Five months. It had been a painful five months without any sign or hint about Gou and Chase's whereabouts. The silence in her world and the holes in her heart had pushed Kiriko into a state of numbness whenever she wasn't around Shinnosuke or the rest of the Tokujo Unit. There were some days she didn't even want to get out of bed to face them, especially HIM.

Krim Steinbelt. The name alone left a bitter taste in her mouth and her hatred of him seeped into her entire being. He had taken everything she held dear from her, leaving her nothing but the empty shell she was. He was responsible for her baby brother to run away in a panic, for causing Chase to make the choice to do everything in his power to keep Gou safe, for threatening the trust and partnership that Shinnosuke and she had and forcing him to choose between him and her. Shinnosuke chose Krim.

It hurt not hearing their voices, Gou's especially. Except for the time that her brother had been pretending to be on the side of the Roidmudes, she had been in contact with him every day, even if it was just a phone call or text message. And with nothing from him for five months…

She pulled out the licenses and stared at their pictures, a habit she had started ever since Shinnosuke and she found them on Gou's kitchen counter, next to his phone. They knew why Gou would leave his, considering after countless hours of searching through airport records, they finally found the false name and papers her brother used to leave. Chase's though…

The Roidmude had been so proud and excited to get it, even if his expression didn't show it. It was a precious treasure to him and one of the only things he could really call his own. For Chase to leave it… Kiriko knew he had to though, in order for them to pass through airport security easily. There would have been questions if Gou was found to be carrying another person's license, especially one that had been flagged to apprehend the person carrying it.

Tears stung her eyes as she stared at Gou's license, her thumb rubbing against his birthdate. He turned twenty last week. The only birthday of his she ever missed…and it was the most important milestone of her brother's life. In Japan, he was finally a legal adult. The two had planned what Gou wanted to do once he turned twenty many years ago. He had counted down the years and was always excited when one more birthday could be checked off.

She wondered if he had a good birthday or since he was probably always on the run and changing his location in order for Krim to not find them, if he even was able to keep track of time. The thought of her baby brother sleeping in the streets or abandoned buildings with little food kept forming a pit in her stomach. He should be home; not lost and frightened thousands of miles away.

Kiriko now had a better understanding of the hatred Gou had for their father, as she now had it for someone who was no better in her eyes. To think at one point, she had actually trusted Krim, blindly followed his every command, and had even wanted to be Drive before finding out she wasn't strong enough. There were many times when she was in the Drive Pit where she just wanted to take her gun and shoot the belt or even destroy it with one of Gou or Chase's weapons. She knew it would be useless as he already proved he had backed himself up in multiple places.

She had become bitter, the rare smiles she even gave all but a forgotten memory. She wanted them back. She wanted Gou back. She glanced up at the calendar. In a week, Shinnosuke, Rinna, and she were supposed to go to America to set up a device that could better detect the Core Driviar technology at Professor Hendrickson's lab in Arizona.

As soon as Krim announced their plan, Kiriko made up her mind. She knew that the scientist had his belt strap firmly wrapped around the Tokujo members, especially Shinnosuke. But in the calls Kiriko heard from Hendrickson, the older man seemed…different. Maybe…Krim didn't have control of the older scientist as much as he thought. Maybe she could confide in him to help her secretly find her brother and Chase and let them know that they had an ally in her. Even if she couldn't get them back permanently, she would do everything in her power to keep them safe.

—–-

Five months. It had been an interesting five months for Gou and Chase as the two made lives for themselves now that each had their own body. While Chase knew about a few emotions from his experiences with humans and while in Gou's body, he still had a lot to learn about his new-found gained humanity. Likewise, Gou still needed help learning about his newly gained Roidmude powers. The two traded off on knowledge every day, testing themselves, and forming an unbreakable bond of trust with each other. The two were inseparable, even when apart, and it was clear that they had evolved from being friends into more of a brotherly relationship.

To their surprise, the two boys had found that while Chase was now in his own body, they could still talk to each other and share their thoughts mentally like they had when they were both in Gou's body. Harley proposed that since aspects of Gou had leaked into Chase's Core, the same had happened with Gou.

Gou had immediately sensed Chase having a nightmare and had rushed to the Roidmude's new room to wake him up from it before it got too bad. Gou didn't want to be too far from Chase, so Chase moved back into Gou's room, the two sleeping in twin beds until there had been one two many times one or the other would fall off the bed because sometime during the night, the two would crawl into bed with each other to stave off bad dreams. As a combined Christmas present for the two, Harley bought them a huge bed to share.

Both Harley and especially Chase knew how much Gou had missed his older sister, especially when the holidays hit and it was the first time they had celebrated them without any contact from each other. Chase wished that by this time next year, that everything would be okay again and they could all be a family, especially when Gou surprised the Roidmude by announcing that since Banno had told them that Chase had been activated the day Gou was born, that the two shared a birthday and he was also turning twenty. The two chuckled and exchanged gifts and were more shocked when Harley showed them the birthday cake he made for both of them.

—–-

Harley's favorite picture of his two boys was the one he took on their birthday. Gou was sitting at the kitchen table, their birthday cake laying on the table in front of them. Chase was leaning behind Gou with his arms draped across his shoulders. The two boys had the biggest smiles on their faces and both had flashed a peace sign. The picture had been framed and stayed constantly by his computer.

He looked at it thoughtfully before putting it in the box and made his way up to the living room to give to Chase. They were removing every trace of themselves living here in order for the team that was coming here on Krim's behalf from getting suspicious. Krim wanted to build a device in the lab to track Core Driviars since none of his previous methods turned out any results. As much as Harley wanted to say no, he knew that Krim would have become suspicious.

The three made a plan for Gou and Chase to hide out in a smaller lab of Harley's that was off the grid a few hours away with everything that would give away that the two had been living there for months or that they had accomplished giving Chase a new body. As soon as the team left and Harley figured out how to tamper with Krim's machine, the two could come home. As much as they wanted to see Kiriko upon finding out she was coming, her not knowing they were there was for the best.

With a tearful goodbye, Harley gave the boys a hug and promised to contact them as soon as he could. He watched them drive off in the car he got them for their birthday before getting in his own to pick up Shinnosuke, Kiriko, and Rinna from the airport.