What keeps us going? Our dreams? Our goals? Or our loved ones?

Some would say determination, but why are we determined? What motivates us?

For some, it's what we want out of life, even if we have to sacrifice everything to get it. For others, it's those we care about, even if we have to sacrifice ourselves.

"How do I know that I can trust you?" I asked the Streamer. "You could be telling me all the things I want to hear just so I would willingly go with you. What do you have to offer me now so that I would want to go with you?"

The Streamer sighed and shook her head. "Is not Mikuo's word good enough?"

I glared at the man who looked away in shame. "Not when it was a mistake to trust him in the first place." I meant for my words to hurt, and it pleased me to see Mikuo flinch after they passed my lips. "You're going to have to try better than that if you want to convince me," I added.

"Very well." The Streamer put her fingers in her mouth and shot out a loud, high-pitched whistle. As I expected, she wasn't alone. People dressed in black and gray emerged from the shadows. Mikuo winced, but I didn't care to figure out why. What really demanded my interest was the two men who came up behind the Streamer, a familiar face in tow.

My knees nearly buckled out from under me. He was alive. He was okay. He was really alive.

"Rin," Nero said my name, shock plastered all over his face. Then his questions came out in rapid fire. "Are you okay? What happened? Where are the others? Is everyone all right? Rin, are you wearing an eyepatch?"

One of the Love Wreckers holding Nero gave him a violent shake. Nero glared at him but did nothing else. There were bruises on his bare arms, but he seemed mostly unharmed. So the Streamer really was telling the truth.

"Happy now?" she asked, her tone that of boredom. Without waiting for my answer, she continued, "Will you come willingly, or do we have to force you? Because now that you're so close, we can't let you out of our grasp. Mr. G would be very displeased with us."

Shifting my weight from foot to foot, I carefully asked, "If I promise to come and don't put up a fight, you'll leave everyone else alone? You won't hunt them down? You'll let them live in peace?"

"You have not only my word, but Mr. G's word as well," the Streamer answered. I didn't know how valid her word was, but it was better than nothing. "We'll let him go, too," she added, nodding towards Nero as if I'd forgotten all about him.

"Rin," Nero began, "I don't know what you're planning, but don't do-" Again he was shaken into silence, but he got one more statement out. "Don't just give up! Remember what you're fighting for!"

"Nero," I said his name slowly, not wanting to say the rest. "This has gone on long enough. Now's my chance to save everyone, to protect those I love. Don't stop me from doing just that."

Ignoring Nero's protests, I approached the Streamer and held out my arms. She grinned. Before I could blink, cuffs were placed on my wrists.

The Streamer rubbed her hands together as she turned to the others and gleefully ordered, "Let the boy go with Mikuo. We have no need of him anymore." To Mikuo, "Thank you so much for your help. None of this would have been possible without you." Mikuo looked even more ashamed then when I first saw him talking to her, but he said nothing. To me, "Good night."

All I heard was Nero shouting my name when a force met the back of my skull, causing the world to go dark.

#

When I came to however long later, I was blindfolded, my arms were tied behind my back, and my body ached all over. Based on the vibrating that rang through my whole body, forcing my teeth to clang together, I inferred that I was in a moving vehicle of some sorts. I stretched out my body. I pointed my toes and stuck out my chin. No opposition. They must have put me in the back of a van.

With nothing else to do, I bid my time. The portion of the ride that occurred when I was conscious lasted about an hour. At first there was an occasional stop, possibly resulting from stop signs and red lights, but that only happened through the first ten minutes after I woke up. The lack of stops from there told me how populated the area we were now in was.

Then came the final stop. The driver and passenger got out of the vehicle, slamming the doors as they did so. Their voices grew louder as they approached where I was located. One was the Streamer from before. The other I didn't recognize.

"How many time do I have to say that I'm sorry?" the voice I didn't know, male, asked. "Miki, you know I never meant any of it."

The Streamer, Miki, huffed. "Do you really think I'm going to give you another chance after that 'funny' prank of yours? I'm still pissed at you, Piko."

"Will you ever forgive me?"

"Go to hell," was her answer.

"What do I have to do to convince you that I've changed?"

"You're a Love Wrecker. People like you don't ever change."

From what it sounded like, two car doors opened. Fresh air rushed in, giving my lungs a break from the stuffy air from the car ride. It all came on so quickly that I coughed a couple of times. I must have spent more time in the back of this vehicle than I thought.

"That's a very ignorant thing to say, Miki," I told the Streamer as soon as I could breathe normally again. "You judge someone based on who they are, not what they are. Only idiots believe that a person is their stereotype."

"Shut up, weirdo," was Miki's oh-so clever comeback.

"She's got a point," Piko replied.

"And you shut up, wuss!" Miki snapped. I felt something roughly grab my arm. "Let's go."

Miki and Piko grab each arm and force me from the back of the vehicle to my feet. Their grips are like tourniquet, and they each pull so hard that it's as if they're trying to get me to lose my balance so that they can drag me instead of my walking myself. Well, so be it.

I allow my knees to go out from under me. Both curse at the sudden weight they now have to carry. Being pulled along, I smirk at the extra hard work both have to go through. The best part was that they didn't try asking me to walk myself so that their job transporting me might be made easier. Maybe it was stupidity. Maybe it was pride. All I know for sure was I took pleasure out of making their lives hard in that moment.

Finally they drug me inside wherever it was they wanted to take me. Based on all the movies I've seen, they probably drove me into the middle of nowhere and have taken me inside an abandoned warehouse or barn or something of the like. The air had a stale, musky stench to it, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what I was taken to.

Miki and Piko dragged me a little further before they grunted in relief. They sat me in a cold, metal chair and tied my ankles to the chair legs. The bitter steel bit into my skin, forcing me to shiver all over. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that they kept the chair in a freezer just so that it would be this uncomfortable to sit in once I arrived.

"Would someone mind giving me an electric blanket until I get warmed?" I asked, knowing damn well that nobody cared how I was doing but knowing that it would irritate them anyway. "Oh, and heat up a hot pocket or something for me while you're at it. I'm pretty hungry."

"Be quiet, Kagamine," Piko ordered. By the sound of it, he was standing upright. Maybe Miki was the one tying my ankles to the chair.

I kept talking. "It doesn't have to be a hot pocket. Anything instant would be fine."

"I said, 'be quiet.'"

"You know, I could really go for some instant noodles right about no-"

The blow to my face was so hard that my head nearly jerked right off my neck. The force caused me to bite my tongue, and a pool of blood built up in my mouth. I swished it around, mixing the blood with the saliva.

"If you say one more fu-"

I didn't let Piko finish. Using the sound of his voice, I aimed my head towards him and spat. Growing up, even the Love Wrecker girls were grossed out at how I "spit like a man." I took pride in it. That day, there was a whole lot to be proud of.

Piko cried out in surprise and rage. Swearing, he yelled about how he was going to kill me after Mr. G was finished whatever it was he was planning to do. Miki simply laughed before saying, "You will do no such thing. One, Mr. G won't allow it; and two, if she's already getting the better of you while blindfolded and her hands tied behind her back, you would need a really unfair advantage to kill her in the ways you're describing."

"Who gives a damn about being fair?" Piko snarled. "This is a dog-eat-dog world, Miki. You take whatever advantage you can and sacrifice anyone in your way. Being fair is just a fairytale."

I was about to comment that someone was obviously not their parents' favorite child when a new voice said, "That is enough, you two."

"Yes, sir," Miki was quick to say, all playfulness from her tone gone. Piko just grunted.

"Looks like you'll either need to figure out how you're going to wash the blood from your pants before they stain, or find a new uniform altogether, Utatane," this new speaker said.

Growling, Piko began, "She started it."

"I was provoked," I corrected. My tongue was still bleeding, and since I didn't want to swallow the blood, I allowed the thick, red liquid drip down my chin. Miki must have noticed, because it was a woman who groaned in disgust.

"If you don't keep your filthy mouth shut," Piko began, but he did not get to finish his threat.

"That is enough," the mystery man ordered. "Leave, both of you. Oh, and remove her blindfold before you go. I want to be able to look Rin in the eyes when I speak to her."

With unnecessary force, the blindfold was yanked from my head. I glared in the direction that Piko's voice had come from. Before me was a guy not much older than Len. He had silver hair and mismatched eyes – one blue and the other green. Truth be told, he wasn't as scary-looking as his voice implied. If anything, he looked pretty dainty and feminine. It made his scowl look a lot more humorous than the scary he undoubtedly intended.

After Piko and Miki had gone, I took in my surroundings. I still couldn't tell if I was in an abandoned warehouse or barn, but it was definitely an abandoned building. The metal walls were almost rusted through, and the dirt on the floor was so thick there was no way of knowing if beneath it all was concrete or wood. The room we were in was small and had doors in both the front of the room and back. Behind me, the door Piko and Miki went out of slammed shut. In front of me, the double doors stayed open, revealing nothing but an endless abyss of black.

The man himself wasn't too interesting. He was dressed in a bright green polo shirt and wore light blue jeans. His sneakers even looked old and beaten, and one shoelace had, by the looks of it, long since lost an aglet. Nothing about the man seemed intimidating. He grinned like he and I were going to have a good time. I grinned right back.

"So you're Len's sister," he purred.

My grin vanished. "What the hell did you do to him?" I growled like a hungry animal.

Chuckling, the man ignored my demand. "I really had my interests in the wrong place this whole time. To convince Love Wreckers to act like actual Love Wreckers? The hell was I thinking? Anyone can be trained to behave in such a way. It's human nature, really. All of humanity is plagued by its selfish interests and its vulnerability to be corrupted from trusting and caring for anyone. As much as they hated what we did to them, it took little to no effort to push them to dive into what their very nature had been this whole time calling them to become. But you?" He laughed. It sickened me. "You choose to be the way you are. Of course Love Makers can also be selfish and conniving, but you really take the cake. One thing I do wonder is how much of the way you are now would have still existed if you never took your brother's place. Would you have been a real sweetheart, or would you be just as . . . pleasant a person you are now?"

"What do you want?" I asked, my words tasting of poison. "Do you plan to 'rehabilitate' me like you did to Len and Miku?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," the man answered. "By the way, I really should introduce myself, hmmm?" I was already certain that this was the talked about Mr. G, but it didn't hurt to have him prove me correct. "Leon G, at your service."

"And what service are you providing, Leon?"

Leon grinned. "You really are no different from your brother, are you? Why, it's almost as if I'm talking with him again. Makes me wonder if you two have very similar personalities, or if he modeled your behavior to convince us that our experiments were making some sort of progress."

"What do you want?" I repeated.

"To talk." Leon approached me and then knelt down so that we were facing eye-to-eye. "Oh, no," he mused. "You lost your eye, didn't you? Well, that isn't an issue. I don't want you for your body, although it would help to keep you healthy."

"If I'm not to be used as an experiment," I began, "then what is my purpose for being here?"

Instead of answering right away, Leon studied me. He looked me up and down, judging every little detail. Perhaps I should have felt naked under his eye, but I didn't. In my mind, I dared him to look inside of me to see what I truly was. I mentally challenged him to look inside my heart and not flinch at what he saw.

"I want information," he finally said after minutes of studying my very presence. "How did you become the very opposite of what you're meant to represent? How did you go so against your nature and not fall apart over it? Is it possible that it's not nature at all that determines these things? Is this system your people hold so tightly onto really this flawed and, dare I say, useless?" He looked me in the eye. "Your testimony could mean everything. Our experiments do . . . have their flaws, but your existence itself is proof of our theory. Why, with your help, we can tear this world down. We can burn to ashes what has damned us both."

Truth be told, burning the world down really did sound appealing. So much of me wanted to make all who had hurt me suffer, but it wasn't what I really wanted. All I cared about was my loved ones. As long as they were safe, I had no other goals or motives. I could have helped Leon destroy the system, but in the end, what really was in it for me? What was in it for those I cared about? Would the short-term satisfaction really be worth siding with the one who hurt my brother beyond repair?

Yeah, as if.

"I won't help you do anything," I said, sounding braver than I felt. There was no knowing what they would do to me to get me to cooperate, but I had no plans to give in so easily. "You threw that opportunity away the second you began to use Len to further your own sick agenda. If you think I would help you after you treated my brother as your personal guinea pig, then you're a lot dumber than you look."

Leon's face darkened. "You sound so determined for one who's tied to a chair while I'm fully capable of doing whatever I please to you."

"You won't kill me." That I said with no doubt in my heart. "You need me. It's my testimony you want, but it's useless to you if I'm not the one repeating it. Whether you like it or not, I'm your best witness, and you can't get much use out of me if I'm dead now, can you?"

Leaning in so close that I could feel his breath on my skin, Leon asked, "What is it you want, Kagamine?"

With the sweetest voice I could muster, I softly answered, "I want your head on a silver platter."

"Don't think I won't go back on my promise to leave your friends alone." Leon glared at me. "If you won't talk willingly, I will get you to talk with other means. Is that what you want?"

"You seem to be missing the point." I narrowed my eyes, and we stared each other down. Sooner of later, one of us would give in. "You're not getting me as your willing ally because of how quick you were to hurt the ones I love. What makes you think hurting them more is going to change anything?"

"You would do anything to protect them."

"Keep in mind that there's a lot that falls under 'anything.'"

Having it in him to look amused, Leon pulled back, smiled, and asked, "Is that a threat?"

I returned the smile. "It's a promise."

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Leon waved his finger at me. "Mark my words, Rin Kagamine. I will get you to help me."

"Really, I'd like to see you try."

Clearly frustrated, Leon drew back his arm to slap me. However, he was interrupted. The ground vibrated. The walls shook. What sounded like a loud BOOM echoed all around. Leon looked at me as if he should have seen this coming. I smiled back, not using my words to tell him that he should.

Next thing he knew, the doors were thrown open. People charged in. Leon shouted in rage. We were engulfed by the new arrivals and-

Well . . . I don't think you need me to tell you the rest.

Examining her nails, Rin looks back at the man. She narrows her eyes - one natural, the other glass - at him. "Are we through now?" she asks.

Styrofoam cups lie scattered across the desk. Most are drained empty. One sits upright, the scent of coffee wafting the air. The brunet man rests his face in his hands. His shoulders are slumped, and his fingers grip his hair. "How did they find you?" is his answer. "How did your friends know where to look?"

Rin snorts. "It was too easy. What Leon should have done was keep Mikuo and Nero from finding the others. Hell, he probably wouldn't have allowed that to happen had he known just how stupid Miki was. By the time those two found the others, Miku knew to immediately start demanding Mikuo to tell the others where I was. Honestly, having Nero as witness was what damned Mikuo in the end. Rui and Zeito would never have believed Miku otherwise.

"Knowing that nobody was looking for us, Rui and Zeito screwed secrecy and tried to contact Tonio. Through him we learned that Ona had been given false leads thanks to Mikuo and no had no idea where we were. Once that was settled, Tonio got the information from Mikuo about where Leon would hide me. With that info in hand, Tonio sent reinforcements to get me. While this happened, Miku and Len went to the Love World police because we couldn't continue on with this mafia-styled life any longer. That's why we're here, getting interviewed over and over by people like you who clearly just want to go home."

The man groans, confirming Rin's words. He looks at her, his eyes drooping. With a sigh, he says, "That will be all, thank you."

Rin's natural eye lights up. "I can go now? We're done here?"

"Yeah, yeah." The man waves his hand. "Just go."

As she lets the door close behind her, she can hear the man groan once more. They have been going through this interview process since the sun rose this morning, and now it was past midnight. The man had to interview everyone at least once. Rin almost feels sorry for him. Almost.

Stepping into the waiting room, she observes her loved ones. Miku and Len have started to act like friends again. It upsets Miku that her brother betrayed them - she went from having someone who could begin to understand her only to have him ripped away just as suddenly as he appeared. Without either of them looking for it, Len became the one source of comfort she depended most on. They are talking about something, but Rin isn't sure what. Regardless of the topic, at least both of them are smiling.

Nero stares into his coffee. Rin notices that whenever she's gone to be interviewed, he always looks so concerned when she comes back. Biting her lip, Rin wonders just what direction their relationship will take. Since their reunion, Rin and Nero have spent more time together, albeit there isn't much free time for either of them. Nonetheless, they have sought any and every opportunity to hang out as friends. Neither have asked where their relationship stands, but neither has tried to push the subject. Let everything take its course at a natural rate, Rin thinks often. Don't force love to come. If it's meant to be, it will happen on its own. When the time comes, if it ever does, they will know, and they will be ready.

Lastly, Rin sighs for the missing two. Having been involved in all this since the true beginning, Rui and Zeito needed a lot more than a daylong event to tell someone everything they know. They should be safe, Rin is constantly told, but it might be a while before she or anyone else sees them again. At least they won't be locked up like Mikuo is.

Finally deciding to join her friends, Rin casually walks towards them and takes her place next to Nero. He wraps an arm around her in a side hug, and she leans in to feel his warmth. It feels like home.

"We can go now," she announces to them. "They don't have anything else they want from us, so we're free."

"'Free' might not mean what you think it means," Len replies, but his eyes are shining with relief.

"What do they plan to do with us?" Miku asks, wringing her fingers.

"I don't know, but I won't let anyone take any of you away again," Nero answers. "I lost you once too many."

That made Rin smile. Standing upright, with Nero following suit, she looks at the others and says, "No knowing what tomorrow brings, but no sense in worrying over what we can't control. Now let's go. I'm thinking we get milkshakes."

End of Book V

of

The Love Vanishing Diaries

Author's Note: This series took a lot longer to write than I anticipated, but it's over now! Needless to say, I learned a lot about series writing with The Love Vanishing Diaries, and I hope those lessons won't be soon forgotten.

Now that this is officially off my plate, I can finally focus on other projects. I have a few in mind I'm super excited about, and I can't wait to share them with you all soon! They're pretty different from what I have posted thus far, but it's a change I'm ready to make. I hope you will be looking forward to these new fanfics!

-Fantastical