"Gasp, Tiruneko, what is with these absurdly short chapters", says the anonymous reader [you].

Sorry again for the length but I've never been great at that anyways. I've been dealing with a lot of stuff lately including weird bouts of depression and a lot of the time can't really find any inspiration to write. This chapter, however, is majorly important. All Gumi x Yuuma POV but it's really, crazy important. Thanks for all the reviews and special thanks to Crystal Prower for pressuring me to update~

Oh and encase anyone's interested, "This Concept of World" is back up.

Love you guys,

~Tiruneko ;3

X~71~X

"How many centuries have I spent

"In this utterly failed life?"

The next few hours lasted lifetimes for Yuuma. One moment, Gumi would sit next to him, smiling, then he'd blink and she'd be at the window with a crippled expression and hurt eyes but she'd turn to him and smile again and he'd think he imagined it all. But the strange feeling continued. They would be having a conversation about where they had been and what they had been doing and Yuuma would blink only to find Gumi sitting elsewhere, looking far off, or, even worse, standing in front of him, looking down into his eyes as if it's the most painful thing she's ever had to see. Yuuma cannot figure out why.

"So we showed up to the warehouse and Iroha went inside while I waited… I heard her scream so I ran in and… I don't remember much after that," He admits sheepishly, staring at his hands. Gumi's knee brushes his as she contemplates beside him. Her eyes stare vacantly off into the distance and Yuuma thinks for a brief moment that there's nothing more beautiful in this world. "You're beautiful," he husks out under his breath, barely aware of having said it.

Gumi glances to her side and smiles at him, a weak upturn of her lips and she takes his hand, their fingers sliding together perfectly. "You're not so bad yourself," she jokes back and Yuuma can't help but notice there's something missing from her usual snarky jibes and quick comebacks. He allows her to keep thinking in silence for another long stretch of time. "They abandoned you, Yuuma…" she says finally, like a child confessing for taking a cookie before dinner.

"They didn't know, Gumi. They had no way of knowing. It's my fault for not telling them."

"IA knew. She knew you had left…"

"Gumi, she's just a kid. She had no way of knowing whether I'd be in danger or not. I would've been all the same to her if I had been going out for ice cream. She can't be held responsible." He pauses to let it sink in. It occurs to him then how hurt Gumi must truly be. She thinks they've been abandoned, he rationalizes by her apparent need to blame someone. He presses his lips in a straight line as he squeezes her hand a little tighter. In response Gumi nuzzles against him, her head on his shoulder tucked under his chin. "We should go back soon," he says. She tenses against him. "Not that I don't like this," he rubs his head firmly against hers and gives another squeeze to her hand, "but they're all really worried about you."

Gumi's silent. "They know I'm alive," she says petulantly.

"How?" Yuuma chuckles. "Last time I checked you got blown up."

"There was a radio I'd used to contact Neko in the past… Once I was in range I used it again. Last night, just before I found you." She lays back on the bed and Yuuma follows until they're both lying flat on their backs, side by side, intertwined.

"Don't you owe a thanks to them? They really did do a lot."

Gumi sits up, looking suddenly very, very angry. "They left you, Yuuma! Maybe not the little hell-babies themselves but Iroha, Neko…" she scoffs, "people I trusted left you for dead."

"Baby…" Yuuma sits up slowly after her, winding an arm around her waist and tugging her closer. "So we don't have to go back to them, but what about Len and them?"

Gumi pauses for a long time before standing. "Alright—"

Yuuma blinks and her words are suddenly gone. When his eyes open again, a fraction of a second later, Gumi's not beside him looking slightly peeved but she's standing by the window, arms crossed defensively over her chest and her eyes wide and red rimmed like she'd been crying. She fingers at the strap of her watch lightly and stares out at the city bellow with nothing less than a look of pure agony.

Yuuma stands quickly. "Gumi?"

She doesn't turn to face him. "We can't," she says quietly on an exhale.

"What?" Yuuma is suddenly frozen in place afraid to touch her because she looks like she'll break.

"I tried," she murmurs, shaking her head gently. "I tried. Over and over again, I kept trying, for you." She turns to look at him now. "We can't go back to Them." Yuuma approaches her in a handful of quick strides.

"What are you talking about?"

Gumi suddenly lashes out, gripping his wrists tight in her talon like fingers. "Do you trust me?" she gasps desperately, her eyes flickering around.

Yuuma nods and resists the urge to press their foreheads together. "Of course. More than anything," he tells her and he means it.

Gumi swallows and cringes, clenching her eyes shut and glancing away. When she returns to him, her eyes are deadly still. "We cannot go back to Them. Please if you've ever trusted me at all, just… I can't explain it but we can't—I really did try, Yuuma. Again and again. It's no use how many times I go back—," she seems to be unraveling at this point, and any worries he had that Gumi was about to shatter have imploded gloriously at the revelation that she already has. Yuuma suddenly feels as if his instinct had been right and in between the time they had been lying side by side and the few seconds it had taken him to stand, a hundred lifetimes had passed that he'd somehow been left out of. Gumi seems a thousand years older and a thousand years more broken.

"She's dangerous Yuuma… more than you can ever imagine but I've seen it—She's… God we cannot go back." Gumi seems to be fighting the urge to run as fast and as far as she can.

"Okay, okay, baby, look at me… Hey," Yuuma slips one hand free of her grip gently and tips her chin up to his eye level. "We won't go back, then." As much pain as t brings him to say that, he knows in that moment that he could never choose anything or anyone else over Gumi. Especially after this moment. It seems like he's already lost whatever part of her he had before.

"Promise?" she whispers, so broken.

"Of course."

"I know you—," she hiccups. "I know you love her, IA, I mean, but we… I can't because She's so dangerous… God Yuuma you have no idea—"

"I need you more than IA. Besides, she's not my type," he says with a smile and a forced chuckle. "Who's so dangerous, Gumi? What are you not telling me?"

Gumi cringes and shakes her head desperately. "I can't—you won't understand but you don't know, Meito, he said it too… he was right… none of us believed him but Meito was right…" If Yuuma had been following her before he was beyond lost now.

"Who's Meito?" Yuuma mumbles but it goes unheard.

"She's… no matter how many tries I got I couldn't… You need to get away, far, far away we can't be here. I need to stop it, stop Her before It happens," Gumi, suddenly frantic and seconds away from tears and violence shakes Yuuma's still trapped hand desperately.

"Gumi," he says soothingly, stroking her cheek a little. "Who is 'she'?"

Gumi inhales sharply and looks him dead in the eyes. "Miku is dangerous, Yuuma. She's so much more dangerous than we could have ever imagined. And I know now what I have to do to stop It." Before Yuuma can even process her words, Gumi has released him and grabbed her backpack off of the floor. "We need to go, right now." She tosses Yuuma's sword into his hands and takes off down the hallway.

Yuuma can only follow.