It was Yuzuriha who stirred first.
She wasn't at all surprised to feel something warm and unmistakably breathing beneath her cheek but as she smiled and pressed her face closer, she realized that something was wrong. There was no coarse fur or faint, sweaty and earthy smell of dog. It actually felt more like cotton with the entwined scents of cigarette smoke and soap woven into its soft, worn material. Her eyes flew open in surprise but she was met with only hazy darkness at first.
She blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust and she realized that all she could really make out from this position was a shoulder and a chin so she raised herself up on one elbow to get a better look at the person whose chest she had apparently appropriated as her new pillow.
"Su… baru-san?" she whispered as recognition hit her but he continued to sleep, heedless of her confusion. Someone else answered instead with a sleepy "whatsit?" and only then did she realize that the weight pressing down on her shin was neither Inuki nor a particularly heavy duvet but someone's head.
"Sora-san?" She called into the darkness, thinking that she recognized the voice, but then the head that had been on her shin shifted and turned, its eyes opened to peer blearily at her, she realized her mistake. Unless Sorata had suddenly gotten blue contact lenses that was most definitely not the person using her leg as its own pillow.
"Who the hell are you?" The man mumbled.
Yuzuriha gave a small shriek of surprise and tried to jerk her leg away, succeeding only in kicking the strange man in the face. His involuntary cry of pain startled Subaru awake and he jerked.
"Seishirou-san?" He cried, popping up, only to knock heads with Yuzuriha who was still backing away from the man on the ground by her foot. "Ow!"
"What?" a deeper voice responded thickly from a few feet away. Seishirou sighed, wondering who the delightfully warm slender body curled so lovingly up to his could be. He smiled as the person nuzzled closer, realizing that it must be Subaru. So hearing his voice hadn't been just the after effects of a dream after all.
Then he opened his eyes and was very confused as he wondered when Subaru had grown his hair out so long… and when he had started wearing skirts… and when…
Oh.
Seishirou jackknifed up, startling the pale young woman that had only seconds ago been blissfully enjoying their little snuggle.
"What the hell are you doing?" He demanded.
"Me?" the girl sat up as well, blushing cherry red. "What are YOU doing, grabbing me in my sleep like that!"
"Arashi-san?" Yuzuriha called cautiously.
"Look out Yuzuriha-chan, there's some kind of pervert here!" Arashi called back, not taking her glaring eyes off of Seishirou for one second.
"No seriously, who the hell are you?" The blue-eyed man demanded again, rubbing his forehead where Yuzuriha had kicked him.
Kusanagi stirred and opened his eyes to find them half-veiled by a spray of red, flower-scented hair. He froze in place, wondering how that could have gotten there when the owner of said hair yawned and stirred herself, pulling it out of his eyes as she sat up sleepily. She rubbed her eyes then looked down at Kusanagi's frozen form in confusion.
"Hello?"
"Um…" Kusanagi coughed awkwardly. "Hi."
"Are you one of my clients?" She asked with a baffled stare.
"Clients?"
"Onee-san! Am I not good enough for you that you would go and snuggle with that guy!" Sorata shouted across the room. He failed to notice that his hand was planted firmly on another young woman's ample bosom. Unfortunately for him, Arashi did notice and gave him a death glare over the stirring young man between them.
Satsuki meanwhile was wondering if she should tell the strange guy screaming at the top of his lungs to shut up first, or to stop groping her first. In the end she simply decided to punch him in the face, which successfully accomplished both.
Sorata stumbled over backward, already sporting the darkening signs of a black eye, into Aoki, knocking away the older man's glasses and leaving him even more confused and disoriented than he already was by the entire situation.
"Sorata-kun?"
"Yup!" The teen replied cheerfully, despite his wounds.
"What's going on?"
"I'm pretty sure booze was involved, judging by my pounding headache that you're all making significantly worse." Yuuto announced accusingly.
"Oh shut up, you drink that much every night." Karen snapped.
"You were with him?" Yuzuriha queried. "So you were drinking?" She turned to Yuuto inquisitively.
"I think I could use a drink…" Kusanagi mumbled, trying his best to scoot away from the pile of entwined bodies. He put out a hand to brace himself as he shifted further away and was shocked and alarmed to find empty air beneath it.
"Ah Kusanagi-san! You're here as well! Were you drinking too?"
"There- there isn't any ground over here." He replied shakily."
"Dream." Murmured a pale young man in lavender.
"Hey look, it speaks." Yuuto observed.
"Nataku's right." Seishirou stared out into the vague darkness surrounding them. "We're in a dream."
"How are we all in the same dream though?" Yuzuriha wondered.
Arashi tried to draw her sword but found much to her dismay that she could not. Subaru was discovering a similar issue with summoning his ofuda.
"Dreamseer." Satsuki hissed, noticing the blond man at the edge of the circle with his back to the rest of them.
Kakyou turned slowly to face them. "This is not my doing."
"Whose is it then?"
"I don't know." He breathed deeply as though tasting the air. "It doesn't feel like Hinoto's magic and Kanoe only piggybacks off of her."
"Ten, eleven… twelve." Aoki finished counting. "Twelve of us. All dragons. The only ones missing then are the Kamui. That must be significant, right?"
"Where are they though? Why bring everyone into a dream but them?"
"Maybe… we have to find them?" Yuzuriha squinted into the darkness around them.
"Um, how do we even begin to look for them?" Kusanagi pointed out. "There's just empty space out there."
"There's a path over here." Seishirou commented and began to move to test its stability, confused to discover that the moment he did so, it vanished. He froze for a moment before leaning back again, irritated to discover that as soon as he did, the path reappeared. He frowned and then realized that his knee was against Arashi's leg. Not liking human contact, he pulled it away and the path dissolved into nothingness once more.
"Maybe if we just concentrate really really hard." Yuzuriha put her hands to her temples and squinted out into the darkness, her elbow brushing Nataku's cheek. Another pathway appeared at her knees. "Oh my gosh, look I-" As soon as she lowered her arm to point, the path winked out of sight. "-aw."
Seishirou leaned away from Arashi and put a hand on Kusanagi's shoulder.
"What are you-"
"Nothing." He commented absently.
Karen saw what Seishirou was doing and put a hand on Kusanagi's knee, staring out into the darkness. Kusanagi jumped in surprise when a pathway materialized before them.
"Contact." She observed.
"But only with someone on the opposite side." Seishirou amended.
"But why?"
"Some say that when you're in a dream, you walk between Heaven and Earth." Everyone turned to face Subaru and he blushed. "Well, so I've heard anyway."
"We can't all fit on that path though." Aoki remarked as Karen reached out to touch the one in front of her.
"It's solid." She declared. "But we shouldn't all go down one anyway. I think we should split up."
"That is the worst idea ever though! That always ends badly in horror movies!" Sorata protested.
"This isn't a horror movie." Satsuki rolled her eyes.
"Still. Why should we even leave our little group anyway?"
"I agree that we might need to find the Kamui." Kakyou answered. "The rest of us are sort of meaningless without them, so I don't know why we would all be pulled into a dream where they were not. And the pathways seem to indicate that there is something out there we're meant to find."
Sorata grumbled but consented. "Fine. But at least I'm sticking with you, since I know you're not such a bad guy."
Yuzuriha promptly looped her arm through Nataku's and introduced herself. "I'm Nekoi Yuzuriha and I am a Dragon of Heaven! You can call me Yuzu-chan though if you want. What's your name?"
"Um… Nataku." The clone awkward replied, wanting very much to pull his arm away from this overly bright-eyed girl.
"Sakurazuka Seishirou." Seishirou gave a small bow.
"Sakurazukamori." Arashi hissed. "I know who you are."
"Oh, well that's not very fair then is it? I have no idea who the hell you are."
"She's Kishuu Arashi!" Yuzuriha piped up before Arashi could give a false name. She stared in horror, realizing that now the Sakurazukamori knew her full real name.
Seishirou realized it too and his lips curled into a dark smile.
"Sumeragi Subaru." Subaru gave Satsuki a formal bow and she raised an eyebrow.
"Just call me Satsuki." She replied, well aware that she was dealing with an onmyouji.
Karen patted Kusanagi's knee reassuringly, seeing that the entire proceedings seemed to making him increasingly uncomfortable. "I'm Kasumi Karen. What's your name?"
"Oh, uh, Shiyuu Kusanagi."
"Well Shiyuu-san, I think you and I have got a bit of walking to do, what do you say?"
"I guess…" He glanced behind him to see that the rest of the dragons appeared to be having little trouble pulling themselves together and setting out with their respective adversaries. Didn't this whole situation bother them?
"Um. Yeah. I guess we should… get going."
"Ready?"
She held a hand out to him.
No. "Yes."
"Great." She took a firm grasp of his hand as they set out on the pathway. "Let's find Kamui."