Disclaimer 1: I do not own the original concept of the PPC. That idea belongs to Jay and Acacia. Go read them for they are the original and the best!

Disclaimer 2: I do not own any of the anime/fandoms/worlds/etc… that appear in this fic. They belong to their respective creators.

Disclaimer 3: I do not own any of the Mary-Sues that will be featured here. They belong to their respective writers. If I offend anyone, I apologize in advance.

Date: April 17, 2005

Ueru hated waiting. He was quite a patient person at heart, but he hated waiting all the same, because sometimes it meant that he had to be surrounded by other people and he honestly preferred sitting alone, in a closet with only a computer as his friend. Of course, he had tried switching departments many times since joining the PPC, but the Department of Mary-Sues was so understaffed that any transfers were quite impossible, unless he found a replacement for himself.

Fat chance of that happening. The day that the PPC started getting recruits more than once every blue moon would be the day that he got married and as someone who heavily enjoyed his freedom from a spouse it was bordering on 'not quite' and 'never'. He remembered with disdain how he had been almost pushed into marrying some woman he barely knew back in his home world and found that marriage was one of the things he liked the least once he had been recruited as an agent.

There were only three things in life that he truly enjoyed and these three things were: being alone, doing taxes and gardening. The first two were rather expected of him (for he was often told that he had the attitude and mentality of an accountant) and the latter often got people gaping at him in disbelief, so he pretended with proficiency to dislike everything around him. That included any rooms where he was forced to wait his turn talking to the Marquis de Sod.

There weren't that many waiting to have a turn with the Marquis at the moment, which Ueru was very thankful for. Just one more person and he could try, once again, to ask if he could switch departments. Covertly, he looked at his neighbour from the corner of his eye, who was playing with a piece of red yarn in a game of Cat's Cradle…and doing very poorly. Her fingers were just a tangled mess and one couldn't be sure just by looking where the yarn began and ended. But she obviously did not seem to mind at all. Although she did find his gaze a little distracting, as she was soon to tell him when she made eye contact.

"Is there something that you wanted from me?" she inquired politely. "If there's nothing, you shouldn't stare." He looked at her with little or no expression as he shrugged a reply. She looked at him intently for a few moments before going back to her fruitless game. A few more moments after that she gave up on trying to create a ladder with the piece of yarn, so she began to undo everything. As she untangled the yarn she tried striking up a conversation with him.

"So…what are you here for?" she asked, looking at Ueru expectantly. Ueru did not answer her and tried very hard to ignore her. This was why he didn't like waiting. People thought that someone being quiet meant that they had issues that needed sorting out so tried talking at them until they said something. And that sort of thing never ended. They could just jabber on and on. So, the girl went on as predicted. "Well, I'm here to get assigned a partner and a department. A separate response centre would be nice, but I'm honestly not going to hold my breath on that. But with circumstances as they are, you never really know…"

Ueru pretended that he was in his happy little lamp garden in his response centre at the Department of Mary-Sues where he was partnerless and left well enough alone. He was not sitting in a room, waiting to talk to a mutant daisy, hearing some silly girl prattle on about only gods knew what. And he repented for ever letting himself make eye contact with a female. That was how all the great ninjas tended to go down…by making eye contact with someone.

"…and I've always fancied having a good responsible partner, but I'm holding my breath even less than that. Did you know that there used to be three man teams working together? It's a shame that HQ is spread so thin. Bakeru's got so much work to do…I heard that the Pit of…um…Voles just keeps growing every day…"

He sighed and ran a hand through his long brown hair irritably, wishing he could just tell her to shut-up. Listening to her go on, he swore he knew parakeets that squawked less than she did. He wondered if she even stopped for breaths in between sentences.

"Um…hello? Sir?"

He blinked. Her hand was waving in his face as she stood in front of him, regarding him in a mixture of concern and curiosity. Once he made eye contact with her once again, she put her hand down and smiled.

"There we go. The Marquis said he wanted to see you now." She told him. Ueru nodded numbly at her and stood up to go, but she stopped him. "Hang on a moment." She took out the piece of yarn from her pocket and stepped behind him. He felt her gently tug on his hair a bit as she tied it up. As she finished with her work Ueru reached behind to inspect what she had done, worried that she had braided his hair. But she hadn't. She just tied it up.

"…What's this for…?" he asked, speaking to her for the first time. She shrugged.

"No, reason." She replied. He nodded in understanding.

The two of them stood awkwardly together for a few moments longer, not knowing what to say to the other. Finally, as he grew tired of the silence that stretched between them, Ueru decided to be polite and introduce himself. He, after all, made eye contact with the girl twice now and it would just be rude not to greet her properly.

"My name is Ueru…Ueru Betsubetsuni. A pleasure to meet you." He said, nodding his head to her. She smiled and gave him a small bow in return.

"My name is Keily Shinra. And it's nice to meet you, too, Ueru."