"You guys have got to come! We'll pay for your tickets and everything!"

Max's voice piped up as cheery as always from Kenny's laptop, remarkably unchanged for the most part. His hair was the same bushy blond, and his freckles hadn't been moved. The only thing that they could see had resulted from Max's time missing among the ocean waves were the dull, reptilian like scales peeking out from his hairline to curve around the corner ridges of his eye sockets. Kai kept looking for wings Tyson and Kenny had already told him weren't there. Kai was interested in Max's story, but didn't really want to hear it from Kenny, who was sure to draw it out, and Tyson had been caught up with Max's call when he had gotten home with the beyblade genius.

"Course, Mom knows you have school and all, so if you could just let us know—"

"Are you kidding me?" cried Tyson. "Once I become an awesome dragon-scaley thing like you, who cares about school!"

Kai's ire snapped to attention. "Does your irresponsibility know no bounds?"

"Turn down the glare, dude. I've already heard it all from Hillary."

"Is that why she's been avoiding you?" asked Kenny from the other side of his laptop. "Tyson, how do you even know the same thing will happen to you as it did to Kai and Max?"

"That's what my Mom will be testing!" chirped Max. "We've gotten a hold of Ray too. He says the White Tigers are annoyed that he's leaving so soon after they got home, but he's really interested too. Just think of the possibilities! I can't even get started!"

Kai snorted. "Yeah. A whole group of homeless, teenage freaks. People will be trampling each other for tickets."

Max deflated. Kenny fidgeted. Tyson, however, whirled on Kai.

"Oy, Mr. Cool, you do realize Ayah can probably hear you, right?"

Kai inwardly flinched as he remembered Ayah, who was showering in the hallway behind them.

"She would know best of all," Kai said, undaunted. "Her whole family is dead just because of what they are. Have you even asked her what she thinks of you throwing yourself into that same lot?"

"He has a point," said Kenny shyly. "Those hunters that killed her family could still be out there."

"Ooo, people trying to kill us, like that hasn't happened before. Sign me up for the next flight, Maxie. I'm game!"

Max, who had four years of experience with Tyson's gung-ho, throw himself head first personality took it in stride. "It isn't all that bad, Kai. I can go out just fine."

Kai didn't grace that with an answer. He didn't know what other weirdness had happened to Max, but he knew whatever it was, it wasn't like hiding enormous and still growing wings under a trench coat, or having mile long tail-feathers stuffed down your pant-leg like an unseemly erection.

Children. Idiots. When would the day come that he didn't feel like he had to babysit them?

"You coming, Kai?" Max asked tentatively.

Did he have much of a choice? "Sure." And before Tyson could make some other stupid remark to irritate him further, Kai stood and made his way back to the dryer, which Tyson's arrival had stopped him from unloading. He'd get his clothes, get dressed, make sure Max would send the plane ticket information to his email, and go home. He, after all, had actual adulating to do.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned the corner and Ayah was there, standing next to the dryer with his basket of clothes at her feet. She looked as though she had been waiting for him. Talk about quick showering. At least she had taken the time to dress—he shoved that thought out of his head, baffled as to why it was even there. Sometimes it didn't pay to be seventeen and male. Wait, it never did.

"You're right," she said quietly, eyes downcast.

He didn't need to ask why as he took up his clothes and waited.

"If I had known what it would do to you and Max, I would have never sung that song. I was okay being the last. It was a relief."

He sighed. "If I can't get away with a lie, you shouldn't be allowed to either."

Her smooth eyebrows rose. "What?"

"No one wants to be alone. You hear idiots celebrating being unique, but the truth is people would rather be clones; with everyone just like themselves." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Unless you're telling me you're not human enough to be that predictable."

She wavered, her lips twitching and arms crossing. "You have such an interesting way of saying things."

"I wonder from where you are saying that." He shifted his laundry to one hip. "From someone who has lived hidden among people or far away from them, isolated with her family, the last."

The twitching lips gave way to a soft smile that jerked his insides. She did that so easily to him. "You could just ask, you know."

"And put up with Tyson all that time? I don't think so. I'm going home."

She cocked her head, confused. "Don't you love him?"

He literally jumped, and she exploded in that same, trill like laughter he had heard before, somehow different from her usual mirth.

"I meant it as a friend," she added.

"Yeah, well," he shifted his laundry, eager to leave and wanting to stay. "I think your word choice is a bit wanting." Yeah, don't say 'love' so easily.

A bland, default ring from his pocket made her jump. He frowned as he slipped out his phone, a rather recent acquirement after losing his other one who knows where. Not expecting to recognize the number, only knowing a severely select few knew his own number, he flipped it to his ear.

"Hiwatari."

"It's Ivanov. I don't have much time, so don't talk. You need to get out of Japan, now."

"Tala? What the hell, you expect me to listen to you with no explanation?"

"I was getting to that if you'd just give me a second to breathe! Cain wasn't the idiot we thought him to be, and Russia and America's about to pull out some real shit, and before that happens you need to get out of Japan. The details aren't exactly clear, but I know there's a hidden arms factory there. Japan's breaking the treaty and Russia knows it—Cain made sure of it."

Ayah had gone deathly still. "Arms?"

"I highly doubt that Japans the only one," said Kai. "You're not doing a good job at convincing me to book it."

"Then how about this: Russia knows who killed the American president, and they've traced it back to Cain's godforsaken Japanese island. They've got plans to fire, and since America is Japan's ally, we're looking at nuclear war. But if that's not enough to scare you into shitting yourself out of there, they know about us. Japan does."

That gave Kai pause. Something suffocating and cold clawed its way up to his throat.

"How?" he heard his mouth say.

"Who do you think? The only thing Cain didn't do is put a strong enough firewall on his secrets. I've never met a more twisted mix of wit and stupidity in my life. Look, I know a ship that's leaving dock in three hours time, if you can slip on—"

"Hold that thought, where are you?"

"Like I'd tell you that over an unsecured line. Look, don't worry your head about me, princess—"

"Just shut up and answer the damn question, be clever if you must, I can handle it."

"...just get out of there. I don't know when they're going to fire. But you need to get out before Japan pieces together that they're harboring several members of an illegal assassins ring—which is hilarious."

Kai closed his eyes, a wry un-smile tightening his lips. He understood. It was one thing about their teachings in the abbey he did understand.

"I can't tell you where I am, but I'll meet you...I'll meet you on Igarov's lakeside."

There was a click and the line went dead.

Kai gave his smart phone one last look before slipping it back into his pocket and stepping past the weak-kneed Ayah.

"Kai, what does—what's nuclear? What's—"

"You better come too," he said quietly. He felt more than heard her bare feet padding behind him along the dojo floors as he re-entered the main practice room, where Tyson looked to be about to wrap things up on Skype.

"Hold it, Max."