Author Note:

Continuing on from chapter ten, decided I'll put in a little surprise visit in this chapter :D

Hope you like it.

Chapter Eleven: Encounter

Yuzuki POV

'Of all times they just had to find me now.'

As I ready myself for combat, the GALAHAD agents advance forward and attack, filling the silent air with the thundering sounds of gunfire. As they come closer, I hastily disarm one, stealing his handgun and combat knife. Kicking him away, I shoot him in the head and use the knife to deflect the oncoming rounds from the others, scaring a few of them.

"Well don't just stand there idiots! Hurry up and kill her!" One of them screeches over the gunfire. Figuring he was the leader, I make him my new target. Aiming the gun at his head I pull the trigger, the bullet piecing his skull, blood splattering the few who stood near him and their faces turning pale. His body drops to the ground with a thud and the others begin to increase their rate of fire but could barely hold the gun steady and sent bullets everywhere.

Annoyed by their appearance and lack of skill, I walk towards them. Causally avoiding their bullets, their aim way of target, I begin to kill them off, alternating between the knife and the gun. As some tried to escape, I shoot them down before they could get away, bodies flinging towards the ground. The area becomes quiet soon after and I scan for any signs of reinforcements. Satisfied there was none, I focused my attention back to the mess in front of me, their blood seeping into the ground.

'Is that really the best GALAHAD has? I barely even put any effort into that fight.'

I found it strange that GALAHAD only sent infantry after me. In the last conflict with them I massacred over a dozen of their new project CAPRI soldiers and they were supposed to be stronger than me and SABER. Even LEYTE and DULUTH weren't much better, in fact I think that they were using their full power against us when SABER and I were only using about half. Why would GALAHAD send such pathetic excuses for soldiers to kill me when they know I'm much more stronger. If it wasn't for the fact I wanted to be free and left alone I would have found it insulting.

Shaking my head I start to walk away from the carnage I had created but avoided going back to the others. Going there covered in blood with a gun and a combat knife in hand would be pretty stupid. Realising I still had the weapons, I wondered what I should do with them.

'I can't leave them behind as they have my fingerprints on it and I really don't want to deal with the police either when they find this mess.'

Tucking them into the belt on my skirt I hurry away before any one sees me around but freeze when a voice calls out to me.

"ARCADIA." Not recognising the voice I turn around and face them.

"LEYTE?!" I gasp. What the hell is he doing here?

He lets out a breath and smiles a little at me.

"Oh I'm so glad I found you. And that you're alright, I stared to panic a little when they attacked you." He says in relief. He moves to come closer to me, myself not liking the sudden friendliness from him. Pointing the gun at him he stops and raises his hands, a flicker of fear in his eyes.

"I don't trust this sudden change of attitude LEYTE. Why are you here? Did GALAHAD send you?" I growl at him, watching him intently, but he just shakes his head.

"I wasn't sent by them." He says calmly.

"Oh?" I raise an eyebrow at him. "If you weren't sent by them then why are you here? You must have some sort of reason to come all the way out here to converse with me." I ask.

"I came to find you. I know you don't trust me but you're the only one I can depend on." I send him a questioning look, not understanding what he meant.

"You see, after our last fight, things started to change. When the scientists found out that you and SABER were able to beat us so easily they freaked out. They said that it shouldn't have been possible as our genetics were supposed to be far superior than yours." He pauses for a moment. "Eventually the organisation started to create more and more GE soldiers and pitted us against each other. Although me DULUTH always came out on top, I knew that we weren't anywhere near your level. They thought that by making us fight against each other we could become stronger."

So is that why they sent infantrymen after me? Because the rest of the GE soldiers were too busy killing each other to come after me.

"I that's the case then why are you here?" It didn't make sense. If GALAHAD were trying to make him stronger then why was he here telling me this?

"I'm here because I left. I started to think about things and found myself wanting to leave too. In the beginning I never wanted to kill you or SABER and for a long time I didn't leave because I knew DULUTH would never come with me, which is why I came to you. You're the only other person like me out here...the only person I can trust." Stunned by this I take a step back. LEYTE abandoned GALAHAD too? But he didn't know the things me SABER knew though, he was safe there. Why, even if he didn't agree with their methods would he leave and come to me? For all he knew I could have killed him in the spot before he could say anything.

"Even if you say that how should I believe you?" I ask, still unsure as to whether or not I should believe him. He motions to the soldiers bodies.

"If you check their PDA's you'll find I'm a target as well. In fact think they were looking for me but found you instead which is probably why they were so freaked out when you started attacking. None of the infantrymen have been trained to handle combat situations for someone of you skill, that'd be why they were so bad." Well that would explain things, I thought they were too easy.

I step past LEYTE and back to the soldiers, grabbing one of their PDA's check it, making sure not to leave any prints behind. As I scan through the list of targets set out by GALAHAD I found LEYTE to be second and myself being first.

'So he was telling the truth.'

Standing up I then turn back towards LEYTE.

"So what are you planning on doing now?" I ask. He shrugs and sends me a look.

"I don't know. I was hoping you could help me out." Help him out? I had only just gone off the radar myself until this idiot brought these soldiers along. What the hell made him think I'd help him. My memory went back to our last meeting, at the time he let us go so I could save SABER, in which he ended up dying anyway. Even so, he could've kept going but instead he let us go.

Sighing I rub the back of my neck.

"I guess I owe you one for last time... so if you want you're welcome to stay with me." I murmur, unable to believe I was doing this.

"Really? You'll let me stay with you?" He asks breathlessly but I quickly hold up two fingers.

"On two conditions. One, you'll have to attend school with me so I can keep an eye on you." I put a finger down. "Second. You must never, under any circumstances call me ARCADIA in public or reveal our real identities. Do you understand?" He nods ans smiles at me.

"Good. Now we better get out of here before anyone spot us, follow me." I quickly run off into the direction of my apartment with LEYTE close behind me.

Castiel POV

"Has anyone found anything?" Lys asks. The whole group shakes their head a say no. We'd searched all over the place and still couldn't find Kiki. That damn dog just had to run away.

"I'm so over having to look for this stupid dog." Peggy complains loudly, in which we all agreed that this dog was really annoying to find.

"Man if I ever get my hands on that dog I'm gonna chain it to the damn principle." Kim growls. I smirk at the image I got from her comment. I went to tell Yuzuki about it when I suddenly noticed that she wasn't even here with the group, causing me to panic.

"Guys where's Yuzuki?" I ask. Everyone's attention went to me, then to the surrounding area.

"I don't know." Iris says quietly. "Did anyone see which direction she went?" As everyone murmured that they hadn't, a yapping sound could be heard in the distance. Turning out heads around, we found that Kiki, the dog we'd spent hours before hand trying to catch, was heading towards us. As Kiki got closer, he jumps into Violette's arms, whimpering like crazy.

"What's wrong with him?" Leigh asks.

"I think something might have scared him." Lys replies. Looking at Kiki, it was obvious that something had scared him but what was a different story. I turn my attention to the direction he had come from.

"Do you think something scared him on the other side of those trees?" I ask, Lys stepping closer to me and looks out towards the small forest.

"Well they do say that place is cursed. Something about a massacre happening over there nine years ago. Maybe a ghost appeared to say hello." He laughs and I smirk at him.

I remembered hearing that story one time at Lys's house. A couple of rich families all went camping over there together one time and while they all slept, someone came over and murdered them all. Shot them down and painted the tents with their blood. When the police arrived they counted seventeen dead, some of them just children. They never found who did it and ever since, no one has ever dared to go over there, believing the place is haunted by the dead family.

"You're an idiot Lys, there's no such things as ghosts." Capucine cuts in, a frown plastered on her face. "And besides, you shouldn't talk about things like that as if it's a joke. Those were real people that died there." Lys blushes a little and stops laughing, feeling ashamed.

"You're right, that was rude of me." He says sheepishly. While Capucine raves on about how talking about those things were bad, I was starting to become annoyed and antsy.

"As interesting as this is Capucine, it still doesn't answer the question as to her Yuzuki got to." I snap. She shuts up and blushes a little, the action only annoying me further.

"Let's just hurry up and find her okay. I don't want anything bad to happen to her, there are some really weird..." I cut my sentence short as a sound catches my attention. It seemed that everyone else had caught onto the noise as well and we all strain to work out what it was and where it was coming from. It was loud banging sound that seemed to have come from the other side of the trees.

"That sounds like... gunshots." Dajan says quietly. We stand there for a moment, looking back and forth from each other. The gunfire eventually faded away, everything going quiet again.

While most of us didn't want to go anywhere near it, I had a strange feeling that something bad was happening and that involved Yuzuki.

'Yuzuki's new here so she most likely wouldn't know about the massacre. Could it be she wandered over to the other side?'

Realising that it may be the case, I start to run towards the forest, Lys and the others calling me back. Ignoring them I run as fast as I could, soon hearing Lys coming up from behind.

"Castiel, what are you doing?" He asks, panting as he runs.

"Yuzuki's new here so she wouldn't know about the story, she may have wandered over there when we weren't looking." I pant. I felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier, she wouldn't know that no one ever goes over there.

Leaping over bushes and dodging low branches, I could start to see the clearing. Bursting through the forest, the sun blinds me for a moment and I trip over something, slamming into the ground. The ground felt wet and somehow sticky, even though it hasn't rained in a while for it to be wet.

"Oh fuck Castiel!" I hear Lys shout. I raise my head and start to sit up, blinking my eyes to adjust to the light.

"Oh my God someone call the police!" Rosalya screeches.

'Police? Why do they want to call the police?'

Looking down at the ground, I find that it was a deep red. A helmet lay in front of me, a body laying next to it. My gaze darts around the place and I find myself sitting in the blood of around twenty or more people.

"Whoa what the fuck?!" I jump back out of the bloody mess, almost running into Lysander. The whole place looked like a warzone, bodies scattered everywhere.

"Hey calm down Castiel. You okay? You're not in shock?" He murmurs and I glare at him.

"Not in shock? Aren't you? There's over twenty people dead here Lys." I yell at him. Not in shock? Probably not as severe as he was thinking but I was still shocked to see this.

As Jade finished calling the police, we were told to stay there until they got there. The whole time we were silent, just staring at the bodies. Around twenty-five minutes later the police finally arrived, a whole team of specialists in tow.

"God damn." One of the police officers say. "I knew you said this was bad but I didn't think it was this bad. There's gotta be over twenty people here." He scratches the back of his head and tells the others to block the area off and start investigating.

"Alright kids, I'm Lieutenant Burrell. I'll need you guys to step off to the side and explain as much as you can about this okay?" Nodding, we step away from the crime scene and start to answer as many of there questions as possible.

A while later, a whole swarm of news reporters arrive, trying to get as much information as they could but were pushed back by police.

"Damn reporters, always getting in the way." Lt. Burrell mutters. "Anyway, you said you heard gunfire. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, we heard it from the other side for a bit and then it went quiet." Iris replies. Burrell nodded and wrote a few things down on a notepad.

"Now, before you went to check, you said that you were looking for a friend. What made you think she might have been over here?"

"She's a transfer student from Japan so she doesn't know the story surrounding this area. We thought she might have wandered over here and then when we heard gunfire we quickly came over to investigate." I reply, my leg bouncing from nerves. We had stumbled across what looked like a warzone and she wasn't anywhere to be found.

The Lieutenant scribbles a few more things down before a forensic investigator walks over.

"Ah, have you found any clues yet?" Burrell asks.

"No sir, there's no evidence to indicate who did this but I can tell you this. The victims seem to be part of some group, what kind I have no idea but whoever killed them were pretty professional." He says matter-of-factly. Burrell furrows his eyebrows and looks at the investigator for a moment.

"Where did you get the professional part from?" He asks in a low tone. The investigator clears his throat before continuing.

"From the bullet entries and stab wounds we could conclude the attacker was highly skilled, perhaps even on par with that of highly trained military operatives."

'Military operatives? Wasn't Yuzuki in a military academy? No wait what am I saying, Yuzuki would never do anything like this right?'

"Each bullet and stab wound were either placed perfectly in the head or chest, piercing the heart. There are a few where their throat has been cut with such precision it's almost humanly impossible. From what I can tell, most had died before they had even hit the ground." He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and patiently waits for Burrell's reply.

"You said 'attacker', meaning only one person did this?" Burrell asks standing up.

"Yes, from the way their bodies are, they seem to form a circle. Like they were trying to trap them. Also, we were able to access their PDA's before they were quickly shut down by whoever was in command of victims. It seems they had called in saying they had located a target. This target was on the top of the list and was apparently highly skilled in combat." The inspector says.

"Did you get a name?"

"Yes we did but unfortunately these people work in codenames. This targets codename was ARCADIA."

'ARCADIA? Sounds like a girl's name.'

As the inspector and the Lieutenant, we patiently sit there. They eventually finish and Burrell turns around to us.

"Okay, you guys can go home now. Make sure to call us if you can think of anything to help out with the case." He says and hastily walks away. Standing up, I stretch my back out, the muscles having cramped up from sitting for too long. As we walk away from the crime scene we sneak around the trees to avoid the media and split up to go our separate ways, myself heading back to Iris's to grab my stuff and my car.

Lys, Iris and myself eventually make it back and quickly go in to grab my stuff. I enter the room I slept in with Yuzuki and see her stuff there too and wonder whether or not I should leave.

'Better leave it. Neither of us know where the other lives so if I leave it here she'll know where to go.'

Lifting my bag off the floor I put it over my shoulder and head downstairs.

"Castiel." I find Lys waiting for me at the door, arms folded and a strange expression in his eyes.

"Yeah, what is it Lys?" I ask calmly, not wanting to show my anxiety. He steps closer and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"I think you need a shower." He smirks. Looking at my clothes I remembered they were still covered in blood, which would explain the strange looks I was getting from people on the way here.

"Sure thing." I smirk back and walk outside to my car. Getting inside it, I start it and then drive away to wards my house.

LEYTE POV

'So this is where ARCADIA lives?'

My eyes wander around the small apartment, noting where everything was. It wasn't much but I suppose anything beats sleeping outside.

"You can stay in the spare room. Come on I'll show you." She motions for me to follow, I do so shyly. We reach a door at the end of the hallway and opens it.

"Here, do what ever you want with it."

"Oh ah, thanks." I quickly reply before she disappears into another room. Stepping into the small room, I put my few possessions onto the floor. Taking off my claymore sword, I rest it against the desk in the corner.

'I wonder when I'll ever have to use it again.'

Being a runaway meant I would have to it sometime, although how often is a different story. On top of that, I'll have to find something smaller to keep on me. I can't just walk around town with a six foot long claymore strapped to my back, that's just asking for trouble.

'Maybe I could ask ARCADIA. She might know something... although with that outfit I don't think she could hide anything anywhere.'

Sitting in the bed I stare out the window.

'But ARCADIA's training is way different then mine. From what I hear there isn't any weapon she couldn't handle, the perfect soldier, the same went for SABER. I was never any good when it came to small weapons, my best ability was being able to handle heavy weapons but hand me something small and I have no idea what to do with it.'

That had become my flaw, I was fast but not as fast as ARCADIA and SABER. In the end, DULUTH had made up for what I had lacked and vice versa. I'll have to ask if she'll be willing to train me sometime.

"LEYTE, get out here now." Hearing ARCADIA call for me, I get off the bed and walk head for the small lounge room. I find her sitting there on the floor, a laptop in hand, still drying her hair off from a quick shower.

'How did she get that? No, how did she even get the money for this apartment? GALAHAD didn't exactly pay us.'

I sit down next her, peeking over her shoulder to see what she was doing. On screen were multiple documents open, birth certificates and passports, as well as a few school profiles.

"What are you doing?" I ask, befuddled as to what she was doing with that stuff. She laughs and shakes her head.

"I'm making you a new identity idiot. This way I can enroll you to Sweet Amoris High as a transfer student, the same as me." She types away at the keyboard, screen flashing as she flicks through the various documents on screen.

'She's actually going so far as to create a false identity for me?'

"Okay, all done. Now as I said before, you cannot under any circumstance reveal you true identity. And don't even think about calling me ARCADIA in public, if you do, I may have to kill you." I nod my head quickly, knowing all to well she would kill me if I fucked up.

"Now, my name is Yuzuki Nakashima, just so you know what to call me. Now the name I created for you is Robbie McGillivary. Don't forget it." She snaps the laptop shut and puts it on the table, disappearing into the kitchen.

I sit there and debate on whether or not I should ask her.

"Hey um, ARCADIA? Can I ask you something?" I call out to her.

"Ask away." She calls back. I get up and move into the kitchen to talk to her.

"I was um... wondering if you would... ah... you know, train me in combat. I, understand if you don't want to but... there are so many areas I lack in skill, well more like most areas. So I was hoping that you could teach me." I awkwardly rub my arm, feeling nervous having asking her such a question. All she wanted was a peaceful life, to never have to lift her blades again and here I was asking her to do so. She stops for a moment, pondering over my request. Eyes distant like she was remembering something.

"Alright. I'll teach you. I know how bad you are in a fight, personally I'm amazed you're still alive... but it means that you follow my instructions to the letter, got it?" Holding a knife up in my direction, I become a little uncomfortable.

"I understand. I'll follow your every word." I reply nervously. She smiles and goes back to doing what ever it was she was doing beforehand. I sit down on the couch, wondering what I should do. Since I didn't come up with anything to do I decided I'll just wait for her to come back out.

'I didn't think she'd agree so easily, that was really surprising.'

I have to admit I really didn't she'd say yes. I've just barged into her life out of nowhere and asked her to help me. She's taken me into her own home, I willing to train me and enrolled me into school. What made her go so far to help? Not that I'm not grateful but I did try to kill her and SABER last time we met.

'Although you never really wanted to anyway.'

Sighing I relax back into the couch, sleep slowly creeping up on me. It's been four days since I last slept and now I can finally take a break. With ARCADIA around, I should be safe. As my eyelids become heavy, I make myself a little more comfortable and gradually fall asleep.

Author Note:

LEYTE's back! And he's not trying to kill ARCADIA this time. Did you like my little murder twist? I'll expand on it later on for you guys, hehe :3

Anyway, I must go and write the next chapter for you all to enjoy. Farewell! :D