Chapter 11: An Unwelcome Revelation and the Beginning of Loyalty

It took another 45 minutes for them to finally get to the school. Finding a parking spot was another pain all together as there were still evening classes and other activities going on. Kai got out of the car, ran down the sidewalk, then through the doors with Kokona close in tow. He stopped when he saw Rachel, a red-haired banshee.

He wasn't exactly fond of her and the feeling was mutual, but she was good friends with Himari. "Rachel, have you seen Himari?"

Rachel gave Kai a smug look. "Yeah, she's in the computer lab. It's locked up for the night, but she has a key." She crossed her arms. "Something wrong?"

Kai shook his head. "Something about a project she needed help with, nothing to worry about," he lied as he ran past her.

Kokona stopped, crouching down in exhaustion. "Kai, slow down, damn it! Why are we going to see her anyway? The Chief is going to be really upset!" Kai didn't slow down, he simply spoke as he walked.

"I don't know exactly what she wants, but trust me, it's important. We'll both explain when we get there." He turned a corner and put his hand on the doorknob with Kokona right behind him. Inside Himari was holding the door shut, one hand trembling on the knob as she held a broken piece of glass with the other. Kai tried to open the door, but noticed the resistance. He knocked gently. "Himari, it's us."

Himari breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of Kai's voice and opened the door the rest of the way, gesturing them to hurry inside. Kai and Kokona quickly stepped in and she closed the door behind them.

"What the hell took you so long?" she snapped, crossing her arms.

Kai put up his hands dismissively. "Hey, we were just at a mansion miles away from here. I had to obey the speed limit, you know!"

Kokona crossed her arms as well. "Oh really? You call driving 100 on a 75 driving the limit?"

He turned to glare at her. "Oh, shut up!"

Kokona seemed a bit taken aback by his reaction at first, but then she smirked and looked at Himari. "All right, what are we doing here, Hinata?" she asked. Kokona and Himari had never really gotten along very well.

Himari gestured towards one of the computers she already had running. "Kai asked me to look into something. I did, and you both really need to see what I found." She bit her lower lip. "Kokona…it's something you're not going to like."

Kokona pushed past Himari and sat down. "I can handle it," she said crossly as she looked at the screen.

"It was the weirdest thing," Himari said. "Each time I tried to retrieve the information, the virus just kept erasing more data. When I tried to create firewalls, it would adapt and find a way through a backdoor every time. By the time it finally stopped, the information was so chopped up there was only a tiny piece of information left."

What Kokona saw made her blood boil, and her fists clenched tightly as she got up from the chair. "Lies," she muttered. Her eyes were dark as she looked toward the floor. "It's not true…any of it." She turned toward Himari, grabbing her arm and shoulder and shoving her against the wall. "You're making this up!"

Kai turned, looking at the screen long enough to see what had infuriated her so much.

Agent 33114 Cassandra- eliminated. Responsible party… Agent 112311 Akio Haru-

The information left off was a bit choppy, but one thing was clear—according to that data, Akio Haruka had eliminated one of their own.

Another crash brought Kai back to attention. Kokona had slammed her fist into the wall just behind Himari's head. He grabbed Kokona's arm. "Hold on a second, you need to listen." She simply flung her arm back, making him fall.

"Stay out of it!" she growled. Suddenly a circle of fire formed around him.

"H...hey….Koko...na…calm down!" The purple in her pupils turned a deep red. Kai knew he had to do something. He leaned back on his heels, springing up toward her and tackling her to the ground. Himari gasped, stepping back and trying to get away. Kokona struggled viciously as Kai held onto her.

"Listen to me, I asked Himari to hack into the organization's mainframe and investigate your brother because you were so upset!" She kicked back but his enhanced strength kept her in place now that he was focused.

"You should not have done that, especially with her!"

Kai held her a little tighter. "She was the only one I could trust who knew how to do it—now please, calm down!" After a few more moments of struggling she collapsed, tears falling down her face.

"Fine, start explaining!"

Himari took another step back before sitting down to get to their level as she began her story.

"It's like I was saying," she began, "Kai asked me to look into any information I could find about your brother. I snuck into my mother's office last night with a flash drive and hacked into the system, finding that file—it's a record. But, you can see the real problem clear as day…it was corrupted.

"Every second I spent in the file it got more and more distorted. The only cause I can think of is that someone did a sloppy job at trying to delete the file completely. But my interfering might have finished the job. It's probably completely erased from the mainframe."

Kai gasped as he listened to Himari's explanation. "That's not…"

She nodded. "So you get it, then. The only one with the ability or clearance to do this is Mom." Her eyes darted to Kokona. "So, you see, even if I were making this up, why would I bring my own mother into it?"

Kokona sighed, hugging her knees. "Yeah…I'm sorry." Himari crawled over to her and smiled, putting her hand on her shoulder. "I understand." She looked over to Kai who had something in his hand. "Hey Kai, what are you doing?" He scooted closer to the two of them, revealing a lighter one of the students must have left behind.

"All right look, there's simply too much we don't know right now. The vampire target was trying to tell us that we were being deceived before you killed him. I don't know how he knew what he did. And I refuse to believe that your mother is our enemy, nor do I want to believe that Akio is the enemy." He waved the open flame on his wrist clenching his eyes shut as the flame burned his skin.

"Nevertheless, we have to be careful, and we are all in the same boat now. You, me, and Kokona. We're playing a game with an unseen opponent and I don't want to know what will happen if we lose. Every move we make matters, now more than ever. We can't just turn to another side, but we have to tread lightly on the side we're on until we can gather more information."

He closed the lighter and blew gently on his wrist until a scar began to appear. He then tossed the lighter to Kokona and showed her the mark he'd made. She nodded, opening the lighter and waving it in the same fashion over her wrist. She handed it to Himari, who bit her lip for a few seconds, then finally did the same.

"From now on, no matter what, we have to remember that we're in this together. Lines have been drawn." The three stuck out their arms to one another, the marks they had made showing prominently—the Japanese symbol for Loyalty.