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The day had been long. Class, work, dinner, more work, and now it was two in the morning and she was going home after closing up the little cafe where she held her second job. She'd do homework until five in the morning, where she'd fall asleep until eight in the morning, then do it all again.

Did she regret this frenetic pace?

No. She really didn't. It gave her no time to think--about dark-haired Negaverse officers or sand worlds far away into space, so far away she couldn't see the Earth--except the moments she snatched to look at her notebooks full of notes and copies of old newspapers. And even then, she felt so guilty for doing it. Hadn't she promised to trust Taranis's viewpoint? But Tate was naturally suspicious, and he was compromised. He had a side; Tate, however, by the nature of her own lack of power, did not. He wanted her to choose, but without information...

Without information, was there a point to making a decision to stay or go? To do what she could to aid whichever side she felt she owed her devotion to. She needed more information. Maybe she'd sleep early and use her lunch break to read over the first notebook again. There was something off! Something recent...

She pocketed the keys to the little cafe, took a sip of her coffee and turned to step down the stairs. Preoccupied by her cup of caffeine, she didn't notice the person at the foot of the stoop for a moment. When she did, her eyes widened and limp fingers dropped the cardboard cup. "********," she said, emphatically. What else could she say? Zinkenite was here. In front of her workplace. And she did not trust him.

That got her back up right away. Being an 'it's you' was never pleasant, ever, but when it came from someone who'd tried to kill you, it was downright threatening. Last time they'd met up, though, he'd been pretty antagonistic, especially over her not-so-secret terror of him. The goal this time would be not to snap. At all. Tate closed her eyes a moment and crossed her fingers in her pockets. Maybe it could happen. "Keep it," she said (growled? It was definitely closer to a growl than anything) as she gingerly descended the stairs. One day the old man was going to break a hip and she was going to laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, actually I'm really busy, you know." Keep it light, she thought. Friendly. I am a friendly civilian talking to someone who dresses really oddly. But what was her motivation? "Two jobs, in school, doing some research on the side. So hey, it's more likely you're stalking me."

Emboldened by the lack of immediate death threats, she added, "But I think we both are much too busy."

Hadn't she just said that he'd been busy? That both of them probably had been. She frowned, reaching up to tug on a lock of hair. Once it'd been longer just for that purpose; now she was twisting the mahogany lock around her fingertips, considering. She didn't take his hand, instead tugging her hand free of the locks and tucking them into her pocket. Did he realize how insulting he was?

"Maybe you should spend less time trying to murder people," she muttered. Maybe then he'd have less grudges. Ha. As if he'd be able to do something like that. Didn't the Negaverse steal starseeds for something or other? Souls. Starseeds. Without it, you die. The things Taranis had told her rattled around inside her head. "Well, it would've been an indirect murder if anything, but it was still an attempt."

She stepped over a river of ice, her boots finding fairly acceptable traction on the snowy ground.

She narrowed her eyes at him. If he hadn't murdered anyone for over a month... No, it didn't add up quite right. Did it? She'd have to consult the notebook. That abrupt drop in comatose victims, could it be for a similar reason as to Zinkenite's sudden lack of new murders? "Sure," she said, clenching her hands. "Yup. I'm really proud."

Sarcasm. Probably not the best thing to be using on someone who could entirely possibly ******** her up.

His contrite tone made her suspicious. No way did he actually regret what he was doing, otherwise he'd stop. Unless he was one of those crazy villains who hated what they had to do but viewed it as necessary to redeem the world, or something...

It didn't bear thinking of. "Yeah," she asked, "What's that?"

What conclusions was she even going to draw? His smooth tone was just making Tate feel like she was stupid, and she hated being condescended to by people she liked. Someone she felt threatened by and disliked, that was just. Even worse.

"You can't hint at things and then not tell me," she said, sounding frustrated. "C'mon, stop being such a cocktease."

Did he have to be such an a**? She was itching to punch him. Just one little punch, it wouldn't really hurt him. Not very much, anyway, since he was already stronger and faster than she was. This had been proven by their first encounter--leaping onto buildings, at least, would give him at least a substantial advantage in jumping. So it wouldn't really hurt.

...Probably not the best idea, though. She clenched her fists in her pockets and skittered across a patch of ice, determinedly not looking at Zinkenite

"You're in a position of advantage over me. All I've got is your word you don't mean me harm and I'm sure that means jack s**t to Wolframite anymore. You could probably kill me here and he wouldn't care," said Tate. Her tone was quiet, muttered, resentful. Every single one of the terrorists was high-handed with her. On a level, she understood it. She didn't have any kind of power, she just was curious and everyone knew what happened to curious people. Considering the number of times she'd met up with Zinkenite, she should have died at least thrice. If not for Wolframite making him promise, anyway... But maybe if she kept goading the blue-haired Negaverser, he'd slip?

What could it hurt? He could kill her at any time, anyway. "What will it hurt to answer just one question? I'll probably find out anyway, eventually." It was true. She'd already noticed a change in the coma deaths that no one else seemed to even be looking for--and with Taranis willing to answer her questions, she almost needed the opposite side's view.

That got her hackles up. "The whole of it," she said, hooking her hair behind her ears. The furrowed brow, the tightness of her jaw, all of it showed her irritation quite clearly. Maybe she was a better fit for the Negaverse than anyone had thought before? Or else she was just trusting too much in the promise of someone she hadn't seen for months. It was hard to tell; in the dark, her body language could lead either way.

"What's the point of finding out one little fact about something that's changing my life," she asked, her tone flat. "My friends are disappearing at all hours. Senshi sneak into my apartment building. Negaversers who've grievously injured my brother's girlfriend knock out the entire first floor and rip a steel door off its hinges to try and do the same to me. But no! I'll just find out one little bit of all this bullshit and forget about it. Sure."

It was then, as she considered what she could tell him to obtain her information, that she thought of a petty revenge, a childish revenge. "Did you know... Wolframite killed a youma, once?"

Ah, yes... the arsonist senshi. She'd been wondering if the media was just blackballing some senshi who just had really terrible luck--there were some cell phone videos she'd seen on YouTube but that wasn't an eyewitness account necessarily, it could have been faked.

Unlike that live television broadcast.

But Tate had been watching Zinkenite, and his self-assured stride had broken for just a moment. Could he have slipped? She'd never seen if those shoes had any kind of traction--but more likely, she'd actually surprised him. "Are we going to keep trading information until we hit on something we both already know? Because that last tidbit about the arsonist senshi is kind of common knowledge." At least, if you looked. There were posters up in the post office, after all, and Tate went there to mail finished work to clients sometimes.

"Are you going to tell me what other reason there is to reach for someone's starseed, or what?"