New chapterrrrr. Okey, so I've been kinda busy catching up with anime and manga and playing computer games and so got a tad bit distracted... meaning there might be some... inconsistencies in this chapter. Too lazy currently to proofread... /hit. Well, at least I enjoyed writing it! Now I should work on my other fanfic... (shameless advertising there /doublehit).

So yeah, I've run out of things to say now. Enjoy! (and tell me if there are some mistakes with the details please... I'll fix them)

Vocaloid (c) Yamaha

Future

Why was such a simple thing becoming so awfully complicated? Why was it getting so hard to think straight? Why was constructing a plan becoming so difficult?

Len laid his head on the glass table on which lay an assortment of maps and floor plans of the Organisation headquarters. Pieces of paper were scrunched up and littered the floor. More covered the carpets and the rest of the table, filled with incomprehensible numbers and probabilities, names and details or frustrated scribbles. A cup of coffee was on the floor beside him, half-finished, cold and now ignored.

Worriedly, Miku loitered in the doorway at a distance, afraid to disturb the blond in his time of frustration. Wait… did that mean she was being considerate towards him? With a frown, she shook her head and decided the first thing she would do after all this was over was to torment and taunt him. But now really wasn't the time.

She remembered clearly how Len had come back, clothed in black, with the coldest expression ever. But with that coldness, she could tell there were also feelings of anxiety, sadness and fear mixed in. He had thrown everything on the floor and stormed up the stairs, much like how he did when Rin had gone 'shopping' with Gumi and Gakupo when he had come back from a talk with Master Shion. Miku had heard spine-chilling crashes and smashing upstairs and irregular cries of aggravation or pain. Despite her light hatred towards the boy, she couldn't help but feel sympathy for him.

Out of pity, she had offered him leftover food from dinner but he refused with an angry grunt. He continued the din for over an hour and it wasn't until past midnight that things had quietened down all of a sudden. For over fifteen minutes, there was complete silence and after half an hour of the same silence, Miku had begun to worry. Plucking up the courage, she'd shouted to him from the bottom of the flight of stairs leading to his floor, "Are you still alive up there?"

There had been no sound for some time, but as she began to dread the worst, she heard a faint reply, "Just about."

At that point, Len's depressed figure had trundled weakly down the stairs. His hair was a mess; his eyes were dark; his shirt was torn and dirty. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Nothing," replied the girl, careful not to let her voice waver with the fear he now imposed, "Just checking if you were actually still alive."

"So you were worried about the great and wonderful me?" the blond sneered. Realising he was fooling nobody but himself, he glanced to the side and mumbled, "Nobody would really care if I wasn't anyway." With a self-mocking laugh, he continued in a quieter voice, "What the hell's wrong with me?"

Miku shrugged and, half-smiling, instantly responded with, "Everything?"

Luckily for Miku, instead of retorting with a harsh remark, Len had smiled weakly and leaned against the wall. After that, she had encouraged him to do something. After all, if he had the time and energy to spend venting out his frustration upstairs, he may as well do something useful and try to change the situation.

And so now, Len sat grumbling to himself by the paper-covered table as Miku stood quietly in the doorway. What had prompted her to try to motivate him? Why did he listen and take on board what she had said? Neither of them knew, but it seemed that a temporary truce had formed between the warring teenagers.

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten as dawn approached. With a yawn, Miku strolled into the living room and sat on an unoccupied sofa. Having not slept at all last night, the two of them were tired and yet refused to rest. She rubbed her eyes and said, "You alright, Blondie?"

Len didn't reply. Instead, he continued muttering to himself: "…so if I enter here… no, that won't work… what about… not there either. They'll definitely have cameras here, 100% sure… and here… depends whether patrol has changed… but won't they be knocked out anyway? Maybe, then… wait, but what if they're not? Chances are…" he clacked the keys on a calculator and checked a piece of paper, "34.33% chance they're not… is that alright to risk? Bearing in mind, there's also a 97.41% chance that… wait."

He glanced up and locked eyes with the girl lounging about on the sofa, saying nothing.

"Wh-what?" stammered Miku.

No reply.

With a nervous laugh, Miku tried to lighten the mood a bit. "What are you doing anyway? Being a fortune teller?"

Frowning ever so slightly, Len answered seriously, "Perhaps that's a good way to put it. In any case, I'm trying to… ah, 'predict the future', if you like." He continued to stare at Miku as if he had no idea who she was.

Getting increasingly annoyed, the girl complained, "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Len paused before finally saying, "What if Master Shion hasn't been captured in the first place? Then why the hell am I doing all this crap?"

"Um, hello? Rin, remember? She got involved somewhere along the line too."

"And I think that was your fault for making… friends. Why should I take responsibility? You go get her back. I'm sure your mere presence will be enough to scare anyone off."

"I think that's your responsibility as her older brother to get her back."

The blond shrugged. "What difference does a blood relation make?"

Miku stood up, moved to the opposite end of the table and sat down on the carpet. She stared straight into Len's eyes and carefully explained, "Having a relation by blood makes all the difference, Len. It means that you are her brother and it also means that no matter how annoying she has been, or is, and no matter what she had said to offend or disappoint or piss you off, you forgive her. Because she's your sister."

Len's expression didn't change one bit. He stared coolly at the girl and took into account all that she had just said. With another shrug he fell onto his back and started at the white ceiling. Maybe they should paint that someday… but he liked it white. Closing his eyes, he tried to gather his thoughts and put them back on track.

Swinging his legs down, he sat back up and glared at the girl. "What if Rin's not with them?"

"Wh-what do you mean? I guess you'd presume that she would be, right?"

"Hmm, well presuming isn't enough, girlie. In my business, you have to be 100% sure. Oh, that reminds me; I could check, couldn't I?" Lost in his own little world of scheming, Len left the room with a skip in his step and came back a couple of minutes later with his yellow laptop. He carelessly swept all the pieces of paper from the table onto the floor in a flurry of white and placed his laptop there instead. Lifting the lid, he turned his computer on with an air of flamboyance about his actions. Smiling, he double-clicked here and there and pressed the delicate keys of his keyboard.

"What'cha doing, Blondie?" asked Miku, moving around to peer over the boy's shoulder.

"As a matter of fact, girlie, I'm checking where Rin is." After a brief pause, a bird's-eye view of the city appeared, mapped out in simple grey and white blocks, much like what Google Earth gave in map view, rather than satellite view. In the centre was a white block, which was labelled as a local office, but Len knew better than that – of course, it was the Organisation's headquarters. And hovering over that building was a blinking orange dot. "Oh. So Rin is there after all."

"That's what I've been saying from the start!" sighed an exasperated Miku. "You just wanted to show off your fancy stuff, don't you?"

"Mmh hmm… But of course, we had to make sure."

"Wait, how did you get that on Rin in the first place?"

"Oh, shattering glass can be a nice distraction to cover blowdarts."

"But you'd need a blowgun, right?" frowned the girl. "And those are… big, to say the least."

"Not when you're me, you don't. Forget the blowgun. Just need the darts," grinned the boy smugly. "Now that question's out of the way, I need to know whether Master Shion has been taken hostage." His mood instantly darkened again. Again, he mumbled distractedly to himself whilst Miku watched and tried to listen in to the nonsense he was spouting.

The she came up with an idea. "Why don't you ring him?"

Len stared long and hard at her. He spoke slowly and in an agonisingly patronising way. "Are you stupid? What the hell? You think I could just ring him and ask whether he's been taken hostage or not? Do you even realise what sort of a daft, idiotic and utterly ridiculous idea that is?"

"Hey, I was just trying to help you know? Chill out…"

After a few seconds, he tilted his head to the side like a curious dog (he would have hated that description) and voiced his proposal instead. "I have a better idea. Now, where the hell did I put my phone?"

Scrambling around for a while, he almost knocked over the cup of coffee by his side. Triumphantly, he held up his black smartphone which was sitting happily in its yellow case. "Right, so… what would be the best thing to–" He stopped dead in his tracks.

Quietly, he turned his back to the girl and started typing a quick message and clicked 'send'. Miku debated whether to take a peek or not when there was a sudden gunshot. Instinctively, she squealed and ducked but Len just laughed. He laughed so hard, that he actually fell onto his back and clutched his stomach, rolling onto his side.

"Wh-what the…" Miku slowly sat back up.

"Pfft. That was just a ringtone, moron," Len managed to say in between bursts of laughter.

"The heck? Who has a gunshot for their text message tone?"

"Well I do and that's the end of that." He read the message he'd just received. So far, he couldn't tell for definite whether Master Shion had been taken captive or not. Thus far, their conversation had been:

Master Shion?

Yes, Len?

Although… but maybe the Master was just being lazy with his texting today. And now Len had to send his Master something… simple perhaps. It couldn't be too obvious that he was experimenting to see whether the man had been taken hostage or not. But honestly, what sort of mastermind of a massive secret organisation gets easily captured like that? Len sighed – it only takes a bit of bribery with a bit of ice cream.

Len already had an idea of what to say next, but it was awfully embarrassing. He couldn't let that girl see. Not if he wanted to be able to face life and go out into public ever again. As quickly as possible, he inputted the four letters.

Nyao.

Impatiently, he waited for a reply.

"Hey, Blondie, who are you texting?"

"None of your business."

"Wait, I bet you're texting your Master Shion, right? And you said calling him was a bad idea!" Miku began to make her way round to peer over Len's shoulder again. The boy backed off and frowned, grumbling to himself. Why couldn't whoever was on the other side give him a reply already?

"Come on, I wanna see!" whined the girl and got to her feet. In a handful of minutes, it ended up being a chase ad Len tried his very best to avoid the girl. His social life – no, whole life, in fact – depended on this. If she saw what he had just texted, he'd never see the end of her teasing. Ever. Reluctantly, he climbed on top of the sofa and stood on the armrest, balancing perfectly on the thin, yet high, ledge it provided.

"No means no, dumbass." He couldn't even be bothered to think of suitable insults any more. Come on! Answer already!

Suddenly, the gunshot sounded and Miku ducked, even though she knew it wasn't real. Instincts were useful things.

A smile spread across the blond's face as he read the reply.

You're not my cat, Len. You're my dog.

...

"Are you sure that's the right answer?" Gumi asked. Her finger poised just above the send button.

"Yes, yes, that's exactly what I'd say," Master Shion grumbled.

"On your head, and life, be it." And the button was pressed.

"…exactly what I'd say if I had been taken hostage, that is," mumbled the man under his breath so nobody would hear. And he was quite sure that his cute little Len would be able to figure that out. Oh, I'm so clever sometimes, and Master Shion laughed to himself (again), much to the irritation of the other three in the room.