As expected, Yashiro and Kanashi were both dragged back to the dorm. Minato was able to heal the majority of their wounds alone using liberal Diarahan spells. Needless to say, while Mitsuru was happy that the both of them were alright after all, she was not amused by the fact that the both of them alone were able to ravage the Moonlight Bridge.

When Yashiro and Kanashi finally stirred, they immediately wished that they hadn't woken up. Especially when Mitsuru froze both the two of them in a block of ice for about an hour before letting them go.

"You know, someone could literally call me 'numbnuts' right now and I wouldn't mind," Kanashi groaned to Yashiro.

"Alright then numbnuts," Yashiro said casually, throwing a smirk to Kanashi. He deadpanned back at Yashiro.

"Shit," Kanashi muttered. "Anyways, I'll see ya later Yashiro. I need to warm up after that," he sighed before running off.

Yashiro chuckled a little at that. Admittedly he wasn't feeling any better than Kanashi was. But he was just better at hiding stuff like that. He idly made his way home and promptly threw himself onto his bed to get some rest.

…

Minato sighed. That was probably one of the more stressful nights in his life. Seriously, what were they thinking when they were beating each other to a pulp? Oh right. They probably weren't! Those guys were seriously banged up when he found them. Both of them were burned, cut up, bruised all over when he found them. Not to mention he found that their reserves of spiritual energy were burned out by that point. After all that they seemed to have done to each other, it was no wonder that he found them knocked out like that.

If there was any solace to be found in what he saw, sans the burning bridge, it was that he saw the both of them had stupidly silly grins on their faces.

"Why did they do that to each other?" Nyx asked.

"I'm not exactly sure… but something tells me that this was being planned out by someone," Minato said. "The only good thing was that they seemed to have enjoyed themselves to a point, although from all the wreckage on that bridge I doubt it was all sunshine and rainbows at the beginning of the fight."

"I see… but why do you think that it was planned out by someone?" Nyx continued with a sceptical face.

"Because the Moonlight Bridge isn't normally that empty. It's usually filled up with a hella lot of people," Minato explained. "There was no way that they could've held their fight there without people seeing. But there weren't any other people there from what I could sense."

"Is that so? Then I feel that our assassinating friends have been involved this time," Nyx said. "Although it seems that their attempt to kill them wasn't very successful."

"Really?" Minato's eyes widened.

"Yes," Nyx nodded. "Maybe they tried to make them kill each other. They are still both targets of those assassins. They could kill two birds with one stone if they just fought each other and they both lost."

Minato sighed. "That seems like the case… they are usually the ones that clear the battlefield when an assassination's going on."

…

Yashiro slept soundly. For the time that he was able to sleep anyways. His door was busted open. Kicked open. He only knew one person that would kick the doors open instead of actually just turning the doorknob, or pulling and pushing a door handle. Wait.

Yashiro cursed as he was woken up. He was a relatively light sleeper, so that made him jerk awake very easily. He totally destroyed his door's mechanisms, didn't he? "Yo, Yashiro," Kanashi said.

"You're holding my doorknob in your hand right now," Yashiro said in a flat tone. He already knew the answer.

"Yeah, that was surprisingly easy to break down," Kanashi commented. "Anyways, we gotta get going. We have things to discuss and shit to go through."

"But it's three in the morning. This couldn't wait?" Yashiro groaned, rubbing his eyes. He already knew that Kanashi was going to bring him along no matter what he did.

"Nope," Kanashi said simply. Of course.

Yashiro dragged himself out of his bed and got dressed quickly. He knew how impatient Kanashi was. "Fine, let's go, whatever," he said, pushing Kanashi out of his room.

The two of them talked idly about Mitsuru's execution and how worried Minato was after they were dragged back to the dorm, finding themselves at the back of Port Island, near the docks and breakwaters.

"We sparred here before," Yashiro noted.

"I know," Kanashi nodded. "I still dunno whether I like this place or not."

"Why's that?" Yashiro asked.

"Well. You see, this place is nice and calm and shit. But there's water, so I dunno how to feel about that," Kanashi admitted.

Yashiro blinked. Kanashi was afraid of water. "Why're you scared of water?" he asked, cutting right to the chase.

Kanashi raised an eyebrow at Yashiro before shrugging. "I can't swim," he continued.

"So that was why you didn't want to go in the water over at Yakushima," Yashiro nodded. It made sense. But then he realised. Why was Kanashi telling him this? And why was he so eerily calm? He was pretty much never calm.

"Yup!" Kanashi declared. "Now you tell me. Why were you muttering 'not again' when your arm got stabbed?" Yashiro's breath was caught in his throat, and he quickly swallowed it down. "I'll tell ya something good if you tell me," Kanashi continued.

Yashiro mulled it over. Well… he guessed he could tell him. Absent-mindedly, he brought his hand to his arm, bringing the memories to mind. "Well… I used to have a friend before you."

"You did?" Kanashi raised an eyebrow.

"You sound so surprised," Yashiro deadpanned. "Anyways. Her name was Mari." Kanashi looked at the capped boxer expectantly, prompting him to move on. "Mari was my best friend. And we hung out a lot. She was the probably the kindest person I'd ever met," he said. "But one time we went to the movies, and she got caught up in something."

"Something?" Kanashi interjected.

Yashiro nodded. "She was being attacked by these two guys. I knew boxing, I tried to fend them off and protect her. I managed to knock out one guy, but the other one was holding a knife. And he got me with it, on my arm, here." He indicated his sleeve, pulling it up to show a faded, jagged scar running along it.

Kanashi clicked his tongue. That finally made a lot of sense. And he stabbed him there. Again.

Crap.

"I fainted because when I fought against him, I was losing blood, and with my injured arm I couldn't knock him out or anything," Yashiro bit his lip. "When I came to, I was in the hospital, with my arm bandaged up and everything. But Mari wasn't there."

He shook his head. "Turned out she committed suicide because she didn't want to see me get hurt because of her again."

"What?" Kanashi blinked.

"You heard me. At the time, I couldn't take it. And I cried for god knows how long over it," Yashiro chuckled mirthfully. He was telling Kanashi more than he needed to know, wasn't he? "I said to myself, that I wasn't going to be that hurt ever again because of another friend. And now you know me as a selfish prick that doesn't care about other people."

Kanashi sighed. "I see. Alright, I'll tell ya my secret. You haven't told that to anyone else, have ya?" Yashiro shook his head. "Then I won't tell. Oookay. So back in primary, through to middle school, I was bullied a hella lot. Didn't know why. But I was," he said.

Yashiro listened intently. Somehow he could see where it was going. "One time, I was being bullied again, near a pool, and the damned bastards pushed me into it. I was drowning, and I thought I was going to die. I don't really know how I came to, and after that I swore that I wasn't going to let anyone mess with me ever again. I knew, nothing was deserved about it, and I wasn't going to let some shitfaces get away with it. I learned how to fight and I put down everyone that was against me."

Kanashi laughed, "Then, the Dark Hour happened. I got revenge on the people that wronged me during the day, the next morning they were beat up and bruised. Yes, yes, I'm a horrible person. So basically, the culmination of my rage and hate for people, along with my pride made me into the bastard you know today," he finished.

"Well," Yashiro sighed. "We are… messed up people."

"Yup. Let's be messed up together!" Kanashi declared, swinging his arm around Yashiro's neck.

Yashiro coughed as the breath in his lungs was knocked out. "Fuck," he muttered. "Um… you know what?"

"What?" Kanashi asked.

"Do ya have a nickname?" Yashiro asked.

"Sure. Peoplez called me 'Taka' since I was a vicious predator with a piss-inducing gaze," Kanashi chuckled. "What about you?"

"Mari used to call me 'Tsume', since she admired how I always went after my goals like I did," Yashiro chuckled. "Also because my punches were so sharp that they could leave scratches on people's faces."

"Alright then, Tsume," Kanashi smirked, holding his fist up.

"Alright then, Taka," Yashiro said, as they bumped their fists together.

"These are the weirdest codenames ever," Kanashi commented.

"Yeah, I wonder who came up with them," Yashiro said absent-mindedly. "But uh, do you feel weirdly like more powers are being imbued within us like a plot device?"

"Yes, I do feel like that's happening," Kanashi agreed as he sat down on the concrete and leaned back.

"What are you doing?" Yashiro raised an eyebrow.

Kanashi started snoring on the concrete. "So you dragged me out here at about three in the morning to talk about life. And now you're going to lie on the concrete next to me and go to sleep. What a great friend Kanashi. What a great friend you are," Yashiro frowned as if he was annoyed, but he couldn't help but let a chuckle escape his lips.

But seriously, he was sleepy.

AN: Bondingz tiem. Hehe.

Oh right. If you want to see what Kanashi and Yashiro's Personae look like you can look to my profile for some links to DeviantArt. Look if you'd like.

Plz box me yo thoughts and imma see ya guys later.

Raidou: Indeed. Epicness manifest, yes.

Yoshikunitsu: Ayumi yes. However, I mentioned in an earlier chapter that 'Daru' is just a nickname that Lightning gave him. For whatever reasons at hand that I'm not going to reveal now.
Hah. Sure he does. I'd like the OCs to finish the rest of their character development now though.
'How new?' That is the question.
Suries.

RomanceDagger: I know right?

Second City Saint: Thanks! And yes.
Yeah, kinda reminded me of Naruto for a bit tbh. And yeah.
More will be told in another chapter. And as if Lies gets scolded of all things. Hahaha.
I'll try!

Decode (61): It's okay man.
Yeah, I was thinking about that scene. I feel like it could've been done a lot better but there'll have to be more for Hibiki's CD laterz anyways.
Well of course. Assassins are like that, are they not? Although I do agree, it was mean.

Q/A SECTION

(Nyx and Minato) Question 1: Yoshikunitsu

Minato: Well, I'd invite pretty much my close friends I guess… *rubs back of head*
Nyx: I don't particularly have anyone to invite. Most of the people that I'd be obligated to send invites to are… well, they're douches. Perhaps my sons and daughters however.

(Nyx) Question 2: Yoshikunitsu

Nyx: I don't believe that I could tell you what 'time it is.' There are times for many things. I doubt that even Chronos himself knows what he's monitoring. My perception on this is that time is intertwined with the workings of space and that one cannot work without the other. I believe that kind of 'time' is different to what humans define as the concept of 'time'. The kind that humans have come up with is much more fallible compared to the ever constant splitting and flowing of time. Time just is something that exists in and out of itself, and it keeps going in whatever direction it would like to, at whatever speeds it would like.

(Erebus) Conversation 3: Yoshikunitsu

Erebus: Of course… *bows a little*