A few hours earlier

Yuuhime woke up, looked outside, and went back to sleep.

"Not today." She told herself as she snuggled back into her bed.

"Yuuhime!" Yamato yelled as he barged into her room. She looked at him and grumbled.

"Can't talk. Still asleep. Zzzzz."

"Oh, don't be that way!" Yamato sighed happily, "It snowed so much more than it usually does, isn't that amazing?!"

"...no."

"Oh, don't be that way!" He ripped her cozy blanket away and smiled sweetly.

She scowled. Before he changed, she would have laughed this off. Now, she wanted to punt him like a football halfway across the world.

"Get changed! I wanna go out for a drive!"

"At what time?"

"Hmm...it's six am now, soooo...at nine!"

Six? Was it really that early? Perhaps she had been going to sleep too early nowadays...

She reluctantly got up with a loud huff and got changed into her warmest clothes she owned. That only took five minutes, so she had four hours still. She trudged into the kitchen and grabbed the cookbook to make herself something.

She flipped through it, then spotted sugar cookies. She remembered a throwaway comment that Arcana made about how much he liked sugar cookies.

Aha! To pass the time, she'd make cookies. Brilliant, and maybe she could even get the cookies out to her friends at the Union.

"Hey, Yamato?" She called.

"Yes, dear Yuuhime?"

"Where might we be going on our drive?"

"Gyrate, why?"

"Ah, no reason..."

Yamato peeked over and saw the recipe. He smiled slightly, "Are you making them for someone?"

"Y-yeah, Xuan." of course, she was going to share it with all her friends, not just Xuan. But Yamato had a very vocal opinion on the other Union members, so just saying Xuan was easier.

"Aww, so lovely. Better get making them, then."

She nodded and started her hard work. She didn't really make cookies since she nor Yamato liked cookies all that much, so this would be an experiment.

"...that's a lot of flour." She mumbled to herself as she scooped the many cups of flour into the mixing bowl.

Once she finished mixing the dry and wet ingredients respectively, she slowly poured them together into the electric mixer. She watched all the ingredients mix together, smooshing and squashing together. She found this process very satisfying, unable to tear her eyes away for a very long time.

Finally, she covered the dough with a towel and let it sit in the fridge for an hour.

'Now I wait.' She flopped onto the couch and peeked at her communicator. The weather appeared to be bad not just here, but in Gyrate too. According to the weather report, the roads were unusable until further notice.

She sighed and looked out the window. There was still snow falling. Great. She snuggled into a blanket and grumbled.

With nothing to do, she counted the amount of times Yamato stopped and carefully stepped down the step into the kitchen. His poor ego still felt the bruise it got when Xuan tripped him, causing her great amusement.

She stopped tripping there because he got some proper steps finally. She finally could walk in peace!

Speaking of the kitchen, she realized how weird it was laid out. There were steps that led down into the kitchen, like it was a small pit, but one of the counters was level with the higher floor instead of the lower.

Yamato probably loved it, he always talked about how "modernizing your space can make you seem even more impressive to the naked eye!" But she thought that was full of bull crap.

Finally, an hour passed and she could shape the cookies. She took out the dough and rolled it out, cutting squares and triangles out of the dough. This process went quickly thanks to all her arms, and soon all the dough was cooking.

She once again went back to her blanket and snuggled close to the heater.

"It's getting hot, don't you think?" Yamato asked as he opened a door to the balcony, "Come on out here with me."

She pursed her lips as she got up, refusing to let go of her blanket.

Yamato patted a seat next to his. She plopped onto the cold metal chair, shivering.

"Isn't it so pretty?" Yamato asked.

"Yes." Yuuhime said half heartedly.

"It would make a gorgeous wedding."

"...I guess you could say that."

He smirked at her. All these wedding jokes were getting very old very fast. She didn't even know what he was trying to achieve with them.

They sat, staring out into the cold forest. She had nothing to think about. Her head was empty. Just cold.

So.

Freaking.

Cold.

She was about to freeze to death when the oven ringer went off. She quickly got up and ran inside.

'Thank you, oven.' She thought as she pulled out the cookies from the warm oven. She was going to attempt to make buttercream frosting now, mainly because she didn't want to go outside again.

Luckily, making the frosting was very easy. Now the time consuming part: decorating.

She carefully filled a few bowls with the frosting, coloring them blue, red, and yellow, and leaving one just white.

She counted three dozen cookies, so she knew she'd have her work cut out for her, so she quickly got to work.

An hour later, she was finally done. Yamato slid in, "Let's go now!"

She placed the cookies onto a cookie sheet and followed him out to their van. She couldn't wait to share her cookies.

The drive was actually very nice. Once she was warmed up, the scenery that the snow made was quite the treat to behold. She snuck a cookie for herself and thought she did a very good job, as well.

As they entered Gyrate, they ran into heavy traffic. This must of been the result of the roads being closed.

"Hmph," Yamato grumbled, "I thought I waited long enough."

"Oh well," Yuuhime said, "That means we can people watch."

It was already 11 by the time all the traffic was dispersed. Yamato parked and let Yuuhime out.

"Don't take too long!" Yamato yelled as she left.

When the van was out of sight, she quickly looked around for anyone she knew. She spotted Leora and another woman, Elaine.

"Yuuhime, 'sup?" Leora said as she walked over.

"I made cookies," Yuuhime held them out, "Would you like some?"

"Sure, thanks!" Leora plucked one up. "Elaine, you should get one too!"

Elaine examined the colorful cookies and said, "No thanks."

"Come on, they're really good." Leora said through her mouthful of cookie.

"Not in the mood."

"Well you might want it later." Leora grabbed another cookie and held it out to Elaine, who sighed and held it carefully.

"Well, it was nice seeing you," Yuuhime said, "Goodbye."

The sisters waved as she left. She heard Leora teasing Elaine and sighed. She wished she and Yamato could still be like that.

She saw Lewis and Ling next. She skipped to them, "Hello, you two."

"Hey, Yuuhime." Lewis said.

"Ooh, cookies?" Ling said, staring at them with a need in his eyes.

"Yes, do you want some?"

"Yes please!" Ling snatched one and ate it up.

"He was telling me how Tang Xuan made some cookies that smell amazing, but he doesn't wanna eat them since they're having a competition."

"H-hey!" Ling growled.

"Hehe!" Yuuhime smiled as Lewis took one as well.

"Thanks." Lewis said, giving her a nod.

"Mhm! Goodbye." She walked away, the two men enjoying themselves.

Finally, she found Mona with Arcana, along with another girl.

"Hello, Yuuhime." Arcana said. Mona grinned tensely.

"Do you want some cookies?" Yuuhime held out her platter.

"Sure," Arcana took one and bit into it, "Thanks!"

"You're welcome." Yuuhime said.

"Can I have one?" The girl she didn't know asked.

"Sure." Yuuhime said. "What's your name?"

"Jin-Hee, and yours is Yuuhime?"

"Mhm. Nice to meet you."

"Yep! Man, these are yummy!"

Mona cautiously took one. Yuuhime smiled and said, "Goodbye."

"Wait, I have a question." Mona said quickly.

"Yeah?" Yuuhime said, looking at her.

"I noticed you scored super high on the punching bag game at the arcade, and I'm wondering how you did it."

"I just used all my strength. Maybe I shouldn't of, cuz now nobody else will beat my score..."

Mona didn't know how to respond to that. She couldn't read Yuuhime at all.

"Goodbye, now." Yuuhime left for real this time.

"You're lucky she didn't ask how you knew, she didn't even put her name into it." Arcana mumbled to Mona.

Yuuhime looked around a little longer, but couldn't find Xuan anywhere. She pursed her lips. These cookies weren't going to be good forever, Mr! So he better come out soon!

Finally, she just gave up. She'd message him and give one to him later.

She trudged off, back to the van, in the same place it was before.

"Yuuhime! Perfect, hurry in and do not look in the back." Yamato said in a tense voice.

"Why?" Yuuhume asked, getting into the car. Once she shut the door, he was off.

"Don't question it!" He hissed.

So, she didn't, but she still wondered why.

Yamato sped by a large vehicle, getting ready to leave.

"Kids these days..." Chuan grumbled as he watched the van swiftly drive by.

It had been an hour since Yue had asked him to help. He was sitting in the vehicle to take them, being himself, Gaius and Yue, to the address on the letter.

Gaius sat in the very back, where a massive door would open just in case he needed to get out quickly.

Yue slid into the car, in front of Chuan. Their driver hoped in and asked, "We all ready to go?"

"Yes." Gaius said defiantly. The driver gave a thumbs up and started driving.

Yue plugged in the address onto the navigator, "Follow this exactly unless I tell you otherwise."

"Yes, ma'am." The driver said.

The drive was a tense one. They all knew the game plan.

Step one, once they confirmed that they were in the right place, Chuan would scout around to make sure no one was around to sabotage their plans, either by accident or on purpose.

Step two, plan a, if no one was around, Yue would approach the house, Gaius and Chuan nearby. Plan b, if someone was around, they'd deal with them and then continue with plan a.

Step three, try to get inside. Whether by peaceful ways, or by force, depending on who answered. If no one answered, they would go in themselves.

Step four, once inside, look for anything that might point to "Yamato" or the attacks, or anything that might arouse suspicion.

"Got it?" Yue asked Chuan.

"Of course." he said. He hoped this place was the place the address said; no one messed with Li Ling or his friends on his watch.

They took the final turn down an out-of-the-way dirt road, currently covered in a thick layer of snow.

"Slower," Yue commanded, "Keep an eye out for anything."

As she said this, she noticed fresh tire tracks in the snow.

"There's cameras eon the trees." Gaius said, narrowing his eyes.

Chuan looked out. Indeed, every ten trees, there was a camera sticking out. There was also more and more barbed wire fencing as they went further.

"Stop here," Yue said, "We'll go the rest on foot."

The vehicle stopped and they three of them got out. They got a move on as soon as their feet touched the snowy ground.

Their location had been shared with many strong espers apart of the Union, just in case they found themselves in a pickle too big to handle, even though Yue had insisted that only two people were there based on the notes Xuan had made.

Chuan thought it suspicious how Xuan was so terrified of this man. The way he wrote about Yamato and Yue's description of his reactions to being asked about the culprit Ethan described made him certain that Yamato had to be stopped and fast.

Soon, they saw the massive mansion surrounded by barbed wire fencing. The sheer size of it had Chuan's mouth gaping. It was a little bigger than the entire dormitory at the Union, which was massive in its own right, and was about four stories tall and just shorter than the trees around it. It had a large paved driveway that led to the porch, which wrapped around half the mansion. On the driveway, was a van. Two people were arguing behind the van, both horribly loud.

"What do you mean you kidnapped him?!"

"I didn't say that, now did I?"

"Taking someone without their consent IS kidnapping!"

"He'll be fine. I'm doing him a favor, you know. Everyone from the Esper Union are dreadfully, unbelievably, unbearable."

"He's going to be devastated!...but you don't care about that, do you? You only care about YOUR goals and YOUR feelings!"

"That's right! Now lug him inside."

The trunk of the van opened up.

"I hate you and I hate that stupid music box!

"That's nice, my dear sister."

Growling and grunting came from whoever she was.

The three Union Espers stared up at the fencing from their hiding place. Gaius said, "It's not just barbed wire, it's an anti-Esper fence."

"The fence is locked right too," Yue said, "just look at those locks."

"Music box..." Chuan whispered. Gaius nodded.

"We've got our guy, we just need to get in." He said.

The arguing continued.

"He did this to himself by letting our address get leaked to the Union itself."

"Good, then they'll come take you away."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

A bird fell nearby, its whole, poor body had been burnt with lighting shaped burns. They knew for a fact they got the culprit now.

"Besides, wouldn't they take you away too?"

"I'd live the life sentence just so you could get onto death row."

A loud and shrill laugh erupted. "Such bitterness, and to me? Your dear brother?"

The two arguers got up to the doorway. The taller pressed something, and the fence suddenly buzzed with electricity.

"Ugh...!" Yue flinched back. She had been the closest to the fence, and when she flinched away, what was left was a small lighting shaped burn on her arm.

"Are you ok?" Chuan pulled her back further.

"Yeah," She hissed, "But we aren't getting through that without extra help."

"Anti-Esper precautions, but still have this...divine energy?" Gaius thought out loud, "Why go through all the trouble in the first place?"

"To keep you out." A man walked towards them, black and red hair and red eyes.

The three espers stared at him.

"It's such a shame," He continued, "that people like you found my perfectly hidden home. How did you do it? Did someone tell you the address? Was it written down?"

"You're the one behind Divine Weakening, correct?" Yue boldly said.

"Yes, what about it?"

"You've hurt three people, and are bound to hurt more."

"If they cross me, make a pain in my side...like you three are doing right now."

"You hurt a man who didn't do anything against you."

"He saw my home."

"That doesn't give you the right to hospitalize him."

"Eh, he was mean to me anyways."

The entitlement that dripped from this man was enraging to Yue. Who did he think he was, that he could hurt others for being mean to him?

"Leave." He said. "This is my home. I can and will make your bodies unusable with a flick of my hand, you know that."

He kicked the burnt bird aside, smiling smugly.

"Expect us back," Gaius said loudly, "to arrest you for all your crimes!"

"Alright, can't wait~!" He replied, the smug smirk still decorating his face.

The three of them quickly left.

Yamato sighed. He was very glad he installed that power transferor, else those pesky Union members would have probably gotten in. Unfortunately, he was very tired now.

Trudging in, he snuggled onto his big and fancy chair. Yuuhime, who sat on the beanbag, glared at him.

"Are you still mad at me?" He asked, signing.

"Tang Xuan doesn't deserve this." She said, her voice shaky.

"Are you crying? Don't cry, I won't hurt him anymore. I promise."

She hated to hear him and his empty promises. She looked out the window, into the dark forest that lay untouched. Her jaw shook with anger, no, fury. Not just fury, but fear.

Yamato turned on piano music, humming along to it. "Mr. Tang Xuan will wake up soon. When he does, you can tell him everything."

She took a long deep breath. She wished...she wished...

...for too much, apparently.