Disclaimer: I do not own King of Fighters or anything correlated to that series. The original characters belong to me, and if you ask me, I'll gladly consider letting you borrow them for a bit.

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King of Fighters: New Blood

Epilogue: Consequences

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6 months later…

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"Oh, what the hell…"

Haru Tsuyomi stared blankly at the long mission assignment that was waiting for him on his bed when he returned to his quarters. For about three minutes, he stood at the middle of his quarters, reading and re-reading the briefing to make sure he had everything in order.

This is an odd time to be asking us to perform such a mission… He said to himself as he left the room. I assumed that we had a lot of more high-priority issues that still needed working on.

He grabbed the envelope that the briefing arrived in and dumped the contents on his bed. Plane tickets, some newly forged ids and other important stuff had all been included with the letter. Looks like we'll be out of this place for a while. Can't really say that it's a bad thing, though.

"Yo, Haru." Luka, the person who was somewhat considered a senior member of the organization, slowly walked in to his room. He scratched his head with a bandaged hand; he always seemed to have at least one part of his body wrapped up in gauze for some reason.

"So you got the new mission, I see. I bet you must be pleased."

"I guess you could say I'm half and half," Haru sorted through the items on the bed, "I haven't been on a long term mission before, so this is a new thing for me. How did Dad take it?"

"He was a little hesitant, but I convinced him that you'd be okay. Of course, he's still a little worried, though."

"As expected. Oh well," Haru placed the contents of the letter back into it's envelope. "I'm sure he'll understand. It's important work." He walked out of the room, Luka on his tail. "Everything has been screwy for the past six months, so it's up to us to try and get things straightened back up."

"Yeah, but I don't think that the mission you've received has anything to do with trying to 'straighten up' the cartel." Luka said as Haru stopped at the elevator. "Sounds like a simple undercover operation."

"Well, you never know. Nothing about what we do is 'simple'. You know that right?"

"Heh. Yeah, I suppose."

They rode the elevator down several floors before arriving at the floor where the training area. It was a bit sparse today; only a few people where actually using it.

"I have to go back to the lab." Luka said suddenly. "It's my turn to check on Sakari and see if he's feeling okay. Hopefully I'll see you off later today."

Haru merely gave him a short nod as he walked away to his station at the lab and walked towards the facility where his partner for this particular mission was currently in.

Violeta Nakahara (everyone just called her Vio), Haru's co-worker and best friend, was sitting on the bench, watching two trainees beat the hell out of each other in their form of sparring, while making the occasional quips about how poor their form was and how she could beat the both of them blindfolded. Her long purple hair was matted down from sweat. She noticed the person entering the room.

"Haru!" She said excitedly. Neither of them had seen each other in more than a week. "I haven't seen you around lately. What's up?"

"I've been looking for you." Haru said. "Are you busy right now? Something just came up that I really needed to talk to you about."

"No, I'm just about done here anyway. I want to go to the lab down the hall real quick, so you can tell me as we walk, alright?" They both left the room together."What that in your hand?"

"Thisis our newest mission." He waved the briefing in front him. "One that requires us to leave as soon as possible."

Vio groaned. "Another mission? Can't they have someone else do some recon work for a change?"

"No no, this is different, Vio. We're heading for Japan."

Vio "Japan? For what?"

"According to the briefing, we are there to observe some guys that were a part of the botched plan a few months ago. Shin…Shin Sekai….Chijiuso?" Haru's Japanese has been rusty from all those years away from home.

"Chitsujo." Vio corrected, "Those guys that Irena was with; the ones that crashed the finals, remember? We're going to actually meet them? What's with that all of a sudden? They never really addressed that incident until now…"

"I'm just as mystified as you are. All things considered, when Irena finds out that we've left to see them, she's going to be pissed."

"I wouldn't worry about that. Judging from her current workload, she'll be too busy to do anything."

Haru let out a short laugh as they continued down the hallway. Vio noted the slow decrease in temperature, which meant that they were getting closer to their destination.

"Is Sakari coming with us as well?" Vio was curious about the status of their friend, who had been spending a lot of time in the lab as a test subject for the cartel's newest 'toy'.

"Nope. My father and Luka are still working out some of the kinks in Sakari's new 'system'." The last word was said with a bit of sarcasm. "I doubt he'll be able to leave this place for a while. It's just going to be you and me for the next few months…"

"That sucks. It's just no fun without him." The violet-haired girl was starting to look uneasy. "Haru, I'm having a strange feeling about this new assignment. Why are we suddenly being ordered to go on a long-term mission like this?"

"Why question it? This is practically a vacation for us." Haru tried to reassure her. "You shouldn't worry so much. We've been running ourselves ragged for months now; fix this, report that, shoot this, beat up him. With this, we have an opportunity to take it easy for a bit, while the others are making plans for next year's 'event'."

"I like the idea of going back home to Japan and chilling out on the cartel nonsense for a while, but don't you have any concerns about this?"

"Nah. I doubt it'll be anything special." Haru placed a hand on her shoulder. "Please don't worry about it. It's going to be fine."

Vio still felt a slight uncertainty about the mission, but she knew that complaining further was a futile effort. "Yeah, I guess you're right about that. Anyway, here we are."

They were standing in front of a glass window that gave them an inside view of the room. In what was supposed to be a laboratory, instead everything surrounding the room was covered in sheets of ice, making it look more like a freezer. In the middle of it all stood a lone girl, light blue hair slowly flowing around her thin body. Despite the freezing temperature of the room, she didn't look fazed at the least. In fact, she looked a little bored.

Another round of testing? Don't they have better things to do then to check on her every other day? Haru frowned at the thought. She spends more time in there then she does outside.

The sound of Vio knocking on the glass interrupted his thoughts. "Hey, ease up on the ice over there! We can't afford to have you freezing the equipment again!"

"Vio! Haru!" The girl quickly ran up to the window at the sight of the two teens. The moment she pressed her hands against the glass, ice slowly started to form on that as well. "What are you doing here?"

"You looked bored sitting in there all day. What have they been doing to you? More tests?" Haru asked. The girl nodded in response. "Well, since no one seems to be there right now, how about you join us for some lunch?"

"They have strawberry ice cream…" Vio added, knowing that would be enough to convince the girl to come with them. She willed her powers away, her hair's color fading into a soft brown before leaving the frozen room.

"Where's Foxy and Diana?"

"They got called up to do…something. I wasn't really listening." The girl replied. "All I remember is Diana saying that they won't be back for a hour at the least."

"Eh, it doesn't matter; we'll let them know where you're at." Haru took out his cell phone when he noticed that the window on the wall had a crack in it. "Where did that come from?"

"I don't have a clue…" Vio answered, but suddenly remembered something, "I think that all of that ice that formed on the window must have added more weight than the glass could handle. We need to get out of here before…"

Haru grabbed his friends and got them out of the way just before the window shattered, sending glass and ice flying everywhere.

"…the glass breaks." The violet haired girl sighed in relief. "Thanks, Haru."

"No problem." He noticed that the girl was clutched on to him tightly, her face buried in his shirt. "Hey, everything is okay, please don't be scared." Haru attempted to soothe the frightened girl. Vio was tempted to make light of the light blush on her friends face, but opted out after the sharp look he gave her.

"…Sorry…" The brown haired girl slowly released her grip on him. She looked at the mess of broken glass and melting ice that lie on the floor before them. "Are we going to get in trouble for this?"

"Don't worry; I doubt they'll do anything rash, especially to someone as important as you." Haru mumbled. "Why don't you go on ahead to the café, while we get this worked out real quick?" The girl nodded and quickly skipped down the hallway.

"You would never assume that she's being trained to be an assassin by the way she acts around us," Vio said off-handedly. Haru just nodded; he disliked his new friend being given a title that didn't seem to suit her, but it was something that was out of their hands at the moment.

Their attention quickly turned back to the slowly growing puddle that was forming on the floor. Haru sighed as he started to dial the number for the cleaning crew.

"I think I understand what you were saying about needing to get out of this place for a while." Vio said, mostly to herself.

"Yeah, I figured you'd change your mind about it." Haru smirked. "You can be so fickle at times."

"Fuck you, Haru."

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"Don't we have private planes that can take us to Japan?" Vio asked as she and Haru were walking towards the car lot, where their ride to the airport awaited them. "Why are we taking a public airliner?"

"All of our planes are being used in other missions." Haru answered, "Besides, we're not really that high in the rankings to receive such benefits."

"We've been working here for a long time. Don't you think we should be getting some better perks by now?"

"You and I are about to embark on a long-term mission to Japan, where all we really have to do is interact with a few kids about our age and get some information about them. I think that's as a big of a perk as one could get."

"I suppose…"

"And where do you think you're going?" Luka said as he arrived on the scene. "Luka? What are you doing here?" Vio had assumed that her superior was busy with his work in the labs.

"I came to wish you guys well. I'm sorry that I couldn't get your dad to come with me, but he's busy trying to get the lab fixed up after that little incident with the Anti-K'."

It took a good five seconds for the kids to realize who Luka was referring to. "Er, yeah. You didn't act to rashly on her, did you?"

"I didn't even bother. I have enough injuries without those guardians of hers carving me up like a pumpkin." Luka coughed a bit, "Back to what I came here for, I just want you to wish you well on your mission. I'll contact you when you get to Japan to go over the specifics."

"Thanks, Luka. We'll see you soon." Haru waved as the car started to pull up. "Tell Sakari that we'll call him as soon as possible."

"I will as soon as he wakes up." Luka nodded. "Take care of yourselves. Don't slack off in your training just because I'm not here!"

"Yeah, yeah. We'll do our best." Vio gave him a quick hug before she and Haru got in the car. A few seconds later and the car slowly drove off of the lot. Luka gently let out a breath.

As Luka turned around to go back inside, a dull pain shot through his arm. Pulling up his sleeve, he noticed the growing patch of blood that was soaking into the bandages in his left arm.

"Still tending to those wounds?" An older man appeared. He looked much like a older, much more weathered version of Haru. "You certainly haven't been healing up that well, recently. Maybe you should stop accepting missions and take a break yourself."

"You know I can't do that, Kirou. Someone has to deal with these messes this organization got itself in." Luka rubbed his arm, "Anyway, if you're looking for them, they just left a minute ago."

"I know." He replied as he passed Luka. "I want to thank you for suggesting them to go on this mission. I really appreciate this."

Luka shook his head. "No need to thank me. I just thought that they needed some time away from this place."

"Indeed, they've been working themselves to death recently. But I'm a little worried: It's been so long since they've left home that I don't know how they'll deal with living in a normal society…"

Luka turned around and gave him a small smile. "They were doing good before they came to join us, I don't see how this will be any different. These aren't soldiers returning from a brutal war, these are young kids hanging around other young kids. Vio and Haru should fit in quite well."

"I certainly hope that is the case Luka." Kirou watched as his fellow scientist passed him on the way back into the building. "You know how much those two kids mean to me."

"They mean a lot to me too, Kirou. I wouldn't put them in anything I didn't think they could handle." Luka gave him a small smile, and it seemed to calm his friend down a bit. "You should go and get some sleep. I'll go check on Sakari one last time. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay...." Was the all he heard from Kirou as Luka went inside the building. As he begun his trip to the medical ward to see if his, thoughts about the organizations sudden interest in those kids went through his head.

Shin Sekai Chitsujo… I certainly hope for their sake, they understand what they gotten themselves into. A slightly evil smile formed on his face. If they think that NESTS is just going to forget about what they did, then they're sadly mistaken.

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Shikkoku: There you go. Nothing much to say here, this is just a little hint of what's to come in the next story (Still without a real name, though I'll probably stick with Fated), which will be posted as soon as I update the other ones (or sooner if it gets to be too long a wait). I wanted to get this out of the way already. This is the true last chapter of a story that's been surprisingly successful.

I'll see you real soon. Sayonara!!! XD