Hey everyone, I've been gone a really, REALLY long time. I have no business apologizing, so I'm not even going to try. I will say that I have been a.) side-tracked by my original works, b.) somewhat grounded and c.) too tired to write fan fiction.

I'm not sure if I'm going to let Shades of Grey stretch on as long as it was supposed to. It's not fair if you all are constantly waiting for me to drag myself away from my novel just to work on fan fiction, because that can take me a long time—well, that much is evident, huh?

Now to thank my reviewers. I don't deserve you, or the 100+ reviews you all have gifted me with. Somehow, only one of them was a flame, which seems to me to be a pretty good ratio—and since that review-leaver told me their reasons for hating my fan fiction, how could I be angry?

Rotten oranges aren't enough. I await your barrage of rotten cantaloupes now, assuming anyone was patient enough to stick around and wait for me to update. If you were, then I think I'm going to cry from happiness.

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"Tart," Pai murmured, frowning at his energy scanner. "Take a look at this." He frowned—he had sent the younger alien from the room, hadn't he? He wished that he had not, in hindsight. This would be a difficult decision: he did not want to walk into it so hastily.

The numbers on the scanner screen suddenly began to scroll upwards, indicating an even higher power reading. "What the—" Pai stared. "Impossible," he whispered as the reading reached its peak and began to head back down to the level of Deep Blue's power. For a moment, for just a brief moment, the boy had emitted the signal of a mew aqua.

But now the reading was heading past Deep Blue's power level, past the level of the Blue Knight. Special energy hovered right around zero—not quite human, but certainly not enough to be a threat.

Pai frowned and rubbed the tips of his large ears. He had never seen such a phenomena—the scanner was nearly always accurate, and it had never gone haywire in the five years that Pai had owned it. Kish had once commented on the immense power of the Blue Knight, but he had never spoken of a fluctuation. The eldest alien shook his head; he placed the scanner on the weakly stirring boy's chest. The numbers flickered slightly higher. He moved the instrument to the left, and the numbers shot up. The alien shook his head and placed it over the boy's heart.

If he was not mistaken, Aoyama Masaya had a mew aqua where his heart should be.

If that was the case, they would have to kill him. They could end this cycle—a mew aqua was all-powerful. They could resurrect Deep Blue; they could destroy the humans for eternity. Earth would be saved, and their people would be saved. A small smile came to Pai's lips. 'You didn't suffer for nothing, Kish,' the purple haired alien silently promised his comrade. 'The girl didn't suffer needlessly either. If I hadn't tortured her, Tart never would have brought us this find!"

Pai grimaced. Well, in truth, the means to the end had been a little bit extreme for his tastes. The girl was still a young innocent—even if she was a human and a mew mew. Pai shook his head. If he started on a guilt trip now, it would be a long time before he could think clearly again. There would be plenty of time for guilt after they had destroyed humanity and had brought their people to Earth, their haven and their dream.

The door slid open. A pale, miserable Tart walked into the room, hugging himself without apparent awareness of the action. He did not look at Pai as he came up to the older alien's side and looked down at Aoyama, whose eyelids were beginning to flutter drowsily. "So now what are we going to do?" His voice was small and far away.

"Now we're going to run some tests." Pai discovered that he could not keep the excited tremor from his voice. "This is good Tart, this is very good—you did well when you suggested we substitute this human."

Tart flinched. "I hate you, Pai," he whispered, staring at the ground.

"I'm not surprised, but this is good," the alien informed his compatriot, pushing aside the guilt that threatened to edge its way to his consciousness again. "Look at these power readings." The alien pulled out his scanner and placed it over the drowsy boy's heart. "His heart is a mew aqua! This could really save us. If we kill him and take—"

"Stop it, Pai!" Tart stomped his foot on the floor hard, shaking the tiles slightly. "Stop it! I don't want to do this anymore! I don't want to kill humans anymore! You almost killed Pudding! I hate Deep Blue, and I hate you even more!"

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"You aren't just jealous?" Akasaka asked gently.

"No." The blonde's answer sounded a little too firm to be convincing. "I am not jealous. I have no reason to be. Think closely about that kid, and then tell me if you really trust him."

Kish frowned slightly, his head tilting to the side gently. Aoyama was obviously causing a rift, however slight, in the tight alliance of trust between the mew mews and the two seeming brains behind the organization. He wondered if the two men had also taken note of Aoyama's unnatural power—though if they had, it was a wonder that they were arguing over whether or not to trust him, rather than just making use of the power. It was what Kish would have done in their situation.

Unless—Kish had to force his laughter down, so as to not be heard by the two humans. If he was not mistaken, Shirogane had sounded vaguely jealous, as Akasaka had pointed out. He must be in love with Ichigo as well, and therefore saw Aoyama as a threat. It was another weakness that Kish was fairly certain he could exploit. 'Man, it all comes back to koneko-chan,' he thought wryly.

The sound of a chair scooting backwards brought Kish's attention back to the two men inside. "I guess we should go look for Kish as well," Shirogane decided, his voice wafting out the window. "Using the computer, of course."

"With the energy you've had recently, I'm surprised you don't want to run around Tokyo with the girls, looking for him with your eyes," Akasaka remarked gently, the scuffing sounds allowing Kish to determine that he, too, had risen.

"I don't know where you get your ideas from, Keiichiro," Shirogane remarked stiffly, as though the idea had crossed his mind. "Anyways, this is faster. I'd really like to get this whole business over with."

"Guilty feelings? Maybe you should have listened to Lettuce." The voices of the two men were getting farther away; the sound of footsteps on tile grew faint.

Kish could not make out the blonde boy's reply, but he knew that he had to get away from the café. If they could find him with their computer, then he was going to have to move. The alien rose shakily, light-headed. He took a tentative step forward, and another.

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Ugh. I'm not really feeling this, but I really wanted to update. I think part of my problem is that (I hope) I improved as a writer when I participated in NaNoWriMo, and I'm just not satisfied with my plotline and writing style for this. Help me out here, people…

Expect a quicker update next time. If it takes five and a half months again… well, it'd better not.