Author's Note: If there's one chapter you read of this small fanfiction, I would highly suggest you read this one. I'm very happy with how it turned out as character interaction is one of my favorite things to write! Please enjoy the fun dialogue and high emotions, and get ready as we head towards the climax!

Happy reading!

Chapter Three

Clara leaped up from her seat, and slammed her hands down on the kitchen table, making everyone in the room jump. Ite and Nara stared up at her from where they sat while Peregrine helplessly looked on, his pencil and paper dropping from his hands.
"Cut the crap already!" she barked at the legendaries. "I've had enough of this wild goose chase you two are putting us through! Tell us what's really going on here!"

Nara looked away from her fierce gaze, picking nervously at her fingers. Ite could only gape at her for half a second before he regained his composure.

"Wha- We are!" he protested, putting his hands up. "We've told you everything we kno-"
"No, you haven't!" Clara cut him off, her amber eyes blazing with frustration.

"Everyone up and down this mountain has told us that Giratina is out for revenge, and yet here we sit, two weeks later, all still miraculously in one piece! Why hasn't she come to kill you two?! And why didn't she kill Hana back at the temple if she's so hellbent on wiping out the Shaymin?! You keep telling us the same stories, over and over, but they aren't adding up to what we've got now! So, please, tell us the truth-!"

"Okay, okay!"

Peregrine grabbed a hold of her arm, breaking her out of her tirade. She looked down sharply at him, breathing hard and smoke threatening to start coming out of her nose.

He gestured for her to sit back down.

"Easy there, you're gonna burn the house down, for Ho-Oh's sake! Sit down!" he said. He had known she had been ready to snap, but hadn't expected her to jump down their throats so quickly.

Clara finally sat back down, only to nearly jump across the table at the Dialga and Palkia to continue her attack, her eyes practically glowing. Peregrine looked like he was going to give up and hide under the table until she was done. There was no stopping her when she was on to something, and though he had his suspicions as well, he wished she was gentler in her methods.

"I am very good at my job, and do you want to know why?" she said, refusing to take the pressure off. "It's because I know exactly when people are lying to me. So, you two can either start telling the truth, or we can arrest you for obstruction of justice right now. It's your choice."

Nara looked like she was about to burst into tears. In fact, the Dialga had been increasingly uncomfortable with them in the house the longer the investigation continued.

"You can't do that! Are you kidding me?! On what grounds?!" Ite shouted, oblivious to his sister's increasing anxiety.

Nara still hadn't looked up, her gaze flickering anywhere but looking forward or at her brother. Her brothers protests seemed like minor background noise to her as she felt the typhlosion's eyes still on her. She took a deep breath, and grabbed one of her brother's now waving arms, pulling it down to rest back on the table. He stopped what he was doing, looking down at her in confusion. She had been silent for nearly the entire time Clara and Peregrine had been in their home.

She slowly looked up at him, the anxiety clear on her face, and he immediately started to shake his head, not caring if the officers saw.

"Don't-!"

"Ite, we have to!"

"I said no!"

At the word no, Nara's face darkened, all the anxiety wiped from her face and replaced by bitter determination. Her mouth pressed into a hard, stubborn line that said she would do exactly the opposite of what he wanted her to just to spite him for daring to tell her no. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, the air in the room growing heavy. The Dialga broke the gaze to look back at the officers before Ite could open his mouth again.

"It's all a lie," she said quickly, the pressure gone in the instant she said it. Ite slapped his hands over his face, groaning into his palms.

"It's not a lie!" he moaned, hoping what was happening in front of him wasn't real.

"Then what would you call it?!" Nara spat, turning towards him. Every ounce of stubborn anger showed itself all at once in her face. "What would you know, you weren't even there! Maybe if you hadn't been off chasing skirts, you could have at least tried to help!"

Peregrine glanced at Clara, who only barely shrugged her shoulders at him as she tried to carefully watch the brother and sister. She was just as lost as him.

Ite's face twisted with anger at her accusation, his red eyes narrowing.

"And what good would it have done?! So we could both watch her get destroyed?!"

"We abandoned her, Ite!" The anger was gone, Nara desperately trying to reach her brother with what she was saying. "This is our fault, and you just want to sit there and pretend like we had nothing to do with it! We need to do something!"

"Nara, she almost killed you! What can we do?! She'd probably rather see us burn alive then talk to us." He folded his arms, turning away and refusing to look at her. "It won't do any good."

"We still need to try! She's our sister, she's family!"

Peregrine quickly looked at Clara, the scent of smoke catching his attention, and saw her wide eyed with her hands clamped on the table, ready to burst into flames from held back anger. She was getting more frustrated by the second, and Ite and Nara's back and forth wasn't helping. He waved his hands around in the air, getting the siblings' attention.

"Alright, alright, that's enough!" he shouted, gesturing like he was trying to stop a band from continuing and they finally looked at them, as if realizing they were still in the room. He looked from one legendary to the other.

"Obviously there is a lot of history here, and we get it, really. This is tough. But right now we really need to focus on what's important! We need to find your sister, and fast."
Clara leaned back in her chair, calming down as she saw him taking the next step in getting the truth out of them. She was usually the battering ram, and her partner picked up the pieces after her. The constant bickering between the two had started to get to her though; every time they had come by the house, they wound up arguing about something ridiculous. This had obviously been serious, but she would have rathered they come out and say what was going on instead of stalling everything again.

Peregrine drummed a finger into the table, trying to physically show his point as Ite and Nara listened.

"Have you two thought about what it's like for her out there?" he said. Ite glanced at Nara, his brow knitting together at the question. "She's been gone for five thousand years; what do you think she's going to do when she sees a plane? Or a car?"
He pointed out the window. "She's out there right now, alone, and with no idea where or when she is. The longer you two stall for whatever it is you think is so important, the more likely it is she's going to either hurt herself or someone else. So, will you please explain what's all a lie?"

They went quiet again, Nara peeking over at Ite, who only seemed to fold his arms tighter and set his jaw. She scoffed, rolling her eyes at him, and turned to Clara and Peregrine. It looked like she was going to have to do all the explaining.

"The legend of Yumi killing all the Shaymin and then coming back for revenge," she said. "...It's a lie."
"Not all of it," Ite grumbled. Nara rolled her eyes once again and continued.

"Okay, fine, some of it is a lie. But most of it is, and that's why… Well, you've already figured half of it out, really," she said, gesturing to Clara. "You wanted to know why she didn't try to kill Hana in the temple, right? Because if she really murdered all the Shaymin in cold blood like all the stories say, she would have killed her right there too."

Clara nodded her head, following her train of thought. She had guessed correctly about what she had been wondering; it was that hole that had really started to make her wonder what was going on that they weren't saying. Nara sighed, closing her eyes and seemed to be steeling herself for what she was about to say.

"...The Shaymin genocide was an accident," she said.

If the house had been quiet before, it was even more so now. The faint creaking of the foundation was the only sound in the place as Nara let the two officers absorb what she had revealed. Peregrine stopped writing in his notepad to stare at Nara, putting his pencil down.
"How… How on earth is a genocide an accident?" he said, not sure if he believed what he was hearing. "You don't just wipe out an entire race of people like you do stubbing your toe!"

"You have to believe me when I say that Yumi would have never hurt any of the Shaymin." said Nara. "She was a great friend to their people, and she would have done anything for them if they had asked. She loved them all like they were her children."
"Then what happened?" said Clara, taking the pencil and pad away from Peregrine, who was too focused on listening to take notes anymore. She would have been the same way, but she wasn't going to let this not be written down.

Nara fell silent again, looking down and folding her hands in front of her. Suddenly, the weariness of the last two weeks seem to show itself on her, and while she did look tired, the sadness was heavier. Her shoulders slumped down, the Dialga looking smaller than she really was in her seat. Ite still hadn't moved, but had grown slowly more grim looking as Nara explained Yumi's true disposition to the Shaymin. She took another deep breath before she continued.

"Yumi started to… Change." she began. "First it was her skin, then it was her hair, and then after that… Her powers started to become erratic, more intense and violent. It was like they were trying to break out of her, like she was just a conduit. It started out as little hiccups, but then they started getting bigger and bigger. I mean, one time she had an outburst, and she nearly took out one side of the temple. You can see where the damage still happened, sometimes you'll find little bits of rocks floating around."

Clara was writing furiously in the notepad while Peregrine had gone totally still as he listened, thinking back to the blurry figure he had seen in the ruins and comparing her to the siblings in front of him. He would have to ask Clara what she had looked like so he could make a better comparison since she was had been the only one to be up close to the woman.

"What kind of powers does she have exactly?" Clara interjected before Nara could continue. "Like, gravity, or darkness, or something like that?"

"A bit of both," she said, making a so-so motion with a hand and scrunching her nose up in thought as she tried to explain. "Her first title is Mistress of Antimatter, so I think you can imagine how destructive her powers can be when they're out of control. Her powers affect reality itself, and can rip anything apart when she's lost it."

"So, the Shaymin…" Peregrine didn't finish his question, already thinking of what may have happened.

Nara's eyes flickered down to her hands again, her fingers working to try and pick apart her nails even though they were already clipped as short as possible. She squeezed them into fists as she blinked rapidly, trying to stop herself from sniffling. Ite's folded arms loosened a bit as he looked down at her, his mouth softening into a faint, worried frown. She shrugged helplessly.

"...She was… Just going for a visit," she said, her voice small and far away. "I was supposed to meet up with her there to help her with the… Little ones. We babysat them all together."
She sniffed, and wiped hard at her face, not wanting to look up at the two officers. Clara had stopped writing, the pencil gripped tight in her hand.

"When I got there, there was nothing left. It was all gone, not even a shred of grass. It was all burnt or something, it was just… Gone. And she was wandering around like she didn't even know where she was, like she was lost…"

Nara looked up, her eyes faintly pink around the edges despite the dark sclera, but seemed like she wanted to keep going with her explanation.

"Mother was furious. It didn't matter how many times I told her it was an accident, she wouldn't change her mind. Yumi had to be punished for destroying the Shaymin, accident or not, and so she banished her to the Distortion Realm for eternity," she said, scowling towards the end. She shrugged at the current situation. "Or so we thought. I never dreamed that she would suddenly come back like this."

Clara finally finished scribbling everything she had missed down on the pad of paper, and quickly shoved it back at Peregrine, who nearly jumped out of his seat at the sudden movement. She ran her hands through her hair, looking like she was in physical pain over how exasperated she was at the situation. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with a knuckle.

"And this is the truth?" she said, leaning forward to pin Nara and Ite down again with her fiery gaze. Nara nodded her head vigorously.

"Every word, I swear!"

"BULLCRAP!"

Clara shouted the word with enough force to shake the room, the dishes rattling in the cupboards. Ite flung an arm out in front of Nara, afraid that the typhlosion was going to fly into some kind of inexplicable rage. She seemed so angry she didn't know what to do with herself, smoke starting to stream from her nose.

"THAT IS CRAP! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! A GOD DAMN ACCIDENT AND SHE GETS LOCKED UP FOR FIVE THOUSAND YEARS, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME, GOD DAMMIT!"

She fell silent just as quickly as she had exploded, putting her face in her hands as she tried to catch her breath. Peregrine had edged his chair a few inches away from her when she had started shouting, but gently put a hand on her back when she was finished. She shook her head, and after a minute, finally looked up, her fingers still over half her face as she stared at the table in disbelief. The anger lingered, but they could see that it hadn't been directed at them at all.

"That's not right…" she said into her hands, shaking her head again. "That's cruelty, not punishment…"

She looked up at Nara and Ite, her gaze hardening into the iron resolve she was known for. She wasn't going to let Yumi's story end in tragedy again, not if she had anything to say about it. Yumi would answer for what she had done since her escape, but there was no way she would let anyone put her away again without just cause. She'd turn her badge in first.

"What can we do?" she asked them. "We have to help her. Pippin's right, she's been out there by herself for too long. Do you have any idea where she could have gone?"

Ite and Nara looked at each other, at a sudden loss at the shift in the conversation. Ite shook his head first.

"No, we've told you pretty much everywhere we could think of in the beginning," he said.

Nara shook her head next, following up what he said.

"Well, almost everywhere, but we would have heard if she was in Floraroma Valley by now. It's not exactly easy to hide in such a small town," she said. "The only other places she could possibly be is the area around the temple, but we would have known about that too. It's like she's vanished off the face of the earth, really."

"What about Sendoff Spring?"

Everyone turned around towards the kitchen hallway all at once at the new voice. Hana was peeking around the corner in her coat and scarf. It looked as if she had come from outside, but none of them had heard the back door open and there wasn't any snow on her boots either. Nara started to get out of her chair.

"Hana, sweetie, how long have you been there?!" she asked, her voice strained. "I-I thought you were in town, I sent you to the library…"

Hana glanced down, biting her lip. Clara raised an eyebrow at the young lady. She had only really seen the Shaymin in passing; Nara and Ite had been doing a pretty good job of making sure she was always out of the house when they came around. It had been another thing that had started to bother her. Why keep a witness from being around them if they weren't try to hide something? Hana scuffed the heel of her boot on the floor as Nara folded her arms at her, waiting for an answer.
"I, uh, I never left…" she said, giving a small, sheepish smile. "I came back around when you started yelling." She nodded towards Clara, who looked away a bit awkwardly. The typhlosion tried not to meet Peregrine's 'I-told-you-so' grin as she did.

Nara started to quickly try and herd her back upstairs to her room, getting up and walking across the kitchen.

"Alright, good for you, you stuck your nose right where I told you not to," she said, trying to shoo her out of the hallway. "Go upstairs, I don't want you involved."
"But-!"
"No buts! This is way too dangerous! Upstairs, now!"

"Wait a minute!"

Peregrine had turned in his chair to see Hana better, and Nara paused in her actions when he spoke up. Hana was hanging on to the corner of the hallway like Nara was going to have to drag her away to get her to move. She was tired of being kept out of something that directly involved her, and when she had heard Clara start shouting about two seconds after she had been booted outside, she had made up her mind. She had snuck in through her bedroom window, scaling the side of the house, and had been sitting in the stairwell the entire time, listening intently as the truth had finally come out.

"What's Sendoff Spring?" he asked, directing the question at Hana.

She glanced at Nara, and then took a few steps into the kitchen despite the quick scowl of disapproval it earned her.

"We can tell you about it," Nara grumbled, walking past Hana, and angling herself the slightest to block her way into the kitchen.

"That's great and all, but we're running out of ideas and time," said Clara. "And she's the first one to come up with something new in two weeks of nothing." She nodded at Hana to continue.
"Go ahead, we're listening."
"It's a Shaymin shrine, one of our oldest and most sacred," she said, walking around Nara and pulling out one of the chairs for herself. "Next to Flower Paradise, it's one of the only ones that's nearly impossible to find unless you already know what you're looking for."

"And what makes you think she might be there?" Peregrine asked. Clara had started writing again, letting him take over for the time being. She needed to cool down a bit before she jumped back into it, and even then, Hana seemed more willing to cooperate then Ite and Nara had been. Pergrine could handle this much better.

Hana shrugged. "If I was trying to find a place to hide and I wanted to make sure no one could find me, I'd go to some place only I would know how to get to." she said, and then glanced back at Nara. "And you said she was a great friend to my people, so it would make sense if she knew where it was."

"Where is it then?" Clara spoke up, looking up from her notes.

Hana hesitated, waiting to see what her guardians would do. As much as she liked to jump into things without thinking, she knew the shrines her people had built were precious and sacred locations. She didn't want to give an answer when it might lead to the police trampling through the shrine on a manhunt. Ite looked up at Nara, who shrugged her shoulders as if to say that they didn't have much choice right now. Putting up another fight would most likely lead to more chaos, and maybe even to the shrine being desecrated because they didn't speak up.

Clara and Peregrine waited patiently.

"We'd love to tell you," Ite started, leaning forward in his seat. "But you have to understand first that Sendoff Spring is holy ground. No one, and I mean no one, is supposed to go in unless they're a Shaymin. We can't let an entire team of police officers in there."

"That's a bit of a problem though," Peregrine said, folding his arms. "How can we search the place then if we're not supposed to go in? You've given us a lead, which is great, but we can't use it at all."

"I could go in!" Hana piped up eagerly, her pink eyes sparkling with inspiration. "Then you wouldn't have to wo-!"

"Absolutely not!" Nara said, putting her hands on the back of the Shaymin's chair. "If Yumi is in Sendoff Spring, there is no way you are going in there alone! Not ever!"

Hana turned around to look up at the Dialga, face set in the same stubborn way hers had been before when Ite had tried to forbid her to speak up. Nara wasn't the only one who could dig their heels in, and Hana had learned from the best.

"I'm the only one who can go in!" she countered. "Unless someone magically has x-ray vision or something, who else is going to be able to see if she's really there? Do you want someone else to go in there instead?"

"Wha- No! But you can't-!"

"I want to help! Please!" Hana interrupted, the desperation in her voice shocking Nara into silence. She grabbed a hold of one of Nara's hands, looking up at her.

"You and Ite have been doing everything on your own for so long. You've helped me so much when you never had to. Please, let me help you with this!" She said, her pink eyes pleading up at her.

Nara opened and closed her mouth, struggling to make a decision. She wanted to keep putting her foot down, to shut the girl out as quickly as she could for her own protection, but the image of Yumi standing in front of Hana back at the temple wouldn't leave her mind. The air had changed in that moment, the heaviness of her sister's dire presence lifted if only for a few seconds. Even if she had been struggling to get up, she still remembered what it had felt and looked like. She had asked Hana what had happened later when she was healed up, and it had been difficult for the girl to explain. The most the Shaymin could describe was that Yumi had only said something about them being all gone and had looked… Sad. The weak description and image wouldn't leave her alone, along with the impression that this was important, and the pained look on Hana's face made her think of it even more. But letting her face Yumi all by herself, who could have changed for the worse from being in the Distortion Realm, made her heart ice over in terror.

"It doesn't matter if you want to help us."

Ite's voice made her look up from her thoughts. He was sitting like he had been before, arms folded and brow furrowed. It seemed like Hana was going to have to try and move him next if she really wanted to do this. She turned around to face him, already opening her mouth to protest at him, when he put a hand up.

"It's got nothing to do with you, it's got to do with them," he said, quickly speaking over her and gesturing at Clara and Peregrine.

Clara glanced at Peregrine and then looked back to Ite.

"Uh… What about us?" she said, erring on the side of caution in this conversation.

She was starting to get the feeling that they were on thin ice at the moment, and while she was always up for a challenge, she knew how delicate the introduction of a sacred shrine made the situation.
It wouldn't matter how much they shoved or tried to persuade them to let them into the shrine, she knew Ite and Nara wouldn't budge, and she wouldn't expect them to either. The first job of the International Police was to try and keep the peace across the world as best as they could, supporting local authorities and going after big names. The second was supporting and helping legendaries, people with extraordinary powers, lifespans, and traditions that could sometimes come into conflict with regular people. She knew better then to ask them to let them into the shrine, but the potential of Yumi using it as her hiding place added another level of complication to the already huge mess they had on their hands.

"Like I said before, we absolutely can not, under circumstances, let you into the shrine," he said, saying exactly what she thought he would. "We can't even let you know where it is, really. So, even if you do want to investigate, we can't let you anywhere near the place. We can just let a team of police officers stake out the shrine, and risk jumping in there if Yumi does happen to be hiding in it."

He turned his attention to Hana next as he continued. "And if we let you go see if she was there, you wouldn't be able to have any serious back up at all. It would just be you, me, and Nara, and there's no way that's happening. Yumi isn't like us; she doesn't hold back for anyone and I doubt her being locked up for centuries has changed that."

Hana ground her teeth where she sat, fuming under the solid argument Ite had made against her. She had thought the hurdle would have been Nara, but it looked like her guardians had decided to switch personalities somehow. It was usually Nara that she had to convince; she had never had to twist Ite's arm for anything.

Peregrine rubbed the back of his neck as Ite finished his explanation. "Uh, well… She wouldn't be able to have serious back up anyway, actually…" he said, sounding as if he wished he wasn't saying what he was.

This got Nara's attention, the woman perking up behind Hana. "What do you mean?"

Clara closed her notebook, and turned so she could look at everyone seated at the table. She had started to wonder when she was going to have to lay out the situation for them all.

"He means that if you decided to stake out the shrine, it would just be me and Pippin there," she said. "There wouldn't be any backup, it would just be all of us."

"But that doesn't make any sense," said Nara, tightening her hold on Hana's shoulder. "You said that this was an international emergency; why wouldn't you have more people involved?"

"It is, but it's also under a very strict need-to-know rule," she said. "Because of the legends around your sister, if word got out that she was running around loose, it could cause a mass panic. The only people in the International Police who know that Yumi is out, is me, Pippin, Sergeants Nefertiti and Loki, and Ra, our senior commissioner."

"So, basically," Peregrine interjected. "We are the backup. Nefertiti and Loki are still in Solace Town trying to help figure out what happened at Lost Tower, and that's what front page news is right now so…"

Hana perked up as she quickly connected the dots before Nara and Ite had the chance to speak up.

"...You're hoping we can find Yumi before the media get bored with Solace Town!" she said. Peregrine nodded his head, giving her a smile for her quick thinking. He was starting to like how fast this girl figured things out; it was definitely more fun than banging their heads against Ite and Nara's iron wills.

"We weren't kidding when we said that we're running out of time," said Clara, continuing her partner's train of thought. "Nefertiti and Loki have been doing a great job feeding the media exactly what they want to hear, but they're going to run out of material eventually. And by then, there'll be no point in keeping it a secret; we'll have to tell people for their own safety."

The room fell silent as Nara looked down at Hana and then over at Ite, who was frowning at his folded his hands in thought. She jumped the slightest as Hana reached up to hold her hand again, and to give her a reassuring smile. She tried to smile back, but new and more serious questions had started to pop up in her mind.

How were they going to explain the legend to the rest of the world when the truth all finally came out? She wouldn't be surprised if parts of the world, even parts of their home, would be furious with them for not correcting the legend thousands of years ago. It had popped up all on its own, and she and Ite hadn't known what to do about it until it was too late. They had waited to hear from their mother, but an answer had never come. Now they were going to have to deal with the consequences of their indecision.

"So, what can we do?" Ite broke his silence and looked from one officer to the other.

Clara shrugged her shoulder. "It really is up to you three," she said. "We're not going to force you to let us know where the shrine is, or ask you to have Hana investigate. There is a lot of risk here, and our jobs are to protect you, not put you in more danger."

"But at the same time," Peregrine spoke up, glancing to Nara. "If you think there's a real possibility that your sister is at Sendoff Spring, then we really need you to think about this before giving us a final decision." Clara nodded at him, agreeing with what he had added on.

Ite sighed, folding his arms, and then looked to Nara and Hana see if they had anything to say. Nara turned to Clara and Peregrine.

"Can you give us some time alone? We need to talk about this by ourselves," she said, hoping that they would agree.

Clara started to get out of her chair. "Of course, uh… We'll be right outside," she said, despite Peregrine making a noise that obviously meant he did not want to stand outside in the snow. She pinned him with a look that told him not to complain, and they marched out the front door.

Nara waited for them to exit the house, and then looked squarely at Ite, who hadn't budged much from his seat. He seemed determined to stare at his hands, hoping that if he didn't move or speak, he wouldn't be forced to change his mind.

"I think we should check out the shrine," she said, making him snap his head up.

Hana turned around to face her, obviously confused but hopeful at the suggestion.
"B-but you can't go in!" she said. "Well, I mean, you can, but you're not supposed to! It's only supposed to be me!"

"It's true that only Shaymin are supposed to enter the shrine, but what choice do we have?" said Nara. "You heard them, we're running out of time! Do you really want the whole world to be hunting our sister like she's a criminal? She could be right there! All we'd have to do is talk to her-"

"Talk to her?!"

Ite finally exploded, standing up out of his chair.

"She nearly killed you! You think she's going to want to talk to us?! And you want to send Hana in there alone, are you crazy?!"

"I don't think she'll hurt me!"

Hana spoke up instead of Nara like he expected, making him take a step back as she hopped out of her chair as well. She glanced at Nara before looking back at Ite, determined to change his mind. They weren't going to get anywhere if all they did was go back and forth.

"Clara was right; if she wanted to hurt me, she would have done it at the temple," she said. "Instead, all she did was look at me like… Like she wasn't even sure I was there."

Ite's eyes threatened to pop out of his head he seemed so beside himself with frustration. He hadn't expected the two of them to gang up on him, but he certainly wasn't going to go down without a fight, if he was going down at all. He refused to give in to such a dangerous idea.

"No! It's too dangerous! Just because she didn't do it then doesn't mean she might not another time!"

"Then I'll go!" said Nara. "I know the way to the shrine, I know where to loo-!"
"NO!" Ite thundered, making them both jump. "There is no way you're going in there! No one is going to look in that damn shrine!"

Nara narrowed her eyes at him from across the table; she was starting to think that he was putting his foot down for a reason he wasn't saying. Her brother could be a royal ass when he wanted to be, but this was starting to get ridiculous, even for him.

"Is that all you know how to say right now?!" she said, advancing on him. "What is your deal?! It's like you don't even want her to be found!"

Ite opened his mouth, and then quickly shut it, his red eyes darting to Hana, who had scurried to the kitchen hallway when Nara had started moving towards him. He felt a twinge of guilt as he saw the look of indecisive fear on her face, the Shaymin having never been present during a serious conflict between him and his sister, and then looked to Nara's determined gaze, the woman burning with a silent fury. He groaned, buckling under the pressure from both women, and waved a hand at Hana.

"Hana, I need you to go outside for a minute… Please," he said, looking away from her.

The Shaymin quickly darted out the front door, not even attempting to argue. She knew when a serious throwdown was about to start, and this was starting to look like the mother of them all.

Ite turned around to face the kitchen sink, his huge hands gripping the edge of the counter. He heard the swish of Nara's robes as she folded her arms behind him.

"Now are you going to tell me what's going on?" she said. "Or are you going to keep being an asshole and waste all of our time?"

He whipped around at the accusation, his face twisting with frustration and anxiety. "I'm trying to protect you!" he insisted.

Nara scoffed at him, throwing her hands up at his reply. She had heard this argument before.

"I don't need protecting, Ite! We're not kids anymore!" she snapped, her lips curling with disgust.

Ite started to pace in front of her, breathing hard as he tried not to wring his hands. Nara continued.

"Quit blocking all of us already! Either help us figure out what to do, or get out of our way! I don't need your permission to go look for my sister!"

He stopped where he was at her declaration, and all the color drained from his face. "You can't!"
"And why not?! What are you going to do, tell me no again?!"

"Yes! I mean- no! I'm mean-!"

Nara backed him into a corner of the kitchen, not letting him physically dodge her as well as try to avoid her questions. He looked down at her, terrified, and clinging to the counter as if his life depended on it. In all of her life, she had never seem him as scared as he was right now, and she was determined to find out what he was keeping from her.

"Then what?! What is it?! Tell me what is going on!"

"I-!"

"TELL ME!"

"I CAN'T LOSE YOU-!"

He suddenly picked her up as he shouted, shaking her as he did. Nara went stiff in his hands, staring at him in wide-eyed shock at the panic on his face. He held her there for a moment, her feet dangling in the air, as he panted in terror. He set her down after a second, and hung his head, his hands still gripping her arms.

"I can't… I can't carry you like that again," he said quietly. "Please don't make me do it. You were bleeding everywhere..."

Nara was silent as she tried to figure out what he was saying, and then remembered him carrying her out of the temple two weeks ago. She hadn't been able to walk after Yumi had attacked her, too weak and in shock from her sister's beating.

"You won't, I promise!" she said earnestly, trying to reach him. "I don't think she's going-!"
"I'm not talking about earlier!"

Ite dropped his hands from her arms, his arms falling limply to his side as he looked down at the ground. She tried to move forward and look up into her brother's face.

"What… Do you mean?" she said, trying to ignore the way her heart was starting to pound away. There was something he hadn't told her, and she almost didn't want to know. She was getting the awful, pit-like feeling she always did before receiving bad news.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you…" he murmured. Nara shook her head.

"You can tell me that later!" she said, insistent. "What do you mean?!"

Ite took a deep breath, and finally looked at her for the first time during the whole argument. His eyes looked as if he had been awake for days, dark circles and lines appearing where they hadn't been before, and Nara felt her heart sink to the floor. How long had he kept all this to himself? Yumi had always been a tough subject to bring up around him, when she was brought up at all, and now she was wondering if what he had been keeping from her had something to do it.

"When Yumi… Lost control, and you found her, she attacked you," he said. He shook his head. "I don't think she knew what she was doing, I don't even think she knew it was you, but… When I got there, she was trying to kill you."
Nara could only stare at him as he continued. "I pulled her off of you, and I ran to Mom. I grabbed you and ran, and I don't know what happened to Yumi afterwards, but I had to get you away, you were dying and-and-!"

Nara snapped out her trance as she saw tears starting to well up in her brother's eyes, the man attempting to screw his face up a certain way so they wouldn't fall, and she rushed forward to hug him, burying her face in his shirt. He hugged her back, squeezing her tight as he tried to breathe regularly.

"Please…" he begged, his voice muffled in her hair. She felt the tears he had been holding back hit the back of her neck as she held him. "Don't make me do it again! You're the only family I've got left!"

She gave her brother an extra squeeze. "Don't worry…" she said. "I won't, I promise."

They stood there for a moment, Nara absorbing what she had just been told, and Ite slowly calming down. Nara pulled away, looking up at him.

"But I'm not your only family anymore," she said. She grabbed his hands, gently shaking them as he looked down at her. "Yumi is out there, and she needs us. Both of us this time, not just me. We have a chance to be a family again."

"But what about Hana?" Ite said, letting go of her hands and folding his arms. It wasn't out of stubbornness this time, and more out of thought. "We can't send her in there by herself, especially since we don't know how Yumi will react to her. I wasn't putting up a front when I said she might not attack her a second time."

Nara looked down, huffing as she considered voicing the impression she had been having about Hana and Yumi. The image of Yumi standing in front of Hana came to her mind again, this time in a different light, with bits of sunshine and greenery obviously somewhere in the distance. She bit her lip in indecision, and finally looked up at Ite, brow knit together.

"I have… A hunch," she said, knowing that she sounded ridiculous. "I don't think Yumi's going to hurt her, I just have this feeling."

Ite stared at her. "A hunch?" he repeated skeptically. "You're kidding, right? You want me to let you risk Hana's life over a feeling?"

Nara stomped her foot and threatened to start backing him into the corner again. "I am the damn ruler of time!" she said, waving her arms at him in indignation. "My hunches are very good and accurate, thank you very much!"

"Okay, okay! But how-?"

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-!

A sudden banging on the window outside cut him off, and they both looked towards the windows that flanked the front door. Clara had knocked on the glass, obviously trying to catch their attention, and pointed towards the other window. Peregrine and Hana were waving their arms around outside, and only stopped when they looked at them. Hana was pointing at Peregrine, the two sharing the same ecstatic, wild grin that usually meant either trouble or brilliance.

"We have an idea!" she shouted to them through the glass, her voice muffled. "Let us in, it's freezing out here!"