Hey guys! Whoo! First two weeks of school over! And there are SO many people! Well, I actually went from like a class of 11 to 600, so it's a bit of a transition haha. But I'm surviving. Sometimes, though I wish I had a bulldozer just to get through the halls hehe. Well, anyways, you guys have been ever so patient waiting for the next chapter, which I have been ever so lazily, stalling on haha. I met a bit of a roadblack on this one but I think I ironed it out okay. You guys can let me know. Thanks for reading! :)

AkimotoAyumu: Haha, that's good. Keep asking questions! I did that in Chemistry a lot and then my teacher would go off on tangents and we'd never end up getting homework so you never know where it can get you hehe ;) Apparently a lot of people like the laptop idea...hmm maybe I'll be an inventor when I grow up and make one haha. Thanks for reviewing!

Stelra Etnae: Thanks! That's why it took me so long to update, I couldn't figure out how I was going to do it haha. I'm glad you appreciate my hours of banging my head against the wall trying to come up with a plausible solution haha. Just kidding, but it did take some time. Yes! Mission accomplished, that's exactly how i wanted to portray it :) I can like see it in my head like a TV show and there would be a lot of funny music to emphasize that whole dynamic haha. Thanks for reviewing!

ilovethisfanfic: Thanks!

.miss: Haha, yeah a lot of people seemed to like that invention. When I make it someday, I'll send you one free for reviewing haha. Now, if I only understood how electrity works....hehe ;P Anyways, thanks for reviewing!

soren011: Thanks for the suggestion! I will try and do it, though, I kind of want to keep it a mystery for now. Plus, he can't exactly think anything interesting about her, since..well she's a guy for now. Wow does that sound wrong/weird haha. Thanks for reviewing!

(Azumi POV)

I walked shakily up the stairs that came down from the jet, trying to quell the uneasy feeling that threatened to make my already wobbly legs collapse under me. As I reached the munchkin of a doorway that led into the obscenely small jet, I felt myself begin to lose the battle.

I clutched the side railing for support.

Of course Tezuka would be important enough to be transported in style. Private therapy center style. Cramped, death trap, hobbit-sized style.

I was so excited.

As an agent, I had had to travel the world on multiple occasions in numerous different modes of transportation quite frequently. Jets smaller than this one, to buses, to sports cars (my personal favorite), to planes as big as B7 bombers.

But I was always, always, always, ALWAYS the pilot/driver/person in control. Okay, so sometimes the vehicles I drove were out of control, but I was in control of their out-of-control-ness. Most of the time. But that's beside the point.

The problem here was the fact that if the jet went down, I would die.

Everyone give a hoorah for the duh statement of the day! But, I was used to being able to fight death by any means possible. By cheating an assassin, wrestling a plane from grips of gravity, escaping, cutting a wire in a bomb, etc.

Here, the pilot was cut off from the main plane compartment. Supposedly, it was for mutual safety. Passengers couldn't distract the pilots and in turn the pilots (hopefully) could fly so as not to kill their passengers.

I didn't buy it. Not for one second. If the plane started to go down, then no matter how much I tried to knock that door in, I would be stuck. Stuck with Tezuka in a crashing plane with no parachutes (which of course they didn't have, it's not like their anticipating a crash I mean, how many commercial airliners have parachutes? Don't answer that, it'll just make me more nervous).

And the worst part, the worst part was that this whole situation could easily be avoided if they knew who I really was. But I couldn't risk it. I'd be dead for sure if I did. Especially if Mochizuki and Koga were already caught.

Though the odds of traveling thousands of miles in a plane were much higher than the odds of me surviving if I was found by the headmaster, it didn't seem to help the feeling of foreboding that was stuck in the forefront of my mind.

I mean, there are SO many people who have died through plane crashes. Specifically, private jet crashes. Keith Green, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the singer of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Randy Rhoads came to mind immediately

Good thing I wasn't a musician or I'd be a goner for sure.

I gripped the rail and steeled my mind to walk into the plane.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I tried to concentrate extra hard on the simple things to keep my mind from fretting, which it seemed to be prone to do.

My slow, measured steps took me inside the craft to where Tezuka already sat. Looking at him, you wouldn't even know that he was sick. He was dressed in comfortable clothes (tennis clothes, what else?) with that sickening look of composure on his face. The only indication that he was remotely sick was the IV that was supplying a steady supply of liquids to the tube that ran into his arm.

I threw my backpack on the ground (you don't have to do any of that overhead bin or under the seat crap when you're riding in a private jet, HA! Jealous? Don't be. I was going to die) and took a seat next to him.

I shot him a friendly smile that was meant to be reassuring. It felt uncomfortable on my face, like it had been pasted on. My knuckles were quite a blanch shade of white from gripping my armrest while the rest of me was as stiff as a board, ready to go into full panic mode at any moment.

He gave me one look before asking, "Do you not fly much?"

My elation of him actually initiating a conversation was conflicting with the fact that he had seen right through my guise. I must be slipping. That was not okay.

Ignoring the conflict over reconciling these two opposite feelings in my head, I turned to him, my smile turned sheepish.

"Hehe, no it's just that I've never flown on a private jet before. Though I do happen to know a slew of my favorite musicians died in them. It's not exactly comforting"

I had long ago decided that though I was in undercover, which meant inherently deceiving people, I would try my best to be as honest as possible without compromising myself. It was a tricky and somewhat unnecessary risk but it was the only way I could cope with all the lies. Spoken or unspoken.

He nodded in understanding.

"I know what you mean. I haven't ridden a lot of planes in general." He replied.

"Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

I was skeptical. How could this stoic, unchanging person feel anything? Even when he found out that he potentially had cancer, he was calm for crying out loud! Fear, seemed an impossible thing for him to understand, much less empathize with.

"Ah." He affirmed.

He paused. "Are you surprised that I haven't ridden a lot of planes?"

"Oh, no." I said quickly. The next words did not come as easily however. I didn't want to him to know what I thought of him.

"What surprised me," I paused and looked straight at him. 'Was that you were afraid."

Now it was his turn to raise an eyebrow. He didn't say anything but the arched eyebrow was obviously meant to say "How so?"

"Tezuka-san, I've had a lot of patients," I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But internally, I winced. So much for honesty.

No one, and I do mean no one, takes their diagnosis with as much," I paused, searching for a word that would mean something along the lines of being-an-emotionless-irritating-block-of-wood only a bit more tactful than that. "Grace, as you have. It almost seems unnatural. Like you have no emotions."

The raised eyebrow cam down as it knit with the other in an expression of concentration.

Oops.

I think I said more than I meant to. The feeling of crap-I-said-too-much mixed with the happiness that not only had he started a conversation but he had also shown me two, count'em two expressions in the space of that conversation.

He seemed to mull it over as he looked off into space.

The silence persisted for a bit until the plane suddenly jerked to life. The stairs retracted, closing the doorway and I felt my hysteria rise trying to take over me again.

My grip on the armrest became tighter as I threatened to splinter it into a thousand tiny little pieces.

I don't know about you, but there is something very therapeutic about destroying things. There's nothing like smashing something into oblivion to calm one self down. Though, I didn't think that the therapy center would much appreciate it, so I tried to keep my grip a little looser. It was harder than it sounded.

Tezuka once again, proving to be much more perceptive than I gave him credit for, reached forward and began digging around in his bag.

His hands emerged a few moments later with a tennis ball.

He handed it to me.

"Here. Squeeze this. It's a little better than breaking the plane apart." He said with a slight smile.

Wait. Did he just make a joke? And smile? And did he just notice my unease…again!? And why on earth did he have a tennis ball in his backpack?

The questions swirled in my mind (some more prevalent than others) as I stared at the ball in a daze like an idiot.

He just held it out as my mind struggled to comprehend how all my assumptions about him (besides the one that he was addicted to tennis, that one was pretty much verified, if anything) were shattered in one gesture.

Still staring at the ball as though it were a foreign object, I slowly (and with great effort) pried my hands from the armrests they had been trying to crush and took the ball from his outstretched hand.

I rolled it over in my hands in wonder. As I stared at it, I noticed that there were signatures on it.

"What are these?" I asked as I continued to examine it.

"That ball was a parting gift from the tennis team. They all signed it." His eyes became softer as he too looked at the ball. Though his expression was less what-the-crap-just-happened and more of a loving stare from a father who had been away from home but very much wished to be there.

Tennis team? I thought and a little bell went off in my head as I hurriedly searched for Ryoma's signature.

I didn't find it.

What I did find were the words "Mada mada dane" scrawled in his handwriting and I just had to smile.

That's when it dawned on me in full force:

I was finally going home.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Regular POV)

Something had changed.

Nishimura, who had only a day before, only shown mock anger and frustration, had finally snapped.

Asai and Tokaji both agreed (silently and in secret of course) that he had officially lost it.

He was no longer the leader of the best operating team in all of Imei. He was the tattletale, morally corrupt, backstabber to all the students and the leader of a dysfunctional, rapidly disintegrating, team full of traitors in the eyes of the faculty.

And all of it had gone straight to his head.

Tension in the air was always heavier now. The atmosphere, uncomfortable. And the tolerance for error, zero.

It was a far cry from the dynamic of the healthy, working, efficient, ruthless team that they needed to be. Quite simply, they were falling apart.

The funny thing was that the new agents, Saito Kohaku and Miura Aki didn't seem to notice. Asai and Tokaji could feel everything that was out of place. Every tense moment that dragged on for a seemingly endless amount of time.

Under Nishimura, fear ruled.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Azumi POV)

I snapped my eyes open when I felt something nudge me. I became instantly alert and began to run through my mental checklist.

Where am I? Therapy private jet. What am I doing here? Protecting my team under the pretense of protecting Tezuka. Am I physically okay? Check. What had I just been doing? Sleeping on Tezuka's shoulder.

Oh, that wasn't so good.

I shook my head to clear the rest of the fuzziness from my head. I looked over at Tezuka who had nudged me.

"We're here."

Wow, already?

The trip had gone by so fast.

Tezuka, whether he was truly concerned, did it out of a sense of duty, or somewhere in between, had sensed my unease on the plane ride and taken it upon himself to distract me from my fears.

Throughout the entire 10-hour trip, he had kept up decent conversation (in which we hit several other topics than tennis).

We would have tried to watch a movie but I doubted that Tezuka would have appreciated any violent movies considering why he had taken up tennis instead of training with his grandfather. That eliminated all movies but chick flicks, which were out since we were both um, guys. And guys just didn't do that…I thought.

Instead, we watched tennis matches. Well, I say watched but I'm sure that Tezuka was being transfixed by the sheer joy of watching the only thing that made him talk, light up, or show any signs of being human in general.

He commentated and cracked some genuine smiles at the victories of people I could only assume to be his favorite players. I commentated as well and jabbed him in the ribcage at the victories of my favorite players who somehow always tended to be not his. This led to a series of heated (at least I got heated, Tezuka just kind of spoke more sternly, which for him is the virtual equivalent to me standing up and screaming my lungs out) debates concerning the pros and cons of one-handed vs. two-handed shots, brute force of will vs. skill, and other things that had nothing to do with ordinary life in general.

And I had had the best time doing it.

I had forgotten my fear almost completely. So much in fact, I guess I had even fallen asleep. Though I didn't remember that part.

I smiled, internally, at Tezuka sitting next to me and actually let it well up onto my face, sharing it with him, as I stretched, just like before we had taken off. Only this smile was much more genuine and contained a silent thank you that I hoped he would understand.

He half-smiled at me in response, acknowledging the walls we had managed to break down during the plane ride.

I think I liked that a lot better than his nods.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Regular POV)

Mochizuki sat in a cold metal chair, twirling a lock of his white hair around his finger. His face was in the practiced, tried and true scowl of a surly pubescent teenager that sneered at all authority.

Across from him was an authority figure, who seemed either immune or apathetic about Mochizuki's cocky expression.

"Mochizuki, why do you protect her?" the man asked in an irritating, psychiatrist's manner.

Mochizuki remained silent.

"You," the man paused, " are protecting a killer. A murderer. Of your close friend as well. Protecting her," he paused again, trying to create a sense of drama and seriousness, "is the same as killing him."

Mochizuki still stared at any place other than the man, with the same bored expression. His thoughts reflected the same attitude.

Epic fail. He thought. This guy is acting like a little kid's psychiatrist. That would make me the little kid…ugh. I hate patronizing people. Haha, patronizing people make for pathetic psychiatrists. Purple peppers pillage….

His inattention to the droning "psychiatrist" as he was now dubbed, escaped the notice of said professional, as he droned on in vain as his guilt-trip fell on deaf ears.

To be honest, Mochizuki had expected much worse treatment than the predicament he now found himself to be in. He pondered this fact, as he "listened" to the shpeel that was being given to him. Perhaps, it was just because he was part of a top team, and was too valuable to treat all that badly. Or, perhaps it was the opposite and he just wasn't worth the energy to torture. Though he was sure that if his interrogation went any further he would die of boredom.

Sighing, he turned his head to stare out the one-way glass, imagining whatever may be on the other side. And somewhere, Koga was out there too.

He hoped that she was faring better than him.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Regular POV)

Koga sat in a small dorm, somewhere. She didn't exactly know where she was, but she presumed herself to be at Imei high, since the room she found herself in, resembled a typical dorm room of Imei. Though, the hidden weapons panel that was hidden behind the west wall was absent as well as any sort of window or vent, much to her dismay.

She had already thoroughly searched her room for any means of escape and had, instead, found several cameras and a few bugs.

Great. I feel like a specimen stuck under a microscope slide.

She hung her head between her elbows, which rested on her knees. That was the most motion that she had made since sitting down on the rickety cot opposite the door. She needed to conserve energy. That was why she didn't dare to move, even breathe.

But, she hadn't moved in 5 hours and honest to goodness, her butt was numb.

She was also going insane.

After pondering the same question as Mochizuki, she had also come up with an answer. Though her answer was quite different and, as it turned out, much more accurate than Mochizuki's.

Mochizuki had wondered why he and Koga were not being tortured. Koga had come up with the answer.

They were being tortured.

Having 5 hours to think about things had given her quite enough time to come up with a feasible solution.

The way students were punished at Imei was simple. Disobedience was not tolerated. Various forms of punishment were administered, ranging from privilege stripping, isolation, physical punishment, or…being "transferred". It was by far the worst judgment that could be administered.

And that was because it was a lie. Everyone knew it. There was no way that the government could let anyone of the students with the knowledge that they had, wander out from under their eye to a regular school.

They would disappear, and had that been the only thing that the kids had known about it, it may not have been so bad. But on a mission, one of the other students had met a "transferred" student.

And he had had no idea what Imei was, he didn't even know Japanese anymore. He didn't know his real name, and generally was ignorant of anything that had happened in his life. Oh, he had memories, but they were all wrong. The student who witnessed it, was never the same again. He had said that it had something to do with the transferred student's eyes, like they were hollow, vacant, empty. Devoid of emotion. Suffice it to say, it scared the crap out of him. And the rest of the students of Imei.

The display of sabotage and disobedience that Mochizuki and Koga had displayed was enough for them both to be transferred, twice over.

But to have punishment administered, especially transference, it had to be approved, by whom none of the students knew. What they did know that either a flat out confession of blatant disobedience had to be shown or enough evidence that it didn't matter.

The problem with that for the headmaster right now was that Mochizuki and her had not only not confessed but also had kept their cool during Nishimura's entire accusation. The conversation that Nishimura had overheard that had led to his accusation had been mysteriously erased (*cough* via the other person that was helping Azumi who Mochizuki and Koga don't know about it), and now the only evidence Nishimura was well…himself. They needed more proof, especially to convict two members of the top team in all Imei.

Normally, this would have put any student's mind at rest once they had considered all this. For, no one in their right mind was about to confess, and any student in Mochizuki and Koga's shoes would see that Imei would hate to lose them anyways.

However, Koga's mind was in a tumult. Her head ached and her chest felt heavy, because there was a little problem with the whole trial thing. It things kept going as they were, Mochizuki and her were doomed.

Imei students were constantly being evaluated. Their weaknesses and strengths constantly recorded and tested, but especially their weaknesses.

Hers was deadly. At least, in this case. She had almost been rejected from the program at Imei because of it. But her strengths, particularly her innate knowledge of computers and basically anything that had electricity running through it, made her indispensable.

Her weakness, however, was no less formidable. In her sleep, she would divulge any information. Asked, a question she would just spit out the answer in her subconscious. It was always truthful and, unfortunately detailed Not many people knew about her problem, but one person she knew, knew her secret was the headmaster. Actually, anyone with access to the school records was capable of using this flaw against her.

As soon as she fell asleep, she would confess everything about how Mochizuki and her had sabotaged Nishimura's efforts. They would record it no doubt and Mochizuki, having absolutely no idea that she did not divulge the secrets willingly, would think that she had betrayed him. And who knows how long Mochizuki would last when he thought that, she, his only confidante since Azumi left had stabbed him in the back.

They were probably keeping him busy, irritating him, so that he would be ready to crack when the time came to show of her supposed betrayal.

She sighed.

It was only a matter of time.

She couldn't stay awake forever. But, she had been trained to stay awake for long periods of time, just as every Imei student had. She had at least 3 days. Tops. If she didn't move, she would have longer because she wouldn't use up the calories in her system as quickly. If she knew Imei's headmaster, he wouldn't feed her, it would fuel her to keep her awake longer.

She didn't dare to lie down because than sleep could creep up on her much more easily. And standing would expend too much energy, so she was stuck, sitting on the edge of her cot, concentrating hard on not moving.

It was unbelievably boring.

She just had to hold out until…until, she didn't really know. It was hopeless. There was no one on the outside to rescue her, and right now, the only enemy was herself. She was the key to bringing down both herself, and Mochizuki. So she had to stay awake, though as she sat, becoming disheartened every second, she realized she really didn't know why she was trying. Defeat was inevitable.

A tear rolled from her eye and fell to the ground as a silent prayer rose from her small form, taking flight to where, she didn't know.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Azumi POV)

I walked into the airport, just glad that my feet were once again on solid ground. If Tezuka hadn't been there, as soon as the airplane had landed, I would have run out, thrown myself onto the ground and kissed it.

The luggage in my arms was exceptionally light. Just my backpack that I had had since before visiting the D-room and small duffel full of doctor's scrubs. I had tried to carry Tezuka's luggage, his arm being all messed up and such, but he had insisted in his firm, silent manner that he was still capable of handling it. So, I trailed him as we walked into the airport from the runway strip.

His head was on a swivel as though he were searching for something. Now that I thought about it, I was supposed to be looking for our ride to the hospital. There just were no breaks for Tezuka. I was sure that he wished to go home. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Before I had a chance to berate myself for my almost, accidental feeling of pity for a man who I was still very much wary of, I became aware of a red-haired boy, around 16, maybe 17 streaking towards Tezuka.

I immediately took action, dropping my duffel and quickly placing myself between Tezuka and the incoming, redheaded attacker.

I then realized, with much confusion, that he was not running, but cartwheeling towards Tezuka.

Now that was just odd.

I took a second glance at the situation and also noticed that the redhead was being followed by a group of similarly uniformed group of teenage boys. Either Tezuka was about to killed by an unusually cheery leader of a racket-toting teenage boy gang, or this was the tennis team. From Tezuka's face, I presumed the second. That was a bit of a risk since he never seemed to show fear, but I could see that look of fatherly love again in his eyes, and my muscles relaxed.

"Um, Jukodo-san, you might want to move."

I turned to look up at him.

"Why?"

I was immediately answered by pushed into Tezuka, by said redhead as he glomped Tezuka, and inadvertently, me.

It took all I had not to struggle out of the pile of bodies that I was being sandwiched between. Though instinct was a hard thing to deny. I kept all the energy contained to a very strong hand-twitch.

Meanwhile, the redhead was spouting words at rapid fire as I could feel Tezuka's muscles stiffen from the impact.

"Tezukanya!WemissedyouSOmuchOishiwasbeingallworriedI'msogladyou'reback!Everyonemissedyou–"

He was interrupted by the much slower, much more coherent, stern voice of Tezuka.

"Eiji. Get. Off. Me."

He immediately let go and continued to talk so fast that my head began to ache. I squeezed out from between them before the redhead could notice me and glanced over at the rest of the tennis team.

They were much further behind the redhead but were now almost to Tezuka. My eyes glanced over a bandanna-ed figure, one with glasses, one with closed eyes and a rather creepy smile, a spiky haired one, and one in a sushi maker's uniform and light brown hair. But my eyes barely noticed any of them. For there, in the middle of the group, looking bored and disinterested with his signature cap and ponta in hand Ryoma Echizen.

My brother.

Well, there you go! I actually am really pumped that she finally met the time so I may (emphasis on MAY) update fairly quickly. We'll see. Thanks for reading! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! thank you!