Disclaimer: Tales of Symphonia is not mine.

Chapter 7

I had awoken that morning rather restlessly. My troubled mind woke me up half way through the night and I was unable to fall back asleep. Although looking on the bright side it gave me time to think. A yawn escaped me, my body hurt even more than yesterday. As I lifted myself off my bed, a muffled thump could be heard from the living room. What was he doing? A little chuckle escaped me at the thought of him suddenly falling off the couch. Entering the living room I found myself disappointed to find my harsh humor was wrong. He was fully dressed, fumbling around to make sure he had everything. "Well aren't you just raring to go?"

He looked up at me, finally realizing my presence. "Shut up. I want to find out what's going on." The look in his eyes told me he was just as tired as I was. He seemed much more restless about this than I did though.

"Calm down. It's still early, it'll be better if we do this in the afternoon." Yuan made a slight pouting face at the thought of having to wait. "Besides," Pausing to stretch, "I've been thinking about this. I don't know if it's such a good idea."

Yuan stopped what he was doing again to look at me. "Why not?"

"Because what if one of the people we ask is part of the organization. Or rumor spreads and the organization hears about us. It might bring trouble to us and the people of Luin. The organization wishes to be secret, I don't think they'll appreciate us risking their cover."

Yuan stifled a yawn as he thought about it. "That's true. But we don't even know for sure that there is an organization. It just seems to look that way. Things may not even be as serious as we're dreading. Besides if we don't do anything we're just helping the rebels to prosper. I think we should take that chance. If things start to get rough we can always move out of Luin to get these people out of danger. Hell, we could ask your son and his little friends to help. "

Yuan held a good argument. But a nauseating feeling continued to fester in my stomach. "If there is an organization, doing this will tell that we're on to them. It'll give them time to prepare."

"Prepare for what? Two guys? We may be Seraphims but we're not invincible. Not even with Lloyd and his friends would we stand a chance if we're out numbered. And calling for a good number of my Renegades would take precious time we probably wouldn't have. I think it's to late anyway. Whoever that woman was, she must be a part of it. She'll tell that she saw me alive and rummaging through the rubble of my base. That alone will cause them to come after us. Like you said, they wouldn't want us figuring them out."

Whoa. Yuan had really thought this through. Usually it was the other way around, I was lecturing him. I had to admit it was impressive. It was even more impressive that he wasn't rubbing my nose in the fact that he was waving every concern I had with logic. A small smile came across my features. "You're right Yuan; I guess I shouldn't be so worried all the time."

As Yuan turned I saw him smirk in triumph. With the Cruxis Crystal's enhancing my hearing it was easy to hear him mutter, "That's two points for Yuan, zero for Kratos."

My eye twitched as I gave him a dirty glare. "What was that?"

He jerked around, laughing nervously. "Oh nothing! Nothing at all!" After another moment of glaring at him I turned and made my way to the kitchen. It was a little disappointing not to see a nice breakfast waiting for me like yesterday. But oh well. Not really being in the mood to cook, I took out some cereal along with the milk, spoon and bowl. Taking my first spoonful of my sugar-coated product Yuan walked in. He was staring at me oddly. Not the odd look that freaked me out. This time it was more like I seemed to have two heads. Although at the moment I was too tired to care enough to say anything. I continued to eat, until Yuan finally had to say something. "Why do you eat?" I understood what he meant, since the Cruxis Crystals make it unnecessary to eat, but the question still sounded odd. Part of me was tempted to sarcastically reply with 'To live,' but decided not too. Instead I told him the sad truth of it.

"It gives me something to do." I stuck another spoonful in my mouth.

Yuan blinked, seeming to have been taken off guard by such a blunt reply. Although he soon recovered as he started laughing. There was no point in getting angry since I knew Yuan was going to laugh anyway. If this were the other way around, I would have laughed too. Although once Yuan continued to laugh nonstop for a minute or two my anger rose. "It's not that funny." After Yuan's laughter died down, he held a very amused smirk at me.

"I knew you didn't get out much. But I didn't think your life was that pathetic! To think you need to amuse yourself by eating." He chuckled lightly, "Careful you don't get fat."

A fixed glare was on him. "What about you? You made breakfast yesterday when no one asked you too. You seem to be pretty good at cooking considering you have much better things to do then eat."

Yuan wasn't fazed by my weak argument. "I've always been good at cooking, it was my born talent. You know that, I was the one that always prepared the meals when we traveled with Mithos. And yesterday was simply because I had nothing better to do." He held up a finger, silencing me before I could say anything. "This being my first time in your home I don't know where everything is. So I had nothing to do. It would have been rude to go through your house to find something entertaining to do. I certainly didn't want to sit there and do nothing."

Grumbling under my breath, I stuck another spoonful of cereal in my mouth. "And going through my kitchen isn't rude." Yuan ignored my comment and sat himself next to me at the table.

"So who are we going to ask about the symbol?" Yuan rested his head in the palm of his hand as he leaned forward on the table.

"Palmacosta and Meltokio."

"Why choose those places?" Yuan's mouth twisted with confusion.

"Three reasons. One, they're far from Luin. So our enemies have a harder time of locating us. Two, Palmacosta and Meltokio have the best chance of defending themselves if it does cause a problem for the city. Three, they're two of the most populated cities in Symphonia. If we want to find any information out than our best chance is in those two places." He was nodding, thinking carefully about it.

"Alright, that sounds good." Yuan leaned back in his chair. "Well hurry up and finish eating. It'll take a while to fly there."

All that came from me was a grunt from the back of my throat. I wasn't very enthusiastic about talking to complete strangers all day. Especially since the chances that it would actually help us were very small. Continuing to eat a random thought came to mind. My gaze went from my cereal up to Yuan. "Hey Yuan," once he looked at me I went on, "What ever happened to your other bases?" The story had been told to me before, but back then I didn't really care enough so it completely slipped my mind.

A faint blush came to Yuan's face, as his eyes widening slightly. "Uh… Does that story really need to be told again? It's a thing of the past. Let's forget about it." Yuan's gaze darted around the room as he desperately tried to find something else to talk about. "So how about this room, Kratos? It seems a little to plain, ever think about painting it? I'd be happy to help." He smiled nervously.

My eyes narrowed at him, now I was interested. It had to be something good if Yuan was trying to avoid it like this. "What happened to them?"

Panic briefly filled his eyes, "Nothing!" His eyes once again searched for a distraction. Finding nothing Yuan gasped in amazement at something behind me. He pointed with wide eyes. "Holy shit what is that!?" Before I could even turn around to fall for his lame plan he had already started getting up to run away. Grabbing his cloak, I pulled him to me. "You realize… You're supposed to run after I turn around." What the hell could have happened to make Yuan act like this? Although I'll admit, it was pretty funny.

Yuan wiggled and squirmed, trying his best to get away. "I know that! I just knew you wouldn't fall for it!"

"Then why do it?"

Yuan, sighing in defeat, went slack. "Part of me hoped the few seconds it took to register it was a bluff I'd be far enough away."

My grin became wider. This was all so pathetically funny. "So what happened?"

Yuan's head jerked to glare at me. After a long moment he sighed, figuring he wasn't going to get away from it. "Well… You see… Once the worlds had joined together, the Renegades kept pestering me about which base I should have as my main one. I didn't really care. They both had their advantages and disadvantages. It started out as simple suggestions… But then the Renegades thought it would be fun to make it a competition. They wanted to see which base could win me over. Having enough of it I picked the Treit Base. But the Renegades in Flanoir didn't like that. So they got their revenge by doing minor pranks or little disobediences. Nothing serious enough to fire any of them, of course they got punished though. But the pranks continued. So I went to Flanoir and the same thing happened with the Treit Base. In the end… I ended up going into a crazy rage and destroying both bases." Yuan was looking at the far wall, blushing. "No one got hurt of course!" He quickly added.

I just stared at him. At the moment I was too shocked to do anything else. Although when the story had finally sunk in the laughter began. The image of Yuan running away, cursing all kinds of obscenities, as his Renegades holding little gifts ran after him, as they all yelled different reasons for him to stay. It made me laugh all the harder. Yuan swung around, gritting his teeth. "Stop laughing at me! It's humiliating enough, don't make it worse!" I covered my face with one of my hands as my laughter slowly started dieing.

Pushing some of my bangs out of the way, my gaze settled on Yuan. "Heh heh heh. It must be nice to have followers that love you so much they drive you mad."

"Shut up!" Yuan started struggling, "Will you let me go now!" I was still holding onto Yuan by his cloak. Noticing for the first time how close he was to me, my cheeks flushed slightly and I let go. Yuan, straightening him self up, grunted. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you purposely held me as close to you as possible."

Standing, picking my bowl up and carrying it to the sink, a faint chuckle passed my lips. "Good thing you don't know any better."

It was easy to feel Yuan staring daggers at me without even looking. Well I had to say that was a pretty entertaining morning. Leaving the kitchen, I went to my bedroom to get dressed. Maybe today won't be too bad.

Author's note: Since I'm being very uncreative right now. When Lloyd combined the two worlds together they simply meshed together. So all the cities and what not are the same. The landmasses are the only thing that changed at all. I'm pretty sure I already said this, but in case I didn't. The new world is called Symphonia. How unoriginal. Haha. xP