[PRIVATE: DGFone & Thewhistlerify]

[DGFone]

If anything, the way Hatari was talking to him made Delano feel even worse. To his ears, due to the way Hatari was acting so calm, the lion was only confirming that he knew about Sanders, and was playing around with him. Letting out a loud roar, Delano lunged forward and pressed Hatari hard against the tree trunk. "So you do know, do you? You probably set it up, didn't you?"

When Hatari tried to protest, Delano wasn't willing to listen. "You made sure that he wouldn't be killed!" he screamed, "I defended you, and at the same time, you were busy making sure that he would survive!" Pressing Hatari hard against the tree, Delano wished nothing more than to be able to just kill him and have it all be over with. But he needed answers. "All this talk of leaving everything behind. Of making friends with Muroki and Umeme, all of that just... a cover so that Sanders would live? Why?" Glaring at the other lion, Delano one last simple question. "What is so important about him that you needed to fake his execution?"

[TheWhistlerify]

Well, that was nothing close to civilized (or convenient, for that matter). Just which part of what Hatari had said made Delano think he had even the slightest clue as to what he was talking about? But as Akili's father slowly revealed what this whole thing was about, the former member of the underworld found himself becoming even more confused. "What are you talking about??" he asked with a growl of his own.

How could Sanders possibly be alive and, just as unlikely, what made Delano believe that Hatari could have possibly had anything to do with something like that? How could he have faked the execution? "Sanders is dead, Delano!" he shot back. "He's as important to me as that dead hyena I saw getting pecked by vultures yesterday!"

Surprisingly enough, he wasn't in the mood to be pushed around at the moment (or risk getting hurt because of something completely absurd like this, for that matter). Slightly scratching one of Delano's paws, he used the very brief moment of surprise and slight retaliation to roll away and quickly climb onto the lowest branch, which was some distance off the ground. "You're being ridiculous! I've been here ever since the trial! How could I possibly fake an execution?!"

[DGFone]

"He's not dead!" Delano shouted, "I saw him just today! ... We both saw him! Stop pretending no to know what's going on or I'll-" It was this moment that Hatari took to escape Delano's grip, who was caught off guard and wasn't able to stop the other from escaping up into the tree.

Delano tried to follow, but not being as familiar at tree climbing, he wasn't able to get after Hatari, and was left furious on the ground. "Get down from here right now!" he screamed, viewing Hatari's escape attempt only as further proof that the lion was guilty, not innocent. After all, if Hatari really did not know, and Delano was wrong, why did he just attack him and hide up on the branch instead of talking like he said he would?

"I don't know how you can fake it!" Delano shouted in reply to Hatari's own question. "But I saw Sanders. I saw him! You have to be connected, you just have to!"

[TheWhistlerify]

"What do you mean, you both saw him?" asked Hatari with a look of disbelief on his face. That sounded so impossible, though not unlikely to come from Delano's mouth, but if Lina saw him too... Muroki's brother might be overreacting to who knew what, but surely his mate's head was actually on her shoulders... But that couldn't be! "You don't know because I couldn't have possibly been involved!" He continued as he realized that, like he'd suspected, Delano's only reason to think he was connected was his own paranoia.

"He was handed over to be executed by the police!" said the former member of the underworld. "Do I look like police to you?" Surely even Delano should be able to see that the dots simply did not connect. "Or do you forget that he tried to kill me right after the trial too?" If Delano really saw Sanders, how come he was still, well, alive? Surely the former leader of the underworld wouldn't have let such an easy opportunity for vengeance to go to waste.

[DGFone]

By now obviously not thinking straight, Delano wasn't exactly listening to Hatari properly. Instead of listening to logic, he was still trying to argue that the lion was lying to him. "It could have been an act!" he protested, "an act to try and fool us into thinking that he really did hate you."

He had to stop and think, something that Delano was finding very hard to do at the moment. "You were his second in command..." he argued, "the one who answered directly to him... Friends probably as well, as both of you were demented the same way. How can I know that that simply stopped? The police can be convinced to change their mind you know. And they don't always do the right thing..." Delano hesitated, recalling unpleasant memories, "I would know personally..."

He looked up at Hatari once more. "If you did not want him to live, who would? There's no one else... It's you. It has got to be you." He froze, a horrible thought crossing his mind. "Your friendship with Muroki and Umeme... it's all fake, isn't it? Lower their guard and make them easy targets later on... If you dare to lay so much as one paw on them... Remember that we're outside the border. There's no laws here to stop me from doing what I want to you." Walking up to the trunk, Delano raised himself as high up as he could, but was still out of reach of Hatari. "Which reminds me: what's to stop me from being safe and not killing you right now?" He growled at the lion who was still safe on the branch. "You can't stay there forever. And when you will come down, you will have to fight."

[TheWhistlerify]

"Friends?" Hatari raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. "We were anything but friends. But you already know that." He'd told Delano that the reason he'd become a member of the underworld was for his own safety. Sanders had been nothing but a lion whose good side everyone had to stay on.

He laughed a short laugh at Delano's threat, unable to not be amused by it. "Delano, you might find out that the lack of laws works both ways." It was true. If he were to enter the kingdom, let alone kill someone while he was there, he would be hunted down for sure. But here... "You know I can kill you easily if you leave me no choice." He frowned, baring his teeth. "Although, given the circumstance, I'll just immobilize you."

Behind him, he could see Lina with a very worried look on her face. Clearly she knew what would happen if her mate really lost control. "So before you do anything stupid let me remind you that foolishly risking your life won't only result in hurting only you." he continued. "I'd think about your mate, for example, or your brother and aunt. Oh, don't forget little Akili too." Hatari gave the angry lion a judging stare. "But that's just me..."

[DGFone]

While Delano was getting annoyed at how Hatari was threatening him with retaliation, he still had enough sense not to lose his temper at the lion any more than he already had. That is, until Hatari mentioned Akili. "Don't you dare mention him!" Delano shouted, "Don't you dare!" He tried to climb up the tree to get at the other lion, when he found himself being pulled back and prevented from attacking.

When he realized who it was, he calmed down slightly. "Lina? What are you doing?" He tried to get up, but she still kept him pinned to the ground. "Let me up, Lina, come on..."

[TheWhistlerify]

Hatari rolled his eyes, realizing that Delano's current state of mind was anything but allowing him to think even a little bit clearly enough to realize the stupidity of the way he was behaving. He paid little to no interest to the lion's pointless attempts to climb after him, looking back down upon seeing Lina intervene, preventing her mate from climbing up the tree by holding him back and not letting him go regardless of him asking her to, even if he did seem a little calmer.

"Do you honestly believe I'm still out to cause you harm?" he asked after a few more moments had passed and Delano had calmed down further. "After everything? After the many opportunities I had during which I could have attacked you on your own and after I saved you, your brother and the prince Sanders was trying to kill so that he could exact his revenge on the king? Trust me, if there's anybody Sanders hates more than you, it's me."

"In fact I think you're opinion of me isn't that harsh..." said the former member of the underworld. "If that hadn't been the case you wouldn't have been fine with Muroki and Umeme being in touch with me let alone with your own son coming anywhere close to me. But I suppose that seeing Sanders, if that really was him, was something you couldn't connect to anything but me, and so you immediately came here in a rage to demand answers."

"But we did see him." said Lina, causing Hatari's expression to soften a little. Finally; someone who could talk properly! "That lion was far away, but he looked too much like him for comfort..."

"The king's sentence to have him executed was given in front of the majority of the pride and many police members." said Hatari, still finding it hard to believe. "To disobey a direct order of that nature from Kato's father and get away with it would probably require the coporation of the entire police elite."

[DGFone]

Held down by Lina, Delano at first struggled to escape her grasp, but eventually calmed down enough to stop resisting. Listening to what Hatari was saying, he slowly began to realize that he was in fact not thinking clearly. He had to look away from the other lion in shame, knowing that he had just tried to attack him out of his own fear and paranoia. Hatari had just described how he felt better than he can at the moment, and it even frightened Delano slightly that his thoughts and mood were so easily read.

"But we saw him, walking just outside the border..." he muttered quietly, "someone must have allowed him to live. But why?" As his anger lessened, he began to feel just how frightened he was - of the fact that someone he feared so much was still alive and capable hurting others. "Why would... someone want him to live? Why him?"

[TheWhistlerify]

Hatari couldn't help but feel just as lost for information as Delano was. "Surely whoever's done it knows what Sanders wants and has wanted to do for a long time now." he said, hopping off his branch and landing softly at the bottom of the tree. "And if I know anything about lions like him is that they don't do anything unless it serves their own personal purposes." If Sanders really was alive, his savior had obviously not helped him out of kindness. Not loyalty either, no, for anyone who answered to the former leader of the underworld was either gone or in no position of real power.

Trying to get things straight, he began pacing back and forth. "So, by letting him survive, his helpers know what he'll try to do. I'm sure that no one will gain much if he gets to you or to your brother, so this can only lead us back to Sanders's original plot and to the throne." Why would anybody want Sanders to become the king? Not only did that seem an unlikely wish for someone thirsty for power, but surely anyone would easily know that the pride will never listen to that terrible lion. "The real question is..." He came to a halt. "Why? Who would possibly risk having Sanders for competition?"