off, Kai walked over to the girl and gingerly started to pick her up. When he had her head properly secured, Kai started to get dizzy, forcing him to let her back down on the ground again. Images running through his mind, memories that didn't exist yet.

Hours alone just taking the girl up the stairs for bed. Rocking her when she was fussy and so tiny it was hard to think that she was once that small. Hugs, heartfelt and awkward, and lots of them.

"I'll get her." Montgomery decided, someone suddenly beside Kai, pushing him over slightly to pick Mina up. What Kai didn't know was that Monty had saw him get exceedingly pale as he tried to hold the girl.

"So, that kid's a pretty good fighter. Don't you think?" Kai hastily chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.

Montgomery paused for a moment. "With the blood that runs through her veins," he then said in a low tone, "I would have been more surprised if she wasn't."

. . .

The trip back to Borg Tower was miserable and silent. Minerva had been relocated to a room made like a hospital room, where Lloyd, Kai, Montgomery, Alice and Nya crowded around the girl to wait for her to wake up.

"What did you do to her?" Lloyd kept asking, although ignoring the fact that Kai looked more beat up than Mina.

"It's what she did to me!" Kai always replied. "I don't think I'm going to be able to sit properly for the next week!"

"I can't believe you were ever a ninja." Nya chuckled to herself. "Such a crybaby, geez."

"And what makes you so immune to pain?" Kai demanded. Nya looked at him and badly tried to hold back a smile.

"I gave birth." she retorted, a bit too proudly. Thinking for a moment, Kai recoiled, believing that they needed to draw the line at that and bury it.

"Where you able to find more things connecting Kai's timeline?" Nya then asked to Alice and Montgomery after she had a good laugh.

"Yep! We were even able to get this!" Alice declared cheerfully as she held up a necklace. It dangled near the group, showing it off in full detail; a black pendant shaped like a fang, with something faintly moving around inside of it. Monty gave the neckalce one look then looked back up at Alice with fury.

"No wonder Minerva went off!" he demanded, snatching the necklace from her. "Alice, what were you thinking?!"

"Well..." the robotic girl hummed, "Kai is experiencing some sort of phenomenon where he is connecting with this timeline's Kai. I figured that he needed a stronger connection to our Kai, so I brought him to find the Tears of Midori Blaise. They do contain his bodily fluids after all."

"Wait, what?!" Kai screeched in horror. "What's in that thing?!"

Montgomery rolled his eyes and set to be the one to explain; "The Tears of Midori Blaise." the teen genius then droned, "The story goes along the lines of the Green Ninja's tears being collected after separating from his true love, which formed the black casing due to the Overlord's dark curse surrounding his beloved's soul. Afterward, the charge of the Green Ninja's true love found the casing and began to cry as well upon biding farewell to the both of them, filling the casing with his tears and making them quite powerful."

"And you believe it?" Lloyd inquired curiously.

"In knowing the Green Ninja's true love and her charge?" Monty scoffed. "No, not particularly. Imposters of the Tears of Midori Blaise go for a pretty high price on the internet, so I'm told; it's an excellent gift for newlyweds."

"I'm flattered." Kai grumbled bitterly. Lloyd made a wise decision to say nothing.

"It's actually pretty good for your business." Nya remarked. "You don't sell any copies at your shop or anything, but lots are folks are curious though. Before the myth started to circulate, you hardly had anyone come in. You always denied the connection though."

"Why would it cause Mina to go on a rampage though?" Lloyd then wondered.

"Love." came the answer from three different sources. Kai and Lloyd exchanged a confused glance.

"Part of the story is true." Nya offered. "Kai did cry, a lot, when he had to separate from Mina- most of it due to lying to her even though he knew he had other obligations. He didn't let anyone know of course, and he tried to hide it but all that did was let us know he was doing it."

"It was a very conflicted time for me, alright?" Kai grumbled, not aware of what he was saying. "Can't a guy get a good cry out when he knowingly goes into a suicide mission?"

"I know." Nya agreed. "I understand. You were wearing that necklace most of the time before, and your crying did put something in it. You added it to the note you gave to Mina at last second; never said why."

"It's because..." Kai then said, still not aware of what he was saying, "The outside is actually Lloyd's blood, collected on the Dark Island shortly after he went missing."

"Kai..." Lloyd slowly started to question, "How do you know that?"

Alice, Montgomery, and Nya also agreed to this and looked at Kai expectantly. Kai looked as if he were lulling the answer over in his mind before finally admitting, "I'm not the Kai from the past, I'm Kai from the future."