VESTIGE -freedom hunt-

The chaos was at its peak that was for sure. It had been a secret to all other Centers that the West Center was trying to rescue the Fallen and use their self-made Reserve serum to give them their access to emotions back, which finally ended the civil war between Vestige and Fallen. Yet it was questionable if the Government would accept it the same way as the West Center members did? Before they could even decide if and how to tell the Main Center about their discovery, things had gotten out of control after they had finally succeeded in bringing Taisuke’s group on their side.

A group of Elite-Vestige from the Main Center had suddenly taken control of the remaining Centers, making it impossible for the Fallen to return to the West Center. Shime’s group of non-center bound Vestige and Chasers made it out to the remaining Centers to gather information while Hokuto went to the West Center to see how the situation was. Yet it was a risky plan, also involving Reo, a Fallen that could easily be taken by the Elite-Vestige.

Yet hidden in the mountains there was still a way bigger fight going on. Taiga’s Fallen self was struggling with his instinct and while he tried his best to stay in control it wasn’t making the situation easier that Taisuke who shared that instinct was now on their side. Myuto tried to not be too protective, yet he also knew that Hokuto only chose to go to the Center, because he trusted Myuto with taking care of Taiga, yet he had already broken that promise without being aware of it.

There were secrets on all sides, a lot of questions that needed to be answered and with the appearance of someone Taiga and Myuto had thought all these years of as dead, things had gotten even more complicated. Now they had to find out why the leader of the Elite-Vestige was the orphan boy they had protected for years, Reia!

***

Musen 28 - February

“So you cannot open it, is that what you want to say?” Konpi asked and raised an eyebrow after Hokuto had been trying to open the lab for quite some time now, but luck was on his side that he indeed had no clue how Kochi’s auto-lock worked.

“I fear if you want it to open, then you have to bring Kochi back. By the way, would you finally enlighten me about what is going on? As I told you everything was like always when we left, so what happened?”

“No need for you to know,” Katsuki said coldly, before he waved at him to follow him down the corridor. “The lab can wait for later. They will bring Kochi back after the Main Center had a talk with him.”

“Who do you even mean with they? Who are you guys?” Hokuto finally lost his calm a bit and stopped, crossing his arms to his chest.

“We introduced ourselves earlier, remember?” Konpi replied in his annoying teasing manner.

“Then who are those others?” Hokuto asked as he turned to Konpi and the boy flicked his tongue, which annoyed Hokuto even more as he wasn’t in the mood to argue with two stupid teenagers.

“The Main Center put us in charge, so the Main Center is also under our order at the moment. You can’t tell us that you haven’t heard of us Elite-Vestige yet?” Katsuki replied instead and Hokuto had of course heard of them, but that didn’t make the situation any easier. A special generation of Vestige with extremely strong abilities and characteristics close to the Fallen and now their snappy attitude also made sense.

“And that means you have to listen to what we are saying and for now we want to talk to your little Fallen friend,” Konpi added with a lopsided smile.

“Fine, then go on,” Hokuto said and shrugged his shoulders. They had made sure to come up with a detailed fake story so that all of them had the same information from the moment Juri and Hokuto ‘fake’ departed from the Center. So no matter if they talked to Reo or Jesse and Shintaro, they should be fine, as long as none of them had mind reading abilities.

When they kept walking down the corridor, Hokuto dared to look up at one of the security cameras as he walked behind the others. He needed to know if he was right, but he didn’t know how to ask for a sign, yet he didn’t need to anymore as the camera moved just a tiny little bit to the left and that was all Hokuto had needed. Aran was in the lab! He was in full control of the Center’s security system and that made things a bit easier for Hokuto. Yet they had to find out if the Elite-Vestige had any special abilities and if it was a smart move to actually try to fight against them or if it was better to just wait. But somehow Hokuto was concerned about the situation at the Main Center so he needed to contact Shime and Noel as fast as he could.

***

“What the hell was that sudden rain,” Hagi complained as he made it down the ladder to the main floor of the hideout. His clothes were drained completely and he immediately threw his jacket and shirt into one of the corners, not wanting to take even more water into the hideout.

“Just wait until tomorrow, who knows if the weather will give us a heat stroke next or a blizzard,” Taiga complained as he took his long blonde strands into a ponytail to get the water out a bit.

Even before the war the weather had started to change and humanity had failed in keeping climate change under control. There was nothing like a four season weather anymore and it was never clear what kind of weather would follow next. Even the oceans were sometimes boiling up, then freezing cold. But if they wanted to get it under control they had to first end the war, not that they felt like it actually had an end.

“Damn, what I would give for a hot shower now,” Hagi complained, but Taisuke’s hideout didn’t have that kind of luxury. “I will grab some spare clothes. Yokoo told me where they keep them. Wait here so that we don’t flood the whole place.”

Taiga nodded gratefully as he remained in the entrance area. It had gotten colder with the heavy rain and even though Fallen and Vestige weren’t that affected by it, the time they had needed to make it back to the hideout from their patrol had made Taiga start shivering nevertheless. He put his hands up to his arms to rub a bit of warmth into them, but once more the water from his hair got in his way and he turned back to the entrance to get more water out of his hair so that it wouldn’t run down his face.

When something was thrown over his head he wanted to scold Hagi for throwing the dry clothes at him as they would just get wet like that, but when he turned around, a hand landed on the fabric and rubbed it over the boy’s hair. “Even Fallen can catch a cold and you are on the best way to it.”

It hadn’t been clothes, but a towel and it hadn’t been Hagi, but Taisuke. While everything told Taiga to step back, to take the other one’s hand away and use the towel by himself, he just couldn’t do it as his look went up to the older one’s face.

How could he look so calm? So gentle? They had tried to kill each other just days ago, their instincts battling each other too desperately to live alongside each other. Yet the instinct was making their lives even more complicated now or at least for Taiga, because Taisuke seemed to totally enjoy taking care of the other one. Not that it would stay that harmless and Taiga knew that of course, yet again he just didn’t move away.

“Hagi said he will bring spare clothes,” Taiga let out, not even knowing why his voice sounded so shy.

“Great, then you can get out of these,” Taisuke said and reached out for the other one’s jacket, pulling it down his shoulders and when Taisuke stepped a bit too close, Taiga finally made a step back and got out of the jacket by himself. Taisuke of course realized the change, but he couldn’t do more than show him an apologizing reaction. It was obvious how much he tried to not let things escalate again like the other night, but who were they kidding? It was impossible.

“Here, take the towel. You should definitely get out of that shirt,” Taisuke said and held the towel towards him. Taiga didn’t take it right away and finally got rid of his shirt for now. As he reached out to grab the towel, his hand landed half on Taisuke’s and once more he felt how he behaved so damn stupid. Instead of taking the towel, he grabbed the other one’s hand and Taisuke dared to step closer again and lifted the towel up to the boy’s hair once more with a soft touch.

The sound of a door opening right behind Taisuke made Taiga almost jump to the back and Taisuke turned towards the person stepping out.

“Oh, finally awake? How are you feeling?” Taisuke somehow was able to bring out.

Juri’s look turned from slightly disorientated to fully confused in seconds. He had no idea where he was or how the battle had ended, but the picture in front of him seemed even more confusing to him. Slowly Taisuke took down the towel he somehow still held awkwardly in the air, while Taiga crossed his arms to his exposed upper body with a weird hawk.

“Hey Taiga, I could only- oh, Juri! And- ehm what is going on here?” Hagi asked, obviously as confused as Juri, but also a bit scolding as he of course had been told to have an eye on Taiga, yet it seemed like Taisuke always showed up when they weren’t around for a second.

“Guys, give me a break,” Juri complained, rubbing his temples, obviously still in pain, which was understandable after all the impacts he had taken in. “I will go back to my room until you solve whatever this is and then can someone please explain to me what happened? And I mean the important stuff, thanks.”

With a hand movement at Taiga and Taisuke when talking about ‘this’, Juri went back straight to his room and closed the door as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile Hagi finally walked up to Taiga and pressed some clothes against his chest. He had changed already and gave Taisuke a look over his shoulder now.

“Right, I will tell the others that Juri woke up,” Taisuke said and when he entered the lab a heavy silence lay between Hagi and Taiga.

“Do I need to worry?” Hagi asked, but instead of feeling guilty, there was anger rising inside Taiga. He grabbed the shirt with an annoyed click of his tongue, leaving Hagi even more speechless.

“No you don’t and Myuto also doesn’t have to,” Taiga replied, which meant as much as no need to even tell Myuto. “I will talk to Juri.”

Without giving Hagi the chance to reply, Taiga headed towards the boy’s room, but he also felt sorry, because his own anger wasn’t Hagi’s fault. It was all because of the instinct. Now that it didn’t have to fight anymore, it just put up a wall to protect his and Taisuke’s emotions and it was as difficult to control as the urge to rip the other one apart.

***

“Why do you waste your time? If you want to know anything, look at that oh so awesome Vestige behind you. His mind reading ability will definitely tell you everything you need to know.”

Reo’s snappy attitude had even Hokuto taken aback as he behaved even more fiercely than he had back when he was indeed still their enemy. But it was obvious that even for Reo it was easier to play it this way than in his usual fun way.

“Did you use your mind reading on him already?” Katsuki asked and Hokuto nodded. He still leaned back at the metal door of their special observation room, for the first time really used on a Fallen, not that Reo would try to break out of it. Which would also not be that simple, because even with the lab shut down, the special observation room had a special security system as a backup which could be used right from the outside of the room. But that didn’t mean that Aran couldn’t take control of the room if he wanted to.

Hokuto had already told them the fake story about how they had captured him with his mind control and that he needed to be chained down, because of his illusion ability. Now exactly that had happened and Reo played with the chains, which were connected to two metal hooks in the ground, while Katsuki was standing in front of his chair and Konpi was sitting on one of the tables with an annoyed expression.

“We found out where their hideout is located, but when Juri went over to check on it, they had already abandoned it.”

“That reminds me, where is your transmitter?” Katsuki asked, but then Reo let out an annoyed sound and threw his head to the back.

“You know I feel like you interrogate him more than me. Would you mind and get lost if you want to waste his time instead?”

This time Konpi got up from the table and Hokuto bit the inside of his cheek when the boy lifted his leg and gave Reo a harsh kick to the stomach and left his leg up on the other one’s upper body as he leant down to him. Reo gave him a death glare and yanked on the chains, but picking a fight was no option for him.

“But like this it’s more fun,” Konpi said and pulled something out of his pocket and while Reo had no clue what it was, Hokuto’s eyes grew wide as he stepped away from the door.

“Why do you have that?” Hokuto asked, his voice not as steady as he wanted it to be.

“We have access to almost everything as Elite-Vestige and as we knew that you are in this Center we made sure to bring it,” Konpi said as he used unnecessary force to push himself away from Reo resulting with another angry glare from the Fallen.

“But it doesn’t matter, right?” Konpi asked, as he waved the remote control in front of Hokuto’s face. “We heard a lot of stories about you. But as calm as you are I am sure we are not talking to your Fallen self, right?”

Of course the Main Center had been still kept in the dark about Hokuto’s and Taiga’s transitions as well as all the other Fallen related news, yet this was the worst they could have brought with them. Because what if the remote suddenly worked? Now he was a Vestige, it was going to work, right? They would find out!

Hokuto’s panic got the best of him and he remained completely silent, which made Katsuki walk up to him with a skeptical look.

“We heard that in fights your Fallen self would take over, but you captured Reo without it?”

That question made Reo laugh so that they turned back to him, giving Hokuto a moment to get himself back together.

“You forget that Hokuto’s Fallen self can use his abilities as well. He is an asshole I can tell you that, but helping you guys out just to mock us, is something he also loves doing. He feels superior.”

“I would say he is, because now you are here and he is still with Hokuto,” Konpi mocked the other one.

“Is he?” Katsuki asked as he turned back to Hokuto, but this time the other one had gotten his act up again.

“I wish I could tell you that I was able to get rid of him, but unfortunately the Main Center didn’t come up with something until now and Kochi didn’t either, so I fear you have to live with the chance that he will show up if you go on my nerves too much.”

Konpi laughed on that, already looking forward to actually facing the Fallen self not knowing that for that he would need to meet Taiga now. “What a shame, then this thing is just a useless toy this time.”

Even though Konpi had said so, his finger went right to one of the buttons on it and Hokuto froze, ready to experience severe pain, yet nothing happened…

“Boring,” Konpi said as he put the remote back into his pocket.

“Do Elite-Vestige not have a microchip or why do you think it’s ok to just ‘try out’ if mine works?” Hokuto asked, trying to calm down his racing heartbeat.

“No need for you to know,” Katsuki said as he gave Reo another look. “For now I think we won’t get anything out of him, so let’s discuss how we proceed from here. We need to report to the Main Center.”

Hokuto was grateful for the break he would get, but he also wanted to know why the remote wasn’t working, not that it was his priority to find out. For now they had to make a plan, which was difficult with them not being able to talk to each other. But maybe Aran could somehow help them to get Katsuki and Konpi out of the way long enough to come up with something. But for now Hokuto needed to know more about them and their special abilities before he could make any kind of plan.

***

"Okay, then I guess I should wait just a bit longer until I head back too," Juri concluded after getting a brief explanation from Taiga and of course the boy had left out all the stuff about Taisuke. Now they were in the lab with Myuto, Kentaro, Senga and Yokoo. But of course Juri could feel Myuto's eyes on Taiga.

"Yes, I think we should wait until we get a reply from Hokuto. As long as we don't know what is going on at the West Center I don't think you should head there too."

Myuto was right, but Juri was also feeling restless. He had gotten all the fake stories from the others, but for now he wanted to rest some more.

"Give me until the morning and I'll help you with your patrols, okay?" Juri said and of course everyone agreed and Juri excused himself for now.

"Guess we should also get ready. The others should be back soon," Kentaro said and it was obvious that all he wanted to do was to actually get out and find his brother. It was getting complicated to have Kentaro on a team without him, not that anyone could blame him.

"Taiga and I will go," Myuto announced on which Kentaro pouted, but when Hagi told him that they would go for the next one, Taiga knew that this was no random patrol and he sighed but headed to the door.

They walked in silence for quite a while until they had left the hideout behind them and at a rocky open surface Taiga finally stopped.

"Hagi told you, didn't he?"

Of course he had, Myuto was their leader and they were all worried for Taiga.

"I just want to remind you of our promise to Hokuto. You know that at some point you'll have to let Taiga take over again and he'll definitely ask me to dig out those memories," Myuto explained, but it was obvious that he also didn't want to do so, yet he wouldn't refuse if Taiga asked him. He had taken the dangerous step of letting his Fallen self take over for so long. He deserved to know what had happened, yet it was clear that the aftermath of knowing was going to be heavy.

"At least they won't be his memories."

The Fallen self had whispered the words ahead into the forest, but of course Myuto had heard him and when he let out a long breath he could see the breath forming a cloud in the air. It had gotten extremely cold, snow definitely about to fall.

"Look, I know that for Taiga's sake I have to try hard as well to not give him even worse memories and trust me when I tell you I'm trying."

Of course he had already failed once, but while it still remained a secret, Myuto obviously had caught up to the fact that something had happened. Yet Myuto didn't seem angry. His look was calm, but the worry for Taiga was obvious.

"I guess we all have to thank you for what you've done in the end, no matter if you or the instinct decide to do some harmful things in between."

The snort Taiga let out on hearing that made Myuto crack a smile this time. But he meant what he had said. The Fallen self could have betrayed them at all times, but for Taiga's sake he hadn’t done so.

"You had offered me a place back then," Taiga said as he looked up into the sky. "At that time I really wanted that place. I wanted my own life and I would have sacrificed Hokuto to get it."

"But not Taiga," Myuto concluded as he walked away from the other one with his hands in his pockets.

"Now I'm offered another place,” Taiga said his look a bit absentminded. "But exactly because of this connection I understand now what I would take away from Taiga to get my own happiness."

It was weird to hear him talk like this, because even though he had gone through a lot of changes through the instinct and two serums, in the end even the Reverse serum wouldn’t turn him as he was only a mindset and his body belonged to Taiga. That was luckily also why he had been able to put up an act with Taisuke before as the original Fallen serum didn’t really had any effect on him as he had always been a full Fallen and only the blood connection had powered up his instinct and had made staying in control a challenge.

"Then show me how determined you are," Myuto said as he had walked in front of Taiga at some distance and turned towards him with a challenging smile. "Show me what that instinct is capable of."

The invitation for a fight came as a surprise to Taiga and for a moment he looked startled until he also formed a brief smile and started moving his arms and neck with an exciting expression. "All injuries go on you. I won't hold back."

"I didn't ask you to," Myuto replied with another teasing smile before they both dashed to the front.

Being trapped all together in the hideout had caused them all a lot of growing tension so this fight was something they definitely needed. It was also a chance for Taiga to give his instinct a moment of release and try and keep his walls up as best as he could afterwards.

Musen 28 - February

There was not a single second in which Hokuto wasn't under supervision of one of the Elite Vestige. But while Katsuki had obviously talked to Jesse and Shintaro as well, it didn't seem like they had said anything out of the ordinary. Yet they were still quite suspicious especially because they weren't able to enter the lab.

"Did the Main Center contact you about Kochi?" Hokuto asked again as he was sitting in the common room with Konpi, a few Chasers scattered around the room, but it was obvious that they didn't like the presence of the Elite Vestige either.

"And again I'll tell you that this is none of your business," Konpi replied while he was lying with his upper body on the table, obviously not happy about playing babysitter for Hokuto.

"Kochi is the leader of the West Center, you took him without giving us further information about the reason, neither did you contact us or let him contact us. So yes this is my business," Hokuto let out a bit snappier this time.

Konpi sat up and gave him a warning look, but he wouldn't get provoked enough to spill any secrets. When Katsuki finally came back after he had a talk with Reo again, the boy's mood seemed to brighten up.

"Your turn to watch him," Konpi chirped and jumped up, but Katsuki stopped him before he could leave the room.

"I need you to stay for a bit longer."

Katsuki's request made a weird smile appear on the boy's lips before he turned back to Hokuto. "Great, then get up."

"What are you up to this time?" Hokuto asked, yet Konpi rolled his eyes as he stepped closer to the Vestige and slammed his foot on the bench he was sitting on. Some Chasers tensed on the boy’s behavior, but they knew that interfering would make things even worse. "You'll see soon enough, now stop asking unnecessary questions and get up."

Hokuto did how he was told, but he looked over to Jesse and Shintaro before they left the room. Both boys nodded at him, but they couldn't do much at the moment either. The Chasers weren't under strict supervision, but if they did something suspicious it could end in a disaster.

"Which one is your room?" Katsuki asked as they made it to the second floor and now Hokuto finally got worried.

"It doesn't matter if you lie, any room will do," Konpi added.

Hokuto showed them his room, but there was nothing they could actually find in here.

"Why are there Chaser clothes in your room?" Katsuki asked as he randomly picked up some clothes. Right, Taiga usually slept in his room most of the time so a lot of clothes had ended up in here as well.

When Hokuto didn't reply, Konpi got ready to threaten him once more, but Katsuki stopped him, this topic luckily not of his concern for now.

"We talked to everyone in this Center and we got either no information or the same useless information," Katsuki explained.

"So? I already told you what I know," Hokuto replied, but had his eyes on Konpi who kept walking around him.

"And to find out if any of you is lying we need you to talk to everyone."

This time Katsuki's words didn't make much sense to him until Konpi stopped right next to him with the same excited look as before.

"With the difference that I will be going instead of you."

Hokuto reacted intuitively and jumped back before Konpi could reach out for him, but Katsuki was blocking the door.

"As if I let you use your abilities on me."

"We will get Konpi to use his mind switch if you want to or not. So it depends on if you want it the hard way or the easy one?" Katsuki told him.

"Mind switch? So you can use my body, but put your own mind in it?"

"Exactly," Konpi said and walked slowly over to Hokuto once more. "I can only control your body for a certain amount of time and my body will be useless for that time, but I can take back all the memories from the time I used your body."

Which meant he didn't possess any kind reading ability, which was good to know. Now he had to decide though if he wanted to put up a fight or not. Would the others notice? Or would they spill their secrets to Konpi?

When the boy tried to jump at him once more Hokuto attacked for the first time, but before he could use any of his abilities he was thrown to the back, right into the wall. But the movement hadn't come from Konpi.

With a groan Hokuto got up again and gave Katsuki an annoyed look. The boy had barely moved. He had only lifted his hand.

"Telekinesis?"

"Exactly," Katsuki replied. "So you better choose wisely if you want to fight us."

Not fighting would make it more believable that they had no secrets, but if he fought…

"Even if I don't fight you, I cannot promise you that my Fallen self will stay silent," Hokuto warned them of a threat not existing anymore.

"That's fine with me. I want to meet him anyway," Konpi said clearly excited, but Hokuto backed off to the corner once more yet he knew that they weren't going to stop even if they had to face his Fallen self.

"Last chance," Katsuki said and lifted his hand, but this time Hokuto didn't run when Konpi got closer to him. He had to believe in the others to somehow find out that something was off. Fighting them now wouldn't make much sense and he was sure that the outcome was going to be the same.

"Oh, done running away? How boring," Konpi complained as Hokuto gave him an annoyed look, but didn't back off when the boy reached out for his face.

After a few seconds Katsuki walked over to them and the same as with mind controlling, Hokuto realized how he was losing control of his own thoughts, but he somehow still stayed in the back of his own mind. Maybe it was normal for this ability or it was because he had trained with Myuto and Taiga for similar abilities before.

Konpi collapsed to the back the next moment and Katsuki lifted him on the bed before he turned back to Hokuto.

"Did it work?" Katsuki asked, facing Hokuto.

"When did it not work?" Konpi asked with Hokuto's voice yet Hokuto could still follow their conversation. Maybe he could even kick him out if necessary? After all, he was able to do it with mind control.

"Hokuto is special after all, the Fallen self could interfere, so stay focused."

"Fine, then let's go," Konpi said and while he left the room, Katsuki stayed behind. Right, if they wanted someone to spill secrets there was no chance to get them if Katsuki was with him.

He made his way down to the main floor, but most Chasers had moved to the training room instead of the common area. Konpi aimed for Shintaro and Jesse, the two totally confused when Hokuto walked up to them.

"Where are the Elite-Vestige?" Shintaro asked, already on high alert.

"I was able to keep them busy with something else. Any updates?"

The question was well asked, because even though they didn't know about Hokuto and the others lying or not, the question could get interpreted in a lot of ways.

"Nothing so far," Jesse said and Hokuto cursed in his mind. They hadn't realized at all.

"But there is something about Reo. You remember when you said there was that mind block? I think we found a solution to get into that part," Shintaro said and while Konpi immediately asked what they had found out, Hokuto was left confused. What mind block? What was going on?

"You want to try?" Jesse asked after an explanation that could have never been made up by Jesse himself.

"But you should get at least one of the Elite Vestige. I don't want to end up in trouble," Shintaro added and Konpi actually agreed.

He got Katsuki and left Konpi in his room while they told Shintaro and Jesse to wait.

"They seriously need to clean this Center more often," Konpi complained as he lifted his hand to the air as a bit of dusk seemed to have risen from the floor in front of the special observation room.

"You can't use his special abilities, so we need to figure out what to do now," Katsuki said as they stopped in front of Reo's room.

"I'll just leave his mind at some point and you can force him to do that mind reading part the way the Chasers just said."

Katsuki agreed and entered the room first, Reo sitting silently on his chair with his head down.

"Did we get a sand storm or what?" Konpi complained once more and that was when it clicked.

Hokuto was still at the door while Katsuki had walked up to Reo and it was now or never. Hokuto put all his remaining strength into kicking Konpi out of his mind and the boy gasped, leaning to the front.

Katsuki on the other hand had reached out for Reo, but on the touch the illusion vanished and he swirled around with wide eyes.

Hokuto feared he wouldn't have enough time, but then he was grabbed by the back of his shirt and pulled out of the room while Reo slammed the door shut from the outside, leaving Katsuki trapped inside.

Hokuto kept fighting off Konpi and finally the boy's mind switch was gone, leaving Hokuto gasping for air.

"Reo? How? What is going on?" Hokuto asked and the boy gave him a bright smile and pointed up at the camera.

"You're welcome," Aran was heard, but not from the security system, but from right behind him.

"Konpi, he is still-"

"No he is not," Aran interrupted Hokuto as he was about to panic. "When you left your room without them I knew that something was off so I contacted the Chasers and gave them a plan on how to lure you two into this room while I unlocked Reo's room so that he could get out. The Chasers took care of Konpi the moment you two came to this room."

That explained at least why Shintaro and Jesse talked about something Hokuto had never heard about.

"I'll head over to help them. After all, it's an Elite-Vestige. We need to make sure to keep them separated and tied up," Reo offered and headed down the corridor.

"But they will contact the Main Center," Hokuto said as he got up, but once more Aran shook his head.

"I unplugged the antennas for now. They will realize that too, but not as fast. But you need to go out to the truck and contact the others, right?"

"How do you know all that?” Hokuto asked.

“Let’s say Kochi had made up a plan the moment you left the Center. He had already seen this outcome with the way we hid all the information from the Main Center for this long so he guessed that you would come up with a plan to come back here somehow.”

“Anyway, thank you. Without you we would have been screwed,” Hokuto thanked him. “But now we have to decide what to do next. I need to hear back from Shime and Noel if they found Kochi or not.”

***

“So you know the leader of the Elite Vestige?” Juri asked as he had finally recovered enough to have longer talks without getting a headache. Taiga and Myuto both nodded, but then Juri turned to Taiga. “How come you know him? You have not been with Taiga before this year.”

“I still have access to all his memories since we switched the first time, so I know Reia as well.”

“And he is one of the orphans you took care of, right? Are any of the other Elite Vestige also kids you know?”

Myuto shook his head as he lifted up the photos the others had sent them from the Vestige of the Centers. “No, these boys we don’t know. But it could be that the others are still part of the Main Center or-”

“That they died in their endless tests to create the Elite-Vestige,” Taiga said out loud what Myuto didn’t want to say. “After all they vanished when Myuto and others were still turned into Fallen. So they kept this research behind closed doors for years. Who knows how many people have died over that time.”

In a moment of uncomfortable silence the contact device on Miyata’s desk kicked in. The other Fallen were not in the lab, but they had all learned by now how to use the transmitter and Taiga hurried to put the signal through.

“Hey, sorry for the wait.”

“Hokuto! Are you guys okay?” Taiga was confused about his own worried voice as were Myuto and Juri obviously, but no matter if Taiga was not awake at the moment, the worry about Hokuto was a natural part even for the Fallen self.

“We had some trouble, but we kind of solved it for now. Aran helped us to overpower the Elite-Vestige and they are grounded for now, but the Main Center will soon realize so we have to act fast. Did Shime find Kochi?”

There was so much information to exchange, but for now Myuto felt calmer just by hearing that Aran was with them and safe.

“No, unfortunately not,” Myuto explained. “They have access to almost all parts of the Main Center, but they didn’t find him yet.”

“That is unfortunately what I thought.”

“What is on your mind?” Taiga asked.

“I doubt they just brought him in for a normal questioning. They have realized that we were doing something behind their backs. The Elite-Vestige even brought my remote just to test if my Fallen self was still with me.”

“What?” Juri let out, completely in shock about hearing that and his hand immediately went up to the back of his neck.

“Don’t worry it didn’t work, I am not sure why, but at least they couldn’t prove that my Fallen self wasn’t with me anymore.”

“Then what do we do?” Myuto asked, but they all remained silent for a moment.

“I have an idea, but it will be super reckless, yet it’s the only plan I can think of,” Hokuto finally said. “I thought a lot about something like we pulled off here at the West Center, but it might be too risky and I don’t want to put anyone else in the same danger I put Reo in.”

“So you want us to directly attack?” Myuto said, as that would give them the chance to use their full power on the Main Center.

“I know it sounds reckless, but we already have two Elite-Vestige captive, so I would say we should send some back up for the others to keep the Elite-Vestige away from the Main Center while we attack and use the chaos to get information about Kochi’s whereabouts. If Shime’s information are correct then only Reia is at the Main Center with other Vestige and soldiers right now.”

“Let me go in first,” Juri suggested, but everyone gave him a skeptical look. “They are waiting for me to return in the first place and I can pretend that I had been at the West Center first and make them believe that there is a problem with the Antenna and that is why they can’t contact their Elite-Vestige while I can also try and find out more about Kochi without being too suspicious. After all, Shime can’t just ask around for Kochi. Officially he shouldn’t even know that he is there.”

“But what about me?” Taiga asked as he was with Juri in their fake story.

“I can just say you stayed at the West Center to help out there.”

“Or we can also say you died in a fight against us if you want it more dramatic?” Myuto’s words had Taiga hit him against the shoulder and the other one chuckled, but then his look turned serious again.

“So we need to form teams and make a plan on how to proceed in an emergency,” Myuto explained and he looked at Juri who nodded.

“If you can’t contact me anymore then you know that they are definitely up to something. I am willing to take the risk and it might be easier to find out their motives like this in the first place. It’s not like we did anything bad with the serum, but Kochi was worried about telling them and I think he just got proven right.”

“Hokuto, we will make a plan and count how many people we have per team and contact you again,” Taiga promised and Hokuto told them to hurry and contact him before nightfall.

“So if our information are right, then there is one Elite-Vestige at all remaining Centers, but we only have one or two Chasers or Vestige from Shime’s team at each Center. Do we have enough people to pull this off?” Myuto asked a bit skeptical.

“Count us in.”

Everyone turned towards the door where Taisuke was leaning against the doorframe. “We owe you a lot so there is no way we will stay behind and just watch you run into your doom.”

“Thanks, the more people, the better,” Juri thanked the Fallen. “Then we have seven members from Taisuke’s group, five from Myuto’s group, Taiga and me.”

“Nika and I will head to the East Center,” Kentaro was heard behind Taisuke and the boy didn’t seem as if anyone could argue about that decision.

“We have enough people to send one or two more Fallen with you,” Myuto offered, but Kentaro shook his head.

“I don’t need even more people in my way. I will tell Nika. Let me know when you are ready to leave.”

Myuto shook his head at the other one as he left without even listening to the whole plan.

“Well, he is too stubborn to argue with anyway,” Taiga said and let him be.

“And if he gets his ass beaten then he can still ask for help,” Myuto added, discussing the remaining teams for now so that they could come up with a plan as soon as possible, not that they knew what kind of chaos they were bringing themselves into in the first place.

***

“That’s a ridiculous plan,” Aran complained after Hokuto had told everyone in the West Center what they were going to do, but of course no one was supportive of Juri running right into the lion cage.

“Kochi is no Vestige, there is no way he can get out of there by himself and over all these years it’s pretty clear to us that he always tried things different from the Government. You all know that,” Hokuto said and faced the Chasers who had gathered in the training room. “You stayed even after I told you about my Fallen self, you stayed when Taiga became a Fallen and you even stayed when we brought Myuto and the others into our Center. And you did it all because you believed in Kochi, so let me ask you, do you want him to take all the blame for what we have decided as well to do?”

Shintaro was the one to step to the front on Hokuto’s words. “It’s not that I don’t agree with the main plan,” Shintaro started. “I don’t agree with the part where we sit here and don’t beat the shit out of those Government bastards ourselves.”

The round of agreement going through the rows of Chasers made Hokuto smile while Aran rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I warn you, if anyone dares to do something that is not part of the plan I am here to beat your ass in Kochi’s name.”

“Aran could definitely take over for Kochi,” Jesse joked.

“Reo will stay here to make sure Konpi and Katsuki are under control and when Hagi arrives I will head to the Main Center,” Hokuto explained. “I know you don’t like staying back, but you have two Elite-Vestige here and don’t forget that they are extremely dangerous and if you let your guard down the West Center will be in trouble as well and we will need this place to retreat to in case things don’t go as planned.”

“Don’t worry we will make sure that no one can get even close to our Center,” Shintaro almost yelled. “I can’t wait to kick those two Vestige in their Elite ass and with that out of this Center for good.”

“Make sure to stay in contact with the others, I will be in the lab,” Aran said towards Hokuto.

“Do you think you can somehow enter their system?” Hokuto asked after Aran had said he would try to hack into their system over a non-trackable device he had used in Myuto’s hideout before.

“Maybe, but if they find out then Kochi and Juri are in danger so I need to be really careful.”

They all had to be careful, but also fast, because Hokuto just couldn’t shake off that weird feeling about the Government suddenly moving out to all Centers this aggressively because of unrelated reasons to the West Center as well.

Musen 28 - February

The problem wasn’t to get into the Main Center, it was more about getting out again. Juri had given everyone all the possible details about what kind of story he would tell the members of the Main Center, yet at least Miyata was listening to everything as he had given Juri the last contact device they had. It was as big as Kochi’s old transmitter so he had to hide it in one of the pockets of his combat vest. It was able to record all the conversations around, but he would need to take it out to record pictures or videos so they wouldn’t know where exactly he was or who he was talking to. It also didn’t have a tracker, but they had to take what they had.

The researchers and soldiers of the Center greeted Juri with the respect he deserved as a Vestige, because no matter if the government had suddenly put the new Elite-Vestige in charge, all Vestige were officially commanding everyone else in all Centers. Except for the Center leaders and the government members, not that many of them were usually around at the gates.

“I heard that Kochi had been brought to the Main Center a few days ago. I am here to pick him up as our Center experienced some antenna problems and as we cannot access the lab without him, we will be an easy target for Fallen,” Juri explained to one of the soldiers in charge.

“Sorry to put you through the trouble. You can find him in sector B2.”

The soldier bowed and walked away, but Juri could only give him a slightly confused look.

“Something is going on,” Juri whispered, knowing that everyone in Taisuke’s hideout was listening and giving the information to the remaining teams. The moment something went wrong they would all carry out their parts in the remaining plan. For now they had to stand back or Juri could get in even more trouble.

The Main Center was in a normal routine as it seemed, nothing out of the ordinary, but sector B was a place Juri didn’t want to enter again. It was the place where every new Vestige was usually under a test after their transition. Their abilities and possible special abilities got tested there and it wasn’t a pleasant memory for any of them. As the sector B2 would usually only hold Vestige it was obvious that they were up to something as Kochi would usually always be in the research sector A if he visited the Main Center.

The B sector of the Main Building was silent and almost no people crossed his way, but with no new Vestige there was no need for the sector at the moment, but that was also why Juri didn’t like it. It just felt so forbidden, so dreary. 

“They know,” Juri whispered again, just having that really bad feeling about the whole situation. “There is no way they would keep Kochi here if it was just an interrogation.”

They had all their research and paper work facilities in sector A so it didn’t make any sense to bring Kochi into this sector. Nevertheless Juri made his way to sector B3 from where he would need to enter the next sector.

His steps echoed in the empty room, the place Vestige would fight each other for the very first time to then get told which Center they would belong to after weeks of tests and trainings. Juri had aimed to be part of the Main Center at that time, but his special ability wasn’t useful enough for them and he had been extremely down to be send to the West Center, yet meeting Kochi there had changed everything and he was not going to let the Government take the boy’s hard work away.

In the middle of the room Juri stopped, letting out a sigh.

“So I guess you will tell me now that I am not allowed any further?”

Of course the others couldn’t see who he was talking to, not that Juri could as he wasn’t seeing the other one yet, but he knew that he wasn’t alone and a moment later he heard footsteps on the other side of the room and a boy stepped out of the shadows.

“I fear so yes,” the boy said and while Juri wasn’t allowed to say his name as he wasn’t supposed to know him in the first place, he was sure that Myuto and Taiga recognized the voice of the Elite-Vestige leader. “But how about I listen to your story? I bet you came up with some pretty amazing detailed fake story to make it this far.”

Of course they had realized that everything had been fake.

“An antenna problem was it, right? What a coincidence that it occurred after Hokuto brought in a Fallen,” Reia said as he walked closer to Juri with his hands on his back and a calm smile on his lips.

“Please feel free to go and check yourself, the two Elite Vestige at our Center couldn’t help fixing it either. Which reminds me, you seem to know me, yet I don’t know you.”

“Playing the clueless card, I see,” Reia replied. “Then let me do you the favor and play along. I am Nakamura Reia, the leader of the Elite-Vestige and currently in charge of all Centers.”

The arrogance the boy spoke with made Juri want to roll his eyes, yet he tried to stay as neutral as possible. “Then would you mind telling me what is going on? Because the other two didn’t really want to give me any information.”

“As they are supposed to. But what they are also not supposed to do is letting you go to the Main Center, no matter the circumstances at your Center,” Reia replied and that fact made it even more clear that Reia was more than aware that the West Center had come up with a plan to get Kochi out. “So do you want to try again and tell me what is going on?”

Juri had to calculate well what he was going to say as Reia didn’t seem aware of Myuto or Taisuke being on their side now. Hokuto had said it as well that the other two had tried to get information, so all they knew was that something was going on, but not exactly what it was.

“I hoped you could tell me, because you took our leader away from an unprotected Center while no Vestige was present and now they are even without the security of the lab or the connection to the other Centers. But if you can’t tell us then I will take my leave and ask someone else for help.”

The way Reia’s smile grew wider on Juri’s words made it clear that there was no way he would let Juri leave like this. But it also meant that the others were going to carry out their plan B now and Juri wasn’t that fond of it, not that he felt in any way capable of fighting his way out of the Main Center and also find Kochi on the way, so all he could do was buying time for the others to make their way to the Centers before Reia could actually try and get the other Elite Vestige back to the Main Center.

“As much as I am up for all this fake talking and playing games, I unfortunately do not have the time to play around with you the whole day,” Reia said as he finally changed his attitude and Juri immediately made a step back as he could tell that the boy wasn’t bluffing.

“You have no proof that the West Center did anything that would allow you to keep Kochi or me at the Main Center,” Juri shot back, but Reia shook his head.

“Then who will stop me?”

That was the question indeed and it just proved that the Government was behind all of this in the first place and letting the Elite-Vestige run wild like this wasn’t helping anyone but them for now, as the Centers would now end up fighting against their own people.

They both froze in their movements for a while until Reia took another step to the front and Juri didn’t want to take his chances as he was sure that without any effective special ability he wasn’t’ going to stand a chance so he turned around and dashed for the stairs.

What he hadn’t seen coming was Reia’s speed, which was even more impressive than that of a Fallen. The boy showed up right next to him and Juri jumped back the moment Reia tried to reach out for his face.

“A special ability that needs contact? What is it, mind reading?” Juri asked, making the question as obvious as possible so the others got to know about the boy’s special ability.

“Oh, it’s not as simple as that and also not as harmless as all the mind abilities you have experienced until now.”

That didn’t sound good, but Juri had no time to ask more questions as Reia attacked straight on this time, chasing Juri through the room, not wasting time with any other attacks. All he obviously needed was his hand on Juri’s face, but that was exactly what Juri needed to prevent.

“Don’t make it this so complicated,” Reia complained as he stopped and that right in time for Juri to catch his breath for a moment. The boy was incredibly fast and coordinated. “I would tell you that you don’t have to be afraid, but my ability will unfortunately teach you the exact opposite.”

Juri could only raise an eyebrow on that statement before he had to start running again, but he soon found himself cornered and he tried to find any opening, but even though he was sure that he was going to be able to get his hand on the boy for a shockwave first, it was him who was thrown into the wall without any direct contact and yet the impact had been huge. As huge as if Yuma had hit him with his special ability.

“What was that? Do you have more than one special ability?” Juri asked as he tried to get up again, but it was difficult for him to get his orientation back.

“Way better,” Reia said and lifted his hand. “We Elite-Vestige can use our shockwaves from a meter distance, so we don’t have to touch you and while our shockwave is weaker on distance you definitely could tell right now that we are way stronger than you even on that distance.”

Just the fact that this shockwave had been his weakest one, made Juri fear that not even the Fallen would stand a chance against the Elite-Vestige.

“If you want to talk then this is your last chance,” Reia offered, making Juri laugh.

“With your attitude there is no way that talking to you about anything will have any positive outcome,” Juri replied as he got back up and got ready to face the other one head on this time as he knew that running away wouldn’t help him.

“Great, then I guess we will have a talk later and I am already looking forward to your friends getting to know about it, but for now they are unfortunately not allowed to be part of the rest of the fight.”

Another outcome Juri should have already seen coming and when Reia dashed right at him the next time, Juri could barely dodge the boy’s shockwaves, but Reia’s aim had been the boy’s vest and he ripped the contact device out of the pocket before he send Juri with a direct shockwave right on his chest to the ground this time.

The force had Juri cough blood with just one impact and with a curse he tried to get up once more, but he couldn’t easily move.

“Interesting. This looks like the device the Centers used quite some time ago, so I guess this is not one of Kochi’s toys?”

When Juri didn’t reply, Reia walked up to him and stepped on his leg when Juri failed to get up in time. Even their normal physical strength was way higher than theirs and while Myuto and Taisuke were also quite strong, Reia’s strength was of another level as he only had to step down a bit more to make Juri whine and try to get his leg free, which was about to snap under the pressure. “Playing tough? Well, then let’s ask the one on the other side. Who am I talking to?”

No reply. The silence made Reia laugh before he leant down to Juri who tried to use the moment when Reia stepped away from his leg to use a shockwave on the boy, but of course Reia had been faster and sent Juri right into the ground once more.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to me?” Reia asked once more, but of course the device stayed silent. This time Reia tried to reach out for Juri’s face, but the boy still had some strength left to fight, yet Reia just grabbed his wrist and crushed his bones with his grip, making Juri scream out this time. Not getting a break, Reia put his hand on the boy’s chest and used his strongest shockwave to crush his ribcage.

This time Juri couldn’t even scream, all he did was fall back with his head on the floor with a pained cough. “Last chance.”

There was no way that they would talk to Reia as that had been their most important rule. No matter what happened they wouldn’t tell anyone who they were or what they were up to, it was just too risky. The Government had messed up the moment they had taken Kochi by force and put them under supervision of Elite-Vestige they didn’t even know and who didn’t give them any clear answers. So they wouldn’t give them any information either.

“Well, I guess then we have to wait for the next person coming to rescue both of you?” Reia mocked Juri as he finally put his hand on the boy’s face. It had been such a short touch, not even the slightest painful or long enough to even say if it was connected to an ability or not and at first nothing happened while Reia got up.

“But let me make it a bit more complicated for you,” Reia said into the device. “I'll give you a hint though. If you come here, then you will find one, but not the other one. Now you have to decide who will need your help first.”

Another useless information as they had already made that point clear as well. The Main Center was their main goal and no matter if Kochi or Juri, they would free whoever they found there and then keep looking in case anyone was taken away from the Main Center.

It was the moment when Juri felt as if he was going to be fine that his whole world around him shattered. There had been no sign of pain, no warning of what was going on in his mind, but before the others could hear what was going on, Reia crushed the device in his hand. Just a moment before Juri turned to the side, fisted his hair with shaking hands and let out a scream so desperate that it didn’t even sound like his own voice.

***

“No Hokuto, you are not going yet,” Aran complained, but the boy was getting ready to leave.

“Hagi left the hideout already, while the others are also already on their way to the other Centers. He will be here in a few hours, but Juri and Kochi don’t have that much time,” Hokuto said and kept walking down the corridor, but Aran ran in front of him and blocked his way.

“It’s not about the West Center though. Shime and Noel are on stand-by too, you can’t go in there without Taisuke’s team arriving and they will take the longest.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be right at their front gate already to beat the shit out of that freaking brat,” Hokuto complained.

“Can you hold back? Will you be able to wait for them?” Aran asked and it was a fair question as Hokuto had freaked out the moment they got the update that Juri had been caught after all and that not in a harmless way.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but yes I will be able to wait for them,” Hokuto said and tried to calm down. “Aran, I know you don’t know us that well yet, but trust me when I tell you that I had a lot of freaking out moments before and they were a lot worse. Yet I have learned my lesson and a few harsh ones were from you and Myuto.”

That reminder made a shadow pass Aran’s face, but then Hokuto put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Please Aran, I need to be as close as I can so that we won’t waste any time. We have no clue what they are up to.”

Aran of course understood the other one’s worries, but a huge impact on the special observation room door at the end of the corridor had Aran jolt. “Can he finally stop that?” Aran complained, but next to the door Reo was sitting on the ground, hitting the door and laughing at Katsuki’s attempts to break the door. But Aran was indeed worried that the Elite-Vestige’s strength could actually damage the room.

“Trust Reo and Hagi to keep the Center safe, okay?” Hokuto asked and the boy finally nodded.

“I wish I could give you a transmitter, but everything that stays in any way in contact with the Government is too dangerous to be used and I have not enough time to take the trackers out.”

“It’s okay, just make sure to report back to Miyata in case something is up, he can give the information to Shime so that we know as well,” Hokuto reminded him and of course it counted the other way around as well. It was quite a complicated way to stay in contact, but they had no other choice for now.

“Taisuke’s team will soon reach the Capitol borders,” Tama was heard on the contact device and Hokuto took another deep breath. After Myuto and then Taisuke they finally faced their most dangerous battle against their own Government.

***

“Wasn’t it the plan that we wait here for Chaka?” Nika asked while Kentaro just kept walking towards the East Center without any caution.

“He can’t even contact us and who knows if that stupid Elite-Vestige didn’t already realize that he is up to something, so I won’t sit around here and do nothing. We will only waste our time if we wait,” Kentaro said while he walked out to the open surface in front of the East Center, immediately setting off the Fallen alarm with it, because no matter if they received the serum or not, it would still spot them as Fallen. Luckily they all knew their way around the minefields of all Centers thanks to Shime and the others, but they still had to watch out that no new weapons had been placed in their way.

“Fine, but you deal with him then, because you brought this on yourself,” Nika teased his little brother, not that Kentaro wasn’t looking forward to dealing with them.

They stopped at a safe distance to their weapon system and Kentaro waited, but no one made it out of the front gate.

“Damn, I hate those Elite-Vestige already,” Kentaro hissed. “Hey you arrogant Vestige bastard, come out here.”

Kentaro’s yelling didn’t have the effect he wanted it to have, but after Taisuke had run over the East Center and killed almost all its members it was to no one’s surprise that the members wouldn’t easily open their security system and the Elite-Vestige with them knew of course that he was safer inside as well.

“What do we do if he has already left?” Nika asked, but Kentaro shook his head.

“If that was the case then Chaka would have definitely found a way to open the gates for us, so I am sure he is still in there. So as long as he doesn’t let us in, he can also not get out.”

“So our mission will be easy,” Nika replied, but Kentaro kicked the sand with a pouting expression.

“And here I wanted a fight and not a stupid standoff.”

“Be patient and you will get it,” Nika soothed him, but now they had to make sure to not let their guard down and hope that Chaka was able to somehow let Miyata know about the situation.

***

The tension inside the group was cutting through the air, but there was no way that Taiga wasn’t going to head to the Main Center with Kochi and Juri being there and Hokuto also on his way. Myuto going with him was also natural, but having Taisuke on the same team made everything complicated.

Yet it wasn’t Taisuke who was at fault for that as he was walking in the front without any complaints. He had made a good point when they had decided the teams, because all other Centers only needed to hold back the Elite-Vestige, but they had no clue how many people they were actually going to face at the Main Center now that they had started a rebellion. So having two Fallen with the instinct on that team was their best shot to get in and out alive. Myuto’s abilities were also extremely helpful if they faced a lot of resistance.

Taiga wasn’t that fond of the idea though and while Myuto was kind of happy that he reacted this way, he also knew that it was partly played, which was worrying him.

“If you don’t concentrate on the fight we will get into trouble.”

Taiga didn’t react to Myuto's words so he hit the other one against the arm. The confused look he received made him roll his eyes. “This is exactly what I mean.”

“What?”

“You get distracted too easily. You don’t have to pretend. It will make things just more complicated.”

“Why would I be distracted?” He replied to his own question seconds later when he kept looking ahead once more with the same distracted look and this time Myuto hit him against the back of his head, getting a death glare in return.

“Stop pretending that you are fine. I know that you are not and he does too, because he feels the same, so could you both cut it out?”

On Myuto's words, Taisuke only slightly turned his head towards them as he could of course hear them, but he was handling the situation way better than Taiga. “Just behave normal, would you? I am not going to start scolding you in the middle of the fight, I don’t have time for that, but if you don’t stop tiptoeing around each other you are of no use to us.”

Taiga understood the other one’s anger, but there was still a bit more to the story than Myuto knew, but Taiga also had to make sure to stay concentrated or the situation could indeed turn out to their disadvantage.

“Just remember that Hokuto will be present too, so get prepared for that,” Myuto reminded him.

Hokuto knew that they were heading towards the Main Center, but they had only spoken briefly over the transmitter and the Fallen self wasn’t sure how to face him, knowing that Hokuto wanted Taiga back as soon as possible and the instinct wasn’t making that part any easier.

“For now let’s hurry so that we can meet with Shime and get an update on the other Centers,” Myuto added and then he went to the front and pushed Taisuke back a bit, the other on walking slower and letting him pass. A moment later Taiga caught up to him and they stopped, giving each other an uncomfortable look.

“Get your stuff together now, you won’t have time for it later,” Myuto yelled back at them, knowing that this was the only way for them to get their tension worked out before it could actually get into the way.

With a sigh Taiga started walking again and Taisuke soon joined next to him, but while they didn’t actually talk they could work things out like this too. All they had to do was to get their instincts to calm down next to each other, but what seemed like an easy task, was a tough challenge of patience for them.

Musen 28 - February

The boy in front of them didn’t look threatening, but everything that was going on around him was telling them something different. A red hair strand in his short black hair and the golden way to flashy looking long jacket under a white leather jacket made him look like a rock band member, but definitely not like an Elite-Vestige.

“Welcome to the South Center, we’ve been awaiting you,” Rinne said, but Mitsu told Yuma and Moro to stay at a safe distance as almost all members of the Center were outside the Security fence and ready to attack. What made the situation even worse was that right behind the security fence they saw Matsuku and Umi, tied up and Dragnacit blades pointed at them.

“I don’t remember telling you that we were coming,” Mitsu said. The boy laughed and played with the unnecessary fur on his shoulder.

“You didn’t have to. I got contacted from the East Center that some Fallen were causing trouble outside so they contacted the remaining Centers.”

So without transmitters their timing had been the worst. They could only hope that the others made it in time before any of the Elite-Vestige could actually make it back to the Main Center to make it even harder for Myuto’s team.

“But it seems like you have some trouble with your own people? The boys over there don’t seem to be Fallen,” Mitsu said as he lied about not knowing the other two.

“Yes indeed, but that is also something you are totally aware of, aren’t you?” Rinne replied, making it clear that he somehow had found out about their connection. The question was how much had he found out and what was his special ability. He had turned the whole Center against Matsuku and Umi so now it was almost impossible to make them realize that their real enemy was actually right there with them.

“If you think so,” Mitsu said and shrugged his shoulders. “But you might want to reconsider, because even if you are a Vestige, we are three Fallen and I doubt you will stand a chance against us without the help of another Vestige.”

“Oh, who said I will fight you?” Rinne asked with a smirk and then he lifted his hand, all the Chasers around him lifting their weapons.

Mitsu had to watch out not to act too obviously, but now they had to come up with a plan. They didn’t want to hurt or in the worst case kill any Chasers, but they had no other chance and they also needed to keep an eye on Rinne.

“Such a coward,” Moro whispered in the back. Rinne was sacrificing the Chasers with them having no choice, but to obey his orders.

There was not much time to think when Rinne sent the Chasers into battle while he retreated behind the security fence. Mitsu whispered towards the other two to make sure to not kill any of the Chasers, but to fight as realistic as possible.

When Mitsu went for a first attack and stopped the movements of the Chasers in front of him to be able to knock them out, he realized that Rinne was of course analyzing their special abilities, but there was something else he was up to and Mitsu cursed when the boy walked up to Matsuku who gave him a death glare when he stepped next to him.

Without a warning Rinne took the blade from one of the Chasers and stabbed Matsuku in the shoulder with it, making the boy scream out. Umi immediately jumped up, but was tackled down by the other Chasers and with his hands on his back he couldn’t do much.

“Are you sure you want to keep fighting?” Rinne shouted over to them, but Mitsu wasn’t sure what he meant until Moro knocked out another Chaser and Matsuku received another cut on his arm. Then the same happened when Moro knocked someone out.

“If you want to kill your own people go ahead,” Mitsu shouted back and stopped the movement of more Chasers and grabbed one by the collar while Rinne gave him a challenging look as he put the blade on Matsuku’s thigh this time and waited for Mitsu to attack the Chaser.

There was no way Rinne would care if Matsuku and Umi lived or died, but they couldn’t sacrifice themselves for hostages, so they had to think of something and that fast!

***

It had been the best decision to leave the contact device with Aran, but it made things even more difficult for Hokuto as he was getting closer to the Main Center. The Center was obviously already on high alert, but when he saw some trucks with Chasers and Vestige leaving, he hoped that their plan of first attacking the outer Centers once more as Taisuke’s group had done before as well, had worked out well. Instead of the Elite-Vestige leaving to come back to the Main Center, a lot of Chasers and Vestige went out to help them as they felt confident that their Main Center security was perfect. And it was, almost.

Hokuto wasn’t able to get close to the double security fence they had around the Center and he knew that except for the entrance area around the gate, there were tons of hidden weapons so he wouldn’t even try to sneak up close to it. Not just Fallen, but also normal Chasers would immediately set off an alarm if getting too close to it. The security fences were also more than dangerous. While the first one was more of a warning and had a voltage that could kill humans, but could also badly hurt Fallen, the second one could be deadly even to them.

Around the area where the last ruins were giving him shelter he stopped and moved away from the gate. 50 meters to the left, the second building to the back, on the roof. As they had discussed it he found Shime and Noel on the rooftop. Noel was concentrated on his binoculars to see what was going on at the main gate area while Shime had made sure that no one was sneaking up on them, so he awaited Hokuto at the stairs already.

“Everything alright here?” Hokuto asked as he joined them behind a wall and sat down.

“Here yes, but the others have some trouble. Fortunately they have drawn the Main Center's attention though,” Shime replied.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Nika and Kentaro are stranded in front of the East Center. There is no contact from Chaka, so most likely Taiko, who is the Elite-Vestige in that Center, has already thought about the possibility of a traitor and keeps them all under custody while not letting Nika and Kentaro start a pointless fight. Mitsu’s team might also be in trouble, because Miyata got contacted by Matsuku, but in between the connection died. Only at the North Center they seem to have succeeded in opening the gates for them so that they can fight inside.”

“At least we know a bit about what is going on. Any news from Taiga’s group?”

Shime shook his head and Noel looked up at them and also said that they hadn’t showed up anywhere around the Center yet.

“They were told to wait a bit so that the Main Center thinks they are safe, so I think we need to be patient for a bit longer,” Noel said before he concentrated back on the gates.

“Will you be alright?” Shime asked after a moment of silence, but Hokuto didn’t quite understand what he meant and gave him a questioning look. “There is so much going on, you know. You had to leave your own Center members with two Elite-Vestige, not able to head back to them in case something happens, Juri and Kochi are in danger and Taiga is, well, not in the best condition either.”

Hokuto had formed a short grimace on Taiga’s name as he knew of course that Taiga and Taisuke on the same team could mean trouble, even with Myuto. He didn’t even get the chance to talk to him yet, nor did he know what exactly had been going on in Taisuke’s hideout while he was gone, but he also knew that it wasn’t the time for his personal problems.

“We have to concentrate on Juri and Kochi, as soon as we find them, I can think about all the other chaos.”

***

Two Fallen with strong special abilities and yet they couldn’t beat Yabana, the Elite Vestige in their way. Genta and Shizu had opened the security fence and gates before any other Center could warn them about the Fallen and luckily Senga and Yokoo had been on time to make it inside. Now Genta wasn’t able to help them anymore though as he and Shizu had to take care of two other Vestige and a dozen of Chasers who thought of them as traitors. It was impossible to make them understand that they were doing this to help, but at least it took the focus away from the Fallen.

Senga and Yokoo both needed to get close to use their special abilities, but the boy in front of them had immediately lifted his hand to stop them and without knowing what was going on, they both hissed and fell to their knees, covering their ears. The horrible high pitched sound in their ears stopped after several seconds, but it was enough for the boy to run away from them. Luckily he wouldn’t easily make it to the gates and somehow they were sure that he wasn’t actually running because he was afraid of losing, he liked games. 

“Stupid child,” Senga hissed as he got up, but needed a moment to find his balance. The same as with Hagi’s ability their balance got affected, but it was the direct pain the high pitched noise caused that was the worst part.

“If I didn’t know that he was dangerous, I would totally give him an older brother like scolding for all this shit,” Yokoo complained and he was right, because the age of the Elite-Vestige was indeed questionable. Yabana had a shirt with pink stars on it and a way too flashy white leather jacket with tons of silver metal studs on it. The white strand of hair that was hanging almost over his eyes with his too long hair didn't make it easy to see him as a strong opponent, but he indeed was and they had to make sure to not underestimate him.

***

The Main Center had again fallen silent after a while, so had their team as they restlessly waited for any movement. The others wouldn’t meet up with them as they were the distraction to get them in, so all they could do was wait for something to happen.

There was so much to worry about that Hokuto hated the silence, hated to wait. But the sound of sirens made him finally snap out of his dark thoughts and they all looked up to the Main Center where the Fallen sirens had been activated and red lights were flickering on the roof of the gigantic front building of the Center. The three main buildings were not just protected by a double security fence, but also by a huge metal building, which was more of a castle wall than anything else.

“Can you see them?” Shime asked, but Noel’s silence showed that he still didn’t see them.

“They won’t just run to the front gate, will they?” Shime asked a bit worried. When the next thing they heard were explosions from around the open area of the Security fence, their question got answered. They had set off the mines in front of the main gate and a huge dust cloud covered the area for several minutes.

“There they are,” Noel said and pointed towards the gate area. “What a dramatic entrance.”

“Let me see,” Hokuto demanded and Noel handed him the binoculars. What he saw though made him take a way too tight hold on the fragile tool in his hands. Myuto wasn’t anywhere to be seen, which meant he was back up. A good plan, that was for sure, but while the rest of their plan was also well thought through it just made a lot of rage boil inside of Hokuto, no matter if played or not.

Taisuke had showed up out of the dust cloud and had thrown Taiga right in front of the gates. The boy behaved as if he was badly wounded or more...they had actually hurt Taiga to make it seem more realistic. A fact that had Hokuto even angrier. Sure Taiga would heal fast enough to fight if he got attacked, but luring them out by pretending that Taisuke had taken a Chaser hostage could also backfire.

“Those Elite-Vestige won’t fall for this,” Hokuto said. “One Chaser is not enough to make them open the gates.”

“Then they just have to stop pretending at some point and come up with something else, but we have to move now,” Shime reminded them and they got ready to leave. No matter if they came out or not, their weapons were all on them and every soldier and Vestige left in the Center would have their eyes on them now. Unfortunately Hokuto had to take his eyes off them for now and hope that things wouldn’t get even more out of hand. 

***

It was difficult for Aran to stay concentrated with all the information he got from Miyata. Things didn’t become too difficult yet, but also hadn’t worked out as smooth as they had hoped. Not to forget that the lab kept showing alarms for the door of the special observation room as Katsuki didn’t stop trying to destroy it with his telekinesis. Reo and now Hagi as well were guarding the room just in case, but that left Konpi with the Chasers and that was also something Aran wasn’t too happy about. Sure they had chained him down in the training room, telling everyone to keep their distance, but they still didn’t know how many secrets the boys actually had.

Trying to focus, Aran took a deep breath and went through more of the Main Center data he was accessing without them realizing yet. Kochi had luckily told him some secrets about the connection between the Centers, otherwise he wouldn’t even be able to access any files with their antenna being down.

He was on it for several hours already needing to take logout breaks to not raise any alarm in the Main Center. Until now he hadn’t found anything too suspicious, but he had finally found some folders, which were heavily password guarded and after nerve wrecking thirty minutes he finally had the first one open. He had hoped for Elite-Vestige data, which could help them in their fight, but what he got instead had his eyes widened.

“No way…” Aran let out in disbelief as he went through the files. There was just too much that shocked him about the information he was seeing, but then he went to the next file, a familiar name popping up and with an empty stare he fell back in his chair.

“How could you…” Aran whispered, but was interrupted by another alarm of the special observation room. A look on the monitor showed that the door was already bending, a bad sign indeed. But would he have enough time to find helpful information? Was there even any helpful information? Maybe sitting around here wasn’t the best option for him after all.

After almost an hour of desperate searching, Aran was sure that he wouldn’t find anything helpful, at least not for now. What he had found though were names and places and a plan he couldn’t believe was existing. Now the question was what to do with that information? His anger had reached its peak and with a determined look he got up, realizing that it was indeed not the time to sit around.

***

“I really hope you know what you are doing,” Hokuto asked skeptically as Noel used some remote he hadn’t seen until now and after a few minutes he told them to follow him through the open space behind the Center.

“I could explain to you what I am doing, but to make it understandable, the mines are deactivated, the cameras and sensors frozen on a non-movement screen and we can make it to the fence without anyone seeing us.”

“Sounds too easy,” Hokuto said, but he needed to trust him, otherwise they wouldn’t make it in at all.

“It will only work on a small radius and for a really brief time so we have to hurry.”

As they made it to the high electricity fence, Noel brought out another tool and Hokuto cursed when Noel just clipped it to the fence without any hesitation. “Dude, warn me before you try to kill yourself.”

Shime patted him on the shoulder with an understanding look. “Trust me we all needed some time to get used to it, but he really knows what he is doing.”

“I indeed do, so climb or we won’t make it,” Noel said as he disconnected the tool and jumped on the fence, making Hokuto look in disbelief. “Just stay in a 2 meter radius to the sides or you will get grilled.”

When they made it on top of the second fence, Hokuto could spot some warning lights turning green with a special kind of siren noise, which also had Shime look up. “Someone went out to them.”

Now the question was who? But there were three buildings behind the gate, with no chance of spotting whoever had decided to actually step out to Taiga and Taisuke. It had also taken them a lot of time to make it this far, so who knew what Taisuke had done in the meanwhile to actually make them finally show themselves.

“Don’t worry, he will be fine, you have to believe in his strength,” Shime reminded the other one.

“It’s not his ability to fight I worry about,” Hokuto replied honestly before he concentrated back on their part of the plan. “So what’s your tool to get inside?”

Of course Noel gave the other one a lopsided smile on the question and got something else out of his tool bag, but this time Hokuto raised an eyebrow. “Wait, isn’t that just a lock-picking set?”

“Sometimes the most basic tools are the best,” Noel said with a wink before he pointed to a corridor. “But the doors are all inside their corridors so I need you to take care of the guards first.”

“Oh finally something you can’t take care off?” Shime teased, but headed towards the corridor with Hokuto. The corridors had an extra gate so the guards hadn’t been able to see them making it over the fence, but that was only thanks to Noel’s remote. Now they had to make sure to get them knocked out before they could set off any alarm and they also knew that with someone now out at the gate they had to hurry before the fight could escalate. They were here to get people out and not more stuck.

***

“I have enough of this,” Kentaro said after walking up and down in front of the security fence for hours.

“Just go closer if you are bored, they will open fire and then you can play around a bit, but that’s all you will get,” Nika said while he hadn’t even moved from his spot at all, his eyes fixed on the Center in case someone tried to get away unnoticed.

“They know the fence will stop us, so they won’t even bother with opening fire,” Kentaro said while he kicked the sand, but then he stopped and looked up. “Except…”

“I don’t like that look. Let me remind you that each and every time you did something after showing that look, you got hurt or someone else got hurt,” Nika reminded his little brother.

“And yet you never refused to help me with my stupid ideas,” Kentaro reminded him with a knowing smile.

Nika rolled his eyes on hearing that, but he was unfortunately right. “Then what do I have to do now so that you can go through with whatever weird idea has come to your mind?”

“Throw me!”

“Excuse me, what?”

“It’s easy. You can use your shockwave to give me the height to make it over the fence. I will use my shockwave at the same time so that the impact in between will give me the extra height. I should have thought about this sooner,” Kentaro said and waved at his brother. “Let’s go, I want to kick ass.”

“Wait, you do realize that we just talked about their weapons, right? And you also thought about the fact that they still have a huge metal gate in front of their Center and you will be trapped between the fence and the gate without any way out.”

Kentaro stopped for a moment and it seemed like he was rethinking his idea, but then he shrugged his shoulders and started walking. “Let me think about that when I am over the fence.”

With a sigh Nika followed him as he already knew that he wouldn’t be able to change his mind. “How the hell did you even survive until now?”

“By having people watching my back, the same as now,” Kentaro said with a bright smile over his shoulder this time and Nika couldn’t even be angry at him anymore.

“They really don’t even waste the energy on firing at us,” Kentaro said, almost pouting as the Center didn’t even react to them walking up to the fence.

“Then let’s hope they are distracted enough for you to come up with a good plan after this,” Nika said while Kentaro finally seemed to think about what to do after his idea, but what he hadn’t seen coming was Nika grabbing him by the back of his shirt and throwing him up.

“Wait, I didn’t say I’m-”

Before Kentaro could complain that he wasn’t ready, Nika had used his shockwave, forcing Kentaro to turn in the air to use his own against it if he didn’t want to actually get hurt instead of getting over the fence. He almost touched the fence on the highest part, but still landed gracefully on the other side, but he immediately turned to his brother with an outstretched arm. “I take everything back. You don’t have my back. What the hell?”

“You should better worry about your own back,” Nika teased as he slowly retreated from the fence while Kentaro heard the sound of the weapons getting redirected at him.

“Great,” Kentaro growled and got ready to dash to the walls so that the weapons couldn’t aim for him, but then he heard the siren of the main gate opening and now even Nika was a bit confused, but he was still outside the fence, which wouldn’t open and alone he wouldn’t make it over.

The boy who stepped out of the gate was dressed in white, with only his boots being black. His haircut could almost be called boring and so was his look. As if someone had forced him to come here in the first place he walked up to Kentaro with an annoyed expression.

“I was nice and didn’t attack, yet you had to get on my nerves. What an idiot would jump over the fence in the first place?”

“Oh, my apologies, did I wake up our Elite Teenager from his beauty nap? You might want to go back in and fix your hair, it seems like you didn’t curl your oh so fabulous violet strand in the back, little prince.”

On Kentaro’s mocking, Taiko walked up to him and while Kentaro was on high alert he didn’t attack yet, especially because Taiko had both hands in his pockets until he stopped right in front of Kentaro. When he pulled one hand out and held it over Kentaro’s head, the Fallen raised an eyebrow. “Who do you call little, tiny Fallen?”

This time Kentaro lunged out for the other one, while Nika had actually chuckled from the distance, but he could get his scolding later. Taiko didn’t go on distance though and grabbed Kentaro’s arm. “Together you would have stood a chance, but alone you are no match for me.”

The warning made Nika tense, Kentaro on the other hand was still annoyed enough to take his chances. He had a close combat special ability he could use on the boy so he tried to grab him with his free hand, yet he didn’t make it in time.

Different from Nika’s or Myuto’s pain infliction, it only took a split second. It went so fast, so silent that Kentaro didn’t even scream out. Taiko released him, which showed that he could most likely only use his special ability for a split second, but that was enough to cause a lot of damage.

Kentaro had jolted, but then he had stopped moving and Nika was on high alert, but he didn’t dare to get closer and he couldn’t do anything from outside the fence anyway. When Kentaro fell to his knees with a painful cough and held his chest, Nika made a step to the front, unable to understand the boy’s special ability. Even with Kentaro’s ability it would take a longer time to cause that much damage, yet Kentaro felt like he had barely survived a heart attack.

“Electricity?” Kentaro let out, gritting his teeth as he got back up on shaking legs.

“Indeed,” Taiko said and lifted his hand. “An electric shock which can stop your heart. Not many survive the second shock.”

That warning had Kentaro jump back when Taiko approached him once more, but his own movements hurt his body a lot.

“You can also jump into the fence if you want, that might be less painful,” Taiko teased.  

“You can crawl back into your Center, because trust me I will pay you back for that pain,” Kentaro hissed, but then they heard the sound of the Center gate closing and when Taiko turned to the gate with a confused look, Kentaro started laughing. “Oh you are so damn screwed now.”

“I don’t need Vestige or Chasers as back up,” Taiko said, but Kentaro smirked at him.

“Not if you are up against only me, but as you said, against both of us you might be in trouble.”

“But you idiot jumped in here on your own, so no matter if the gate is open or closed, the fence-”

Exactly that fence also started the warning sirens and a green light lit up when the gate of the fence opened.

“Yes, what was that about the fence?” Kentaro mocked while Nika walked up to the fence, but still had his eyes on the weapons. It could be a trick, yet they also hoped that it meant Chaka had somehow kept his cover until now and made the others believe in him.

“You know I don’t really like it when people hurt my little brother,” Nika threatened as he stopped behind Taiko who was now forced to look forth and back between the two Fallen.

“This is going to be an amazing payback fight,” Kentaro chirped before he dashed to the front at the same time Nika moved as well.

Musen 28 - February

Taisuke hadn’t even bothered with shouting anything as he was sure that the Main Center wouldn’t easily react to him, so he had to try and find out if they really let Taiga die or not. After all Juri had come up with the lie that he had lost Taiga in the middle of the battle against Taisuke’s Fallen troop so it made sense that they had him hostage and the Main Center still thought that Taiga was a normal Chaser.

The instinct helped Taiga a lot to fake the attacks Taisuke used on him, but he also had to take in some real attacks or it wouldn’t actually look like Taisuke was aiming to kill him.

Taisuke started running out of ideas after he was sure that Taiga wouldn’t heal fast enough if he kept going, but he was already standing on his rib cage, his bones ready to break.

With a flick of his tongue Taisuke pulled Taiga up by the hair and got ready to drag him back with him. It would make sense to not let a hostage behind or kill him, if he thought he could still be of use later. Yet Taiga grabbed the other one’s wrist and Taisuke forced his instinct down so that Taiga could communicate with him inside his mind.

It took a lot of effort to not widen his eyes, yet Taisuke succeeded in staying calm, but the tight grip he gave Taiga on the wrist in return, showed the younger one that he wasn’t agreeing to his idea, yet it was their best shot, if Taiga survived his own idea that was, because his instinct wouldn’t protect him from what was coming.

Instead of retreating, Taisuke pulled Taiga closer towards the fence before he forced Taiga to stand in front of him. With a tight grip he took him by the neck, Taiga struggling for air while Taisuke looked over the two fences at the security cameras with a lopsided sneer.

“If you don’t want him back alive, then you can at least take care of his corpse.”

Taiga’s eyes grew wide in his fake play as Taisuke used a shockwave to push him right into the high electricity fence. Taiga’s body jolted on the shock and then he fell to the ground, motionless.

Taisuke formed a satisfied expression before he turned and walked away without wasting his time on Taiga. Yet he wanted to check if he was still alive or not, because that electricity was able to kill even a Fallen if they touched it for too long and now Taiga was on his own and even wounded. If they found him unconscious and realized that he was a Fallen now, then he was in even bigger danger than Juri and Kochi.

Yet all Taisuke could do for now was trying to activate his instinct and feel the other one’s presence, as he was sure he wouldn’t be able to do so if the other one was dead. Yet something felt different from usual and in his confusion Taisuke almost stopped, but then forced himself to keep going, because what had just happened in his mind wasn’t a bad sign, at least not for him. Now he was at least sure that Taiga was still alive, if he had died he wouldn’t have forgiven himself and he would have needed to face Hokuto’s rage as well.

***

The plan had been to ask and then go, but on his way to speak with Hagi and Reo, there had been some trouble. Big trouble. The moment Aran made it down the corridor, a huge impact had thrown the door of the special observation room across the corridor and Katsuki immediately jumped at Reo who was closer to him after Hagi had avoided getting hit by the door.

Aran immediately turned to dash to the training room and they had to make sure that Katsuki wouldn’t reach Konpi, yet the Elite-Vestige had obviously already decided to do exactly that as he used his telekinesis to throw Reo right into Hagi before he dashed after Aran.

“What is going on?” Shintaro was heard as he and Jesse had been alarmed by the noise.

“Get Konpi into the lab and lock it, NOW,” Aran yelled and decided to turn back around as Katsuki would reach him anyway.

Jesse immediately ran back to the training room to do as he was told, while Shintaro stepped next to Aran and lifted the bow he had brought, waiting for Katsuki to get into sight. He released the first arrow when the boy came around the corner and yet Aran dashed to the front before it had even reached him. Katsuki waved his hand so that the arrow was thrown back, but Aran dodged it and now Katsuki couldn’t use his ability right away, so Aran was able to get close. Unfortunately Katsuki seemed to have noticed what he was up to and didn’t let him get too close and the shockwave, which they could use from afar was strong enough to throw Aran back, Shintaro catching him before he hit the ground.

With a hiss Katsuki fell on one knee the next second when Hagi had caught up to him. Reo following as well. “Get back and take care of Konpi,” Hagi yelled and the boys retreated.

When they made it to the lab, Jesse and a handful of Chasers waited for them already. “Aran, you should go back in as well. It’s risky to have Konpi inside the lab, but definitely even worse to have him out here with Katsuki,” Jesse said. Aran though needed to be somewhere else, but he had no time to explain.

“I found something that could help us find Juri,” Aran said to make the explanation short.

“What? But isn’t he in the Main Center with Kochi?” Shintaro asked, but Aran’s pointed look told him that there was no time for questions. “Fine, but whatever it is, you are not going alone.”

“Shintaro-”

“I didn’t say you have to stay, I just said I will go with you,” Shintaro said and gave Jesse a knowing look.

“Don’t worry we will give our best to keep the lab locked and get Katsuki back under control,” Jesse promised.

“Sorry to put so much pressure on you, but I fear that if we don’t hurry they will relocate and then I don’t know how to find them anymore,” Aran explained.

“No worries, you can explain everything later, let’s go for now,” Shintaro said.

***

Hokuto had been at the Main Center a lot of times already, but never without supervision and a lot of times for the trouble his Fallen self had caused so he didn’t like being back at all.

Luckily Shime and Noel knew their way around way better and after Hokuto had mind read some people they had knocked out on the way they at least got the information that there was a security room from which they should be able to find out where Juri and Kochi were if they were both really still here, because if Reia had told the truth then something else was going on as well.

“There is trouble,” Noel shouted and knocked on the security door and a guard came into sight a few seconds later. No Vestige, just a soldier, yet he was of course heavily armed so they still had to watch out. Noel explained some ridiculous scenario that had never happened, but it actually made the guard look alarmed and he looked back at the other person in the room and Noel gave them the signal that there were three people in the room.

Before the guard could actually alarm other soldiers or Vestige in the Center, Hokuto dashed to the front and jumped on the soldier, mind controlling him to keep him down while Shime had jumped directly into the room together with Noel to knock out the other two.

“The fact that no one has discovered us yet worries me,” Shime let out as they dragged all the soldiers back into the room while Noel already went through all the security cameras records.

“It seems too easy, yet I also think they are pretty worried about what is going on at the front gate,” Hokuto added, while he was of course also worried and that was when he realized that now they could actually have a look and he searched for a security camera at the front gate and when he found it he recognized a familiar face.

“They send out Reia all by himself?” Hokuto realized, but that wasn’t his main worry after he had realized that there was no fight. Myuto and Taisuke were nowhere to be seen and Taiga was lying on the ground next to the fence, motionless.

“Seems like they had to be pretty ruthless to actually get a reaction out of them in the first place,” Shime said.

“Ruthless is the only thing Taisuke can be,” Hokuto replied, but immediately gave Shime an apologizing look. It was still difficult for him to see Taisuke the same way as Myuto’s group.

“Found him,” Noel interrupted them and they concentrated back on their own task, because now that Reia was busy, it was their best shot to actually get Kochi out. “Section A1. But I don’t get it, why are they keeping him all alone in an interrogation room? He seems completely fine.”

“Isn’t this a bit too easy as well? I somehow feel like either all of this is a distraction or there is really something we don’t know about at all,” Shime said as he found the monitor Noel was looking at. A room the same as their special observation room, Kochi sitting at a desk with his arms crossed to his chest. No one was with him and it didn’t seem like they had tortured him or anything. So why had they brought him here in the first place?

“Let’s get ready for an ambush or other problems on the way, but let’s not waste time,” Hokuto ordered and they started moving.

***

The few minutes Taiga got to actually recover from the impact on the fence went by way too fast and he had almost lost consciousness in between, but then he could hear the sirens of the main gate and then of the fence. But there was only one person, yet Taiga knew already that it was a Vestige, because he couldn’t feel his presence, only hear his steps.

He used the moment in which the other one stood silently in front of him to actually make more use of his presence finding now that he was closer to the Main Center and the first person he found was Kochi, so at least they hadn’t come for nothing. The instinct helped him to get a bigger radius to use, but while he also found Noel already close to Kochi’s location, he was confused to feel two faint presences away from the Main Center. They shouldn’t even be close to this area, yet they were moving to another location, what were they up to?  

Taiga tensed when someone crouched down right next to him and as much as he wanted to trust his instinct and just pretend that he was too hurt to even move, it was exactly that instinct which told him to move and look up before the other one was able to reach out for him.

“Oh, what a surprise and here I thought I came out to pick up a corpse.”

Was it the lack of reaction on his face? The empty eyes? Of course the memories were Taiga’s and not his own, yet it felt so wrong to not see the boy react to Taiga’s presence.

“Reia…”

“Oh? You know who I am? An even bigger surprise,” the boy said, but this time he didn’t make any attempt to get closer. He got up and scanned the area, but with the dust clearing after the explosions, Myuto and Taisuke wouldn’t be able to easily sneak up on him.

“So you don’t know me?” Taiga asked as he tried to sit up, but his body was still shaking and he also had to pretend to be more wounded than he actually was or his cover would be immediately blown.

“Kyomoto Taiga, a Chaser at the West Center, half a year training and only one year Chaser experience. The ace Chaser of your Center. Yet my data showed you with black hair, I wonder since when the Centers allow you to change your hair colors?” Reia said, leaving him speechless, but what else had he expected? If Reia still remembered him then he would have come to the West Center before. Which meant that whatever was new about the serum of the Elite-Vestige transition caused the same kind of memory loss some of the Fallen had gone through, but for now it could also be to their advantage. The hair color change on the other hand was something they hadn’t been able to do anything about in their hurry so he tried to just drop the topic, hoping Reia wouldn’t get too suspicious.

“Did you hear back from Juri and Hokuto?” Taiga asked instead, trying to fake as much as he could about the current situation. “Are they okay?”

“Right, you got captured by Taisuke,” Reia said, as if it was just a normal fact and nothing special for a Chaser to actually make it back alive.

“I can give you information about their hideout,” Taiga said as he finally tried to get up and he was healed enough to actually succeed, but he still pretended to not be able to get up just yet. “I don’t have the exact location, but maybe I can help out a bit more if Hokuto gets into my head? Maybe there are a few memories I cannot access myself,” Taiga tried to make Reia focus back on the Main Center to maybe get him access to it.

“Right, what a coincidence that Hokuto is also at the Main Center right now, isn’t it?”

Taiga’s expression froze on the spot when Reia gave him a pointed look. “That’s great. But why is he here? Is he hurt? Or is it his Fallen self? Is Juri here too?”

Taiga had barely made the turn to not react too confused, because usually it wouldn’t even be such a big deal if they were here.

“Actually, yes, Juri was here earlier too, but guess what, he is not here anymore.”

Now Reia was playing with him and it was difficult to say how much Reia had already realized. The fact that he realized that Hokuto and the others had made it into the Center showed that something wasn’t going the right way. Why had he bothered coming out and why was he talking with him while the others were on the best way to free Kochi and why wasn’t Juri in the Main Center anymore?”

“Then Juri is back at the West Center? Maybe I can return with Hokuto later? After a few check ups, because I doubt I can get up easily yet,” Taiga lied once more, but this time Reia formed a smile and moved closer to Taiga once more.

“You know, I would have believed you a lot of your lies, but guess what,” Reia said as he leant down to Taiga with a lopsided smile as he whispered next to his ear. “A human would have died on the spot after landing in the fence as I made sure to turn up the voltage as high as the second fence.”

The movement was as fast as his own, just through the instinct Taiga was able to jump back in time before Reia could reach out for him and something told him that Reia had a special ability connected to a touch on the face, similar to himself, so he needed to stay on distance, because even his instinct gave him warning signals about that ability.

“Not even a Vestige, interesting,” Reia said as if he had known everything right from the start and most likely he had or at least he had good guesses. “Then what is the story? Did Taisuke turn you into a Fallen?”

So he indeed didn’t know everything yet. They had their assumptions about Kochi and the West Center, yet the details still remained a secret.

“I can explain it all, but not if I have to fear getting attacked or imprisoned by you Elite-Vestige. The West Center doesn’t want to cause uproar, but you need to let us explain.”

“Still trying to fight with logic? Now I wonder what exactly you are? That is no Fallen behavior, yet you are obviously no Vestige, it was definitely a good idea to distract the others with Kochi.”

“What?” Taiga asked, his eyes growing wide. Now everything slowly made sense, but he couldn’t let the others know. Yet something told him that Aran had maybe caught up already, which meant he had to let Myuto know somehow and also Hokuto.

“Kochi might be the mastermind behind a lot of things going on at the West Center, but the Vestige are the ones we can control so starting our investigation with Juri and Hokuto is the easier plan, yet you are definitely our most interesting discovery for now. Not to forget that Hokuto is difficult to control without the microchip.”

Taiga immediately left all his caution behind and let his instinct take enough control to use his telepathy. He needed to let Hokuto know that they had to get out before they could get trapped and then he had to let Myuto know about Aran.

The mess in his own mind made a headache take over when he used his telepathy and something he had slightly felt a few moments before after hitting the fence was causing uproar inside his own ability. Instead of his direct link it felt like his mind was pulling him towards two directions and he gasped on the realization of what had happened.

While he was feeling shocked about what he had just discovered he also felt excited, but he knew that for Taiga this was something that shouldn’t have happened. It made everything even worse for the boy and that was the least his Fallen self wanted, yet for himself it was a new established connection he felt more than excited about and he could feel that it had actually come from the other one out of worry when he had come up with his improvised fence move.

The uproar in his mind almost distracted him from his fight, but his instinct was active so he was able to dodge Reia’s shockwave, yet he looked a bit confused as the shockwave had come from the distance. “Interesting. You Elite-Vestige are indeed a new level of annoying.”

“Now you talk like a Fallen,” Reia said with a bit more excitement this time. “Then show me if you also fight like one.”

Of course he would, no matter if it was Reia or not. He wasn’t going to kill him, but he needed to keep him busy while sending out his warnings.

***

Matsuku had tried to kick Rinne off him when the boy threatened to actually stab him in the chest after Mitsu and the others hadn’t stayed down and kept attacking the Chasers.

“Leave him alone. We are part of the Centers too, you are a traitor for what you are doing,” Umi shouted and for the first time he actually got the attention of the other Chasers through his yelling.

Moro and Yuma were busy with two Vestige who had joined the Chasers fight, but now they had also tensed and it was clear that no matter what Rinne had told them, they couldn’t see their own Vestige and Chaser as traitors. There was still a chance to turn the fight around, but Mitsu couldn’t say or do much as they wouldn’t just believe a Fallen.

“We did not betray you,” Matsuku said now as well. “If you think that trying to make peace with our enemy is betrayal then yes we did something you Elite-Vestige can’t handle.”

“Make peace with whom? The Fallen? Don’t make me laugh,” Rinne replied. “Aren’t they right here? Didn’t you listen to him? They don’t care about your life.”

That was it, their chance!

“Moro, Yuma!” Mitsu yelled over to them and both immediately understood. The Vestige and Chasers had listened to their conversation and hadn’t attacked and now the Fallen lowered their guard and stepped back, a move that left all the South Center members in huge confusion.

“What are you idiots doing? Attack!” Rinne shouted at them and kicked Matsuku to try to get him to shut up.

“We won’t attack if you stay out of it. The only one we are after is him,” Mitsu explained and pointed at Rinne.   

“Well what a shame that I am in charge of this Center so you will have to go through all of them to get to me,” Rinne mocked them and let off Matsuku and faced Mitsu instead.

“Are you sure?” Mitsu asked and dared to make a step to the front and to Rinne’s obvious shock the Chasers in front of him stepped out of the way.

“What the hell are you doing? Everyone who does not listen to my command will be treated as traitors,” Rinne shouted at them, but the next moment the Chasers next to Umi actually cut the boy’s hands free and Rinne realized that his plan hadn’t worked out.

“Fine, then retreat if you want, but I warn you, get into my way and I will treat you as the same enemy they are,” Rinne warned them and faced Mitsu with a murderous glare.

The Vestige in front of Moro and Yuma also finally stepped back, making it possible for the other two to join Mitsu while Umi hurried to get to Matsuku. They all still seemed tense and would definitely rejoin the fight if they saw the need for it. But they were obviously fed up with Rinne’s arrogance and wanted to decide from the sideline who to trust.

Mitsu lifted his hand to stop Rinne’s movement, but then the boy was gone. Without a warning he had disappeared and all three of them were left dumbfounded until Umi was heard gasping.

The Elite Vestige had appeared right behind him while he had tried to free Matsuku from the chains.

“UMI,” Matsuku shouted and ripped his hands free from the loose chains, but when he tried to attack Rinne, the boy disappeared again, leaving Umi falling right into his arms after Rinne had stabbed him in the back with a knife from Umi’s belt.

“Told you that I will treat traitors the same as them,” Rinne laughed before he faced Mitsu. “Good luck trying to use any ability on me. I doubt you will be fast enough to catch me.”

“Teleportation?” Moro whispered, but Yuma shook his head.

“Most likely just a pretty fast movement, but it looks like teleportation. Now we just have to find out if there is a limit or weakness to it.”

“What a shame that there isn’t,” Rinne laughed as he disappeared once more and Mitsu knew that now they had to fight for their own lives as he didn’t seem to need much recharge time.

***

“This is ridiculous,” Senga yelled after Yabana had stopped him from attacking with another acoustic wave, but this time Yokoo had been fast enough to avoid it. Yet Yabana had just decided to jump off the roof instead.

“Let’s just make sure he doesn’t get away,” Yokoo said and helped Senga up. “As long as he only keeps playing around like this we won’t get into trouble.

“And here all I want is my fist on that brat’s face,” Senga complained before he also dashed to the side of the roof and jumped, knowing that they had to make sure that the boy wasn’t opening the fence to actually run away.

Yokoo decided to take the stairs in case Yabana tried to make Senga chase him back up to the roof once more. On his way some Chasers got in his way and even though he felt a bit sorry he knocked a few out and blinded two.

The next Chaser who came into his sight was not a threat, but he was obviously on the run and he almost crushed into Yokoo who stopped him on the shoulders. “Having trouble?”

“I wonder if it isn’t the better choice to fight Yabana,” Shizu said. “I can at least hurt him, I don’t want to hurt Chasers I’ve worked with until now, but they won’t listen.”

“Just keep running, Yabana does the same at the moment,” Yokoo said and patted the boy’s shoulder before he went down the other side of the corridor.

“Wait, so you won’t help me?” Shizu asked, but then he heard the shouting of his fellow Chasers.

“Good luck,” Yokoo said and raised his arm, before he vanished into the next corridor.

Musen 28 - February

“This makes no sense,” Shime repeated as they made it to Kochi’s room and there was not a single guard around.

“Guess we can only find out what is going on by jumping right in,” Noel said, but the second he wanted to start walking, Hokuto grabbed him by the arm.

Noel wanted to complain, but Shime knew that look and made him wait. Seconds later Hokuto shook his head and released the boy.

“We should have thought about this,” Hokuto hissed.

“Taiga?”

Hokuto nodded, but now he took another look around. “It was indeed too easy for us to make it inside. Reia knows that we are here. He had planned on Juri and me coming here from the start. He only used Kochi to lure us here, because he thought that with us Vestige still at the West Center he wouldn’t find out what was going on, that’s why they also left Kochi alone, they are not really interested in what we did so far. They seem to be up to something else and just needed an excuse to move out to the Centers and the West Center was suspicious enough to use us as that excuse.”

“But if Taiga knows that then Reia is with him, right?” Shime asked.

“He found out about Taiga. So now his focus is on him, but there is more. Juri isn’t in the Main Center anymore, but Reia didn’t spill why or where they have brought him.”

“Reia said already before over the transmitter that they would take one of them away from the Main Center, but even with all the data I have access to I don’t know where they could bring him to,” Noel said, but Hokuto still hesitated. Sure they would get Kochi out without trouble now, but would Taiga get out without trouble?

“Do you want to go and help him?” Shime asked.

“I doubt I will be of any help,” Hokuto said, not that it mattered to him. He hadn’t been of much help against Taisuke, yet he had still been there with Taiga. But now it was Taisuke and Taiga against an Elite-Vestige and on top of that a boy Taiga even knew so they couldn’t actually go and try to kill him after all the trouble they have gone through to help their enemies.

“Shime, give me your contact device,” Hokuto said and the boy handed it to him.

“Miyata, the Elite-Vestige have found out that we have come to get Kochi and Juri back. We found Kochi and will bring him out of here. We need to make it back to the hideout so tell everyone to get away from their Centers as fast as possible.”

There was a moment of silence in which Miyata transmitted the message to all other contact devices as they couldn’t all be contacted at the same time.

“I will contact you to Jesse, he wants to tell you something,” Miyata said. He could switch the signal so that they could talk to each other, but only for two devices.

“Come to the West Center,” Jesse’s voice was heard.

“Even with the Elite-Vestige captured I think that is risky,” Shime interfered.

“They are not here anymore.”

“What?” Hokuto asked in panic.

“Long story, but Katsuki broke out. Reo and Hagi had a tough time and eventually we decided to let Konpi go so that Katsuki wouldn’t try killing everyone. We let them flee the West Center, so we can barricade ourselves in here for now. It’s safer than trying to make it back to the hideout.”

“Hold on a second,” Miyata interfered after letting everyone now and reconnect to Matsuku.

“I agree, we need medical treatment over here so we can’t make it all the way out to the hideout,” Matsuku was heard, which meant that Umi was badly hurt so Hokuto had to make a decision.

“Okay, then let’s do that. Everyone back to the West Center! Make sure Aran gets the weapon system up in case any of the Elite-Vestige try to attack.”

“Ehm, about Aran…”

Now that was already something Hokuto didn’t want to hear and when Jesse explained what had happened, Hokuto activated his presence finding. “They are close, but they are not aiming for the Main Center.”

“Well, let’s trust them? We need to get out of here too,” Noel said and asked them to hurry. After all they were at the most dangerous place for now.

“If anything goes wrong, immediately tell us,” Hokuto said and put the device back in his vest pocket with a worried look.

“Aran knows what he is doing,” Shime said.

“I bet he does, but I wished Reo or Hagi could have gone with him. Whatever made him leave in such a hurry means Juri is in huge trouble.”

***

It had taken a lot of concentration for Taiga to even use his telepathy this time, but his fight wasn’t the reason for it. Reia was fast, yet his instinct could luckily keep him at distance long enough to inform Hokuto, but now he had to figure out if what had distracted him was really going to work, but before he could even put it to the test there was a voice in his own head.

Do you need help?

Now he had been indeed way too distracted and the next shockwave made him almost crash back into the fence.

“Interesting, your abilities seem to somehow work differently from the Fallen I have fought so far. So if you are really a Fallen, but in control of your senses then that means either you got a new kind of serum or this is the infamous Instinct I have heard so much about?”

“As if I’d tell you,” Taiga hissed back, but his irritation didn’t come through Reia figuring this out.

Tell Myuto to look for Aran. He is close by. I will give you the coordinates

It felt so weird, so different from Hokuto and why was it such a smooth connection? Both sides were able to use it and while Taiga had felt that a connection had been established, it was actually Taisuke who had used it first. Their instincts worked way better together than they thought, not that this was going to make it any easier for them eventually, only for now it was indeed a really big help.

His focus had to be back on Reia so he cut the connection after he was sure that Myuto would know where to go and Taisuke was going to join his fight, but until he made it back to the fence, Taiga had to fight on his own. He tried to get Reia further away from the Main Center, hoping that he could make it easier for him and Taisuke to overpower him without the backup of the Main Center and the weapon system, but Reia was a good strategist and kept pushing Taiga back towards the fence.

“You do realize that you won’t get away?” Reia asked as he stepped back while Taiga was thankful for the break, because using his instinct for a long fight was still exhausting him and while he could have gone full out on Reia, it just didn’t feel right to hurt the boy that badly, knowing that he was connected to Taiga and Myuto, not to forget that his instinct seemed to be afraid of Reia’s special ability.

“So you think you are stronger than me?” Taiga asked back, but Reia put his hands into his pockets with a look over his shoulder where he could see Taisuke approaching from a distance. They had already gotten rid of the hidden mines so all they had to worry for was back up from the Main Center as they wouldn’t fire at them as long as Reia was out with them.

“Maybe not, but the question is how strong you will be mentally,” Reia replied, while Taiga didn’t understand what he meant, because for now he shouldn’t have caught up on him being Hokuto’s former Fallen self, yet Reia seemed quite confident about their fight even with Taisuke approaching.

But what Reia didn’t know yet was that he had to face two Fallen with the instinct, so maybe they could win easily after all. If not...then they had to come up with another plan.  

***

Their fight was more of a hide and seek with all three of them having abilities which needed to be used by touching. The question was who could use their abilities the fastest? Taiko had almost gotten a grip on Nika once, but Kentaro had jumped at him before he could actually use his electric shock, but of course Taiko immediately started struggling with him.

“As if I’d let you,” Kentaro roared and kicked the other one off him right after Taiko had slammed him into the ground with his hand reaching out for his neck.

“Afraid of another shock?” Taiko teased while he made sure to have his eyes on both brothers.

“You should be afraid of what will await you the moment I get a grip on you,” Kentaro hissed and dashed into the next attack. After another useless running and blocking with shockwaves, Taiko punched Kentaro and this time Nika held him back before he could run to the front again and used a shockwave before the boy could get his hands on him, because he would definitely be faster than Nika with his ability.

“Guys?”

It left them all staring at each other for a moment when someone interfered in their fight from the main gate.

“What the hell is up with your timing?” Kentaro yelled over to Chaka who had appeared at the gate.

“So here we have our little rat,” Taiko said, his eyes threatening on the boy who didn’t seem confident to even be out at their fight, yet he had to inform them.

“What is it?” Nika asked, but kept his eyes on Taiko.

“We are ordered to retreat,” Chaka said.

“What?” Kentaro asked and kicked the ground in annoyance. “Here I finally have an interesting fight and we have to run away. Did the others mess up this badly?”

“Kentaro,” Nika said warningly and the boy zipped it, knowing that it wasn’t a good idea to talk too freely in front of one of the Elite-Vestige.

“So this is all part of a bigger plan? Now I fear I shouldn’t let you retreat in the first place,” Taiko said and Nika reacted in time when Taiko tried to go directly for Chaka who had his hand on the hilt right away and jumped back, but Nika was faster and tackled Taiko to the ground.

What left Kentaro petrified for a moment was the scream Nika tried to suppress when he and Taiko kept a grip on each other.

“I was faster,” Taiko said triumphing, but Nika wasn’t going to easily faint and the shock was just a split second long. When Taiko tried to get up, Nika kept him down with a tight grip and that was when it clicked and Kentaro hurried to run towards them.

Taiko cursed and tried to break free, but even using a shockwave on Nika didn’t make the other one let go of him and soon Kentaro had his hands on the back of the boy’s neck.

“This is going to be painful payback,” Kentaro whispered in a satisfied voice before he used his special ability on the boy the same timing Nika also pushed through the pain and activated his pain infliction until Taiko started screaming and broke down under both abilities.

Nika finally released him on that move and Chaka dashed over to him to help him up, but it was obvious that the electric shock had caused enough damage to make it difficult for Nika to get back up.

“Don’t kill him,” Chaka said and Kentaro immediately gave him an annoyed look on that as he was now sitting on top of Taiko ready to use his ability to the fullest.

“Why not? Come on, he is an asshole.”

“He will need quite some time to heal and I told the Chasers inside to throw him into the special observation room for now. They trust me, but they won’t if we kill him without actually proving that we do something good here in the first place.”

“Fine,” Kentaro said and released the Elite-Vestige who fell unconscious to the ground. “But if he attacks us later again I will send you in first.”

Chaka didn’t seem excited about that threat, yet he knew that the safest option for them was to retreat for now.

“Let’s get away first. We can talk on the way,” Nika said and Kentaro helped supporting his brother until he had recovered from the shock.

“We’re not heading to the hideout,” Chaka said when Nika wanted to head out to the mountains.

“Why not?” Kentaro asked.

“There was quite some trouble here and there, but they secured the West Center so we will all gather there.”

“Great, we’ll be trapped like rats down there,” Nika complained, but they had to trust the West Center members that they had at least a good plan for the risk they were taking.

***

They had all heard Hokuto’s message, yet it wasn’t easy for them to retreat as Rinne kept playing around with them with his way too fast ability. He had a pretty quick recharge time, which made it almost impossible for Mitsu to actually stop his movements and Moro and Yuma would need to get close and that was even more impossible.

“Take Umi with you and leave first, Yuma go with them,” Mitsu ordered and while they all wanted to complain, they knew that there was no time for that.

Yuma hurried to help Matsuku to put Umi on his back so that they could get away faster, but the next second they got stopped when Rinne showed up right in front of them.

“No one is leaving the party early.”

Matsuku immediately jumped at the Elite-Vestige so that he couldn't cause even more damage to Umi, but he was hurt himself and Rinne still had the knife. But this time a shockwave took Matsuku off his feet, way before the other one’s hand had even made contact. Yuma saw the danger and retreated, but Rinne was faster once more.

What no one had seen coming though were the two Vestige from the South Center attacking Rinne from behind and throwing him to the ground.

“Get away,” one of them shouted while the other one tried desperately to not let Rinne use his ability, but the next second he was already thrown off with another shockwave.

Yet a handful of Chasers had already jumped in as well, making it impossible for Rinne to break free to use his Teleportation.

“Thank you, we won’t forget about your help,” Mitsu said before he told everyone to get away as fast as possible. Most of the Chasers were backing them now and while a few still seemed unsure who was really friend or foe, they at least stood down instead of attacking them as they made it away from the Center, which also meant that Rinne was most likely not able to use his ability on long distances.

“Miyata, we need back up, do you think anyone can send someone with a truck out to us?” Matsuku asked while they finally made it towards the ruins where they could hide better, but Umi wouldn’t last the way if they had to run it all.

“Reo just told me he will go with a few Chasers. They can move the fastest with his illusion ability,” They heard back from Tama this time.

“Very much appreciated,” Matsuku said and made sure they kept moving in case Rinne was going to chase after them and he could only hope that he wasn’t actually going to kill his own people, because the Elite-Vestige didn’t seem to see other Vestige or Chasers as helpful in their fight in the first place.

***

“So we need to get to the West Center?” Yokoo asked after Shizu had run panicked towards him after Hokuto’s message.

“What is that about the West Center?” Senga asked when they saw him at the open gate.

“We need to retreat, where is Yabana?” Yokoo asked.

“You lost him, are you crazy? He could try and kill us any second,” Shizu panicked and looked around, but then there was another reason to panic when Genta came dashing down another corridor and they could hear yelling behind him.

“What are you all standing there for? If you have spare time, help me here,” Genta said as he stopped next to Yokoo, out of breath through all the running as he didn’t want to hurt the Vestige and Chasers of the Center.

“Okay, that’s it. Everyone out,” Yokoo ordered them and pushed Genta and Shizu towards the gates and hit the security button so that it would shut behind them and open the fence.

“What are you doing? We don’t even know where Yabana is,” Shizu complained.

“He is not here, I chased him around the building for a good half an hour, so I think he went back in to hide,” Senga explained.

“Then they can keep playing hide and seek with him inside now and we need to make it over to the security fence before they realize that we are trying to get away,” Yokoo said and pushed them all to the front.

“This is the most embarrassing retreat I ever had to do,” Senga complained.

“Be happy that Yabana didn’t go all out on us, who knows what his full strength looks like. We will get another chance to fight him,” Yokoo said and made sure to contact Miyata and Tama about their retreat. For now they could all just try and make it to the West Center. The moment one of their groups got stranded somewhere they were in the biggest danger. They were the strongest all together, but the same applied for the Elite-Vestige.

***

“I was safer in that room than I am with you,” Kochi complained after Hokuto had broken the door open and dragged Kochi out without any long explanation as there was no time. After all they had expected them to come and Reia had given orders to capture Hokuto, yet Shime and Noel wouldn’t let that happen of course and Noel had caused some trouble for the soldiers and Vestige who had waited for them to get to Kochi’s room. But now they had to get out as fast as possible, an alarm going through the entire Center to catch them.

“We will explain the details as soon as we get out,” Hokuto said and pushed Kochi away from the main corridor while Shime and Noel kept messing up the path behind them as best as possible so that they couldn’t be easily followed.

“We’re in the Main Center, you don’t really think that we will get out of here, do you?” Kochi scolded the other one.

“We’ve backup at the front gate.”

“Then they won’t get out of here,” Kochi scolded him, but there was no time to explain the whole plan.

“Until now our plan went almost as we hoped, so just trust us,” Hokuto said, leaving out the fact that Juri had been caught and that they had absolutely no idea what to do after retreating to the West Center.

“Take the door on the right, there is an evacuation corridor in it. Three stories down we will find a path that leads us right to the ruins,” Noel yelled from the back.

“Who is at the front gate that you consider running instead of backing them up?” Kochi asked while Hokuto kept pushing him down the stairs to the escape path. “If you let the Fallen take care of the front gate, then you know that they will try to kill them, right? The Elite-Vestige are not as calm as you and the other Vestige.”

“I know that,” Hokuto said, yet Kochi misunderstood the irritation Hokuto showed. He understood that Kochi tried to help as good as he could and he never liked it to leave anyone behind, but he wasn’t at fault for the chaos yet he had to trust them even though he was the leader of the West Center.

“It’s not okay to let the Fallen handle this, just because they think they have to repay us anything. I don’t agree on sacrificing the-”

“Taiga is at the front gate,” Hokuto finally snapped and shoved Kochi aside to open the heavy metal door to the escape route. This time Kochi was left speechless as he hadn’t expected that reply. His look immediately changed to apologizing as he realized that Hokuto wasn’t hurrying this much to save himself, but to get to a safe place so that Taiga could get away as well.

“Taiga, Taisuke and Myuto are distracting the Elite-Vestige. The other members of our Center, Shime’s group and also Taisuke’s group are all fighting for us at the moment, so would you mind hearing the details later?”

“Get going, I will lock the door from the inside so that they can’t follow us,” Noel shouted down the staircase and Kochi finally snapped out of it and pushed Hokuto a bit to the front. “Let’s go then. We need to come up with a plan.”

Hokuto was grateful for Kochi still sticking to their chaos troop while he could have also stayed safe in the Main Center and pretend he didn’t know of anything.

***

“Wait, we can’t just run inside. What is this place even?” Shintaro asked, as he grabbed his hilt and jumped out of the truck, following Aran towards the location he was tracking down on his portable screen. There was nothing but ruins around, at least that was how it seemed, but soon an old warehouse came into their sight and Aran walked straight towards a staircase that led to a lower level.

“Aran, come on. Are you trying to get us killed?” Shintaro scolded the other one while he walked around without any caution.

“There is no one here who would actually dare to kill me,” Aran said while Shintaro released his blade and put on his Ex2 suit, because the place freaked him out. But Aran just turned on a light from the back of his screen to light the way through the lower floor where no light was reaching anymore.

“A door?” Shintaro asked. “Why is there such an advanced touch panel lock on it? Isn’t this just an old warehouse?”

“That’s how they want it to look like. The perfect place to keep people away as long as you don’t find the data I found earlier,” Aran said, but concentrated back on the lock. He only needed two attempts to crack the number lock, which made him shake his head.

“They really don’t learn their lesson,” Aran growled while the next screen to appear was a fingerprint analyzer.

“So what now?” Shintaro asked, but Aran took his chances. After all, they hadn’t really seen him as a danger or they would have changed their security system in the first place or...they thought he was dead anyway…

When Aran put his hand on the screen nothing happened for a few seconds until the sound of the lock opening made Shintaro jump back. “Wait, how the hell did you get access?”

“Did you listen to any part of my backstory so far?” Aran asked, a bit scolding yet with a teasing smile before he pushed the door open.

“Well, I did, but don’t you think they will be skeptical if you show up here just like this?”

“We will find out soon and if they are, well then it’s your time to do something,” Aran said as he walked to the elevator, which was the only thing in front of them in the small corridor.

“What? Is that why you allowed me to tag along?”

“You said yourself you wanted to go, now you also have to be useful,” Aran kept teasing.

“Next time I will let you go alone,” Shintaro growled while he got on the elevator.

“Put your blade away, I can promise you that no one will jump at us or try to kill us, as long as you don’t attack first. There might be Vestige in this facility too so just let me do the talking, okay?”

“Nothing easier than that,” Shintaro said, obviously relieved that he was allowed to stand back.

The floor they ended up on looked similar to the Main Center’s research facility, just a lot more advanced. As they had made it inside without causing any alarm, there was also no one who was trying to stop them when they moved along the corridor next to a few laboratories. Not even the people inside spend much attention as they all seemed to be too busy with their own work.

“Who are we looking for by the way?” Shintaro finally asked, as he hadn’t actually gotten any details from Aran so far, just that this location could tell them more about what the Elite-Vestige were up to and where Juri had ended up at.

Aran stopped after the question in front of a glass door of a pretty big looking laboratory and his eyes were on someone who was facing them with their back, his eyes on a microscope.

When they walked in without any further hesitation, three other people looked up at them, but Shintaro realized that instead of feeling frightened that someone had intruded their place they looked at Aran with wide eyes.

“Could you hand me the dropper with the mixture,” the man said, but the other professor didn’t react as her eyes were still on Aran. “The mixture!”

The woman flinched a bit when the man raised his voice, but then she pointed towards the boys and the man finally turned around.

“Long time no see, father.”

Musen 28 - February

Reia got finally overpowered when Taisuke entered the fight, but the boy was smart and didn’t let himself get trapped by them easily.

“Interesting, both of you have the instinct?” Reia guessed after Taisuke was able to get away from Reia’s attempts to use his shockwaves without trouble as well.

“If you realized that, then you should maybe retreat behind your safe walls,” Taisuke warned the boy, but he used the boy’s moment of hesitation to activate his telepathy again and as he had already expected Taiga thought the same. Something about Reia’s special ability was dangerous and even their instincts told them to stay away. Which also meant that stealing his ability or even trying to mind control him was out of question.

The sound of an alarm coming from inside the Center made Reia click his tongue. “Guess your friends didn’t run into my trap as planned. If I don’t do things by myself nothing works.”

The casual way Reia tried to head back into the Center made Taiga dash towards him once more. The others were still inside, they needed just a bit more time to get away and with Reia chasing after them that would be impossible.

Taisuke reacted as well and joined Taiga in his attack and Reia had no choice but to jump away once more as the fence was still not open, but it was slowly moving as he had given the signal to let him in and for now even one open fence wouldn’t be a danger to the Main Center.

With the next attack Taiga thought Reia would use one of his long distance shockwaves again, but what he hadn’t seen coming was Reia stopping completely in his movements, making Taiga stop as well and jump back.

“Why do I have the feeling that you are not really aiming to hurt me?” Reia let out and took his chance to attack Taiga straight on. Taiga didn’t want to make it too obvious, but he was indeed running away and playing for time.

Taisuke on the other hand interfered and dared to use a shockwave on the boy from the side, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get his hand on him fast enough.

Taisuke tried to force Reia to get behind the first fence to make it harder for him to get away, but he was also risking his own safety with that, but different from Taiga he didn’t share any connection with the boy and Taiga’s Fallen self would usually also not care if he didn’t know that Taiga would be more than angry if he hurt Reia more than necessary. But for now he also needed to keep attacking or Reia would get away before the others could run.

Now trapped between the two fences, they needed to keep their eyes on the gate, because if it closed then they were in huge trouble.

Reia lifted his hand after he had tried to use a shockwave on Taisuke, which got stopped by his instinct. Now Taisuke was forced back nevertheless, because the signal had activated the weapon system and even though Reia had to dash out of the fire line, they kept chasing Taisuke with the attack away from Reia and the boy swirled around and went straight for Taiga.

“I really want to know why you are hesitating,” Reia said as he tried to somehow get Taiga closer to one of the fences. “You are a Fallen, yet you don’t behave like one and you even try to help the West Center members.”

“If you are willing to sit down and talk I can tell you,” Taiga said, but of course that offer fell on deaf ears.

“You can tell me next time, but for now I unfortunately have to go,” Reia said and another signal made the front fence gate slowly move and with that Taiga panicked. Taisuke was still under attack from the weapon system, unable to get back to them. Should he try to get out alone? Or…

“Taiga, don’t!” Taisuke yelled over to him, but it was too late. Taiga’s only chance was to somehow drag Reia out of the front fence gate so that they couldn’t close it and while he didn’t have to go as far as hurting him really badly, maybe he could use him to make them stop firing at Taisuke. All he needed was his mind control over the boy so he dared to finally go on short range and reach out for the boy.

The instinct told Taiga to get away, to jump back, to not let the boy touch his face, but he needed to take the risk and hope that his mind control was fast enough. After all his instinct should block the boy’s ability, right?

Taiga had his hands on the boy after he had thrown him to the ground, but there wasn’t any resistance in the first place and Taiga was sure that he had activated his mind control as fast as never before, yet Reia also had one hand stretched out and then the boy laughed. All he did was putting his pointer finger on Taiga’s temple for a split second before he took his hand back down. “Was it worth the risk?”

“What? Why- you are immune?”

“Taiga, get away from him,” Taisuke shouted again and this time Taiga did what he was told and he jumped up, but he didn’t feel any different. Had the instinct stopped the boy’s ability after all?

“I am immune against any kind of mind abilities,” Reia said and then they realized that he had a transmitter as well and they heard a report about the other Centers and the Fallen retreating. With a laugh Reia gave another signal and the second fence slowly opened, while the first fence was almost closed. “I fear we need to keep playing next time. For now I need to see how much trouble you and your friends have caused.”

With another signal while walking back to the second fence the weapons also finally stopped firing. Taiga didn’t plan on letting him go like this and he wanted to attack once more, but then he stopped and put a hand to his head.

He will never forgive you

What have you done

You are worthless to them

The instinct is the only reason you are alive

With a gasp, followed by a choke as Taiga felt unable to breath he stumbled to the back, Taisuke dashing over to him before he could hit the fence. Yet he didn’t ask what was going on and dragged Taiga out the first fence before it could trap them. Right behind the fence Taiga crumbled to the ground when Taisuke released them.

“What is going on?” Taisuke asked and turned back to Reia who laughed at them from behind the fence. “What did you do?”

“He can tell you later, but for now I fear he will live through hell for a while.”

“Make it stop...shut up…” Taiga yelled at himself while fisting his hair and gritting his teeth. Taisuke couldn’t do anything to help him as he didn’t understand what was going on.

They will kill you

You made him betray Hokuto…

“Hokuto?” Taiga’s own voice made his eyes widen as he realized that whatever ability Reia had put in his mind was affecting not just him, but Taiga as well and he was slowly waking up.

“No, not now...stay back, don’t surface now...NOT NOW!”

“Taiga, what is going on?” Taisuke asked, but when he crouched down, Taiga broke down completely his eyes widening in panic as if he was seeing things Taisuke couldn’t and he started screaming and clawing his own skin, Taisuke hurrying to hold him down, but Taiga was strong and his instinct seemed to side with him, trying to help him running away from whatever was going on in his mind.

“Good luck with your Nightmares,” Reia said before he retreated completely.

“Nightmares?” Taisuke repeated, but needed to concentrate back on Taiga who kept screaming as if he was in the worst pain ever.

“Make them shut up…” Taiga shouted in between and that statement had Taisuke reach out for his face and luckily he had gotten his mind reading so he tried to get into Taiga’s mind to see what was going on, but something was blocking him and then he realized that the Fallen self was enduring the pain while also trying to shut Taiga back into a passive state as he also seemed to get parts of what was going on, but Taisuke wouldn’t be able to help them in this state.

“What did I do…” This time it was only a whisper the moment Taisuke took his hands away and the next moment he had to catch Taiga as he collapsed unconsciously into his arms. But there was not even a moment to relax as the Main Center was now trying to go for them with full force and the alarm of the weapons reactivating made Taisuke react fast and he put Taiga on his back and dashed away. For now they needed to hide somewhere until Taiga woke up again, but Taisuke was already worried about the state the boy would be in the moment he regained consciousness.

***

“Are you sure it was a good idea to not go to Aran’s location first?” Noel asked while he was driving the truck directly back towards the West Center. Shime and Noel had made sure to get hold of a truck before they had even made it close to the Main Center, because they had thought far ahead enough to have a good escape plan.

“Aran knows what he is doing. If he decided to go there with Shintaro then we can only hope that he chose that option because it is not a dangerous place,” Hokuto said.

“We can get more information about what he is up to when we are back at the Center,” Kochi said, but he seemed obviously restless.

“Are you sure you are okay?” Shime asked, but the boy nodded.

“I would like to prove it somehow to you as we all know that the Main Center was always able to come up with weird stuff, but yes there is nothing wrong. They really just came to the West Center and said the Elite-Vestige would take over while I needed to go to the Main Center. They questioned me about the Center having new gear, but I just told them about the new technology I made, nothing about the purpose and about Juri and Hokuto I made up a lie about a secret mission, knowing that you guys would figure something similar out as an excuse.”

“But why are they after Juri and Hokuto then? They could have captured Hokuto at the West Center before?” Shime asked, but none of them had a reply to that yet.

“I think Aran’s plan has something to do with exactly that answer, because he was the one who found out that Juri wasn’t in the Main Center anymore,” Kochi said.

“We got incoming,” Hokuto interrupted and pointed to the left. They slowed down and Shime and Hokuto got ready to attack in case whoever was close was an enemy, but then Hokuto lifted his hand as he could feel the presence stronger. “Get over to them. it’s Shizu and the others.”

The four people walking at the outer part of the ruins tried to hide on the sound of the truck, but when they stopped, Shime and Hokuto making their way over to them, they relaxed and came out of their hiding place.

“Finally no walking anymore,” Shizu said gratefully and jumped at Shime.

“Are you all okay?” Shime asked.

“It’s not like we really fought,” Senga said with an annoyed reaction. “Yabana kept running away from us nonstop.”

“Better than attacking nonstop, now get on the truck, we need to hurry back and see who else has made it back by-”

The telepathy didn’t come as a surprise to them anymore, yet the way Hokuto hissed and brought his hands to his head made them all worry immediately. Since the first few tries that reaction hadn’t happened anymore and with the next passing seconds Hokuto sank to his knees with a scream.

“What is going on?” Kochi asked, rushing over to them while Hokuto remained on his knees, his hands slightly shaking as he took a few deep breaths.

“I have no clue what this was,” Hokuto said. “It came from Taiga that is for sure, but it was just pitch black. I could hear him scream, but that was all.”

“Shall we turn back?” Shime asked.

“No, I won’t let anyone run back there, not knowing what is going on,” Kochi said sternly and everyone knew that after they risked so much to get him out they needed to actually listen to him for now and make a plan. “Let’s trust in them for now.”

Right, them. For Hokuto the only one he could trust in was Myuto, yet he had no clue how their fight was going in the first place, except that something wasn’t right with Taiga.

***

“Leave us,” Aran’s father said after a moment of huge confusion and the other professors did as they were told while Shintaro had also finally caught up with why Aran had so much confidence in coming here and how he had entered the laboratory. To not make the situation even more awkward, Shintaro went outside and guarded the door, making sure to keep an eye on them, but to not be too obvious.

The man went over to the boy, now his look getting softer, almost teary, but when he wanted to reach out for him, Aran took a step to the back. “It’s a bit too late to play emotional.”

“Aran, we couldn’t find you anywhere, I thought I had lost you for good through this monster.”

“Monster?” Aran asked, his tone now mocking. “You mean the boy you treated. The survivor who couldn’t walk and who you lied directly into the face about his friends who were desperately looking for him. Myuto, you definitely remember his name.”

“Our research wasn’t advanced enough at that time, we did a lot of mistakes and yes Myuto unfortunately ended up a victim of the Government at that time, but we were able to help so many people thanks to the Fallen and I really didn’t know about the orphans he was looking for.”

“Are you now trying to get me on your side through sweet talking?” Aran complained, but he could at least believe him that he didn’t know about Reia and the other boys at that time, because Myuto would have maybe found that information in his father’s mind back then. “Why do you think I found this place?”

His father didn’t reply, but a look around already gave the answer. “You created the Elite-Vestige, I found the files. After everything you did wrong with the Fallen how dare you do something like this to a human being ever again.”

“They are the strongest soldiers we have and they can get rid of the Fallen.”

“Here you go again, do you hear yourself talking?” Aran almost yelled. “You don’t get it, do you? What you are doing is leading to another catastrophe, have you learned nothing?”

“I’ve learned that we need to control them, they have working microchips and are under supervision of the higher ups of the Government, so they won’t turn their backs on us.”

“You used the original Fallen serum,” Aran yelled this time and hit his fist on one of the tables, almost making a few of the equipment fall off it. “You call Myuto and the other Fallen monsters and yet you used the same serum to create the Elite-Vestige.”

“We updated the serum a lot over the years, we also made sure to not let them succumb to their instincts,” his father tried to justify his research.

“And how did you do that?”

“We took away their memories, all of them. Through that no instinct will try to take control over unnecessary human emotions left in their minds.”

Aran slowly shook his head, with tears in his eyes of disappointment and hatred. “You are the monster here.”

“Aran, we are doing this to end a war,” his father said sternly.

“For who? You rob our generation of all the freedom we have and turn everyone into weapons you cannot control eventually.”

“Aran, let’s have a calmer talk about this somewhere else, okay?”

No he didn’t need to have a talk, all he needed was information.

“We got trouble,” Shintaro was heard as he entered the laboratory and when he turned to the glass door he saw two Vestige walking up to them.

“What now, you want to take us prisoners?”

“All I want is to run a checkup, okay? The last time I have seen you was with Myuto so I need to be sure that-”

This time Aran laughed and shook his head once more. “You think Myuto is controlling me? Sorry, but for that part you are years too late.”

Shintaro pulled out his hilt, ready to fight them off, but then an alarm was heard, the Vestige now heading back towards the elevator.

“What the hell is going on now?” Shintaro asked, not sure if he should stay put or follow them.

“Tell me where Juri is,” Aran said.

“Who?” This time his father didn’t lie, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know the answer.

“Where is your training Center for the Elite-Vestige?” Aran asked instead. “That was the only location I couldn’t find and no matter if you are directly involved in the transition or not, you definitely know where they do it.”

“The Main Center, like always,” his father replied and Aran got more than angry at his lie, but they were interrupted when the elevator doors got ripped open without the elevator even being there and the Vestige from before hadn’t come back down, yet Shintaro put his hilt back and went into the laboratory with a confident expression.

“Backup has arrived,” he said and stepped aside, revealing a really pissed looking Myuto stepping inside the room.

Aran’s father immediately retreated a bit, but there was nowhere he could go. But Myuto didn’t pay him any attention for now and walked up to Aran instead with kind of threatening steps.

"Don't run off alone."

"He isn't alone," Shintaro interfered, making Myuto look at him.

"You can barely be called backup."

First Shintaro pouted, but then he shrugged his shoulders. "I can't even deny that."

“So I was right,” Aran’s father was heard and they all turned back to them. “He is controlling you.”

“So you came all the way out here to have a talk with the man who didn’t even care to protect you,” Myuto mocked the man.

“He can help us find Juri,” Aran said.

The sudden sound of a loudspeaker made them all look up. “The Elite-Vestige Motodaka and Konno are on their way.”

“Great, then we have to speed this up,” Myuto said and made a threatening step towards Aran’s father who had nothing to defend himself with. “Do you have anything you want to talk about first?”

The question was for Aran and he looked up at his father once more, the man now looking terrified as he definitely remembered the first time Myuto had used his abilities on him.

“Did you really ever look for me?” Aran finally asked.

Silence followed his question, but that was exactly the answer and Aran stepped back with a hurt expression. “You lied to me, lied to Myuto, you even helped forcing Reia and others becoming Elite-Vestige and took their memories, killing so many people in the progress. You didn’t even care for the life of your own son. We will show you that we can make our own future without your generation’s twisted help.”

Myuto went ahead and put his hand on the man’s face, not letting him escape through his motion control as they didn’t have much time anyway. The whole room fell silent while Myuto used his mind reading on him and tried to get all the information they needed.

“It will be tough for us to get to that location without the others,” he eventually said, stretching his arm out to Aran to show him the memories he had just seen.

“Fine, then let’s head back to meet with everyone first and let’s make a plan. We don’t have much time.”

“He won’t become happy with you,” Aran’s father said towards Myuto with a hateful look. Myuto turned back to him and put his hand once more on his face, but Aran could see the difference. He wasn’t reading his mind and soon he also let his motion control fade and the man sank to his knees with a kind of empty and hurt look.

“What did you show him?” Aran asked.

“Everything. Our entire journey, the important parts at least. Maybe he learns how to treat people through that,” Myuto said and walked straight towards the exit. “Let’s go.”

Shintaro followed Myuto, while Aran turned back to his father once more and the man gave him a soft look, apologizing almost and for the first time in ages he saw his father crying, but it was too late. He wouldn’t trust him anymore, but maybe if there was a future for this country then he could try to make up for his sins while supporting the new generation.

Musen 28 - February

Like an endless nightmare Taiga had relived the previous weeks in his mind, but there were just fragments, pieces that didn't make sense together and why was it all making him feel so terrified? This couldn't be real, could it? The fear of seeing it again made Taiga jolt and open his eyes with a gasp, which immediately turned into a cough as he had been sitting up way too fast, choking on the try to breathe in deep.

"Hey, it's ok. You're safe."

No, there was no way he could be safe with the person who had appeared in those nightmares. Not to forget that there was no way in the first place he could ever be safe with Taisuke around.

When the Fallen reached out for his shoulder, Taiga flinched and crawled back, leaving Taisuke with a confused yet apologizing expression.

The building they were in was just one of many ruins, not even furniture left, so Taiga had been lying on the dusty ground, but he felt dizzy and couldn't get up, so all he was capable of was crawling towards the wall and giving Taisuke a terrified look.

"Whatever Reia's ability showed you, it's not real. It's over now," Taisuke tried to sooth him, but alone the fact that he was there was making it way too real for Taiga and he lifted his hands to his ears, shaking his head.

On that reaction Taisuke realized something even more disturbing. "Could it be that you switched?"

Just the confused look on Taiga's look made it clear and that also explained the sheer terror in the boy's eyes, because maybe with the Fallen self Reia's ability wouldn't have had such a crushing outcome. Slowly Taisuke retreated to the other side of the room, knowing that he was most likely the last person the boy wanted around right now.

"Do you remember anything from the past weeks?"

Even when Taiga remained silent on the question, Taisuke made sure to stay patient, after all their connection would still be there even with them switching, but whatever Taiga had seen made him unable to even feel it at the moment. Taisuke could only hope that Taiga’s instinct wouldn’t influence the situation in a bad way now that Taiga was the active mind set again.

You can tell me, I'm on your side

For a moment Taisuke feared that using his telepathy was a bad idea as Taiga's eyes widened in shock and he looked up at Taisuke in a petrified state.

"Sorry, I didn't want to scare you. I just thought you'd believe me easier that I'm not your enemy anymore if I show you that we have a connection."

"A connection you forced on me," Taiga whispered, but the spite in it was more than obvious as his look also changed to angry. "I remember how you forced me to change and how my Fallen self is the only reason I'm still here. You'll never be on my side."

Harsh words, yet Taisuke had already faced Hokuto's rage and Taiga's would hit him even harder and that while both of them hadn't even seen the full picture yet.

"I remember Hokuto telling me to be patient, yet I don't see him around. How can I trust you if all I remember is that terrifying nightmare in my head?"

"What did he show you?" Taisuke asked.

"You said Reia before. Who did you mean?" Taiga asked instead.

"He's the boy you and Myuto know from a few years ago. He is an Elite-Vestige now, but he has no memories from his human days so he fought us and he used some mind ability on you, which made you break down. I think you switched back through that. You said it was like a nightmare?"

"As if you don't know, you are part of it," Taiga hissed and kept his back pressed against the wall.

"Are you sure what he showed you is real?" Taisuke asked. "I could show you what is real and what not."

"No!" The reply came immediately and while it was obvious that Taiga wouldn't let Taisuke touch him, it also hurt Taisuke even more knowing that they had ended up as enemies once more through Reia. But on the other hand it might even be better for Taiga to not know what was real and what not. The nightmare ability definitely turned memories into terrifying ones, but not all of them were lies and it would still break Taiga realizing which parts were real.

"How about you contact Hokuto? He should be back at a safe place by now."

"Back? Did he fight you? Where the hell are we in the first place?"

Taisuke wanted to make a step towards him, to sooth him and take all that panic away, but he remained on distance. "There is so much to explain, but we need to hurry and find out where everyone is heading now so we can follow. Asking Hokuto directly might be the easiest way to find out or you can use your presence finding."

Right, Taiga was still a Fallen. It felt like he had forgotten that over all the panic and finally he took another deep breath, more steady this time and when he got up, Taisuke wanted to help once more, but the moment he took a step to the front on Taiga's unsteady steps he received a death glare.

"I give you this warning only once. No matter what happened I won't trust you until I have spoken to my friends, so if you dare to get close I will attack you."

While it sounded like his instinct speaking it was more Taiga’s fear, but Taisuke only nodded, knowing that he couldn't explain the situation and that Taiga wouldn't believe him anyway.

Not wanting to risk contacting Hokuto as Taiga now realized that he also had a telepathic connection to Taisuke, he focused on his presence finding.

"I can't look far enough."

"Use your instinct."

Another glare followed that idea, but the instinct wasn't Taisuke's fault after all and Taiga was able to use it way easier than he could remember from the times it had almost swallowed him before.

The only place he focused on was the West Center and he felt relieved when there were quite some presences he knew, while others weren't there, but he couldn't panic too much yet. The West Center was his best shot to get answers and to feel safe again after weeks locked in his own mind.

"The West Center," Taiga said.

"So are we heading there?"

"Why would you go there?" Taiga asked more annoyed than he actually wanted to be, because alone the fact that Taisuke was with him explained a lot of the situation.

"My group should be there too, but after we arrive and got a clearer picture of the situation I can also leave with them if that's what you want."

"As if there was any reason to not want that," Taiga whispered under his breath before he finally felt stable enough to actually take a few steps, but he didn't pass Taisuke.

"I won't let you walk behind me," Taiga said and Taisuke got the hint, leaving the building first and walked ahead a few meters before Taiga followed him.

There was indeed so much that had to be explained, yet Taiga bit back the question regarding Taisuke's look. Why was he looking so hurt, so understanding? This wasn't the Taisuke he remembered and even if he had been turned by the serum it just didn't feel like it should. Taiga's own anger gave him a headache, but he refused to take his eyes off the other one for even a second while they kept walking. Yet he could feel how he calmed down while walking and how his own look towards Taisuke changed.

With a low curse Taiga shook his head and put one hand to his face, what was he even doing? Everything felt so weird, the scenes from his nightmares not matching how his mind tried to make him feel towards Taisuke and his Fallen self had become completely inactive so he couldn’t even ask him what had happened. For now he needed to catch up on the situation and sort reality out from his nightmares.

***

"We somehow got all the systems back up, but now I need to make sure that the Main Center can't shut us down," Kochi said after he had arrived back at the West Center with the others and had rebooted the lab in a hurry.

"I make sure everyone is on high alert. If they try to attack us right away we need to be ready," Jesse said and headed to the training room where most people were gathered at the moment. Shime's group was up on the roof, guarding the area in case their security system got turned off by the Main Center before Kochi could take full control.

"But why the hell did you let Aran leave like this?" Hokuto scolded Reo and Hagi, both of them exchanging an apologizing look.

"We were quite busy with the Elite-Vestige," Reo said.

"They are no joke, they match our strength," Hagi explained.

"Is that why you let them run away?"

"It was the safest choice. They tried to get away so we decided to let them so that we can use the West Center as our hideout for now," Hagi explained and Hokuto couldn't even be that angry at their planning, because they didn't want to kill them after all they were used by the Government as they all were. They weren't bad people, just used as puppets.

When the Fallen alarm went off the next moment Hokuto hurried to the screen where Kochi was already bringing the security camera image up.

"Taisuke's team?" Reo asked. "They are the last team out with Fallen."

"Partly Taisuke's team," Kochi said and before he could even say something to Hokuto, the boy had turned and walked with angry steps towards the gate.

"Oh that's not going to end well," Kochi said and when Reo and Hagi looked at the screen they understood why.

"We should follow him before he rips Myuto to pieces."

Hagi's idea was good and Reo hurried with him to the gates where Hokuto was already storming out towards the three boys making it through the gate of the security fence.

"Seems like the system is back up, did you bring Kochi back?"

Shintaro's question fell on deaf ears when Hokuto passed him and took Myuto by the collar.

"Why are you not with Taiga?"

"Hokuto-"

"If you tell me to calm down, I'll punch you," Hokuto warned Aran who stepped back on that threat and told Hagi and Reo to stand back too.

"He told me to go to Aran's place," Myuto replied calmly. Skipping the part that he had done that through a new telepathy between Taiga and Taisuke.

"And you just do so because he is so damn sane right now!?"

"I'm sorry Hokuto, if I hadn't gone out there then he wouldn't have send him to help," Aran tried to calm the situation, but it backfired.

"Yes, exactly. What the hell were you thinking? We had so much trouble bringing Kochi back and Juri went missing on the way. Now I have to worry for Taiga too."

When Myuto took Hokuto's wrists with a warning look he knew that he shouldn't yell at Aran too much and he finally withdrew his hands.

"Thanks to Aran we know where Juri is," Myuto let out.

"More thanks to you, because without your mind reading my father wouldn't have spilled anything," Aran said.

"Your father?" Hokuto asked, now finally calming down a bit, knowing that it had been a tough decision for Aran too, to even make that step and confront his past for their sake.

"Can we talk about everything inside? Let's make a plan and head out as fast as we can. We can go back and look for Taiga too."

Hokuto only nodded as he wanted to immediately do so, but he knew that going back towards the Main Center now was also quite risky. And his biggest fear wasn't the Main Center catching Taiga, it was the person who was with him.

***

“It’s in this area, but it’s as heavily guarded as the Main Center and the chances are high that they are already training a new generation of Elite-Vestige there,” Myuto explained in the lab after they had gathered to make a plan.

“But why would they bring Juri there?” Shintaro asked.

“It’s something like their Center so they will most likely feel safest there?” Noel replied.

“But if they just want to try to get information about what we were doing here in the Center then they could have easily made me spill secrets. I fear there is a lot more going on,” Kochi said and for a moment it seemed like he wanted to add something, but then he remained silent.

“I think through their microchips they thought it would be easier to get information from the Vestige?” Hokuto asked and it made sense as the Government had almost full control over them through the remotes.

“But exactly the remote is the problem,” Aran explained as he pointed at the two remotes in front of him on the table. “Hokuto’s remote still didn’t work so they thought Juri was the better option, but they didn’t think Juri was going to the Main Center so they had brought it back here.”

“Don’t they have more than one?” Jesse asked, but Kochi shook his head.

“The technology they use can’t be connected to several devices.”

“But that is exactly one of the points they fixed with the Elite-Vestige, if you want to call it fixing,” Aran explained as he brought up some data on the screen from his father’s research. “Their microchip is completely remote controlled by some other facility, which seems to be Government related. It also works like a tracker and for a pretty long distance so if they wanted to they could actually kill them at any time.”

“That sounds more than scary,” Shime said, putting his own hand on the back of his neck, knowing the risk of being a Vestige as well, but until now they had never given the Government a reason to consider getting rid of them.

“So what are we doing?” Myuto asked, but everyone seemed a bit lost about what to answer.

“They will expect an attack from us. By now they will have realized that we know about that secret Center and that Juri is most likely there,” Kochi said.

“So? Are we just leaving him there?” Shintaro asked, yet he also didn’t seem confident to storm a Center full of Elite-Vestige.

“Maybe we could try and get to the place from where they control them?” Noel suggested. It would definitely be a safer option for what they knew, but Aran shook his head.

“I couldn’t get any information about that place and Myuto had also not found anything in my father’s memories, so it would take way too long to find that place.”

“But now we are all together. Only Miyata and Tama are back up at the hideout so we should be able to overpower them, right?” Jesse asked.

“To be honest I think we could,” Myuto said. “But knowing that they have received a serum so close to the original Fallen serum and have no memories of their human days, makes them extremely dangerous. If we act too fast they might just kill Juri.”

“For now let’s wait-” The Fallen alarm interrupted Kochi and the boy opened the security camera screen. “Well, no waiting needed as it seems.”

They all gathered to look who it was and Hokuto immediately dashed out of the lab, Myuto and Shime following him just in case. At the gates Kentaro, Reo and Nika were already waiting for them to open the security fence. The others who had patrolled around the fence and the roof had already spotted the two Fallen approaching, but now they all looked towards Hokuto as the boy’s expression changed from worried, over angry to relieved in an endless loop until he was finally able to step out of the security fence gate.

Shime immediately caught up to him and made it to Taisuke before Hokuto could actually say anything and luckily all he did was giving the Fallen a death glare before he walked past him straight at Taiga who was walking way too far behind him.

When Hokuto got closer, Taiga suddenly stopped, giving the other one a weird look, which made Hokuto slow down as well. Just when he was right in front of Taiga and the boy even made a step back and looked to the ground between them, Hokuto stopped as well and now the worry in his look overshadowed everything else.

The others all stayed at the gates, Taisuke and Shime already walking up to the Center, while Hokuto felt like something was stopping Taiga from following them. All he wanted was to make sure that he was okay, but his hesitation made it difficult to even ask.

“Taiga?” Hokuto finally asked when the other one kept looking to the ground, but when he finally looked up there was something Hokuto hadn’t seen in weeks. Emotions! So much confusion, fear and embarrassment that it felt like he hadn’t seen Taiga in ages and it was indeed the case as he realized that the one he had called had reacted to his voice.

“Taiga…You are, Taiga?” Hokuto asked as if he couldn’t believe it himself and then the other one finally looked a bit more confident and nodded, but he didn’t get the chance to reply anything as Hokuto immediately took a few big steps and pulled the other one into his embrace.

“I can’t believe that I finally have you back,” Hokuto whispered. He felt so relieved to know that his real personality was still there. Yet the next moment he realized that something was indeed not right and the fact that Taiga had just frozen in his hug and hadn’t moved himself, made Hokuto finally step back. Again the other one looked a bit uncomfortable to the ground and it hurt Hokuto to know that he had taken back his mind in one of the worst timings ever, which also made his look darken as he looked over his shoulder towards Taisuke.

“It’s not his fault,” Taiga said, not even knowing why he said something in the first place. It shouldn’t matter to him. “At least if what he said is true then it was Reia’s fault that we switched.”

“Let’s talk inside?” Hokuto interrupted him, realizing how confused Taiga was about his own situation and the fact that everyone was watching them wasn’t making it any easier on Taiga.

Taiga nodded, yet his reason to stay so distant to Hokuto wasn’t the same as with Taisuke, but luckily Hokuto’s offer to talk inside made it easier for him to explain it later as he didn’t want everyone to hear about his private problems, even though he definitely had to explain about Reia’s ability and that alone stressed him enough.

“Take your time, no one expects you to immediately be on top of you game after everything that happened,” Hokuto reminded him as he walked up to the Center together with him and Shime already made sure that Taisuke and the others would go back inside as they didn’t need to stress Taiga even more.

 “Thank you,” was all Taiga could bring out and he felt so stupid for his weird behavior, yet he was indeed everything but in top condition to face any of the chaos they were stuck in and he didn’t even know what kind of chaos it was.

***

To make things easier for Taiga they had let him change clothes in his room first and when they gathered in the lab there were only West Center members, Myuto and Aran present, which made Taiga feel even more embarrassed as he had no clue what was even going on, yet he immediately realized something was off.

"Where is Juri?"

The question hung in the air for a moment until Kochi stepped forward. "Do you want us to explain everything first or is there something you want to talk about first yourself?"

Was there? His eyes immediately went to Hokuto, but as before he could only look away. He had to sort out his thoughts as not all topics were for this situation. Some had to wait for later.

"I think Taisuke is the only one who can give you all the details, but from what I remember Reia has some mind ability that even the instinct can't stop and it...well, it causes something like nightmares."

"Nightmares?" Myuto asked, but the worry in his eyes was obvious.

Taiga nodded, but he didn't want to talk about the details, what he had seen felt still too real and he couldn’t even tell how much of it was real.

"I think the ability was so strong that it ripped me out of my passive mind set and because my Fallen self got the full impact he wasn't strong enough to stay in control."

"Just thinking of an ability stronger than the instinct and bad enough to even throw your Fallen self off balance after all the shit he went through these weeks," Jesse said, but zipped it when Hokuto gave him a warning look. Right, all the events they knew about, but Taiga didn't.

"So you didn't regain your memories from the time he was in control?" Kochi asked while everyone didn't dare to ask.

Taiga only shook his head, maybe he had seen some of the memories, maybe not, he couldn't say for sure.

"When I woke up I had already switched back, but I only remember that Hokuto stopped me from waking up some time before."

The way Hokuto and Taiga exchanged a knowing look made everyone wait for one of them to say something until Taiga sighed.

"If you think the situation will be even more chaotic with my memories then I'll wait," Taiga said and while it felt so wrong to say it, there was a part of Taiga that didn't want to remember.

"Okay then let's maybe decide that after we explained our part," Kochi suggested. "Anything else?"

For a moment Taiga hesitated and he wanted to ask something, but then he bit his lip and gave another apologizing look towards Hokuto, but only shook his head. He didn't know if the others knew about the telepathy between him and Taisuke already or not, so he didn't want to complicate the situation in case they didn't.

"Then it's our turn," Aran said and opened some data on the big screen at the end of the platform for everyone to see.

"First of all, Taisuke's group is on our side. We succeeded in turning them all with the serum and everyone is safe," Hokuto said before they could jump too far ahead.

"A few are still recovering from the recent fight, but they are here at our Center," Myuto added and Taiga nodded.

"There are new Vestige, they are called Elite-Vestige and we found out that they use a serum close to the Fallen one. They are way stronger than normal Vestige and well-"

"They are arrogant assholes," Shintaro ended Kochi's explanation.

"They behave like you when you entered this Center," Kochi replied and on Shintaro's pouting, Taiga showed the first faint smile.

"Anyway, they realized that we were up to something here at the West Center and took control of all Centers while you were all out fighting Taisuke. They took me to the Main Center and you had to come up with a plan to get me out and the West Center back."

"And that's where Juri got into trouble," Aran explained. "He offered to head to the Main Center to check if he can get more information, but Reia attacked him and now we think they took him to their Secret Center."

"But Reia..he is, they are Vestige, right?"

Taiga's sudden problem to find the right words made Myuto speak up.

"He doesn't remember us. All Elite-Vestige get their memories removed. So he only follows orders."

It was some kind of relief to Taiga, knowing that the kind kid they had looked after wasn't actually willingly hurting people, but now he also feared for the other kids. Had they been turned too?

"So Reia used his ability on Juri?" Taiga finally said and everyone fell silent again. They couldn't say for sure as their connection had been cut, but because the remote was in their hands, it was likely and just the thought made Taiga turn pale.

"I can't explain it really well, but trust me you want to stay away from Reia as much as you can. Don't let him touch you. His ability works in an instant."

Just the warning made everyone feel how serious the effect of it must have been for Taiga to warn them this firmly.

"We also fought the other five Elite-Vestige in his group. We will update you on their abilities with everyone together later. But for now we have to decide what we do about Juri," Kochi explained and weirdly the attention was on Taiga.

"Am I deciding that?"

"You and Taisuke are the strongest Fallen so depending on if you think we can take the Elite-Vestige on or not, we will decide what to do," Myuto said and all the pressure made Taiga feel nauseous and then he had to decide something he also didn't feel good about, but he had to act logical for now.

"Then let's call Taisuke, because I can't decide this alone."

Musen 28 - February

The decision to wait had been more than difficult to make, but in the end they had all agreed that it wouldn’t help Juri if they try to somehow get into that Secret Center and end up dead before even getting to him, so for now they decided to wait another day and see if the Elite-Vestige move on their own. If there was no movement by the end of the second day a team would go out to spy on the Secret Center to try and get information.

Now the problem was that they were all restless and with way too many people trapped inside the same Center. Most of Taisuke’s and Myuto’s group had volunteered to keep patrolling, because they were of course also at risk of a sudden attack at night and the Fallen didn’t need to sleep anyway.

Aran and Kochi remained in the lab to get more information together and stabilize their security system against the Main Center.

For everyone who wanted to rest they had enough rooms and it came to no one’s surprise that Taiga had decided to retreat to his room as well, but that left Hokuto with a racing mind and while he had tried to somehow distract himself it just hadn’t worked out as everyone was too distracted with their own thoughts so in the end he had retreated to his room as well, but who was he kidding, there was not even any need for him to rest so all he did was sitting on his bed for hours, trying to figure out how he was supposed to face the situation from now on.

What ripped him out of his thoughts was a knock on his door and the fact that it was in the middle of the night made his heart rate immediately go up a bit as he feared that something had happened. When he opened the door a bit too fast, Taiga made a step to the back, immediately lowering his eyes towards the ground as he had done before.

“Oh, sorry. I thought, maybe something happened. Are you alright?”

“Yes, sorry- I shouldn’t have come in the middle of the night…” Taiga apologized, but when he made another step back, Hokuto immediately opened the door wider and gave Taiga a knowing look. “Want to come in?”

Yes he definitely wanted to, there was no other reason he would be here otherwise, but the hesitation on his face made Hokuto want to pull him into another hug, yet he only stepped aside when Taiga nodded and entered the room.

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“Taiga, stop it,” Hokuto said and finally dared to touch the other one again to turn him around on his shoulders to make him to look up. “If your memories aren’t back then why are you behaving like this?”

Finally he had said it out loud, but it had been on his mind the whole day already, but with the others he hadn’t been able to ask and maybe that was also why Taiga had come to him now.

“It’s just- Reia’s ability…”

“The nightmares? What do they have to do with us?” Hokuto asked, but it was obviously getting harder for Taiga to say it, even with only the two of them. “Taiga, if there is anyone you can tell then it’s me.”

“It’s exactly because it is you that I don’t want to tell you,” Taiga voiced out in a low voice.

Hokuto only remained silent on that as he didn’t even know what to reply and while Taiga still struggled with his nightmares he finally couldn’t carry everything alone anymore.

“If anything from those nightmares is true then I did horrible things and I don’t know if you will forgive me.”

There it was again, the fear in Taiga’s eyes and now Hokuto could finally understand it a bit better. “But we don’t know if anything is real, right? What if Reia’s ability twists every memory completely to turn them into a nightmare? Then you have nothing to worry about.”

“And what if not? What if I get my memories back and realize that I am a horrible person?”

A part of Hokuto wanted to get angry, yet Taiga’s expression showed how scared he was of that possibility.

“It’s the Fallen self who did everything over the past weeks, so no matter what he did or did not do, I won’t ever judge you for that. You never judged me for anything he did when he was still part of me.”

It should help Taiga to understand Hokuto’s determination, yet his look didn’t change much and that fact made Hokuto realize something else.

“It’s your connection that worries you,” he finally said and Taiga looked up as if he had figured something out that was forbidden to say out loud. The panic in the older one’s eyes made Hokuto finally move and he pushed Taiga a bit to the back so that he would sit down on the bed and calm down. But instead of sitting down next to him, Hokuto leant against the wall next to the bed. “The instincts carry that connection no matter what and he used both your blood with the serum so now it is even stronger than before and no matter if your Fallen self is the main carrier of the instinct, you will be affected too, that is something I am aware of.”

“I’ve seen all your looks when we arrived and also earlier in the lab. I just- I can’t promise I will be strong enough to stay away. The further I stay away the worse it gets.”

There, he had finally said it. After his fear of Taisuke had gotten less, the instinct had gotten stronger again and tried to force him towards Taisuke and it was feeling so wrong, yet it almost physically hurt to stay away.

With a sigh Taiga put his face in his hands as he leaned to the front and shook his head. “I am a horrible person for bothering you with this.”

“Don’t make me punch you,” Hokuto warned, making the other one look up at him in confusion. Finally Hokuto sat down next to him, but he looked straight ahead instead of facing Taiga. “Yes, that state of yours is irritating me. I can't deny that and I can’t forgive Taisuke for a lot of things and maybe there are even more happenings I want to punch him for, but you are not at fault for any of this. You are not at fault for having the instinct or for whatever the instinct wants you to do. Just keep being honest with me about it, okay? The only thing I won’t forgive you is lying to me.”

Now Taiga was the one who couldn’t find any words and finally Hokuto could see another emotion between all the chaos going on in the boy’s mind and he reached out for Taiga’s cheek to wipe away a silent tear. “I’m sorry for being so weak.”

All the self-hurting, all that fear, embarrassment and self-beating, Hokuto couldn’t take it anymore and he put his hand a bit tighter around the boy’s chin to pull him into a kiss. He tried to keep it soft and to give Taiga the space to pull back if he wanted to, but a shaking hand reached out for his sleeve and pulled a bit hesitant, making Hokuto deepen the kiss and move his hand up to Taiga’s hair. It was Hokuto who pulled back first, but he put his forehead against Taigas who closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath.

“Just don’t leave me out of your mind when you are troubled,” Hokuto said and that reminded Taiga of something he had been afraid of before.

I won’t. I promise

Hokuto’s chuckle made Taiga relax as he realized that their connection hadn’t vanished and that he had now two separate connections, but for now that topic could wait for later. There was a lot to talk about, but maybe without his memories he should indeed stop freaking himself out too much.

“Can I stay here tonight?” Taiga asked and the scolding look Hokuto gave him when he pulled back, made Taiga slightly smile.

“As if I’d let you leave,” Hokuto teased.  

***

“Any movement?” Hokuto asked as they gathered in the training room the next morning to change the patrolling teams.

“Oh, no, nothing so far,” Chaka replied after he had been right in front of Hokuto when he had entered so the question had been for the boy, but he had looked over to Taiga who had entered with Hokuto.

That the attention was on them now was no secret, but at least the others tried to be a bit more unobtrusive.

“Any updates from Kochi and Aran?” Taiga asked as he tried to not behave as awkward as the day before and the talk with Hokuto had definitely helped, but his own confidence was easily wounded, especially with Taisuke in the room.

“I forced them to take turns to rest, so Aran is in the lab with Hagi and Yokoo. In a few hours Kochi will switch with him,” Myuto said. “We were out patrolling out at night, you might want to switch with us?”

“Sure no problem,” Hokuto replied and looked at Taiga who also nodded.

“Great, then the team from last night should take a rest for the day now,” Myuto said and luckily Taisuke and most of the other Fallen got ready to leave, but while Taiga could have just avoided him, it wasn’t that easy and he caught himself looking up at the other one when he moved past him towards the door and of course Taisuke looked back at him.

“Let’s not waste time here,” Shime said and urged his group members to start patrolling, but there was something about the way he seemed annoyed that caught Taiga’s attention and he looked at Hokuto with a silent question. Having the confidence back to use his telepathy made it easier to ask without being too obvious to everyone, yet he still felt weird when Hokuto could only nod, as he wasn’t able to use the telepathy freely without help of the Center and Juri and using their mind reading with each other was something everyone would notice too easily.

“Shime, do you mind patrolling with me?” Taiga asked, to the younger one’s obvious confusion and the others also seemed a bit startled as they had thought that he wouldn’t leave Hokuto’s side for now.

“Sure…?” Shime said a bit reluctantly.

“Matsuku, Shizu. Mind if I join you?” Hokuto asked and the boys who were already at the door nodded. “How is Umi by the way?”

With that casual conversation they left the room, so that only Shime and Taiga were left.

“I am patrolling close to the ruins today, are you sure you want to join?” Shime asked.

“I don’t mind, it’s not like I am wounded or anything.”

Sure that wasn’t exactly what Shime wanted to say and Taiga knew that, but he was tired of all the looks and the worry. Especially after Hokuto had scolded him the day before for keeping his distance from everyone, because he felt guilty. No matter what he couldn’t remember, he was still one of their strongest Fallen so he had to make himself useful.

“So?”

“So what?” Taiga asked after they had arrived at the outer part of the Center close to the ruins. Kochi had handed them new transmitters which couldn’t get tracked by the Government so that they could at least stay in contact if they spotted anyone approaching and Taiga made sure to put his presence finding at use.

“I doubt you chose to patrol with me because you didn’t want to be with Hokuto.”

“Right,” Taiga said, not even trying to find any outrights. “I just wanted to talk, I think? It’s a bit complicated for me to keep up with everything without my memories, but I also understand that getting them back now wouldn’t actually be helpful. But I want to know how everyone is doing.”

“I’m doing fine, if that’s all you wanted to know. It’s not like I took any huge damage in any of our battles.”

“I actually wanted to ask if you are angry at me.”

The direct question had Shime stop and turn towards him with a confused expression, yet there was also something else, the truth behind that question. And Taiga wasn’t calm enough to talk around the topic. “I realized it yesterday already when you went to Taisuke at the gates. You want me to stay away from him.”

“What the hell, Taiga? Do you really think I don’t understand how the instinct works?”

“That’s not it,” Taiga interfered. “You understand better than any of the others maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is not the reunion you wanted with your brother.”

The anger on Shime’s face just showed how true Taiga’s words were and how much Shime had tried to keep his personal emotions away from everyone for now.

“The same as with your memories I want this to not be in our way for now. It doesn’t matter how I feel,” Shime said.

“But it matters to me and I want you to tell me, because I realized that keeping everything in isn’t going to help with our focus,” Taiga replied, knowing that the best after his talk with Hokuto the night before.

“But we cannot change anything about the situation, so what would it help if I told you?” Shime asked, raising his voice.

“It will help you to calm down,” Taiga replied and that calm reaction made Shime snap and he cursed and turned away from the older one, taking a few steps away before he turned back and pointed at him.

“Calm down? You know when I will be calm? When I get the happy ending I deserve as much as everyone else! After we have come this far, why am I the only one who is left behind?”

Taiga only listened, knowing that he couldn’t reply to that, after all Shime knew all the answers himself, but he needed to get it off his chest.

“Hokuto’s Fallen self sacrificed himself for your happiness, yet he is stealing my happiness now. That is not fair!”

Now Shime was shouting and kicking the sand, walking even further away from Taiga.

“You were able to get Myuto back, Aran also got his happy ending with Myuto and even Kentaro managed to reunite with his brother, so why the hell am I the only one who feels like there is still a huge unbreakable wall between me and my brother?”

The reason was easy, Taiga was in the way. The instinct was in the way! Yet Taiga knew that Shime didn’t want him to apologize. That wasn’t the problem. He understood all the problems surrounding the instinct. It was more personal than that.

“Why me?” Shime shouted and now tears were shining in his eyes. “All I want is my loving brother back. To be able to quarrel with him like Kentaro and Nika do. I want to laugh with him like Aran and Myuto do and I want him to hug me and tell me that he missed me and that he is sorry for all the shit he put me through over these years, yet all that is on his mind is you!”

This time Shime’s arm was shaking when he pointed at Taiga and he pulled back and turned around, but Taiga didn’t miss the falling tears and Shime cursed as he tried to calm down and stop his sobs, but he couldn’t.

Taiga waited a moment for the other one to calm down and as expected Shime actually seemed calmer than before.

“I know that you don’t want me to apologize, but maybe it helps you when I tell you that I am also robbed of my happy ending?”

This time Shime finally turned back to face Taiga and it was clear that he understood what the other one meant.

“It had never been my choice to even have the instinct, but it had also not been Taisuke’s choice to be so desperate to awaken it. If we could blame everything on the Fallen then our lives would be so much easier, yet we know that everything he did was instinct driven in the first place and now we are stuck. Trust me if I could rip the instinct out I would gladly do so.”

Shime slowly walked back to Taiga with an understanding expression. It wasn’t only Taisuke who couldn’t get back to normal, but also Taiga and yet they both wished they could just let go of all that instinct driven longing.

“Thank you,” Shime finally said. “Thank you for understanding and for helping me understand.”

“Maybe you should also try talk to Taisuke?” Taiga suggested. “You know, we are still able to understand everyone’s emotions around us, but we need some extra shouting from time to time or we won’t see past each other.”

Shime smiled at that comment before he hit the other one slightly against the shoulder. “I guess Hokuto yelled some sense into you yesterday?”

“Who else would?” Taiga asked with a faint smile as well.

***

A whole day without any updates. Kochi and Aran hadn’t gotten any new information about the Secret Center and no Elite-Vestige or Main Center members had tried to contact or attack them. So they had one more night and then they needed to decide if they could risk an attack. If they waited too long then who knew if Juri was still going to be alive.

The weather had turned its back on them and the temperatures had dropped to minus degrees in the evening and a heavy rain storm had turned into a blizzard so they had retreated inside. There was no way they could patrol outside while risking being thrown around by heavy wind gusts and an attack was also almost impossible for the Elite-Vestige no matter how skilled they were.

“Why does the weather hate me so much?” Taiga complained as he made it back to the Center together with Shime after an hour-long patrol outside as both had ended up talking a lot and they didn’t really feel like getting back, but now they had been forced to retreat.

“You are definitely always calling the rain I am sure of that by now and this time even the snow,” Shime teased while they made it to the second floor to get changed. “Make sure to get dry quickly.”

Shime’s reminder made Taiga nod as the boy’s room was at the corner of the first corridor and Taiga hurried down the second corridor, but then he slowed down. Why was he still feeling like he shouldn’t just enter that room while he knew there was no reason to not do so. They had never knocked at each other’s doors in the first place, yet Taiga stopped in front of Hokuto’s room with a hesitant look. Just when he wanted to keep going as his wet clothes were starting to form a puddle in front of Hokuto’s room, a towel landed over his hair and he turned around with an anxious look.

“And here I tried to prevent you two from flooding the Center and you come back in the one minute I am in the lab,” Hokuto complained, rubbing the towel over the boy’s hair while carrying clothes in his other hand.

“Sorry,” Taiga replied a bit sheepishly as he relaxed again while he put his own hand up to the towel, but accidently put it right over Hokutos and it felt weird to feel this embarrassed, but the bright smile Hokuto flashed at him made Taiga chuckle as well.

“Is everyone else already back?” Taiga asked as Hokuto just stepped closer and kept drying the other one’s hair.

“Almost. A few of the Fallen had gone out further to patrol just to be sure that we didn't miss anything.”

“Do you think we need to head out tomorrow?”

“What do you prefer? Them coming to us or us going to them?” Hokuto asked, but tried to keep the topic as light as possible and he finally dropped the towel to the back of Taiga’s neck and brushed his hands slightly over the boy’s collarbones as he helped him out of his wet jacket.

“I have no clue to be honest,” Taiga replied. “I just feel the longer they have Juri the more he is in danger.”

“He knew from the start what risk he was taking, but we have to believe in his strength and you need to get changed or you won’t have any strength to fight.”

“Even if I catch a cold I will be fine in less than a day you know that,” Taiga teased.

“Let me offer you a hot shower before that happens?” Hokuto asked with a look towards his door and while nothing spoke against that, Taiga still hesitated and he hated himself for it, but luckily Hokuto was the last person he had to explain to why things were so chaotic in his mind.

“Here, I took them from your spare clothes in my room earlier, make sure to change into them,” Hokuto said and handed the boy his clothes instead. Yet when Hokuto tried to turn away, Taiga reached out for the other one’s sleeve, making Hokuto stop.

“I prefer your shower,” Taiga finally brought out, yelling at his insecurities to shut up for now.

With a knowing smile Hokuto turned back to him and reached out for his hand, but then something happened that Taiga hadn’t seen coming and he couldn’t even stop his own movements before he even knew what he had done.

Just when Hokuto had touched his hand there was a reaction from his instinct and the signal it had given him made him pull back and make a step to the back and the reason for it made Taiga curse inside. At first Hokuto looked at him in confusion until Taiga looked towards the corner and Hokuto turned around. The next second Taisuke came into sight, but the Fallen stopped immediately. There was an awkward moment of silence before Taisuke turned to the left as his room was on the other side of the corridor.

Now there were several things that were making Taiga’s thoughts race again. If Taiga’s instinct had told Taiga that Taisuke was approaching without him even looking for the connection towards the other one, had it been the same for Taisuke? Had it really been a coincidence that he had shown up at such a bad timing or was the instinct now trying to force them to stay away from others?

“I guess you need a bit of time for yourself after all,” Hokuto said and it took Taiga a moment to realize that he had kept staring after Taisuke until Hokuto had moved towards his door. He didn’t seem angry, at least he didn’t try to make Taiga feel bad about his behavior, yet the anger about the instinct was boiling inside of Taiga and he stepped to the front.

“No, don’t even say it.”

Hokuto’s warning came when Taiga tried to say something and of course Hokuto knew that it was going to be an apology and he didn’t want them.

“Okay, then see you later?” Taiga asked instead, trying to play down how mad he was at himself.

“Sure, I promised to train with a few Chasers later, you can join us,” Hokuto offered before he entered his own room and left Taiga alone in the corridor.

That was exactly what he had meant when he had told Shime about his lost happy ending, but he needed to concentrate on the main problem for now. They both hurt and for now there was not much he could do except for trying to keep his instinct down, but once more he felt like trying to push it away was actually turning it stronger.

Musen 28 - February

In the end Taiga had spent way too long under the shower and while he knew he could get himself busy with training there was just no place in his mind right now to actually do so.

“Just shut up…” Taiga hissed and punched the wall with the side of his fist. The instinct was driving him insane the more he tried to actually ignore it. “I won’t listen to you.”

For the first time he felt exhausted enough to wish for his Fallen self to take over once more so just that his mind could get a break, but he of course knew that even bigger problems could arise with that.

Finally Taiga got ready to join Hokuto and the others for late-night training, because they were all restless after all and with the storm threatening to crush their huge walls, no one could actually sleep in the first place.

With hasty steps Taiga left his room and made it down the corridor, yet all he felt was aggressive and he wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to interact with anyone. Again, that was what his instinct wanted him to think, right? It drove him crazy and he cursed once more when he stopped at the corner and looked ahead with a murderous glare as if the instinct had materialized right in front of him. “Screw this!”

The moment he turned towards the other corridor he knew he was making a huge mistake yet it felt so much easier to walk this direction and when he stopped there was not even the need to knock as the door was opened for him just seconds later.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Thanks for the reminder I know that myself,” Taiga hissed and Taisuke seemed a bit stunned by the boy’s aggression. “So then let’s make this clear right away. I don’t want to be here, I also don’t want you to be here and everyone else also gets annoyed by us, but here I am, running to you like an idiot, because this freaking instinct won’t let me go anywhere else and I hate it.”

There was a moment of silence and it was obvious that Taisuke had felt the same or he wouldn’t have locked himself in his own room without any good reason. “I can still leave if you want.”

“As if that solved anything,” Taiga barked back. “You know that the further away we are from each other the worse it gets.”

“Then what shall we do? I know you don’t want to be close to me,” Taisuke reminded him.

“And yet here I am. The same as you earlier. Thanks for the interruption by the way.”

“So you are allowed to succumb to your instinct, but I am forced to stay strong?” Taisuke replied, now raising his voice as well.

“You are the one who brought this mess upon us so yes, you don’t know how hard it is for me to balance the instinct, but you lived with it for so long, you should be able to stay stronger than me.”

“How am I supposed to do that when you show up right in front of me for the second time already?”

“The second time?”

Now Taisuke’s look turned to stone for a moment, but there was no way he would tell Taiga about what had happened between them as he respected his decision to not get his memories back yet, but it was also making everything even more confusing.

“You should leave,” Taisuke finally said, making Taiga let out a judging sound, but that reaction had Taisuke’s mood change too. “You are not the only one who is trying to rescue some connections here, you know?”

“Oh right, your brother told me about that and trust me I can understand him pretty well, but my situation is different. You don’t have anyone you care for that way!”

And while it was the truth in Taiga’s eyes, there was something in Taisuke’s look that turned to hurt for a second. “If you say so, then everything is clear now.”

Taiga should leave it at that, they were both angry enough and he should just leave, he had come to actually set his boundaries and hadn’t they both just done so? Yet the way Taisuke seemed to run away from him made something in him jump once more and he stopped Taisuke from shutting the door. “You are not important to me!”

Why had Taiga even bothered saying it out loud? And why was Taisuke’s look so hurt on hearing it? There was so much pulling and pushing between them that nothing made any sense anymore and then Taiga looked towards the corner as he could feel the presence of some Chasers closing in and when Taisuke could hear their voices he reacted intuitively and grabbed Taiga by the arm and pulled him into his room.

The moment he closed the door, Taiga immediately wanted to complain, but found himself pressed against the door with Taisuke’s warning look to not make a scene now.

“What are you doing?” Taiga hissed at the other one in a low voice.

“Do you prefer them seeing us?” Taisuke asked next to the boy’s ear as he was trying to listen if the others had left the corridor.

“I prefer you on the other side of the room,” Taiga replied snappy and tried to push the other one away, but in reply Taisuke actually stepped closer and trapped Taiga even more against the door.

“Why do I not believe you?”

“Because you are an idiot,” Taiga hissed.

“Then why are you pulling and not pushing?”

The realization came way too slow and Taiga looked at his own hand, which was clenched in Taisuke’s shirt, but was indeed pulling instead of pushing the other one. “Did you even listen to a single thing I yelled at you before?” Taiga shot back instead, trying to put the entire fault on the instinct again, but what had he expected? That yelling at Taisuke and walking away would work? He had been a fool and now he had to pay the price for it.

“I listened to it all. Are you done complaining now?” Taisuke mocked the other one and when he put his hand on the boy’s cheek, Taiga gave him another death glare.

“Depends on if you are done being an asshole?” Taiga tried a last comeback and put all his remaining sanity in pushing this time, but the effort he was putting in it was a joke and the next moment he was the one who got pushed and Taisuke grabbed him by the chin, lifting his head up and forced him into a rushed kiss.

There was still a part of Taiga, which wanted to run, but the instinct tried to force his sanity down and before he realized what he was doing he had given into Taisuke’s rough movements and let him lead their guilty kiss. With no one interrupting them the situation could escalate in the worst way and they were both more than aware of that fact, but their instincts were even stronger this close together and Taiga didn’t stop the other one when his hands found their way down to Taiga’s hips. It even got worse when Taiga put one hand into Taisuke’s hair and bit down onto the other one’s lip, impatiently waiting for him to get even more active.

With Taisuke’s leg moving up against the inside of his thigh, Taiga let out a moan into the kiss and his own mind felt way too foggy to even pay any warning signs attention.

“You will regret this,” Taisuke whispered as he pulled back and lifted the boy’s head up with a tight grip on his chin, so that he could bite down on the boy’s neck.

“I don’t care,” Taiga let out in a shaky breath and he finally pushed the other one, but not to make him back off. All he wanted was more control and pushed the other one towards the bed and immediately attacked with another rough kiss when he crawled on top of Taisuke’s lab. “I can blame it all on you.”

Taisuke didn’t seem strong enough to actually decline that idea and his hands traveled to the back of the other one’s pants, pulling on the seam and Taiga chuckled into their kiss before his hand traveled towards Taisuke’s shirt to take it over the other one’s head.

Taisuke let the other one play around for a moment longer before he got too impatient and finally pulled the other one off his lab and trapped him underneath him, now his hand impatiently on the other one’s pants. “Let me tell you a secret,” Taisuke whispered next to the other one’s ear, but Taiga didn’t react much as he impatiently tucked on the other one’s pants and had his lips stuck on Taisuke’s ear. “I have someone important to me as well.”

“Of course you do, I am right here,” Taiga teased and found Taisuke shaking his head at him before he gave up on making Taiga listen and he put his hand a bit too forceful into Taiga’s hair to make him stay still for a moment so that he could lead another way too rough kiss. He wouldn’t release Taiga while he tried to open the other one’s pants and that was when Taiga’s movements suddenly seemed to change a tiny little bit, but not enough to call it resistance.

Just when Taiga pushed the other one up a bit, Taisuke followed his demand to break the kiss and yet Taiga still gave him a playful look. “Who said I would let you top?”

There was so much wrong with their situation, yet Taisuke didn’t feel guilty enough to stop and also not strong enough, because what Taiga had said earlier was actually the other way around. Taisuke had lived with the instinct way longer than Taiga and while that meant he could control it better, it also forced him towards Taiga’s direction with even more strength than Taiga’s instinct.

Yet there was something like guilt in Taisuke’s look for a split second and this time the kiss he gave Taiga was way softer and the hesitation made Taiga look a bit lost, but then his look changed once more and he closed his eyes with a hiss and that was the moment Taisuke needed to make a decision. For himself and for Taiga.

With a tight grip he pulled Taiga up on his hair and moved next to his ear once more. “If you let me top, I will give you the second round.”

The same invitation and yet it destroyed it all, a reaction Taisuke had seen coming, yet for once he had indeed been stronger than the instinct and had chosen Taiga’s sanity over it, which wouldn’t actually look the same for Taiga in the end, but he was used to all the hate and he knew that there was no happy ending for them.

Taiga’s eyes grew wide in a split second as if he hadn’t even realized what he was doing until now and then he fell to the side, his hands up in his hair. A sudden headache made him gasp and try to hold back a scream.

All the pictures from Reia’s nightmares came back and crushed right onto him, but there was something else and as if he wasn’t moving his own body, he was forced to push Taisuke off him and get off the bed.

“No…stay out of this,” Taiga hissed, fighting his Fallen self, which was now interfering and while Taisuke wanted to help him, he knew that he couldn’t do anything. Taiga had to deal with everything himself and no matter what the outcome would be he had to accept it.

“What did I do…again…” Taiga whispered, his hands shaking now as he was stuck between a breakdown and the struggle inside his mind. The moment he turned and faced Taisuke all the confusion, fear and hate were back on his face, so raw and hurtful, but Taisuke didn’t stop him when the boy ran away from him as if Taisuke was indeed his worst nightmare.

***

There had been no place Taiga wanted to be and no person he wanted to face so in the end he had ended up running to the roof and the strong wind almost ripped the door out of its angles when Taiga dashed outside into the heavy snow.

He gritted his teeth and forced his eyes shut for a moment, but the chaos in his mind wouldn’t calm down. “Just get lost. I don’t need you now.”

But of course his Fallen self kept bothering until Taiga started screaming into the night, a loud thunder swallowing the noise, not that anyone would hear him in this storm anyway. With a curse Taiga fell to his knees, slamming his fist into the roof. “Just not now, please…not now…”

It’s exactly now that you need me

With another scream Taiga hit his own head, tired of all the voices in his head, while the only person he wanted to hear couldn’t reach him. “You betrayed me.”

Let me explain

Taiga shook his head, tears of rage mixing with the snow melting on his face, but he had never been strong enough to fight his Fallen self and even now he wanted to laugh at himself. He was so weak, yet the Fallen self asked him to let him take over instead of forcing him to retreat.

In a weak moment Taiga let out a long breath and he found himself thrown off balance, but instead of catching himself, he had ended up in his own mind, facing himself like a mirror.

“I won’t force you to switch with me,” the Fallen self said.

“Then what do you want?” Taiga asked, suddenly feeling calmer with the outside world being shut away from him.

“I want to help you control the instinct.”

“As if you had succeeded in doing so,” Taiga hissed at him, knowing of course that Taisuke’s words meant that Taiga’s Fallen self had lost his battle at least once before as well and there was still the problem about all his missing memories, but he couldn’t deal with all the pressure at once.

“The same as Taisuke I am connected to the instinct way more than you, so yes, I lost to it several times, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you.”

“Then how will you help me?”

“If you give me enough access I can pull you out each time it tries to swallow you, like before,” the Fallen self offered.

“Why?” Taiga asked and this time the Fallen self remained silent. “Why are you helping me while you could take over and get your happy ever after with Taisuke. There is no way I could stop you. No one could stop both of you.”

Sure that point was clear to all of them and even without his memories Taiga had felt it already. There was such a strong connection between Taisuke and the Fallen self that Taiga was their only obstacle. Yet he wasn’t something they couldn’t get rid of if they wanted to.

“Do you really think Taisuke would want that?”

“I don’t know what any of you want anymore,” Taiga complained, his anger surfacing again. “If we weren’t busy with more important stuff right now, trust me I would immediately request my memories back so that I am not the only idiot running in circles between all of you. But I bet not even Taisuke would give them back to me if I asked now.”

The smile the Fallen self showed on that made Taiga raise an eyebrow. “Did I say something funny?”

“You just realized what you were denying the whole time.”

“You lost me,” Taiga admitted.

“Taisuke won’t give you the missing memories back, but not because he fears your anger, but because he cares for you and I do as well. That is exactly why we keep trying to fight the instinct this entire time.”

It sounded so stupid, how could a personality that wasn’t even a person in the first place care this much for him? And even the Fallen who he was connected to in such a strong way? Why was it making Taiga feel even more confused than before?

“I am not afraid of him, but you are and that makes it so difficult for him,” the Fallen self explained. When his expression turned softer and he looked away, Taiga realized that there was more.

“It’s not just that, right?” Taiga asked and the Fallen self seemed to feel caught as he bit his lip. “You care for me so you don’t want me to disappear, but for the first time you have found someone you care for even more.”

There it was, the confusing truth in the other one’s eyes, but wasn’t it obvious? They were both instinct driven so of course the Fallen self would fall for Taisuke, but maybe there was more? Was it even possible for them to exchange real feelings?

“I care enough for both of you to want to protect you both, but you have to accept my help. As soon as Juri is safe and you found a way to protect the Center against the Elite-Vestige you can demand your memories back and I won’t judge you for whatever decision you make then.”

The thought about his memories made Taiga feel uneasy, because he could of course feel that even the Fallen self felt everything but fine about them, yet he knew that it had to wait and it shouldn’t interfere with his judgment.

“If I have the feeling you try to take over against my will I will make sure that Hokuto and the others will find a way to shut you out,” Taiga warned the other one, yet he received a confident smile on that statement and the Fallen self nodded.

“I won’t betray your trust.”

Maybe he had already done so or maybe he would eventually do, but Taiga couldn’t waste his chances with speculations so he finally nodded. “Then make sure that I won’t do anything stupid again or I will blame it all on you.”

“Eventually you will have to anyway,” the Fallen self admitted with a hurt look, yet he threw Taiga out of their connection before Taiga could ask what he meant. While the Fallen self kept his promise and put himself into the passive state again, Taiga also kept his part of the promise and gave him enough room to actually surface if needed.

With a deep breath Taiga opened his eyes again, feeling as if he had gone through a huge physical exhaustion, yet he was still sitting in the high snow on the roof, he hadn’t even collapsed to the side.

He lifted his gaze just to come eye to eye with someone crouching down in front of him and with a squeal he fell to the back and the other one laughed at his reaction as he got up.

“And I thought you had died in a sitting position.”

“For god’s sake Kentaro, what the hell?” Taiga scolded the other one as he finally calmed down after the shock of having the other one way too close in front of his face without any warning.

“Not my fault if you dash like this up to the roof, everyone would check up on you then,” Kentaro complained and he kept walking around with his hands in his pockets as if his clothes weren’t drenched completely already. But he seemed to enjoy the snow, kicking it up here and there.

“You saw me?” Taiga asked, a bit panicked, but Kentaro shrugged his shoulders with a neutral expression.

“I just saw you at the stairs and I don’t care what happened, but I actually followed you because it was a good chance to talk about something else.”

“Something else?” Taiga asked and the boy flashed one of his way too evil looking smiles and Taiga knew immediately that Kentaro had come up with some stupid idea.

“It’s about tomorrow and I think this plan will work no matter if they come to us or if we get to them.”

“Why do I not like the way you seem to make such a huge secret out of it and why am I part of that plan?” Taiga asked with a skeptical look, but Kentaro seemed pretty confident with his idea.

“Let’s say we don’t know enough about the Elite-Vestige to risk and let too many people know and well, I don’t want anyone to stop me.”

“And why do you think I won’t stop you?” Taiga asked.

“Because you don’t want just Juri out of there, but Reia as well, right?”

Now Taiga was all ears for Kentaro’s idea, but that didn’t mean he would like or even agree to what the boy was going to explain, yet listening wouldn’t hurt, right?

***

The snow had finally stopped in the morning, unfortunately the weather wasn't really on their side as the temperatures climbed up to a dangerous degree and even for Vestige and Fallen high temperatures would take a toll on their stamina. The snow melted away immediately leaving the surroundings of the Center boil with humidity.

It was time to make a decision about what they were going to do so most of them met in the training room the next morning, yet all eyes were once more on Taiga when he entered.

Taisuke was with his group on one side of the room and while Taiga felt of course more than guilty it was thanks to his Fallen self that he could turn away and walk up to the West Center members. First he wanted to stop next to the members on the side, but he knew that he and Taisuke were their main fighters for this so he got a grip and stepped right next to Kochi and Hokuto.

"Okay then we're all present now. There was no activity so far from them so we have to decide now if we head out towards their location and if we do so who is going first."

"I can go," Kentaro let out before anyone else had spoken up.

"What? Why you?" Nika asked him not that he didn't trust his brother, but the task was risky already so they needed to choose carefully.

"I can go with him," Taiga said without Kentaro explaining why he wanted to go.

"Okay...so, that means we go with the option of spying on them first and then we decide if we send back up?" Kochi asked into the round, but for a moment there was no reply.

"Shouldn't I go instead of Kentaro?"

There it was, of course he would ask, but wasn't he right? Taisuke and Taiga were their strongest team.

"One of us should stay here so that if something goes wrong you can find us."

"Find you?" Now Hokuto had finally spoken up after he had avoided being too obvious about his worries after he hadn't seen Taiga since their awkward conversation.

Don't tell them about the telepathy, it will just create chaos

It took a lot of effort for Taiga to not give the other one a death glare for using the ability he shouldn't talk about, but with another deep breath he calmed down and looked up at Hokuto instead.

"Fallen with the instinct always know where the other one is. It's like a tracker so as long as one of us is here you can find us. So it's like our presence finding just way more effective."

"And you can update Hokuto telepathic so maybe this is really a good option?" Aran asked and looked at Myuto who was still a bit skeptical, but got a piercing look from Kentaro.

"I won't cause trouble if that's what you worry about."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, you always cause trouble," Reo interfered with a teasing smile.

"We should have one back-up team with transmitters who can observe from afar, but can still get away if necessary," Shime said.

"That's actually quite a good idea," Kochi agreed.

"More people in the way," Kentaro complained.

"So Kentaro and Taiga will go directly to the Secret Center. Is everyone okay with that option?" Kochi asked and Taiga felt Hokuto's eyes on him once more, but the boy didn't say anything so Kochi agreed on the team.

"So for back up I'd like to send Reo," Myuto said and the boy jumped in joy that he was allowed to be part of the fun part at least a bit.

"I would like to go too," Shime said. "My healing ability might help as we don't know yet how our plan will even work out."

"Fair point," Kochi agreed. "Anyone else?"

"The group shouldn't be too big, but if you don't mind I can join you?" Mitsu asked and gave Nika a side glance and the Fallen seemed grateful for the idea as he wouldn't be able to go himself as Kentaro would definitely feel overprotected then.

"Okay, then our back up team is decided as well. Then we will discuss who will head after them in case of an emergency or if we actually see a chance to attack. For now I want the first two teams to get ready," Kochi announced and the members of the teams went out of the training room to get ready.

Taiga ended up walking back to his room once and he looked at his Chaser gear with a nostalgic look. Of course he was wearing combat gear, but it still felt weird to use the Ex2 suit and the Dragnacit blades with his instinct being way stronger than any of those weapons, yet Kochi wanted to equip them the best he could.

"You should take them with you."

Taiga didn't turn around immediately as he had left his door wide open on purpose. When Hokuto walked into the room, Taiga finally turned around and gave the other one the apologizing look he couldn't show earlier with everyone present.

Hokuto ignored him though and went to grab the Ex2 suit. He lifted up Taiga's arm with a soft touch on his lower arm and put the wristband on. "It will keep your mind busy."

Hokuto's idea was indeed smart and Taiga reached out for the belt with the hilts Hokuto was holding out to him. "Thank you."

"Just please promise me to stay focused? I lost you once in a battle. I don't want to have to chase after you again."

Here they were still stuck in the chaos from that time and Hokuto was already worried for the next battle. Taiga felt more than angry at himself for causing that troubled expression on the other one's face.

"I promise you to do everything possible to come back to you," Taiga replied and his words meant way more than just the outcome of their mission and Hokuto understood that as he squeezed the other one's hand with a knowing expression.

"Just send in Kentaro first, you know he is all up for kicking ass."

Now Taiga couldn't hold back a laugh, but that was indeed true. Kentaro wouldn't stand aside even with a strong Fallen like Taiga with him.

“We should have just come with the whole Center at once,” Kentaro complained while they made their way through the ruins in an area where no Government buildings were supposed to be.

“Didn’t you say too many people meant you couldn’t go through with your plan?” Taiga asked a bit teasingly, but his focus was on their surroundings.

“That doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have just overrun that Secret Center with everyone.”

“Are you afraid of your own plan?” Taiga’s question made Kentaro roll his eyes, but the possibility was there. Taiga wasn’t that fond of the idea in the first place and there were a lot of good reasons for it, but he wouldn’t try to stop Kentaro that would just be a waste of energy.

“We should slow down from here, they might have put traps around here,” Taiga said, but Kentaro marched straight ahead. “What are you doing?”

“How dumb would they be to put traps?” Kentaro asked and turned to Taiga, walking backwards with his arms up, raising his voice. “They think no one knows that they are here so traps would just make people suspicious.”

Taiga could only shake his head, but he had a point and he looked back over his shoulder. He couldn’t spot the team following them, but his instinct could feel them.

“I’m not in the mood to sneak up on them, so let’s call them out,” Kentaro shouted while he approached the Center, which was now almost right beneath them, but they had no clue where the entrance was, but one thing was for sure, with Kentaro storming into their area and making such a ruckus they definitely knew that they were here.

Taiga concentrated on the ground and his regular presence finding couldn’t tell that there were people beneath them, which meant the Center was more than well protected. Only through his instinct he knew that there was actually something beneath them in the first place. When he focused back on their surroundings he looked straight past Kentaro.

“Kentaro.”

“Don’t even try to stop me. I will crush the whole ground if needed. I won’t sneak around,” Kentaro complained.

“No need for that,” Taiga said and the boy raised an eyebrow at him until he realized that Taiga was looking past him and with a lopsided smile he turned around, seeing the silhouettes of people approaching them in between all the ruins and dust.

“That was easier than I thought.”

“Not that it will be easy from here on,” Taiko said as he and the other Elite-Vestige stopped at a safe distance. They had all appeared at once. A group of six, all the members they know of so far.

“Oh so your baby rock band will stop us?” Kentaro mocked them.

“My electric shock stopped you quite well last time.”

With a curse Kentaro wanted to already dash forward, but Taiga walked up to him and gave him a warning look.

“I didn’t think you’d recover enough to face me again.”

Reia’s words made Taiga look up, but that one look alone made Reia tilt his head. “Mh, interesting. You seem different from last time. Is that a part of the instinct or is there another secret you carry?”

“I fear you have to start fighting and stop talking if you want to find out,” Kentaro said as he started stretching his arms, ready to start a head on fight. Reia was way calmer than him though and he looked at Rinne and nodded.

They had been told by the others about all their abilities and Taiga could see the movement Kentaro couldn’t as Rinne suddenly vanished and while Kentaro kept looking up at the remaining Elite-Vestige, Taiga looked over his shoulder and he realized what the other one was up to and he hurried to use his telepathy to send a warning.

They might have found the backup team

It still felt weird to not get a reply from Hokuto, but he refused to contact Taisuke as the other one wanted to keep their connection a secret so he wouldn’t be the one to put it into the open.

A moment later Rinne was back and whispered something towards Reia and the boy formed an excited smile. “You really came prepared, but I fear your plan will backfire.”

“What are you even talking about? Can you finally attack, because if you won’t, then I will go first,” Kentaro yelled and this time Taiga didn’t stop him when he made a few steps to the front.

Reia nodded at Rinne and the boy wanted to use his ability again and vanished once more, but what he hadn’t seen coming was Taiga being fast enough to actually stop him as his instinct could predict his movements.

“Woah, that was unexpected,” Rinne said a bit startled as he jumped back from Taiga.

Reia had a plan as well that was for sure and even if it was just for a few minutes, Taiga needed to delay them as much as possible.

“Here we go then,” Taiko said and dashed to the front the same time as Kentaro while Reia said something to the others and then the three others dashed past Taiga and Kentaro, leaving Taiga undecided who to stop, but then Rinne vanished once more, right behind him Reia dashing towards him, so now he had to trust in the others to deal with the remaining Elite-Vestige. Maybe it was even to their advantage that they had split up as they didn’t know about Kentaro’s plan yet.

***

“What the hell was that?” Shime asked confused, but the others couldn’t tell him as he was the one on the binoculars. Special ones from Kochi, with which they could watch from an even further distance than their Fallen and Vestige senses, were allowing them to.

“What was what?” Mitsu asked next to him, but Shime went back to the binoculars. “He is back. Rinne used his teleportation, but now he is back.”

The sound of the transmitter had them all focused on the West Center so Shime put the binoculars down. “Reo get your illusion up if you didn’t do so already.”

Hokuto’s voice, so whatever it was, Hokuto told them right from Taiga and that made Reo move and Shime curse as he went back to the binoculars, but then he jumped up. “Get ready, they are coming towards us.”

“They found us,” Mitsu said over the transmitter, but stayed calm as Reo shielded them with an illusion for now.

“Of course they would find us. The way Kentaro went all against the plan and just called them out instead of calmly checking out the area would trigger everyone,” Reo said.

 “We will send one more group out, now that they went into the offensive right away,” Hokuto said.

“Make sure to not leave the Center too unprotected, who knows what Rinne is up to,” Mitsu reminded them as Rinne was the only one who didn’t seem to come towards their direction.

Konpi, Yabana and Katsuki had most likely gotten the location from Rinne as they stopped quite close to them. The one to move though was Yabana and he put his hand up and moved fast and while they couldn’t see his ability, they could hear it and that was the problem. The moment Yabana’s acoustic wave hit their area, Reo’s illusion broke and they were all forced to jump out of the wave or they would lose their sense of orientation for a moment.

The Elite-Vestige immediately dashed towards them the moment they spotted them and Katsuki attacked first, throwing two huge rocks between Reo and the other two before Reo could build another illusion. Konpi immediately tried to get a hold of Reo, but of course the Fallen knew of his mind switch ability and tried to stay on distance, but that forced him even further away from the other two.

Katsuki tried to use his telekinesis again, but then he was forced to stop and he cursed, looking up at Mitsu. The Fallen was forced to retreat though when Yabana shot another acoustic wave right into his direction.

“Shime get Katsuki before he can move again,” Mitsu yelled and it was a good timing as Yabana also needed a moment to recharge his ability, but Shime was just a second too late and before he was close enough, another movement of Katsuki’s hand crushed him into the next stone wall. Different from their shockwaves, Katsuki’s telekinesis wouldn’t lose any strength no matter how far he moved something or someone, so the impact was way harder than the one of a shockwave.

“We don’t have to fight each other. Just give us back Juri and we can have a talk. You should have realized by now that we are not your enemies anymore.”

“Then why did you come here?” Yabana asked on Mitsu’s words.

“Why did you take Kochi and Juri and doubt your own Center without hearing them out?” Mitsu asked back, but Yabana didn’t waste time on talking and he lifted his arm once more, but this time Mitsu was ready to use his ability again and he also lifted his hand, confident that he didn’t need to jump away this time, but then he fell to his knees with a hiss and his hands over his ears.

Yabana lowered his arm with a laugh as he walked up to the Fallen. “Nice try, but no ability that gets transmitted over the air can reach me from the front.”

At least not as long as he could use his acoustic wave in defense so Mitsu had to find a timing to attack while the other one couldn’t use it, but now all he could do was to try and retreat, but after a few steps to the back he fell, unable to find his orientation.

“Maybe you should have stayed our enemies after all, you don’t seem worth our effort anymore,” Yabana mocked him.

“Be happy that your fellow Vestige have considered us worth their effort or we would have killed you all weeks ago,” Mitsu hissed back as he finally could get up once more and for now they could only fight with their basic abilities, but Mitsu was aware of the special shockwaves so he made sure to not get into a too obvious attack.

Close to Mitsu, Shime had his problems finding any way in the first place to fight Katsuki, because the Elite-Vestige had an incredible fast reuse time of his telekinesis and Shime couldn’t even get back on his feet before he found himself thrown around once more, but after the fifth time Katsuki finally stopped and that right in time as his attacks had caused enough damage to make it impossible for Shime to just get back up. The strength of the telekinesis attacks had cost him several broken bones already so he used the break of attacks to try and get a moment to concentrate on his own ability.

“You won’t get up easily after all these-”

Katsuki was proven wrong before he was even done talking and Shime had jumped right at him, taking him by such a surprise that Shime was able to use a shockwave first and throw Katsuki to the ground. Knowing that he wouldn’t get such a chance once more he kept attacking, trying to keep the upper hand, but Katsuki was a good fighter and he found an opening to use a shockwave himself and get Shime off him.

First Shime feared that he would get thrown around right away, but Katsuki didn’t make a move to use his special ability, so maybe there was a limit to it after all. Five attacks and then a longer recharge time.

“How the hell are you moving as if you didn’t get any blows?” Katsuki asked.

“Let’s say my special ability is not just for others,” Shime said, but didn’t give out more information about his healing ability. For now he had to play for time and see how fast Katsuki could use his special ability once more and unfortunately his own special ability had limits as well so he couldn’t be reckless. When he looked around he could spot Mitsu, but Reo and Konpi had completely vanished from their sight.

Reo could still see them though. He had used an illusion not to hide himself, but to hide Konpi from them so that they couldn’t try and attack together, but now he had to keep running away from the other one, because Konpi needed close combat to use his special ability and Reo was one of the fastest Fallen, so all he needed to do was to get away as far as possible before his illusion crumbled once more. If they could keep them busy long enough then their backup would arrive, but the problem was that no one had an eye on Kentaro and Taiga now.

***

“Wait, don’t storm out like this,” Kochi said after he had let Hokuto warn the others before even getting any information about what he had been told by Taiga. “If Rinne disappeared then he is up to something.”

“That won’t change the fact that Taiga and Kentaro are on their own now and even our backup is under attack,” Hokuto said and already got ready to leave as he was on the second backup team they had decided for.

“But they are fighting one on one so I think they have a good chance to hold on until we arrive,” Myuto said and tried to make Hokuto calm down as they were all worried after all. “Taiga can still contact you and as long as he doesn’t tell you that a huge backup of Elite-Vestige comes out to attack them I think we should make sure to be prepared a bit better this time or we will just end up in another ambush.”

“Now that you said ambush,” Aran said as he was still at the desk while Kochi was at the door of the lab, discussing with Hokuto and Myuto.

“What is it?” Kochi asked with a worried expression and then Aran brought it up on the big screen and all of them stared in disbelief.

“Sometimes I wish we would have destroyed the Main Center after all,” Myuto said and got a glare from Aran in response, but of course he didn’t mean it that way. Yet the amount of trucks from the Main Center closing in to the West Center made them all realize that the Elite-Vestige had just waited for them to make a move.

“They had known from the start, didn’t they?” Kochi asked, but knew the answer already. Especially when they spotted Rinne at the back of one of the trucks.

“Great, then how do we get out now?” Hokuto asked. “You know that I won’t hold back even against our own people if I need to fight my way out.”

“Then let’s fight our way out or are you planning on hiding here the whole day just because the Government betrayed you the same way they betrayed us?”

Hokuto’s annoyed look towards Taisuke who was standing in the door, wasn’t going unnoticed, but Taisuke didn’t look away and also didn’t step back when Hokuto walked up to him with threatening steps. “I warn you, just because we need to fight through our own people, doesn’t mean you can go out there and slaughter your way through them because your oh so freaking awesome instinct tells you to do so.”

“I didn’t say I would,” Taisuke replied, but remained calm, yet Myuto hurried to step between them.

“Let’s make a plan for now. We have to leave as fast as possible, but we also need to be sure that the West Center can protect itself from the Main Center, so let’s not waste time here.”

Hokuto moved on Myuto’s words, but the way he shoved Taisuke out of the door frame with his shoulder on purpose, showed everyone that he was too stressed out with the situation to be left alone with Taisuke.

“Don’t even say it, I know how stressed out he is. My instinct stresses as well, but for him it’s different,” Taisuke says before Myuto could say anything. “Let’s get the others and make a plan.”

***

“Where is that confidence from last time?” Taiko asked while chasing Kentaro around, but the other one wasn’t scared of his ability, yet he needed a moment for himself and for that he couldn’t keep attacking.

Taiga was busy with Reia, but he knew that he needed to somehow buy Kentaro some time. The problem was that unlike Kentaro, Taiga was terrified of Reia’s ability.

“You really behave a lot different from last time. Did my Nightmares haunt you that much?” Reia laughed while trying to get his hands on Taiga’s face.

“I wonder how many nightmares will haunt you if I get my ability working on you,” Taiga asked back, but Reia only grinned as he at least thought that would never happen, but if Kentaro was right then there was an actual chance for Taiga to succeed, but for that he had to calm down.

Let me fight him. I won’t push you out.

An offer Taiga would usually not easily accept, but he knew that his Fallen self was better in using the Instinct and he would be able to help Kentaro out better at the moment.

Be fast

Reia was left looking up at Taiga as he jumped on the roof of one of the ruins and closed his eyes for a moment. When he looked back down at Reia the boy’s look changed to curious.

“Oh? I think I finally understand what is going on here,” Reia said. “So you are the same as Hokuto with his Fallen self? Interesting.”

Taiga’s Fallen self gave Reia a lopsided smile before he activated his instinct and jumped right down at the other one. “Even better, I am that Fallen self.”

Now he had left Reia speechless and luckily unconcentrated enough to use a shockwave before the other one even thought about it and the opening he got was enough to dash up to Taiko and take him by full surprise when he slammed him into the ground head first and put his hands on the side of his face.

Reia immediately tried to get over to them, but Kentaro blocked his way, but he didn’t dare to use his ability as he knew that Reia was going to be faster, yet Taiga was already done with using his mind control and he jumped away when Taiko got up.

“You will be busy for a while now,” Kentaro said and jumped back as well when Taiko jumped at Reia who was a bit startled at first, but then got what Taiga had done.

“Hurry, he is strong against my mind control,” Taiga reminded the other one and now Kentaro also looked at him a bit more scanning.

“Did you switch?”

“We can go on and off, Taiga’s mind is active as well,” Taiga’s Fallen self explained.

“Interesting,” Kentaro said before he made it away from the fight a bit more, but Reia kept his eyes on them while trying to dodge Taiko’s attacks as his electric shock ability was almost as fast as his Nightmare ability.

Kentaro pulled out an injection from his vest and didn’t hesitate to bring it up to his neck to put the serum in. For a moment nothing happened, but then Kentaro hissed and folded to the front, struggling to even keep standing.

“Now I’m curious what that serum is? Did Kochi come up with something to help you?” Reia asked, but of course Taiga wouldn’t tell him and all he did was block the way towards Kentaro. When the Fallen fell to his knees with a groan, Reia saw his chance and he used a shockwave on Taiko to get him out of the way, but of course Taiga stopped him as best as he could and once more Taiko interfered, forcing Reia back.

“Okay, enough, you are in the way,” Reia complained and used another shockwave and Taiga gasped when Reia actually used his Nightmare ability on his own comrade. What he hadn’t seen coming though was Taiko falling immobile and then he blinked in confusion and Reia pulled him up again.

“Next time get yourself out of it, will you?” Reia hissed and Taiko bowed, apologizing.

“What? Do you have more than one ability?” Taiga asked, but Reia shook his head.

“We Elite-Vestige can’t see nightmares, so my ability will only attack what is in his mind so in this case your ability.”

They couldn’t see nightmares, of course. They had no memories and also no emotions, but the fact that Reia had just said it himself made Taiga’s hopes for Kentaro’s plan to work even bigger.

“Then let’s put that information to a test,” Kentaro was heard behind them as he got back up and his look had changed drastically. A look Taiga remembered quite well, even from recent events, but luckily their idea hadn’t backfired as Kentaro walked up to Taiga with a knowing look. “Don’t get in my way.”

“As if I’d dare,” Taiga teased and stepped back, letting Kentaro run wild as the Fallen he had been for so long before and he could only hope that this time as well Kentaro could control himself under the original Fallen serum, which he had stolen from Taisuke’s hideout when they had headed back to the Capitol.

***

“Okay the defenses are all up and all weapons are active,” Kochi announced through the speakers as everyone was already at the gates, equipped with their transmitters and gear.

“Aran and I will make sure you get as much backup from the Center as we can give you, but as soon as you are out there we won’t be able to get you back in.”

“No need to remind us. They will be the ones who want to run and not us,” Shintaro let out way too confident, but as the other Chasers of the Center he and Jesse had decided to fight as well as they had enough of the Main Center acting this over the top.

“Your goal is to get Hokuto’s team out of the fight, please make sure to stick to the plan,” Aran reminded them.

They had decided to make Taisuke, Hokuto, Nika, Myuto, Genta and Matsuku go after Taiga’s group to see what was going on at their location while the others were going to fight the Main Center off.

“We are more than ready, so let’s not waste time,” Senga said and gave Nika a nod. He and Yokoo were in charge of stopping anyone from following them away from the Center, while Hagi, Moro and Yuma would storm right at the Main Center trucks with Shime’s group and the Chasers as a wall between them and Hokuto’s team.

“Everyone make sure to protect each other,” Kochi reminded them before the alarm of the main gate and the fence was heard. But the moment the Vestige from the Main Center wanted to use the opening, Aran activated all possible weapons to keep them away long enough for Hagi and the others to dash out the front fence. Just seconds before they were in the line of fire, Aran turned the weapons off, the same moment everyone was out of the front gate and Kochi hurried to shut it. Inside were just a handful of Chasers left to help out Aran and Kochi.

“Hurry,” Senga said as he urged the others away from the fence towards the back of the Center where they had another gate, which the Main Center knew about of course, but as all the other Centers, the small gates they have in the back of their Centers were highly weapon equipped and had a lot of hidden mines around the area. Hokuto luckily knew all the locations and could get them through as long as the Main Center wouldn’t make it around the Center.

“They saw you,” Aran told them over the transmitter and Myuto looked back at the Vestige who had jumped into a fight with Yuma and the others, but now a handful of them tried to dash towards the fence, but Shime’s group stopped them in time so that the fence could be closed again. Some Chasers tried to follow them alongside the fence, but Shintaro and the other Chasers were able to block their way.

There were also still some weapons they could use to slow them down, but they still needed to hurry before they could actually get involved in any long fight.

“Kochi, open the gate,” Hokuto said as they reached the back and the small gate opened with another siren and then they had to move really carefully, everyone following Hokuto’s steps to not get blown up by accident.

“Just about 10 meters ahead is a straight path without mines, we can finally speed up there,” Hokuto said, but then they all turned around on the sound of something getting shot from the Main Center trucks.

“They can’t be serious,” Genta let out, but then they saw them. Missiles getting fired right on top of the Main Center and a few of them going over the roof, right towards their location.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN,” Matsuku shouted and they all went to throw themselves on the ground as the impact made the mines around them explode as well.

“Guys are you okay?” Aran asked with a slight shaking audible in his voice.

“We are fine, I think?” Myuto asked as he got up and shook the dust out of his hair.

“Almost,” Genta said and turned on his back with a groan.

“Oh damn, that looks bad,” Matsuku said as he sat down next to his friend who had ended up with two metal parts of one of the mines stuck in his thigh and lower abdomen.

“If anyone is hurt, get away from the Center. It’s too dangerous to get back inside,” Kochi said and another impact on the front of the Center showed that they were under such heavy attack that it was indeed much safer away from the Center.

“Then let’s hurry. I will take care of Genta, you hurry towards the Secret Center,” Matsuku said and helped the other one up.

“The mines all went off as it seems, so we can go faster,” Hokuto said and made them hurry ahead, but the next moment Taisuke reached out for the back of his vest and pulled him back with such a rough movement that Hokuto landed on the ground. Before he could complain something came flying right towards them and exploded in front of Taisuke who had also jumped back right in time.

“They are not joking around that is for sure,” Senga said and looked towards the Center where a handful of Chasers had somehow made it around and had fired a rocket launcher at them.

“Go ahead, I will take care of them,” Senga yelled over his shoulder as he sprinted towards them.

“Let’s hurry,” Taisuke said and held his hand out towards Hokuto who was stuck between angry and startled that for once he took the Fallen’s hand and let himself get dragged back up, after all he had just saved his life.

Musen 28 - February

Their fight had drastically changed with Kentaro getting back to his original Fallen state once more and he had jumped on Taiko without any hesitation and even though he had to take in an electric shock right away, there was not much reaction from him to Taiko’s obvious panic.

“You can’t be immune against an Elite-Vestige ability no matter what you did,” Taiko said, but Kentaro only let out a huge laugh on that before he grabbed the other one’s arms with such a force that Taiko hissed.

“Oh I am not immune at all,” Kentaro said in excitement. “I just enjoy the pain too much to be bothered by it.”

But Taiko definitely didn’t enjoy the pain as Kentaro used his special ability and made Taiko scream out as he hadn’t paid enough attention to avoid it. Somehow though he got one arm free and sent Kentaro back with a shockwave and while it had been a direct hit on his chest, Kentaro landed safely back on his feet.

“How did you power up like this just through a serum?” Taiko complained, but once more Kentaro was amused by his reaction.

“It’s not the serum that gives me the strength actually,” Kentaro explained.

“Fallen are stronger without their emotions,” Reia interrupted them and Kentaro flicked his tongue and gave the boy a death glare.

“If you interrupt me again you will regret it.”

“Come right at me if you dare,” Reia invited him and Kentaro gave Taiga a side glance before he took the offer.

Taiga dashed at Taiko who hadn’t seen his move coming and started running away instead of attacking as he didn’t want to get mind controlled again. But to make their plan work, Taiga had to make sure to overpower Taiko as fast as possible and luckily his instinct didn’t give him the same warning signs as with Reia so he dared to reach out for the other one after his instinct had helped him to reach the same speed as the Elite-Vestige.

Taiko immediately used his ability on him, but unlike Kentaro, Taiga didn’t even flinch a bit, making the boy’s eyes grow wide. “There is no way you can overpower Elite-Vestige. We are stronger than Fallen.”

“Is that what they tell you?” Taiga asked before he used the boy’s shock to throw him over his shoulder and send a shockwave right through his body and the impact had been hard enough to keep Taiko down long enough for Taiga to touch his face. But what he found was just emptiness. Even the memories after becoming an Elite-Vestige felt so unreal, so it made sense that Reia’s Nightmare ability didn’t even have any effect on them. They were nothing more than puppets.

Nevertheless he tried to somehow find something, anything of his past he could somehow show him, because if there was nothing then he couldn’t help Reia either. Yet he didn’t have enough time to help the boy as Kentaro’s shouting reached him and made him switch his ability to mind control. All he did though was forcing the boy to stay down. After using that ability once already, Taiko would soon fight it off, but for now Taiga only needed a few minutes.

Kentaro had a pretty tough fight against Reia, but the Elite-Vestige gave him a confident look as Kentaro’s hand wrapped around his wrist the same moment Reia put a finger against his forehead.

“Game over.”

***

“Stop them!”

“Stop them yourself, I am busy here,” Shintaro yelled at Jesse after some Chasers had passed their group, but there were too many people and they could only be happy that they were Chasers and no Vestige, but then another impact on their Center made Shintaro curse and kick away three Chasers who had attacked him.

“You will totally regret this later,” Shintaro hissed at them, but dashed over to Jesse instead. “Everyone, retreat!”

“What, why?” Jesse asked confused when Shintaro had jumped right onto two people who tried to attack Jesse.

“Aran, fire at them. Just try to not kill them,” Shintaro said over his transmitter and everyone immediately dashed away on hearing that. The fire was immediately opened towards the other Chasers and luckily they didn’t try to go after them after some had gotten hit in their legs.

“Hey, did they make it?” Shizu yelled at them when he came running from the side.

“I can’t see them anymore, but I heard from Kochi that Genta and Matsuku had to hide because of an injury and Senga is still behind the Center to fight some people off,” Jesse said.

“They will try to get after them. The Vestige are strong,” Shizu explained. “We might not be able to hold them off any longer.”

“Rinne vanished!” Hagi yelled into the transmitter, he had no time to explain more, because his group was under the most pressure right at the center of the fight.”

“I have my eyes on him,” Yokoo was heard next. “Concentrate on your fight. I will be able to delay him.”

“Okay then let’s get as many of those idiots unable to fight so that we can help them too,” Shintaro yelled at the remaining Chasers and they dashed towards the ones who tried to follow Hokuto’s group.

***

“So you can regenerate yourself? Impressive,” Katsuki said after Shime had suddenly attacked as if he hadn’t taken in any damage in the first place. “That means I have to be faster than your ability.”

“Good luck with that,” Shime challenged, while there was a huge limit to his healing ability for himself, but of course he wouldn’t let Katsuki get to know about it that easily.

For now he tried to attack and get out of Katsuki’s telekinesis reach, but the boy’s ability was just too fast to actually do so and once more he had been taken off his feet and thrown into a stone wall. This time though Katsuki didn’t give him any recovery time and instead of throwing him directly this time he moved the wall behind him to crush him under the weight and Shime was too slow to get away and his legs got trapped.

“Good luck trying to heal from a broken skull,” Katsuki said as he moved another huge rock right towards Shime’s direction, but then the rock fell to the ground the same moment Katsuki was taken off his feet by one of his own comrades.

“What the hell Konpi,” Katsuki complained and shoved the other one of him.

“Not my fault. I couldn’t even see where you were,” Konpi shot back as he got up and looked for Reo who was still hiding in his own illusion while he had seen Shime’s situation and used Konpi as a distraction.

“Let’s switch,” Katsuki said and pointed at Shime who tried to free himself from the rock on his legs, but even with shockwaves it wouldn’t crumble that easily. Konpi immediately made his way over to him and Reo got ready to help him, but then his illusion crumbled and he went down on one knee with a hiss.

“Found you,” Katsuki was heard the next moment and sent Reo flying after Yabana had used an acoustic wave towards their direction as he had guessed that Reo was close. Mitsu immediately distracted Yabana again, but he couldn’t help the other two.

“So what to do with you?” Konpi asked as he stopped in front of Shime with a lopsided sneer.

“If you think I will be of any use if you switch minds with me I have to disappoint you,” Shime said, but Konpi still crouched down in front of him and stretched his arm out. But of course Shime still had the option to use shockwaves, but so had Konpi and his reach was longer. With no chance to dodge, Shime got thrown right into the ground by the shockwave before Konpi stepped on one of his hands and kept a tight grip on the other one before he crouched down and reached out for his head.

“I don’t need you to be of any use. I only need you to stay still and let Katsuki do the work,” Konpi said, but Shime couldn’t reply anymore as his mind got swallowed by the other one and the next second Konpi’s body crumbled to the ground next to him.

“Katsuki, some help here,” Konpi yelled through Shime’s voice and the other one used his telekinesis to lift the stone from his legs. “Damn, you already caused some major damage.”

“Then make him stand still for more,” Katsuki shouted and Konpi just sat there, waiting for Katsuki to throw a huge stone right at Shime’s head, throwing him once more to the ground. Yet Konpi only laughed at the impact that had opened a huge bleeding wound on the boy’s head. The mind was his, the pain not, so he didn’t care for the damage Katsuki caused.

“As if I let you,” Reo shouted before Katsuki could lift his arm once more and he tried to put his hand on the other one’s back for a shockwave, but Katsuki was faster and turned to use his shockwave before he crushed Reo into the ground with his telekinesis right after.

“Sorry, Konpi. That was my fifth one. I need a few more minutes,” Katsuki shouted before he concentrated back on Reo who was back on his feet, but didn’t use his illusions yet as he waited for Katsuki’s ability to recharge.

“Boring,” Konpi let out. “Yabana, any help here?”

The one in question was under heavy attack by Mitsu, but found an opening to shoot one of his waves towards Shime’s direction. As he was already on the ground all that happened was Shime’s body losing his balance, but of course there was more damage than they could see. With all the blood on Shime’s head the blood coming out of his ears through the acoustic damage wasn’t even visible anymore.

Yabana turned to use a shockwave on Mitsu as he knew he was going to use that opening, but then he was forced to stop in his movements.

“Bad choice to turn your back on me,” Mitsu said as he had finally gotten his ability to work on the other one as he couldn’t use his acoustic wave that fast again. Without losing time he dashed at Yabana and used a heavy shockwave on his chest, before he kicked him under the chin. When the boy lost orientation he grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground, using another shockwave to break his rib cage and finally the Elite-Vestige showed some weakness as he coughed some blood.

Right before Mitsu was sure he could at least hurt the other one enough so he couldn’t fight back anymore, he was thrown off by Katsuki’s ability. Reo tried to form an illusion before he could use it again, but Katsuki attacked him directly and when Reo hit the ground, the ruins around him crumbled down on him.

“Two used, three to go,” Katsuki said and turned towards Shime. “Get out or you will die with him.”

“Good point,” Konpi said and he closed his eyes, Shime’s body jolting seconds later while Konpi got up in his own body and stepped back. If he remained in another body when it was dying then his mind would die with it that was the only part he needed to be careful of. “Any last words?”

Shime couldn’t even speak as all he was able to do was to somehow get air in his lunges between all the blood coughing. With an immense effort he somehow rolled on his stomach and tried to get up, but it was impossible. His vision was blurry, his legs crushed and his orientation was gone completely. Not to forget that the damage on his head was too heavy to actually keep fighting.

“No recovery this time?” Katsuki laughed, while Konpi turned and dashed towards Mitsu who tried to stop them. His self recovery would only work once in an hour. A really long time to recharge, while he could still use his ability on others, so he couldn’t do anything when Katsuki lifted his arm and threw Shime several meters away, smashing him into the dusty ground head first once more.

“Stop playing around, I can’t hold them both off,” Konpi yelled as Reo broke through the crumbled ruins, but still had a leg stuck while Mitsu needed just a bit longer to use his special ability once more. Yet Yabana was also getting back up.

“Then this is goodbye I fear,” Katsuki said and shrugged his shoulders before he lifted his arm once more. He had thrown Shime so far away already that he couldn’t aim for him anymore, so he lifted the boy up from the ground instead and threw him to such a height that the impact would kill even a Vestige after such heavy injuries.

“SHIME!” Mitsu shouted when Katsuki let the boy drop for a dozen meter free fall. But while Mitsu had stopped Konpi from moving, he couldn’t get to Shime in time and Yabana had stopped Reo with an acoustic wave before he was even able to completely free himself.

Katsuki was about to turn away, but then his body jolted and he turned around with such a weird movement that the others looked at him in confusion.

“What are you doing?” Konpi yelled when Katsuki suddenly stretched out his arm and used his ability to catch Shime right before he hit the ground.

“What the hell Katsuki?” Yabana yelled, but then also stopped and turned towards Konpi instead, using his acoustic wave on his own comrade.

“Idiot, what are you doing?” Konpi yelled and tried to jump out of the other one’s reach.

“I don’t know,” Yabana said and was finally able to stop his own ability.

“Guess you let your guard down,” Mitsu said and looked towards Shime’s direction and in the distance they could see some people dashing towards them.

“Oh shit,” Konpi let out and ran towards Katsuki who had been forced down after using his ability. “We need to get out of here. They got backup.”

Katsuki had some trouble getting up, but when he looked towards the others he realized that four people were closing in on them. Yabana was also hurt so now they definitely had the upper hand.

“Forget it, you are not going anywhere,” Mitsu said and made Konpi stop moving while Reo trapped Yabana in another illusion. “You came right on time.”

Mitsu’s words were for Hokuto and the others who came running towards them and Taisuke immediately fell to his knees next to his brother with a worried expression.

“Can’t you use his ability?” Nika asked.

“I just used Myuto’s motion control so I need a moment longer to copy another ability, but Shime’s ability is the only one I can’t copy,” Taisuke said as he put his brother’s head carefully on his leg and got a groan in reply. With a shuddering breath Shime opened his eyes and Taisuke hurried to put his hand gently on the other one’s face. “Just hold on for now, okay?”

Shime couldn’t even nod with the pain running through his body, but the others had bigger problems to face as Hokuto and Myuto dashed towards Reo who let his illusion drop so that they could attack Yabana who tried to get away from them while Myuto couldn’t use his motion control.

When it seemed like they had the upper hand there was a sudden interference and Taisuke’s instinct was the only reason that he had gotten his arm up fast enough when Rinne had shown up in front of him and Shime without a warning. He was holding a Dragnacit blade, which he had stolen from a Chaser and he had aimed for Shime, yet Taisuke had thrown himself to the front, the blade now stuck in his upper arm.

Myuto turned to use his motion control as he had finally recharged, forcing Rinne to retreat, but everyone’s attention had been on them for too long and the next one who had his abilities recharged was Katsuki and he attacked wild around him, causing everyone to get thrown around while Konpi was able to move again and Yabana was able to get away from his attackers as well.

Taisuke was the only one who had his instinct to stop Katsuki’s telekinesis from working so he could keep himself and Shime safe. But with them under attack there was no way Taisuke could get Shime out of here alive. The Center was under attack too so where could he bring him to save his life?

“I’m so damn useless,” Taisuke said, unable to keep his worries to himself, but then Shime moved his hand to Taisuke’s wrist and guided it to his cheek with a weak grip. Shime couldn’t even keep his eyes open to look up at his brother, but Taisuke understood immediately and with a gasp he looked at his own hand.

“What is it?” Nika yelled over at him.

“I was able to copy his healing ability,” Taisuke replied in the most confused state they had ever seen him in.

“Make sure they don’t interfere,” Myuto shouted and they all retreated towards Taisuke to protect them in the healing progress.

“What do we do?” Hokuto asked and the impatience in his voice was obvious.

“Nika, go ahead with Hokuto,” Taisuke told them while Shime had fallen unconscious in his arms, but he knew that he could save his life now.

It was indeed a good idea to split up as they didn’t know how Kentaro’s and Taiga’s fight was going, but the fact that Taisuke had said it made Hokuto’s look turn to stunned. Was it still possible for Taisuke to put his emotional connection to his brother over the instinct? Most likely not, but when Taisuke looked up at Hokuto with an almost desperate look, the other one understood. The decision to not head over to Taiga first made his instinct rip him apart inside, yet he tried to choose logic over it. So for now Hokuto could only nod and they made a plan on how to get Nika and Hokuto out of their fight without anyone stopping them.

“We will need you, so follow us as fast as you can,” Nika said as it was clear that if they already had so much trouble here, that they would be screwed at the other location as well in case something happened to Taiga. But Hokuto hadn’t gotten any input yet so he hoped that the boy was fine for now.

***

There was a moment of absolute silence until Reia choked and tried to get away from Kentaro, but the boy was putting every single bit of strength into his special ability and forced Reia to the ground.

"How can you not be affected by my nightmares?" Reia hissed in between his tries to get away, but Kentaro's ability caused so much pain that he couldn't even focus on creating a shockwave.

"Oh I see them, but a Fallen like me has seen every possible nightmare already. You can't scare me enough to break down."

If that was indeed true or not, Reia couldn't tell, but he had other problems to deal with when Taiga jumped at him from behind and closed his hands around his face.

"You can't get into my head," Reia laughed in between the pain, but if Kentaro kept going for much longer than even an Elite-Vestige could die.

"Oh trust me I can, because you are not as immune as you think," the Fallen self said and tried to break into Reia's mind and with Kentaro's help it actually worked.

The trick was that his nightmare ability was protecting his mind, but now he had to fight Kentaro and couldn't focus enough to protect himself, not to forget that Taiga’s ability would work if he was unconscious and he was close to fainting.

Now it's your turn

The Fallen self let Taiga switch back into control as he was the one with the connection to Reia and knew what to look for. Reia’s mind appeared blank at first as well, but it was Taiga’s ability to put memories into his mind that showed him the small hidden memories that were stored so deep in his mind that it was a lot harder to reach them than it was with Myuto and the others.

"GET OUT," Reia shouted, but Taiga was already breaking through the memory block the new serum had created.

***

Musen 24 - December

"Taiga, can I go with you?" Reia asked as he ran after the boy.

First Taiga looked back at the bunker they used for shelter and the fact that Myuto wasn't there at the moment made him hesitate.

"Am I in the way?" Reia asked with a disappointed look, but Taiga smiled and shook his head.

"No, not at all. I just worry for the others. When Myuto and I are not here, we always count on you to protect everyone."

Hearing that made Reia blush a bit and smile in a sheepish way.

"But we will only be gone for an hour, so just tell them to be on alert just in case," Taiga said and Reia dashed back to ask the other older children to take care of the others for a while. It had taken a few weeks for Reia to accept Taiga in their bunker, but now he kept trying to impress him, hoping he would get his praising for being a good older brother to everyone.

Taiga was only going to their usual place to get some supplies and Myuto was out with a few of the older kids to get some water, which they needed to get from a different location.

"Have you ever seen a time without war?"

Reia's sudden question made Taiga think for a moment, but then he shook his head.

"Myuto and I were born at the beginning of the war. So I have no memories of a time without it, but I heard stories from my grandparents and parents when I was young."

The thought about his family made his stomach feel a bit tighter, but they all shared the same cruel fade. Some have lost parents, others their siblings or children. War was cruel after all, but Taiga didn't want to drown in those dark thoughts.

"People would have a normal daily life, going to work, enjoying trips on the weekend and even travel overseas."

Something that sounded so normal to everyone from the older generation, but was impossible to imagine for them.

"I would have loved to go to school," Reia said with a smile.

"I heard most kids didn't like school?" Taiga said teasingly.

"But without going to school how can we end the war?"

Taiga blinked in confusion about the boy's words as he was still way too young to even think about such topics, yet he seemed serious.

"Now only t Government families of soldiers, doctors and researchers even have access to any kind of education, but I feel like we will never end this war if we don't put all our strength together. The world is drifting apart instead of coming together."

Reia's words were so true and it made Taiga think a lot as well.

"Then what would you do if you had access to education?" Taiga asked.

"I want to find a way to get the environment to heal again. I feel like all the chemical solutions and fake plants and resources will eventually destroy the planet even more. At this point we don't need to keep evolving. We need to take a step back."

Reia's eyes were shining with confidence while talking and it made clear how much he was actually thinking about his own future. Realizing how much he had talked, Reia gave the other one a sheepish side glance. "I guess that was a bit too over the top."

Taiga laughed on hearing that and pulled the other one closer on his shoulder to give him a small squeeze, making the other one squeal.

"Not at all. More people should think like that, and then maybe one day we can end this war without all the new secret research the Government is up to at the moment."

"What would you do?" Reia asked. "If you had access to education?"

"Let me think about it, I'm not as prepared for that question as you are."

Musen 28 - February

Reia had never gotten the answer from Taiga as just a few days later a huge air raid had caused Taiga and Myuto to vanish.

Taiga wanted to go deeper into the other one's memories, to see what had happened to him and the other boys, but Reia’s memories were hard to access and without a warning something ripped him out of his ability.

He flung his eyes open just to see Kentaro being taken down by Taiko and with the way Kentaro had exhausted himself, Taiko's electric shock caused some damage this time.

Reia hadn't moved, but his ability had automatically attacked in self-defense and Taiga fell to the back, leaving Reia falling unconsciously to the ground.

With a hiss Taiga put his hands up to his hair, feeling how Reia's ability invaded his mind again.

Let me take over

Taiga didn't even have the energy left to stop his Fallen self and he shielded Taiga as good as possible from the nightmares. Now that they had experienced it once already, the Fallen self was able to take almost the whole damage on himself, blocking Taiga's mind from seeing anything. With a scream he broke down, but he forced his body to stay conscious.

"Don't pass out," Kentaro yelled at him while he somehow had enough energy left to jump at Taiko once more while he couldn't use his ability, but Kentaro couldn't either, so they ended up in a fist fight with some shockwaves involved.

In the end the Fallen self endured the nightmares without fainting, but he was close to losing consciousness, yet he knew they had to beat Taiko to get the boys with them if they could.

"Taiga, behind you," Kentaro shouted when Taiko had recharged his ability and Kentaro hissed on the shock and put his hand to his chest this time. Already the third shock. Even with the Fallen serum he wouldn't be able to go much longer.

Taiga forced his body up into a sitting position to turn around and he could see someone else approaching. If they send backup now, then they were doomed.

But when the person came closer and looked panicked behind him a few times while running towards them, Taiga's eyes grew wide.

The rest is up to you

The Fallen self said as he let his mind faint and Taiga took over once more.

There was no need for Taiga to jump up as the one approaching immediately crouched down next to him and took him by the shoulders.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Isn't that my question?" Taiga asked, trying to sound teasing, but his body just couldn't hold on much longer. "We need to help Kentaro and leave. The others are most likely also under attack."

"Okay, just wait here," Juri said and hurried over to Taiko and Kentaro. The boy had showed up out of nowhere, but he was the backup they needed now and explanations could wait for later.

"Why did we even come if you solved everything yourself?" Kentaro yelled at him as he jumped away from Taiko next to Juri, but could barely keep his balance.

"You came so that we don't have so much trouble. Thanks for splitting up."

Juri's words didn't make much sense until he put his hand on Kentaro's shoulder and the next moment Kentaro broke down, holding his chest in pain.

"What?" Taiga asked in disbelief, looking forth and back between Kentaro and Juri.

"You really think someone could break out this easily from our Center?" Taiko asked, while Taiga panicked and knew he had to get up now, no matter what.

"What did you do to Juri?" Taiga asked.

"Can't you answer that yourself already?"

Of course Taiga had his guesses. The way Juri somehow had a new special ability and fought against them made it obvious.

"You turned him into an Elite-Vestige," Taiga said, not even forming a question.

"With all the extras," Taiko said and lifted Juri's hair in the back. The wound was almost healed, but the fact that they had implanted something new, meant that they had most likely used the new microchip on him, which made Taiga realize something even worse.

"Juri, do you remember us?"

The question made Juri shrug his shoulders. "I was told how to behave around you to trick you, but that's all."

So they had indeed taken away his memories. In only two days they were able to force Juri into those changes. Thinking about what an army the Government could build with this new technology made Taiga shiver.

Kentaro grabbed Juri's leg and looked up with a hateful glare. "What did you do?"

"My ability turns your own ability against you. Painful, right?"

Kentaro had taken in too much already to easily recover from his own ability and Taiko went up to him and kicked him to the ground with a satisfied expression.

"You are too dangerous. I guess getting rid of you is definitely the better option."

"The better option?" Taiga asked, but realized what they were up to when Juri approached him. "You want to force everyone into becoming an Elite-Vestige. You used the betrayal of the West Center to cover up what you are planning to do."

"And? Do you think you can stop us?" Juri asked while Taiko was about to use another electric shock on Kentaro, which would most likely kill him this time.

"We can stop you," Hokuto was heard from a few meters away as they had all not spent their surroundings enough attention.

Before anyone was able to react, Nika had thrown Taiko off Kentaro while Hokuto tackled Juri down.

"Don't! He can turn your abilities against you," Taiga yelled, but failed to get up.

"My abilities can't hurt myself, so good luck trying," Hokuto said as he tried to fight Juri without actually causing too much damage. But Juri didn't let him touch his face to use his mind control and kicked the other one off before using a shockwave from the distance. The space he created was big enough for him to dash over to Taiga instead. Taiga jumped up and tried to fight him off, but in his state he couldn't do much as his body couldn't support his instinct and when Juri pulled out a Dragnacit knife and held it to his neck, Hokuto stopped.

Get Reia and leave. I will be fine

The disbelieving look he received from Hokuto showed that Hokuto didn't want to go through the same chaos as with Taisuke once more. But they had to, otherwise someone would eventually die.

There was a moment of silence in which Hokuto didn't receive anything from Taiga's telepathy, yet he felt like he was using it.

Taiko jumped back from Nika and tried to get Reia, but Hokuto was faster and grabbed the boy, threatening to slice his throat with a knife as well.

"Oh how cute. So now we are stuck?" Juri asked and Kentaro let out a curse as he wanted to get up, but failed once more.

"I swear if I could I'd rip you all to pieces."

Nika gave his brother a piercing look on hearing that, but questions needed to wait for later.

Juri forced Taiga to move back, even though his body complained a lot about the movement and when he made a few steps back, Hokuto panicked.

"Don't you care for your comrades?" Hokuto asked, but then Taiko laughed.

"If we die we die. We won't exchange hostages," Taiko explained, making Hokuto get up, but the moment he tried to approach them, Juri cut Taiga on the neck, making the other one hiss. "I wouldn’t try my luck if I was you."

Hokuto, leave! We know the location. We can come up with another plan

"I won't let you sacrifice yourself again," Hokuto yelled at him, now tears of anger shining in his eyes while Nika had helped up Kentaro, but knew that they couldn't attack.

"Okay, enough," Taiko said and lifted his arm. Behind them the ground moved and an underground weapon system emerged from the ground. "Are you feeling threatened enough now? Don't you think we could kill you all at once if we went for it?"

"Then why don't you?" Kentaro asked, Nika immediately hitting him on his words, but once more he only received a death glare from his brother.

Leave

Taiga's try to make Hokuto leave wasn't working, but the longer they got stuck like this the more dangerous it would get for both sides.

Hokuto shook his head, his eyes now glittering with tears as he gritted his teeth in anger about the fact that he wasn't strong enough to turn the situation around.

"Don't do this to me again…," Hokuto whispered.

I'm sorry

His words weren't only for what he had just said, but also for what was happening next. Something only Taiga was able to feel through his instinct.

Juri and Taiko didn't move as for them nothing felt weird, but there was something they didn't realize. An illusion!

Inside it hell had broken loose, but Taiga had already made sure that they would drag Hokuto out of it no matter what.

Reo had jumped in with an illusion from afar, now throwing Reia over his shoulder while Taisuke grabbed Hokuto and the other one immediately wanted to complain and dash towards Taiga, but the Fallen wouldn't let him and before Hokuto could actually attack Taisuke to break free, Taisuke had stolen his mind control and forced Hokuto to stand still long enough for him to knock him out. Hokuto was too strong to be mind controlled long enough to get away.

Thank you Taisuke

I don't want to be thanked for this. We will be back so no matter what happens until then just don't let them turn you

Of course Taiga would try to cause as many problems for the Elite-Vestige as possible, but their ultimate goal was to turn the Chasers and Vestige while getting rid of the Fallen. Eventually they would try to get rid of Taiga if the serum didn't work on him, because they had most likely not tried it out on a Fallen yet.

Just make sure everyone gets back safely

And they already did and the moment the illusion slowly vanished Taiko looked around in confusion.

"Mh, nice idea. I guess they also didn't want to exchange hostages then," Juri said and laughed at Taiga who gave him a side glance, but didn't dare to move. He could trust his instinct, but his mind and body were wounded too badly to actually give the instinct something to work with and his Fallen self would need some time to recover as well, so for now he needed to get some rest first before he could think about any plan in the first place.

"Let's contact the others and retreat for now, they will be back soon and we need to be prepared," Taiko said and stopped in front of Taiga to put his hand on the other one's arm.

Usually the first shock wouldn't hit that hard, yet Taiga was too exhausted already to even withstand the first one and Juri caught him when he sank unconsciously to the ground.

***

“Thanks, that was a last second rescue,” Umi said towards Senga and Yokoo after he and the other Chasers had a lot of trouble keeping the Main Center away from their already half broken fence through all the heavy impacts.

“They seem to be out of ideas and weapons so let’s try to make them retreat for now,” Yokoo said and dashed to the front with Senga, helping Yuma, Hagi and Moro who had already started forcing their trucks to retreat.

“We are out of fire arms as well, so if we want to make them retreat then it’s now or never,” Kochi said over the transmitter.

“Did you hear back from the others?” Shintaro asked while he went to push back the last Chasers who tried to make their way through the fence.

“The last update I got was something about them needing us to get up our systems to block the signals for the microchips. They were retreating so I didn’t have much time to ask why.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Jesse said, but focused back on their own almost won fight.

“Don’t chase them too much, it’s enough if they retreat to the ruins, we can immediately put up some mines again,” Noel said and turned towards the fence. “I will try to get the fence back up.”

“Hey, Genta and Matsuku are back too,” Chaka said and ran up towards them with Shizu and Umi, helping out Genta who definitely needed some rest to heal the deep wound around his stomach. They updated them about the situation and retreated towards the gates, while Moro and the other Fallen offered to stay outside in case the Main Center or the Elite-Vestige suddenly showed up again.

“Let’s head back,” Shintaro said and Jesse followed him, but then he looked towards the side of the Center where Yuma and Hagi were guarding the area, but they had let someone enter and when they got closer, Jesse’s eyes grew wide.

“Oh damn, that’s not good.”

Shintaro immediately followed his look and then cursed as they both dashed towards the team that had returned.

“What happened?” Shintaro asked on the sight of their team being more than beaten up with almost all of them carrying someone unconscious on their back.

“And why did you bring him and where are Juri and Taiga?” Jesse asked, pointing at Reia who was on Myuto’s back.

“Can we explain that inside? If we don’t hurry they might just kill him,” Myuto said.

“Right, that’s why you wanted the systems up,” Jesse said and let Myuto pass towards the gates. If the Government really had such a long remote reach over the Elite-Vestige then they could kill Reia at any time if they thought he was of no use anymore, so they had to bring him inside to break the signal.

“Let me help you,” Jesse offered Taisuke, who carried Shime. The boy was barely conscious even after Taisuke had tried to heal him. There had not been enough time to heal him more and Shintaro told a few Chasers to help him carry the boy inside, while Taisuke turned back to Mitsu where Shintaro already walked up to Hokuto.

“He doesn’t look hurt, what happened?” Shintaro asked, but Taisuke wasn’t sure what to say.

“Things got complicated and he was putting everyone in danger, so we had to force him to leave,” Mitsu explained instead, leaving details out for now. “Let’s bring him inside, but we need to make sure that someone he trusts is with him when he wakes up. He will be furious.”

“Just please tell me that Taiga is okay?” Shintaro asked, now facing Taisuke and the Fallen slowly nodded.

“For now I think he will be fine, but we need to hurry. If they do the same as with Juri…”

“The same as with Juri, what do you mean?” Shintaro asked, alarmed and gave Reo and Nika a confused look as no one seemed to want to reply.

“They easily turned him into an Elite-Vestige. One enemy more,” Kentaro replied straight forward, gaining an annoyed glare from Shintaro.

“As if he let them do this without trying to stop them,” Shintaro hissed.

“Well, whatever.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Reo whispered, trying to calm Kentaro down, but the other one flicked his tongue and stepped back from Reo to the boy’s obvious surprise.

“I think you should all go in for now,” Nika said with a knowing look towards his brother. “Also, Reo, would you mind asking Aran for a Reverse serum?”

“A Reverse serum? Why?” Reo asked in confusion.

“You have to be kidding me,” Shintaro said, catching up to the situation.

Taisuke had realized it already and Mitsu and Nika had caught up to Kentaro’s problem as well, but now the others also finally got to know.

“Right, now comes all the judging. How about a thank you Kentaro for risking this much to help Taiga’s ass out? It’s not my fault that it didn’t go as planned. At least I got their little friend back here.”

“Okay enough, all of you inside. You stay out here,” Mitsu said and urged the others to leave before Shintaro could actually jump at him, while Reo hurried inside first to let Kochi and Aran know about the situation.

“Where the hell did you get the Fallen serum from?” Nika asked as he was left outside with his little brother who crossed his arms in annoyance.

“I stole it from Taisuke’s lab before we left for the Capitol and you can be happy that I did it.”

“Just because it somehow worked out last time doesn’t mean it would this time. What the hell were you thinking?” Nika yelled at his brother, but Kentaro just got more annoyed, which was not surprising in his state.

“Taiga agreed on my plan, so go yell at him. I took all the risks here, without me he wouldn’t have been able to break into Reia’s mind.”

“Reia used his Nightmare ability on you?” Nika asked, now more worried than angered.

“He tried, but failed. Nice little nightmares he had there,” Kentaro said with an arrogant laugh right before Reo and Aran made it outside to them. Before they reached them though, Nika had walked up to Kentaro and without a warning he had given him a harsh slap, making Kentaro look back at him dumbfounded.

“You are such a stupid kid,” Nika yelled at him.

“I am not a kid anymore,” Kentaro yelled back, but Nika’s threatening look stopped him from attacking even though he was under the Fallen serum.

“Then don’t behave like one. You can’t tell me that you didn’t know that the nightmares will crush on you the moment you receive the serum to turn back.”

“What?” Reo let out next to them as he looked at Kentaro with a worried look as he hadn’t heard of his plan.

“Just a miscalculation,” Kentaro tried to play it off, but it was clear that he had known.

“If Taiga had known then he would have never agreed to this,” Aran scolded the Fallen, but Kentaro just cursed and threw his hands up.

“Well it can’t be helped. Don’t overreact this much and just give me the stupid serum,” Kentaro shouted and Nika went over to Aran to get the serum, but when he went up to Kentaro, the confidence in the boy’s look seemed to slowly vanish.

“I will scold you even more after this is over, but in this state there is absolutely no meaning in having an argument with you,” Nika said and waited for Kentaro to step towards him, but now the boy needed a moment longer to move.

“Let’s get back inside,” Aran said and pulled Reo on the sleeve as the boy needed a moment to get the hint. He gave Kentaro another worried look, but he had his brother now so he would be fine eventually, even though he would need to go through hell first.

Kentaro finally stepped closer and turned his shoulder towards his brother with an annoyed look and Nika didn’t hesitate to give him the injection. A few seconds went by in silence before Kentaro hissed and shook his head. The pain was coming from the transition as always and for a few minutes that was all. Kentaro went down on his knees, trying to not scream through the pain, but then everything changed.

Nika crouched down to him when he realized the way too erratic breathing of his brother and the way he fisted his hair desperately. Seconds later even Kentaro couldn’t hold in his screams anymore as the nightmares that seemed like a joke to him under the Fallen serum, crushed him like everyone else.

Nika reached out for the boy and Kentaro immediately clawed his hands into the other one’s arms. Even though they didn’t seem like emotional siblings, it was more than hard for Nika to see his little brother suffer like this and he would scold him so much for his reckless behavior, but for now all he could do was pulling Kentaro in his embrace, knowing that he couldn’t take away the pain.

Kentaro’s body was shaking violently, but then his screams died down and Nika placed a kiss on the boy’s head before Kentaro sank into the older one’s arms.

“You are still the same reckless kid,” Nika said.

***

The way Taiga woke up was painful and the bright light in the room made him groan and close his eyes once more. When he tried to lift his arms to cover his eyes he realized that he couldn't and he finally dragged himself to a more awaken state, not that he felt in any way back to full strength and he immediately saw the reason for that.

He was chained to some kind of hospital bed with an infusion connected to his arm. Whatever they were giving him was effecting his strength and he felt tired and way too weak to even use any of his abilities.

There was no one with him, but there were two cameras in the room so someone would definitely show up soon. There was nothing special about the room, it looked almost the same as the one Hokuto had been in for his transition so it was obviously a Government building and chances were high that they were at the Secret Center.

With a deep breath Taiga closed his eyes and tried to let Hokuto know about the situation to calm him down, yet nothing happened. He could barely feel the instinct and his telepathy couldn't beat whatever was given to him. Even his Fallen self couldn't surface and that was the moment Taiga panicked a bit.

"Finally awake?"

The one who entered the lab was Katsuki together with one woman and one man, both in white doctor gowns.

"What did you do to me?" Taiga hissed at him and gave the two researchers a stern glare when they started a check up on the machines around him.

"We're just making sure that you're not running wild in our Center."

"Where is Juri?"

"Oh so demanding," Katsuki laughed at him as he walked up to the bed with a teasing expression and made a head movement toward the researchers. "They found out something interesting about your Fallen self."

So he wouldn't let him see Juri which was a smart move, but also showed that there was a chance to actually make Juri remember, the same way as Reia.

"If you want to tell me that he is Hokuto's Fallen self, then sorry to ruin the party, but I know that."

And Reia knew too, but luckily he wasn't with them anymore, but the question was if he was safe?

"That is also something we figured out. But no that's not the fun part. With him stuck with you there is no way to turn you as he would most likely not get affected by the serum or the microchip and we don't want the same fail as with Hokuto again."

"Oh what a shame that you can't turn me then," Taiga mocked, but Katsuki showed a lopsided smile.

“Oh we can, but for that we need to make some adjustments with your Fallen self.”

Musen 28 - February

"Everyone calm down, there is nothing we can do immediately so let's stop panicking," Kochi said as he had split everyone into groups to keep them busy.

Myuto was with Reia in the Special Observation room. Aran, Yuma and Moro keeping an eye on them from the corridor in case the boy was going to wake up. Aran and Kochi had immediately gone to work to deactivate his microchip and had luckily succeeded.

Hokuto was resting in his own room as they didn't want to risk a freak out in the medical station. Shintaro, Jesse, Hagi and Reo were with him knowing he would freak when waking up.

Genta's injury had already healed enough for him to patrol with the remaining members, while Shime was still at the medical station with Shizu and Noel having a look at him until he recovered. He was able to finally use his ability on himself once more, but his injuries had been as heavy as Juri’s back at the fight with Taisuke so he needed to rest a bit more.

That left Kochi, Taisuke, Mitsu, Kentaro, Nika and Matsuku in the lab and luckily all the members were not as restless as the Chasers, but Kentaro still looked like crap after what he had gone through, but even though Nika had told him to rest he refused.

"Then what do we do now? They forced Juri into a transition in less than two days," Mitsu said.

"For Juri they had Reia to keep him down and he also is a Vestige so it was easier to make the transition," Kochi explained while he was more guessing than stating facts, because even though they had stolen a lot of data from them and also got information from Aran's father, there was just too much they didn't know.

"Taiga guessed something about them wanting to turn everyone from the West Center and pretending you were all traitors," Kentaro explained.

"I guess they are running out of people who would willingly go through the transition. Even a lot of soldiers refused to become Vestige over the years, because the microchip part scares them away and an Elite-Vestige is even more of a slave."

"Do you think they would actually go for their own people?" Nika asked and Kochi's worried look showed that he was really worried about that.

"Most civilians are in the Bunker now, the only big one that is Government observed. But there are also still some people around the Capitol, the same as Reia and the others were before, no one would even notice if they started forcing them into the transition to grow their Elite-Vestige army."

"Then let's go and destroy their research before that can happen," Kentaro said impatiently, but not as aggressive as before. Now he was back in control of his emotions, but also still crushed by Reia's nightmares.

"We need to get information from Taiga or we don't know what to do. Taisuke knows where he is, but that won't be enough and Hokuto is not awake yet."

When there was a moment of silence Mitsu sighed and turned towards Taisuke. "Did you promise him to not say anything or why are you not telling us?"

Now the attention was completely on Taisuke and the Fallen immediately understood what his friend was talking about, but he still didn't say anything.

"Not telling us what?" Kochi asked as he got up from his desk and approached the other one. "Taisuke if there is anything that can help us, please tell us."

It was weird to see Kochi that desperate for help, but he was out of ideas.

Taisuke looked back at Mitsu once more, but his friend nodded.

"I have a telepathic connection to Taiga too and we can both use it. Myuto is the only one who knew until now, but for now we kept it a secret."

First there was silence, but then Kochi's look brightened up. "That is amazing news."

Of course for the situation it was, but for Hokuto it was going to be the worst news.

"Hokuto is not going to waste his energy on fighting with you. His focus will be on Taiga," Mitsu soothed him as he could read his expression. Mitsu had realized about the connection when Taisuke had suddenly told them to wait for them and told Reo to go with him to get the others out. He wouldn't have left without Taiga if it hadn't come directly from him, so the connection was clear to him.

"Can you contact him right now?" Kochi asked as he walked back to his desk.

"Let me try," Taisuke said and tried to find their connection, but then he shook his head. "He might still be unconscious, I can't reach him, but I know that he is still in the Secret Center."

"Then let's wait until tonight and just if you can't contact him then we will come up with a plan to go there even without any information."

"Then we'll come back later. Kentaro, let's go out and help the others with repairing the fence and patrolling," Nika said and his brother nodded, following him without commenting on Taisuke's connection. For them it didn't come as a surprise as they were both instinct carriers so it was natural that they had a connection.

"Let's call Yokoo to help Kochi in the lab and I also have to update Tama and Miyata about the situation," Mitsu said and Taisuke needed a moment to nod. His instinct was somehow thrown off more than usual and something made him fear that Taiga wasn't just unconscious.

***

First there was only a small movement of Reia's eyes, but it was enough to make Myuto give the others a signal just in case Reia would immediately try and jump at him. They couldn't be sure how he would react the moment he regained consciousness as they couldn't give him any of their serums and didn't know how much Taiga's mind ability had affected him.

Seconds later Reia opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground and seemed a bit disoriented for a moment. But the calm moment passed the second he jumped up and swirled around, panic in his eyes, unable to grasp what had happened.

"Whoa, calm down, Reia. Everything is okay. You are safe."

Myuto's words had Reia even more on edge as he had somehow not even realized that the other one was in the same room with him. But then his look changed from panicked to confused and he kept staring at Myuto as if he had seen a ghost.

"Reia? Are you with me?" Myuto asked and tried to calculate if he was going to be okay or not and he had to calculate fast because Reia stormed towards him, but there was something about his movements that made Myuto halt and not use any of his abilities and it had been right to do so.

Reia jumped into Myuto's arms, clawing his hands desperately into the other one's jacket.

"You're alive. Myuto, you're alive." Reia was more sobbing than actually speaking and Myuto slowly put one hand on the boy's back to calm him down. This outcome was definitely the best one they could have hoped for.

"Yes I am and Taiga is too," Myuto said in a calm voice, but Reia pulled back, his tears still falling.

"Taiga...I did horrible things to him, where is he? Where are we?"

The fact that he remembered would help them a lot with information about the Elite-Vestige, but on the other hand Myuto hated to see his suffering look about what he had done as an Elite-Vestige.

"We're at the West Center. Don't worry no one will hurt you here and your chip is deactivated."

"So Taiga is here too?"

Myuto had avoided the question, but now he had to shake his head. "He's not, but let's make sure you calm down for now? Can I let in a friend of mine? He would like to do a check up on you."

Reia nodded and Myuto waved Aran in to check if Reia was really okay to already walk around and if there was any chance of him turning back to the Elite-Vestige mindset.

"Please tell me that he is safe?" Reia asked and yet Myuto couldn't answer that question.

"He usually puts himself into danger to rescue others, this time he rescued you," Aran explained. "But don't worry he is a Fallen, he will be fine."

"Right…" Reia said as if he had forgotten about that fact until now. Then he turned to Myuto. "You're a Fallen too?"

It was a question yet he already knew of course and Myuto nodded. "I am, but don't worry we're not regular Fallen at least not anymore. Let's talk about the details later?"

Reia nodded as he still seemed quite overwhelmed with the whole situation. But eventually he could be the one to turn this fight around.

***

"Damn it, why is that dumb fence even still necessary? We're here to protect the Center so why rebuild it?" Kentaro yelled as he threw a part of the metal fence to the ground. The fence was built quite high after all and it would take some time to get it back up.

"And what do they do when we're not here?" Nika asked while Kentaro kept cursing to himself while trying to put another huge pole into the ground.

"Why shouldn't we be here?"

The question hung in the air until Kentaro turned to his brother with a questioning look. "Did I ask something weird?"

Nika smiled and shook his head. "No, you actually said something that made me understand your decision better."

"What decision? What are you talking about? Hey, don't ignore me."

But Nika just turned away with a bright smile to keep working on the fence while Kentaro pouted at him for not explaining what he meant. Nika was sure that if he explained it then Kentaro would deny the truth. But it was clear that finally Kentaro had found friends so important to him that he'd protect them with his own life even if he would never admit it.

***

"So are you throwing up an illusion if he goes wild?" Shintaro asked.

"What else should I do? Let him run straight to the enemy?" Reo asked back.

"I'll try to calm him down, but I fear he won't listen," Hagi said as he was pacing up and down at the door of Hokuto's room.

Shintaro and Jesse were sitting at his bed while Reo stood at the wall waiting for him to wake up.

"I'm not even sure what to tell him," Jesse let out.

"The truth," Shintaro replied and it was definitely best to tell him the truth straight away or he would freak out even worse.

"I actually won't be able to blame him if he freaks," Shintaro admitted. "After everything those two went through he lost Taiga a second time already and the first time chaos is not even taken care of yet."

"I wonder how things will eventually turn out with the instinct," Jesse said, but his look was as gloomy as the ones of everyone else.

A movement from Hokuto made them all turn their attention to the bed and Reo stepped closer just in case.

"Hokuto, are you awake?" Jesse asked carefully and after a few small movements of his head, Hokuto finally opened his eyes.

There was a heavy silence in the room while Hokuto looked at every single one of them. When he tried to sit up Shintaro reached out for his arm, but to his surprise Hokuto pulled back.

"Did you leave Taiga behind with them?" Hokuto asked in a dangerous tone as he sat up.

Hagi walked up to the bed after Shintaro and Jesse weren't sure what to say.

"Yes, he is with them at the Secret Center," Hagi said. "You weren't out for too long so-"

"Get out."

Hokuto's words made Hagi fall silent, but no one moved.

"Don't make me repeat myself. Get out."

"Hokuto. We-"

"OUT!" Hokuto finally exploded and Jesse jumped up, Hagi letting him through as he moved to the door first and while Shintaro was more reluctant it was clear that they needed to give him some space.

Reo would wait in front of the door so that he couldn't run away, but they wouldn't be of any help now. Hokuto didn't want to know anything else for now.

"Don't anger him, be happy he didn't jump at us," Hagi warned the boys as he shoved them out of the door.

"There is no way though that he will stay calm. He obviously is angry enough to fight his way out of the Center," Jesse said.

"Then let him have the one opponent he can really be angry at."

Everyone turned around to Taisuke who was standing in the corridor with Mitsu.

"That would be suicide," Reo complained.

"I'll keep guard," Mitsu promised. "But Taisuke is right. I doubt Hokuto wants anyone to try and sooth him now. He needs the truth and he needs it without sugarcoating."

"I'll stay here just in case he freaks, then I can get you out," Reo promised and the others also refused to walk away.

"Fine, do what you want," Taisuke said and he didn't even knock before he entered Hokuto's room, followed by Mitsu.

Hokuto didn't even lift his gaze from the bed, which made it obvious that he had of course listened to their talk in the corridor.

Mitsu leant back at the closed door while Taisuke remained at some distance to the bed.

"Do you want to ask or shall I just say what I think you want to hear?" Taisuke asked and Hokuto let out a joyless chuckle.

"The instinct forces you to stay close to Taiga so why did you abandon him?"

There was a moment in which Taisuke didn't reply, but the way Hokuto waited even though he was actually outraged under the surface showed that he was already guessing parts of what was going to come.

"He told me to get you all out. He wanted to stay behind so that we have a connection from the inside."

It made sense and it was a typical move for Taiga, but Hokuto didn't seem satisfied with that reply and he turned to face Taisuke with a stern look.

"Do you really need me to say it out loud?" Taisuke asked, but Hokuto's silence showed him that he indeed needed to hear it or he wouldn't accept it.

"Taiga and I have a telepathic connection as well. As we both have the instinct we can both use it. It only developed at the Main Center though."

He had guessed it already, yet Hokuto's face showed so much rage and disappointment on hearing it out loud.

"Did you contact him already?"

"I tried, but he doesn't respond. I will keep trying though and let you know the moment I hear back from him."

There was an almost invisible nod from Hokuto and Taisuke kept his head low not sure what else to say. Mitsu was the one to read the atmosphere and he put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"We will make sure to not go on patrol so that we can immediately let everyone know if we get information. Your friends are still in the corridor."

Another nod that was all and in silence they both left. Hokuto could hear how they told the others to stay away for a while and Hokuto was grateful that at least someone could understand his pain.

There was no warning when the first tear dropped in silence and after several more Hokuto let out a long shuddering breath.

"Why are you doing this to me," Hokuto whispered, his sobs making it impossible to talk louder, not that he wanted the others to hear him. "Is this payback for all the times my Fallen self messed things up?"

No, of course it wasn't as exactly that Fallen self had saved them so many times by now and was the only reason Hokuto hadn't lost Taiga for good now. But not having an explanation for their bad luck was hurting even more.

All the thoughts about what could happen made Hokuto grit his teeth to a painful degree and he punched the sheets before he gave up on keeping his cries calm. He didn't care that for once he was the one to crumble. He had all the right to do so.

***

Taiga hadn't gotten the chance to ask questions about what they were up to as they had given him a higher dose of whatever that medicine was and the next time Taiga woke up he wasn't in the same room anymore.

The fact that they needed him awake for whatever they were planning was maybe helpful, the fact that he was lying on a metal platform with his arms chained down to it wasn't helpful at all.

This time he was able to sit up and the chains were long enough for him to stand as well, but he remained on the floor for now.

The researchers from before were behind a desk at the other side of the room while the Elite-Vestige were all gathered in front of the platform, except for Juri.

"Are you going to try and punch him out of me or what?" Taiga laughed at them, but tried at the same time to see how much strength he could come up with. He could feel his normal abilities and also the presence of his Fallen self, but still a bit more passive than before.

His instinct was active as well, as was his telepathy, but even though he tried to use it there was something blocking it. Who knew if this Center had found a way to block abilities to the outside, but Taiga was determined to let them know about the situation even though it had to be fast and he wouldn't get a reply.

"What are you up to?" Katsuki asked, but of course Taiga wouldn't tell him and he had already sent out a message somehow, even though he wasn't sure if any clear words would make it out so he sent it to the one person who understood him without words.

“As you can see I can’t really be up to anything,” Taiga hissed back and finally stood up as he knew that he was in a bad position already, so he needed his instinct to be active for any possible attack.

“Why do you have Hokuto’s Fallen self?” Konpi asked, but Taiga shrugged his shoulders.

“Right, none of you has any mind reading abilities so you didn’t have the chance to get information from Juri,” Taiga said, quite relieved that some secrets still remained. “What a shame that you took his memories away or he could have told you.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway. Hokuto should be weaker without the Fallen self so we can turn him more easily,” Taiko added.

“You really think any Vestige will let you turn them if they get to know about how brainwashed you are?”

“They won’t get asked,” Rinne shot back, but Taiga still felt confident enough to argue with them, especially because it bought him time and gave them more information.

“If you feel like you can overpower them that easily, why is Juri not here?”

The small look Katsuki gave over his shoulder towards the researchers, who didn’t pay them any attention for now, showed that it hadn’t been their decision. Something that made Taiga hope that their serum wasn’t as strong as they hoped.

“There are other things to take care of,” Taiko replied casually, but it was obvious that it was a lie. There were no other Elite-Vestige yet and while they had turned Juri in a hurry it was only thanks to Reia’s ability that they had succeeded and now they didn’t have him anymore.

“If you are not confident enough with a turned Vestige, why would you even waste your time with me?” Taiga asked. He didn’t expect them to reply honestly, but Katsuki stepped to the front.

“Vestige are difficult to turn, humans are easier to turn, but they also turn out weaker so we want to know how a Fallen will react.”

The researchers didn’t seem to mind that Katsuki was speaking honestly, but Taiga shook his head.

“You do know that I am not a usual Fallen, right?” Taiga asked.

“That’s right and that is why we need to make adjustments,” Yabana replied.

“What kind of adjustments?” Taiga asked, not wanting to know the answer, yet he needed to know as many details as possible to somehow tell the others even if it wasn’t easy.

Konpi stepped next to Katsuki with a lopsided smile before he replied. “We are going to kill you so that your Fallen self can take over your body.”

Musen 28 - February

“And you are sure we can trust him?” Shintaro asked with a raised eyebrow towards Reia who was standing next to Aran and Myuto in the training room as they didn’t want to risk and let him into the lab for now, but Aran nodded.

“He is fine, the microchip is deactivated and his memories are back.”

“But that doesn’t mean he is not loyal to the Government anymore,” Jesse sided with Shintaro.

“I never wanted to be loyal to those monsters,” Reia spoke up, a bit shy, but still loud enough for them to hear. Taisuke, Senga and Mitsu were the only other people in the room so far, but they also looked a bit skeptical, not that they could tell if the boy was lying or not.

“Then prove it.”

The statement came from Hokuto who had entered the training room and Reia gave the Vestige an apologizing look. Of course he had heard only the important parts from Myuto so far, but he didn’t need to hear all the details to understand that Hokuto was furious.

“Hokuto, maybe you should-”

“No, it’s okay,” Reia interrupted Myuto as he tried to get in Hokuto’s way. Reia stepped to the front and faced Hokuto straight on. “How do you want me to prove myself?”

“Let me mind read you.”

Myuto got ready to complain, but Aran held him back. No matter if Myuto had known the boy since his childhood, now the circumstances were different.

“I would say go ahead, but I cannot promise you that my Nightmares won’t attack you. Our abilities have a self-defense mode and they will automatically attack, it’s pretty complicated to control them.”

“But you can control it better than before, right?” Aran asked.

“A bit, but not for long.”

“Then let me help you out,” Senga offered. “I can block your ability. You just have to focus on not attacking me for a few seconds. You think you can do that?”

Reia nodded and turned towards Senga, but gave Myuto a worried side glance.

“Don’t worry, no one will blame you if you don’t succeed. We are here to help you, not to judge you,” Aran said.

“Okay, concentrate,” Senga said and stretched his hand out to the boy’s face. Reia took a deep breath and nodded so that Senga knew that it was safe to touch him and to his surprise it worked. “You should be okay for now.”

With a grateful nod Reia turned back to Hokuto, but the older one’s look was still gloomy. Without any delay Hokuto used his mind reading on the boy and Reia made sure to not deny him any access to any of his memories. He had nothing to hide. It wasn't the memories with Myuto and Taiga he was aiming for. He needed to know what was going on in his mind right now, if there were any hidden doors or traps he or the Government had set up, yet after several minutes he pulled back with no results.

“And?” Shintaro asked.

“He seems fine,” Hokuto replied and wanted to turn back from Reia, but then he hissed and put one hand to his head.

“Damn, didn’t the blocking work?” Senga asked worriedly, but Hokuto couldn’t reply as he folded to the front with a pained expression and Reia looked at Myuto with wide eyes, unsure if he had done something or not.

“No, this is not Reia’s fault,” Taisuke said calmly while everyone looked at Hokuto who let out a few pained noises while sinking to his knees.

“But-, wait, Taiga? Why is it hurting him then?” Aran asked as he had caught up.

“The fact that Taiga can contact him, but I couldn’t reach him until now, means that something is blocking the instinct, so he is most likely using extreme force to even get any message to us.”

Taisuke’s look had slightly turned darker, but no one was commenting on it. Of course his instinct wouldn’t feel pleased with the fact that Taiga had contacted Hokuto and not him, but there was no space for jealousy now.

“The Secret Center uses some special walls, even more effective than Dragnacit to shield it from any kind of outside interference. It’s hard to use any ability through it,” Reia explained.

“Damn, that will make it really complicated to get inside,” Mitsu realized.

“What is going on?” Kochi asked as he hurried inside the training room as he had seen what was going on over the security camera.

“Taiga contacted him, but the Center has special Dragnacit walls so it is complicated for him to get his telepathy working,” Aran explained.

“Is he alright?” Kochi asked as Hokuto had finally calmed down a bit, but remained in a sitting position.

“I couldn’t get any clear words from him, it feels like the first time when he contacted me, but something feels off. He feels afraid about something, so they are most likely trying to turn him and the fact that he put so much energy into contacting us means we should hurry,” Hokuto explained.

“They will definitely await us. Even if the whole West Center attacks, we won’t make it in easily,” Myuto complained.

“And then there is also the Main Center, which will definitely try to stop us the moment we make a move,” Shintaro explained.

“Then shall we split up?” Jesse suggested.

“That didn’t work last time either,” Senga added, but they were out of ideas and yet they had to hurry.

“We can split up,” Kochi said and got all their attention. “The problem is about how to get into the Center, not about how many of us will fight. We have fought them often enough now to fight with fewer people, but we need to choose wisely who to bring and for the rest I have a more important task.”

“What task?” Taisuke asked, making Kochi form a kind of proud smile as if he had waited to voice it out for a long time.

“We will abandon the West Center and take control of the Main Center.”

“Did he lose it?” Jesse whispered towards Shintaro who could only shrug his shoulders.

“Instead of just stopping their forces from interfering, we can use our own forces to attack the Main Center while they have so many people out to protect the Secret Center.”

“What forces?” Myuto asked.

“The other Centers. They have fought with us, then against us and now they are all in a state of confusion so we need to send the right teams to make them join us and attack,” Kochi explained and slowly everyone seemed to see the bigger picture.

“I guess it’s time to call Tama and Miyata into the fight then?” Senga asked and Taisuke nodded, making Senga leave first to call the other two into battle as well. If they abandoned the West Center for an ultimate last attack then they shouldn’t try to hold on to their own useless backup hideout.

“Then what do we do?” Mitsu asked.

“Three teams will head out to the Centers, we only need someone they know and a Fallen so they can understand how the serum helped you. They will listen this time after the Elite-Vestige have caused so much trouble. Then we have one team holding off the Main Center forces long enough for the other Centers to attack the Main Center directly. Meanwhile one team will break into the Secret Center.”

“But isn’t breaking into the Secret Center still an unsolved problem?” Shintaro asked, yet Kochi smiled once more.

“They have hidden a lot from us, but so have we. We also still have a surprise for them.”

Now even Hokuto raised an eyebrow on Kochi’s confident and somehow excited look.

“We do?” Hokuto asked making clear that this was indeed a well-hidden secret if not even Hokuto knew about it.

Kochi’s smile grew even wider when he nodded. It was clear that this was a chance he had waited for, maybe something he had hoped he never needed to use, but now he seemed more than excited to use his secret weapon to end this rebellion. This was going to be their final battle against the Main Center, it was all or nothing.

“Trust me they won’t know what hit them,” Kochi promised as he gave them all a confident look. “Let’s get ready for war.”

***

There was no warning when the platform Taiga was standing on, together with the chains were electrocuted and with a scream Taiga fell back on his knees, but his instinct kicked in immediately to stop Katsuki and Yabana from attacking with their abilities.

The shock was bigger than Taiko’s ability, but the researchers who had obviously set off the shock had also stopped it, which meant that they most likely couldn’t go through with their plan if Taiga fell unconscious.

“Let’s see how long you can go on,” Katsuki said and nodded towards the researchers and Taiga took another deep breath before he gritted his teeth on another huge electric shock and this time his instinct had blocked Katsuki’s ability with a lot of effort. While Yabana needed a moment longer to recharge, Katsuki had three more tries and they let the electricity flow through the metal, making it more than difficult for Taiga to support his body and also the instinct, but he somehow succeeded in withstanding Katsuki’s tries to use his telekinesis, not that he could actually throw him around with the chains holding him in place.

There was not even a second for Taiga to calm down when his body got a break as Rinne vanished and showed up right in front of him, but Taiga had his legs free so he could still attack even though his body felt heavy, so Rinne was forced to jump back. Right behind him Taiko jumped to the front and put his hand on Taiga’s neck, but the instinct somehow stopped his ability and Taiga kicked the boy off the platform, but sank on one knee after that.

“I guess you have noticed it by now, but you won’t be able to go on like this for long,” Katsuki warned him.

“Try me,” Taiga challenged and while he didn’t feel confident he knew he had to play for time and slowly he could feel the presence of his Fallen self stronger again and he tried to pull him to the active state from before as he knew that with his control of the instinct they had better chances.

“Oh trust me, we will,” Yabana said and waited for another electric shock to use his acoustic wave and this time Taiga could feel how his instinct had trouble as his body couldn’t get back up. Katsuki was the next one to use his ability and on the third try Taiga hissed as Katsuki succeeded in forcing the chains down so that Taiga’s arms were pulled towards the platform while he struggled to stay conscious.

With the next small break Rinne showed up right behind him this time and Taiga wasn’t fast enough to get up and the boy kicked him in the back right before Taiko jumped at Taiga with one of his electric shocks, which seemed like a joke compared to the ones he had already gotten from the chains, but the difference was that his instinct should protect him from abilities, but now it was impossible to react to all their attacks. The moment Rinne tried to send a shockwave through Taiga’s body there was a reaction from the Fallen self and he supported the instinct enough to stop the shockwave. Taiko was the next one to use one and Taiga slightly lost balance as he had to take a bit of it in, but he had bigger trouble as Katsuki forced the chains down once more right before Konpi showed up in front of him and tried to reach out for his face.

Let him do it

The confusion of what his Fallen self suggested was obvious and in panic Taiga got the instinct to kick in this time to stop Konpi and he ripped himself out of Katsuki’s control to kick all the others off the platform once more.

I cannot take over like before, whatever they did has weakened our connection. But if you let Konpi in, then I can overthrow your and his mind and kick him out and whatever they are trying might not work if I am in control

There was not much time to discuss the idea as he received another electric shock and with a hiss he closed his eyes, but tried to stay focused.

“Don’t try that hard, we will get you to hold still no matter what,” Konpi said, which meant that he tried to get into his mind so he wouldn’t fight back. So however they were trying to get rid of his human mind it needed some time. Taiga looked over to the researchers and he could see an injection, but it wasn’t clear if that was the Elite-Vestige serum or just something to give him in case things didn’t work out as they wanted to.

Fine, then go have your fun

Of course the Fallen self would, but Taiga didn’t make it in any way obvious what they were up to. Most likely they thought his Fallen self was weakened too much to take over in the first place. So Taiga succeeded two more times in stopping them before he let his body crumble a bit more on the third try and slowed the reaction of his instinct enough for them to think that they had overpowered him.

After two shockwaves from Rinne and an electric shock from Taiko, Taiga finally let Konpi touch his face and he could feel how he was intruding his mind. Different from before though there was no way for Taiga to keep an active mind set. Konpi’s ability wasn’t the problem, but he needed to make space for his Fallen self and with his body weakened this much he had no choice, but let himself drop passive as before when he had received the original Fallen serum from Taisuke.

Don’t kill them

“Oh I won’t, no worries,” The Fallen said as he lifted his head and gave the others a lopsided smile, making them all stare back at him in confusion as Taiko and Rinne had just caught Konpi, yet it was clear that it hadn’t gone as they had hoped as the Fallen self had trapped Konpi’s mind with Taiga. It wouldn’t last for long, but for now the boy wouldn’t be able to return to his own body or take over.

“Oh, so you are the Fallen self?” Katsuki asked in realization and the others hurried down from the platform with Konpi. “I didn’t expect him to let you take over when his life was in danger.”

“Why is that?” Taiga asked with a curious expression.

“Don’t you want your own life? We can get rid of him and you can have your own body,” Katsuki offered, but Taiga immediately started laughing.

“Right, my own body to then be enslaved by the Government and be brainwashed like you idiots? I got way better offers before.”

“Suit yourself then,” Yabana said and tried to use one of his acoustic waves the same moment another electric shock went through the chains, yet the Fallen self only laughed and didn’t crumble that easily under the pain. Taiga’s body wouldn’t be able to withstand the pain for long, but the Fallen self concentrated on his telepathy when Katsuki and Yabana needed to recharge and he threw Konpi out of his mind as a distraction for the others. He only had a few seconds and still no clear connection, but this time he could at least feel more and just the fact that he could feel the presence he was looking for way clearer than he thought he would made him smile.

“Are you that masochistic or why did you take over, knowing that you cannot stop us?” Katsuki asked as he was ready to use his ability again.

“Oh trust me I don’t have to beat you, all I had to do was play for time and that is exactly what I did. Now you have even worse problems to deal with.”

They looked back at the researchers who immediately contacted the security to ensure that their weapons were up just in case he wasn’t bluffing, but none of them seemed too alarmed as none of their systems had shown any signals around the Secret Center yet.

“Maybe you revealed your plan too early?” Taiko asked a bit mocking as he got ready to start another attack with the others, but then they all fell silent on a sound.

With their heavy walls not many sounds would be heard in their Center, yet this was a sound they were all familiar with and for a split second Taiga could see a human emotion on the Elite-Vestige’s faces. Fear! They all remembered this sound even though they shouldn’t and while normal humans couldn’t even hear the sound at that distance, they all knew what was coming.

“EVERYBODY DOWN,” Katsuki yelled and the researchers were fast enough to set off an alarm through the Center, but there was no time for anyone to actually look for shelter as a huge explosion hit the upper floor of the Center and shook the walls so hard that parts of the ceiling came down and Taiga used their distraction to put all his remaining strength into ripping the chains apart.

“Good luck beating a group of really pissed Vestige and Fallen,” Taiga teased them.

***

"Damn...that was unexpected," Kentaro let out with a shocked yet kind of excited expression about the huge explosion Kochi's bomb had caused.

"Told you this will surprise them," Kochi shouted from the cockpit of the helicopter. A helicopter no one except Kochi had known of. Not even the Main Center had known that Kochi was in possession of it. Even before he had become the head of the West Center he had found the helicopter and tried to repair it. Together with it he had found one of the remaining bombs of the beginning of the war. There was no material left to build such a strong bomb so he made sure to keep it a secret. Especially because it was a helicopter and bomb that couldn't get tracked by the Government. Now it had proven itself useful as it was strong enough to destroy even Dragnacit walls and luckily also whatever they had mixed into them to make them ability proof.

Taisuke had used Hokuto's presence finding to make sure no one was close to the part where they had dropped the bomb and through his instinct he was strong enough to see through the heavy walls. He could also tell where Taiga was and tried to give him a warning.

Now the top part of the Center was revealed to them, but they had to be fast to intrude or they would definitely get stopped.

“Let me get up another illusion just in case they are awaiting us right at the first level,” Reo said after he had used his illusions to get the helicopter that close.

"I'll bring you down," Kochi shouted over his shoulder.

"No need for that," Kentaro, who was already hanging half out of the open door while looking at the destroyed area, said and gave the others a lopsided smile before he let go.

"Will he be alright?" Reia asked as he looked after the boy with a stunt expression.

"It must be tough to have such a reckless brother," Myuto said towards Nika, who sighed on his brother's suicide like jump.

"I want to say I'm used to it, but I fear I never will be."

The others waited for Kochi to bring the helicopter closer to jump off.

"You're late," Kentaro joked, but got a hit against the back of his head from Nika.

"Then why didn't you already run off if you jumped off earlier?"

"I wanted to be fair and let you have some fun too."

The next moment Mitsu slightly kicked Kentaro against the leg and the boy hissed and gave him a death glare.

"Mh, waiting for us, right. More like needing a moment to endure the pain?" Mitsu teased.

"Which way," Hokuto asked impatiently and Taisuke pointed to the front.

"He is not on this floor so we have to find a way down."

"Let's move then. We will take care of any interference on the way," Myuto said and started walking, but just at the next huge broken metal door he stopped.

"Already someone to play with?" Kentaro teased and stepped next to him, but then his teasing expression fell as the one who had appeared was no other than Juri.

"Leave him to me," Myuto said, but then Juri laughed.

"You have the most abilities I can turn against you, are you sure you want to take the risk? And I see a traitor among you so maybe he wants to take the challenge? It would be a pleasure to turn your nightmares against you."

Reia gritted his teeth and wanted to step to the front, but Myuto held him back.

"Then face me instead."

The interference came from above and to everyone's surprise it was Kochi who jumped down to them after he had landed the helicopter.

"Kochi, that's suicide. We're enough people to face him," Mitsu complained.

"There are enough other strong opponents ahead," Kochi argued.

"But-"

Hokuto tried to argue with him, but Kochi gave him a warning look. "Don't think I got my position just through research and remember that Aran also didn't only help me in the lab."

The confidence in the boy's look made Hokuto nod and they waited for Juri's reaction. To their surprise he stepped towards Kochi and opened the way for them. Maybe he was confident that the others would be able to stop them anyway.

"Then show me your skills, leader!"

Hokuto raised an eyebrow on that statement, but he had no time to say anything as the others urged him to keep going.

"This was the worst and last mistake you ever did," Juri said as he faced Kochi after he had let the others escape.

"Trust me if getting my friends out of here is a mistake then I'm willing to do the same mistake all over again."

Juri laughed on that and started circling around Kochi who was in the Chaser gear with his Ex2 suit active and both hilts steady in his hands, but he wasn't releasing the blades yet.

"Friends, right. Because all you Government people see us Vestige as friends."

"How did you-"

"How do I know about your connection to the Government? They told me. The Elite-Vestige know way more than you might have planned for and yet we need to be careful, because you could kill us at any time. What a cruel fate, isn't it?"

Juri's words seemed so hateful, yet he had only been turned days ago and learned about everything that was going on, yet something told Kochi that they hadn't had enough time with Juri's transition as he seemed to still carry some connections to them or he wouldn't be that outraged about finding out about Kochi's connection to the Government. After all he wasn’t supposed to remember Kochi.

"I didn't lie to you to betray you," Kochi explained.

"Right, because we are all so important to our amazing leader."

There it was again. There was no way Juri had lost his memory. Elite-Vestige were closer to Fallen and shouldn't be easily affected by emotions, yet Juri was obviously furious under the surface.

"Then what else can I say if you won't believe me?" Kochi asked and this time Juri showed a more dangerous expression as he stopped. Kochi immediately tensed and got into a defensive stance.

"Nothing. If you want to prove yourself right you have to win against me."

With that Juri attacked and Kochi knew that he couldn't hold back just because it was Juri. If he wanted to be defeated to get proven wrong by Kochi then he would do him that favor.

Musen 28 - February

“They are coming for us,” Taisuke shouted when they all made it down to the next level and Taiga had succeeded in letting him know that most of the Elite-Vestige were coming up to them. “But Katsuki and Konpi stayed with Taiga. They didn’t give up on their plan yet. Some researchers are still with them.”

“What plan?” Myuto asked now that the two could finally communicate clearer again, but he had given Hokuto a side glance as well, because the boy was of course aware that Taiga’s Fallen self had most likely taken over or Taiga would have contacted him instead.

“They are trying to kill Taiga to turn him into a full Fallen and let his Fallen personally take over his body.” While Taisuke had threatened to do the same in his original Fallen state he was more than disgusted by hearing the idea from someone else. Even Myuto had partly tried the same and both of them were furious about the Government people trying this on their own members.

Hokuto almost stumbled on the next stairs on hearing that, but then his look turned darker as he sped up and jumped over the railing, letting himself drop directly to the lower floor. What he hadn’t seen coming was someone showing up right in front of him without a warning and before he could even get his arms up, Rinne had thrown one of his long distance shock waves at him, crushing him into the next wall.

Before Rinne got the chance to vanish again Mitsu had stopped his movements and the others had caught up to them. “Get going, I got this.”

“I will stay with you, so that he can’t get away,” Reo said and urged the others to keep moving so that he could get up an illusion. As long as Rinne was trapped in it, he wouldn’t be able to teleport out of it.

“Let’s go, we need to stop them,” Myuto urged Hokuto, but the boy didn’t need much pushing as he had collected himself immediately. There was no way he would let them take Taiga away from him after all the shit that had been thrown at them already.

“You do realize that your illusion won’t last forever, right?” Rinne laughed as he was able to jump back after Mitsu’s ability had worn off.

“Neither does your ability to run from us,” Mitsu challenged as he dashed right at him, giving Reo the chance to keep his illusion up for longer than if he was actively fighting. All they needed to do was play for time and they had learned a lot through their previous fights. They wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.

***

There were some shut down labs on their way, most of the researchers obviously hiding behind the security gates, but they weren’t of their concern for now anyway, but they also had to face some soldiers on the next floor, but while Myuto and Hokuto tried to not kill them, Kentaro had enough at some point and started using his special ability on them. “How many soldiers do you have in here?”

“More than before you came to attack us,” Reia complained as he tried to fight without his special ability. “Most of them are human so don’t overdo it.”

“It’s not like I am aiming to kill them, but I can’t promise anything,” Kentaro growled.

“If you don’t want to kill anyone then I fear it will take even longer to get past me,” Yabana was heard from the end of the corridor, right in front of the last staircase they needed to get to the third underground level.

“We have no time to deal with him,” Taisuke hissed under his breath.

“What a shame that you won’t easily get past me,” Yabana let out confidently, but while he was obviously planning to use an acoustic wave he didn’t lift his arm and then his look turned to confused. “Okay, who the hell is doing this?”

“Get going, I will deal with him,” Myuto said as he had used his motion control on him, but at the same time more soldiers were closing in from another corridor.

“Guess I need to leave the fun part to you,” Kentaro let out annoyed as he dashed down the corridor without even telling the others what he was up to, but it was clear that he was going to hold them off.

“Hurry,” Myuto yelled while Yabana was already slowly breaking out of his motion control, while the others hurried to the stairs. Once more Hokuto was the first one to jump into the next corridor, but this time he somehow avoided the shockwave thrown his way, but the next second someone jumped at him and it was Reia who kicked Konpi off him before he could actually use his mind switch.

“Oh, still alive?” Konpi teased their former leader. “I doubt Katsuki will welcome you back now that he is in charge.”

“I don’t need him to welcome me back, I need him to step down,” Reia replied, but then Hokuto shoved him out of the way as they had no time for long talks.

“Get out of my way,” Hokuto growled under his breath while Konpi blocked the way to a longer corridor with a heavy metal door at the end.

“We need to go, now,” Taisuke urged them with a worried look towards the heavy Dragnacit door at the end of the corridor. “He has no time left.”

“What a shame. Just wait a bit longer and he will have plenty of time to fight against you this time,” Konpi laughed, but he hadn’t seen it coming that Hokuto threw himself at the boy, somehow getting a shockwave on the boy’s chest before he jumped up and dashed past him. Konpi got ready to dash after him, but Taisuke pulled him back and threw him right in front of Nika. Reia wanted to turn back to him to help, but Taisuke grabbed his arm. “Keep your strength for someone else. Can I leave him to you?”

Nika nodded before he gave Konpi a harsh kick against the side of his ribs before he could even think about using a shockwave, while Taisuke and Reia dashed after Hokuto.

He didn’t want to tell Hokuto, but they would be too late to stop the worst outcome, but maybe they had a chance to somehow undo it if they were fast enough to figure out what exactly they had used on him.

***

“You didn’t really think that you and a handful of useless Vestige and Fallen could run over our Center that easily,” Juri mocked Kochi while walking away from the boy who had trouble getting up after another pretty painful shockwave had crushed him into the wall and then made him fall a floor down through a broken part of the flouring caused by the explosion, but luckily his suit had taken most of the impact.

“Well, the fact that no one came until now to help you out or report, makes me believe we do a quite good job so far,” Kochi replied as he got back up and looked around, but both his Dragnacit blades had landed too far away to make a dash for them.

“Oh and you didn’t think that the Main Center wouldn’t get informed about this?” Juri asked as he turned back to Kochi, but didn’t seem to see the need to immediately end the fight.

“Then where is your backup?” Kochi asked with a lopsided smile this time and Juri had to chuckle as well.

“I guess you know that better than me? But let me guess you sent those useless remaining members to stop the reinforcements?”

Kochi didn’t need to reply as it was obvious by now and the fact that there had been no one from the Main Center so far, meant that Shintaro, Jesse and the others had indeed succeeded in stopping them and now he could only hope that with the help of all the Fallen and the other Centers the Main Center would fall and that they wouldn’t lose in the Secret Center either.

Kochi had barely stretched his arm to his boot when Juri dashed towards him, stopping him from drawing the hidden knife out of his boot, but Kochi was prepared for the shockwave this time and he turned out of the way right when Juri used it. Even for a shockwave there was a minimal recharge time and Kochi jumped at the other one, but only for a split second and Juri kicked him away after he had reached out for his arm.

“Nice try,” Juri laughed at him and cornered Kochi at the next wall, taking him by the collar before he put his hand directly to his stomach this time, which would cause huge damage if he used his shockwave now and damaged the suit, but then Juri’s confident look fell for the first time as he looked at his own hand in confusion.

“What did you do?”

Kochi didn’t reply, but just did the same to Juri’s other arm while the Vestige had shown a moment of hesitation. With a curse Juri pulled back, but Kochi knew that he needed to use this chance and he dashed after Juri, this time pulling out the knife and even though he wouldn’t aim to kill, he knew that he had to hurt Juri if he wanted to stop him from chasing after the others.

“I learned some tricks from Aran,” Kochi explained while he faced Juri straight on and even without his abilities Juri was still a good fighter so Kochi needed to fight as serious as he could. Juri tried to fight with brutal force, while Kochi was faster and able to get away from all the kicks and punches after taking away Juri’s speed as well, slicing his knife as often as possible over the other one’s skin until one deep cut on the back of Juri’s thigh finally made the Vestige fall on one knee.

“You have to forgive me for this later,” Kochi said and approached Juri from behind. He had no time left and he needed to make sure the other one wasn’t getting back up, but at the last moment Juri swirled around, but Kochi didn’t stop either.

There should have been a shockwave, Kochi was sure that Juri only reacted this way, because he had felt his abilities returning, yet Juri’s hand was now sitting useless on the other one’s stomach, while Kochi had moved forward with the knife, stabbing Juri right into the chest, while he had actually aimed for a safer spot on his back. With wide eyes he looked up at the other one and Juri’s look had slightly changed.

“We will always forgive you when it is for the sake of the West Center,” Juri let out before his legs gave in and Kochi caught him.

“So you didn’t forget? Why? How?” Kochi asked in confusion. He had realized the signs earlier, but it wasn’t clear enough, especially because Juri had been fighting for real.

“The microchip is the problem,” Juri let out in a weak voice while Kochi hurried to cut open the other one’s vest and shirt to see how much damage he had caused. “I wasn’t strong enough to stop my body from moving. It’s programming us to fight, I could only give hints. Just through my body crumbling I can overpower it, but then I also need to fear for them to activate it. They always know our physical condition. The transition was too fast for them to check if I really lost my memory and I luckily somehow fooled them enough to partly trust me.”

Juri’s explanations helped Kochi to understand what he had to take care of next and after he was sure that Juri wouldn’t bleed to death, he hurried to make him turn on his stomach so that he could deactivate the microchip as he had done with Reia. Luckily through Reia’s microchip he knew exactly what he needed to do and he pulled out some small forceps he needed to deactivate it.

“This will hurt quite a bit,” Kochi warned as he had no lab equipment on him and had to cut Juri’s skin with his knife. Juri didn’t complain as he still feared if they took too long that they would indeed just kill him.

“We got Reia’s memories back too, so we will be able to get to the others as well, but we need to hurry. Do you know where Taiga is and what they are doing?”

“Not really. They wouldn’t let me see him, I feel like they already knew that my transition wasn’t as smooth as they hoped it to be, but I overheard the researchers and whatever it is they will need to use another serum on him.”

“All done, get up,” Kochi said and made Juri sit up, but immediately treated his wound on his neck first as he had to cut open a quite long part of the skin over the spine and it was always dangerous for the nerves even for fast healing Vestige. “Taisuke got contacted by him and they said they wanted to kill Taiga to give his Fallen self his body for good, but I doubt their Elite-Vestige serum will work on a Fallen?”

“I think that is what they want to find out. They don’t care if a Fallen dies anyway. But we also have way bigger problems,” Juri added and Kochi already didn’t like the sound of that. “Their first goal was to make the West Center seem like traitors so that they could test their serum on as many Vestige and Chasers as possible, but their ultimate goal is to turn the people in the Main Bunker.”

Kochi’s look darkened drastically on hearing that and his hate for the Government grew even bigger. Innocent people without any wish of fighting in the war were mostly in that one Bunker, promised by the Government to be safe there as long as the war was going on, yet they only kept them as lab rats.

“You have already seen this coming, right?”

Juri’s question made Kochi’s look turn to apologizing as he remembered what the boy had said earlier. “You have been told about my connections to the Government.”

“I guess the only reason they told me is because they realized I still had somehow access to my memories and they hoped to make me furious against you.”

“And you aren’t?” Kochi asked after he was done with his improvised first aid of Juri’s neck and chest and luckily as an Elite-Vestige Juri was healing way faster now. When Kochi sat back, Juri hit him against the chest before he got up with a confident smile and stretched his arm out towards the other one.

“You are our leader. You always have been and you always will be. I would be an idiot to put my trust into those idiots who are actually the dogs of that Government, while you have decided to fight against them. None of us can choose our roots, but we can choose the direction we grow.”

Kochi’s look turned relieved hearing that and he let himself get dragged up to his feet by his friend. Juri’s furious reaction before had been to make Kochi realize that he remembered them, but knowing that he was still trusted made him believe that they could get through this until the very end. Juri hurried to get Kochi’s Dragnacit blades and pointed towards the staircase.

“We should hurry and help the others. I doubt there is much time left to help Taiga and after he sacrificed himself again to help all of us, I am not willing to let him suffer any more.”

“Then we are already two,” Kochi added before they hurried to the next floor.

***

The first impact on the heavy metal door didn’t work, but luckily even this floor had been shaken by the explosion so the security system was down and with Hokuto’s second shockwave the door moved. Reia gave it a third shockwave and with Taisuke’s strength the door finally crumbled to the ground with a loud impact. What they hadn’t seen coming was Katsuki sending them flying with his telekinesis before they even knew what was going on. Just Taisuke had reacted fast enough, his instinct making it impossible for Katsuki to attack him. What none of them knew was how much his instinct was ripping him apart inside for several minutes already as he had lost the connection to Taiga, but there was no meaning in letting anyone know, making them restless would just weaken them. With a knowing look he found Taiga on the platform. He had succeeded in freeing himself from the chains, but while he had kept Taisuke updated about everything there had been a sudden interference. The platform had been connected to a gas distributor and Taiga had inhaled the gas before he had even been able to think about attacking, from that point on their connection had started crumbling until Taisuke couldn’t even feel his presence anymore and he had already feared for the worst. While they still hadn’t used the serum on him yet the gas would kill him eventually and without the serum both of them would die.

Reia jumped at Katsuki while he luckily was distracted by Taisuke who dashed at Taiko. Hokuto dashed into the room as well, searching with a panicked look for Taiga. The moment he spotted him though, he froze, unable to even get over to him. He was alive, which was the only relief about the situation and he didn’t even have a moment to grasp what exactly was going on when Reia was thrown right at him.

“Taisuke, some help here,” Reia yelled at him, but the Fallen was too focused on Taiga after throwing Taiko with a shockwave into the corridor and on Reia’s voice Taiga finally looked up. He seemed calm, yet it was obvious in how much pain he was. Never had any of them seen a Fallen or Vestige in such bad condition and some of them had been close to death already, but not in such a cruel way.

Taiga’s skin had turned almost white, his veins shining pitch black through the thin surface. His eyes were bloodshot to a point where they seemed like the eyes of a demon. His breathing pace was erratic, yet so weak that they could barely hear his heartbeat. But between the pain there was another emotion, one that got stronger when he looked from Taisuke towards Hokuto.

“I can’t help him…” he let out in such a hurt voice that Hokuto’s heart dropped to his feet.

“What a shame, isn’t it,” Katsuki laughed at them after he had sent Reia flying once more and was aiming for Hokuto, but then Taisuke’s rage boiled and he stepped in front of the other one and approached Katsuki with dangerous steps while Taiko had actually ended up in a fight with Nika and Konpi.

With one strong shockwave he made Katsuki crush into the wall and then he stole his ability to throw him right out of the lab and then he gave Reia a knowing look. “I got this, don’t worry.”

The boy ran inside the corridor before Taisuke used the remaining telekinesis to lift the broken metal doors and slammed them so hard into the Dragnacit walls that even their shockwaves wouldn’t easily get them out again, so for now they didn’t have to fear for any interference.

“We need to get Kochi,” Hokuto whispered and looked back at the corridor, but Taisuke shook his head.

“We don’t even know what exactly they gave him. Do you really think he will be fast enough to find a solution?”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Hokuto shouted at the Fallen, his eyes tearing up while he looked forth and back between him and Taiga.

“Hokuto-”

“You, shut up!” Hokuto yelled at the Fallen self, who had trouble even speaking up, but he tried his best to stay conscious. “Weren’t you supposed to protect him? Wasn’t that what you promised him?”

Hokuto’s words were harsh, but the others didn’t judge him as the situation was complicated and emotional enough for all of them.

“Is he still there?” Taisuke dared to ask while Hokuto tried to calm down and get his sobs under control, but he wasn’t even able to face Taiga as he knew that he was about to lose him for good if no miracle was about to happen.

“He is, but barely. There is something we can try though,” The Fallen self offered on which Taisuke finally made his way to the platform and sat down next to Taiga. He looked so fragile, so vulnerable and Taisuke reached out for his face, but he was afraid of his own hand touching the boy as if that movement alone could hurt him already. The Fallen self put all his remaining energy in not fainting so that Taiga wouldn’t vanish.

Hokuto looked from the distance, but he didn’t miss the smile the Fallen self flashed towards Taisuke and for the first time Hokuto saw his Fallen self with completely different eyes.

“What do you want to try?” Taisuke asked, knowing they didn’t have much time.

“I can force him to get back to the surface.”

“You can do that?” Hokuto asked, now making a few steps towards the platform, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. What if it was an offer to say goodbye?

“I am not sure, but I can try.”

“It’s not about human or Fallen DNA, it’s all about who is active and who is passive,” Taisuke finally understood and the Fallen self nodded with a knowing look while Hokuto was still a bit confused until the Fallen self reached out for Taisuke and usually Hokuto would get annoyed and turn away now, but something about the hurt in their eyes made him realize that their instincts were maybe way purer than they all had thought until now. Eventually Hokuto understood what the Fallen self offered and he turned away to give them the moment they deserved, even if it couldn’t be called private at all with so much fighting going on in the corridor.

 “You don’t have to do this,” Taisuke whispered against the other one’s lips as he put his forehead against his, but the way Taiga chuckled and shook his head, he knew that the other one had made up his mind. Slowly he moved his hand up to Taisuke’s face and he knew that the kiss they shared would be forgiven by Hokuto.

“I do, because I promised to not betray his trust and I’ve brought enough hardship in my short existence. Yet I am really grateful that I was allowed to share such beautiful emotions with someone as well.”

It felt like Taisuke’s world was crumbling in slow motion while Hokuto finally turned back to them, Taiga looking up at him with the same hurt in his eyes and all Hokuto wished for was that he could find a happy ending for all of them.

“Take good care of him,” The Fallen self said with a last bright smile before he brushed his hand once more over Taisuke’s cheek and closed his eyes to keep his promise to never betray Taiga’s trust.

***

"Oh was that too fast for you?" Rinne mocked Mitsu as the Fallen had trouble using his ability on him with the way he kept disappearing even inside Reo's illusion. "But I guess time is up anyway."

Mitsu had realized it too and he tried to stop Rinne, but the other one disappeared once more, this time completely out of his view and then he heard Reo crashing into the wall several meters away.

"There is a limit of how long you can hide in your illusions."

Rinne lifted his hand once more, but then his movements stopped before he could use another's shockwave on the boy and Reo hurried to get away from him.

"And luckily there is a limit to how often you can teleport too," Mitsu said as he had finally stopped him for a moment.

"It won't last long though," Rinne laughed, but what he hadn't seen coming was Reo coming back with a metal chain he had ripped off from some research equipment and before Rinne was able to move again Reo had thrown it around the other one and made sure he couldn't get away from the wall as he closed the chain around a heavy metal pillar.

"Now feel free to run away," Reo laughed this time and Rinne tried to break the chains when he was able to move again, but this time he was the one to receive a shockwave from Reo, which sent him right against the pillar.

"Let's see if we can secure him even more with something, we have to hurry after the others," Mitsu said and walked around, trying to find something, but then they heard fast steps and right next to him Juri dashed through the door. Reo immediately tensed when the Elite-Vestige stopped and looked at the situation and Mitsu already got his hand up to stop Juri, but then they heard someone else running towards them.

"Stop running that fast," Kochi yelled as he caught up to him and hit him against the shoulder. "If you storm ahead alone they will think that you're still our enemy."

"He's not?" Reo asked and Juri threw him an apologizing look.

"Sorry for all the trouble. I had a tiny bit of control and memories, but it wasn't enough to overpower their technology."

"So the serum is not playing with your mind like the Original Fallen serum?" Mitsu asked.

"Not really. It makes you stronger and gives you another special ability, but while you are indeed a bit more emotionless than before, I feel like nothing is directly erased, it's only hidden under the pressure of the microchip. I guess the memory loss and full control thing only works with humans.”

"That's why we need to get theirs out," Kochi said. "But I doubt we have time. We need you to hurry to Taiga's location and just make sure the Elite-Vestige are not causing trouble. The rest we can do later. And I need to find Myuto."

"Myuto?" Reo asked.

"I'll explain on the way. Let's move."

They agreed, but Mitsu went over to Rinne who gave him a death glare, but couldn't break the chains in time to stop Mitsu from hitting him so hard onto the neck that he lost consciousness for now.

***

“Okay, enough, I don’t have time for this shit,” Kentaro hissed as he used a shockwave on two more soldiers and then ripped the door of a close by room out of its angles before he started dragging people instead of pushing them away and one by one he started throwing them into the room until the last attacking soldiers got thrown in with another shockwave so that the others couldn’t get up in time to dash back out of the room. “Just stay down, you annoying humans. Seriously you don’t even get what you fight for,” Kentaro yelled at them before he grabbed the door once more and slammed it back into the frame with a shockwave, making sure that with human strength alone they wouldn’t be able to get out.

Yabana laughing in the other corridor made Kentaro finally concentrate on the Elite-Vestige and he had broken through Myuto’s motion control and had used one of his acoustic waves before Myuto had gotten the chance to recharge or get close to use another ability.

“Hey stupid kid, time to play,” Kentaro yelled at him and Yabana seemed excited to face Kentaro, yet the moment he turned towards him and lifted his arm towards his direction Kentaro didn’t even have to get out of the way, because Yabana got tackled down by Mitsu the next second, without any kind of warning.

“Hey, why did you ruin the fun?” Kentaro asked while walking towards Myuto, but then he froze when he spotted Juri right behind Myuto.

“It’s okay, he is on our side,” Reo told him before he could actually freak without having to.

“Myuto, we don’t have much time, I need your help,” Kochi said and the other one listened to his idea before he nodded and asked Mitsu and Kentaro to hold Yabana down who tried to fight them off, but now he was more than overpowered. Myuto didn’t lose time to use his mind reading on the boy and when he was done the other Fallen made sure Yabana would be immobile for the time being.

“Ready?” Myuto asked and Kochi nodded, letting Myuto show him the most important memories he had gotten from Yabana. All Kochi needed to know was what they were planning with Taiga and what they were using as well as more information about the serum and luckily he got all that he needed.

“Thank you, we need to hurry and I mean seriously hurry,” Kochi said and then pointed at Juri. “Can you come with me? I need you to help me open some of their research facilities.”

“Sure,” Juri said while the others gathered to move on.

“Let’s head downstairs. We need to make sure the others are all out of the way. Taiga doesn’t have much time and definitely no strength to fight anymore if they have already gone through with their plan,” Myuto said as he had seen all the memories and their plan to let Taiga’s Fallen self take over his body for good and for that Taiga’s body had to die once, erasing his mind and putting his Fallen self in charge with his revival.

Musen 28 - February

Reia had ended up in the same corridor with Konpi, Taiko and Nika while Katsuki was furious and threw him around like a lightweight.

“And here you were supposed to be the strongest of us. Traitor,” Katsuki yelled at him after he had used his fifth move, but he immediately jumped at Reia, even though he knew about the possibility of getting attacked by his nightmares, not that he would see anything, but he would most likely black out as long as he wasn’t under any influence of another ability.

“Trust me if you see it from my point of view, then no one is a traitor except for the Government.”

“Right, because suddenly the Fallen are the good ones?” Katsuki laughed at him, but got kicked off by Nika the next moment after he had used his special ability on Konpi and Taiko at the same time as he was fed up with both of them.

“A few months ago I would have just ripped your head off with a smile trust me, but the fact that I find that a gruesome idea now shows that yes we are actually the good ones here now,” Nika replied as he helped Reia up and the boy faced the other direction where Konpi was getting back up with a pissed expression and Katsuki was also obviously recharged as his expression changed to playful.

“Well then I guess we have to kill some of the good people to be useful to the Government,” Katsuki let out towards Nika, while Reia only gave him an annoyed look over his shoulder, before he concentrated back on Konpi who dashed back at him while Taiko also got back on his feet. Nika immediately crouched down to the floor when Katsuki waved his hand and luckily Reia had seen that move coming and he did so as well, making Konpi the one who was actually thrown off his feet by Katsuki’s attack, taking Taiko to the ground with him.

“And now what?” Katsuki mocked them as he had of course four more tries left and they had no other idea to fool him. “Game over.”

This time he lifted both arms, ready to use his ability on them both, most likely having an even more evil mind set than a Fallen had, yet they didn’t feel anything and then Katsuki’s eyes grew wide.

“Game over indeed, but for you,” Myuto was heard as he jumped down the stairs, followed by Kentaro and Reo who jumped at Konpi and Taiko to hold them down. This time Kentaro had run out of patience and they had run out of time as well so he used his special ability to a point where Konpi fainted while Reo was nicer and just knocked Taiko out.

“Nika, knock him out, we have no time,” Mitsu said and supported Myuto’s motion control with his movement stopping so that Katsuki could only curse when Nika walked up to him, but before he put his hand on his arm, Reia held him back.

“Let me do it, my ability isn’t painful for them,” Reia said and stretched out his arm, making Katsuki laugh.

“Oh how cute, now you want to show mercy on us? Don’t think we will spare you the next time.”

“There will most likely be no next time,” Reia said and put his pointer finger on the other one’s temple, making him crumble to the ground. “Hopefully after this we can rescue you as well.”

“Someone get that door out of the way,” Myuto shouted.

“If you want to call it a door,” Kentaro said as he looked at the already ripped metal that someone had obviously thrown back into the corridor to block their way, but luckily now they were enough Fallen to rip it out of the Dragnacit walls.

***

There was a moment of absolute silence before Taiga opened his eyes once more and he stared right ahead at Hokuto. There wasn’t any confusion in his eyes so maybe he had been able to actively switch with his Fallen self and understood what was happening. A silent red tear left Taiga’s eye before he crumbled to the front and Hokuto hurried to catch him while Taisuke got up and turned away. No matter how much Hokuto still didn’t want to accept Taisuke, there was no way he couldn’t tell how broken he was through the situation as well and how hard it must be for him to actually let this happen and tell his instinct to stay down.

“Stay with me,” Hokuto said in a shaking voice as he had caught Taiga as he had fallen off the platform right into his arms and they had ended up on the ground, Taiga lying in the other one’s arms.

“I wish I could, but I need to leave you once,” Taiga let out, understanding what their plan had been about right from the start. “I don’t think it’s fair to him.”

“How can you still say that? Last year you made a bet with him to make him disappear and now you want him to stay?” Hokuto asked, but he wasn’t that clueless. It was more the irritation and the worry for Taiga’s life, which made him curse his own Fallen self.

“I finally understood him and that is why I cannot let him die here.” There was a faint smile on Taiga’s lips, but the pain was swallowing him and it was obvious how much he suffered just through speaking. “He wasn’t just created out of thin air. He was you all this time.”

It wasn’t like it was some shocking truth Taiga was speaking as Hokuto knew this part the best as he had been with his Fallen self the longest after all.

“You, just as a Fallen, so I carried a part of you with me all this time and that was also why he wanted to protect me this much. He cared for me the same as you did, yet only one of you can eventually have me.”

A painful truth, but Hokuto immediately shook his head and squeezed the other one a bit more against his body, without hurting him even more. “I won’t let him have you.”

“That’s the good part,” Taiga replied with a brighter smile this time as he looked over to Taisuke who had of course listened and looked over his shoulder now with a devastated look. “There is someone else I can entrust him to now. Someone else he fell in love with and someone who will take care of him forever. Right?”

Hokuto looked up at the Fallen in confusion, because even if that was the truth there was no way he would let Taiga die and let his Fallen self take over to have his happy ending with Taisuke, but something told him that Taiga wasn’t planning on doing that.

In a moment of silence Taisuke looked to the ground, Hokuto waiting for any reaction, but then the weight in his arms became heavier and he looked back at Taiga who had suddenly closed his eyes.

“Taiga? Taiga! Wake up!” Hokuto panicked immediately as the other one didn’t immediately respond and this time Taisuke also went over to them and crouched down next to them.

“No, no, no…Taiga, please…” Hokuto whimpered and kept shaking the other one who had become unresponsive.

“Try to get in his mind,” Taisuke suggested and with a shaking hand Hokuto tried to focus on his mind reading and he was shocked about all the pain and suffering he could feel, but there was something about it which made Hokuto realize that Taiga had already reached his limits, but he was holding on for the sake of their Fallen self.

“He is still there,” Hokuto said, but kept the connection. “He is using the last strength of his instinct to protect his Fallen self from vanishing and himself from dying.”

“If he dies we can most likely get him back, but then the Fallen self will be gone, that’s why he is holding on even with all this pain,” Taisuke concluded.

“You are always so reckless, what do you expect me to do now?” Hokuto scolded the other one, but then they were interrupted by an impact on the heavy metal doors Taisuke had thrown into the walls. Two impacts later the doors moved and Taisuke hurried to stand in front of Hokuto and Taiga when one of the heavy doors clashed to the ground.

“It’s us, all good,” Reia immediately shouted before they even all got to see what was going on inside the room.

Reia stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Taiga’s condition while Myuto put his hand on his shoulder, knowing that they couldn’t do anything for them in this situation.

“I will punch the shit out of them for this later,” Kentaro hissed as he was the only one who actually walked over to the others and crouched down next to Taiga. “Is he still there?”

Hokuto nodded, his face showed signs of an immense mental breakdown, but then Kentaro punched him against the shoulder with such a force that Hokuto almost lost balance to the back and looked up at him with a shocked expression.

“Why do you look as if you want to give up? Did you give up when we tried to kill you? Did you give up when we tried to rip your Vestige self out of you and force you and Taiga apart? Why would you give up now? You can give up when it’s over, but he is still there, right? And I bet he has some weird ass plan to get both of them out of here. So just trust him!”

The scolding made Nika and Myuto smile as they understood how much Kentaro had grown over these few months and how attached he was to the West Center members even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“And here comes the person who hopefully has the solution Taiga is hoping for,” Mitsu said as he and Reo turned back to the corridor where Juri and Kochi hurried over to them.

Hokuto’s look turned to even more confused when he saw Juri, but the apologizing expression he got when the Vestige sat down next to him and squeezed his shoulder showed how much he was suffering under the situation as well.

“I wished I could have done something earlier,” Juri said, but Hokuto could only shake his head and he finally started crying when Kochi also sat down in front of them with some injections from one of the labs. Juri squeezed his shoulder even more on the way Hokuto was finally feeling enough support to actually dare and crumble under the pressure.

“That’s the spirit,” Kentaro teased him and dared to put his hand under Taiga’s shoulder to take him away from Hokuto and put him on the ground.

“He can hang on a bit longer,” Kochi said before Hokuto would panic too much. “I am sorry to hurry everyone, but we need to hurry out of here as fast as possible, because-”

A huge crashing sound on the top floor made them all look up in worry. “Right, because of that. The building won’t stand much longer. The explosion was too big even for this kind of Center. But we need to help Taiga now, he won’t make it out alive if we carry him out first. But could everyone else go and collect the Elite-Vestige and bring them outside? And also check if any other people are left in the building?”

“So now I have to rescue those assholes,” Kentaro complained, but still got up as he of course wouldn’t let the people he had trapped die in here. “Take care of him. Don’t lose hope when he isn’t.”

Kentaro’s words reached Hokuto a bit more clearly this time and the latter nodded before Kentaro made most of the others leave in a hurry so they could retreat. Another rumbling noise and the shaking of the walls showed that they indeed had to hurry.

Taisuke, Kochi, Hokuto and Juri were the only ones who stayed with Taiga, and Kochi stood up once more and faced Taisuke.

“I don’t think I have much time to explain the chemical parts, but I need you all to listen and to make a decision,” Kochi announced, making them all listen up. “The serum Aran used before to extract one of Hokuto’s personalities is similar to the Elite-Vestige serum. That’s because the Elite-Vestige serum is upgraded to overwrite not just human DNA, but also Vestige DNA and maybe also Fallen DNA that is what they couldn’t test yet. They would have used the serum to get Taiga’s Fallen self back to life as an Elite-Vestige and just through the serum the human personality would eventually vanish. Yet there is something about Taiga which can help us change the results.”

“Our instincts,” Taisuke said, immediately understanding what Kochi was talking about and most likely Taiga was holding on exactly for that outcome.

“Exactly. For Aran’s serum, he had to mix something in to weaken Taiga so that the mutated DNA could easily overpower him, in this case though Taiga is already weakened and if I just injected it now then he would maybe really lose his memories and turn into an Elite-Vestige, so-”

“So you can inject me with it first, then I can establish a connection with Taiga through which I can extract his Fallen DNA after you injected the serum into him, because our instincts can overpower the serum.”

“That’s it,” Kochi said with a nod and looked at Hokuto. He seemed to have understood the idea as well, but he didn’t look that thrilled about it.

“What if Taiga is too weak already to survive it,” Hokuto asked.

“He won’t survive it,” Juri said straight forward as the others didn’t want to voice it out. “But he knows that, doesn’t he? He needs us to go through with this so he can let go. Only when his Fallen self is safe he will allow himself to let go and then it’s in our hands to bring him back.”

“But if we are messing with the serum then it won’t get him back to life so how are we getting him back?” Hokuto asked, panic now getting the best of him as he reached out for Taiga’s arm, as if he feared that he could die just in the few minutes they were talking and his skin felt so cold, his body seemed too weak that he couldn’t be sure that he was even still alive.

“For that he has you,” Juri said and put his hand on the other one’s shoulder to calm him down. “He trusts you and he doesn’t need the serum to get his heart back to beating.”

The risk was too big, wasn’t it? Hokuto wanted to shake his head, but then Juri got up and stepped away when Taisuke crouched down next to Hokuto.

“I will never tell you what to do or to risk Taiga’s life, I know I have done enough damage to both of you and I shouldn’t be easily forgiven for it,” Taisuke explained. “But just for once can I say something selfish?”

Hokuto didn’t stop him and just kept looking at him with a neutral expression.

“The instinct is what brought us together, that is a fact, but there is more than just that simple and primitive connection between us and I think you have noticed that by now as well. So if there is a chance then can I make the selfish request to give it a try to rescue him as well? It might seem weird to you, but we are not restricted to a physical connection so I want to give him the chance to move on and give you two the chance for a new beginning.”

The honesty in Taisuke’s eyes almost scared Hokuto, but he had seen it. All the true emotions and all the hurt. There was no way that Taisuke would ever force any of them to actually go with his request, but without thinking even longer, Hokuto nodded and it made Taisuke’s face brighten up.

“Let’s hurry,” Kochi said and moved to get the injections while Juri drew his Dragnacit blade and took Taiga’s arm to open a cut. Taisuke held out his hand to get cut as well and he put his hand over Taiga’s cut. It wasn’t until Hokuto suddenly put his hand over Taisuke’s forearm that the other one looked up at him and realized that he had actually been shaking.

“Trusting our Fallen self had turned out to be a good decision so now I trust you with rescuing them both,” Hokuto told him and made Taisuke calm down a bit.

“Thank you, that means a lot to me,” Taisuke admitted and let Kochi give him the injection.

“Make sure you use your instinct to keep the serum passive or you will get into trouble as well.”

When Kochi put the injection in Taiga’s arm, they all looked up once more before he injected the serum. “Now it’s all about how strong they are and how much of my theory is actually going to work.”

Taisuke closed his eyes while Kochi and Juri backed off, but Hokuto remained next to them and took one of Taiga’s hands in his own.

There was a moment in which Taisuke seemed to get restless, but then he actually reached out for Hokuto’s arm and pulled his hand up to Taiga’s face with a more confident expression.

“Go and pick him up,” he said, knowing that Hokuto knew what he was talking about and he lowered his hand on Taiga’s cheek.

***

“Why won’t you let me go?” The Fallen self asked, but Taiga only gave him a warm smile.

“Because in the end, trusting you was the right decision and I am not the type to let people sacrifice themselves.”

“Right you do that part yourself,” the Fallen self laughed at him, yet it was somehow difficult to connect to each other this time and their words echoed and their connection seemed foggy and kind of transparent.

“But if you don’t let go then you will vanish together with me and that wouldn’t make anyone happy.”

“You have to trust in them,” Taiga reminded him and looked around, even though there wasn’t actually something to look at inside their mind. “They will find a way.”

“A way for what? It’s not like I haven’t prepared myself for this outcome. I have protected you to the end. I kept my promise and I have to say I am kind of proud of myself.”

This time Taiga chuckled and flashed a smile, which the other one replied to with a sheepish smile as well.

“You have endured so much, fought more against yourself than against anyone else. The decision you made at Myuto’s hideout to let Hokuto see my suffering so that he could try and fight you was your first sacrifice. So the only thing left to say for me is thank you.”

“I don’t really think I deserve a thank you,” The Fallen self replied a bit pouting, but then Taiga reached out for him and put his hand on the other one’s chest.

“You do. As all of us you are human too. Just because you didn’t get to choose your own life doesn’t mean that you are not worthy of the same love we are. You are Hokuto’s human part that turned into a Fallen, but that doesn’t make you less human than him.”

His words made the Fallen self seem a bit uncomfortable, but then his look changed to something more proud and he nodded and stepped back. “Fine, then I guess I need to trust in you this time.”

“Not only in me,” Taiga said and then his smile grew even wider while their connection seemed to faint even more. “Someone is here to pick you up.”

The Fallen self raised an eyebrow at him in confusion until he could somehow feel warmth surrounding him and while they couldn’t actually see someone, they could feel the connection.

The Fallen self looked up and then closed his eyes with a bright smile before he chuckled and looked back at Taiga once more. “I am sorry for all the trouble I have caused you two and I will be endlessly grateful for your help and trust.”

“Don’t make him wait,” Taiga replied and he could see the silent thank you on the other one’s lips before their connection broke and Taiga felt how his own mind turned darker, but he didn’t feel sad or sorry. He knew he had made the right decision.

Don’t leave me behind

The voice in his mind was so familiar no matter how far away it sounded and he closed his eyes with a warm smile as he stretched out his hand towards the dark.

“Then don’t let me leave.”

***

“I am going back in.”

“Kentaro,” Nika warned his little brother and the boy stomped his foot on the ground, but stopped.

“The first floor almost completely crumbled by now. I am giving them two more minutes,” Kentaro said and crossed his arms to his chest while he kept walking up and down the area of the explosion while they had brought the Elite Vestige to the helicopter and Mitsu, Reia and Myuto were making sure that they weren’t waking up. Reo was taking care of the soldiers and researchers and made them leave with an illusion, trapping them long enough so that they wouldn’t easily get back to the Center.

“I will try to get updates from the others now that we should be safe,” Myuto said and made his way to the helicopter in which they had the only contact device to the other groups. They had decided to not take any transmitters with them inside as they couldn’t risk getting distracted, but even though they were sure that their groups had stopped the back up from the Main Center, they had no idea how the rest of the battle had ended and if they had succeeded with their plan.

Another huge rumble noise shot a lot of dust up to the hole and then a part of the surface crumbled on the opposite side from where Kentaro was standing. With a curse Kentaro kept moving around the area until he suddenly took a run up and jumped down. First Nika wanted to scold him for being impatient, but then he saw him reaching out for a heavy stone, which blocked the staircase and right behind it Juri was trying to push it away.

This time Nika also jumped down towards them as Hokuto was carrying Taiga and Kochi was stabilizing Taisuke who seemed quite exhausted as well.

“Kentaro, we need to get him up there,” Hokuto almost yelled at the boy and Kentaro immediately got Taiga off his back, but then he froze as he had to carry Taiga’s whole weight.

“He is-”

“Dead,” Kochi replied as Nika and Juri helped Taisuke. “Just hurry, we need to get out of here fast.”

Kentaro bit his lip on the way he had to carry Taiga’s whole weight on his back, not that it was heavy, it just felt so unreal and he hurried to jump up to the surface and then Reia looked at them with wide eyes as Kentaro put Taiga down. He risked leaving the Elite-Vestige alone for a moment as he ran over to them.

“What happened? Shouldn’t he be fine?” Reia asked, but Kentaro got up and pushed him a bit away so that Hokuto had some space as he jumped up to them as well and immediately fell to his knees next to Taiga.

“Just give them some space,” Kentaro said and they all waited in silence while Hokuto seemed overwhelmed with even doing anything in the first place. It was the first time that he felt this human, this weak. He ripped Taiga’s combat vest off Taiga’s chest and started doing chest compressions as he wasn’t sure what else he could do.

“Where is Myuto?” Kentaro asked and Reia seemed a bit confused about that question and he needed a moment to point at the helicopter. When Kentaro walked casually away from the scene, Reia gave the others a confused look, but Kochi waved him over to them and squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t misunderstand him. He is not heartless. He just can’t take the pressure.”

It was difficult to imagine that Kentaro actually needed to walk away from something, but the way Hokuto seemed so desperate with reanimating Taiga, it made sense. It was difficult for Reia as well to even look and he hadn’t been with Taiga and the others for years.

“Are you alright?” Mitsu asked Taisuke, but the other one only nodded with his eyes fixed on Taiga.

“We will be fine, no worries.”

The ‘we’ had Mitsu confused for a moment before he looked at Kochi who gave him a knowing smile and then it clicked and he patted Taisuke’s back. “That is great news.”

“I told you to not leave me behind,” Hokuto hissed under his breath as he needed to find the right strength to not hurt Taiga more than necessary with his movements, but it felt like Taiga’s body wasn’t reacting at all. The serum had strengthened his body and the black veins had vanished, but with the transfer of his Fallen self his heart had remained silent.

Hokuto started getting desperate after a few minutes of no movement and his breath came out shuddering while his body started shaking as he wasn’t sure if Taiga was actually strong enough to overcome all the burdens he had put on himself this time.

“I swear I am not going to forgive you if you leave me behind like this,” Hokuto yelled and he almost used too much pressure on Taiga’s chest, not that he hadn’t broken one or two ribs by now. Desperate to get the other one back he put one hand to the other one’s face once more. He had heard him before. He had been there.

For a moment Hokuto stopped in his movements and concentrated on his mind reading while he leant down over Taiga’s face, but then he calmed down enough to realize that his Vestige abilities were indeed his best chance. “I didn’t come to say goodbye. I came to pick you up.”

This time Hokuto put his hand on Taiga’s chest and the shockwave he released while trying to connect with Taiga’s mind felt so different from his usual ability. It was more of a vibrating impact on Taiga’s chest and had nothing destructive at all and after some tries there was once more silence, until Hokuto wasn’t sure if he could keep on trying and once more his tears blurred his vision, but he didn’t want to give up. When he put their foreheads together and felt the vibration of his own shockwave he could finally feel something. So faint, so weak, yet he could feel how his mind actually reached out to someone and he clenched his hand on Taiga’s chest when he could finally feel a slight vibration not coming from his shockwaves.

“Please come back to me,” Hokuto whispered as he lifted his head while keeping his hand with a soft touch on the boy’s face. The others had fallen completely silent as they also waited for a reaction and then they all let out a celebrating noise of relief when Taiga slowly opened his eyes.

Juri hugged Kochi and ruffled Reia's hair, while the boy had already started crying and Taisuke also seemed extremely relieved, but Mitsu could see how he was looking at the boy differently than before, in a good way.

In the back they could see Kentaro having his sleeve up at his face, but of course he would get angry at any kind of teasing about him crying later. Myuto had also finally looked over to them after he had most likely taken his distance out of the same reason as Kentaro and now he seemed relieved out of several reasons so at least they didn’t need to immediately jump into the next battle as it seemed.

“Sorry to make you wait,” Taiga let out in a weak voice, his body still way too weak and fragile to be sure that he was really okay, but for now alive was the only thing Hokuto had been aiming for.

“I will wait for you no matter how long it takes,” Hokuto replied and put his forehead down on the other one’s once more before he moved his lips up and put a careful kiss on the other one’s skin. “But please never make me go through something like this ever again.”

“You know I can’t promise that,” Taiga said with a light chuckle, but he immediately regretted it as his body hurt under the movement.

“We need to get out of here before the area collapses,” Kochi said. “Someone call Reo back.”

“On it,” Reia said and dashed away, obviously also happy about being able to cry freely for a moment. He would get his turn later to jump into Taiga’s arms, but for now Hokuto was the only one with that privilege.

“Let’s get the helicopter ready so we can ask Shime to heal you,” Kochi said and they all moved over to the helicopter while Hokuto helped Taiga up, but refused to let him even try to walk by himself. Only Taisuke stopped for a moment close to Taiga and the boy looked up at him with a knowing look. For now all the explanations had to wait for later, but he knew that he hadn’t gone through so much pain and trouble for nothing and that was all he needed to know.

“Okay, let’s take it slow,” Hokuto said and carefully helped Taiga to start walking. “Shime can help you later and you also have some time to heal until we arrive.”

Taiga suddenly stopped on that statement, making Hokuto move in front of him and take him by the shoulders while the others had all already gotten over to the helicopter to give them some space. “What is it?”

There was a moment of confusion on Taiga’s face, but then he started smiling, yet there was also some bitterness visible and it made Hokuto worry even more. “Is there something wrong?”

Taiga took Hokuto’s hands from his shoulders and tried to find his balance before he stretched out a shaking hand towards the other one’s face. Hokuto didn’t stop him, but he still looked quite concerned, especially when Taiga’s look suddenly turned even darker, tears now shimmering in his eyes.

“What is wrong?” Hokuto asked in a soothing voice, but he still didn’t stop Taiga when the boy lowered his hand from the other one’s face towards his chest.

He put it flat on it and then he pushed, but nothing happened. He pushed again and this time Taiga let out a chuckle mixed with a sob as his tears ran free.

That was when it finally clicked for Hokuto as well and he grabbed the boy’s hand on his chest with a comforting squeeze as he pulled the other one closer to put a sweet kiss on his hair, while Taiga cried at his chest.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hokuto soothed him. “For me nothing has changed.”

“Isn’t it weird how we ended where we started and that after all this trouble?” Taiga let out a bit teasing and Hokuto nodded, stroking his hair with a comforting touch. They should have seen this outcome coming. Maybe Kochi hadn’t told them on purpose or he had thought it wasn’t necessary and Hokuto agreed. Nothing had changed for him.

“This only means you have to train more again to stand a chance against me at training,” Hokuto teased, making the other one muffle a chuckle against his chest.

“I just wish I could still share a closer connection with you,” Taiga let out bitter.

“Our connection won’t change through any abilities,” Hokuto assured him and pulled back to put his hand on the other one’s face and caressed his cheek for a moment before he leant to the front and gave Taiga a passionate kiss, which the other one melted into immediately.

No matter if Vestige, Fallen or human, for Hokuto it only mattered that they had finally found back together. This time Hokuto needed to make sure to keep Taiga safe as he was going to be the stronger one of them from now on once more!