At that moment, perhaps due to the rain, he slipped, and that was all she needed. At the same moment his tekagi cut through her chest and into the life giving organ inside, she slashed at his eyes. As the two pulled away from each other and the adrenaline disappeared, the true extent of their wounds became evident.

The onlooker, by now completely terrified of the boy he had once marked as sweet and innocent, couldn't decide which of the bloodcurdling screams scared him more.

Dell emptied the last of the gasoline cans onto the dead grass surrounding the building and threw it in through an open window. He took a matchbox out of his back pocket, but instead of lighting a match as he'd intended, he simply held his arms stiffly at his sides.

What am I doing? Stalking, stealing, hacking. That I can live with. I know what I'm doing, and the consequences are always clear.

The silver-haired male clenched the matchbox tighter, as though keeping his grip on the object would prevent him from having to make a choice.

But arson, murder…How could I live with myself? How could I go on everyday knowing that I was responsible for someone's death?

He blinked and looked up at the building before him. Despite the thoughts that were running through his head, he didn't feel anything at all. He lit a match and tossed it into the grass, watching as the flames eagerly caught on the gasoline and its bed of tinder. Without a second glance, Dell turned around and began to walk away, watching his shadow flicker in the light of the flames.

When the wind picked up and blew the bangs out of his face, Dell laughed and turned around.

Kaito opened his eyes slowly, blinking in the light of the late afternoon sun. He was comfortably warm and felt like he had just awoken from a long nap. Not wanting to disrupt that peaceful feeling, Kaito occupied himself with looking around. Directly in front of him was Gakupo, who was still sleeping. Kaito smiled. Gakupo's perpetually stressed look was completely absent when he was asleep.

He watched as a strand of hair moved with the older man's breathing, and in a bout of childishness reached out to move it. His hand was just centimeters away from Gakupo's face when said person's eyes fluttered open. After taking a moment to get his bearings, Gakupo focused his eyes upon Kaito's outstretched hand and sighed, but before he could say anything a new realization came to mind and he shot up like a rocket.

"Where is she?" he asked, panicking.

Kaito blinked, confused, and rose to a sitting position. He tilted his head to the side and asked who she was.

Gakupo growled out Meiko's name.

"Oh!" exclaimed Kaito. "Well, after we woke up from the building collapse-"

"You were involved with that?" Gakupo interrupted. He put a hand to his forehead and sighed.

"Carry on."

"Well, after that we started walking but Meiko-chan passed out so I carried her here and used her hair pins to pick the lock and treated her wound and then we fell asleep."

He paused to breathe.

"But when we woke up she started attacking me but I didn't want to hurt her so I didn't fight back and then you came in with Luka-nee and then you attacked Meiko so Luka-nee put you to sleep with chloroform and then she did the same to me. I woke up before you and it was really peaceful since no one else was here so I was going to fix the strand of hair that fell in your face but then you woke up and you looked stressed again and then you confused me which ends with me telling you this story!"

Gakupo looked thoughtful.

"If she's injured, she's probably with Luka…" He rose to his feet and beckoned Kaito to do the same.

"Come on, Kaito. We're going to go on a trip."

Kaito jumped to his feet, apparently not feeling his scratches or bruises.

"Really?" he asked, wide-eyed. "Where are we going?"

"To find Meiko."

"Yippee!"

Gakupo walked over to the front door and placed his hand on the handle, only to instantly pull it back. The brass was burning hot. Hoping he was wrong, Gakupo grabbed a glove from its place on a shelf neighboring the door and gripped the handle again, successfully opening the door this time. Smoke began to enter the room, and Gakupo could see the faint glow of flames that were coming up the stairs. He slammed the door shut.

"Change of plans," he said, groaning inwardly. "Kaito, could you give me that blanket by your foot?"

Obediently, Kaito gathered the blanket into his arms and threw it to Gakupo, who promptly ran to the bathroom and soaked it under the flow of water from the bathtub's faucet. He returned and frantically stuck the blanket around the door. Then Gakupo gathered the rest of the blankets and used them as sponges to wet the walls around the door. When he finished, he turned back to Kaito, who had stood and waited for him the whole time.

"Is the fire escape safe?" he asked.

"Nope!" Kaito replied cheerfully. "I think we broke off the rest of it the last time we had to evacuate."

"In that case," Gakupo said grimly, "find something heavy."

He only had to wait a few seconds for Kaito to find something that fit the description.

"Will these work?" the blue haired man asked, tapping his foot against a pile of cinderblocks in the far corner of the room.

Gakupo nodded, not wanting to ask why cinderblocks were even in the apartment, let alone the living room turned bedroom. Didn't they have a closet for miscellaneous items?

"Open that window over there, the one facing the neighboring building."

Kaito did as he was told.

"Now, help me use these cinderblocks to break the window on the opposite building. We're going to jump across and get down from there."

Gakupo walked over to the pile of blocks and used his feet to push them over to wear Kaito stood at the window. Hoping for the best, he selected a stable looking block and took aim at the glass about seven feet away. With a huff, he hurled the block across the gap and into the glass window, where it smashed through the center, leaving a good sized hole with jagged edges.

From there, the two continued to throw cinder blocks at what remained of the glass until only a few pieces were left along the edges and only one block remained. Gakupo lifted himself onto the windowsill and stared at the other building, ignoring the fact that if he missed his target it was a long fall to the asphalt below.

"I'll go first and open the window for you," he stated, leaning forward and tensing his legs to jump. Kaito watched as his friend leaped across the gap and through the window, getting scratched by the glass edges in the process. He disappeared into the building, where Kaito heard him land with a crash among the cinderblocks they had thrown. A short time after the sound of moving items ceased, Gakupo reappeared and opened the window for Kaito.

"Come on," he said, smiling.

Not wasting a single second, Kaito mimicked the actions Gakupo had taken earlier, only to find that the fall from the rooftop a few nights previous had left a bruise on his foot. He jumped awkwardly and only barely caught hold of the windowsill, crashing into the brick wall instead of falling to an early death. Gakupo grabbed him and helped Kaito through the window.

Although they would have like nothing more than to stop and take a break, the two men were quickly back on their feet and tearing down the stairs of the building, jumping across gaps where the wood had rotted and fallen and hoping that the fire had not yet come this far. When they finally reached the bottom, the two were gasping for breath and forced to take a break. Then, much too soon, they were on their feet again.

Gakupo opened the old front door and was greeted by the heat of the fire blazing next door. Sirens wailed in the distance. Through the smoky haze, Gakupo thought he saw someone just standing in front of the fire, staring at it, but he quickly shook it off. No one would be stupid enough to just stand there watching a building get eaten by flames, and if they were…maybe it wasn't for the worst.

He ran into the street, holding up his turtle neck to cover his mouth and nose, frustrated that he'd forgotten to bring a wet cloth to breathe through. Forgotten…something else important? Gakupo struggled to remember as he ran farther away from the fire, finally stopping a good mile away before realizing that Kaito was no longer with him. Frustrated, he slapped his forehead and pulled his turtle neck back up before charging back toward the fire.

Meanwhile, with his head nearly completely wrapped in his scarf, Kaito was struggling to convince a boy to get away from the flames. Kaito had seen him in his peripheral vision as he and Gakupo were exiting the building next to theirs and stopped to get a good look. The other male had seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite remember why. Was it the silver hair? That aside, why was he just staring at the burning building like that? Wasn't he afraid of getting burned? More importantly, wasn't he going to choke from smoke inhalation?

"Oi!" Kaito called out, turning to run toward to boy. No response. Could it be that his scarf was muffling the sound of his voice? Kaito pulled down the section covering his mouth and tried again.

"Oi!" he tried again, only this time he breathed in too much smoke and erupted into a coughing fit. He pulled his scarf back over his mouth and was happy that he had reached the boy.

Giving up with words, Kaito put his hand on the boy's shoulder and turned him so they were facing each other. For a few seconds, there was a look of total surprise on the younger male's face, but it settled into anger and he pulled away from Kaito to go back to his previous occupation. They repeated this twice more before the silver haired kid decided that he had had enough and told Kaito to leave him alone. With the light of the fire in his red eyes and the fierce expression on his face, the boy seemed to be something…inhuman.

Kaito stepped back for a moment and then lunged forward and grabbed the boy around the waist, slinging him over his shoulder. As he left as quickly as possible, the boy pounded against Kaito's back, demanding to be let go. This didn't help Kaito at all, and the effects of the fire were beginning to show. His eyes were stinging and it hurt to breathe. If his clothes had caught fire, he couldn't tell, but he knew he needed to find clean air soon. Maybe he could crawl along the ground, but there was no way he could also drag the still protesting boy with him…

Wanting to get rid of the burning sensation, Kaito rubbed at his eyes. He couldn't go on like this. He trudged forward, starting to fall into a dreamlike quality, barely noticing that the person slung over his shoulder had stopped moving, and so not noticing when that weight was lifted from him or the supporting arm that was now wrapped around him.

In a haze, he saw a flash of pink and then felt a vague coolness all over his face. Jumbled voices echoed around him, and the last thing he saw before passing out was a blurry face etched with concern.

A/N: I am sorry that this is so short (well, by my standards...) but adding the next part would completely ruin the mood. Also, that whole thing with Dell is not random.

Are any of you interested in the character's pasts?