Sho Fukamachi was pacing, waiting for Masaki Murakami to return. Sho was worried. Ever since Chronos agents had kidnapped his father and reprocessed him into a deadly Enzyme Mark II, Sho had been terrified that something like that would happen again. And Mr. Murakami was already well known to the Chronos Corporation. If something had happened to him, Sho wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to forgive himself.

He was the Guyver I, after all, he should be able to protect the people that mattered to him. When Sho heard someone knocking at the door, he at first froze, thinking it was one of Chronos’ many Zoanoids. When Tetsuro brushed past him, making for the door, Sho went after him. Preparing himself to call on the Guyver at the slightest hint of trouble, Sho followed Tetsuro to the door.

"Who’s there?" Tetsuro called, having the feeling that a Zoanoid wouldn’t have taken the time to knock.

"I’m here," answered a very familiar low, deep voice. The voice itself was tinged with mild, if good-humored, annoyance. "Will you let me in already, please?"

"Mr. Murakami!" Tetsuro exclaimed, opening the door for the older man. "Sorry, I didn’t know who it was."

"It’s all right, Tetsuro," Mr. Murakami said as he stepped into the cabin’s living room. "You’re just taking precautions."

"Murakami, I see you made it back again," Agito said, as he stood in the doorway leading to the cabin’s other rooms.

"I did," Mr. Murakami acknowledged warily.

Ever since Mr. Murakami had found out that Agito Makashima was a son of Chronos, even having worked for them at one point, the older man had been a bit leery of Agito. And, after seeing the kind of power that Masaki Murakami possessed, Agito had also been more than a little cautious around the other man. Or, that was how it seemed to Sho anyway.

The by now familiar form of Mr. Murakami’s Zoanoid Buster Custom was visible in the holster he had taken to wearing. Sho wasn’t sure where Mr. Murakami kept disappearing to, but since all of them here were enemies of the Chronos Corporation, Sho decided to trust Mr. Murakami and respect the other man’s privacy. Agito, however, wasn’t so trusting.

"Where have you been disappearing to lately, Murakami?" Agito demanded calmly.

"Since when is that any business of yours, Makashima?" Mr. Murakami shot back, with no more real emotion in his voice than Agito.

"I make it my business, Murakami," Agito said.

Mr. Murakami’s eyes narrowed, not that anyone could see it as he was still wearing his dark-green sunglasses. "I may be working with you, Agito Makashima, but that does not give you the right to pry into my private affairs."

"When your ‘private affairs’ run the risk of exposing our new base to Chronos, then I have every right to pry into them," Agito said, still with that infuriating calm.

"I was out on some errands, excuse me," Mr. Murakami snapped, turning and roughly bushing past Agito on his way out of the living room.

Agito grabbed Mr. Murakami’s arm before the older man could get safely into another room. Mr. Murakami looked like he was considering throwing Agito into the wall. It was probably only the fact that Guyver III would have started a fight, a fight that would have most likely demolished the entire cabin, which enabled Mr. Murakami to keep his temper in check.

"Let go of me," Mr. Murakami demanded flatly, glaring at the boy from behind his sunglasses.

"Not until you tell me where you went," Agito reiterated.

"Lay off, Agito," Sho said, coming to stand between the two of them.

"Stay out of this, Fukamachi," Agito snapped.

Sho looked hurt for a moment, then remembered whom he was dealing with. Agito could be a bit harder on him than he liked, but Sho now knew that that was just how Agito was. Being raised by Chronos had left its mark.

"Just ease up on him," Sho said, laying his hand on Agito’s shoulder, trying to calm Guyver III down.

Agito roughly shrugged off Sho’s hand, ignoring Guyver I’s attempts to reason with him. "I already told you to stay out of this, Fukamachi."

"You should listen to your friend, Makashima," Mr. Murakami growled, yanking his arm out of Agito’s grip.

xXxXx

Ignoring the argument that was starting, Masaki walked down the hall till he was back at the room he had claimed for himself. The argument, if it could even be called that, would probably be over by the time he came back out. Sho was a nice enough person, but Makashima was a harsh, argumentative, demanding bastard.

The Bastard Son of Chronos, as Masaki had come to think of him. Not that he would ever tell Agito that he had a pet name for him. Agito? Since when do I call the Dark Guyver, Mr. Bastard Son of Chronos, by his first name? Masaki wondered to himself. Then, deciding that that wasn’t important, Masaki decided to go lay down. This day had been tiring enough without having to deal with Makashima when he was off on one of his ‘security’ tirades.

Yawning, Masaki dropped into bed, kicking off his shoes and pulling his feet up onto the bed with the rest of him. Setting his sunglasses down on the nightstand, Masaki blinked as his eyes quickly readjusted. Grabbing the pillow, Masaki shoved it into the space between his right arm and his head. As he was just settling down, Masaki heard a knock at his door. He debated whether or not to answer, but when the knocks were repeated much more forcefully, Masaki knew that he would have to do something.

"Whoever it is, go away!"

"Not going to happen, Murakami."

Masaki growled deep in his throat. It would be him. The Bastard Son of Chronos coming to pay me a visit, how nice, Masaki thought, considering different ways of making Makashima go away. Finally realizing that nothing short of pounding Guyver III into the ground, which would cause all sorts of other problems, would get Makashima to leave him alone when the boy was in this kind of mood, Masaki gave in.

"All right, all right, I’m coming," Masaki growled, dragging himself out of bed and putting his sunglasses back on. Opening the door, Masaki was confronted with Makashima’s annoying smirk.

"I knew you’d come to your senses sooner or later, Murakami," Makashima said, with such infuriating smugness that Masaki was tempted to slam the door in his face.

Crossing his arms and radiating belligerence instead, Masaki responded. "What do you want, Makashima?"

"You never told me where you went earlier."

"And I’m not going to," Masaki growled. "So why don’t you just drop it and go away? Oh wait, I forgot that you’re completely incapable of respecting another person’s privacy when it interferes with your having control of everything," Masaki spat with bitter sarcasm.

"Rest assured, Murakami, I will find out what you’ve been up to lately. And if it’s anything that would compromise our activities against Chronos, there will be repercussions."

The other boy actually seemed angry, it was the first real emotion that Makashima had shown in the entire day. At least as far as Masaki knew or could be convinced to care. Even during his confrontation with Sho, Makashima had still maintained his usual bored/half-amused demeanor.

Masaki glared at the Dark Guyver. "Look Makashima, I hate Chronos just as much as you and Sho do. Probably even more. I would never do anything that would help those heartless, evil bastards."

Masaki, having said his piece, waited to see how Makashima would react. Makashima actually seemed to be thinking about Masaki’s statement, rather than starting in on another one of his infamous lectures about their need for secrecy. Finally, without saying another word, Makashima nodded to him, turned, and walked away.

Masaki was, in a word, shocked to see Makashima walking away so soon. From what Masaki knew of Makashima’s personality, Makashima wasn’t one to give up on something he wanted without much more of a fight than he had put up here. Masaki distrusted this sudden reversal on Makashima’s part, and for a moment he thought about confronting the boy. Then, deciding that he wasn’t in the mood to have another argument or to listen to one of Makashima’s tirades, Masaki decided to forget the whole thing.

Taking off his jacket, Masaki tossed it on the floor by the bed. His sunglasses were the next thing to go; Masaki put them back in their place on "his" nightstand. Flopping back into the bed, Masaki hoped that he wouldn’t be disturbed until he had had at least an hour and a half of sleep.

xXxXx

Agito trailed his hand along the wall as he made his way back to the room he was staying in. Maybe I should have handled that differently, he mused. That was one of the drawbacks of adopting a different persona for so long: it became harder and harder to act like the person who had taken on the persona rather than the persona itself.

Weaknesses – kindness, compassion, generosity and any other thing that would not further their goal of world domination - were not permitted in Chronos, and so they had not been permitted in the Makashima household either. And Agito had had to learn very quickly to act like the kind of "son" Genzo Makashima had wanted him to be.

Agito remembered that once, a long time ago, he had been a lot like Sho Fukamachi. Kind, openhearted, compassionate. But once Genzo Makashima had murdered his parents and taken him in, his own survival had dictated that he kill off those parts of himself that felt those things. The parts that had considered the feelings of others worthwhile.

Compassion, Agito recalled, had been the first thing to go. After all, a "son of Chronos" couldn’t be feeling pity for people that were either going to be Zoaformed or executed. Son of Chronos, I guess I won’t ever really be able to escape that. Even now, Agito could still hear Genzo’s voice in his head at times. It wasn’t a sign of psychosis, Agito was sure, just a memory that refused to leave him alone.

"You are a son of Chronos, and it’s time you started acting like one!" Those words, in Genzo Makashima’s not-so-dulcet tones, would continually play in his head whenever the part of Agito’s personality that had been influenced by Genzo Makashima thought that he was acting too much like a real person. It was part of the reason that he still only referred to Sho by his last name: to keep at least some distance between them.

Finally arriving at the room that he had temporarily made his own, Agito pushed open the door and closed it behind himself. Leaning his back against it, Agito let himself succumb to a rare moment of weakness. It was hard, always having to be the strong one when things went wrong, but it was a role Agito had long ago become accustomed to. Perhaps, given enough time, he would be comfortable enough with the others to let them see this side of him.

But not now, not when there were so many things were at stake. Not when the Chronos Corporation was hounding them at practically every turn. Agito knew that he still had to be the strong one, holding together their pitifully small band of anti-Chronos rebels. Just then, Agito heard someone knocking at his door.