Kuu Hizuri rubbed his temple in frustration, giving a death glare to the hastily-scribbled letter from Takarada Lory.

He knew there was more to what Takarada knew then this.

The words expressed a complete in-the-dark perspective.

Yet if you paid attention, in between the lines, the avoidance of the questions that one might ask that were so well ignored that it showed knowledge of them.

In short, Lory had found something. A lead of some sort.

And was not telling him.

But why wouldn't he tell him? Anything about his son he had an entitlement to know.

And that letter had been about his findings on Kuon.

Lory would have told him anything about his son.

Unless it was potentially harmful towards either Kuon or his family.

What was he hiding?

A whir, a crack, and a loud snap greeted Ren as he went around the last bend in the garden maze where Kyoko was practicing.

The ground was littered with a bow, several arrows, daggers, swords, and on a crushed stuffed replica whose head was snapped off was a pair of numchucks.

She certainly had been practicing hard. He thought, looking at the thin shine of sweat on the back of her neck.

His footsteps made her turn around quickly, a sword grasped tightly in one hand and eyes alert.

When she saw who it was, she relaxed slightly.

Slightly.

Grabbing a loose sword from the ground, he said, "Care for a match?"

She tensed once again, and with a curt "Yes," took her stance.

A whirl of blades and complex footwork ensued for the next few minutes, until she tripped on an arrow and he was able to disarm her.

"Your skills are improving, Kyoko. But, always watch your step when you are fighting. A simple mistake is sometimes a vital point in a fight."

She nodded silently in agreement, watching him closely.

Still suspicious, and his overpowerment of her had not helped anything.

Not the slightest bit of trust.

No matter how much that affected him, he still had a reason for heading out here to the grounds. And the faster he could get that out of the way, the quicker he could leave that cold gaze.

"Well, we have a new mission."

"Oh, really. That fast?" If possible, she had an even more watching eye on him.

"Yes. I am a favorite of Voretti's."

Gaze intensified.

"That is rather handy, now, isn't it? Care to tell me about this mission?"

An itchy feeling lingered all over Kyoko's skin. A bug crawled up her arm, and she fought with the urge to flick it away.

The hay was too thin over top of her to move and give away her position to that guard who paced restlessly in front of the entrance.

Peering through the slits to the outside world, she saw Ren drop down from the top of the building he had been climbing, landing dagger first on top of a guard.

Good cushioning, she thought rather darkly.

A guard ran past her hiding spot. One hand on his mouth and another to pull him in, and she had his body hidden with the throat slit.

In the same shadowy manner, she took care of quite few guards, while Ren killed his share face to face.

Within twenty minutes, the merits of teams became apparent.

Silent footsteps lead them into the entryway, where there was more to contend with.

Both held their own quite admirably.

That is until Kyoko's sword missed a vital spot, causing the man to yell in pain only to be swiftly silenced. Yet her location was known.

A guard came towards her, and she was engaged in a rather difficult sword battle that had her unfocused in the beginning.

In short, she was losing.

Panicking clouded her senses slightly, and she could not see the man readying a dagger to be thrown close to the moving shadow on the wall.

Ren did, however.

Using one of the guards as a leaping post, he jumped to the chandelier and spun around to land directly in the path of the dagger. A soft thud in his arm told that he succeeded in intercepting the weapon.

Effectively crippling his sword arm, also.

Kyoko, managing to kill her opponent, fought her way to his side.

His recovery time was rather long from falling on the floor, and he was wounded in several places. Although Ren was fairly good with his other arm, his wounds were quite hampering, especially that gash along his leg.

Kyoko finally made it over to him, and they fought back to back. Ren was tiring, though, and getting even more injured because of it.

They had to get out of there.

But there was too many guards blocking the way.

Kyoko fingered a thick chain in her belt, before whipping it out and around the closest guard's neck. A loud snap could be heard, and he fell over into the next opponent, leaving him open for attack. A stab through the chest and the same was done to the person behind him.

Twenty minutes later, Kyoko had killed everyone. Lashing the now unconscious Ren to her back, she ran to a window and climbed up and across the rooftops to a small balcony overgrown by plants. The two were effectively hidden from view.

She bandaged Ren's wounds to stop the bleeding, and then curled up next to him for shut-eye as she wondered at her protection of the man she had had plans to kill just a week ago.

He saved her life.

And she had saved his.

Revenge on him had seemed easy, but now that this had happened...

Maybe he was worthy of her trust, and was too valuable a partner to kill.

I feel like I did my homework.

I watched the Scorpion King (first one) before writing this, and though the movie was SO predictable, it had a TON of fight scenes. Lol, my brother (who was watching with me) got really irritated, especially at the end where I went, "Oh, I know what's going to happen, he's going to pull the arrow from his back and shoot it at the guy. Oh, yep, he's fine. Like that wasn't deep enough to pierce his lung or anything. Oh, and he's not even the slightest bit burnt from running through fire."

So, yeah, I just watched it. For the incredible amount of fight scenes. Nothing else, really. It was OK. I guess. I got amusement out of questioning the amounts of logic put into it.

Hopefully my fight scenes will be better now.

Schooooooool's out for summer! *guitar plays* Yeah, so hopefully I will be writing more often.