Allie

Allie walked down the stairs, her broken leg thumping against the floorboards as she descended. Sighing, she sat down at the kitchen table, closed her eyes, and rested her head in her hands.

"Why? What could he possibly want now? Ash has lost her memories so she can't turn him into the authorities and I don't have sufficient evidence to put him in jail and he knows it. So why go through all this? Is he trying to trigger her memories?" Allie said, trying to come up with an answer to any of her own questions. She sighed again and sat back in her chair, staring at the ceiling looking for answers.

"And what's up with that weird riddle? 'One will be black, one will be blue, the rest will be red when I'm through with you'. What the heck could that mean? If this is the same guy, does he intend to beat Ashley up? Or does he plan to go further and simply kill her? What scares me the most is that when I passed by her room at noon, it was intact. I went to bed and didn't hear anything and I made sure every window and door into the dojo was locked. Could he have done it while I was sleeping? But that mess couldn't have been made quietly. I mean, glass was broken and things were smashed," Allie trailed off. She started hearing thumping. Ashley was coming. Allie stood up and limped to the bottom of the stairway.

"Okay Al, I'm ready. Let's go," Ash said. Allie nodded and they left the dojo.

"Now about that story," Ash said. They were casually walking past houses, but Allie wasn't looking at them. She was looking ahead of her, recalling memories that she would rather forget.

"Where should I start? Maybe the day you first went missing. It was ten years ago," Allie started. She repeated the story she told the Ryozanpaku gang. Ashley didn't interrupt once. She kept listening, her face growing darker and darker as the story went on. When Allie finished, she looked over at Ashley trying to read her expression. Ashley kept staring forward with a blank expression.

"I see," she finally said. "So you and I are cousins huh? Well that explains why we're so close. And kenichi's my little brother?" Allie nodded. Ashley's eyes glanced at Allie from the side. "Does he know?" Allie shook her head and Ashley's eyes stared straight ahead again.

"Good, let's keep him in the dark for a while. At least until we get my full memories back. Maybe we can shed some light on who this guy is, or was, to me and why his face alone made me so terrified," Ashley said. Allie agreed and they continued walking.

"Um, Ash?" Allie asked.

"Hm?"

"Are we going to tell Haley about this or not?" For a while Ashley didn't respond, then she sighed and shook her head.

"No, she has to focus on her own things right now. Like surviving training with Sakaki. Something like this will only make her lose focus," Ashley said. Allie nodded.

"Okay," Allie said. They walked on in silence.

It's Ashley's call about who we tell about this incident. I mean, it's something that happened to her not me. While I think we should tell Haley, I'll respect Ash's wishes for now. If Haley needs to know, Ashley will tell her right? Allie thought.

Eventually they picked up their pace and began running to Ryozanpaku.

"Hello!" Allie called, Ashley and her opening the heavy doors into the dojo.

"Ah, Allie and Ashley! I'm glad you two finally made it," Akisame said, calmly walking up to them from the side.

"Hey, Akisame. Sorry it took us so long, we had some things that came up suddenly," Allie said. Akisame nodded.

"Oh don't worry about it. In fact, dinner just finished cooking and Haley just finished training for the day. Let's go now before they eat all the food," he said. They nodded and began to follow him into the dojo's dining room. He opened the sliding door to the dining room and were shocked at who was there other than the normal people : alien looking guy Kenichi hung out with and Takeda. Allie glanced at Ashley and saw that she was looking at everywhere but at Takeda.

Hm, interesting. What could this mean? Allie thought.

"Come come! Sit sit! Dinner's getting cold!" Elder yelled, laughing. Laughing nervously Allie sat next to Akisame and Takeda and Kenichi invited Ashley to sit between them. "We're so glad you two could make it! Now let's dig in!"

"So, what's wrong with Ashley?" Akisame whispered to Allie.

"What do you mean?" Allie whispered back.

"She looks like she's been given news that someone close to her has died, or something like that," Akisame said. Allie looked at Ashley, then down at her lap and sighed.

"Well, something big happened and I decided that Ashley needed to know about her past. Or at least most of it," Allie said. Akisame crossed his arms.

"I see. Would you care to elaborate?" he asked. Allie slowly blinked then looked up at Ashley who was just staring angrily at her plate. She sighed again and looked back down at her lap.

"Basically the only things I didn't tell her about were who her family was," Allie said. Akisame nodded.

"What about this big thing that caused you to want to tell her?" he asked. Visions of Ash's room came up in Allie's mind. Everything sent shivers down her spine except for one thing. That picture on Ash's bear made her clench her fists and clench her teeth.

"I knew he was a despicable man, but to go this far after she lost her memories? I would have thought someone like him would have seen this as an opportunity to escape the country or at least her life. I mean, Ash didn't know who he was so she couldn't go to the police about something she didn't even remember. Darn it!" Allie muttered, clenching and unclenching her fists. Akisame watched her get angry, then placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Allie," he said. Allie looked over her shoulder at him. "Don't you worry. Now that you three have all of us at Ryozanpaku as friends, we won't let any of you get hurt."

"Huh? Who's getting hurt?" Haley asked, leaning towards Allie. Allie shook her head.

"Forget it Haley," Allie said.

"No! Tell me who is getting hurt! If it's you or Ashley then I think I ought to know!" Haley insisted. Ashley and Allie looked at each other. As they did this, Takeda looked at Ashley and Akisame at Allie.

"No one, Haley. No one is going to get hurt," Ashley finally said. She took a bite out of her dinner and started chewing on it. However, contrary to what Ash said, a gun went off just outside of Ryozanpaku.

"What the hell?" Sakaki yelled standing up.

"What was that?" Apachai yelled also standing up.

"That's a gun being fired. I hope no one got hurt," Elder said. They all stood up and began to walk out the door.

"Haley, you stay here. If there's a fighter out there you wouldn't be able to fight them and win," Sakaki said to Haley as she began to follow him.

"What? Why?" she asked. She put her hands on her hips and leaned back, insulted.

"You've been training all day so you're obviously worn down today. Let your body rest before you even dare to take on someone. Besides, you don't know if these guys study martial arts. If they do, they could be masters since they came all the way to Ryozanpaku. Just trust me and stay here," he said. Haley sighed but complied.

"Fine, I guess you have a point," she said, crossing her arms and sitting down. Allie began to go outside as well but Akisame stopped her.

"Akisame?" she asked. He shook his head.

"You have a broken leg so you shouldn't even be standing on it, let alone fighting. Allie trust me and us, if these guys are looking for a fight, we'll be able to handle it quickly enough. The rest of you should stay here as well," Akisame said.

"But Master!" Kenichi said.

"No buts Kenichi. Shio is right in saying that we don't know who these people are. They could very well be masters. I want you all to stay here and let us defend Ryozanpaku. Don't worry, we'll be back shortly," Akisame said, he smirked at everyone then turned and followed the rest of the masters out the door. Even Elder went.

Allie sat down next to Ashley and they both sighed.

"I hope everything turns out all right," they said. A few minutes later several more gunshots went off and the door behind everyone slammed open. Before any of them could turn around Ashley , Haley, and Allie were all lying on the ground.

Unconscious.

HEY EVERYONE!

HERE IS THE NEXT CHAPTER TO OUR STORY!

THE THANKS!

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