Hello all! Welcome to the redone fourth chapter of Hyde-ing. Won't you read, review, enjoy?

I'll say it now: I spent a good hour on the computer searching for hotels and fares to make this more believable—I found nothing. It was awful. So… just go with it, mmkay, 'cuz I was so over this.

The bottom part is also a look-back at the conversation mentioned in the prologue, while this beginning part here names our villain! Yay, plot development!

'K. Go for it. ^_^

Chapter Four

Tortur'd, besides each other part, In a vain head, and double heart.

Over the course of a week, the average number of Hydes that fall into the possession of various governments amounts to about five individuals to three countries. The United States has a monopoly on the market, and often gets the lion's share of the goods. That's just politics for you, though.

The black market for Hydes is governed by a company of questionable beginnings and reputable power. Not that anybody really knows it—Utterson & Poole accumulated their fortune in technology and medicine to the outside world, and the records of those on staff are wiped clean by their hackers on a daily basis.

But, really, Utterson & Poole are big, fat liars, and they need to go down. Before Sayomi gets captured.

She won't become their lab rat; she's going to expose them for their fallacies, rip their bellies open to all the judgment and hatred humanity can throw their way, kill their mercenaries, murder their babies, feast on their weaknesses because they would do it without a second thought to her and hers.

And, while that happens, she's going to croon Disney lullabies into their ears… hold them close as she hears the bones in their necks break… feel the life leave them as she purrs before them.

Mommy doesn't understand this. Mommy is stupid. Mommy is in the way.

Mommy must die.

The very first words my father was greeted with that afternoon ran along the lines of, "Have you seen my undisciplined, defective, insuperable cousin?" They were harsh and biting, tinged through with acid and venom, so much so that even he flinched, despite they're not being aimed at him.

"Though that was a fabulous vocabulary lesson, my darling Haruhi, I think you should really calm down," the man, in feminine vestments, soothed, and Sayomi pressed forcefully on her side of my brain, attempting to send me a wordless reprimand.

"You don't know what she did, Dad," I seethed.

He laughed, a rueful, gloomy little chuckle before extending a thick, ivory envelope in my direction.

"Actually, I do. She came here first. Dropped this off and sprinted."

I went to make a grab for it, but my father retracted it and held it close to his chest, winking instead and offering me vague directions to some upscale hotel in our Bunkyo-ku district and train fare.

When I'd stepped off of the monorail, I had to repress the urge to sigh as my search exploded with the appearance of too many hotels. My brain hurt, and Sayomi grumbled, turned away from me, and mentally crossed her arms.

Perhaps, if you had realized sooner about Ana and her would-be love for Mori, you would have been able to fucking prevent this, Mommy, the girl sneered, and I shot her the mental image of my flipping her off. Crude and unlike myself, yes, but I felt that it conveyed my point beautifully.

I finally stumbled across the hotel in question, something too grand and so ornate that it hurt my corneas.

It was there, as I was swirling through the huge, spinning door, that I stumbled across Ana's Brendan (who just so happened to be approaching the portal with a somewhat manic gleam in his eye).

"Brendan!"

The Celtic name sounded strange rolling off of my tongue, but his gaze flicked over me, searching, before returning with a somewhat guilty flush to his cheeks.

"Can you tell me where Ana's room is?"

The sheen in his eyes intensified, and I watched as black dots bloomed across his irises; the tall boy shook his head, frustrated and confused and about to lose it to his Hyde side.

Damn it. Didn't Ana say something about his… Gregoire being a serial killer? Or, perhaps, he didn't speak Japanese…

"Um… your hotel room?" I guessed, scouring my English lessons for the right words—it wasn't everyday in class that the teachers taught one how to hunt down their cousin, thus my terminology for such an occasion was sadly lacking.

"Oh… fifteenth floor. Room 1510."

He pressed a key card into my hand, and no sooner had the words passed his lips, he pushed past me and took off outside in a sprint.

I managed to snatch an empty elevator and booked it up; it was there that, after locating the room, swiping my pass, and ignoring the fanciful details, I was faced with the sight of my bent cousin, her hands buried in a luggage set.

"You're leaving?"

The unspoken accusation of Chicken hung in the air between us.

"And to think I thought you'd never wish to speak to me again, cousin," Ana rebutted gently, continuing her packing of weapons into her bag.

"I can forgive family… especially when it was partially my fault as well. I know how Serena is," I offered, and though I strove to keep my tone deceptively neutral, I still felt my posture to be stiff and angry.

"You don't get it, Haruhi," she murmured lightly, running one long, slim finger, pressed flat, against the blade of her dagger—I shuddered at the sight, but she smiled lovingly down at the polished metal. "And I don't resent you for that; after all, I wanted to give you what I never got. Because we're family. You know, all that sappy stuff that I don't do."

Ah, yes, Ana: the eternal conundrum. Touchy-feely, yet unwilling to listen and deal with emotions of a more sensitive nature. One of the dirtiest mouths ever, yet her pet names (for others) fell like honeyed jewels from her lips.

"But, you still don't understand… not in the way that the others do. I'll never be able to have a normal life—my body and half of my brain will always be chasing euphoria, but to the point where I don't care who else it affects. You'll, at least, be able to maintain a somewhat normal existence, maybe marry, maybe reproduce—I wouldn't… hell-to-the-fuck-no am I passing on my morphed D.N.A.

"I won't ruin this for you," she finished, her pretty cornflower eyes flashing defiantly in my direction. "So, I'm saving both of us; I'm taking myself out of the situation, leaving your life without the complications I'm known for."

For the first time since the beginning of our conversation, she abandoned her minute movements and sashayed herself to my side, reaching out and grabbing my hands, before she led me to the bed.

I felt strangely hollowed out as my cousin stroked her slim, cool fingertips through my short hair and leaned down to place her lips (in both her farewell and her pledge) to my forehead. Sayomi sobbed her denial into her spot and tried to force her way out; I resisted… barely.

"I'll stay in touch, as I always do. But you're so close to your dream, Sayomi is better when I'm not around, and you could have love… if you would just open your eyes…" she trailed off vaguely, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Ana was not the person to whom I would flee for romantic advice. Sex tips, sure, but so far as I knew, Ana hadn't been able to keep a steady relationship for longer than a month (tops).

She turned from me and went back to packing her suitcase.

"Please don't leave me."

Without my knowledge, Sayomi had pushed me aside halfway until we were almost like one homogenous being, our separate nerve endings wrapped around the other's until it was impossible to tell where one of us ended and the other began, and we both controlled the tiny flickers of movement and small twitches of fingertips, and the strangest sense of interconnectedness was sewing itself through my limbs. Sayomi didn't pry past that point though, and I didn't shove her away, and the filter between her thoughts and my words blurred slowly together.

This feeling had to be what it felt like to be a 'we' and not a 'me' and a 'her'.

"Please," we begged.

Ana's brow wrinkled in profile, and she folded down to retrieve a recurve bow from under her bed. That, too, joined a pair of silver, intricate main-gauche daggers, while a rapier was flung against the pillows. The clothes, stacked in neat little piles of black and gray and blue, were to be next, I was sure.

"Begging isn't attractive, Haruhi," she chided.

Her words were decidedly cold, unfeeling, her own self-prevention from giving in.

"You can't leave me! I need somebody, and you're the closest I'll ever get to a mentor. My mother's dead, my father doesn't understand, and the only person who could and would help me is abandoning me. Am I so undesirable that you all feel the need to run?"

It was a low blow, and all four of us knew it; Ana glowered darkly over at me and pushed her full bottom lip out in an angry moue.

"That was unnecessary. But I'll give you one week, and then, I'm shipping out," she conceded, and I, the person who was practically numb to physical contact and did not encourage it in the slightest, threw myself at her.

She caught me, and the pressure of those dainty, long arms (sewn through with powerful muscle) provoked a shiver on my end.

"I've already paid for the room, and the others are ready to go," Ana warned, her low, pretty voice a warm purr in my ear.

"You'll come to stay in our apartment until you can get another room tomorrow—your Brendan and Ariana can stay in the living area, if you get them to promise not to leave. Same goes for Serena," I offered.

A part of me wondered where this generous half had emerged from, another half slapped that one down and defended familial obligation.

"She's letting me sleep tonight," Ana supplied fluidly, her hands quivering over the latches of her luggage. "And the others are out, if you couldn't tell, collecting their fill."

I ran the idea by Sayomi, and, in one of her rare moments of kindness, Sayomi relented.

Can't have you passing out on me, Mommy. Rest tonight, but have no fear: I'll make up for it later.

I glanced up again, catching Ana's gaze wandering over my form appraisingly, one hand stilled on the wooden curve of her bow.

"Haruhi," she began, and I nodded my acknowledgement, the pit of my stomach dropping out as she lifted a dagger from the case to drag a finger along the blade. "You've never handled a weapon, correct?"

I dropped my gaze to my shoes, avoiding her blue, blue gaze steadfastly, and tried to not appear as weak as I felt.

"You know that to be the case, Ana."

My cousin was undaunted though, lifting my chin up until my stare caught hers—her eyes sparkled madly in the room's light, and a vicious grin had seized her mouth, twisting it into a snarling smirk.

"What suits you? What does Sayomi feel like learning?" she offered casually.

I felt like there was a deeper motive to this, something else in her meaning. This wasn't just a 'time to learn a weapon' thing—there was an ulterior motive hidden in her pretty face, and I was utterly incapable of picking it out.

"I really have no idea where to begin," I floundered. "I find violence doesn't really affect me; should I change that opinion now, itoko?"

It was a loaded question, meant to pry past her defenses so she would spill why now, all of a sudden, I was to have the task of playing God slapped in my hands.

She laughed and brushed me off.

"Darling Haruhi, how cruel! You called me your mentor, but when trying to do my duty, you spurn my every attempt," Ana chastised, linking our hands together to draw me upright. "Now, let me look at you."

There was a very silent pause as her eyes, calculating and swift in their judgment, meandered across my figure before she finally opened her mouth again.

"You're far too small to ever be good at anything like hand-to-hand, and Sayomi is not that wrathful—"

Sayomi muttered a little shriek of defiance in my head with a promise of: Careful, Ana. You're treading dangerous ground. I'll show you wrath should you let me out of this prison.

"I'd say that you'd need to be twenty-five yards removed, at least, to be beneficial, in the beginning until we can move you up."

I was a smart girl. I knew things. But this? This was a foreign language to me. And it was frustrating me.

"Yes, Ana, but what does that mean?" I finally burst, exhaling in a huff as she tucked her lip underneath her front teeth.

"It means that, for now, you'll be using a .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol. When I feel you are ready, then you graduate to this…" she drew forth a wicked-looking crossbow from somewhere behind her, and my jaw went slack.

"Jesus Christ, Ana!"

"Are you ready for your first lesson?"

She didn't wait for a verbal response, merely grapping my arm, and, with a wicked smirk, pulled me from the hotel room, dragging her luggage and weapons behind her.

"Alright, the first thing you need to correct is your stance—one leg, preferably your dominant one, slightly ahead of your other; legs loose—do not lock your knees—and bent; leaning slightly forward. And, do not grab that gun until you are ready to shoot," she added with a wary glance at my twitching fingers.

We were in a warehouse that brought a whole new meaning to abandoned. I had no idea how she had found this place, but the windows had been hastily scrubbed clean and she'd said that she and her friends had just recently used this place, so I just went with it. The interior was just as grungy as the exterior had looked, and a strange, gray light seemed to both dim and light the space.

Approximately twenty-five yards out, Ana had taped up a rough-looking, humanoid shape, and a small… gun lay before me in two distinct parts on the cement floor.

Unadulterated terror ripped through my system as I stared at the black thing—so much power in so small a thing, my head screamed.

So much fun, Sayomi purred, though her voice was foggy and disjointed, as if she didn't even realize that her thoughts were projecting. So much blood. So much pain. So much death…

With a few more flitting movements around me, Ana came to rest slightly behind my left shoulder, voice ringing out in the cavernous space.

"You are about to fire a semi-automatic pistol, which means that each pull of the trigger will release one cartridge. Before you are the pistol itself and the magazine, which I have loaded with your shots for you—it's not that difficult, but I just did it to save time. You may now pick up the gun."

I did so with only the slightest hesitation, fingers shaking as I bent to collect it—it wasn't as heavy as I'd expected (that might have had something to do with my not knowing what to expect), and a large, gaping maw lay in the grip, the feel of the grip panel rough against my palm.

"Hold it in your dominant hand, Haruhi," Ana noted, glancing over my shoulder, and I did so.

My hands were shaking so badly that I thought I might drop it, and the bullets weren't even in the weapon yet. I was terrified in a way that made no sense, was just this animalistic feeling of fear that told me to stop it, that this was dangerous, that I should run as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

"Once you place the magazine inside of the weapon, hear it snap closed, then you will place your other hand beneath it to support yourself. You will look through your rear sight, and then your front sight. Remember your stance. Pick up your magazine. Do not place your finger on the trigger until you are absolutely ready to shoot," Ana stressed. A high, reedy note had added itself to her tone, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a wide smile covering her mouth, breath falling in eager gasps from her parted lips, pupils wide and dilated and surrounded by magenta-blue irises; her expression was foggy and heavy-lidded, something almost sexual about the entire ordeal.

"Now, control. This is where that is important. You and Sayomi must come together like you did in my hotel room. She will know what to do, and you will know how to act it. This shooting will then be like breathing to you both."

My hands didn't quiver nearly as badly as I picked up the weight of the magazine, guiding it back into its place and clicking it home. The gun felt more solid now, weighty and real, and I exhaled quickly, placing my hand beneath the gun to support myself and making sure my stance was correct.

My gaze fell to the notched groove, looking down it and past it to the target, to the lumpy head shape.

"Pulling the slide back will thumb the hammer back for you, and then it's just a matter of the trigger and breathing. You may proceed when you feel that you and Sayomi are one."

There was a moment that passed between me and my Hyde. Wherein we struggled with trying to mesh together—earlier in the hotel room, it had seemed natural, two beings coming together because they were two halves of one person—but now it seemed an impossible task.

So, I relaxed. Breathed. And, all of a sudden, she molded. I could feel her fitting into my grooves, filling my indents, making me whole and complete in a way that I'd never felt before. Her thoughts roared before me, ablaze with light, sound, music, color, life, as mine flowed into her of quiet, solitude, books, intelligence, calm.

I was aware of everything and nothing. The dust motes that floated past. The rough grip in my palm. The speckled light of afternoon. The dummy twenty-five yards away.

I felt exultant and magical and on-the-edge and balanced. Logical, but lusty. Calm, but wild. Civilized, but raw. Swept up by the beauty of this experience and my emotions. Captivated by how logical it was to want to protect my kind, myself. I was whirled into this storm of wanting to feel everything and wanting to feel nothing all at the same time, ripped asunder and joined by this need to touch something concrete, like this gun, feel it jump in my hands, feel my world come apart and together all in one moment. Quiet. Untamed. Apathetic. Ready.

"We're ready."

I could almost feel Ana's excitement coursing through as my finger inched inside of the trigger guard, tip curling… flexing… firing.

The bang rippled up our arms to rest in our shoulders, burning them with exertion of the sweetest kind, and a large smile bloomed across our face as a bullet casing landed somewhere with a satisfying ping from its expulsion from the ejection port. Recoil sent the gun two inches up until I steadied it, and a large hole bloomed in the center of the target's would-be face.

"Yes…"

That night, with Ana's silken, muscled body curled around my own, one toned thigh thrown across my hipbones and one milky, strong arm ringing my ribcage, I reflected on my first morning with Sayomi, the thoughts brought on by the looming presence I felt in the corner of my mind, the girl caught in the dazed position of being suspended between sleep and wakefulness.

Preceding our breaking of the barrier between us, Sayomi and I had communicated via my video camera, a rather ingenious idea on my part. I showed, through my eyes, exactly how to record a response, and then I'd set about asking my own questions of her.

That night, when she had emerged to take over my body, she followed everything to the letter, answered my questions, and relayed some… demands of her own.

The next morning, swallowing my trepidation, I hit 'play'.

"Hello, Mommy dearest," a voice burbled from the machine, and I could just barely place it as something akin to my own—it was far more melodious and flowing, amused and sexual.

The display depicted a girl, with cropped mahogany hair brushing at her collar, lounging comfortably across my bed with all the propriety and ownership of one who'd been around my things for her entire life.

She was stunningly beautiful, violently red eyes winking maliciously in time with the light cast by a lamp, and a smirk that called more attention to her fuller bottom lip.

It was strange, seeing myself reflected back, talking and interacting when I knew that I had already gone to sleep. It was strange seeing me controlled by another person…

"Wasn't last night just fantastic? I can't tell you how long I've waited to do that, Mommy dearest," she giggled, stretching contentedly across my comforter and pillows like a languid cat. "You really are being no fun about all of this! Asking me questions and the like—honey, I did us a favor!

"Oh! And do you like your new nickname, Mommy? I picked it out just because! Since you've seen fit not to name me, I figured I could spur you on. As my mother, I'm almost positive that it's your duty to christen me," she giggled madly, arching her back to call attention to her rather nice curves.

"Actually, I had a lot of time to think last night when that boy was fumbling around, attempting to dish me out my drugs. I've decided I shall be… Sayomi. Because that's what I am, and since your regular name is "indicative" of who you are, I figured, what the hey, mine can be like Mommy's! Isn't that right… Haruhi?"

The unusually bubbling cadence of her voice deepened in pitch on my name, and I sucked in a gasp.

How had she…?

"Don't worry. The boy babbled it, in between bouts of, "I didn't think were into this; you were always so above it in school!", and the like. Honestly, he was an idiot; he couldn't tell one difference between us," she pouted, though it was childish and short-lived. "Your eyes are that ugly brown, but mine are this sparkling ruby. Your curves, nonexistent as compared to my body, and as if your hair could ever be as lustrous as my own.

"All in all though, you aren't a bad host, persay. You're just… plain. Like, I'm the natural gem pulled from the Earth, but you're the lab-made replica. I'm few and far between, but you're processed—I've seen a lot of your kind before, so you aren't anything special. But with me added to you, we're better, see? Oh sure, I tried to beat you out of your own body, but what you don't get is that I'm just as entitled to it as you are. We share this form," she chuckled, and her fingertips began to glide across her, no, our skin. "You get it during the day, and I rule it at night. And in between, we can feel each other—you're here, right now," she purred, tapping her, no, our forehead delicately, "dreaming sweet dreams. Though you're restless tonight… thinking of this morning.

"Did you not like my birthday present to you, Mommy? Those pretty pills were fun enough, even if they did wear off…"

She trailed off, staring at the camera's lens with circumspect interest and pursed lips.

"You wanted three answers, and three answers I shall give.

"First, I, of course, am the… entity taking up some room in your brain; not quite sure what I am, or what we are, but it's all good—we can find out together," she invited, voice dripping to a silken comment shot through with a healthy dash of innuendo.

"Secondly, I'm sure you're not so naïve that you think I ate some crumpets and drank some tea; I did us all a favor—you're not so innocent anymore, and those people in the club I got us into got a fantastic show.

"And last, your 'how?'… well, it was building up to it. I'm sure you weren't aware of it, but I certainly was. It was like… a switch that needed to be thrown, and I could see it, every day, at the end of this tunnel. And as the hours slipped into weeks into months into years, the switch crept closer until I could touch it, feel it beneath my palms. And, then, I just threw it, and I woke us up, and I knew my time had come.

"In the words of our dear Serena, 'La nuit est la mienne.'," she finished, and suddenly her pointed stare at the camera was more of a glare and her lip was twitching with malice.

"I know you'll want to get rid of me, Mommy," she hissed, and I flinched back from the hatred in her eyes. "But I swear that if you so much as try, I will consume you. I will riddle your brain with holes and feast upon your soul until you are nothing, and I am the main captain.

"So, sweet dreams, Mommy dearest," she chimed brightly, and the film went black.

Sayomi's some scary-ass shit, no? Sweet and pretty and threatening… yummy.

This is the first exposure of Haruhi to her weapons. Originally, I had some doubts on what kind of weapon I wanted to give her, but then, after a much needed trip to the shooting range, I fell in love with the same guns I gave Haru—it was actually the first gun I'd ever fired (unless you want to count that sniper rifle that one time...), and, once I got over the whole trembling thing as I stared at it, I did some serious damage to the paper. However, while those are good for self-defense, they aren't good in combat situations, so the crossbow, which I think is wickedly sweet, is what she will graduate too.

Sorry if there are any mistakes. I gave it a cursory glance and was pretty sure I caught them all, so... yeah...

Next time: MAJOR PLOT TWISTS!

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