**A.N.: Hey everyone, summer has been crazy for me, but here's the final chapter of this segment. Today also happens to be my posting day for the Big Hero 6 Big Bang, so those chapters will be up shortly. Enjoy!**

Sunday Evening

Nov. 28

Hamada Residence

"...what?" Wasabi was the only one not rendered speechless, but even he seemed to barely get the word out.

Looks of confusion (individually morphing to anger, concern, embarrassment) overtook the group's faces as Hiro finally stopped his hushed tirade to breathe. He ran a hand through Tadashi's bangs, gentle enough to not wake him, but enough to reassure himself that he was still there, breathing, not dead .

From the moment Baymax had touched down outside of the cafe, Hiro had not let Tadashi out of his sight. Not when he'd had Baymax call an emergency meeting, not when Tadashi passed out on the couch (Hiro feared the exhaustion was more than just the result of using his abilities too openly), not when the others had arrived, and not even when the others had expressed their joy and shock and questions. He didn't look away, nor move from Tadashi's side, his absence too fresh and raw, the scent of smoke and flame sticking to them to remind him of the first time he'd lost him.

He'd gotten a second and third chance, he wouldn't mess up again. He couldn't.

"Hiro, are you sure?" Fred prompted, a tremor in his voice that asked for another explanation. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the information that had been dumped in his lap, the news of another betrayal, and the danger that came with it.

Hiro broke his gaze to glare up at Fred, his hand stilling on Tadashi's forehead. The look in his eyes was enough that Wasabi spoke for Fred instead, knowing he'd probably stick his foot in his mouth. Hiro was angry enough as it was.

"It just doesn't… Sound like him..." Wasabi trailed off, the weak reasoning sounding hollow, even as doubt swirled in his brain. "I dunno, man, from how you described it, is it possible that-"

"No." Hiro cut him off, not even willing to entertain the thought that there might be more to this. Not now. He didn't want excuses. He didn't want reasoning. He didn't care about some convoluted situation. That man had endangered Tadashi, shot him , and there wasn't a doubt in Hiro's mind that he'd taken Tadashi in the first place. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise, and he wasn't going to allow his friends to pick it apart when they needed to be doing something, anything, to counteract what could be coming.

Hiro spoke again into the silence. "When Tadashi wakes, he'll tell the rest. You'll see."

The weight of his words sat upon the group, Fred not even pointing out the lack of the use of Tadashi's nickname, far too occupied with mentally digesting everything. Gogo glared at the ground in front of her, silent aside from the quiet rasping of her fingernails along the zipper of her jacket. Chewing at her lower lip, Honey Lemon worried the edges of her phone case, fraying the softer plastic, but didn't seem to notice. Hiro barely stopped himself from reaching out and taking it from her. The quietness was stifling, but no one seemed to know how to break it.

Early Monday Morning

Nov. 29

Underground

Himitsu grimaced as he gingerly made his way down one of the many winding hallways, keeping his steps as level as he could. It was a trip and a half to get back to where they were keeping Jadoku while he healed; there had to be a better system. Whatever. Walking was good for you… or something.

"Hey!"

Himitsu turned his head towards the voice, grinning easily when he recognized the woman approaching him, gliding along on skates like she owned the place. "Bella, what are you still doin' here? Thought ya hated it."

"Nah," Bella shook her head, slowing her gait so she didn't speed ahead of him. "It's under water I hate. And you've gotta deal with that to get here, so… yeah, I'll just stick to the mainland. I've got something to do up top in a couple days," Bella gestured vaguely. "So I figured the fewer times I gotta go through that death trap, the better. Be sides, I wanna talk to him!"

"Get in line…" Himitsu muttered. "Doctor's not sure when he'll wake up, let alone if he'll be coherent ..."

After an answering hum from Bella, they walked in silence for a moment, a rarity when it was the two of them, until—

"You're walking funny," Bella pointed out, half teasing.

"Shut it." His voice didn't carry as much venom as it could have.

"Oi." Bella skated around in front of him. "Just 'cuz I'm not allowed to kill you, doesn't mean I can't kick your ass." Her semi-serious face was interrupted with a manic grin as she tried to hold in the laughter long enough to speak. "Which… I don't think you want right now."

She finally allowed herself to burst into laughter at the face he pulled at that.

"Yeah, yeah, you're a riot." Himitsu shook his head.

"...ugh, now that song's stuck in my head, thanks ."

Himitsu ignored her as she started humming that very tune. He paused in front of their destination, hesitating slightly as he hoped…

"You forget your combo?" Bella looked up at him, something like understanding in her eyes, despite the question.

"Nah." Himitsu punched the buttons on the side panel in quick succession to let them into the room. "Just took me a sec."

Beyond the door, the room was near silent, only the quiet beeps of the monitoring machines letting them know there was an occupant at all. Himitsu knew it hadn't been quite a day yet, but with head injuries thrown in the mix, the sooner Jadoku woke up, the better. There was no change, though at this point that didn't mean much.

"He's a mess." Bella's blunt words interrupted Himitsu's thoughts, and he glared over at her. She shrugged, unabashed. "Well, he is."

...she wasn't wrong.

Whatever had gone down between Jadoku walking into the no longer existent 'safe' house and walking out hadn't been kind to him. The concussion left dark bruises around his eyes, and while Himitsu was no doctor, he was pretty sure that counted as a bad thing. The only saving grace was the absence of clear fluid drainage, which as far as Himitsu had seen, meant the person wasn't going to recover fully, if at all. The doctor hadn't been quite sure what to do about the scaling, but had determined that where it existed, it helped more than hurt, so just left it be. They were fairly widespread at this point, branching out from known injury locations, as if trying to protect more than what was already hurt.

But Himitsu doubted Bella meant entirely physically, with that comment.

"He'll be fine." Himitsu plopped down in the observation chair backwards, wincing at the careless movement before resting his arms on the back and absentmindedly tracing the dark lines branching back from his own wrist. There was a moment of blessed quietness that was broken by Bella's laughter. Himitsu turned his head on his arms to look at her in mild exasperation.

"Yes?"

"You. Your face, just-" Bella gestured at him, "All of this. It's funny. It's been funny, but this just takes the cake."

Himitsu huffed, intent on ignoring her.

"Aw, don't want to talk to big sis? I promise your 'himitsu' is safe-"

"Yer like a year younger than me!" So much for that.

Bella shrugged, undeterred. "Women mature faster."

"I'm 24 , I think I'd've caught you by now ."

"And yet…" Bella spread her arms, as if addressing the entire room.

He shook his head. "...So you never did tell me why that buildin's no longer standing."

"Wow, subject change much?" Bella crossed her arms, leaning back on her skates. "Fine, fine. Long story short: fire-breather, plus walking pillar of fire, plus wooden structure equals no more building."

"That was so helpful. Thank you. Couldn't have figured that out on my own."

"Well, if you'd been good, you could've heard the 'official report'." Bella grinned at his annoyed expression, before her own turned thoughtful. "But I'd trade info for info. Any reason in particular their stuff stopped working?"

Himitsu frowned in confusion at her. "What, y'all thought I was just going to sit there and wait?"

"Pfft, no." Bella's grin was back. "But good as you are, there's no way you could've set up unless you knew ahead of time, and you were pissed, so I don't think… You were too far away, anyway."

"Except I wasn't." Himitsu waved her closer, easing Jadoku's right arm out from under the blanket, mindful of the scales. "See?"

He indicated to the black band around Jadoku's wrist. Light pressure against the smoother part activated a blue light that disappeared when he let go.

Bella's eyebrows raised. "You got it to work?"

"Course I did." Himitsu frowned, vaguely insulted. "It hadn't been field tested yet, but drastic times and all…"

Bella nodded, considering it. "Well. That changes things."

"Not as much as you'd think. Not yet." Himitsu settled his head back on his arms, letting his thoughts wander.

Bella stood awkwardly for a moment, shifting back and forth on her skates. "...Welp, this is too heavy for me. I'm getting food, you coming?"

"Nah, I'm not hungry."

" That's a lie if I ever heard one." Bella grinned widely. "Besides, don't you want the official report?"

"Nothin's stopping you from giving it now." Himitsu yawned, debating the comfort of the chair he was in. "Later's probably better, though. Dunno how much I'll retain."

"No, no, I get it. You care about him more than me." She let out a dramatic sigh, before skating for the door. "Lemme know if anything changes."

Monday

Nov. 29

Hamada Residence

"It's okay, Hiro," Tadashi tried to reassure his brother, knowing that particular expression all too well.

"I'm just saying you don't have to talk about it if…" Hiro gestured vaguely with his hand, concern etched firmly into his face. "You know."

"I said it was fine." Tadashi crossed his arms. "I don't even remember much, so talking about it's not going to hurt."

Gogo rested her hand on Tadashi's shoulder, giving Hiro a cold look when he moved as if to object. "We're all here for you, but if talking one on one would be better…"

"No, this is fine," Tadashi insisted. "I don't know how much help it will be, though."

He sighed, tucking his feet up underneath him on the couch as he looked around at the others. Hiro had filled them in on everything heknew, but there were holes in his information that only Tadashi could patch at this point.

"Guess I'll start at the beginning?" Tadashi cleared his throat, the weight of his friends' gazes upon him. "I was crossing that bridge right before you get to the shopping district with the bookstore- it was a bookstore, right?- And Kyouji was just sitting there, I almost didn't see him, but red's kind of noticeable…"

Tadashi pretended he didn't notice Hiro's flinch and the remaining tension at the name, continuing on to the best of his knowledge. "He looked kinda sad just sitting there with his bag and Hiro'd been looking for him, so I went to talk to him-"

"Wait, his bag?" Hiro interrupted, brow creasing.

Frowning at the interruption, Tadashi turned towards his brother. "Yeah? Pretty sure."

"Hold up," Hiro moved to go downstairs, before stopping. "Actually, Tadashi, come with me."

The others looked amongst themselves, but refrained from comment as the brothers left the room. Hiro marched down the stairs, keeping close enough to have an eye on Tadashi at the same time.

He flicked on the lights in the storage room, looking around for what he knew had to still be there.

"Hiro?" Tadashi asked gently, seeing the ire in Hiro's mannerisms. "What's-"

"The bag , there should be a bag in here, he left it behind…"

Looking around, Tadashi didn't spot anything out of place, or anything extra that didn't belong. "I don't see one."

" I know that, " Hiro snapped. "But I didn't move it, and you didn't know it was here, and no one else should have been back here… is there anything else missing?"

"How would I know? I just got back."

"I know, I know, I just…" Hiro sighed shakily. "We've gotta change the locks, we have to… I don't know, but someone got in, and we didn't even realize , and-"

"Hiro. Breathe. Take deep breaths."

"Not as good an idea as you think." Hiro laughed lightly, helplessly. "I'd rather not burn the cafe down, thanks."

"Okay, well…" Tadashi was at a loss of how to help, but Hiro was already moving, pacing.

"Was there anybody else with him? Maybe one of them- but there was nothing important in the bag…" Probably. Hiro hadn't looked very far past the clothes.

"Yeah, if you'd let me get there, I'd have told you." Tadashi didn't do much to temper the bite in his words, but Hiro didn't seem to notice, his attention on the other potential people that could've intruded on their home . "There was another guy on the bridge, and he came to talk to Kyouji about… some party or something. And then-"

"Describe him, or what you remember." Hiro wanted something to go off of.

"I don't know, there wasn't anything special about him." Tadashi was getting annoyed at the continued interruptions, though he knew Hiro was just dealing with this the way he knew how to. Knowledge was power, or something like that. "Tall, dark hair, looked Japanese, like half of San Fransokyo ," it was an exaggeration, but Tadashi was past caring. "He was kind of dark, though, and he had these weird black lines on one of his hands, like a tattoo or something but I wasn't paying attention." Tadashi shrugged.

Sighing, Hiro sat on one of the boxes. "Too bad we can't take you in for a police sketch or something. Not that they're any help." Hiro ran a hand back through his hair, gripping it for a moment as he tried to think around everything that was going on.

Tadashi nearly asked why, before realizing the nature of… well, his nature,could cause issues if brought to light. "So what're we going to do?"

Hiro bit his lower lip, before his eyes widened minutely, and he waved back towards the stairs. "Come on, I need to talk to Honey Lemon."

"Do you still have those pictures?" Hiro could have asked in a less direct method, or even explained himself a bit more, but the look on Honey Lemon's face meant she knew exactly what he was talking about: the photos she'd taken of Kyouji while he was in the shop.

It was their best chance of finding him, since Hiro had discovered the night before, that according to any records he could get his hands on, 'Kyouji Shakuzai' didn't exist. Not that he'd been entirely surprised at that point, but it did make things more difficult. But this could change that.

Hiro had pulled Honey Lemon aside from the group, far enough they wouldn't be overheard as Tadashi spoke to the rest of the group, but placed so he could still keep an eye on him.

"Hiro, I-"

Hiro waved away the clear embarrassment, too impatient for it. "It's okay, you didn't know, he tricked you just like he did the rest of us, but this is important."

"I deleted them off my phone," Honey Lemon began, and Hiro deflated until she continued to speak. "But they are probably still in the cloud back-up, since it hasn't been a month yet."

"Great. Get those, send them to me, and I can try to piece together a report for the police that won't have them knowing what we are, too." Hiro folded his arms, attention divided. "We can at least pretend they can be helpful."

Honey Lemon nodded, remaining silent. Debating with Hiro about this would be useless, though she couldn't help the bubble of concern regarding the way this was headed.

December

Underground

"You're not supposed to be up and about, mister." Himitsu frowned, readying himself to stand from the couch in case Jadoku stumbled.

Shrugging, Jadoku joined him. "They said I'm fine, just no more hits to the head any time soon."

"No, they said you'll be fine, if you don't hit yer head. Like you'd do by falling and busting it open." Himitsu sighed, letting it go, since Jadoku was no longer on his feet at the moment.

Jadoku grimaced, the mental image making him more nauseous than he already was. "It was too quiet in there."

The background noise of the city and passing cars and street fights, along with other unwanted noises, was what Jadoku was used to. But here, underground, everything felt cut off from the outside world. The silence was unnerving, and the quiet beeps of machines only made it more so. Even just the background noise of the tv in this room was preferable.

"What are you watching?" Jadoku didn't particularly care, but it was something to say.

"News." Himitsu didn't bother to elaborate, though he reached for the remote.

"Thrilling."

"Nah, but there was a bit earlier, someone you might recognize." Himitsu rewound the tv, pausing on a particular segment.

"Kyouji?" Jadoku crossed his arms, an unreadable expression on his face. "Hmm, nope, don't know who he is."

"Course not." Himitsu snickered. Someone was feeling better. "'Sides, you don't have to worry about it, yer safe here from the big bad thief."

Jadoku rolled his eyes, only refraining from shaking his head because he knew at this point it would hurt.

Himitsu's tone turned serious after a moment's pause. "When all o' that calms itself down, we'll go in and wipe it. They won't ev en notice. Trust me."

"...yeah. Okay."

?

Unknown

He was being too violent today… doesn't he know by now that they'll only make it worse for him?

Nathan tapped against one of the bars that divided the room, waiting to be noticed.

"What's gotten into you lately?" Nathan whispered, not wanting to startle him. Whenever Neil got like this, it took days to wind back down, but what could have possibly triggered it this time?

"Are you talking to it again?"

Nathan jumped at the stern voice behind him, blue eyes fixing on the floor as he turned and stood straight out of habit, arms flat by his side. He wasn't a threat; he couldn't be seen as a threat or they wouldn't let him walk free, and then he couldn't come down here.

"Yes, ma'am. I just-" A sharp 'tsk' cut him off and he fell silent.

"It can't understand you, you know," She chastised, unlocking a metal panel an d sliding a tray of food in before hurriedly snapping it shut again. "You're only wasting time."

"I'm sorry."

"If you're going to laze around down here, you may as well take on feeding duty." The technician checked a couple things off her clipboard, making a small note in the margins. "After all, you'll heal faster if it bites you."

Nathan nodded quietly, watching through the bars. Neil wouldn't bite him anyway, not on purpose. He wouldn't bite anyone outside of this state of mind, if they'd just leave him alone …

A short series of high pitched beeps distracted Nathan, making him cringe and want to shield his ears, his previous train of thought shattered. How could they stand it?

The technician answered her communicator, frowning at the interruption. She had other things to attend to, why would they waste her time? Nathan did his best to ignore the voices coming from it as the message came through, aware that they didn't like when he 'listened in' to things. He nearly gave himself away when a particular phrase caught his attention.

Surely he'd misheard.

The doctor paled, asking for clarification. "You're sure? …Understood."

Nathan didn't flinch when she abruptly turned to him, but it was a near thing.

"Arata and Yuma are dead."

The confirmation sent Nathan's head buzzing.

How? Who? Had they found him? But he'd said he didn't kill… he'd been so adamant, they…

Even so, the overwhelming relief nearly made Nathan miss her following orders.

"When it's done, remove the tray, we don't want to leave it a weapon, and then report to your quarters. Stay there until new overseers have been assigned. Am I clear?" They wouldn't risk another break out.

"Yes, ma'am."

Nathan waited until she was out of sight before slumping against the enclosure, letting out a breath of relief. Surely the new people couldn't be as bad… right? He felt something nudge against his shoulder.

"Hey. It'll be alright." He spoke to Neil in the cage, comforting him when he whined, pressing against the bars. "It's okay, brother. I'll be back."

**A.N.: I can't believe it's done... My first complete fanfic. I'm a little emotional. Reviews are super appreciated!**