I'm so sorry it took so long. I've had so much going on that I totally forgot about it lol. Thanks everyone so much for all your reviews andreminders. I wanted to thanka few individually but Im utterly exhausted and just want this to be up before I forget again !

Warning: Mild Yaoi, blood, violence

Love and War

It took me longer than I thought it would to get back to the dojo. Even before I reached it I knew Kai wouldn't be there. Something in my gut told me so. On the bright side the pain in my chest had passed not long after I left the girl behind. When I actually got to the dojo Grandpa informed me that everyone had left and been gone for a while. I stilled double checked all over to see if Kai was there. Around each corner I begged to see him. Of course he wasn't anywhere to be found.

I sat down outside by one of Grandpa's ponds taking in a few deep breaths. I knew there weren't more than a few hours left til sunset so everyone would be back soon enough. Kai would probably be back shortly after them. I had no clue where he could be. I knew I could go looking for him if I really wanted to. But was it really the right thing to do? If he needed to find me he'd have no way of doing so. For that matter I wondered if he, by some ungodly chance, had gone looking for me. Was that possible for some someone like him to care enough about another to go looking for them? I doubted he could even move enough to get far looking for me.

A moment of panic caught my breath in my chest. What if he had gone looking for me and got sick? What if he went looking in the woods where no one would find him? I jumped to my feet and sprinted out the front gate f the dojo. If there was some chance Kai was out looking for me I'd look for him too.

My first instinct was to go to the place in the woods. The place where this whole mess began. If Kai got sick there it would be all too fitting to everything and I couldn't let that happen. My adreniline was pumping like no other. All the running and the worry was making me go nonstop. I swear I could take down a bus if I ran into one.

And all the adreniline was doing wonders for my thought process. Everything that had happened I could look at clearly for the first time. I knew for fact that whatever happened that caused me to black out was because of that girl. And I knew that she had something to do with what was happening to Kai. From what she had told me I could help Kai even though he was rejecting me around every corner. I knew she was right. I just had to push harder and I would be able to help Kai and I both. Thats all that really mattered. My affection for him would have to wait til later.

I reached the spot in the woods after almost a half hour of running. I didnt even realize I was standing in the clearing until I collapsed from exhaustion. My body must have known I was there before I did. I panted furiously and was getting light headed. The cool breeze that rushed at me from the shady depths of the trees was such a relief. My blue eyes scanned the whole area but Kai was no where to be seen. That bit of comfort that he wasn't here dead on the floor was enough that I fell back in the grass. I stared straight up at the clouds above me. Eyes slowly closing. I just needed a rest. I'd go look for Kai in a minute. As soon as I caught my breath.

Exhaustion got the better of me and I was a sleep before I'd known it was coming.

I woke up because I was shivering. My eyes flew open only too see the sun gone from the sky and slowly dipping down below the trees on the horizon. How long could I have been a sleep? I looked around and found that I was still alone and things were going to be getting dark fast. I jumped to my feet, now full of every from my unplanned nap. I didn't run full force through the woods the way I had come, no instead it was more like a brisk jog. Something in me told me there was no immediate danger, and I was beginning to trust that feeling more than anything else right now.

When I finally got back to the dojo it was past sunset and far into twilight. I could see that everyone was there. I stepped into the back yard where we trained to find everyone there except Kai who I already knew wouldn't be there.

"Hey guys."

Chief turned away frim Dizzy to face me.

"Oh hey Max where ya been all day?"

"No where special just around and about. Whats going on here?"

"Kai told us to start training since no one did this morning."

That was some how a relief to me. He was here and at least in his right mind to some degree. "Was he mad?"

Chief got quiet for a moment." No he just seemed tired. I think he's got whatever you had."

I didn't need to hear anymore, I turned from Kenny. "I'm gonna go talk to him catch ya in a bit." I was out the door again before he could muster up some simple response or protest. I had a mission to find Kai.

The air was crisp and the moonlight was nice in lighting me a path along the porch of the dojo. Not as many lights were on as I would have thought. It was stil nice with all the stars in the sky. When I reached the sliding door to our room I could feel it in my bones that he would be on the other side of the door.

He was there of course in the dimly lit room sitting against a wall staring into nothingness. I walked in but didn't close the door behind me. The room felt stale and cold I thought it needed the fresh air.

"Hey Kai."

"Hn." Was his only acknowledgement that I was even in the room. I stared down at him. He looked sick as ever. Hid beneath sheets of a cold attitude I could see the pain he was feeling. I doubted he could stand up for long if he tried. Thats why he was here in the dark where no one would bother him. And to think it was getting so bad Chief was noticing. He hardly noticed anything that didn't show up on Dizzy's screen.

I didn't know what to say to him. I wanted to help him. Knew that I had to help him even if he wouldn't let me. Why couldn't he see that too? Just looking at him made me feel the affects it was having on him. He was drifting further and further away. What would happen when he couldn't handle himself anymore?

"So Kai are you feeling any better?" I dared him to lie to my face just once more. Could he even manage that much?

He didn't bother with that even and stood up using the wall behind him. He walked straight past me. Not again. I wouldn't let him fall between my fingers again. By the time I turned around he was already heading down the porch shadowed in the darkness.

"Kai stop. Talk to me please."

My words meant nothing to him and he kept walking. I wasn't letting him go.

"Damn it Kai talk to me I just wan to help you!"

He laughed at me, cruel as always. Yet he stopped.

"Maxie you can't help me."

"You can't lie to me Kai. I'm the only one who can help you."

He turned sharply around and stared at me with a cold glare. "You talk big for some one who doesn't know anything."

"I can feel your pain Kai."

I didn't even see him move. In his state I didn't even know he could move at all. Yet he had me pinned between himself and the wall. His arms were position on each side of me against the wall blocking my escape if I ever intended to make one.

"Does it really hurt you Maxie?" A strange tone filled his voice. It was soft and kind for once in a million years.

I could feel the heat from his body he was so near. I tried to talk but I stumbled on my own words. The way the moon cast shadows across his body was playing havoc with my heart. When I was able to speak my voice was a whipser. "Why?"

The air was hot between us seemed to be twisting thoughts around in his head when he suddenly grapped at his chest in pain. I felt it to but less intensely.

"Kai!" I moved closer to him placing my hand over his instinctly. The electricity between our hands brought Kai out of his pain and he pushed me back to the wall.

His face had been shadowed til now. Those beautiful eyes of his were full of some odd emotion and burning with intensity.

"Do you really want to help me Maxie?"

The sound of my name on his lips made my heart flutter. I could hardly manage a nod and my ears pulsed with my raging pulse.I was so close to Kai that his intensity was making me speechless. No breathless.

I was lost in his eyes as he leaned down to me. One of his hands found its way to my chin. He ran his thumb across my lips before he tipped my head back and kissed me. His lips were as hot as any of my dreams as imagined. The hand he had held my chin with slid up my jaw line and to the back of my head where his fingers tangled into my hair. He used this to pull me closer deepening the kiss.

My mind was a blank canvas painted by passion that made my body scream for more. It was all too much for my body to handle and my knees buckled beneath me. Kai caught me as I fell against him still never breaking our kiss. He pushed me back against the wal, his hands slide down my sides drinking me in til they reached my butt. Kai lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his wasit. His hands still on me was driving me crazy. At some point I had been so lost in him that I didnt realize how much of me he controlled.

Some how his tongue had made its way into my mouth. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling us impossibly closer. I felt like I was losing myself in him. Each touch was driving me further into a place I had never been.

His mouth slipped from mine and he trailed rough kiss across my jaw line and on to my neck. The touch of his hot breath on my neck made me gasp. I was clinging to him for dear life as my body became liquid beneath his touch. His kisses were so deep and filled with passion that I lost all conciousness of where I ended and he began. I was getting lost in his fire.

I lost all feeling in my body except for where his hands held me and his mouth drank me in. My mind was pulling me somewhere. My body wasn't hesitating to let me go either. With each kiss that Kai pressed into my body I felt myself falling more and more. Closer to the place my mind wanted me to go...

My body and I were no longer connected. Kai's kisses were gone, and as I looked around I realized my mind was no longer with him either. I was standing in the middle of a field, one I had visited a hundred times, but I couldn't feel the ground beneath me or the wind in my hair. Kai was standing in front of me and the girl from town was there too.

It hit me right then what I was really seeing. The things that Kai had tried so hard to hide from me, they were falling into place before me and all I had to do was watch.

Two blades tore at each other, one Kai's and the other I could only guess belonged to the girl. Their bit beast were out and at full rage in a way I had never seen. Neither person was giving any sort of direction but the bitbeasts carried on their fight, attacking at their own will.

"What do you want?" Kai's voice was steel.

The girl stood hardly ten feet from Kai, her dark brown hair blowing in the wind behind her. She half smiled at him. "Oh dear don't worry I promise it won't hurt. But I've decided you just aren't worth the blood you're made from."

"You're insane. Better hurry back before they notice you missing at the asylum."

She shook her head while a small laugh rose in her throat. " Kai you don't get it do you?" Before I could blink she was infront of him with her hand on his throat. I watched the emotions flicker through his eyes as he realized she wasn't joking. I wanted to run to him, put myself between him, anything to save him. My feet weren't even beneath me yet I was grounded in place.

"Why?"

The smile left her face. "It's really quite simple dear. I'm surprised some one so bright has to ask. You've so much to offer this world yet you keep it all to yourself. So lonely. So wasted. The pain you cause and don't bother to clean up. What good are you to this world? When it comes down to it. It's simply none."

Kai was quiet in a way that I had never seen before. It was as if part of him was accepting the lies she spoke to him. The girl's face turned before anything else could be said, her attention turning beyond him. I knew Kai didn't notice, he was lost in himself. Her hand dropped from his throat as she pulled a knife from thin air and sliced him across the chest, he let out a foul scream. Then she slit him again before he could react, another scream pierced the air.

She stopped and her attention again was behind him, this time he followed her gaze. I should have known what was there before I even looked. I saw myself standing there, half a sleep, and eyes full of panic. I had been far too a sleep to really comprehend what I was seeing at the time.

Kai turned around sharply around, and even though I couldn't see his face from where I stood my chest still hurt at the memory of it. Panic filling those beautiful eyes of his. I heard my name just barely slip from his lips.

The girl flicked her hand and I watched as the other me crashed into a large tree and then tumbled off the hill and to the ground near them. Kai tried to run to me, but the girl had some how reached me before him. She craddled my head in her lap. Blood dripped down her hands and thighs and onto the ground.

"Oh my, my you poor thing. You just had to be caught in this web. You little angel." Her words were soft like a melody. They were almost sincere instead of utterly insane. Kai limped over to us, blood trailing behind him. "Get your filthy hands off of him!"

She looked up at him, a smile pulling at the side of her lips. "Maybe this could be more interesting than I intended. "

"I said get off of him."

She smiled, the knife she had used to cut him from on the ground beside her. "You're in no position to bark commands." She pulled my shirt up and sliced across my stomach. Kai went stiff as a board, neither of us had expected her to be so crazy.

Kai hesitated for a moment, " Take me just let him live. Let Max live. He's not ready to die."

"You really do care about him don't you?' Kai said no words and simply nodded.

The girl placed my head down softly on the ground and stood slowly. Her walk to Kai was slow and meaningful. "If you really mean what you say. I can give you a chance. Maybe I was wrong about you? I'm always up for a challenge. "

He closed the last bit of distance between them. "What is it?" She drew her hand up from her side dropping her knife to the ground. The blood, my blood, dripped from her fingertips as she placed a hand on Kai's face looking up at him.

"He will die, his life has already been cut from this world. But if he shares a tie with someone else who has a life force he can live on. Or if that life force is given to him. I warn you now neither are as simple as they sound."

"Do whatever you have to. Just don't let Max die."

She smiled again and pulled his face down to hers. I tried to scream as her lips met his. It was only a few moments but it made me want to kill her myself, not even considering my body lying in the dirt quickly dying.

A stream of blood dripped from Kai's mouth, he seemed unphased by anything. Determination showing in his eyes. "You can save him now, if you're willing to go where you haven't before and form the bond between you two... the one that will save him."

Kai jumped past her and threw himself on the ground next to me. He looked painfully down at my body as more blood pooled from my skull and chest. He put his hands on my head, "Maxie come on back to me. Please Maxie you can't die yet."

I watched in horror and awe at the whole scene. I would never had imagined Kai would care so much or that I'd be dying. It was all too much for me too handle.

"What do I do? I don't know."

The girl stood close to him. Too close for my taste. "You have to form the bond by going where you've never gone before." She spoke like it was the most obvious riddle.

He looked down at me dumbfounded. I watched him as his mind scrambled to figure it out. I thought I knew but I had no way to tell him. My lips were both dying and mute.

It hit him finally, his whole body tensing over for a moment before he took me into his arms like a small child. His hair fell over his eyes so that from where I was I couldn't see . And he placed his bleeding lips on mine. The kiss was one that lacked loved and passion but had plenty of urgency and determination. I knew he wantd to save me enough to do something he never would have. I doubted that thought had ever crossed his mind in a million years.

The blood on my head stopped flowing. The cut on my chest sealed itself completely. Immediately the color in my face was returning and to think I hadn't even realized how pale I had grown. He pulled his lips away from mine only far enough to speak. "Maxie, wake up."

If I had known any better I would have sworn I was sleeping. And then I realized thats all that I was doing now. I watched as my arm left my side and wrapped it around his neck. I couldn't see Kai's face but I knew he was smiling. His grip tightened on me.

"Kai, don't stop. That felt good."

He pulled his head back in surprise. I thought for a moment that he might just drop me then and there and go back to his usual manner. Instead he pulled me close and kissed me again. This time it was slow and deliberate.

"Kai." He stopped kissing me instantly and turned to face the girl who was still standing near. However he held me closer to him, protectly against his chest. The girl seemed to have lost all her smile and laughs. An odd serenity filled the air. "You have formed the makings of a bond between you two. If you don't figure out how to balance it so that you both can live off of one life force, one of you two will take it and the other will die. Max won't know anything if you don't tell him. But you'll need him if you intend to do anything except let yourself die, I mind you now it won't be quick and easy or pleasant. None of the options are easy. For any to work they require effort or else you'll both end up in a limbo and die."

"I'll make sure he comes out of this alright."

She placed her hand on Kai's shoulder but he couldn't pull away. " I have faith in you."

No more words were spoken as he craddled me in his arms and stood. The girl turned away from him and towards the blood on the ground, she looked sad and filled with regret. What was she planning? Was that really what she had meant to do?

My body began to pull me back to the current time, my vision began to blur and the last thing I saw was Kai holding me close in his arms with care.

Kai's hands still held me close and his lips were attached to my neck. I opened my eyes and cried out, tears ran down my cheeks as all that I had seen washed over me. Kai felt the change in me instantly. His face pulled from my neck and looked up to find my eyes that were streams of hot tears. It was all so overwhelming.

"Maxie did I hurt you?" His voice was laced with love and concern. What he was doing now... he had made a choice. I knew it as she has said the words all the things that had happened to him... I understood. All the things I had felt... made sense. He had meant to let himself die in order for me to live. But something changed... and now everything was a world different than it had ever been.

Our eyes locked and I knew that he knew that I had seen everything that happened. He looked ashamed and wanted to pull away. I wrapped my arms and legs around him tighter. I wouldn't let him go, I wasn't letting him run away.

"Why didn't you let me die?"

Kai looked at me, deep into my eyes. No words were needed, somehow I could feel what he felt. There was an odd bond that had formed between us. Except it wasn't a bond. It had always been there and I knew it. Kai had just never noticed it. To me it was just a crush, until now. Kai had made the choice to take it further than that. It was something honest that neither of us could deny. The words never left his lips but I knew the words he meant to say. That he had loved me enough to give up his life to save me, but when he realized that he loved me more than a friend loves another and that I felt the same. He gave up all restraint.

"Maxie."

No other words could be said between us. I smiled at him and he whiped away my tears with his tumb. I let my legs fall to the ground and we held each other close in the deep dark of the moon light.

I had found out so much. But I knew it was only the beginning of a longer journey. I would follow that path where ever it took me as long as I was with my Kai and he held me close like this no matter what.

I hope you all enjoyed it because I loved writing it. Sigh this whole fanfic was based off of their lil intimate scene lol. Let me know what you guys think! Im probably going to end it in a few more chapters *sniff sniff* but Im not sure. Thanks for reading!