Hello everyone! First off, I wanted to apologise for not getting anything new up in a while. It's been a long year and dealing with a lot of things going on on my end, especially with the passing of my father last month. But I found some time to finally be able to update something for everyone to enjoy for the holidays. Anyways, enjoy!

Black Dragon, Snowy Moon
Installment #09: Servers

"There, that should do it." Kirihara sat back from the laptop she brought over to Mitsuki's. It had been a couple of weeks since going to see Horai and getting the needed information out of him to find the people needed to help set up the servers.

"I'll get Mao then," the black and white haired girl spoke up as she stood from sitting beside her on the couch.

Nodding, Kirihara watched the younger girl disappear down the hallway to her room for a moment then came back holding the black cat. Mao gave a small wiggle in her arms then settled down as she shushed him softly. He was still skittish around the police chief but he'd gotten a bit more used to her over time.

"You remember that promise I made you Mao?" Mitsuki spoke up softly to the black cat in her arms as she sat down on the couch beside the older woman. "That I'd take care of you if something happened to you and I'd do everything I could to get you back to being you? Well, I'm making good on that promise. We got servers up and running for you now. All you have to do is log in to them." She turned the cat to face the screen with the needed information on it for him to use. "See? This is the information you'll need to reconnect to them."

Watching the cat look at the screen for a moment, Mao gave a yawn and bored expression like a normal cat. He gave a small wiggle wanting down out of her arms. She gave a sigh and set him down before he trotted off towards the hallway again and disappeared around the corner.

"Did it work?" Kirihara asked.

"I'm not sure," Mitsuki sighed. "Mao never told me the specifics on how he has connection to the servers. Just that to keep in control so the animal brain doesn't take over, he has to constantly download data packs to make up for what the animal brain lacks." She gave a small pause as she looked at the computer screen but not really reading it. "I just….I miss him. I miss the sassy remarks he can give and always begging for fish." She looked down at her hands on her lap. "And I miss Hei and Yin. I wish there was some way to know they're okay. I mean, I know Hei's still alive since his star is still there. But I don't know how they're doing physically and whether either of them are hurt or not. I know Hei will protect Yin with everything he's got."

"I'm sure they're fine," Kirihara spoke with encouragement. "I know it's been tough not knowing if they're doing alright." She gave a soft smile as the younger girl looked at her. "I miss talking to Hei too. And I'd love to get to know Yin. And Mao too if he can be restored by these servers." She gave a pause. "Besides, if it's possible, I'd love to be able to bring him in on my team."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think he'd make a great asset in helping spot spectres and do some surveillance for us," the police chief nodded in reply. "Plus, he can help us to find other Syndicate members. If I can convince the higher ups that he'd be valuable, they might let him off the hook for any punishments with being part of the Syndicate. Though, I don't know what kind of punishments they could really do given he's in a cat body, other than pull the plug on the servers. But that's about as bad as what the Syndicate tried to do with eradicating the Gates and thus all Contractors and Dolls."

Suddenly, Mao came walking back from the hallway. He came over to Mitsuki and sat down in front of her feet, tail curled around him with the tip gently tapping the floor. His gaze went up towards the police chief and studied her. She gave a blink, as did Mitsuki, before the younger girl realised the stance was that of the old Mao.

"So you know about Hei and Yin?" he suddenly spoke up, catching Kirihara a little off guard. The black cat turned his head towards Mitsuki. "Don't tell me you told her about Hei?"

"Uh….no….actually I figured it out on my own," Kirihara finally replied, getting the black cat's attention. He raised an eyebrow at her. "I sort of figured it out the night July, April, and I stormed into that building where Amber was holding Dr. Schroeder."

"Wait….from that time? How?" Mao gave a puzzled look. He recalled the interaction brief between everyone and Hei hadn't said a word as he sat there on the floor before Huang had used that flash grenade to give them the chance to escape.

"I saw his eye through the crack in his mask," Kirihara replied. "There's only one person I knew that had eyes that colour of blue. Plus, I found his dragon necklace Yuuki made him on the floor by the crosswalk. It must have slipped off when he was leaving after that flash grenade went off."

"And you didn't come try to arrest him afterwards?" Mao raised another eyebrow at her. After all, she could have detained him the next day easily.

"Well, I got to thinking about it later that night after getting home," the police chief said. "I had put the necklace in my pocket and didn't show April, July, or anyone else it. If Li really was Hei, I…I guess I didn't really know what to do." She gave a pause. "I mean, he did save Saitou's and my life back during the incident at the hotel with Wei and Alice. And then helping to hide with that Contractor that attacked us and Mitsuki that night. So I owed him that much.

"But I also realised with that incident when Mitsuki revealed her powers, she was protecting Hei from having to reveal himself. And not only that, but with how Hei reacted to her revealing her powers, he had no idea about them either." She paused and looked at the younger girl. "It was why she said what she did about not wanting to seem like a monster to Hei. Or that she'd help with any Contractor I needed to capture except for BK-201 due to him being far more skilled in combat than using powers alone. It was to convey to him she was still on his side."

"Yeah. It was the only thing I could really do to let him know so he didn't flip out in front of Kirihara," Mitsuki nodded as she looked at the black cat, who had turned his attention to her. "Otherwise, he could have easily killed the both of us and left our bodies there to be found whenever the factory opened up next."

"And not only that, but I guess I also didn't want to see Yuuki sad if I were to have arrested Hei," Kirihara added. "I look back on it now and even if I did, he probably would have been able to escape."

"No, he'd have been a dead man," Mao said with a twitch of his tail. "If any of us had gotten captured, we'd have been dead within an hour. Once our covers are blown, the Syndicate would have tossed us out like old garbage."

"Seriously? Even with how good Hei is?" the police chief asked in surprise. The black cat Contractor nodded. "Geez." But she did have to admit, from what Horai had done with Nishijima, she wouldn't have put it past the Syndicate to have taken Hei out if he'd been captured. With his identity known, he couldn't run covert operations anymore and he'd be on all sorts of watch lists from police agencies around the world.

"Why do you think the Syndicate cut us loose before the Solar Maximum happened?" the black cat pointed out. "Because they realised Hei's power was what Amber needed to repeat the events at Heaven's Gate. Kill him and she couldn't do what she needed to transform the Gate." He gave a pause then looked at Mitsuki. "But obviously since we're still here, he didn't transform it."

"No he didn't," Mitsuki replied with a shake of her head. "But he did stop the Syndicate's plans to eradicate the Gate."

"How so?" The tip of the black tail twitched in curiosity.

"Well…." The black and white haired girl looked to the police chief.

"Dr. Schroeder explained that he changed the molecular structure of the anti-Gate particles with his power so that they basically became regular particles and rendered useless to use in the Jupiter Ring they created as backup to the Saturn Ring." The black cat blinked. "I'm just as lost about what it means, but Kanami would be able to explain stuff easier."

"Basically, Hei's and my powers go beyond electrical shocks," Mitsuki explained to the black cat. "We have the ability to manipulate molecules on the atomic level as Ishizaki explained to us. And also what my brother mentioned in his letter he wrote me explaining everything, including a little bit on his powers of being able to manipulate molecules. What our siblings did was they used their powers on us to well…"

"Fuse?" Mao finished when she trailed off for a moment trying to think how to best explain it. She gave a blink at him for mentioning the word. "Huang and I figured it out before everything went down at the Gate the day after what happened at that building with Amber. After I told Hei what Amber told me about the Syndicate's plan and that Amber had been fighting against them the whole time, he got pissed and took off to wherever.

"Huang told me after that a little bit of information regarding Hei. He'd found out that his younger sister was more feared than he was back in South America and that he hadn't even acquired his powers back then. I was surprised to hear he had a sister and the fact that Hei told Huang about you being a Contractor."

"Wait...he knew?" Mitsuki gave a blink.

"Yeah. I guess Hei told him when they were scouting out the building I was being kept in by Amber," Mao replied. "I was surprised he wasn't upset by it." He gave a short laugh. "In fact, Huang said it wasn't surprising that Hei would find a girlfriend that's just as unusual as the rest of us in the team. He said he knew your brother was a Contractor because you told him when he confronted you when you were retrieving his gear that time and told him his obeisance of feeling emotions. Hei said something about you having the same one as your brother to Huang. And since neither of us knew Hei's, we thought because of him acting so weird at times, he obviously had the same as you. It would explain why he didn't listen half the time.

"But then Yin said that that wasn't true about either of you," Mao continued. "That you both had none and you said you always had your emotions since you became a Contractor. And yet neither of you were ever Contractors to begin with as what Amber told her. Both Huang and I were stunned but that got us thinking and we realised that both of your siblings did something to transfer their powers to you without a price to pay for using them. Yin confirmed it saying Amber called it fusion. Right after that, we realised Amber needed Hei's power to recreate what happened in South America and that the Syndicate probably realised it too. Which meant we, as a team, were screwed. We needed to find Hei and get the hell out of there because we knew they'd send others after us. While getting what we could and looking for Hei, Huang got shot." He paused, ears flattening a bit. "He didn't make it."

"I know. Hei left me a note before he left," Mitsuki spoke as she reached down, picked up the black cat in her arms, and set him on her lap. He didn't protest her doing so. "He said he and Yin would be on the run and to find you and take care of you. And I did have my promise to you that I would do so."

"Yeah, yeah." Mao's ears turned backwards but he was actually glad for her doing so. She gave a chuckle at his supposed indifference before giving him a kiss on his head, which he gave an annoyed look at her.

"You're very welcome," she replied knowing he was thankful for her help.

"So if it's possible, would you be interested in joining my team at Section Four?" Kirihara spoke up, getting his attention.

"I think it would be a great idea," Mitsuki added. "You could help take down Syndicate members." She gave a pause. "That way maybe Hei and Yin can return sooner. And Huang can rest in peace knowing his death wasn't in vain."

Black cat ears turned backwards as he gave a look of uncertainty. "You know as soon as they find out that I worked with Hei, they're going to want to know who he is."

"I understand that," Kirihara nodded. "I've already come up with some solutions to keep Hei's identity safe for the time being. Whenever he returns, I also plan on having him join Section Four. With the both of you on my team, we'd be able to easily take down the rest of the Syndicate. Plus, he'd be helpful in capturing other Contractors that stir up trouble."

"And he won't have to kill them either," Mitsuki added. "He's told me he's always hated the killing he had to do. But it was either do that to protect his sister and himself or get killed."

"And if he doesn't want to join Section Four?" Mao inquired with a flick of his tail as he looked at the police chief.

"I'm confident he will," she replied then looked to the two-toned eyed girl beside her. "With what Mitsuki mentioned how he always wished to protect others, the offer will certainly be something he'd like."

"Well, even if he did, what about your subordinates? They obviously know Hei as Li. How are you going to work that out? Or the fact that he's….well….like a Contractor? Most specifically the one you've been after all this time."

"They accepted me as a Contractor with no problems," Mitsuki replied as Mao turned his attention to her. "They know I worked with BK-201 because during the events of the Tokyo Explosion, I sort of wore my outfit Hei gave me." She gave a small laugh of embarrassment. "But I proved I was trustworthy because I did save Saitou's life and they know me from our other interactions we've had in the past. We won't tell them about who Hei really is for now. I figured let him continue to seem like the Li they know and when he's ready, he can tell them. By then, they should see he's a good guy and helpful on their team. At least, that's the plan."

"That's a big risk and a lot of confidence things won't fall apart before then," Mao pointed out before turning his ears backwards. "After all, he is wanted by multiple organisations. Who's to say the NPA won't just lock him up?"

"That's why I'd like him to show through his work at Section Four that he's good but was just used by the Syndicate to do what he did," Kirihara replied. "Just like they did to you. I know you're a good person deep down."

"I'm hardly a person." Black cat ears turned backwards.

"I still see you as a person regardless of your body," Mitsuki spoke as she pulled him into a gentle hug. "It's what's inside that counts." Kirihara nodded in agreement.

Mao gave a sigh as Mitsuki let go of him but he remained on her lap. His ears turned backwards as he tapped his tail for a moment in silence. "If I do join Section Four, what will you pay me?" Kirihara gave a blink. "Because the Syndicate paid me in cans of tuna."

"Well...um…." Kirihara gave another blink and looked at Mitsuki as she chuckled. "I suppose I'll have to hash that out with the higher ups. I suppose we could pay you in money to buy the fish you want if that's possible."

"I can be the one to buy all the fish you want too," Mitsuki added with a chuckle.

"I suppose that isn't a bad idea." Mao gave a couple taps to his tail. "Fine. I'll take up on this offer of yours. But I'm still not giving Hei's identity away. I….I owe him that much." His ears turned backwards at his own words, which made Mitsuki chuckle.

"Thank you Mao," she spoke up as she pulled him into another hug and kissed the top of his head.

"Yeah, yeah. Enough with the kisses already." Both women chuckled at his embarrassment.

"Alright. Then I'll contact my superiors and work through a deal with them about you," the police chief spoke with a nod. "You might have to meet them in person but I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I'll be there with you no matter what too," Mitsuki added with a smile.


Well, that's the chapter. Mao's up and back to normal again! Just wait until he gets to meet Section Four. *grins*
Also thanks again for the patience for me to get this up. As I said, it's been one hectic mess over here dealing with a lot of stuff on my end. But I do want to wish everyone safe and happy holidays with whatever you celebrate (Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, Diwali, and any other holiday I didn't mention) and a great New Year. May the next year bring better days to everyone. Look forward to more updates soon! *hands out cookies and candies*