Before we begin, I apologize. I recall stating that I was going to list the differences between the old and new version of Finding Mikan that were essential to understand the story. So if you read Cat in Nature without rereading the rest of the story, you might not have understood it to its full extent. Again, I'm very sorry. Without further ado, here they are (and forgive me if I miss any):

1) In Irving Academy, Hotaru developed a very stringent fear of failure, which is why she's paranoid of doing anything that doesn't have a hundred percent success rate.

2) Ross Anderson was Hotaru Imai's teacher.

3) She remembers a girl in Irving Academy with the Amplification Alice who was jealous of her ability to invent. The girl supposedly used her, but was taken away and never seen again.

4) There is a woman living on a hill in Nagoya that Subaru dislikes immensely.

5) Chiaki is doing everything for his wife, Yoko. Hotaru did not willingly steal the Truth Alice bracelet from him. He gave it to her.

6) Shizune appears to be uneasy when Hotaru asked her why she was working for ARC.

7) Subaru abhors Chiaki.

Personally, I think that after reading these clues, if you remember enough details, you should immediately make one or two connections. Maybe it's just me though, since I know the entire storyline. But hey, a few of you did make the connection between the pouch and the key. :) I have faith!

Disclaimed.

Finding Mikan

Chapter Fourteen: Cheater Cheater

Mr. and Mrs. Imai spent the weekend pampering Hikaru in every way they possibly could. Personally, Hotaru did not have any complaints. She was too busy chewing off ends of pens in an attempt to figure out exactly what the box was doing at Old Sakura's house and how long it had been there. Seeing as they were in Nagoya, the nosiest town in all of Japan, there was no possibly way she could surreptitiously sneak into his house without Subaru present.

And Subaru was not present.

She cursed his absence. She cursed it with all her heart. In fact, there was only one reason she was glad that he was not in town presently.

No. Scratch that. There were two.

Without his father's presence, Hikaru appeared to be much happier. Later Friday, when he finally unlocked the door to the guest room, the Imai family, sans Subaru, tiptoed in to find him asleep. Because he was curled up against the wall, his head leaning on a stack of books, Hotaru picked him up and carried him onto the bed. While she did, she noticed the solemnity of his slumber. Even while sleeping, Hikaru looked sad, confused, angry even.

How did your family become like this? What did you do, Subaru?

She sat on a high rock that she found in her parents' house's backyard, her knees folded so that they reached her chin. Wrapping her arms around herself, Hotaru fixed her glassy eyes on a spot of grass.

"Auntie?" Two small hands landed on her shoulder and a boy on tiptoes craned his neck to see her face from behind. "Are you having another episode? Do you need me to heal you?"

Hotaru smiled, lowered her head and shook it. "I figured that there was a twenty three percent chance you would leave the house. I did not expect you to actually come."

Hikaru walked around her figure to sit in front of her, his two feet pressed together and elbows leaning on his upper thighs. "Does everything become a number in your eyes?" he asked, staring up at her in wonder.

"Something like that, yes," answered Hotaru, stretching her legs out to set her feet back to the floor. "We are leaving in a few hours. Are you ready to see your mother?"

"Yes!" He exclaimed, hopping up in excitement. His hands were clenched zealously in front of him. "Yes! I'm ready! Can we leave now?"

"You do not even want to say goodbye to your grandparents?"

Hikaru paused in his excitement. His shoulders slunk a little in guilt of his overeager reaction. However, the guilt quickly dispersed and gave way to more eagerness. Soon, Hotaru found her hand being pulled by her nephew as he dragged her into the house to bid Mr. and Mrs. Imai their farewells.

Her parents were, needless to say, immensely sad about his departure—her mother was now on the verge of crying. She held her hands to her heart as Hikaru wrapped his tiny arms around her. When he told them "I love you," she turned away, unable to hold it in anymore but shy and embarrassed enough to hide her face, though it was obvious to everyone that it was covered with tears.

Hikaru tugged at Hotaru's sleeve. "Let's go, Auntie!"

"Do you not want to leave a goodbye note to Subaru?"

Everyone in the room promptly froze, except for Hotaru's father who had stated the request. Mrs. Imai finally whipped her teary face around. Hikaru looked shellshocked. When Hotaru felt that the tension could no longer be cut with knife, she pulled herself together to glare at her father.

"I do not know what happened between you and Subaru to upset you so. He may have wronged you, as it is in his nature to wrong others, but I know my own son enough to ensure you that his intentions were good. He is your father, you know, no matter how much you dislike him. That fact will never change."

"If I could change that, I would," Hikaru mumbled quietly enough so that only Hotaru was able to hear. Then, he raised his head, blinked back the tears and announced, "okay then. Tell him I said goodbye."

But the tone he used implied not just goodbye but forever goodbye. So as Hotaru held her nephew's hand, as their surroundings disappeared into a shroud of light, there was unease in her heart that the only fixture in her present life—her family—was actually being torn apart at its seams.

Like Subaru implied many times, Naomi was quite well off. Whether it was the money and assets she received via divorce or her own salary, it was enough to provide her with a very nice home in a very nice neighbourhood. Though Kyoto was a little more traditional than Tokyo and bigger cities, the residential part of the city was still very condensed and clustered. Naomi's neighbourhood was private, fenced in and regulated daily. It had arrays of square boxes, mini botanical gardens containing different varieties of beautiful and striking flowers.

Hikaru and Hotaru arrived right in front of her building, a pristine white, seven floored structure with sparkling glass windows and neatly tiled balconies.

"Would it not have been convenient for us to teleport directly into Naomi-san's apartment?" Hotaru asked Hikaru as they approached one of the enclosed staircases of the building. It was locked by giant iron bars that could only be opened from the inside by a tenant.

"Mom doesn't like that."

Hikaru's finger traveled up and down the family names on the buzzer. His finger stopped halfway down on Imai.Hotaru's eyes widened in surprise as Hikaru dialed the number next to his family name. She looked to her nephew's face, but he had the same nonchalant countenance that he always carried.

She cleared her throat. "I thought she was divorced from Subaru. Does she still keep my family name?"

"Yes," he stated firmly and she wondered how, at such a young age, he obtained the hereditary Imai gift of ending a conversation with a single word.

But perhaps the more pressing matter at hand was that despite reaction so strongly to his father's presence, he did not seem to be fazed the slightest. And what of Naomi? From what Hotaru heard, it sounded like a horrible divorce between two adults. She always thought that Naomi was the one to blame for shunning her brother after discovering their differences. Was Subaru not the one left yearning for her? Yet he seemed displeased whenever she was mentioned, which Hotaru always thought was because he could not bear to think of a woman who had scorned him so.

So if Naomi was the one responsible for the breaking apart of their marriage, why had she willingly kept Subaru's name?

Unfortunately, her pondering was cut short by some static and a voice that was definitely not Naomi. "Imai residence. Naomi, is that you? I thought you were visiting your folks up north for Golden Week."

Hikaru involuntarily took a step back, horrified. His mouth was agape; he just did not want to believe that his mother had gotten involved with another man. Hotaru was also at a loss of what to do.

"Hello? This better not be one of you kids again, going around pressing random buzzers. Don't think I won't report you."

"W-who are you?" the child borderline screamed. "Why are you in my mom's apartment?"

There was no answer but a clear sound of a receiver being fitted back into the phone base.

A second later, the door clicked open. As soon as it did, Hikaru grabbed an iron bar and wrung it hard enough for the door to swing all the way around, hitting the wall with a loud bag. Impartial to the noise, Hikaru raced up the flights of stairs, leaving Hotaru to catch the door before it locked again. With moderate difficulty, she leaved their luggage after the energetic kid. It was a feat getting two suitcases up the flights of stairs, but not much different from what she had done at the cruise ship. A few muscle enhancement stickers did the trick. Luckily, Hikaru was waiting for her on the third floor, panting.

As soon as she rolled the last wheel of her suitcase onto the top step, the door to apartment number 301—Naomi's apartment—swung open. Grabbing the inside handle was a man and he did not look like someone that Hikaru's mother would get together with.

He had lengthy red hair hanging messily about his face mismatched with green eyes that were framed by heavy eyeliner. Almost all of his clothes were studded and leather, tightly stretched around a built figure. He had a lip ring, seven piercings on his left ear and a large spacer on his right. Hotaru raised an eyebrow, repressing an urge to ask exasperatingly, "really?"

However, it was Hikaru who spoke first. "You are not my mom's new boyfriend."

At this, the man blinked incredulously before bursting uncharacteristically into laughter. "Of course not. Naomi and I aren't even close friends, let alone lovers. She put out an ad for apartment rental a few weeks ago and I happened to stumble upon it. It's a nice neighbourhood and her rent's reasonable. I was told that she had a son but that he was off in a boarding school far away."

Hikaru narrowed his eyes dubiously. He folded his arms and snarled, "yeah, well I'm not here to see you. Where's my mom?"

Hotaru, in good humour, also gave the man an expectant look.

He was now leaning casually against the door frame. At six foot four, his hair barely grazed the top of the doorframe and he towered well over the two of them. Anyone passing by would have assumed that it was Hotaru and Hikaru who were trying to appease him—the giant goth man who looked like he could snap their necks with one hand.

"She's gone to see her relatives for Golden Week."

"I'm her relative!" Hikaru shouted, taking a step forward. Amazingly, the giant man also took a step backward in response to his assertiveness. "Let me call her."

The man raised an arm and pointed at something to his left. "The phone's on the table," he informed them before stepping back into the living room to let them in. His figure alone took up all the space in the foyer.

Hikaru marched in while huffing. Hotaru followed him, taking care to roll their suitcases over the high threshold without too much rattling. Not three steps in, the man took them from her hands in a way that indicated he was amused by the strength that came from someone so small and skinny. Hotaru let go of them for a second, only to get chastised by Hikaru, who was adamant that his suitcase was not to be handed to a stranger.

"I am just going to head to the washroom for a second," she told them both, feeling a little like she was intruding on Naomi's private life.

"It's down the hallway, first door to the right," the man muttered absentmindedly while regarding Hikaru with amusement. His body was drawn back, almost as if he was tempting a cheetah ready to spring at any moment.

Naomi's apartment smelled of fresh chrysanthemums in every room. Her balcony was filled with the flowers and she left only a screen door closed, allowing the wind to carry the aroma in to fill the lightly furnished lounge and bathroom. As Hotaru peered outside at the brightly coloured flowers, she pressed speed dial on her cell phone for Subaru's work number.

"Where do you get all my personal information?" he grumbled after a single second.

"From dad, and did you know that Naomi-san has a new tenant? He looks like a bulldozer… with spikes. Hikaru hates him."

"…Is that all?" He sounded even more irritated, if possible. "You called me for this?"

"That, and to apologize for what I did the other day. It was rude of me to impose that ring with Naomi-san's birthstone on you, especially since you hate her so much."

He elapsed into silence for a minute, in which she could hear some of Hikaru and the red haired man's muffled bickering.

"I don't hate her…" he finally mumbled.

"But she hates you," Hotaru pressed on, gripping her hand tighter around her Blackberry. "Does she not? Is that not why she moved away? Regardless, I still apologize for reminding you of your ex-wife. It must be painful thinking of her and how she could not deal with the idea of Alices and being married to one."

Another pause. Some more bickering.

"Yeah," he finally choked out bitterly. "She hates me. It's just how it has to be."

He sounded tired and sad, so tired and said that before Hotaru knew it, she quietly told him, "Subaru, I saw the name on her apartment's buzzer… She is listed as Imai."

There was no pause this time.

"What?" he gasped softly. What came after was not so soft and Hotaru had to hold the phone away from her ear for a comfortable volume. "No! No! Why? Why would she do that? I—why doesn't she just scream to the world, 'Subaru's wife is here'? I told her not to do that. I told her. I—"

His heavy panting filled up the entire bathroom, even though her Blackberry had not been put on speaker.

With one last sigh, Subaru confessed, "I'm sorry. Forget that. I hadn't meant to say that. I haven't been myself recently. It's the stress of Sakura-ji's death and the pressure of the townspeople of Nagoya… amongst other things. I've been slipping ever since you brought Hikaru home. I was really happy for a moment, happy enough to forget for a moment the duty I have to certain people. It's been confirmed that Sakura-ji died of pneumonia and it just frustrates me more than anything that I could have prevented this from happening."

Hotaru pressed her lips together. "Is this one of the things you are saying to beat yourself up for being the doctor of a patient who was inevitably destined for death? He was going to die whether you liked it or not."

"If not for me, he might have seen his granddaughter one last time."

"Would he have? I wonder. Does Sakura-san even care enough to visit her grandfather again? It seems to me like the circumstances would not allow that for a long time. There are many people out there looking for her, good and bad likewise."

"How would you know about this?" Subaru asked, alarmed.

Hotaru's lips clamped shut.

He sighed. "Hotaru, I implore you one last time to stop being where you shouldn't be, doing what you shouldn't do and minding what you shouldn't mind."

She clenched her teeth together. "If you would stop blaming yourself for everything."

"I am not. It is my fault that Sakura-ji passed away. I underestimated the seriousness of his Alzheimer's. I thought mom and dad were… in danger but it turned out to be a false alarm. In my rush, I gave him an Alice stone because I knew that he was running low, but I only told him to keep it by his side at all times. I didn't make it into a necklace or bracelet like I did with the others. I didn't even return to check because I was scared that the threat would return while I was gone. This Friday, right before I left his house, I found my Alice stone in his drawer, untouched."

"Basically," she summarized for him, "you made a mistake."

He laughed. "Are you going to give me the cliché about everyone making mistakes, even doctors?"

She walked over to the mirror with her phone to her ear. Hotaru paused, peering for three seconds at the ghastly image of a violet eyed woman who stared back at her. She wanted to pick at all the flaws at her figure like normal girls and normal women. But each time she tried to think of something negative, she always saw something worse. Her eyebags were droopy, but there was a time where they had been droopier. Her complexion was too pale, but at least she was not white. At least she was not sweating buckets of cold sweat.

"No…" She clenched and unclenched her right hand. She was not strong, but at least she was not so weak that she could barely feel her fingers. At least now she could actually control when they curled in. "I know all too well the consequences of the tiniest little blip. You are right in the sense that failure is inevitable in the nature of humans. But does that really make it okay? No, it does not. Not one bit."

Before Subaru could conjure an answer for her, a loud clang, followed by a series of thumps and screeches rang from the living room. Hotaru, caught off guard, instinctively hung up on her brother and pocketed her phone. She burst open the door and ran out to where the cacophony originated.

What she found was Hikaru in a rage. One hand tightly clasped a blue and white china vase and the other a small teacup. Both grips were so tight veins were protruding from his knuckles. Shattered pieces, no doubt china that had already been broken in the scuffle, littered the floor. The grown man was forced back into a corner, his own two hands drawn out protectively.

"My mom," Hikaru hissed, raising the hand that held the vase, "would never rent out her apartment. Who are you? What have you done with her? Why won't she answer the phone? Where is my mom?"

Hotaru took a tentative step forward.

"I'm not your enemy," the man yelled. "Look, kiddo. I didn't sign up for this either. Naomi needed someone with her."

Hikaru was about to follow through with his throw but Hotaru caught his hand midair and pulled him back. He lost grip of the vase and it fell to the floor, shattering with a particularly harsh clang.

"That is enough," she commanded them both with a glare.

"Auntie, stay out of this!" It was then that she saw tears welling up in his eyes. His face was completely red and his forehead shiny with sweat. Hikaru swiped the back of his hand across it, dragging aside strands of hair that'd stuck there. "This is my mom!" He pointed accusingly at the man. "They've got my mom!"

She restrained his hysterics with a firm hand on his shoulder, but lifted her head to glare at the suspicious man in Naomi's apartment. No longer belligerent, his shoulders were slacked and his face troubled in a way that did not settle right with her.

"Are you one of Hidaka's henchmen?" she interrogated.

He froze. "Y-you're Imai's sister. How do you know about the Hidakas?"

She pressed her lips together unpleasantly. Slowly lifting her hand off Hikaru's shoulder, Hotaru strode toward the man with a vengeance. The closer she got, the more her muscles tightened. She had not peeled off the stickers yet, and if he had no evasive Alices, she could pummel him within a second's notice.

"The better question is," she growled, vigorously slamming him into the wall. "How do you know my brother? Are you here for the child?"

Both his hands were clenching her one arm that was crushing him further and further into the wall. Turned out he was not as tough as his appeared to be after all. "I'm only here for one person," he wheezed, "and that's Naomi. You think it settles well with me that she's not answering her phone? And to be stalled here by the two unlikeliest people when she can be well off to the next country by now…"

"Answer my question." Hotaru slammed him across the wall once again. It was now looking precariously close to either collapsing or giving out into a huge hole.

He donned an exhausted smile while shaking his head. His hand reached into his pocket, drawing out a glowing yellow stone. Right under her very hands, the man started to fade away. She mentally cursed and dragged him off the wall as if it would bring him out of the teleportation in the process. Her efforts were to no avail, for he kept fading.

Behind her, a series of clangs rang out as Hikaru ran across the field of broken china. Just as her fingers began grasping at air, he shoved her aside and latched onto the man with both hands. She gave a silent cry in fear that her nephew would be dragged along with him. But a blinding flash of white light forced her to her knees and look away.

When it ended, she swiveled to see a panting Hikaru and a clump of red and black on the ground.

The most amazing thing happened next. The stranger's skin stretched and contorted as if his entire body was being reconstructed. Both Imais took a step back and watched the transformation unblinkingly. Gradually, his red hair turned blond, his earrings popped off and his entire body shrunk. In his clothes, he now looked like a turtle carrying a shell much too big for his size.

Hotaru walked over and pulled his head up by long, blond bangs to examined his face. He had chubby cheeks, small eyes and thick eyebrows. His nose was flat. His lips were thin and framed by a scraggly mustache.

"Do you recognize him?"

She shook her head.

"Imposter," he hissed venomously. "He's just like the ones Alice Academy sent here to capture me. First they pretended to be strangers advertising from door to door. Then they went to my school. They want me back. I just know it. They're scared that my mom's going to take me away so they took her. I'm not going back to the school without seeing mom!"

She wrapped her hand around her chin contemplatively. "Regardless of whether he's from the academy or not, there's a much easier way to squeeze information out of him."

Hikaru's eyes lit up. "Really?"

She crossed the room, crushing pieces of china with her feet. Hikaru followed her to her purse, nicely placed on top of the suitcases. Suspicious of the man from the beginning, the kid made sure they remained untouched. She stuck a hand in, rummaged a little but quickly found the item that she was looking for.

Fortunately, I only have one set of luggage for travelling so this happened to be on hand.

She pulled out a hand from underneath the unconscious man and fitted the bracelet tightly around it. A red stone gleamed in the sunlight.

"Where am I?"

Hotaru and Hikaru both paused in their reading to look up.

"Oh, good. You're awake."

At the sound of the child's voice, a shiver ran down the man's body. He tried scooting away but found it unsuccessful as he was secured to a bedpost of the very bed Hotaru and Hikaru were sitting on.

They were in Naomi's bedroom, one where, surprisingly, the wedding portrait was kept. It was not hung. It was placed in a corner, uncovered and unturned. It was also placed at the rear of her bed, right beneath a high window. Should Naomi choose to sit up in the middle of the night, she could get an immediate view of it.

Hotaru was beginning to doubt more and more that the divorce was truly one sided on Naomi's part.

The man let out a defeated laugh. "How like Subaru's son to have all his Alices."

Hikaru balled his hands into fists. "Don't talk about my mom and dad like you know them well."

"I know them…" his mouth remained open but he struggled to choke out the words. Alarmed, the man's eyes snapped to his wrist and the bracelet that adorned it. "You… a Truth Alice bracelet? This—Hidaka! You can't be!"

Hotaru slid her too legs off of the bed. His head was level with her hands, so she lowered her own to stare him dead in the eye. "Look, stranger, whatever relationship you have with Naomi-san and my brother, you are going to tell us right now." She tapped down on the bed frame with her index finger twice. "I suggest you speak willingly because my nephew here is part of the Dangerous Abilities Class and his Pain Alice can knock you out for days."

The man gritted his teeth. "Subaru's own family members working for ARC right under his nose. How ironic is that?"

She was genuinely offended by his accusation and was about to open her mouth before Hikaru did it first.

"What the hell is ARC?"

The man was taken back by his question, demanding and cutting but unmistakably authentic.

Hotaru resisted the urge to smirk. "Working for ARC, are we?"

He glared up at her. "He may not be but you're definitely in cahoots with Hidaka."

"How dare you suggest—"

"Why would you have this then?" he yelled, attempting to pull his hand up but tugging the rope taut as he did. He winced at the rope burn but continued to tug at it until she realized he was gesturing to the bracelet. "Is this not clearly one of Hidaka's devices?"

Hotaru's lips pressed tightly as she thought back to that conversation. Had she ultimately been tricked by Chiaki? Knowing their adversarial relationship, him willing lending her one of his devices would not make sense unless there was something she could do that he could not. She swallowed an uninviting lump in her throat before focusing back to the task at hand.

"I stole it from him on an Alice cruise."

He snorted in disbelief.

"In any case, it seems that you are no friend of ARC's. What affairs do you have, then, with Naomi-san?"

"It's none of your business," he bit out and Hikaru held up his hand threateningly.

"Who are you?"

"Nendo Kaoru."

She narrowed her eyes. "Who do you work for?"

"Im—" he appeared irritated again as the bracelet prevented him from speaking. "ALP."

"Alp who?"

He smiled. "ALP."

Hikaru was about to repeat the question but Hotaru interjected, "it is not a person, Hikaru. ALP is the name of a group or organization, illegal by the looks of it." Her eyes narrowed on his treacherous face. "Am I right?"

He continued smiling.

"Now…" This interrogation was starting to get on her nerves. The stubborn man was clearly unwilling to talk. Hikaru had not used his Alice yet but Hotaru knew that it would be disadvantageous for him to use it too much. There could be dire consequences if ARC found out about the forceful interrogation they were conducting. As it was, Hikaru was already in a bad position with them; their entire family was. "What does ALP stand for?"

He looked a little too laid back for her to be comfortable. "It's a secret. If you ask around, you'll probably find out. In fact, why don't you start by going to Hidaka, seeing as there are more than a few things he's hiding from you?"

She bit the inside of her lip. Fine. If he thought that she plotting with Chiaki, as offensive as it was, she would use it to her advantage. "What is Hidaka hiding from me?"

Kaoru laughed loudly. "You don't even know?" he asked with a pitying smirk. "I feel so sorry for you right now, you poor little sheep. The wolf's going to sharpen his claws and he's going to tear off your fleece when you least expect it. The people who get involved with Hidaka never make it out. That's the kind of person he is."

It was all useless information that she could deduct from her own observations of Chiaki Hidaka. Hotaru endured his artistic interpretations of her situation in boredom, barely holding back the urge to yawn loudly in his face.

"Auntie…" Hikaru called nervously, unsure of what to do.

She probably should not be doing this, forcing a seven year old to interrogate someone else. It was dirty business done by dirty people. Someone so innocent should not be dragged into this mess. Yet he insisted on helping and she could not refuse. How could she say no when his eyes shone with such vehemence? After all, she had lost her mother once as well.

"Yes, and I expect ALP and whoever you are working directly under to have much more virtuous values than ARC? Taking on different appearances to stalk Alices' families… Surely your boss is every bit as sly and as conniving as Hidaka is."

His eyes gleamed angrily. "Don't you dare insult her! You know nothing about her. She is the kindest person in the world. Our methods of extracting information are nothing like you and your dirty lot's!"

"Then where's my mom?" demanded Hikaru, grabbing Kaoru's shirt collar.

"I don't know!"

There was another flash of white which left him hissing and cursing with a very colourful vocabulary. In the time Hikaru beat the man for answers to his frustration, Hotaru regrouped her thoughts and planned where next to head in the interrogation. This was a meaningful opportunity and although there was a chance that he was unrelated to anything that she was caught up in, there was also a much better chance that he was related to everything. She decided to shoot for the gold.

"Who is she?"

Child and man both stopped to turn to her.

"Who is this 'kindest person in the world'? Tell me. I am curious."

He smirked. "Nice try. She's someone you'll never meet in your lifetime."

She narrowed her eyes. "Fair enough. I do not suppose I will ever know the kindest woman in the world, since I have never met her and I never will."

"That's ri—" He choked on his own words and it was her turn to smirk.

"Be careful, Nendo-san."

"Auntie," Hikaru called impatiently, "who is he? How is he related to my mom?"

"Well, he seems to be following her under the orders of an organization called ALP, which is likely related to your dad and… probably… Sakura Mikan-san."

Two very different reactions came from two very different people. The look on Kaoru's face suggested that she had just hit the very centre of the bullseye. After the shock wore off, he started repetitively punching the floor in panic and agitation. Even so, his reaction did not hold a candle to Hikaru's shell-shocked face.

"You… know that woman?" the child whispered, wide eyed and ghastly pale.

"No, I do not know her. I used to know her."

His lips trembled like he was going to cry and Hotaru thought for a second that he was upset at her. But she was wrong. Oh, was she ever wrong.

Hikaru whipped around and focused his angry glare at the man. He threw livid, unrestrained punches all over the Kaoru's body, half screaming, half sobbing as he did. "Go to hell! Go to hell! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" His voice surged several octaves into a screech that almost broke Hotaru's heart. "I had a family!" He swiped the tears from his own eyes before returning to the uncouth punching. "How dare you think for a moment that you're welcome in this apartment? How dare you intrude on my mom's life? How dare you call her Naomi? And how dare you call her the kindest woman in the world? That stupid hag took my dad away from me!

"Cheater!" Punch. "Cheater!" Punch. "Cheater!" Punch. Punch. Punch. "STUPID CHEATER! Take your whole lot and go to hell! You left me with nothing! I hope you're happy, dad. I can't believe you left us for her. You said! You said you'd never put me in a school like that! I waited for you every single day. Every day by those empty gates…"

With one last kick, he finally released the man before turning to the wedding portrait. Grabbing his book and whipping it at the image of Subaru, he cried, "you said! You said you'd come back! We even kept your stupid name and your stupid picture, you stupid, stupid cheater…"

"She's not, you know," the man rasped. His bruised lip made it painful for him to talk so to affirm his statement, he shook his head insistently. "She's not a home wrecker. You've got the wrong person. She's not a home wrecker."

"Be quiet," Hotaru warned him sharply, but it was too late. Hikaru's eyes already snapped back to the man.

"How do you know?" he snapped. "You're a big, fat liar. 'Kindest person in the world?' You've got to be kidding me. You sound exactly like my father! Are you her boyfriend too?"

"No…" his voice was becoming quieter. "No… I know because the reason I came here isn't to spy on Naomi. Subaru—" he groaned. "Subaru… told me to protect her."

His exhaled one last time before slumping and passing out on the spot.

Several bombshells here and no, they're not completely out of the blue. Some of them may seem like it, but they're not.

Well obviously, this is not going to be finished by the end of the summer and neither is Three Wishes. But rest assured, it'll be done even if I have to spend four years writing it.

By the way, the extent of Kaoru's Face Change Alice has never been specified so it's unknown if he can actually transform his full body. But after sixteen years, I'd expect him to have trained his Alice enough to be proficient at disguising.

Please alert, fave, review!

-IndigoGrapefruit