I'd just like to apologize for how long this took. Work's been a bear, and it seems like it may become more complicated soon. I do plan on getting the next part done next week, but then I'll try to finish that other side thing I was working on. Basically, it was a pitch for a new Twisted Metal game.

Chapter 1: Part 8

Sayaka paused for a moment in front of Miu's door. She really didn't want to go to Miu. Every time she had an interaction with the blonde inventor, she had been nothing but crass, rude, and uncooperative. Yet, her title is the Ultimate Inventor. If anyone could put Keebo back together, it was here. Sayaka looked back at Tenko with a frown.

"Are you sure we have to go to here?" Sayaka asked. "She doesn't seem like the type to actually help us."

"She'll help us," Tenko said with a smile. "Miu may act all tough, but she's a sweetheart deep down and is willing to help others."

Sayaka sighed. 'I think that's just your bias, Tenko,' she thought.

Yet, Sayaka decided to side with her friend. Besides, why wouldn't Miu want to help if it helped her too. She knocked on the doo-

The door immediately flung open. If Sayaka didn't keep her distance, it would have smacked her in the nose and judging from the grimace across Miu's face, it had enough force to break her nose.

"What do you two morons want?" Miu spat out.

"Hey, Miu!" Tenko smiled. "We were wondering if you could help us with something?"

"No!" Miu said.

"Great, so me and Sayaka were exploring the storage room-"

"I said no-"

"And while we were searching, we found," Tenko paused for a moment before pulling out Keebo's head, "well…this."

Miu was about to make another snide comment, but her words got caught in her throat when she locked eyes with the robot's head. She gasped a bit. "Wh-what?!" Miu yelled before snatching the head from Tenko's grasp.

"You piece of junk!" Miu shouted at the robot head. "You got yourself killed?! Who's supposed to photograph my turds now!"

Sayaka looked over at Tenko, wondering if Miu's comment was true.

"Don't bother asking," Tenko whispered to her friend before turning back to Miu. "So, you think you and Chihiro can fix him?"

"Can I fix him?" Miu scoffed. "Does a bear shit in the woods and fuck other bears?"

"Uh…"

"OF COURSE I CAN FIX HIM! Jeez, you really are slow, Tencrotch."

'Between Miu, Hiyoko, Leon, and Kokichi, it really is becoming tempting to kill,' Sayaka thought to herself.

"Thanks for the help, Miu!" Tenko smiled.

'And you really do let your bias guide you, huh Tenko?' Sayaka thought before taking the head back. "And we'll give the head to Chihiro to work on."

"What?" Miu raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need that wet blanket?"

"She is the Ultimate Programmer. She could get his programming back on." Sayaka looked over at Tenko. "How advanced of a robot was he?"

"He was as close to being a regular person as he could be," Tenko said. "I mean, he had a lot of robot parts like a camera and stuff built into him, but he had emotions and could think for himself."

"Wow," Sayaka smiled. "That's impressive. It's hard to believe something that advanced could be real."

"Yeah, it is kind of crazy, huh?"

"Well, if you two don't need to be here anymore, can you two fuck off then?" Miu said with a hiss. "I got to work on this bad boy?"

"Can you not talk to us like that?" Sayaka asked. "Seriously, it's uncalled for."

"How about shut up, you dumb bitch?"

Sayaka gritted her teeth and was about to shout back at Miu but paused when Tenko placed her hand on her shoulder.

"Just ignore her, Sayaka," Tenko said. "We should head over to Chihiro's room now."

Sayaka sighed and adjusted her grip on Keebo's head. "Yeah," she said. "Let's go."

With that, Tenko and Sayaka left Miu and headed to Chihiro's room. Luckily, it was only two rooms away. Still, Sayaka wanted to clear something up first.

"So, Keebo…" Sayaka spoke up. "What was he like?"

"Oh, Keebo is great!" Tenko said. "He's really smart, he cares about others, and is a little shy too."

"Huh," Sayaka smiled a bit. "This is the first time I've heard you fully compliment a guy."

Tenko's eyes widened. "But Keebo isn't a guy! He's a robot! He doesn't have any degenerate male urges or parts. And because of that, he's practically like a girl."

"But you keep referring to him as he," Sayaka said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, he still sounds like a guy. He just isn't a degenerate male."

Sayaka sighed as she stopped in front of Chihiro's door. "We really have to talk about your issues with guys."

Tenko rolled her eyes. "If you say so," she said before knocking on the door. "But for now, I'm going to enjoy talking to Chihiro." Tenko smiled brightly and cheered. "Gosh she's just so cute! I bet she'll be even cuter when she starts talking about programming."

"Don't get too distracted by her cuteness. We are here to talk to her about Keebo, remember?"

The two of them stopped when they heard the door creek open. They turned to see Chihiro peeking through the crack of the door. She opened the door a bit more and stepped out. She looked just as meek as ever, but she hunched her shoulders up, looking even smaller than she already was.

"H-hello," Chihiro said softly.

Tenko could barely hold back her squeeing. "GOD SHE'S ADORABLE!"

"Wh-what?" Chihiro blushed a bit.

"Never mind her, Chihiro," Sayaka smiled and waved her hand. "We're actually here to ask your help on something."

"You need my help?" Chihiro asked. "I mean, if it isn't computer related, I don't think I can do much."

"Well, it is programming related," Sayaka said. She turned over to Tenko. "You want to explain?"

"Right!" Tenko said before taking Keebo's head out of Sayaka's grasp. "So, Sayaka and I discovered one of my class's classmates in the storage room. His name is Keebo and…he's a robot."

Chihiro raised an eyebrow before looking down at Keebo's head. Her eyes lit up. "W-wow…Is that real?"

"Yeah," Tenko said. She handed Keebo over to Chihiro. "It's damaged pretty bad. I don't know a lot about computers or robots, but it will take some time to get him to be back to normal, right?"

Chihiro examined Keebo's head closely. Obviously, the giant hole in the was a problem, but she opened his eyes and felt his synthetic skin. She opened his mouth and moved his jaw around. It felt real. All of it. The range of expressions he could have potentially made could match any human.

"I've never seen anything like it," Chihiro said. "Even the animatronics I helped with were nowhere near as advanced as this."

"Can you fix him?" Tenko asked.

"I…I don't know. I mean, I can fix the back of his head, but I don't know if I can restore his memories or have him act the way he did. I'm sorry." Chihiro hung her head down in shame.

"Chihiro, you still have to try," Sayaka said. "I mean, Hifumi said you made an AI, right?"

Chihiro lifted her head back up. A newfound light of inspiration shined through her eyes. "Y-yeah…Yeah. I did."

"So, if anyone can it, it's you."

Chihiro smiled and cheered. "Yeah! I can do this!"

Tenko squeed once again. "God, she's so cute!"

Sayaka smiled at Chihiro. "Thank you, Chihiro. We have Miu working on the rest of Keebo's body, so take your time with it and I'm sure you'll get it done.

"Right! I won't let you down!" Chihiro took Keebo's head and reentered her room.

Sayaka took a deep breath and looked over at Tenko to see that her friend had a massive smile on her face.

"Well?" Tenko asked.

Sayaka raised an eyebrow. "Well what?"

"Don't you feel better?" Tenko got into Sayaka's personal space. "Before we found Keebo, you keep talking about how you aren't that good of a person, but now you found TWO important things!"

Sayaka paused for a moment. She couldn't say she did feel better about herself as a person, but thinking about it, she didn't happen to stumble upon two very important things in this hellhole.

"I guess I did," Sayaka said with a shrug.

"See?! You're great, Sayaka!"

Sayaka smiled at Tenko. "Thank you. So, what do you want to do now?"

Tenko paused. She blushed and pressed her index fingers together. "U-um…actually, I know I promised to be your bodyguard, but I was hoping I could talk to Chihiro a bit more. I've been dying to spend time with her more! I-If that's ok"

"Oh, of course it is. Just…promise you won't be too smothering to her." Sayaka gave a nervous smile. "I don't know if she could handle that."

Tenko clapped her hands together and bowed to Sayaka. "THANK YOU! I promise I'll be right back to get to you!" And with that, Tenko turned around and entered Chihiro's room.

Sayaka sighed once again. 'I sure hope you can handle her, Chihiro.' Sayaka turned around and walked down the hallway. 'As nice Tenko is, it's good to have a bit of a break. I got a few people I've been meaning to talk to anyway.'

Peko had been in her lab for the past few hours. She planned to practice her sword skills alone, able to keep her mind clear of any distractions. Unfortunately, she was stuck with the biggest distraction ever.

"WOAH!" Ibuki shouted. Her eyes were lit up as she explored the room. She grabbed a hold of two practice swords and began to swing them around aimlessly. "These would be awesome to use for drumming."

Peko could feel a vein pulsating through her head as she listened to the rocker swing the dummy swords around like they were lightsabers, making sure to include the buzzing sound along with the swings. Peko groaned, yet continued with her training, sticking to the two-handed kendo style of sword fighting as she swung her sword around. Space was obviously important when sword training, as you wouldn't want to get stuck or knock something over.

Unfortunately, Ibuki had no concept personal space or safety. Just as Peko was in the middle of doing a spinning sword swing, Ibuki popped right in front of her path. Luckily, Peko had enough self-control to stop just before thwacking Ibuki in the face. Peko groaned again and placed her sword down.

"You need to watch where you're standing," Peko said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, enough of that. Ibuki got an amazing idea!" the rocker cheered. "Ibuki should totally add sword fighting to my sets! Oh, oh! Better yet, Ibuki can have you do it on stage!"

Peko turned back around to continue her training. "I'm not a performer."

"But you could be! You could swing your sword all around, do cool flips, and stuff!"

"Flips aren't practical in sword fighting."

Ibuki frowned. "You can't do a sword flip?"

"I can, it's just not something I would naturally do in a-"

"Do it!" Ibuki got on her knees to beg. "Come on! Please?!"

Peko sighed. "Very well, but just know that this is how you are meant to fight."

"I know. OH OH! Maybe you can teach Ibuki how to sword fight afterwards!"

Peko paused for a moment. For all the years she spent training and using her swordsman skills to kill, the idea of training someone was something that never crossed her mind. She looked over at Ibuki.

"You really want me to teach you?"

"Of course!" Ibuki rose up to her feet and saluted. "And in return, Ibuki will teach you how to rock!"

"Very well," Peko said before she walked towards the center of the matted floor. "Stand back, Ibuki. I need space for this."

Ibuki nodded and moved over to corner of the lab. Peko took a few deep breathes then dashed forward. She ran forward to gain enough momentum to do a jumping flip. She did a complete rotation in the air before landing on the ground and smacking the kendo stick against the mat.

Ibuki's eyes went wide as she watched Peko's epic maneuver. She dashed over to Peko's side. "Wowie zowie!" she shouted. "That was amazing, Peko! I totally go to do that one my shows!"

Peko sighed a bit. "I imagine it would be more difficult to do a flip with a heavy guitar."

Ibuki waved her hand a bit. "Ibuki is not above taking unnecessary stunts! You should have seen Ibuki when she bungie jumped through four flaming rings."

Peko was about to question to stupidity of Ibuki's action when a knock at the door interrupted them. Peko turned and took a step forward, but Ibuki dashed past her.

"I got it!" Ibuki shouted before opening the door.

In stepped Sakura Oogami. The giant girl had to duck slightly as she passed the doorway into the room. Peko raised an eyebrow and placed her wooden sword onto the ground.

"Sakura," Peko spoke up. "I have to say I honestly wasn't expecting to see you stop by."

Sakura crossed her arms. "I know. I apologize for coming over without warning, but I wished to speak with you."

Peko crossed her arms as well. "What is it?"

"I was hoping you would be willing to be my sparring partner."

"Ooooh!" Ibuki gasped. "You should totally do it, Peko. You two would totally be unstoppable!"

Peko chose to ignore Ibuki's comments and decided to ask Sakura a question. "Why me specifically? I'm sure Nekomaru is in your weight class, and Tenko has martial arts experience as well."

"I am aware of that," Sakura explained. "I will ask Nekomaru later, but I was honestly curious how well my skills held up against a swordfighter."

Peko smirked. "Interesting." She grabbed a hold of her wooden sword and got into a proper combat stance. "I hope you can handle a few hits."

Sakura nodded and balled up her fists. "I hope the same for you."

Ibuki noticed that she had just become the audience for this match. She grew a big ol' smile on her face and she sat down to enjoy the show. Her only regret was she didn't have any popcorn on her. "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

With the chant, Sakura made the first move. She dashed over to Peko, keeping body low to both be on the same level with Peko, but also avoid any high swings she could throw. Peko kept her ground. She stood in place and tracked Sakura's movements. Sakura went to punch Peko in the stomach, but Peko moved her wooden sword just in time to thwack her arm away.

Sakura waved her arm in an attempt to numb the pain. As she was distracted, Peko swung her sword once again Sakura's head. Luckily, Oogami wasn't as distracted as she appeared. She arched her head back to just miss the tip of the sword. She then dropped down and swept Peko's legs. Peko was a bit surprised as she hit the ground. She figured her smaller and slimmer figure would make her faster, but Sakura had enough speed to catch her off guard. That wasn't to say Sakura was faster though. When Sakura attempted to punch down at Peko, the swordswoman rolled out of the way and smack Sakura in the jaw with the hilt of her sword.

Peko quickly rose up to her feet and the two fighters had returned to their original standoff. The traded off faints. Sakura would lurch forward to get Peko to flinch and Peko would do the same for Sakura. Sakura then dashed at Peko once again. Peko went to swing her sword downward, but Sakura planned for that. She spun around Peko and grabbed her from behind, and before Peko even knew it, Sakura hit her with a German suplex.

"Oh crap!" Ibuki cringed.

Sakura let go of Peko and rose up to her feet. "I apologize," she said before holding out her hand. "I didn't consider how that could have harmed you."

Peko sat up and rubbed the side of her neck. "No. I accepted your challenge and lost." Peko rose up to her feet. "I think we can at least say our styles don't clash very well."

"And also totally mismatched weight classes," Ibuki added on.

"That too," Sakura said. "I will commend you on your speed and quick thinking."

"Same thing for you," Peko shook her hand.

"So, now what?" Ibuki asked.

"I'll see Nekomaru to see if he'll be my sparring partner," Sakura explained. "After that…I have personal business to look out for."

"Wow, you sounded so cool right there!" Ibuki smiled. "Like a superhero or something!"

"I know Nekomaru is strong, but you seem to have surpassed your reputation," Peko added on. "I doubt anyone could face you as an equal."

Sakura chuckled a bit. "And you sound like someone I know," she said to Ibuki. However, when she heard Peko's words, she paused. "I wouldn't be so sure about that. My reputation has been…exaggerated."

Ibuki tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"It's nothing. I'll leave you two to your business." Sakura gave a polite nod and exited the room.

Peko and Ibuki were a bit confused by Sakura's sudden exit. To be fair, it was as sudden as he entrance, but they couldn't help but find it odd that the friendly giant to stop their conversation out of nowhere. It was clearly personal.

"Well," Ibuki clapped her hands together, "that was fun. Your neck ok?"

Peko rubbed her neck a bit. "I'm fine. I may just have to rest later."

"Cool! In the meantime, why don't you show me some awesome sword moves?!"

Peko sighed. "Fine, just promise me you'll actually listen to what I have to say."

"Ibuki pinky promises!" Ibuki as she held up said pinky finger.

Meanwhile, Sakura was alone with her thoughts. She couldn't help but think of the two that meant so much to her. 'I wonder if you ever found him, Hina...'

"GOD DAMNIT!" Leon cried out.

Leon couldn't believe what he had done. He just had to open the door. He just HAD to let Nekomaru inside to talk. He felt like such an idiot. His whole body was in agony. He felt his arms would pop out of their sockets. He felt his back bending in the opposite direction. His face went red as he let out grunts of pain. He felt like he could die at any moment. So many things he had not done, and all of his potential wasted again.

"Seriously?!" Nekomaru shouted out. "You've only done 25 pushups, Leon! Don't tell me you're tired now!"

Leon lowered himself down before pushing himself back up again. His form was far from great. His hands were too far apart, and he didn't straighten out his back. "I-it's just been awhile," Leon grunted out. "Wh-why are you making do this anyway?"

"BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER SKIP OUT ON YOU PHYSICAL WELL-BEING!"

"Well…" Leon groaned. His arms were getting wobbly, "wh-why aren't you getting on…anyone else's case? I don't…see you hounding them for not working out…"

"Don't be so sure about that," Nekomaru said. He looked down at the notepad in his hand. Written across the top of the page was 'Chihiro Fujisaki Workout Plan.'

'It's been a while since I had a newbie to train,' Nekomaru thought to himself. 'I almost forgot what a starting workout routine looked like. The kid's scrawny, so three sets of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats will be good starting points for building muscle. An hour on the treadmill will be good for endurance and cardio. OH! Can't forget stretches too.'

Leon soon collapsed to the ground and panted heavily. Nekomaru looked up from his notes and frowned.

"Did you seriously give up after 30 push-ups?!" Nekomaru asked. "You used to be able to do 100 of them! What has happened to you?!"

Leon groaned. "I moved on, man! I hate baseball and I hate working out with you!"

Nekomaru sighed. "I'm very disappointed in you, Leon. You're letting your potential go to waste."

After a few more deep breaths, Leon got off the ground and sat down. "Look, man. Things change. I changed. I just don't care about baseball anymore. I'd rather try and be a rock star. Is that really such a bad thing?"

Nekomaru sighed. "But that means you have to start over. You have to develop that talent from scratch, find out with area of music you are truly attracted to and excel at. And I worry you don't truly care about that either."

"Hey! I care about trying to get into music!"

"Do you? Or do you only care about getting girls?"

Leon was ready to respond but he paused.

Nekomaru sighed once again and approached the door. "That's what I thought…" And with that, Nekomaru left the room.

Leon was alone with his thoughts. Was he really just going after girls in his pursuit of music? He wasn't going to lie to himself. The women were always a major contributor to any of his actions, but surely he also had a genuine passion for punk music. Right? Then he remembered, he didn't get too far on his music quest. The girl that was supposed to help him out jumped him and he killed her. Then he was executed only to wake back up at square one. He peaked back into his ultimate lab, that stupid baseball launcher was still pointed directly at the door.

Leon groaned. 'I gotta prove him wrong,' he thought to himself. 'I'll be a fucking awesome rock star and rub it in his face. Hell, I'll rub it in everyone's face. Dad, Nekomaru, Maizono, they'll all feel stupid for treating me like crap…I just need to figure out who can help me.'

Leon thought about his options. No way in Hell was he going back to Maizono. Kaede had the approachability but being solely a piano player made her clash with his punk rock attitude. "I guess Ibuki's my best option. She's pretty hot too, so if things go well…"

Leon smirked a bit. He dashed to the bathroom to reapply some cologne and exited his room.

I would love to thank you all for your patience and your interest in my story. It's been the main motivator to keep me thinking about this story and how I can improve it.

I don't have a lot to say about this section. I am glad to be giving more characters important roles. Chihiro and Miu are working on Keebo. It can open up more potential for character development. Which putting Chihiro with Nekomaru will also do. It will also be fun to have characters break off to interact with others that haven't spoken much to yet. Also, to the guy who wants more Leon, here ya go, buddy.

Outside of that, not a lot to say. I promise to get the next chapter out soon.