KOF Extras

An adventurous birthday

16th October
This time, Ralf was banned from arranging a party for Krizalid's birthday.
K' on the other hand, decided to make it happen instead.
"Seirah, Clark, make sure he's nowhere near the party venue until the actual party," K' said, annoyed. "Don't bring him anywhere near, and don't even tell him where it is. Got it?"
"Roger!" Both of them agreed, grinning with a salute.
There was a week left until Krizalid's birthday. The NESTS team worked overtime for it. Maxima helped by distracting Krizalid, even making him drunk a few times, much to K's annoyance.
"Max, quit making him drunk!" K' scolded. "At least keep him out!"
Krizalid always seemed to wander around, especially when drunk. But at least this time he wasn't accusing them of hating his favourite food.
Seirah worked on the menu with K's help. After all, who knew Krizalid better than his sister and his original?
"We need to make some butter cookies too," Seirah said. "And punch. Lots of sports drinks punch."
Kula helped by... well, she didn't really do anything besides help Diana and Foxy with the decorating. At least she was good at it.
K' and Zayn worked on a remix version of My Dear Fallen Angel for fun. After all, they were the DJs for the BOF. Zayn helped K' sometimes too.
Iori helped by getting the outfits. He hid them at his house too so that Krizalid wouldn't see them.
So on the twenty-third, everything was ready.
Besides Krizalid.

Krizalid woke up and looked over at K's side of the room. Instead of seeing the younger man sprawled across the bed, a leg and a hand hanging off the mattress, he saw a neat bed with even the blanket neatly tucked in.
'He woke up before me?' Krizalid thought, puzzled.
He got up and made his bed before looking at K's side of the room again. The tapestry that he received for his birthday stared back at him, sitting on the bike.
Krizalid simply shrugged and grabbed his phone. He was taken aback when he saw that it was nearly eleven. He scratched his head and left the room to see emptiness in the living room.
Normally Maxima would wake up first, and would be sitting there with his laptop. He expected K' to be there too with his phone, but nope.
He shrugged again and headed off to the kitchen to see if anyone were there.
Yet again, he was greeted by emptiness.
"Where is everybody?" He asked aloud.
His phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated. Puzzled, he took it out to see that it was K'.
"Dash?" Krizalid said, answering the phone. "Where are you guys at?"
"Eh we're out," K' said, smirking over the phone. "Also, can you check if there's cheese in the fridge?"
Krizalid went over to the fridge and opened it. He asked K' to wait a minute before setting the phone on the counter.
He searched the fridge to see if there was cheese. He found the pack of sliced cheese and opened it to see how much of it was left.
To his surprise, there was a piece of paper stuffed in it, together with more than half of the pack still intact.
Puzzled, he took the paper out and opened it. It was a code.
K's faint voice suddenly called from his phone. He picked it up again and spoke.
"Kriz?" K' said, sounding confused. "You there?"
"Yeah, I am," Krizalid said.
"Is there enough cheese?" K' asked. "Tell me, because if it's finishing, we'll get some on the way back."
"Yeah, there's plenty of it," Krizalid said, frowning over the code in his hand.
"Great," K' said. "But why do you sound off? Kriz, is something wrong?"
"No, nothing," Krizalid said. "I'm hungry, I need to eat. You guys want breakfast?"
"No, we're good," K' said. "Also, we got you some. But you better eat something since we'll be back a little late."
Krizalid bid his goodbye and hung up. He put his phone back into his pocket and took a closer at the coded message and saw that it was written in the Fairy Code. It was the code used by NESTS syndicate members.
Puzzled, he tried to decipher it by memory. He sat down on the kitchen table with a notepad and cracked the code.
Come see me at the bridge in Hinokicho Park.
Krizalid bit his nail. Who was this person, how did he leave a note in the fridge, and why was he calling him to Hinokicho? He wanted to just throw the note out, and not think about it. For all he knew, that note might've been directed at someone else. But still... how on Earth did it get into his fridge? It wasn't there before, he was sure of it, but here it is now.
Krizalid got into his car and drove to Hinokicho park. He parked and got out, grasping the deciphered note. He made his way to the bridge and started scanning the few people that were there.
He eyed every person that he passed, earning stares from some of them.
All of a sudden, someone tapped him on the shoulder. Krizalid turned around and saw a man wearing a hooded coat with a Vendetta mask covering his face.
The man suddenly put a hand under his coat and pulled out a package. He handed the package to Krizalid before proceeding to turn around and depart.
Krizalid didn't pause to see what's in the package. He started running after the man that just delivered the strange package to him. He elbowed his way around the people sightseeing in Hinokicho and eventually followed said man outside.
The man started running and Krizalid took chase too. The man ran, going past the pedestrians. His hood fell off in the wind, and Krizalid saw that he had brown hair cropped short.
"Typhoon Rage!" Krizalid exclaimed, creating a cutting wind with a swift movement of his leg.
The man somehow dodged the cutting wind. Krizalid put on a burst of speed and caught the man's fallen hood. With his other hand, he ripped off the band that held his mask.
The man instantly pulled the hood on to cover his face as soon as the mask fell. In a flash, he fired a smoke bomb and vanished from Krizalid's sight.
"Hey!" Krizalid exclaimed, looking around for the man.
He found no trace of him besides the mask he just ripped off. He picked it up and looked at it before looking at the package in his other hand. He turned the package over and over in his hands, trying to figure out what's inside it. It was wrapped in brown paper and soft as if it was lined in bubble wrap on the inside. He pressed it a little and felt something hard in it.
Puzzled, he ripped open the packing. To his surprise, it contained a plastic case with a Maltese Cross necklace in it, similar to the one that K' always wore.
'Isn't this Dash's?' Krizalid thought to himself, turning over the case. 'Why is it here?'
His phone started vibrating in his back pocket again. He took it out and saw that it was a call from Maxima.
"Hello?" Krizalid answered the call.
"Hey, Kriz," Maxima answered. "Are you at home?"
"No, why?" Krizalid said, trying to find his way back to Hinokicho Park. "I'm out."
"What?!" Maxima said in surprise. "But they said that my package has been delivered!"
"What do you mean?" Krizalid said, puzzled. "I've been out since this morning!"
"I don't know," Maxima said, sounding annoyed. "It's FastGet. Can you go check it out? Sorry, Kriz, but I'm too busy..."
Krizalid grunted in reply before hanging up and finally caught sight of his black car. He climbed into the driver's seat and started his car. He went to the FastGet outlet and went in.
"My friend says that a parcel that's supposed to come for him has been stated delivered when it clearly hasn't," Krizalid told the clerk at the counter. "By the way, I live in the same place."
The clerk nodded and went to the back to look for the parcel. He came out, holding two.
"There's two," the clerk said. "One for Maxima Cyber and one for Krizalid Flame."
Krizalid was puzzled. He took the two parcels and went back to his car. He put Maxima's package aside and tore open the package that was meant for him. It was a statuette of a male angel that looked suspiciously like him with feathery wings and a pair of horns on his head. The figurine even had a Maltese Cross pendant on its neck.
The statue also appeared to be wearing something that looked a lot like his battle suit. At the bottom, the words My Dear Fallen Angel were engraved.
Krizalid put that back into the package in silence and started driving home.
That was when his phone started ringing again. It was Maxima again and he asked if Krizalid went to the warehouse to retrieve his package.
"Great, did they have it?" Maxima asked.
"Yeah, they did," Krizalid said. "I have it here now."
"Thank you, Kriz," Maxima said. "This means a lot. I've bought you lunch, it's on the way to our place now."
Krizalid hummed in reply and hung up. He arrived back at the apartment and saw an EatYou delivery guy waiting for the elevator.
"Is this by any chance being delivered to a guy named Maxima?" Krizalid asked.
"Yeah," the delivery man said. "Is it you?"
"No, but I'm his housemate," Krizalid said.
"Is your name Krizalid Flame?" The delivery man asked, reading the name on his phone before looking up at him.
"Yes, I am," Krizalid said. "That's me."
So the man just handed it to him and left. Krizalid went upstairs to his apartment and noticed how hungry he was. He skipped breakfast, went to Hinokicho for no reason, went to FastGet warehouse and finally, he was at home...
Turns out, Maxima bought him a light meal of uramaki sushi and wagashi for desert. He was kinda sad that there was no sake to wash it down, but he didn't wanna get drunk, especially when alone. But then again, he was at home. Who's gonna see?
As he finished the sushi from the transparent plastic container, he noticed some black writing underneath. Puzzled, Krizalid finished the food and turned it over to see that it was yet another coded message.
This time, it was written in binary code. Krizalid immediately started looking it up on the internet to decipher it while eating his wagashi.
Ueno, Taito Ward. Bring necklace.
He had enough of it. He grabbed his keys again, together with the second deciphered note and the Maltese necklace in his pocket. He got into his car and drove to Taito City. The note didn't specify which part of Ueno he needed to go to, but he figured that they meant the park. So that's where he went.
He stopped at the park and got out of the car. He had no idea where to go and just aimlessly wandered about the park. It was around half past four and the sun was starting to set. Night was getting close, and Krizalid regretted to have only eaten sushi and nothing else.
Two more men wearing Vendetta masks confronted him. One of them were tall, only slightly shorter than him. While the other...
He was very short, only around Kula or Zayn's height.
"What do you want from me?" Krizalid demanded.
The shorter one took out an aesthetic painting of Krizalid's face up to neck, wearing the Maltese Cross, and handed it to him.
"What's this supposed to be?" Krizalid asked, exasperated. "Why are you giving me these strange gifts?!"
The men motioned for him to follow them. Krizalid let his guard up high, flinching at the even the slightest sound, and followed them.
They stopped in front of a hotel and turned to him.
They pointed at his neck.
"Huh?" Krizalid asked, confused.
The taller one looked annoyed and came to him. He took the painting from his hand and pointed at the Maltese Cross.
"You want me to wear it?" Krizalid asked.
The strange men nodded and he started putting it on. As much as he was annoyed, he was also confused at why these Vendetta freaks were targeting him.
They led him in and brought him to a double door with a sign reading closed for private party. The two men stopped and turned around.
Krizalid noticed that they wanted him to enter.
And he did. As soon as the door opened, K' and Zayn's remix of My Dear Fallen Angel started playing.
Everyone he knew were there, singing him a Happy Birthday. He turned around to see that the two men that led him there were none other than K' and Zayn.
They stood near the entrance, grinning at him.
"So it was you guys?!" Krizalid exclaimed, running to them. He grabbed both of their collars and started shaking them. "What was the point of that?!"
"It's your birthday, Kriz!" K' said with a grin. "Also, be happy we didn't kidnap anyone."
"Ralf wasn't behind this, right?" Krizalid asked.
"Nope," Zayn grinned. "Just us."
Krizalid started messing about with them, much to everyone's surprise.
"Go get changed," K' said. "Your stuff's at the back."
He followed Iori to the back and to a changing room.
"Happy Birthday, Kriz," the redhead said, giving him a bag. "Get dressed."
He opened the bag and saw a nice white suit. He wore it and rejoined the others for the party. K' and Zayn changed into formal outfits too.
"And we're staying here for the night," K' said with a smirk. "Our room's upstairs."
"And you're sharing with me," Maxima said, showing him a key.
They partied almost the whole night and went up to their hotel rooms to sleep. K' managed to pack some of Krizalid's clothes for him when he was out on his adventure.
'This was the best birthday ever!' Krizalid smiled to himself as he stared at the ceiling in the dark hotel room. 'NESTS didn't even bother...'
He fell into a deep sleep and Maxima wasn't even surprised when Krizalid didn't even snore. He was peacefully asleep, not even having a dream.

I think I might make a behind the scenes version of this. Sounds fun lol.