Chapter 1

There had been silence all the while since the time both of them had been out together for the day. Not a word came out of their mouths and the only thing they did was to look out of the large window beside their table on the wall. Yellow-feathered birds were chirping and singing happily on the treetops and the view from the window was perfect. They could see people walking, in groups, pairs or individually, on the pathways. It was the kind of morning that was so much brighter and finer than other usual mornings.

For a moment, he turned to look at the girl opposite her who was still looking out of the window. She wasn't smiling and she seemed so much more like frowning. But he didn't make a move or reaction to how she had expressed herself. Instead, he looked away from her and went back to looking out of the window again. The girl thought she knew what the other was thinking about, but still she ignored him and continued looking at the beautiful view from the window.

Suddenly, a boy about the age of twelve, wearing a yellow clothing, came up to K who had been dreaming all the while. "Do you want to buy a rose for your girlfriend, mister?" In surprise, he turned to the boy immediately and stared at him in his eyes. [Who's there?] Bao noticed K's dark eyes and thought for a second, [Wow, scary!] But then, he gave a wide smile and held the basket full of red roses higher up with his hands. He repeated again, "Do you want to buy a rose for your lovely girlfriend, mister?"

K widened his eyes in a surprise much more than the last as he turned to face Whip on the seat opposite him. She had heard the young boy and turned her head to look at the guy with a cross on his neck. She wanted to know how K would react to such a situation, a surprising yet funny situation. K could feel Whip's eyes at him from the back of his head and he was blank for a quick moment. When he regained his senses, he gave Bao the 'queer look' in his eyes and smiled as he asked the young Chinese boy, "Excuse me, I didn't hear you saying something clearly before. Can you repeat your question again, little kid?"

Without sighing or showing any displeased look on his face, Bao repeated himself, for the third time, again, "I'm sorry if I had surprised you, but I just want to ask if mister wants to buy a stalk of red rose for your lovely girlfriend." Once K heard him, he smiled and laughed softly to himself, knowing that Whip was still watching him from behind. Bao waited quietly, holding the basket firmly in his hands, for the answer to come to him.

"I guessed you've mistaken something, young boy," K answered simply. Bao was puzzled for a while and tilted his head slightly and adorably. K continued his answer as he looked at Whip, "This young lady here isn't my girlfriend. She's just a friend." Whip heard him and she blinked quickly before she changed her focus on the outside view again. She seemed as if she didn't care much about K and what he did or said. [Just a friend...] she thought in her head.

"Oh..." Bao dragged on his word as he felt a bit embarrassed as to have guessed wrongly of the two elder ones. "Sorry, then I think I should leave first. But still, thanks anyway." Before he left the table, K reached his hand out and held the boy's shoulder lightly, "Wait a second." Jerking a little, Bao turned himself around to face K again. This time, he doubted that he had offended someone else. Whip kept on staring out of the window, thinking of nothing. She hadn't thought of going anywhere that day at all. And if it weren't that K had asked her out to their 'usual place' in the coffeehouse before, she would have been staying with the other Ikari members.

The white-haired teenager reacted quickly once Bao turned around to him, "She is my friend, all right. But that doesn't mean that I can't buy a rose for her, right?" Then K took out a bank note from his pocket and handed it to Bao with just two fingers clipping onto it. "I'll buy a stalk," he whispered softly. With a happy smile on him, Bao took a stalk and handed it kindly to K as he took the money from him, "Thank you." "And keep the change," K added.

Taking the rose from Bao's hand, K turned his head to Whip and stared at her for a short while before holding the flower higher up in his hand in front of her. Whip noticed him and looked at his direction. Seeing the red rose in his hand, she kept quiet and crossed her arms in front of her. K continued to smile at her and only stopped when he started to speak, "A lovely flower for the lovely miss." With that, he waited quietly for Whip to make a reaction.

Whip stared at the flower in his hand and only reacted a while later. "What is this for?" "For you," he replied. "For me?" Whip felt rather puzzled, and unable to believe herself. "Yes, for you. And I really hope you'll take it. It's just a simple flower, I know, but I still hope you'll accept this simple present." Whip didn't speak another word, and the next thing she did was to take the flower politely from K's hand. In her mind, she still had another thought, [I don't know what you really have in mind, but since you're sincere, I'll accept your flower.]

Once she took the rose from him, K smiled in satisfaction and sat back against the seat. Before he could get back to daydream again, he sensed a female fighter walking at his direction. In curiosity, he turned to where the young boy had stood before to check things out. Bao was still there, though, and he had been watching the both of them all the time. If it were someone else who had been looking at him, K would have felt quite embarrassed but since this was only a young little boy, he could only smile at him before turning away.

Bao started to chuckle as he covered his mouth with his empty hand. But before he could laugh some more, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. The person was shorthaired and was wearing a red sailor-suit-like clothing. Bending down a little, she whispered at his ear, "Let's go elsewhere, Bao. I don't want to spend the rest of my time in the same place." Once Bao heard her voice, he knew who she was without having to look at her, "But Sister Athena, I still want to stay here a bit longer. This place is much better than many others. Just look." He lifted the basket in his hand higher for her to see, "I've just sold another stalk!"

Athena looked into the basket and smiled at the young boy sweetly, "I can see that rose in that young lady's hand already, Bao." Whip, hearing something that might refer to her, stared at the purple-haired girl. But without caring so much about her, Athena turned young Bao around by his shoulders and urged him again, "I don't care how good this place is to sell our flowers, but don't you think we've just spent too much time here? It has been three hours already, you know?" Bao took her hands off his shoulder and frowned, "But I want to stay here. Why do you keep on asking me to go elsewhere when we have lots of 'customers' here?"

[Why does he always have to stick around to this place?] Athena thought as she stared angrily at Bao with both her hands on her waist. Unbelievably, Bao guessed of what she was thinking and asked her in a kidding manner, "You must have been meeting Brother Kensou in your somewhere else, right?" Athena was surprised and she hit Bao lightly in his arm, "What did you just say?" The young boy started chuckling again and tried to argue with the elder one, "I'm sure I'm not wrong. No wonder you're so anxious of leaving this place earlier!"

It seemed that Bao had talked too much and Athena was getting rather more impatient. When she noticed that the two, K and Whip, were watching her from their table, she felt embarrassed and tried to avoid their eyes. "Come on, let's go. I don't want to wait any longer," Athena urged urgently as she pulled Bao away with her. Trying to struggle away, Bao shouted louder than usual, "No, don't pull me! I want to stay!" Athena ignored him as she pulled him harder out of the coffeehouse.

There was certainly no other way that Bao could do to get off Athena's grip, unless he... "Watch out for this, Sister Athena! Psycho Ball!" Without further warning, Bao raised his hand that was not grabbed hold of, and swiped it downward to create a ball of blue energy. That particular 'Psycho Ball' aimed straight at Athena and she only turned around to discover it when she felt its pressure behind her. With a shocked expression on her face, she released Bao and shouted, "Bao, you dare try to hit me?" Clenching her teeth, she turned to the direction in which the ball of energy aimed at her and formed her own Psycho energy with her hands.

"Psycho Reflector!" she shouted as an oval-shaped energy appeared in between her hands that were placed in vertically opposite directions. When the Psycho Ball hit the Reflector formed, it bounced back and aimed at Bao instead. [What? She turned its direction back at me?] Without hesitation, Bao placed both his hands at his front and formed a blue, round ring-like energy. This move of his lasted much longer than Athena's Reflector and when the Psycho Ball hit it, it bounced back towards Athena again.

[You're clever enough, but I'll let you try this then!] Crossing her hands at opposite directions, Athena formed her own red Psycho Ball and it flew very quickly to hit Bao's very first move. When the two balls of energy hit each other, they burst and vanished without hurting anyone else. Immediately, Athena disappeared from where she had just been and rushed past quickly to grab Bao tight by his wrist. Bao wasn't surprised at all by Athena's sudden move, but he was still not happy to let her take him away from his 'favorite' place. [Psycho Teleport?]

Athena gave him the fierce look and held his wrist as tight as before. "You try to hit me just to let you stay here? I've never thought that you'd be that rude to me! But since you really don't want to leave this place, I guess there's nothing else I can do. Fine, you'll stay here, I'll go!" With that, she let go of Bao's wrist, took the basket away from his hand and ran out of the place as quickly as she could. As she ran, she shouted without turning back, "But still, I'll have to take away your basket!"

Realizing it, Bao looked at his hands and saw that his basket was then gone. Then, he went to chase after Athena from her back, trying to catch up with her. "Hey, don't go with my flowers! Give them back to me!" Laughing to herself, Athena turned back to look at Bao who was a few metres away from her, "Try to get them back from me if you can!" After that, she teleported away, leaving Bao chasing after her tiredly. Perspiring, the 12-year-old boy wiped his sweat away with his hand as he ran after the girl, "That's cheating! There's supposed to be no teleporting allowed!"

His voice faded away as he ran further and further away from the coffeehouse. In a short while, Athena and Bao were nowhere to be seen. K and Whip, who had been watching the two all the time, changed their focuses and looked, again, to out of the window. Whip still had the rose in her hand and she was, as if, trying to get the fragrance of the flower. She hadn't spoken a word more to K from the last time she was puzzled about the rose till then. Maybe she hadn't wanted to talk or speak about anything to K at all. There was nothing and no subject to talk about.

As for K himself, he was resting his chin on both his hands that were held onto together, with his elbow touching the surface of the table. At the first moment, what that was in his mind was the image of Whip that he could see from his place. Whenever he saw her, no matter where, when and how, there would always be something in him that made him feel 'strange'. That was why he asked her out that day, but in the end, he did nothing and only to stay with her quietly in their 'usual place'. At another moment, he thought of another image.

He was rewinding all that he had seen of Bao and Athena before. They might have only shown a few simple Psycho Powers, but he knew that they had a lot of other moves that were much greater than those he had seen. It was lucky that both of them hadn't spoiled any single furniture or object in the coffeehouse. If they had did so, no one would have wondered how much they'd be told to pay for the damage. The leaving of Bao and Athena only left the other people in the place with surprised expressions and opened jaws. After all, they're only common civilians and wouldn't have dreamed of encountering a fight, no matter how simple that was, like before.

K looked out of the window again and thought in his head, [They're only such young fellows, yet they already have such rather outstanding standards and strength. Looks like young people have been getting much stronger nowadays. Hmm...] Then he bent his head down to take a look at his cross tied onto a string on his neck. Holding it in his hands and feeling its touch, he wondered away again, [I wonder who the next target for my mission is now...] He closed his eyes and blankness filled his mind, until he saw an image of something. It was a black background with a crescent in the middle. And inside the crescent, he could feel a pair of dark eyes watching him. Shooting his head up, he breathed deeply and thought again, [Or is it... Yagami??]

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Come out," the red-haired man called out without turning his head around to look at anywhere. He stood in the middle of a quiet alley with both his hands inside his pocket. Closing his eyes, he spoke again to a 'someone' whom he thought and knew was nearby, "I've sensed you from the very beginning and you've been following me around all the while. What do you want?"

[Oh no, he has discovered about my presence,] the lady thought as she hid behind a wall. She had heard what the man had said, but she was unsure of what she should do next. Pressing her back against the wall, she waited again for another reaction. But all the while she waited, nothing happened and there were no voices heard. Iori Yagami was still waiting for the person to appear and he was sure that his patience would let him continue the "wait-and-see" game. At a moment, he turned his body around and faced the wall where he thought the person might be hiding behind from a small distance away.

Making up her mind quickly, the blue-haired lady breathed in deeply before she moved a step away from the wall. Once Iori sensed that the person had appeared, he opened his eyes slowly and took a look him. But to his surprise, he found that it was a lady and he continued to stare into her eyes. [A woman?] And when he looked at her more clearly, he saw and knew who the person actually was, "Leona?" Leona stood still without moving an inch, but when she heard her name, she felt rather surprised and puzzled at the same time.

Both of them stood in the alley quietly until Leona started asking, "Yagami, how do you know me?" Smiling lightly, Iori lifted his head higher to look at Leona before speaking, "I remember seeing you in the last King of Fighters tournaments we've been into. Now how do you know me?" Leona kept silent to think about the answer and only replied a minute later, "The same way as how you know me." Shaking his hair away from his face, Iori continued, "And why are you following me?"

"There is no reason why I should tell you about it." Iori didn't react at first but a very short while later he started to laugh. From a small laugh, he turned to a louder and then a hysterical one. "Ha, ha! Well, you're right. You have no reason of why you should answer me. That doesn't matters much anyway. But there's still one thing that matters." He paused for a while to rest himself from talking, "I hate spies and people who follow me secretly behind my back. And thus, I hate you for being like one. I don't care why and for what you're following me but since you make me feel irritated, I'll have to punish you!"

With that, Iori took his hands out from his pockets and dashed forward in a high speed. Leona was surprised by his sudden reaction, but she stayed calm. [He's asking for a fight. Oh no, how am I going to face him in this way? I was told to ensure his safety and if I were to fight him, won't I be going against Sir's orders?] She looked up at the oncoming man and could feel a strong pressure charging towards her. Without further hesitation, she thought of a decision immediately, [There's no way else! I'll have to fight him in whatever way I can first!]

Once she looked up above her, she saw a hand enveloped in purple flames aiming at her. Moving swiftly, she stepped aside and managed to avoid Iori's first attack. Iori landed on the ground but before he could get to recover from his move, Leona grabbed her chance to return him her own attack. Moving to his back quickly, she hit him twice with her left, and then the right, knee. Iori was taken in surprise and the trap was set. He was trying to turn around and attack back when he felt her placing something on his shoulder. In the next second, the earring exploded and Iori started feel its effect on him. In the first thing, he felt pain all over his body, especially his shoulder, but soon enough, he felt rather dizzy and he seemed very blur for a moment. Making use of this opportunity, Leona continued to hit him with her elbow upwards. Following that, she moved her arm over her head and circled it over in a crescent-like shape. When she was finished with that, a form of blade-like energy stuck Iori's back.

Falling to the ground with his front downwards, Iori placed his hands on the ground to get himself up. [She's fast, but I doubt that she's able to defeat me!] The next thing he did was to stood up quickly and ran towards his opponent again. Leona seemed to be waiting for him as she stood in her fighting stance. She counted beats in her heart and was trying to find a way to attack again when she saw Iori's evil smile right in front of her face. [This is it!] Finding her chance, Leona moved to hit Iori with her hand upwards.

But strange, she didn't feel hitting anything at all. Iori had disappeared as quickly as lightning to somewhere else. When she turned to look back and saw where Iori actually was, it was already too late. The Yagami successor had jumped high over her, overlapped, and started with his next move. Surprisingly, he kicked at Leona's back while he was still in the air. [You may be smart, but I guess you can never be quicker than me!] Landing on the ground, he continued his second attack with a light kick on Leona's leg, a sudden hard scratch diagonally downwards and then rushing forward, he knocked her back with his left elbow. Still, he had not finished yet and he reached his right hand out to grab Leona's head, and slammed her down onto the ground, crashing her head with a burst of purple flames.

Crying in pain, Leona felt her whole body burnt by the powerful Yagami flames. She tried to get up from the ground as fast as possible but the pain in her caused her to tremble when she did so. [No, I mustn't lose to him just like that. I need to fight him till the end...] Iori watched her standing up, waving his hand sideways across his face at the same time to leave a small trail of purple mist. "I don't know whether this is already enough for you," he spoke in a deep voice. Leona answered as she wiped away the blood trickling from the corner of her lips, "In case you don't know... let me tell you something." She began to charge forward towards Iori, "I don't believe that I would be defeated that easily!"

Iori curled his lips into a smile as he stayed on his spot, "Very well, then try and let me see how really strong you are." With a jump, Leona stretched both her legs out to hit Iori on the neck, but he blocked her move easily with a raise of his arm. Iori continued to smile slyly at her as he dodged slightly to trick Leona into doing her next move. But this time, Iori was wrong and it seemed that he had underestimated Leona's intelligence. Just after he finished dodging, Leona moved forward to kick him twice with one knee at a time, at the apart of his body under his chest. Then she brought her leg down at his shoulder from circling over herself before she decided to end her combo with a super desperate move. [Since you hope so much to try my moves, then let me give you this as your birthday present!]

Holding her hand above her head, she aimed accurately at Iori, shouting out, "Kill!" Immediately, she moved and struck her hand at Iori from head to toe, then slashed him upwards 45 degrees from the ground to form a bright V shape on his body. A second later after she finished with her move, the V on Iori exploded and he fell backwards heavily onto the ground with blood spraying out of his mouth. [If you're not dead yet, you're still going to be heavily injured at the least,] Leona thought. She was not being proud, she was just rather confident of herself. After all, that was one of her strongest combos with a maximum finishing special move!

Dust filled the air and the place looked rather blur that Leona couldn't see how Iori had been then. When she looked down at the ground, she saw her shoelaces untied and she bent down to retie them. It only took her a few seconds to do so and when she was about to finish retying, she heard a voice from the same opponent again. "That was good... but it's a pity that you're still unable to defeat me yet." Feeling shocked, Leona looked up quickly from retying her shoelaces to see a dark shadow in the cloud of dust around the place.

Iori was walking slowly nearer to her and was, again, putting a smile on his face. He looked just fine and it seemed that the attacks before could only cause him some minor injuries. Brushing the dirt away from his clothes, he kept on staring at Leona to look out for her reaction. She didn't say a word, as she got up from squatting, but it was obvious that she was very surprised at how Iori managed to be all right after eating so much of her moves. [He's inhuman.] The red-haired young man started again, "Feeling strange?" Then he got back into his fighting stance, "Come on, I was just getting warmed up!"

Trying to cool herself down, she stepped a few feet forward. A part of her mind was actually thinking, [I'm here trying to cool myself down and he's there getting warmed up?] There was still something else that her mind wanted to think about but she couldn't do so anymore when she saw purple flames sliding across the ground towards her. It was fast and so she had to react fast too, but this move was rather easy to avoid. Simply, Leona pushed herself off the ground and jumped to the spot where Iori stood below.

Crossing her arms in front of her, she swiped them down at high speed to form an X-shaped blade that aimed its direction at Iori's head. By that time, Iori had already recovered himself from his last move and he blocked her attack again by using his arm. Feeling a little disappointed at how Leona worked on with her moves, Iori shook his head lightly and said, "Be more serious, Leona. I don't want others to say that I'm bullying a girl." Leona heard him and she felt a lot irritated, but to let herself continue fighting calmly, she tried to ignore what he had said before. To do a move after a move, she formed a round green ball of energy with sharp rings around it in front of her chest once she landed on the ground.

Leona seemed slow at doing that move and the 'ball' only formed a few seconds later after she had stored enough energy inside of her. It had a disadvantage but it also had its own advantage too. The ball lasted for quite a while and it had a great damaging effect. But when it disappeared and Leona looked to her front, Iori was gone again! [Oh shit, not again!] Following her first thought in her mind, she turned her head to look up into the air above her and saw nothing. [Nothing? Where has he gone to now?] She was only thinking but it seemed like as if Iori knew what she was thinking about. "You're looking at the wrong place, young lady."

Suddenly, Leona felt her shoulder being grabbed onto very tightly. His fingers almost dug into her and blood oozed out slowly from a few small cuts made by his fingernails. Iori, grabbing onto her, then pulled her to the opposite direction with a great force. And before Leona could recover herself, he gave her the same hard scratch on her body again. This time, he added another punch backwards with his fist and sent a slow moving purple flame sliding across the ground towards her. Iori knew it very well himself that the flame he threw was not able to connect to the first few hits he made; he had done it on purpose.

Seeing that the flame was much slower, Leona decided to block this small attack simply. But once the flame was gone, the next thing she saw was a hand from above that was reaching out to grab her! Everything had come without warning and Leona hadn't expected this at all. So in the end, Leona was tricked and she had to suffer under Iori's move again. His grip was much tighter and when Iori got to grab Leona's head, he slammed her down onto the ground hardly. This wasn't the end yet and following that, Iori started to twist himself around and upwards while purple flames enveloped the whole of his body, especially his arms.

Leona's head was still being grabbed onto and the force of his fingers holding onto her could even crush her head at anytime. As Iori twirled and set fire on her, she screamed and cried uncontrollably. At last when he finished his move, he let go of her and she fell to the ground with a heavy 'thud'. Immediately, she was knocked out and everything went blank to her. As for Iori himself, he landed on the ground and peered over at the unconscious Leona from his place. He could see that she was bleeding and that she might have needed help. But instead, he ignored her and began to walk off slowly, dragging his feet as he whispered to himself, "Pathetic."

Before he could go on any further, he felt himself weakening much more. He walked slower and slower until he stopped in the middle feeling very dizzy. He placed a hand on his forehead to see if he was all right, but before he could get an answer for himself, he closed his eyes weakly and fell onto the ground. After that, he stayed motionless, just like Leona who was only a few feet away from him. Maybe it was the effect of the moves that he had gotten from Leona before. Her V-slasher might not have taken its greatest effect immediately after one got it. It might have worked slower and Iori only felt weakened by the time their fight was over. That was not too bad anyway, to have the fight end as a draw.

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"Uh..." Leona moaned as she still lied her back against the ground, touching her forehead as she tried to make herself sit upright. [Am I dead yet?] She opened her eyes wearily and looked around the alley where she had been. On the other side, she saw the man she was told to watch after lying unconscious. [Yagami...?] At first, she was puzzled but after a few more minutes, she managed to think of something to do with the matter. Trembling slightly as she pushed herself off the ground, she walked over very slowly to where Iori lied.

Looking down at him, she could see that Iori was still unconscious but he didn't look as bad as other people would have been if they were him. He only had a few bruises and small cuts on his face. Squatting down beside the fallen body, Leona moved to whisper at him a distance away from his face, "Yagami?" There was no response, not even a small murmur or movement. [Should I be taking him back to his place? No... he may have awoken by the time we reach there and he... but, if I don't... how would I report to Sir...?] She was unsure of what to do, but to her, work and accomplishment of missions took priority, so she made up her mind quickly.

She was about to pick Iori up when she heard some female voices from somewhere else. Feeling surprised, she dropped her idea first to find a place to hide nearby. There were no suitable hiding places around, all except for the wall that she had hid behind before Iori called her out. Without thinking any much further, she stood up and rushed to the wall. The female voices that she had heard were getting louder and louder then and she didn't really need to strain her ears to listen to what they're talking about. [If they're just commoners, I guess they'd just leave him alone. But if they're fighters... then I guess I'd need to... oh, it's such a trouble!]

"Do you really think that your bar would be fine even if you just leave it like that?" a girl of about age eighteen or nineteen asked her friend. She had blue hair, somehow like Leona, and from her dressing, we could see that she looked like a karate kid. "Yeah, don't worry. I'm sure that my Illusion will still be great even if I leave it for a while. I can leave the job to Sally and Elizabeth, I know they're reliable workers and I trust them," the other with short blonde hair answered. "I'm sorry to have asked you out at a time like this. I should have known that you're busy."

"How many times have I told you that it's ok? Anyway, I've not gone out with you for such a long time since the last time we went out together with Mai. We should be happy and not apologizing right now," the blonde one continued. "So where do you want to go?"

"I'm thinking of going shopping, what do you think?" the younger one suggested. "Suits you," the blonde-haired woman replied. "All right, let's us go to..." Before the blue-haired girl could finish her sentence, she saw a motionless man lying on the ground. She gasped and quickly told her friend to look at the direction where she pointed. "A dead man?" Both of them stood staring blankly at the man for a while before they reacted again. "It can't be," they mumbled to themselves, "Let's go over and see him."

Both of them walked briskly to the man's side and bent down a little to take a closer look at him. The man's long red bangs had covered his face and they couldn't see him clearly until they dared to brush his hair away from his face. Immediately, they had the same frightened look on their faces and their eyes widened. "Yagami?" The blonde one quickly took her younger friend's hand and pulled her a few steps back, as if to keep themselves away from the man. "Oh no, this doesn't seem right..."

The blue-haired friend still had the strange look. Her mouth was opened and her eyes were fixed on the unconscious man. Her heart started to beat and pound faster and she felt her fingertips went cold. For a while, she seemed to say and react to nothing, but soon enough she made a soft whisper that anyone could hardly hear, "It's him...?" Her blankness was soon over when she heard her elder friend say something, "I don't think we should stay a minute more in here. We need go to off, now."

"No wait!" She walked nearer to the man, bent her knees and picked a card on the ground that had fallen out from his pocket. She examined it carefully by flipping it over and over to look at it. The card looked rather like a 'key' of a hotel room as there was a straight marking line. The address of the hotel was even printed at a corner and from these, she knew where the man was staying. Her friend walked towards her from behind and placed a hand on her shoulder, "What are you looking at?" Then she noticed the card held in her hand and took it from her to take a look herself, "A card-key?" She paused for a very short moment before she asked, "What are you thinking of?"

Her friend kept on staring at the man on the ground before answering, "Let's take him back to his place before we leave him." "What?" the blonde woman exclaimed. She seemed to feel so unbelieving and she continued to look at her in the eyes, "Do you know what you're doing?" "I know it very well," she spoke softly, "please help me with it." "But he... he is..." The young one didn't stop looking at her to wait for an answer. Quietly and patiently, she waited by her friend's side as she gave her a very innocent look. Seeing her friend in that way, the blonde one sighed deeply, "If you insist, I'll help you with this once. But I hope you know what exactly you're doing." Giving a small smile, the blue-haired girl replied, "I know."

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Watching from behind her hiding place, she pressed a button on her communicator and brought it to her lips. "This is Leona reporting, Sir." From the communicator, the voice of a man could be heard, "All right, I heard you, Leona. Has anything happened at your side yet?" Leona answered quickly, "I don't call this good news, Sir. Yagami had discovered me earlier on and we fought a battle. And in the battle, both of us fell unconscious and I was the one who awoken first. But now, two women whom I think I've seen before in the last King of Fighters tournaments appeared. From what I think, they want to take him back to his place as they've found his card-key. Should I continue following them, Sir?"

Heidern spoke from his own communicator, "We can't let Yagami go elsewhere alone. We don't know who'll be after him at anytime. So far, have you found anyone who's suspicious of being the one I said is dangerous?" "No, Sir," Leona replied. "Then continue to watch after Yagami. Make sure that no one is there to capture him. You know how important it is for you to accomplish this mission. The fate of everyone in the future depends on whether you're able to complete it. I have complete trust in you, Leona. Don't disappoint me."

"I won't Sir, and I understand," Leona whispered into the little machine on her wrist. "Then that's all. I'll be waiting for your next report." With that, Heidern switched off his communicator and the connection between them was cut off. Then Leona continued to look out from behind the wall to see Iori being carried up and away by the women she knew she had seen before. Whispering to herself, she said, "Ninmu suikou shimasu..."

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Iori awoke to find himself in a very familiar room. He was lying on his bed and he could recognize it from the messy bed sheets. Pain circled everywhere around his head and he didn't move an inch in case his pain worsened. [How...did I get here?] he thought as he started to open his eyes slowly to look around the place.

He found his room a lot neater, compared to how it had looked like before he left in the morning. The clothes that he hung around anywhere had been put aside on the clothes hanger, the pillows and blankets were folded neatly, the chairs were arranged in a neat line and the curtains had been drawn out. The whole room seemed like as if someone else had tidied it before, and it was most certain that the person who did it was not Iori himself.

[Funny... when have I asked the cleaners to tidy my room for me?] he continued to think as he lied himself comfortably on his bed. His back was aching and he felt tired, thus he was lazy to move around to notice how much more the room had changed. He moved his hand to his chest and he could feel the steady beating of his heart. Smiling to himself, he thought, [Well... I thought I wouldn't have been back here alive...] It was then when he felt rather thirsty and tried to get up from the bed to drink some water from the tap.

But when he just managed to get up and sat a while to rest himself, he noticed something moving from a corner of his eye. Looking quickly to his right, he saw someone walking out of the room through the door very quickly. That particular person had really moved too fast and even Iori was only able to catch a glimpse of her long blue hair. She had actually come out of the bathroom that was nearest to the main door and had easily slipped out of the room when he was not noticing.

[Ka...Kasumi?!] he had the first thought in his mind. Straight after Iori spotted her, he quickly got out of bed and ran after the person whom he thought he saw. She hadn't closed the door when she left the room and Iori just had to push it further away. He almost slipped along the corridor but he balanced himself within a second and continued to run after the person. He had thought that the person was someone whom he had been looking for all the while and he was curious to know who she really was and what she was doing in his room before.

"Wait a minute! Stop!" he shouted from behind, hoping that the girl would listen to him. But she wouldn't stop and continued to rush downstairs to the lobby. [Why doesn't she care to listen to me for a even a split second?] Iori wondered as he prepared to turn around a corner to rush down the stairs after her. The girl had heard him calling for her, but she didn't want to stop. She didn't want to let the red-haired man catch up and let him see her, so she would never stop unless she had reached the ground level where her friend was waiting for her.

Iori was braking himself around the corner when he heard someone calling him from behind. "Hold on, Sir! Where're you going?" He turned his head around to look and saw that it was a hotel staff who was calling. At first, he didn't bother to care about the other man and when he turned his head back to resume chasing, he found that the girl had already vanished into thin air. [Gone? How fast can a girl be?] Then he looked down at the bottom floors by the edge of the banister to spot her, but still, he saw no sign of her anywhere. He had wanted to continue following after the girl but when he heard the man's voice calling for him again, he paused for a while before turning to around to look at him with a frowning face.

"Now what do you want?" Iori asked in a demanding manner. The man walked briskly to him, as he held a tray, with a jug of water and glass on it, on his hand. Hung over his left arm was a white towel that was folded neatly, and from the way he expressed himself, almost everyone could tell that he was friendly and kind. "Sir, you should have been in your room resting." For a moment, Iori was puzzled at what the man said, and asked, "Is this some sort of an advice to me?" "No, I'm just trying to help you."

"Help me?" Iori made a twisted look on his face.

"You were unconscious when you first reached your room. And I thought that it would be better if you have stayed in bed, cause' you may be tiring yourself straight after you've regained consciousness," the man answered immediately.

"So," Iori began to understand and get the picture in his head, "are you the one who saw me being taken back here?"

"Well...yes," he said as he nodded his head lightly.

Iori smiled a little and placed a hand on the other man's shoulder, "Then I guess you know who the one who send me back home is." He looked into his eyes fiercely, as if, threatening him to answer quickly. "Tell me, who's the person who found and took me here?"

"I'm not sure of that, Sir. I was only told to bring some warm water and towel for you when I was downstairs with the other workers. See," he held the tray up for him to see, "I've brought them here already. But when I reached here, I saw you running out of the room and so I called out from behind to stop you."

Frowning even more, Iori took his hand off the man's shoulder and continued to glare at him. "And I thought you said you saw me being brought into my room?"

"I saw you at the first floor, that was all. If it weren't for your room, who else's room would it be? The person who took you here isn't living here, I know."

"Then who's the girl who has entered my room before just now?" Iori asked more seriously.

"A girl? She's probably a worker of the hotel too. You know, female workers here are often to be the ones who're told to clean up the rooms," the man spoke calmly, not at all afraid of Iori's fierce glance at him. "Sir, why not you go back to your room first? I'll help you with anything else that you need."

"No need," Iori started to walk back to his room. "Just put the tray on the table and leave."

"If that's what Sir wants, all right," the kind worker said as he followed Iori into his room. Straight after he had put the tray on the table, he left, leaving Iori alone in his room. After all that he had been through for the day, he felt tired and just rested on his bed without even taking his shoes off. He hadn't touched the jug of warm water the hotel staff had brought for him, at all, although he was feeling quite thirsty before. There was something else in his mind, which was far more important to him than quenching his thirst.

Lying with his back against the bed sheet with his face facing the ceiling, he stared at the lights that weren't switched on above him. His mind kept on replaying the image of the girl he had seen coming out of the bathroom. To him, she was someone very familiar and he could feel a sense of closeness once he saw her from the back. He still remembered quite clearly of how the girl had looked like and he told himself that if he were able to see her again, he'd certainly confront her. But of what everyone thought, Iori was always a cold-hearted and evil person. He never had emotions of his own and people thought that he only had the dark side of himself. Everything that Iori had done may had proved them right, but there was a part of him which didn't think the same way as he usually did.

Every time he thought of that particular person, he would feel and behave differently. She was the only one whom Iori treasured most and there was nothing else that could be more important than she could. But it had been so long a time since the last time he saw her, and there was certainly no possibility of changing the past, or the history. What else could he have been thinking about too? He continued to stare at the light hung onto the ceiling, [Kasumi...you've never known how much I've missed you, how long I've waited for you... and... how regretful I've felt all this time when you've left me...and the mortal world... Kasumi...why...?] Then he closed his eyes.

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