Author's note: Ohhhhh, I'm soooooo happy to see that this fanfic has hit 100 reviews! Thank you so much, everyone! Initially, I intended to celebrate with a special update, like a sort of interlude or prequel or something like that. But I'm still working on it, and since there's much more flexibility involved, I was wondering if anyone has any requests or ideas that might inspire me or that I could incorporate into this special update…? Ahh well, but before that happens, here's the next chappie, and I hope you enjoy it, even though it is a little short! So read on!

Chapter 43

Athrun found the greasy spoon first. It stood alone in a vast carpark, like a solid rectangular block of cement with small glass windows cut into its walls. The neon signboard wasn't lit and the lights in the windows were off. The carpark was empty and silent. He took his hand out of his jacket pocket and lifted it to a nearby street lamp so that he could catch a glimpse of his watch. The minute hand ticked and shifted and fell into place behind the hour hand. 12:00 a.m.

Midnight.

A still, frigid coldness was setting in and Athrun shoved his hand back into his pocket to keep warm. Then he dipped his chin behind his upturned collar, turned on his heel and headed down the narrow one-way street, away from the diner.

The neighbourhood he was in was a distance away from the main street, hidden amidst a maze of side lanes and small roads. The suburbs – a residential area at the brink of the city, so clustered with housing that on the map, the street was an almost unnoticeable inch-long line, blended into a confusing web of streaks and tiny little cubes. It was a dodgy kind of neighbourhood, unlike his own street, but it wasn't a slum either. Not the kind of place where serial killers hung out, but a pickpocket here and there wouldn't have been a shock.

Athrun trudged on. Alone. Walking along the narrow sidewalk as he counted the houses. To his right was the gravel-covered street itself and an aluminium fence on the other side, topped by spikes and a park, lit up in a dim orange glow, stretching beyond it. The row of apartments ran along on his left. They were narrow single-storey houses, set close together and raised up off the street by two or three stone steps. Not really classy and modern-looking apartments, but they were at least neat and clean. Which said some things about the people in the neighbourhood. The lower-middle class perhaps, deduced Athrun, not rich, but not all that poor either. The kind of people who earned enough to see themselves as civilised individuals, who wished they could live better and were paranoid that the street they were living on wasn't all that safe. They were the ones who avoided trouble if they could. So all the windows were shuttered and dark.

All was quiet, like a dead town. No one about at this time of night, or in this sort of weather. And it suited Athrun just fine. He didn't need witnesses for what he was about to do.

The house he was looking for was the fifth one in the row. It stood three steps above the sidewalk. Its red brick façade was stained chocolate with age, its door a black rectangle set deep into the front wall. A rusted plate stuck to right pillar had the number '5' imprinted on it and it was just above a tiny gold knob which served as the door bell. There were two windows, one on each side of the door, brimmed by cream-coloured frames. No lines of light between or under the blades of the grey blinds that were pulled across the glass.

Athrun glanced at it from the corner of his eye and kept walking, all the way past it, past the sixth house and then the seventh, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, backpack slung behind him, shoulders hunched against the cold. Like an average passer-by, intent on making it home and out of the wind.

Still no one about.

He made it down to the end of the street, then stealthily, he rounded the last house and came up behind it. There was no back door. Only another street with another row of similar houses, stuck back-to-back to the ones he had just passed, so similar that it was as if they were fixed out of the same mould. He came back round to the front and peered down the narrow little street – all quiet – before retracing his footsteps. At the fifth, Athrun stopped again and glanced both ways, emerald eyes sweeping the neighbourhood quickly but warily, watching for any sudden movements or the glints of any hidden cameras. Deeming it safe, he left the sidewalk and ascended the little stone steps until he came before the ominous black door. He reached around into his backpack, slid out a pair of leather gloves and slipped them over his hands, then produced a black cap from his backpack and put it on, pulling it low. He took some time to wrap bags over his shoes. And lastly, retrieved a lock-picking kit from the backpack's external pouch.

There were two possibilities. One, there would be an alarm system, and the minute he inserted the pick into the lock, a shrill shriek would awaken the neighbours and send them spilling out onto the street. Second, there would be no security system whatsoever. Athrun hesitated for a second, then decided that the latter sounded more logical. Whoever the adversary was, (whether it was Kira or not, Athrun hadn't quite decided), he was a cautious man who thought thrice before he did anything. Which criminal would risk having an alarm system installed in his apartment so that it would draw the attention of the police when it was triggered?

It was an assumption, but Athrun figured that it was worth the risk. This was the only clue he had. It was all or none. He took a deep breath, held it for a couple of seconds before releasing it, and stuck the tension wrench into the lock. Carefully, he slipped the pick into the gaping hole and jangled it gently into place. No shrill shriek of an alarm. All quiet. Perfect.

Lock-picking wasn't all that difficult. Athrun had learnt it back in the police academy. Not that police officers had to learn how to pick locks, because if you ever needed to search a house, you needed to apply for a search warrant. But it had been a useful lesson learning how burglars worked their charms. Athrun had tried his hand at it several times and this would simply be another practice. Only, this time, speed was of essence.

Keeping a firm pressure on the tension wrench, he located the first pin with his pick and fussed at it until he heard the faint click. It sounded like a gunshot in the otherwise dead-silent night and Athrun paused for a second, glancing behind him for any signs of disturbance. Nothing. The air was still, no sign of a wind, the cold remained impervious. He turned back to his work and worried at the remaining pins, till he had gotten all of them clicked into place. Gently, he eased the pick out of the gap and tilted the tension wrench clockwise. The latch bolt retreated and with a slight shove, the door swung inwards into darkness.

Athrun hesitated on the porch for several seconds, just to see if there would be any interruptions to his intrusive activities. There were none, so he slipped in through the door quietly and closed it behind him. The blinds were drawn down across the windows and light from the street struggled to get through the narrow gaps, falling onto the ground in broken lines. Still, the darkness swallowed him within its depths and a heavy silence weighed down upon him. With his back against the door, Athrun waited for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light, before taking the first step into what appeared to be Kira Hibiki's apartment.

Fishing for the torch in his backpack, he flicked the switch and the cast beam sliced through the darkness to form an orange oval on the wooden floorboards. He swept the beam round the house, from left to right, quickly, before switching it off. Just enough to get his bearings in a foreign environment, but not enough to raise the suspicion of a random pedestrian who might walk past the house.

The apartment was a simple, clear-cut rectangle. An area divided into three separate compartments – bedroom, living room, kitchen. Ahead of him appeared to be the living room. The bulky, looming shape of the couch was stashed away in the corner, the shadow of a low coffee-table stood before it. And that was all there was in the living room. Nothing else – no television, no telephone, no display units, no rugs covering the parquet flooring. A simple, if not bleak, layout.

To his right, he caught a glimpse of waist-high oak cupboards, and figured that it was the kitchen. To his left, was a doorway that led into yet another room. In a plain apartment like that, it was most likely the bedroom. And Athrun chose to head towards it first.

To save the batteries, he kept his torch off and felt his way through the dark, his gloved palms brushing against the walls, his plastic-clad shoes making soft, rustling sounds as he took each careful step. He made it to the doorway and paused, back against the wall, peering into the room, careful to duck if anything came his way.

Nothing. No one.

Despite the gloom, Athrun could make out the shape of the bed and the almost flat surface upon it, which indicated that there was no one hidden amongst the covers. The bed was flanked on each side by low bedside drawers, one with a lamp atop it. The closet stood against the wall across from the bed.

Athrun inched into the bedroom, using the wall as a shield behind him. Several feet away, there was a gaping entrance, the door half open. Pressing his fingers to it, he took in a breath and gave it a little push, just a foot or more, and found himself facing an empty bathroom covered in ceramic tiles.

And then he heard it.

The quiet click of the front door closing.

He froze, his ears straining to hear signs of the intruder. For a second or two, there was no sound. Just the weighty silence that pressed on. Then the first shuffle that came from somewhere in the living room. Athrun sank down onto his haunches and hiked up his right trouser leg. He had a hunter's knife strapped to his calf and he pulled it from its make-shift scabbard. Grasping the knife firmly, blade forward, he moved stealthily towards the doorway of the bedroom. He could hear the movements of the intruder, sounding more distant as he moved away towards the kitchen.

Athrun waited. The wall against his back felt cool because of the sweat slicking his shirt. The mental clock in his mind ticked on persistently. The intruder remained silent for a second more, before retracing his steps back into the living room. There was a pause, as if the intruder was pondering his next move. Then the sound of footsteps heading in the direction of the bedroom. A soft, tentative tread that implied hesitance and uncertainty. Or caution and wariness. Either way, he who struck first would have the advantage, and Athrun intended to be the first. He altered his hold on his knife, reversing the blade so that he could attack with a downward stab.

The intruder kept coming.

Three more steps.

Then two.

Then one.

And Athrun lunged.

Author's note: Ahhhh! Cliff hanger! Don't hate me for this! I just figured that if I kept writing, it would be difficult to end this chapter and also, because I'm not quite there yet. Hope you understand… So, what do you think? Good? Bad? Boring? Exciting? Thrilling? Who do you think the intruder is? Kira? Don't forget to review review review! :D