All righty, installment three. Again, if you haven't read Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver: World's Collide or Path's Reconverge, you will not understand this story, so please read the others first. Hey, over a hundred reviews on each, they've got to be pretty good! As always, no one belongs to me except Jials and Rose. Rose is very much mine, annoyance as she is. As for you Kain fans, you'll be happy. This one will be highlighting him much more than the last two did.

The moon rose over the dark mansion, its roof seeming to reach up to touch the sky. Mist slowly crept past the front door, making a feeling of silence and solitude. The shadows bathed the entire place in an aura of stillness. But that stillness was suddenly broken by a voice from within.

"Ball!"

"GET IT AWAY FROM ME!"

A loud resounded crash rang out into the night. From in his trailer, Bryce shot straight up in surprise, then realized what it must be. Bloody vampires, up at all hours of the morning . . . He rolled over and covered his head with his pillow.

Hillary, from inside the mansion, didn't have the luxury to go back to sleep. Something had been broken again, and now he had to go face down the two occupants of the mansion while Lord and Lady Croft were gone to find out what exactly it was that was broken this time.

Kain turned and glared at the little five-year-old brat who was currently following him, throwing balls at the back of his head. She latched herself happily onto his arm. He growled down at her and in utter fury, grabbed her by the back of her shirt, ripped her off his arm, and threw her as far away from his body as he could manage. Unfortunately, this took her through the wall on the other side of the room. The sudden realization of what he'd done smashed into his consciousness and he stood, looking where she had gone worriedly, wondering if he had killed her. A sudden tugging on his clan tabard made him look down to see Rose there.

"Again?" she asked, grinning happily, obviously not effected by the wood she had just gone through. Kain blinked at her a moment, stunned. He had to admit this little girl kept catching him off-guard with her resilience.

"Again?" she inquired again. An eyebrow raised, Kain complied, sending her flying through the wall again. Rose appeared next to him and tugged again on the cloth.

"Again?"

"No more."

"Pwease?"

"No."

"Oh dear," Hillary's voice sighed from the hall, looking at the damage done. Multiple things had been broken ever since Kain had stepped into the house, but he had a feeling if Rose was alone with a normal baby-sitter there would have been worse hell, so he just swallowed any complaints and cleaned up after the messes.

"It's time for you to go to bed."

"Oooohh," Rose groaned. "I dun wanna."

Kain easily picked her up and walked up the stairs toward her room, ignoring her protests. He pushed open her room's door, walked over the mess, and set her down on her bed. He pulled the covers over her up to her chin and pointed a claw at her.

"Go to sleep."

She opened her mouth apparently to argue, but yawned instead, blinked sleepily and closed her eyes. Kain walked back out of the room, closed the door softly, and sat down in a chair downstairs. He rubbed his temples as he could feel a headache slowly coming on him. He couldn't wait until Raziel and Lara got back from their honeymoon so he could get the little wretch off his hands and leave this blasted planet.

The little girl followed him around incessantly, asked constant questions, and utterly refused to leave him alone. Plus his instincts for dodging were being honed to a nice fine perfection, as he had lost count of the number of round objects that had been thrown at him. And it hadn't always been balls, either. Anything remotely round had been considered a ball as far as Rose cared, which meant anything from light bulbs to candles. He stood, sensing the coming of dawn and moved into the guestroom he had taken over for the time being. The bed had been moved to the next room over and in it rested instead a large ornately designed sarcophagus. He shoved the top open, slipped into the lined interior, and let the top slam shut. He closed his eyes and felt sleep drift over his mind and body.

Kain was promptly awoken sometime midday by a knocking on the top of his sarcophagus. He growled low in his throat, annoyed by being woken, but shoved the top off to see what poor fool disturbed his slumber. Standing outside was a little Rose, clutching her favorite stuffed animal, a velociraptor.

"Yes?" he stated icily.

"I had a bad dream." She clutched tightly to her stuffed dinosaur.

Kain sighed deeply wondering what he had done to deserve this, then remembered his tendency of killing people who bothered him. He held the top open for her to climb into. She didn't grin with triumph, though, and he realized that she was telling the truth and she really had woken from a bad dream. Usually she would be enjoying this to no end, but right now she just seemed to take comfort in his closeness.

She snuggled against his chest, and gripped his arm in a tight hug.

"Now go to sleep," he told her. "Nothing is going to get you here," he assured her, seeing her still looking around fearfully. "Besides, I'm far scarier than anything that could come to get you."

She smiled slightly up at him, then snuggled back against his arm. Kain shook his head, wondering why he jumped hoops for the little twerp, and shut the lid again.

Kain woke again quite a while after the sun had set. His eyebrows knit together in confusion as he rose sleepily from the darkness' embrace.

'My arm's asleep,' he thought to himself, lingering traces of rest still keeping a grip of his mind. 'Wait a minute. My arm's dead.' He looked down to see Rose still attached to his arm. He let a sigh out slowly, shoved the lid of the sarcophagus aside and stood. He stretched slightly, getting movement back into his stiff body and headed into the kitchen. Rose still hung on asleep, not in the slightest aware of the world around her. Kain grabbed a bowl down, filled it with cereal and set it on the table. He then poured a glass of milk and waited for Rose to wake up.

After a few more minutes, the little girl yawned and slowly released her grip on Kain, sliding into the chair as she did so. She rubbed her eyes, then eagerly attacked the food that was set out in front of her. Kain walked into the hallway, nodded once to Hillary, and stalked out into the night to go find his own dinner.

The weeks rolled on and finally two months passed. Lara and Raziel came home, only to find the house in shambles. But for their credit, they hadn't expected any different. In fact, as far as both were concerned, the house was in surprisingly good shape for holding both Kain and Rose for any length of time.

Lara glanced at Raziel.

"All right, where do you think they are?"

Raziel shrugged slightly, then stopped and cocked his head to the side, listening intently. He smiled as he heard Rose's laughter from one of the large rooms to the side. He indicated for Lara to follow him quietly. They slipped into the room and stood in the shadows of the column to see Kain tossing Rose up into the air and catching her. Raziel and Lara exchanged a look. It didn't seem that Kain was doing it solely to shut her up; in fact he seemed to be taking as much amusement in it as Rose. Lara stepped out into the light walking toward them, Raziel beside her. Kain noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye, looked down and saw the pair. He quickly caught Rose, held her like she was something utterly disgusting to him, and handed her to Lara.

"Mummy!" Rose hugged her, then asked, "Did you bring me a present?"

Lara laughed as Raziel answered, "Several."

"If you're quite sure you're back now," Kain stated blatantly, "I will be leaving you with this creature of destruction. I will give you fair warning now I am never coming at one of your requests again unless it is clearly and simply stated what it is you want me to do beforehand." Kain headed to the door and Lara and Raziel followed. She heard Rose ask, "Uncle Kain's leaving? Why?"

"Because he has things to do back on Nosgoth, love," Lara explained to her.

"Oh. I want to go to Nosgoth with Uncle Kain."

"When you're older," Lara answered. Hillary walked toward them.

"Ah, Lady Croft, as expected we have a lot of cleaning up to do, and multiple Rose-shaped holes in the walls to repair."

Lara and Raziel both looked at him skeptically a moment, then they realized Kain would throw Rose through the wall. Lara checked Rose over quickly for any scratches or anything, but Rose just squirmed away saying it tickled with a smile on her face.

"However," Hillary continued, "we're going to have to restock the shooting range. Kain took to destroying the targets with lightning bolts to vent his frustration. There's one left, a gift he left to you."

Lara sighed while Raziel smirked, stating, "Better the targets than Rose."

"True."

Outside, Kain gratefully walked away from the mansion, glad to be away from the place finally. He teleported back to the portal and headed back to Nosgoth to see what had happened while he was away.

At eight Rose dropped down from above the door hugged Kain as he walked in. He made a surprised noise and pulled her off, glaring at the little smiling child. Raziel and Lara watched from nearby.

"Have you ever noticed how whenever Kain enters the room, we are completely forgotten?" Lara asked Raziel quietly. "When Kain is here, he's her entire world."

"This can lead to no good," Raziel prophesized darkly.

"You missed my birthday," Rose told Kain as she settled herself onto his shoulders. For all her eight years, she was already speaking like a fourteen-year-old. Her hair had grown out long enough to cover her pointed ears and she kept her hands split into five fingers, a trait which Raziel a few years later had learned. She had finally learned to speak without showing off her fangs and she was finally going to a public school.

"That I did," he responded, offering no apology. "But I was able to come and I brought you a present so don't complain."

She hugged him again. "But I missed you."

Kain merely sighed and shook his head. He pulled her off his shoulders and set her down on the couch. He handed her a small box. She looked up at him for permission to open it which was given with a short nod. She quickly opened it (cheating and using her talons). Inside she found a small metal ball. He took it out of her hands, showed her a slight indention, pushed the fault, and threw it up in the air lightly. She watched it go up and her eyes grew wide a suddenly two inch long spikes shot out of the entirety of the ball. When Kain reached out to catch it, the spikes slid back into the ball. He handed it to her.

"The spikes are pressure-activated and take four seconds to activate. Be careful not to cut your hand up. I doubt your parents would appreciate me for it."

"Thank you." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then grinned and threw the ball at his face.

"Ball!"

"I should have seen that one coming," he sighed. Rose grinned and hugged him.

When Kain left a few hours later, Lara pulled him to the side before he fully escaped.

"I know you'll be going back to Nosgoth for quite a while, so I thought I'd give you this before you go. I don't know if it will effect you the same way they did for Raziel, but it's worth a try, isn't it?" She handed him a carefully wrapped box. He gently opened it, for fear of damaging anything inside of it, and flipped the top open to see a glowing green restoration crystal. He smirked, kissed Lara on the cheek, and thanked her before turning and teleporting back to the Pillars.

Kain was gone for years, and didn't come back until ten years later. For him, ten years meant little and he expected his little Rose to still be there. For Rose, however, ten years was a lifetime, and Kain would find a young woman in the place of the child he left behind . . .