Okay! I finally managed to write out the next chapter because I was bored!

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The guards brought everyone else back after that. Luka waved as they pulled the sisters and Kaiko away, and the two got sent back to their zone. Luka set herself back into the water, and Miku seated herself on the sand. "So everyday you just do the same work?" Miku asked, plucking out a weed and handing it to Luka. She looked around at the rest of the strange plants growing out of the water. Other than the seaweed and the vines climbing up the dark trees, there were plants that could have been mint or parsley, plants with red-tipped leaves and yellow bulbs, thorny stems and oddly shaped leaves.

Luka sighed. "Well, yes, pretty much. Occasionally some get switched out for other work, which is why in some zones there is a different mix of species. Here, it's just Lumiere, a few Kappa and some Loches." She held out her hand and Miku delivered another batch of weeds. "And you, of course." She added.

"So I'm stuck here?"

Luka nodded.

"What are you even doing?"

The Lumiere flicked her tail slightly and pushed herself through the murky waters of the swamp. She waved her hand at the trunk of one of the trees, which had been hollowed out to form a shelf. It was filled with jars of all shapes and sizes, and they were filled with things Miku couldn't quite identify.

Some of the jars were filled with things that seemed vaguely human, others that seemed like they used to be human. Some jars were filled with yellow powders or oily red liquids, and then things with petals or thorns or bones. Another contained a small oblong shape, but she couldn't tell if it was pink or blue, and it seemed to be moving around slowly, like it was alive. Alive and pulsating. She looked at the others. Many other jars held the same concoction, but somehow each was different.

Miku was intrigued. "What are they?" She asked, carefully wading through the swamp and taking a jar from the shelf. It was filled with a beautiful deep blue liquid, and it seemed to look like the sky, shimmering, but somewhere inside there was something in it. Beautiful, but not edible, and definitely not the nice kind of beautiful.

Luka gave her a look, and she hastily put the jar back on the shelf. "The Lumiere have the knowledge of natural healing. A lot of people in the village are getting sick, so they make us make the medicine. Of course they don't tell us what the people are getting infected with, so we just make up whatever remedies we can with the crappy plants they throw at us."

She then took a smaller jar off the shelf and held it in front of Miku, smirking slightly. "When we're waiting for the supplies, however…" She shook the jar, and the liquid changed color. Miku looked alarmed, and peered closer, trying to sniff it. "We have a bit of fun of course. Poifondum. You know, one of those things that released gas clouds. Doesn't work 100%, but it's fun to throw at each other. A bit of fun when the guards aren't looking, right?"

Miku looked at the liquid, which slowly dissolved back to its original color. "And you don't throw this at the guards why?"

"Think we'd try?" Luka said. "This stuff is difficult to make, might as well use it to enjoy this horrid life. And if we threw this at one of the guards we'd be sent to the knife no doubt."

She turned back to where she had been earlier, an alchemy station of some sort, and ripped out a chunk of thorny plants, receiving several cuts on her palm. She ignored them. Miku frowned, and then realized Luka already had cuts on her arms and around her waist. "Why do you have cuts?"

Luka looked towards Miku's direction, but not directly at her. "Plants. Guards. Thorny bushes. I'm used to them." She turned back.

Miku said nothing, gazing at the shadows of the other Lumiere swimming through the murky waters of the swamp. Most of them seemed like they were simply swimming through the waters and not doing anything else. Other beings were amongst the trees, plucking leaves and what not. She looked up, towards the top of the trees, but all she could see was a blur of green and fog. Luka placed a plant on Miku's lap. "Posciden." Miku looked down at it. "It's edible."

"Thanks, but no." Miku placed it back into her hands. "I only eat meat." Her eyes flickered towards Luka's tail, and then back to her face. "No offense."

"No, I'm pretty sure Kin are omnivores." She put the plant back into Miku's hands. "The food from lunch isn't that filling, and you didn't eat it anyway. Posciden is healthy, and it fills you up. You have to eat something."

Miku huffed and reluctantly began chewing on one edge of the leaf. Luka nodded. "See? It's not that bad. There's a bit of dry land up there, so just rest a bit and-"

A guard yelling and the clanking of chains interrupted her. There was a thud and the heavy metal door closed behind them. Miku put down her snack and turned. Someone was lying across the wet sand, quivering slightly. Miku and crawled towards it, sniffing. She circled around the being, and Luka watched from a distance. There was still no response, so she prodded it.

At once, the figure shifted and shot up, looking Miku in the eye. Her blue eyes focused into hers, and long purple hair fell over her shoulders. Miku hissed and took a step back. She looked at Miku, seeming vaguely puzzled, but then relaxed. "Not a male." She turned towards Luka. "Not a male."

Miku titled her head slightly. What was up with being a male? And why did she take so long to figure out that she wasn't? "Who are you?"

"Another mutant dragged here of course." The lady smiled bitterly, and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, leaving the rest of her bangs down by her ears.

"You know about this place?"

She nodded. "Tried to avoid it." She then sat down on the spot where Miku had been earlier, dipping her webbed feet into the dark water. "And the guards were clever. Covered their eyes and ears."

"What's your name, Siren?" Luka asked.

The lady pushed her fringe back to cover her eyes. "Ah. Clever Lumiere." She nodded at her tail. "It's Gakuko."

"A Siren? Those are one of the things that can sing good, right? And then ensnare people?" Miku asked, seating herself next to the purple-haired lady.

Gakuko nodded. "That's right..." Her blue eyes took notice of Miku's tail, and they flicked up to her twitching ears. "You're not a Kitsune."

Miku looked away. "No... I'm not."

"I thought Kin were extinct."

She sighed. "Me too."

"And it's a wonderful time for her to be alive!" Luka added cheerily. "We've got another one of them here. It's a boy." She winked at Gakuko, and the Siren smiled, understanding.

"Oh! Now that's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Not good." Miku looked sternly at Luka, but she smirked. "We don't get along. Besides, he's a lazy idiot." She held up her hands and checked them, for no apparent reason.

"There's a name for that. And there's a fine line between love and hate." Gakuko said sneakily. ((Ye it's called being tsundere.))

Miku stuck her tongue out at her. "Haha, very funny miss hypnotism."

"Duchess, my dear. I was a respected one there." She grinned and flicked her hair. "I knew I'd wind up here sooner or later, so I already devised something. Let's get down to work."

…

Mikuo grunted as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. He looked towards Rinto and Len, who were doing fine in the sun. Of course. They were Solins, weren't they? They were used to spending hours out in the sun without breaking a sweat. Kins preferred the dark and quiet of the night, but no, the guards just had to pick out the day shift for him, right under the hot sun. It was even worse on rainy days, but at least everyone else could share his miserableness.

The 'monsters' in their zone had been forced to break away rock after rock from the mountains behind the jail, and any bit of scrap found within them was to be delivered straight back to the guards. He looked at the pickaxe he was holding, rusted and dented, but the guards refused to replace it.

And that girl. She was so annoying. And the guards had to throw her into his cell, where it was the only place he could curl up quietly without anyone to disturb him. Then she had to come along.

He scowled at the thought of her grinning face, mocking, tempting him as she waved her long teal hair. He brushed his dirty hand through his. She had the same colored hair as he did, and that made him feel angrier. She was a Kin as well. They were probably the only other two left in existence, and of course they weren't going to get along well.

He glanced back at the brothers. Len's pants were on fire, and Rinto was laughing maniacally. A blonde girl stared at them from a distance. The kind of things that would happen everyday in their zone, they didn't bother him. He turned back towards the rough granite in front of him, and he threw his pickaxe into the rock, and most of it broke off. In his mind, Miku laughed at him. He could see her mocking his strength already. He growled and hit the rock again, over and over, again and again, straining his tired muscles.

Mikuo dropped the pickaxe, and then fumbled for it again, ignoring his quivering hands. He was already shaking, but he wanted to prove to her that he was stronger, better than her. It was all in his imagination of course.

The Kin looked at the pickaxe, even more dented than earlier, then back towards the rock, which had been broken to bits. But there was still plenty of mountain left to go through. But amidst the dirty chunks of rock, something was glittering inside. Mikuo frowned, and tried to pull it out, but it was incased in too much dirt for him to grab it. It seemed silver, or it could have been just metal, but when he touched it, he recoiled immediately.

It was his find. He was going to keep it. He mustn't act like there was something there, or the guards were going to get suspicious. So he kept digging, breaking the rocks, trying to pretend like he was doing his daily work. Whatever was in there, it was going to be his.

That was an average Kin. They always wanted to hoard what they could find. If they saw it first, it was theirs. Miku. He frowned. She hadn't told him her name, of course, but he overheard it as he made their way past their table to get his lunch back. Miku. Why did he think of her? He growled again and continued to hack away at the rocks.

Len ran past him screaming in his burning pants, and then ran in a small circle, over and over, screaming continuously. Idiot, Mikuo sighed to himself. Eventually his high-pitched screaming managed to alert the guards, and they managed to douse the flames. Rinto was already rolling on the ground in laughter, and the guards had to kick his waist to stop him from laughing.

"Some animals, eh?" He heard a guard grunt as they marched back to their posts past him. Yeah. He could say the same about Miku. And just her name in his head, the whole thing started again, and he was pounding at the rock, harder and harder with each swing, body tensed and agitated.

But…

Why did he get so angered just at the thought of her? Did he really want to compete? With the only kind left of his species, especially one who was female? Well, yes, of course. That was his nature – competitive. But that could have applied to anyone. Why did he have to feel so fired up around her? Just that made him mad, and the questions branched out even more, and the more he asked, the angrier he got. Angrier and angrier, swinging harder against the stone, unstoppable.

For the rest of the day, that's what he did, hacking away at the rock around the shiny thing, and then carefully picking the stone out when the guards weren't looking. All day, agitated at just the thought of her, breaking rocks until nightfall.

As the guards grabbed the chains around his wrists, he felt too tired to argue this time. All that work had finally taken its toll, and he didn't even bother snapping back at the guy with the red hair who thought he looked so tough all the time. He had been swinging his pickaxe around all day, bragging that one day he'd invent a game where one would use a piece of wood to hit a ball, or something like that. And he constantly went on about how he'd win some girl's heart from a different zone. He annoyed Mikuo, but he was too tired to bother about him now.

He finally made his way back to the cell without collapsing. By the time he got in, Miku was already waiting, sitting on her ledge. He didn't look at her, and simply made his way back to his bed. "Hm. You're tired." She said simply.

He was too tired to argue back. Of course she hadn't started anything, but it seemed like a provoke to him. "You think?"

"I know."

He sighed, folding his tail over. "Why are you so annoying?"

She glared at his form, partly hidden by the shadows. Only strips of pale moonlight fell into the cell, one of the beams lightening his face. She glared at that beam. "Oh, well, I don't know. Why are you so stupid?"

He sat up. His arms and legs were aching, but a simple provoke would anger him easily. "Shouldn't you be asking that to yourself?"

"Only a stupid person would say so, agree?" She smiled.

"Only a stupid person would keep answering in questions!" He spat, standing up, and then falling back towards the wall.

She scoffed. "A stupid person would definitely outwork himself just 'cause he's stupid." She flicked her hair at him.

He glared back at her, leaning against the wall. He was tired, and he could barely afford to stand up. But just looking at her pissed him off. "Well, you…" He started, holding up his hand to point at her. "You… You…"

"Only a stupid person wouldn't be able to think of a simple insult." She finished for him, grinning widely.

He growled at her, but no water for the whole day made it come out as a quivering mew. She burst out laughing and jumped down from her ledge, placing her hands on her hips and she stood in front of him. "Silly boy. You may be a Kin, but you're definitely not my kind." She laughed at her own joke. "You're not as clever as you think you are." She poked his chest, and he hissed at her.

"You sound like a kitten." She mocked.

"Yeah? Well you're a bi-"

"Kitten~!" She cut in, and patted his face. "Meow~ Meow~ Meow~ Little ball of fur, aren't you?"

"Shut up!" He snapped, trying to swat her hands away, but he was too tired to lift his arms. "J-Just shut up!"

"Soft kitten, warm kitten, little ball of fur~" She sang.

He opened his mouth to say something, but only air came out. She continued singing, in that voice he found annoying. But now that voice seemed soothing and calming, and for a moment, he felt drowsy.

"What."

"What!?" He snapped alert, catching himself. He had almost fallen asleep to her singing, and now he hated himself for that. He hated her. "Ugh, just get out of my sight." He pushed her away and sunk back to the floor.

Miku looked down at him, still shaking from exhaustion. She felt a twinge of pity for him, but shook it away. He didn't like her, she didn't have to like him. Right?

She jumped up onto her ledge and curled up, just as the guard blew out the last oil lamp illuminating their area.

Right.

Wow.

Well.

I'm out.