Please don't yell at me. And please don't get mad. I've been so busy and I honestly thought about dropping this story. But now, a year later, I realized that I just couldn't do that. I still don't know how consistent I will be with updating, but I do know but I'm going to finish this even if it kills me.

Sorry that after a year of not updating, it's not that long of a chapter. I'm cutting them down to half the words they used to be, to convince myself that it's not that hard to update another chapter. And I've also lost some of my edge, so it's a guarantee that this chapter isn't as detailed and well-written as the other ones. So sorry.

Anyways, I've missed you all and you don't know how much it means to me that you still check back to this story. I sincerely apologize.

I present to you chapter nine of Adoration Kills.

But you treat me like a stranger

And that feels so rough

-Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye

Chapter IX: I'm Back

It didn't take a lot of convincing to make myself attack him a split second later. With my elbow snug tight underneath his chin and a growl-like cry bolting out of my mouth, I propelled us forward until he slammed back against the body of the cherry blossom tree. I didn't hear the bark breaking at contact. My ears were repleted with one word, and one word only. Dear. Dear. Dear Mikan. How dare he mock me. Using my free hand, I whipped out my dagger and touched the silver tip to his neck. The only reason why I hadn't killed him right then and there was because it'd be too easy.

Blushing petals of the tree floated near my eyes. Momentarily, they distracted me, but then they left in desolate currents that continued to fall down the hillside. It was a while before the tree stopped shaking and losing its leaves, but when it did, I stopped shaking as well. I forced myself to breathe. Calm down. Don't get angry. Stay focused.

It was now, despite my hastiness, that I realized he had been quiet—not a sound wheezed out of him as I crushed his throat and threatened him with a weapon he knew I wasn't afraid to wield. I inched closer, seeing a small, discreet smile where his lips were supposed to be.

"Who—" I began.

His hood slipped off, sliding from over his forehead, back to his ears, and down his neck until it rested on his shoulders. His face was revealed. His young, young face. Mid-twenties, possibly. I took a moment to study all that I could, in case there was something that triggered a feeling of familiarity within me. There was none. But there was everything. His nose was the prominent feature, before his thin lips and wide-set forehead. The mud-brown hue his eyes envisaged were so threatingly dark it put off the shine of his hair whose color matched it. Messy strands sprawled across the top of his bushed brows, and I caught a glimpse of a loose ponytail at the back. He was tall. He was cold. And he was looking straight at me.

Waves of lightning thundered through my bones when I met his eyes. They melted them, and if it wasn't the Young Lord shifting to us, I would've became lost in a sea of waters I never sailed but somehow knew its tides.

I tensed again when I felt the heir beside me. "Stay back," I hissed to him. The intruder's gaze left mine to direct to wherever the Young Lord was. I didn't let him get too far. "Don't look at him. I'm your opponent." I pressed my weapon closer and deeper into his skin. A string of blood oozed from the little cut."Who are you? What is your business here?" I continued.

There was only one reason why one would break into the Young Lord's quarters late at night, but ocassionally it differed. Whatever his answer was, though, his fate was already sealed. I'd still have to kill him in the end.

Our stares locked once more, and my stomach flipped.

Toshiro instinctively knocked in the back of my head. I recalled something he said months prior, something about people who were trained to murder with their eyes. "Best be careful around them," he said. "They distract you, and in the moment of instability, your life will be ripped from you before you can try to snatch it back. You'll know who they are when you meet them, Jitter Bug. You'll know, and you'll be careful."

He didn't explain how they had been trained to do what they did, but he never joked around when it came to what could kill me out on the job. It was why I trusted his advice and acted quickly based on it. I stood taller: this man was one of whom Toshiro was cautioning me against, and as annoyed as I was not knowing how I was rattled from just one look, I chose to go the alternate—inferior—route. I averted away first, to anything but his god-forsaken eyes and their power.

The first thing that caught my attention was his blood sneaking down his neck. Ripe, red, and glowing with the life I governed at the moment. It reminded me that I had the upper hand; not him. Not him and whatever he was trying to do with my mind. I had the control and I needed to keep it mine to protect the Young Lord from this intruder.

That was right. The Young Lord was in the presence of an unknown threat. Keep on your toes, Mikan. Eyes open and ready.

"I assume you know I have full authority on deciding whether you get to live or not." To my dismay, I sensed the Young Lord scoot another centimeter closer to us. God be so kind as to make him leave the porch. The palace, if it wasn't too much to ask for. He was smart, so he should've read the situation and fled away to safety—to Koko, a nearby guard. Anyone except me, for I was the thin wall that separated him and the intruder who could take his life if I made a mistake. I hardened my voice. "You're in the lateral so far."

"So strong. Fierce," the man whispered.

I ignored the tremor the dotted goosebumps on my arm when he spoke. "Answer me," I said, slicing the dagger even further.

A ghost of a smile clothed his lips. "Patience was never your forte, though, Jitter Bug." He chuckled.

My free hand fisted the front of his cloak. I slammed him on the tree again. "Who are you?" I said menacingly. "How do you know that name?" How do you know me?

"—A friend," he said after catching his breathe. "I come as a friend."

"Bullshit!"

"We've grown apart, I admit, but we can make up for the lost time."

He was only making it much more harder for me to not end his life. As he said, patience was not my best point. I could only take so much of his mind games before my self-control ran dry. Being flooded with questions didn't help, either. The only way he could've known that kind of information about me was through secret intelligence. Undercover work. It couldn't have been through a spy because I would've known the first minute if someone was on my trail. It was one of my fortes. But however he had done it, he managed to escape from my attention. He was good.

"Good evening, Natsume. You look well."

My mind stopped racing, the same time my heart did.

I breathed.

I felt my death dawning when I slowly turned to look to my side and see the Young Lord mere inches from us.

Then, with a hell of a kick-start, Mikan the Protector came out in brilliant colors. "Young Lord!" I shouted, eyes now firmly locked on his body while my hands firmly locked on the man's to make sure he stayed put. "What the hell are you doing? Stay back!" I didn't even hear him move this close to us, this close to the man where he was in easy reach for him if he decided to grab the Young Lord by the neck or whip out a knife and stab him. The images made me sick to the core. I would've immediately taken the Young Lord far away if it didn't mean letting the man go. He'd pursue us if I did. But more than anything, I needed to get the idiot of an heir to safety.

He wasn't moving. I screamed and cursed at him to go away, but he stayed as still as a statue. He even resembled one too, with face pale white and eyes blank as if the soul inside was dead. "Young Lord!" Nothing.

I turned the man and I around, making myself a human barrier between the two. My eyes floated to the intruder's on a risk, but upon reaching them, I realized they were noticing everything but me—everything, as in what was behind my back. And for some reason, I knew that the Young Lord was staring straight back at him.

"Eyes on me, bastard, or I rip them out." If only I was taller, so that my head came in the middle of them as well.

A voice responded but it didn't come from the person in front of me. It was a second later that I comprehended who had spoken; the roughness and silk-like sound was already embedded deep in my ears. A tattoo. An imprint. A part of who I was.

"Shotai."

But the Young Lord seemed distant, as if he wasn't a part of himself. He didn't sound as sure as he usually was, and I picked it up only because he sounded thick with emotion he'd never spoke with before.

"You remember me," the man said.

Shock traveled to my expression, soon blanketed by the confusion of the fact that they actually knew each other. "What?"

"I can't believe you remember me."

"Shotai— . . you . . . you're not supposed—" He was stuttering. The heir to the Three Great Lands was stuttering.

"—To be here? Oh, trust me when I say that there's a lot of things I'm not supposed to be, but being here, in front of you, and you—" he nodded to me. I headbutted his chin to make him rethink actions. "—Mm! Okay, ouch."

"You should stop talking." I nudged the Young Lord with a hard elbow. "And you should hurry the fuck up and get away! Don't listen to him, Young Lord. He's tricking you. Whatever he's saying isn't true."

"My presence here is crucial."

"I said shut up!"

Almost immediately was I prompted to eat my own words. The Young Lord grabbed my shoulder from behind and shoved me aside with so much force I let go of my grip on the intruder, Shotai. No! I saw white as he sent me sliding to the floor, creating too many feet of distance to the space that separated us. My eyes strained to keep watch of the now unrestrained man and the imperiled Young Lord, who was the cause of this turn-out in the first place. What is he doing!

Air escaped me all at once when my back slammed into the wall. It made a heavy crash that scared the birds in the treetops nearby. They left in a flurry of black and white, guided by the light of the moon. I choked and tried breathe it back in as I rolled to my knees, ready to get up as soon as I caught my breathe.

"N-No!" I exclaimed, straining to see the man still held against the tree with the Young Lord taking my place as the restraint on him. He, too, had a blade out, but he pointed it to Shotai's heart. The way he clutched the hilt of it—he was going to do it. He was going to kill the man.

"Shotai, for so long now," the Young Lord snapped, cutting through his cloak and quickly drawing blood. "For so damn long I've wanted to see you. I have so many questions but when I think about it long and hard, I really don't want you to answer them. In the end, I just want to fucking end you." He was full of ferocity and he was directing all of it into his blade. I'd never seen this side of him. He spoke like his words hurt, like they were dipped in poison, and his eyes were darker and redder and it was then that I really believed he was of demon descent.

For a second, I was scared.

"Stop," I said languidly, "Put the knife down." I couldn't let him kill Shotai, not when the Young Lord was currently in this state of mind. As his Protector, I knew he wasn't himself. I knew he'd needed me to stop him from doing what he'd regret later on.

Shotai's arm suddenly shot up and slapped the blade away from the offender. It slid towards me, but by the time it got there, I was already alert on my feet. Catching the Young Lord by surprise, Shotai pushed and maneuvered himself out of his hold. Instinct drove me to dive for the Young Lord's falling body. Oxygen left me again as my chest collided with the wooden floor, but the pain was canceled out by the relief of having the heir's body weight in my extended arms.

"Shotai!" He made a move to get up as I caged him down, clutching around his waist and holding on with everything I had.

"No!" I shouted to him. "You can't, Young Lord! Let me handle this. Please, go to safety." Everything was happening so fast. I didn't even know what I was supposed to do next.

He seemed to be shot numb, slowly retreating to the floor like how I had wanted him to, when Shotai began to speak. Still, my grasp on his clothing tightened."Oh, you two look so loving like that." He sounded far away. I dragged my vision from off the Young Lord's back and searched around the porch to where he possibly was, eventually coming to an ominous shadow perched on the ledge. The moon created depths in his cheeks, and the wind brushed the darkened part of his face, the side that the light wasn't able to reach. He had crossed his arms upon his chest. "Pity you don't look like two lovers embracing. Oh my, what scary expressions you've got there, Mikan and Natsume.

"However, as much as I'd like to stay and try to make better of those—frowns you've got, it's about time that I leave. I didn't mean to stay long, anyways."

"Shotai!"

"I'm only here to relay a message." He placed his cloak over his head again, and a glint shone in his eyes, veiled by the shadow the cloth had created. "I'm back."

"Sumire!"

The next couple of scenes unfolded before me in a speed a I wasn't able to keep up with. Or I was simply too bewildered by it all that I refused to believe it was really happening.

Sumire—Sumire, Sumire—appeared out of nowhere and jumped for Shotai, hands armed with daggers and swords. She didn't look like the girl I was introduced to just mere hours ago. This Sumire had such bloodlust in her eyes, much like the Young Lord, and when she was darting for Shotai, her scream was filled with agony and despair, two emotions the Sumire I thought I knew didn't seem to have. Why and how she was here was the least of what surprised me, because in a matter of seconds, she had collided with Shotai and the two of them, fighting and struggling, went over the edge of the porch.

Then came Koko instantly. He shrieked her name from the bottom of his stomach as he came and left like the wind. He followed Sumire's trail down the hillside, but unlike her writhing body free-falling through the air, he moved in a manner that ensured his safety but still allowed him to go as fast as he could. "Sumire! NO!"His voice broke my heart. So hurt. So panicked.

And, just like that, the two of them disappeared down the hillside with a man neither the Young Lord, nor I, was able to handle.

Just like that, I'd lost the first friend I made since coming here. Lost someone who offered me friendship when nobody else did. Lost someone I didn't even begin to think I would lose tonight. And just like that, something in me broke.

"KOKO!"

Of course I wasn't going to let him fall to his death.

Apparently, neither was the Young Lord. "Koko!" he screamed, scrambling to his feet. I didn't hold him down. At about the same time he jumped off the ledge and into the night was when I, three steps ahead of him, spotted Koko's blonde head bobbing and leaping through the hillside rocks.

"Koko!" I hollered, trying to go faster and feeling frustrated when I couldn't. The breeze turned into a tornado tearing at my hair. The palace was higher up in the mountain that I had expected. Coming down it was more of a challenge as well. The rocks that granted footing were sharp and small, and when I jumped farther to decrease the space between Koko and I, I had a hard time regaining my balance every time.

At that instant, my thoughts found a way to trouble me like how they always do. These set were too great to ignore, though, for everything surrounding me backed them up.

I probably shouldn't have acted so rashly. I knew I shouldn't have acted so rashly. There was a better way to handle this other than to jump down an enormous hillside, let alone allow the Young Lord to do the same, but when I saw Koko's head vanish like that, into thin air—I didn't know. I was compelled to do something to save him and I didn't even know what compelled me.

But I wondered why . . . I didn't feel scared.

I didn't feel scared with the Young Lord this exposed to danger.

I didn't feel scared as he jumped rock onto rock, not knowing the probability of him slipping and getting hurt.

I didn't feel like a failure.

I felt that his safety was, surprisingly, not my first priority.

I felt that it was okay to trust him to protect himself. For now, at least.

Sumire's shouts were loud enough to echo back to where I was, and taking in the sound, it didn't seem like she's had the upper hand.

"Augh! Shotai you—bastard!"

Koko was slowly gaining up on her. He looked like he was doing fine coming down a slope such as this, in contrast to my fears, but whether it was due to making sure Sumire survived this fall or making sure Shotai didn't get away, it mattered close to none. He was okay. I underestimated him: he was going to be okay.

That was, if Sumire was going to be okay too.

A crack rung out in the night, drawing my attention back to the three ahead. I knew someone was injured; fatally, if they hit a rock and broke a bone, or opened a gut wound.

"No!"

Just when we were about to catch up with Koko, he sped down towards Sumire with a speed equivalent to that of a lightning bolt, leaving me in his wake to follow once again. He practically flew the last feet to catch her motionless body in his arms. "Sumire!" he cried as he got her. She was the one to get hurt. She lost to Shotai. Her weapons, meister-less, clanked against the rocks and fell to their destruction. Once Koko had her against his chest, he made haste to descend as quickly as he could to the bottom, where there was level ground. The way there, he kept screaming no. Stay with me. I'm not letting you die.

To my side, the Young Lord suddenly stopped. It brought me to a halt with him, but I was occupied with worries for Sumire's well-being. He stared ahead, and when I traced to what he was looking at with eyes hard like stone, I saw Shotai breaking left and escaping to the other side of the mountain. Before he vanished behind a boulder, he noticed us and smiled.

"I'm only here to relay a message: I'm back."

I turned back to my master. If he wanted to follow him, I'd go. If he wanted to call someone, I'd go.

When he pursed his lips and headed towards Koko and Sumire, already at the bottom, I went.

"Koko!" I called the second I stepped off the mountain. My legs wobbled as I hurried to him. "Koko, is Sumire alright?"

He was on the floor, cradling her like her life depended upon it. One arm around her shoulders, the other on her bleeding waist. The Young Lord came and squatted beside them.

"How bad is she?" he asked.

Koko was crying, but his voice didn't shake. "I don't know. They were moving too fast. But he kicked her. And she hit a rock and she just— . . . stopped moving."

"She's probably broken a bone," I added, positioning myself adjacent to the two. I put two fingers against the faint pulse in Sumire's neck. "She's alive, Koko. But she's bleeding—"

"He hurt her with his hand."

"—and we need to get her to Subaru as quickly as possible." Hand? Did he mean by a hand holding a blade? He did. He was just shaken up, seeing Sumire so lifeless, and he couldn't think straight

I still wasn't sure I was thinking straight myself. The events of the night were a blur, a dream; I actually met someone I failed to get rid of. There was the Young Lord and his mental breakdown, then Sumire and hers, then Koko right in front of me.

This was a sudden nightmare I just couldn't seem to wake up from.

Worse: this wasn't the last we were seeing of the man named Shotai.

Didn't I tell you it wasn't going to be as good as how it usually is? I've only gotten back to writing from a year of absence: please go easy on me. As I've done before, if you have any questions, leave it as a review or PM me, though most of them (if they're about Shotai and all) will most likely be answered next chapter. I promise.

Oh, and check out a new story called Of Crowns and Blood by Nymph0913. It's great!

Anyways, thanks for reading and don't forget to leave a review, for I'm sure I need to get back to the writer I used to be.

Stay smexy.