These seem to be getting shorter and shorter, dammit. But I have to cut at some point and it's either a chapter a bit shorter everytime, or twice as long.

Random rambling about my personal life that you can skip without no worries of missing anything important : I'm now an adult and officially out of school. Wow.

I'm going to say this once and for all : the chapter titles are a bit random already but they are also going to get more than a bit ridiculous. Sorry in advance.

Hope you like this chapter. :)

Fall has gone, winter has come, and stinging wind and wet snow with it. Ryouko's arm has healed completely and they have gotten used to each other (meaning Ryouko still screams when Kousuke inadvertently walks in on her changing and still beats the crap out of him later, but still never locks the door). Kousuke hasn't had another pain fit for a week and is starting to think it was nothing after all. They've moved again, to a small apartment above the restaurant : it's easier to heat up and keep warm, and they don't have to go out in the cold to get food. They probably wouldn't catch a cold anyway, but they just don't like it. Besides, they like moving, breaking up the routine, setting up a new home and finding out they can be home anywhere.

Kousuke waits for the snowfall to stop, then he puts on the nice boots and furry jacket he's found and goes out to find some food. The streets are empty, as always, but they're coated in pure untrodden, unspoiled white, and somehow that changes a lot. And it's a nice change. The city seems simply asleep, instead of just plain dead.

Kousuke freezes when, in the thin blanket of fresh snow on the pavement, he sees footsteps.

Upon closer inspection, he almost instantly notices, with a relieved sigh, that they're much too small to be an adult's — even smaller than his. Still, he follows them silently and carefully.

He's about to turn a corner when there's a loud 'BANG' behind him and he almost jumps out of his skin. He turns around, but there's no one, of course there's no one ; just a cloud of eye-stinging grey smoke and the smell of rotten egg. On some strange impulse, he looks up.

A small girl is sticking out her pigtailed head from an upstairs window. She is also sticking out her tongue at him, then she raises her hand and throws down another firecracker, aiming right at his head. He recovers from the shock just enough to jump out of the way.

"What are you doing here ?" the girl shouts.

"I could ask you the same !" Kousuke yells back through the smoke. "Why are you throwing crackers ?!"

The firecracker he recognizes as one of those 'cool' things that used to be so popular among the teenaged boys of his district : little things that produced a stinking smell, stinging smoke, and a sound loud enough to give teachers heart-attacks. He could buy them a few houses down his street, barely more expensive than sweets. They were still the latest trend when his school closed down ; there are probably still some stashed away in his treasure box, under his bed, in his old house.

The girl pouts. "We~ll, I thought you might be troublesome. And since you are, I think I'm gonna find some more..." Her head disappears under the windowsill, and Kousuke hurries inside the house and up the stairs.

She's waiting for him on the first floor, sitting on the windowsill with a sweet smile on her face, a firecracker in each hand and a plastic bag full of them in her lap. He gulps.

"Hi," she says, still smiling widely.

He stares at her before answering, slowly, hesistantly : "... Hi ?"

She's incredibly small and, despite her gray hair, she looks very young ; about eight maybe, ten at most. But here she is, in the middle of a dead neighbourhood, grinning and not looking worried at all. (And throwing crackers at random strangers.) He really has a right to wonder.

"You a Blade kid ?" he thus asks.

Her eyes widen suddenly, pupils narrowing to slits like an angry cat's, and her smile vanishes as she raises both hands above her head.

"Hey, hey, calm down !" Kousuke yells before she can throw the crackers at him. "Me too ! It's fine, I'm not gonna take you anywhere !"

She narrows her eyes, but doesn't move.

"Why are you here ?" he continues in a slow, soothing voice. "I've been alone around here for months, I'd have noticed if you'd been here all this time."

She shrugs and seems to relax a little. Kousuke breathes. "That's because I've just come here once or twice before. I live on the other side of the quarantine borderline."

Kousuke frowns. "What ? And don't you get caught ? Don't they notice a lonely kid ?"

She giggles. "Oh, no, they know me. I've always been wandering the streets alone and I tell them my mom sent me to do the groceries, so they don't wonder." Kousuke stares at her and the edge in her soft smile tells him not to ask about her mother. "What about you ?" she retaliates. "Everybody's dead around here."

"I know," Kousuke mumbles. "But I lived here before, so."

She lets out a soft "oh" and gets up, and stretches like a small cat. She isn't much taller standing than sitting. "Well, Stranger-kun, I'll be going. It was nice to meet you. Bye-bye !" She waves as she trots to the stairs.

"Wait !" Kousuke says before he can think. She throws him a glance over her shoulder. "Won't you... Well, you look like you can manage on your own —"

She rolls her eyes as if to say 'obviously', but he decides to ignore her.

"— but wouldn't you like some company ?"

She stares.

"We could... y'know," he hesistates on how to phrase that, "... watch out for each other ?"

She keeps staring.

"Or something."

She lets out a sudden giggle, slit eyes glinting with mischief. "Mom always told me not to talk to strangers," she says, wagging her finger, "I don't think she'd have liked me to bring a boy home !"

"I'm Asazuki Kousuke, a Blade child like you," he says. "There's a girl with me, her name's Ryouko. She's the same."

She stops laughing and studies him for a few seconds, a little impish smile still on the corner of her mouth.

"Maybe," she finally answers. "I'm Takeuchi Rio. Show me where you live."

He grins back and shows her the way.

Ryouko is freaked out of her mind to see him come back home with a grinning little girl (still holding a bag of firecrackers). Rio flightily introduces herself and, while Ryouko demands that Kousuke explain, takes a look around their (current) house.

Kousuke is barely finished when she comes back out of his bedroom and, still grinning, deems the place 'dirty, smelly and uncute' and immediately insist on taking them both back to her apartment, in district 15.

Kousuke is a bit nervous to be back in the streets of a living district, but he hides it as best he can, if only because a dirty kid looking nervous has got to attract suspicion in this part of Eden. (Also, because Ryouko is obviously very nervous and obviously trying her hardest to hide it, too.) To his surprise, though, the trip is remarkably uneventful as there are next to no passersby in the streets ; the only person they pass is one tired-looking woman sitting on a carpet on the pavement, pieces of jewelry with price tags laid out in front of her.

Rio's place is in one of those apartment buildings that are rare in district 18, but seem to be the only kind of habitations in district 15. When she opens the door and goes in, Kousuke almost expects her to ask 'Mooom, can I keep them ?' in the cute voice that girls use to whine and that never fails to make adults comply. But there is no mother waiting in Rio's silent apartment.

It's a small place, meant for only two persons, cute and clean and girly-pretty. It's the evening already, so Rio opens a pantry with glittery stickers scattered all over the door, takes out a bright pink and blue bag and cooks them a dinner of weirdly shaped pasta (probably supposed to look like flowers, butterflies and such - girly stuff).

For the night, the girls share the double-bed of the only bedroom. Kousuke settles on the couch and is given a pink pillow, a small frilly cushion and a starry blanket.

The next morning, Rio serves them sugary cereals in pastel pink bowls and Kousuke blurts out that he just can't stay there.

Ryouko punches him for his rudeness and ungratefulness, but Rio laughs and agrees without taking offense. Besides, there isn't enough room for three. Ryouko is hesitant to go back to the dead district, but she eventually chooses to accompany Kousuke, and they leave after breakfast (Rio laughs again and finds some almost-fresh bread for Kousuke in her glittery pantry).

---

"Thanks," Kousuke says quietly on the way. "For staying with me."

"Don't thank me, I just didn't want to impose on a stranger," Ryouko quickly answers without looking at him. "It isn't for you, you moron," she adds and hits him with her now healed arm. It doesn't really hurt, and Kousuke grins.