Andromeda

The Inner Man – Episode 13 – Pretend

"Enough already, you said you might know what's wrong with Chiko. What is it?"

The doctor sat down on the bed crossing his legs looking very serious. He placed his hand to his chin rubbing it thoughtfully. He closed his eyes nodding his head to himself, presumably thinking in the empty space where there must be a brain. "Yes, if it is what I think, we must hurry. Chiko doesn't have very long before his personality and memories are lost forever!"

"What!"

"Just kidding!" the doctor said grinning.

"What!?" Mashiro shouted nearly blowing the doctor over through shear strength of lungs. He towered over the doctor once again ready to ring his neck until there was no more air coming out of him. "Quit jerking me around!" Mashiro was unable to restrain himself and punched the doctor as hard as he could knocking him into his bathroom with such force that there was dust bellowing out of the doorway. He eased back into his normal self again panting heavily with his veins still popping in anger.

The doctor crawled out of the bathroom with a pale white face and wearing the toilet seat around his neck and a towel on his head. His eyes were spinning around as he barely made it out of the bathroom before collapsing on the floor. Mashiro went around the bed to check on the doctor to find that he was not moving at all. There was a panicked thought that ran through his head that he was dead, however that was until he heard snoring from the doctor. Mashiro raised his fist, the veins popping again as he whacked him in the head waking the doctor up with a rather large round bruise that appeared.

"Can't take a joke, young people…"

"Quit fooling around and be serious for once! We are talking about Chiko's life here!"

"Calm down, don't have to yell at me. You sound like you are actually worried about him."

"Well, yes. Of course, I am…"

"Isn't he the mission objective? You sound as though you think he is your daughter for real."

"What…he is…I mean NO! Stop confusing me and changing the subject."

"Heh," the doctor said shrugging a little at him. Mashiro was flustered at the moment that he did not even have a quick reply to the doctor. "Now that you are calmed down, I'll explain what I think has happened." The doctor coughed to clear his throat and pulled out a portable screen that he started to draw on it while he began to talk.

"Now from what I got from you, you turned into this hideous beast monster while you were in the process of saving Chiko from his kidnappers. Something like this…" He showed him a rather poorly drawn sketch that looked like a four year old drew it. The image though made Mashiro's veins pop again.

"I'm not a hideous monster!" he said whacking the doctor in the head again, having a second round bruise appear on the first.

The doctor coughed through the pain and continued, "In your beast form…gah…other personality…you attacked the people holding Chiko. All that time he was forced to watch you doing these hideou—malicious—beastly. Stop looking at me like that I'm running out of colorful words."

"Stop fooling around and get to the point," Mashiro said putting his face near to the doctor's in anger.

"Well stop interrupting me while I'm explaining," the doctor said pressing his face against Mashiro's in a struggle. The two locked heads for a minute growling at each other until the doctor quit suddenly and went back to his drawings. "As I was saying, Chiko saw you doing those terrible acts and became terrified. Once it was over and you went to him he refused you. He became distant with you and you with him. He does not trust you anymore to protect him and when you confronted him he tried to run away. The only place he could find to run away and be safe was his mind."

"What do you mean doctor?"

"In most cases, when someone retreats to their mind everything else just shuts down and they appear to be asleep. They go into an unconscious state, possibly a coma if it is severe enough."

"A coma?"

The doctor pulled out a paper fan and whacked Mashiro over the head with it, "Stop interrupting me!"

"Gah! Alright then."

"Right. That is for normal people, but as we know Chiko is not normal. However, it is not for the reason you might think. This has nothing to do with him being mind transferred, if it was any other body, like the body I made him the same thing would have happened for a normal person. But what makes Chiko special is that he is not alone in the body."

Mashiro was about to say something, but only managed a grunt when he got hit with the fan again. He was laid out on the floor painfully feeling the throbbing in his head. The doctor continued while Mashiro glared up at him wanting to punch him again if he could get off the floor and on his feet.

"When I say he is not alone, I mean just that. There are two minds in the body. Though not exactly two human minds, per say. One is Chiko's naturally, but the other is well my daughter's."

Mashiro could not hold himself back anymore and stood up in surprise. "Daughter? What is your daughter doing in a clone facility as your dress up doll?" Before Mashiro was given an answer the doctor smacked him again with the fan sending him to the ground. Then suddenly a large metal bear appear from nothing and landed on top of him. "Gah! My back…"

"Pipe down, I'm still speaking." The doctor sat back down while the bear held down Mashiro. "I call her my daughter, but she is an artificial intelligence that I created and implanted into the mind of the body." The doctor began to blush as he was speaking getting a little shy. "She is my precious girl after all. So I made her a mind of her own with everything that goes along with that."

Mashiro finally managed to get up off the floor knocking the bear to the side, which crashed through the floor. "What do you mean everything that goes along with that?" His misfortune found a wooden penguin sitting on his head out of nowhere that was crushing down on him. "Grrr…"

"She is a magical girl after all."

"You didn't…" Another penguin dropped on him crushing him down even more, he was balancing the two while the doctor continued.

"She is my precious girl, until that accident. All my genius and I can't understand what happened. None of it makes any sense. Oh, my head! Why!" The doctor coughed and then scratched his head in frustration. Then after a few minutes of silence between the two, he continued again. "However, you're making me go on a tangent. The situation right now is that my precious girl is back!" the doctor said glowing with sparkles of light around him.

Mashiro threw off all the things on him and punched the doctor again. "Enough already! So your so-called daughter is in control of the body right now?"

"Yes, I was going to get to that! She is in complete control, whatever she has learned while sealed away and everything that I taught her that is who she will be."

"Well, she does not seem to understand that she has superhuman strength for an eight-year old girl!"

"She just gets a little excited."

"I would hardly call that a little excited. Besides, why is calling me daddy? I'm not her father, you are."

"What!?" the doctor began to cry profusely. "I'm her father, why…doesn't she love me anymore?"

"Huh, doc?"

"Why!" the doctor said grabbing Mashiro by his shirt and staring at him with watery eyes that was making his clothes drenched.

"Wah! Get away from me like that!" Mashiro tried to push the doctor away from him, but his grip only became tighter. "I don't know why, that was why I asked you!"

"Why!"

'Single minded freak, didn't even hear a word I said.' After having his hands washed in a river of tears Mashiro ripped the doctor from him and stuffed him through his screen that he had been drawing on and threw him back into his bathroom. "And come back when you feel like acting normal," he said thinking about that for a moment. "Normal, for you." Mashiro sat down on his bed exhausted from the ordeal with the doctor. He knew the doctor briefly from his time delivering Chiko to him, but other than that there were only rumors. All of the other drivers had refused to go to the doctor having previous experience with him. He understood now why that was the case and wish that he never had met the doctor.

Mashiro laid back in his bed sighing out loud waiting on the doctor to finish crying. He could still hear the sound of muffled sobbing from the bathroom that was making him cringe. The doctor was strange and that was being polite, but Mashiro was tired of everything and just wanted to fix Chiko. There was still so much left unresolved and unsaid between the two of them that he needed the doctor to fix the body so that he could start repairing the rift between the two of them.

The sound of things crashing in the bathroom signaled the doctor's return to the bedroom with his portable screen in his hand. Mashiro looked at him sighing and sat back up on his bed. "Ready to continue doctor?"

"Yes. As I was saying, she is in complete control of the body since Chiko's conscious has retreated. Her conscious has always been there, but Chiko's conscious has managed to suppress it most of the time. However, since Chiko's mind is no longer the dominant mind, she has taken control. Chiko does still exist in the mind somewhere, though I cannot imagine the stress that might be put on his consciousness by being locked away.

"Seeing as Kohana's conscious still exists and intact I do not think that anything serious will happen to Chiko being sealed. However, the human mind is more fragile than an artificial one so I do not know exactly how he will be affected."

"Can you get Chiko back?"

"That is a difficult question to answer and possibly a better one that you should be asking yourself."

"Taken a liking to riddles now doc? Don't know how to do it huh?"

"How dare you insinuate that I, the great genius of our time doesn't know how to bring Chiko back!"

"Get off your high horse, trying psychology and being metaphysical on me. Come on, you don't know do you?"

"Nope," the doctor said crying again. "But if I can see her and examine the mind I might be able to come up with something."

"That is hardly scientific, doctor."

"We are talking about the mind, its too complex to be completely scientific there are still black box areas that we don't understand."

Mashiro was growing tired of listening to the doctor at this point he had his answers. He had to go get Kohana from school; he needed to correct this before anything bad happened with Kohana. Though considering her, he was more worried that she would accidentally injure a kid or even kill them because she did not understand her own strength. 'What sort of person makes a doll with a mind…' Mashiro looked back at the doctor realizing that the answer was more than obvious.

"Well I'm going to go to the school and get her for you. Just make sure my room is put back the way it was before you crashed it." Mashiro began to walk out of the room when the doctor stopped him. "What?"

"Could I have some food? I haven't eaten for a while."

"Yeah, sure make something, just don't make a mess."

"Make something?"

"Don't tell me you don't know how to cook?"

There was another ring from the communication set at the scarred man's side. He continued to ignore it while browsing through the terminal. His men were looking at him while trying to aid in the search. It had been half a day almost since they had a run in with those two men from the assassin that The Superiors had hired. Neither of them had completely recovered from the fight, but they were well enough to do their work.

The scarred man had been ignoring the summons from The Superiors for the last hour. They knew that if he failed to report in soon that there would be far worse problems than simply lying to them about what they knew. Their lead was not getting them anywhere either, the mask seemed to be unknown in the databases that they had searched. They unfortunately could not search the ones that would actually be useful since it would alert either The Superiors or the assassin to them. Neither of them knew what he was thinking anymore, but they knew that they could only follow orders at this point.

After a couple minutes the scarred man got up from the terminal and walked to the back part of the library that they were in. It was the largest in Osaka and the most available of free source material that was harder to trace. They had arrived a few hours ago after their searches through other means failed. The back of the library had actual paper books that had all but become obsolete in this day and age. The two followed him picking up the communication set that he had purposely forgot.

Kitsune did not understand what was going to be in the back of the library that was not in the database. The paper books were catalogued and scanned into the system, he would not need to look at the books if he found what he was looking for already. His motives were becoming stranger by the day and he was growing concerned how long things could remain like this before everything fell apart.

He found the scarred man staring into a book slowly flipping through the pages. It was uncertain whether he was actually looking for something or it was out of simple frustration that they were at a complete dead end. Their target knew that they were looking for them and kept them guessing. They even know so much as where they were to have sent two men to meet them. He did not like the idea that the enemy knew more about what was happening than they did. It was not usual for them to be at the disadvantage so severely that they were waiting for the next move to be made hoping that it would be a mistake.

The scarred man dropped the book on the floor and started walking away. Kitsune picked it up to see what he had found, inside was a piece of paper. On the paper was written a single sentence. 'We're being watched.' He did not even look around knowing that it could alert those who could be watching. The assassin was still on their tail even now in the shadows. Kitsune placed the book back in the shelf and Shisa followed along with the scarred man towards the library exit several floors down.

The three exited outside with the scarred man in the lead going somewhere specific. Kitsune and Shisa simply followed him knowing that he was going to confront to those that were watching them. There was a car parked in the alleyway of a street between the library and another building. It was out of sight, but the scarred man had seen it from the windows of the back of the library. Two men got out of the vehicle to greet them as they approached the car. The scarred man approach the two while Kitsune and Shisa waited behind if there was anyone else to come in to try and help out.

Kohana was bouncing around in her chair excited to be able to go to school for the first time. She had cried for the first few minutes because she did not get to introduce herself like she wanted to. The teacher had looked at her a little strange when she said that it was her first day of school. Sakura had brought her to her seat, which made her happy. She was able to sit next to Sakura.

None of the lessons made a lot of sense to her, though in some strange way she did not really pay much attention to the fact that she knew the answers to them already. It was lunchtime now and she was eating with Sakura grinning without much care in the world. "Oh, Sakura who was the boy we saw this morning?"

"Oh you mean Nobu?"

"Yeah, I like him! He's fun."

"You think so too?!" The two laughed and giggled until Kohana noticed that there was a girl staring at her along with three others. She walked over to them curious to why they had been looking at her for so long. They seemed familiar with her, though she could not remember who they were.

"Hi!"

"What do you want, Kitayama?"

"Oh, I saw you looking at me, were you wanting to share lunch together?"

"No…"

"Oh, do you mind if I eat with you?"

"Didn't my previous answer make that clear to you?"

Kohana was not really listening to Hakuro at this point and was grabbing a chair to sit down with them. The other girls at the table were glaring at her, though Kohana was not paying them much mind. The rest of the class was watching in surprise at her boldness to be sitting down with her 'enemy'. It was more annoying Hakuro that she was being ignored than she was sitting down with them, though that was equally hateful.

"Sakura, come over here lets have lunch with them."

"They want to?"

"No-" Hakuro was trying to say, but Kohana interrupted her.

"She doesn't seem to mind." Kohana looked back at Hakuro staring at her with glowing eyes. "Oh, you have pretty eyes, I can see my reflection." This put Hakuro off guard enough that she was having trouble rejecting Kohana and Sakura's advances to their table. Then Kohana started grabbing other students to eat with them until most of the class was gathered tightly around Hakuro's group enjoying their meal. Everyone was enjoying the show for one reason or another; Hakuro's groupies were even enjoying Kohana's company after she started admiring their hair and clothes. By the end of lunch Hakuro was quietly grinding her food between her teeth and snapping her chop sticks with every bite.

School continued for them with Kohana paying only half attention to what the teacher was saying. She was more interested in everything around her and staring at all of the new things that she had never seen before. She had spent the morning doing the same and she was continuing to go over it all even more. There was nothing that did not make her curious to explore.

Classes ended for them and Kohana left with Sakura to walk home. Sakura left her part of the way home and Kohana continued on planning to return to the house. She knew where it was even though she did not knowing recognize that fact to herself. However, she was distracted by everything that was happening around her causing her to go past the house and down the street further. Kohana chased a butterfly down the sidewalk running her into a bush at the end of the street.

As she lay on her side not really crying, but sad that she could not find the butterfly anymore she saw a dog barking at a cat that was stuck up in a tree. She got herself up and ran over to the dog trying to get it to quit barking. However, the dog was not paying any attention to her with its eyes focused completely on the cat. Kohana struck a bit of a pose pointing at the dog in spite of it not listening to her and began to speak to it.

"How dare you scare a poor innocence kitty up a tree like that dog? You have no right to be frightening kitties everywhere with your barking. Dogs and kitties should be living together in friendship playing with each other. I can feel the anger in your bark and I shall not let it continue to corrupt others. I shall have to force you to end your evil ways since you cannot see reason." Upon that there was a bright light that actually did get the dog's attention and the cat as well which was already crawling down the back of tree while the dog was distracted. Inside the light was Kohana spinning around slowly as her clothes began to change.

First, her school clothes disappeared with a basic white one-piece bathing suit replacing it. Then over the swimsuit appeared a red skirt that spun around her in place puffing out fuller than her school uniform skirt. Further additions came that added a reddish short sleeve shirt that almost looked like robes. Around her waist a light blue sash with hearts all along it that dangled at her left side with fuzzy little balls at the end of the sash. Next were gold bracelets with a red heart at the top of them, one for each of her wrists. Finally, a heart shaped pendant that appeared hanging from her neck. From the pendant pink light burst from it spreading cherry blossoms and hearts, as it became a larger heart shape device that she grasped in her hand.

The dog was sweating in embarrassment as it thought about running away afraid of the girl. The transformation was finished and the light was gone with Kohana…a different girl standing in front of the dog.

"Heart Rod Magic!" the girl shouted as the heart shaped device transformed into a small rod held in one hand with a shiny red heart at the tip. She pointed the rod at the dog that was growing scared. "Let the evil in your heart be gone!" However, before she could do anything the dog was already fleeing down the street trying to get away as fast as possible. The girl looked around trying to find the dog and let out a sigh in disappointment. A light appeared soon afterwards revealing Kohana in her normal school uniform.

Kohana bounced off down the street continuing to look around not really knowing where she was going. After probably what was an hour, though concept of time to Kohana was lost to her, she ended up outside of the residential area. She found herself at the corner of a busy intersection watching all of the people walking. Everyone was going about their business in a rush ignoring Kohana as she spun around being caught up in the passing lines of people. She continued to spin around becoming dizzy and collapsing to the ground to find her balance. As she laid on the ground her eyes finally came to focus on the sidewalk. Through the steps of people walking she saw an old woman walking slowly across the crosswalk.

Kohana immediately leapt up to her feet and jumped up out of the crowd of people already transformed into that other girl again. She rushed out to the street to help the woman across safely when the woman entered a car that was parked at the side of the street. The car drove away as the girl stood in the middle of the street disappointed waiting to cry. However, she was noticed by a few of the people walking by that caused the chain reaction of people stopping to look at her in either confusion or adoring her cute outfit.

Now left with nothing to save, she bowed politely to everyone jumped away to everyone's amazement. She transformed herself back as she made it further down the street continuing her exploration of the city. The constant wonderment that it brought never seemed to end, it was also dragging her further away from home. It was unlikely she even knew where she was anymore having become lost in the flow of people walking.

After several blocks she was pulled into a building accidentally. She had tried to push against everyone, but she was dragged in with the motions of the other people. Once she was inside the building she forgot that she wanted out and continued to look around inside. The hall was large with a ceiling several floors high and numerous stores lining the interior. She found herself at the end of the hall that opened into a large bank with an old fashion design held over from the twentieth century period. The large architecture and design got her excited that she continued to stare at it finding funny shapes in the designs that made her giggle. While she was distracted by the eye candy her feet walked her into the bank which happened to be in the process of being robbed.

The sound of a rough voice did nothing to break her concentration, "Hey, little girl what you think you are doing?" As she ignored the man he became angrier showing a vein popping on his forehead. He pointed his gun at her to try to emphasis his point, but since she was looking upwards it went unnoticed. "Quit staring at the ceiling and get down there with everyone else!" The man pushed Kohana, which finally broke her from her trance that she was held in by the ceiling.

Now that she was paying attention to what was happening in the bank the five robbers all turned their guns on her surrounding her. She was shaking uncontrollably realizing what was happening, but not out of fear, it was excitement. Kohana lowered her head slightly looking around giving a smirk as she raised her head back up ready to take them on. It was the first time that she would be able to use her powers to help out those in real need of saving. She smiled at them, though none of the robbers understood why until there is a bright light.

Kohana slowly began to lose her school uniform with it being replaced by a bathing suit. Then the skirt appeared around her spinning into place. As another item was appearing when everything was brought to halt when one of the robbers tapped her. The transformation light popped away and she looked around at them confused, about as confused as they were.

"What you think you are doing girl?"

"You interrupted me!"

"Stop stalling and get with the others!"

"You interrupted my transformation, how dare you! You aren't supposed to do that."

"What?" The robbers started to look at each other confused as to what she was talking about.

"What's going on boss?"

"Who's this girl?"

"Shut up!" He stared at Kohana pointing his gun at her. "Stop your nonsense and get over with the others."

"But you stopped my transformation! How am I supposed to save these people half transformed."

"Huh?"

One of the robbers got down near to her tapping her to get her attention that was focused on the boss. "You know should probably be doing that out of sight right?"

"What?" she said confused.

"If you are transforming, do you want the bad guys to see your real identity?"

"What you could see me?!" Kohana said shrieking at the realization as well as noticing that she was half clothed, mainly in a bathing suit.

"What do you think you are doing playing along with her?" the boss said punching the man that spoke up in the head.

"Perverts!" Kohana shouted throwing vast amounts of what she had in her school pack. While they were being held up by things being flung through the air she pushed through two of them, which send them flying across the bank and knocking them out. The sudden act of force left the other three robbers stunned and unable to react as Kohana disappeared behind part of the bank counter. From behind there she started the transformation over again.

She barely got through the skirt again before she was interrupted by one of the hostages. "You know you could just skip all of that and just transform immediately."

"Really?"

"Yes, saves on time and the budget."

"Thanks, mister!"

She took his advice and finished up the transformation in record time and appeared on the top of the counter pointing down at the three remaining robbers. Her shadow cast across the bank grabbing their attention immediately, that and she started to speak loudly at them. "Attention villains! How dare you commit vile acts against the innocence? You have no right to be taking hostages and holding these people against their wills. I can feel the evil of your soul and it corrupts your hearts. There is still redemption for ones like you. But if you resist, I will be forced to-"

The hostage that had helped her out before popped up behind her poking her in the back. This caused her monologue to stop as she looked down to see who it was. The man was looking up at her, but she immediately kicked him in the face as she became embarrassed. "What are you doing looking up my skirt!" The man slid across the back of the bank with the red print of her small shoe on his face.

Another one popped up to replace him, though ducking when she swung her leg again. "I think what he wanted to say was that you don't need to monologue again. You already did it once, that should be enough for one episode."

"Oh. I'm sorry. But it sounded so good and I got these great spot to recite from. Its too good to pass up."

"But shouldn't you spend your efforts stopping them?"

"But what about my monologue," she said whining. Everyone sighed; the robbers sweated in embarrassment until they broke through their stunned state and fired their gun at her.

"Heart Barrier Magic!" she shouted as hundreds of tiny little hearts suddenly fell from above her out of nowhere. The shower of hearts created a barrier in front of her that sent the bullets speeding off as they were deflected. The robbers looked at each other confused by what happened, especially by the fact that she actually had real powers. Two of them ran away leaving their bosses standing alone, his eye twitching.

"I've had enough of your games! Die!" the man pulled out a large tube from behind him that had letters and numbers written on the side, 'RX-A-PG-768'. He did not even pause in pulling the trigger as a rocket launched from the tube aimed straight at her.

"Where did he get that rocket launcher from?!" one of the hostage shouted.

"Doesn't matter at this point where!? Just run!" another said.

Kohana, rather the magical girl on the counter did not even flinch with the incoming attack. She held up the barrier as the rocket came towards her. The rocket hit the hearts, but did not explode yet. It pushed against the barrier trying to break through. The seconds counted away as the tension built in the room whether or not the barrier would hold it. All of the hostages were hiding the corner trying to get out of the way of the imminent explosion.

"It's going to blow!"

Light began to fill the room as the rocket began to explode everyone praying to be safe. However, there was no explosion or crumbling walls. Everywhere there were paper hearts falling down, raining over the entire bank to everyone's surprise. She let the barrier down smiling as the rocket had vanished and the boss was left shocked, but angry that his attack did not work. The hostages all sighed in relief to know that they were safe.

"Heart Whip Magic!" she shouted as she leapt through the air over the boss twirling her whip made of hearts with happy faces on them. The hearts became like a rope that wrapped around him tightening where he could no longer move at all. He fell over in a pile of hearts. She smiled look down at him. "Good always triumphs over evil!"

"Stupid brat!"

All of the hostages came to thank her for saving them as police arrived at the bank in a confused state from the appearance of the bank. She went behind the bank counter and returned to Kohana the schoolgirl, innocence and unassuming hero disappearing into the city smiling to herself.

"Quit it already, I've heard enough of your stories to last me a lifetime. You've already held me too long. Now let me go get Kohana from school!" Mashiro said pushing the doctor out of his face again. He finished making him food a long time ago. The doctor had eaten everything that he had prepared for him at a surprising rate, as though he had never eaten anything before. Mashiro cleaned out of most of his food no thanks to the doctor's bottomless appetite for food. He was forced to keep feeding him so that he did not have to listen to his whining about his precious girl.

The man kept going on about her to no end. It was worse than an overly excited parent that wanted to show off their child to everyone. He was proud of her in ways that was rather creepy seeing as she was a simple doll almost. Then he would start crying again mumbling things about 'daddy' or 'father' none of it was intelligible to Mashiro. The doctor had kept that going for what seemed like hours going between praising himself for his genius in creating her and praising how beautiful of a creation she was. Mashiro was beyond aspiration with him, he was melting across the table in boredom.

Unfortunately for Mashiro the doctor had been holding him down the times that he tried to leave. He had started forcing him to listen to his stupid tales as a doctor when he amazingly ran out of things to say about his creation. It was even more boring to listen and down right creepy some of the things that the doctor told him. Mashiro was regretting calling him the longer that he stayed. The only thing was making Mashiro not kick him back to Tokyo was that he was the only one that was anywhere close to being able to figure out Chiko's condition.

"Its six in the evening, she is already finished with school."

"What?! You kept me here listening to your stories the entire day! Where is Kohana then if school is out?" Mashiro rushed out of the kitchen with the doctor being dragged along behind him trying to stop him. "What's your problem? Let go of me. I need to find here now!"

"But there is so much more I want to talk to you back, she'll be fine. She can take care of herself."

"That is what I'm afraid of." Mashiro dragged the doctor through the house and in the car as he pulled out and sped off to look for Kohana. "Thanks to you, she could now could be anywhere if she does not know how to get back home." The doctor sat quiet in the car looking down in his own world, but that suited Mashiro right now.

The scarred man walked away from the alley along with his two men behind him. The scene they left had four dead men laying in the alley bruised and shot. He had finished with them and had a few more pieces of information to take back with him. These were weaker than the last ones. It meant that they were either running out of good men to send after him or they were sending weaklings on purpose for a reason.

He knew that the assassin was smart, she was obviously planning things even in her defeat. The way she had handled everything else up to this point told him that much. It bothered him how much she was throwing people at him. There had to be a plan, a reason for all of this that he was not seeing. She was leaking information to her location slowly by sending these people after him. He did not know what reason she had for doing this, but he knew that he had to keep looking.

His once simple mission of killing a stray was becoming more complex. There were too many factors at work that were manipulating different sides of the puzzle. He was left trying to sort it all out while the puzzle was being rearranged constantly against him. There was more going on here now than some simple killing, more agendas then he understood at the moment. This had the scent of a trap; he did not like it at all.

Preview for the next episode:

"Kohana here once again! I'm still here! I hope you all enjoyed the exploits of the Magical Girl Kohana, because the entire next episode will feature me!"

"Get real! Like we would give you a full episode for you," Mashiro says.

"What? You mean I'm not going to be in the next episode?"

"I didn't say that!"

"Wahhh!! I hate you!"

"Wa-what?! N-n-now take it easy, I'm sure we can work something out. Wahahah! Help!"

"Daddy...waah!"

"Well she's gone now. Don't miss the next episode of The Inner Man, Gemini! Car stunts, magical girls, crazy doctors and ruthless hitmen, you better not miss it!

"Where's my daughter?"

"Did I mention crazy doctors? Maybe Chiko will get to kick him again...hey that's your cue." The sound of things breaking and painful screams can be heard. "Err...why me...who made up this line anyway! Tee hee! I'm going to go kill myself now."