So…..guess who's not dead? Its definetly been more than a week, I am very sorry T.T

This is way past due, but as I am a grown chick with a full-time job my creative side has been fighting its way past a rabid desire to stay away from anything related to technology. My job is like an 8 hour computer class with only a 30 minute lunch break to catch your wind. Bleh.

Enough about my life though, here is an update for all my dear readers. I really have missed you guys and your encouraging shout-outs. I want to keep writing this one…til it's done ^.^ I think I may be able to focus better with slightly shorter chapters and more frequent updates. Help me focus and all that jazz.

So here is the next chapter.

Thoughts

Speech

Emphasis

The Bastion Heir: Knife in the Dark

Kaboom!

Natsumi and Saburo's heads whipped away from each other, as the startled young adults tried to identify the source of the ear-wrenching noise. They were just in time to see the front door of the café implode with astounding force.

Smoke filled the air and the alarm bells in the café began to ring. A thick, cloying smell pervaded the senses of the occupants. The sickly essence numbed their senses and turned their thoughts to mush, courtesy of a semi-harmless aerogen created by Kululu to drop opponents without the use of violence. Not that Giroro would ever admit to brute force and booming guns as an inferior ultimatum, he thought while climbing through the debris, nasal passages protected by a mask slipped on over his nose and mouth; he simply didn't want to deal with the rest of the people.

They were already slumping in their seats, most moaning with whatever side-effect the mad-scientist had decided to drop in the inhalant. Natsumi and Saburo were no exception. The two were coughing in their booth and Giroro felt a pang of guilt spank his consciousness. Why? Why had he felt the froggin need to break up their little moment? He ignored the thought, grabbing the semi-conscious girl, and lifting her over his shoulder like a sack of sweet potatoes. With a few long strides he was out the door and headed to where the motorcycle was parked. Giroro could only pray that the drug flowing in her veins would keep the quiet on the way home.

Which it did. Sort of…

Natsumi fully regained her senses about a mile from home and her disorientation was immediately dissolved by flaming indignation. She wiggled and seethed in his arms, the wrist-cuff practically humming with her expressed emotions. Rage, confusion, rage, bewilderment, rage…and the Corporal knew what was coming the minute her helmet came off.

When he stopped the bike, the girl scrambled away from him and ripped the head gear off with a screech, "The HELL did you do that for Red?" Before the bodyguard could explain his motive (not that he really knew what it was himself) Natsumi continued her tirade, "I was actually going to share a kiss with Saburo…a KISS and then you charge in and ruin it. I didn't think I even had a chance with this guy and you go and ruin the first date I've had in months….with SABURO!" Her emotions rocketed through the wrist cuff and Red felt himself wince, if only a little. Natsumi's eyes blazed with heat as she stared defiantly up at him. "Why did you interrupt us?"

Red shifted his feet silently and glanced at the ground, taking the moment of silence to remove his helmet. Steel blue eyes met honey, when he looked up and to Natsumi's exasperation stated the dumbest reason in the world for interrupting her romantic moment with Saburo.

"I don't like him."

The defender of earth looked as if she was going to kill him; the bland statement had done nothing to abate her anger. Red thought a diffused statement might calm her, but his words seemed to be having the opposite effect. Her face had turned an alarming shade of purple that he would've found fascinating if the bodyguard knew she wasn't about to give him some serious verbal abuse.

"You ruined my date with Saburo, just because you don't LIKE him!" she bellowed. More of a screech than a bellow really, because her vocals deserted her at the end. Red didn't feel like laughing even if she did sound funny. "I have waited years, Red, years for him to notice me and you blow our first date based on the fact you two can't seem to get along. You only just met him! Why didn't you take the time to get to know him before making a decision. Gah! Your such an idiot!" Natsumi whirled away from him and into the house, slamming the door shut.

Red truly winced as he heard the lock click into place.

She had a right to be angry at him he supposed, but surely his actions didn't warrant this excommunication. Green wouldn't be happy about the delay and Blue would…horror rose like bile into his throat. In a flash he was at the door pounding with both fists. "Natsumi!You have to open up!" His only response was another slam as she shut her bedroom door with enough force to make the windows rattle. Frantically Red dashed around the side of the house, determined to use the window as a means to keep an eye on her, but by the time he had circled the corner to where his tent rested the window shades were shut for the first time in months.

More yelling was pointless. He was totally shut off from his charge and certain that she had no intention of letting him in at any point in near future. With a sigh, Red turned and went to the entrance of his tent. The need to establish a perimeter now threatening to consume him. His opponent would be a froggin assassin after all. Kneeling beside a strappy metal container, he began his work.

Blue's preferred mode of travel was jumping from tree to rooftop to whatever available surface there was to be had. The entry points best suited for Natsumi's roof would be fairly simple to safeguard with some electric wires designed to be stimulated by touch. The jolt delivered would not kill, but it would cause momentary paralysis. That would give him enough time to disarm the assassin before any retaliation could occur. Red pulled several coiled bundles from his container and set them on the ground beside him.

His eyes fell onto the worn sheath of his faithful bowie knife which was protruding at an angle from the entire of the box. The blade had come from a vendor in the local marketplace and had praised it as a practical military implement. Red liked anything described with the word military and practical. It had a 12 inch, one-sided blade with serrated teeth on the very back. The metal was unlike anything he had seen on Keron, black and virtually unbreakable. It was made to be used with one hand and while He hadn't been looking for a knife, Blue had pointed it out and offered him lessons in knife combat.

The training had been basic, but by the end he had felt that he could at least give a fair representation of prowess with his blade, for what is the use of having anything that you cannot use. He picked up the blade and strapped it to his waist.

Natsumi was stewing inside her room. Anger at Red and the whole predicament he'd created for her with Saburo flooded her body and the blazing temper in her veins was not just the Bastion blood making a debut. Though her anger did stir the deep power and rouse it from its slumber.

"I could defend you from this you know."

The voice that had been so startling to her as a child growled in its soft dark way, its presence now as much a part of her as it had been of her mother.

"I don't need you to protect me from Red, he's not a threat to you or me. He thought he was protecting me," Natsumi emphasized the thought part of this, "We both know his social skills are crap."

"Yes, but do you ever wonder why?" the Bastion was always unconvinced of the mans intentions to his bearer and tolerated Red's presence for the simple sake of humoring Natsumi.

"He has been in the military his whole life, Bast. I'm just mad because he ruined the one moment I've been waiting for."

The Bastion huffed, his mind voice irate, "I really don't understand what you see in the other one either…"

Natsumi's temper flared and she snapped at her charge, "Don't you start that with me too Bastion…I need to work on my homework and I can't do that if I'm talking to you or thinking about this whole mess I have to explain to Saburo next time I see him," she groaned and could feel the boiling consciousness recede to the back of her mind with a stuffy, "As you wish bearer..."

She sniffed and got on with her work, though she couldn't keep her thoughts from straying to her burdens pointed question. What did she see in either of them?

Red in the meantime was doing the kind of work he as Corporal Giroro liked best. Though admittedly he did wish that the circumstances were different, as it was highly probable that either he or Zeroro would be hurt in the endeavor. It is easy to remember your traps beforehand, but if you slip up during a battle you could end up in a trap you laid yourself.

He went over the layout of his plans in his head once more. There wasn't much to be done for yard surrounding the house, so he had worked on the house itself. The windows and vents had all been neatly laid with tripwires, with the exception of the central window of her bedroom, just behind his tent. He had cunningly hidden and rigged all the doors with a trigger pad beneath the doormat that would shoot stun gas identical to the kind he had used earlier that day. He was unable to place many motion sensors due to the high traffic of animals through the surrounding areas.

He might be her body guard, but he was sure Natsumi would wonder if his tent glowed like a demented and oversized firefly all night from sensors tripped by strays and wild creatures on the prowl for food.

The house was secure. His plans were set. There was no way his companion would be able to get within 30 feet of Natsumi now…unless.

Reds heart was speared with shock, like a knife in the dark.

Unless the assassin had already slipped inside.

So…theres more to the Bastion than what it seemed. Giroro has made a couple of mistakes. I am out of coffee…oie its late.

But I swear I won't wait so many months before the next chapter. =)

As always, If it pleases you review!

Crux