Okay, I'm scared to look at how long it's been since I've updated. But I think I'm going to stop making update promises, because it's boxing me in, and I actually think I waste more time when I promise to update. I'm going to try to finish this up soon, because you guys really deserve better. To those of you who stick with this lazy, promise-breaking authoress, you especially deserve better. I'd like to promise not to do this again, but you see how well I've done with THAT line.

So thanks for putting up with my sporadicness. (That's not even a word, is it?) Onto the chapter: It's sure been a long time in coming. Here's to hoping it's a good one.

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"Jealous? Jealous! What am I supposed to be jealous of? Lame, programmed sword skills and a job as a waiter? A ditz for a girlfriend? Stupid Keiichiro doesn't know what he's talking about." Scowling, Ryou dropped into his computer chair and turned the machine on. He glared unseeingly ahead. I'm not jealous. I'm uptight. We're missing a member of our team and our bargaining chip. That boy's a dangerous weapon and he's in the aliens' hands. I don't have time to be jealous, he thought to himself. He shook his head, his fingers flying expertly and unthinkingly across the keyboard, pulling up the location program.

Scanning for: Alien Life

Ryou sighed and leaned back in the chair, then shot upright, startled, as the computer beeped loudly, frantically. "What the—this close to the café? Is he stupid?" Ryou leapt to his feet. "Keiichiro! He's still on this street! We can get him, definitely!"

"Are you sure it's him?" Keiichiro called from the next room. "For all you know it's another trap. It could be Pai or Ta—"

"They have two hostile hostages to take care of. This is him!" Ryou rubbed his temples, mixed feelings of elation and impatience fighting for dominance in him. "He can't have gotten far without his teleportation ability. Let's hurry it up!" He leapt out of his chair and sprinted to the door of the café.

"Ryou!" Ryou ignored Keiichiro's call; he heard the older man curse just before the door slammed behind him. He was pretty sure that he saw movement up ahead; he took off after the escaping form.

It didn't take long to catch Kish, but while Ryou first attributed it to lack of flight ability, as he neared the alien, he realized he was moving with a limp. "Stop!" he shouted, reaching out and seizing Kish's shoulder.

The alien jumped and spun, giving Ryou a full view of his scratched face and destroyed hands. Ryou yelped and dropped him, staring. The torn eyelid was gruesome enough; it drooped and hung in places, useless. His hands… He must have destroyed them escaping, Ryou told himself. There was no way any of his girls would have done this, right? Not even to Kish.

"Stop? What a stupid order." Kish's voice was vaguely pain slurred; he didn't seem to notice. "Who the hell tells a victim to stop running from his tormentors, hm? Who asked you?"

Ryou frowned at the disconnected answer. Kish's eyes appeared alert, yet he seemed almost drunk, disconnected and barely coherent. "We don't have to be tormentors. You just have to cooperate," he told him, ignoring the voice in his head that naggingly suggested that he was trying to force the blame for Kish's injuries on the alien, where it didn't belong.

"Cooperate with what? Kidnapping, torture… got it. Genocide. The genocide of my entire race."

Ryou clenched his fists, barely controlling the urge to punch the alien. "We're not the ones attempting genocide here. We kidnapped you to stop the genocide—you're the ones attempting genocide! We want you to cooperate so we can end this war!"

Kish looked hollowly at him through his open eye and the unclosable eye with the destroyed eyelid. Ryou didn't want to meet that tortured gaze, but he steeled his nerves and glared into Kish's golden, over-bright eyes. "You know we're right," Ryou added angrily, guiltily.

"No. No, you're not. Guess what? There's nothing black-and-white about war. It's all shades of grey. Of course you think you're right, because you think you have a right to the world you're destroying. Well, we've never destroyed a world. We've only been victims of circumstance, and you call us murderers and evil for trying to save ourselves and take back what was always ours?"Kish laughed hollowly. "We're not right either. We're murdering thieves, but you're murdering destroyers. Might as well side for my benefit."

Ryou took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm his rage. "Fine. Whatever. Then side for "your benefit" by coming back with us, so we can heal you before you lose your eye."

Kish blinked, an odd sight with only one working eyelid. "My eyes are fine. Aren't they?" He reached up and felt his both of his eyelids. "So my eyelid's cut. What's your—"

"Advanced species when Mint lives as a beggar and Ichigo starts up a doctor's practice," Ryou growled scathingly, grabbing his hostage roughly by the back of the neck. "Come on. You're—"

Kish pulled back furiously. "I'm not going back with you! I've had enough of this stupid little plot—from either side!"

"You know what?" Ryou jumped and let go of Kish, who spun around at the familiar voice. "I agree. I completely agree." Tart's form blurred and solidified into view in front of the two. In his arms—he seemed to strain at the weight—was a sleeping Pudding. "I got her out as soon—as soon as she finished healing. I…" Tart looked ready to cry. "I never wanted this. Our people never wanted this. Kish, I… they want a home, not a slaughter. Not… not child torture. I'm defecting." He smiled sadly. "And Pai doesn't know I took Pudding home. But I can't stay there anymore. You should think a little too, Kish." He looked at Ryou as though to hand Pudding to him, but the blonde didn't make a move. He wasn't sure whether or not to trust the kid. It was just too perfect—they get Pudding back and lose an adversary, just like that? It didn't happen. There had to be some sort of trap, something that the youngest alien wanted involved in this.

"So you just… up and changed your mind. Turned around. I see." Ryou reached out and took Pudding from Tart's arms. She didn't look harmed to him, so she couldn't have been the "magical catalyst" to change Tart's mind.

"I don't know. Just when… look, fine, don't trust me. I wouldn't. But I can't work with Pai anymore! I can't!" The alien boy looked to be on the verge of tears. "Pai's trying to awaken the mew aqua in Aoyama. I don't know how it got there, what you did, but be ready. He's probably not far from it right now?"

"Mew aqua in Aoyama?" Ryou asked incredulously. Tart didn't seem to hear; he simply faded from existence silently, as though he'd never been there in the first place. The only evidence to show that he had been there was Pudding, resting asleep in Ryou's arms.

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I don't think this is my best chapter; maybe I should turn my music down. I caught myself writing the lyrics a few times, and they don't relate to this fan fiction at all. Well, this is what happens when I deviate from my outlines; I have no idea what's going to happen next. That's unusual for me, but we'll see where this goes. I would promise a speedy update, but… no promises. I'll attempt, but if I don't update for a while, I'm not going to feel TOO guilty.