Ivan sat and stared at them. They'd moved back into the meeting room, where he'd told them Viktor was alive. Alive, but unable to remember anything about himself. Alive, but currently in hospital, after there, he'd be in a cell.

"It doesn't matter though" Ivan said. "He won't be bothering us. He didn't know anything at all. His name, identity, where we were, me."

"That's not the point dude" Alfred said, leaning forwards. "The point is that he could remember in the near future and come after us again. We don't need any more fights."

"Kik..." Yao swallowed. "Kuro is still out there."

"Exactly" Alfred sighed. "There's already more than one of them out there who could turn back. We've already lost..."

"We don't need to go in to that" Francis muttered.

Mathew cleared his throat. "I didn't kill Mathieu."

Alfred stared with a mixture of horror and disbelief. "Mattie you... that means that there's three of them still out there, all of whom could come after us. We've got no chance in finishing this now you understand?"

Mathew shook his head. "I got a letter this morning. He's being executed tomorrow. There's one definitely off your hands without any deaths in between."

"At least he can't come after us" Francis sighed. "Unlike your counterpart. The one you failed to kill."

"Hey" Ivan snapped. "I tried, and I actually did a decent job. All you did was get yourself beaten up and have to have Arthur bail you out..." he trailed off and glanced down. "Sorry."

"No, you're right" Francis stood up. "Maybe if he hadn't had to bail me out, he could've got to a hospital quicker, and could've been saved. So... it was my fault." He turned and left the room.

"That was harsh dude" Alfred said, sitting down and watching the door close.

"I... I didn't mean to" Ivan sighed.

"Arguing and getting at each other's throats isn't going to get us anywhere" Yao said, taking Alfred's place at the front of the room. "We need to actually think about this. It's clear that they're never going to leave us alone until they've won, despite the fact that there's only... one left. Viktor doesn't count."

"We can't go to him" Alfred said. "We don't know where he is."

"We could always just..." Mathew started.

"So we wait" Ivan said. "We stay here, stay on alert all the time, and wait for him to come to us."

"Basically" Alfred said as Yao returned to his seat. "There's not much more we can do."

Mathew stood up. "I'm going to find Francis."

No one really noticed as he left the room. Typical. He does something and for about, five minutes, they constantly notice him, listen to him, and then they go back to almost pretending he doesn't exist. Lovely.

"Papa?" he called, wandering down the hall. He was pretty sure he'd heard Francis come down this way, the other way was where they'd fought, where Gilbert had died, so he wouldn't want to go that way.

He turned a corner and froze. At the opposite end was a mess of blonde hair, blue and red.

"No, no, no, no" Mathew shouted, running down the hall.

Francis was curled over his side in a foetal position, a huge red stain on his chest, dying the blue material of his cloak a kind of dark purple colour.

"No, you have to wake up" Mathew prodded him, kneeling in the pool of blood, trying to stay calm.

"Touching"

Mathew whipped round and hissed. Kuro was crouched behind him, sword balanced between his shoulder blades, blood dripping off one end.

"He didn't scream much, refused to really. I'm struggling to think of the word. Either brave, or stupid and at the moment, I'm thinking stupid."

He stood up. He wasn't very tall, a lot shorter than Mathew actually, but still scared him. It was the blank, emotionless expression of boredom that scared him the most. There was just something about it...

Mathew focused on Kuro, only to find he'd vanished. He stepped carefully away from Francis' body and ran. They had to know. They had to find out. He turned onto the corridor the meeting was on and felt cold metal against his neck.

"No" Kuro sneered.

Mathew whipped round and went to hit him. It was avoided easily. He stepped backwards, a little more towards the door of the meeting room. There was a vase of tulips on a table to his side. He grabbed it and threw it. He didn't really mean to hit anything, just wanted to make some noise that no one could ignore. There was always the chance that they would ignore him again if he shouted.

The vase hit the floor and smashed open into a million little pieces. Footsteps sounded in the conference room, coming closer to the door. That was the most that he could do at the moment. He turned back to Kuro and then spluttered.

Kuro stood right in front of him, sword outstretched, the end of it poking out of Mathew's back. He coughed blood over his face and slumped as the sword was removed.

The conference room door opened loudly behind him.

"Mattie no" Alfred. A couple of hurried footsteps came closer, overtaken by the padding of paws.

Mathew smiled a little, his vision fuzzy around the edges. He'd forgotten about Kumajiro. A soft head pushed into his arm and collapsed in a pool of his own blood.

****************************

The man stood up. He didn't know where he was, somewhere dark, that was sure. What was the last thing he remembered? Being impaled? That'd do. Although... there was... the eyes. Before he came here, he remembered the eyes. The worried eyes that stared down at him from the man with the ponytail. Yes that was it, that was his head way.

Kiku chuckled to himself in his dark corner and looked around. He was going to get out of here if it was the last thing he did...