[UPDATED AUTHOR'S NOTE]

Okay, I have decided on when I will begin to address Miku's back story, I will start next chapter! ^^ Yoshi! [Sorry, I lied. I completely forgot that I even put this in here heheheh, I actually still don't know when I will address her back story, I'm still working on some other stuff and advancing the plot, but I promise, it will come, in due time.]

Sorry about being late on updating this one, I had a lot of make up work to do from being sick for a week but I'm finally back on track now.

Thanks for reading, as always,

~Tiruneko ;3

X~23~X

"Yes?" She answers quietly, even shyly almost, pressing the phone up to her cheek and speaking in tentatively. Her long, silver hair cascading down her back, spilling out over her shoulders and into the seat of the chair she sits on. The voice on the other end of the receiver is familiar. Not familiar in a good way, like someone whom you wished to remember, but for the life of you couldn't, not the type of familiar, where a kind voice was lost to you for years, but the type of familiar face that you prayed to God to forget. The voice is gruff and deep, but yet sharp and distinguished, sending shivers rocketing up the normally emotionless woman. Everything in her life, every possible misfortune ever to befall a person, came from the man on the other end. This is the one thing Haku Yowane fears. Hiyama Kiyoteru.

"Hello Haku. Nice to finally speak with you again." It is a formal greeting, something a business partner would say to their boss, or maybe even something a child would say to their friend's parents, but the hidden malice spoken with each word is felt by Haku, felt to the core of Haku. And it rocks her, sending her rocketing upwards, now standing in her small quarters in a sister building to Crypton Human Adaption Corp., called Vocaloid Worship Studies Centre. Haku gulps, her hand tightening around her small purple flip phone. "Oh don't be so naive that you don't believe I can hear you shaking Yowane. I've known everything about you since you were the height of only my knee. Don't think you can hide your fear." Suddenly his voice drops to a whisper, feigning on sounding seductive, and it would have, if not for such venom in the words. "I can hear you breathing Yowane. I've found you."

With a loud cry, sounding almost like a shriek, she throws the phone across the room, sending it flying into a small metallic cross hanging on the wall, where it smashes into pieces, flying every which way. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, hyperventilating as she hears the metallic thud of the phone hitting the brass cross.

He couldn't have… I worked so hard to… to get away from him… he couldn't have… God… oh my Lord what… what have I done to deserve such torment from your hand? You promised to save me from him… you promised to save me, God. Please… She thinks rapidly, slowly lowering herself back into the chair, and folding her legs up into fetal position. She clasps her hands before herself in prayer, whispering panicked phrases from the bible at rapid speeds.

In the middle of the rapid cries her mother's words echo in her head. Not her fake mother, but her real mother. The one that held her when she cried as a child, the one who told her it would be okay when she was humiliated at school, or tormented by nightmares. Haku had asked her mother one cold winter night after the death of her cat what happens when you die. Her mother replied simply with a handful of words. Only six words came from her lips, and they spoke volumes to her, even as a grown woman.

"Wouldn't humankind just love to know?"

Haku stops mid prayer, sitting up and raising her tear stained face to the cross on the wall. The cross that shattered her phone. With a loud grunt of frustration, Haku leaps up, stalking over to the metal T shaped object and staring it down. It wasn't anything special really, a brass letter T with not even a single design. She uses her hand to angrily swipe it off the wall, sending it clanging loudly onto the floor.

As of this moment there is only one thing Haku Yowane knows.

That somewhere, out there in the sick and twisted world with its falsities and poison beauty, there are four children. Four children with red eyes who will bring about the destruction of humanity. And it is her job, to kill them all.

~ ~ ~X~ ~ ~X~ ~ ~

"Rin, remind me why we're here again?" Len groans, tapping his finger tips on the counter at a local book store.

"Because, I want something to actually do that doesn't involve driving like bats out of hell away from an enemy, that as far as we know, doesn't even know where the heck we are." She shoots back angrily, picking up a thick book with a red cover and black letters scrawled across the top. The picture on the cover portrays a lone shining blade bellow the title reading, Devil's Hand Warrior.

Miku stands in the far corner of the book store, buried amongst the manga, specifically the moe section while IA bounces up and down, enveloped in a book called, Starlight Boom! with the cover design being a young girl about her age, wearing a frilly and intricate light purple and white dress and a dark purple beanie hat with a large yellow star in the center. The girl's hair on the cover is an intricate mass of incredibly curly white hair reaching past her feet and spilling out onto the ground. The white haired girl is holding a bow and arrow, the tip of the arrow being a star. Her large blue eyes that basically take up a third of the cover, are winking.

Miku picks up a manga showing a girl with short and chopped blue hair with a frilly princess gown holding a lyre from the Middle Ages. Miku quickly sets the book down after flipping through the pages gingerly for something interesting.

Rin suddenly stops skimming through the book, turning around to call out something, then stopping abruptly with a look of deep longing on her face. She bites her lip and turns away, staring at the pages and trying not to cry, which, fortunately for her, is something she's good at. But only because of him. And he's the reason she wants to cry in the first place.

"I-I'm going to the bathroom Len." Rin calls out a little too loudly before rushing off into the woman's bathroom down the hall. She slumps over on the floor, trying to fight the small flashback, but with no avail. His words float back as if long forgotten.

"Whenever I feel like crying, I picture the face of someone I know is never far off, someone I know will always be there for me, someone I trust with my life, and then the tears are the ones that seem far off, and it doesn't hurt anymore. That's how I don't cry, so you don't have to keep crying for me Rin. Because seeing you cry, makes me want to cry even more, okay? So smile for me Rin, smile."

Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists together, Rin stands, her yellow hair bouncing in the hair with her as she surges to her feet. She opens her lips, saying what she was about to say to Len, who wouldn't have been able to stop crying.

"This part in the book…" Rin whispers with an air of determination, pointing at a passage about halfway through, "I knew you would have found funny." She pauses for a long time, holding her breath and biting into part of her lip again. "God dammit Lui. After all this time you still make me want to cry."

Rin walks out of the bathroom, met with the confused glares of Len, Miku, and IA. IA pulls on Len's jacket, trying to get his attention. "Lennny! Can I get this one?" She cries a little too loudly, holding up the Starlight Boom! book right in front of Len's face.

"Rin, how much money do we have?" Len asks, reaching his hand out for the wallet.

"About fifty bucks, not too much. How much is the book she wants?"

"Fifteen bucks." Len replies exasperated. "Let's get it anyways." He says taking the wallet out of Rin's hands and walking over to the counter.

"Wait-" Rin scolds, grabbing Len by the arm and pulling on him. "The fifty we have is barely enough for lunch, and we both know credit cards are out of the question. She doesn't need the book." She glares at her brother, who is already determined on buying it.

"Rin, we can always get more money." He grunts, pulling out of her grip and walking with IA bounding at his heels to the counter. As IA passes Rin she stops and sticks her tongue out at her, then she continues to run to catch up with Len.

Miku pushes open the doors of the small town bookstore, walking out onto the busy streets of a city in mid-afternoon. She uses her hand to shield her eyes from the blinding and dismal sunlight. Behind her Rin is busy unfurling a large map of the area and muttering angrily under her breath about her confrontation with Len earlier. Len walks up beside Miku, looking her in the eye and turning his head slightly. IA has her nose buried in the book, and Miku watches out of the corner of her sight as the small girl's eyes light up as she reads.

"How's 'starlight boom' IA?" Len asks, mocking the lame name to try and get a laugh out of stoic as ever Miku. And it works. Miku giggles slightly.

"What?" IA asks, straightening up at Len and looking at him with genuine confusion.

"Your book? Starlight boom?"

"How do you know what it's called?" She walks over to Len, holding up the corner and pointing at the girl on the cover. "Isn't she the book? Isn't the name this girl?"

"That's what it says on the cover, that's the title. See it says Starlight Boom." Len says, bending down to her level and pointing at the title.

"Silly Len! It's not talking!" IA giggles.

"IA… do you know how to read?" Rin perks up from the map, averting her eyes from it and staring down at IA while Len asks with genuine concern.

"R-e-a-d?" IA repeats.

"I- I don't either." Miku whispers quietly hiding her face under her black scarf.

"You… you don't know how to read?" Len whispers. Without warning he lets himself fall back onto the sidewalk, flopping down onto the curb and resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He slowly rakes through his hair, shaking his head slowly, uttering inaudible insults and swears. "No one ever cared enough, to teach you how to read?" He scoffs suddenly, face palming and then beginning to laugh. Not laughing with any humor, but laughing at the dry cruelty of life. He draws a slow intake of breath, then deeply sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose."The world is a real bitch."