Author's Note: Hello everyone. This is Saikou. I want to personally thank all of you for looking at my wonderful story-in-progress. It's a tale about love, sorrow, anger, hatred, heroism, cowards, and everything else in between. You will meet the shy Keichi, the skillful Dustfinger, the hateful Basta and the frightening Capricorn. There will be goblins, demons, dragons, fairies, and many more mythical creatures. Many fights will be held; a war will erupt between reality and fiction. And some find true love right in front of them. So you better hold onto your seats, ladies and gents - this is going to be a wild ride.

SAiKOU!

Fire Eater

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.
What a stupid lamb.
What a sick, masochistic lion."

He felt dead inside. He was wanted by no one, as far as he was concerned. He couldn't save Silvertongue, and it was the matchstick eater's fault alone, and he had betrayed him; Meggie despised him for it. Elinor – well, she never liked him, anyway, but she could at least show a little bit of sympathy. It was all getting too much, now – he felt as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. And, really, it was.

Dustfinger wandered aimlessly among the thin, narrow streets, lost in the small town. Maybe I'll be attacked and killed, he thought with a sad smile. Why Basta hadn't killed him along with Silvertongue, he didn't know. But he would rather be dead.
He sat down at a nearby bench that was bolted into the sidewalk. It looked to be the only part of the street that was flooded with light in the midst of the rest of the darkness. He had Inkheart in his hands. Somehow someone had managed to save the original copy before Capricorn burned them all. He stared hard at the silvery-green cover as if something would suddenly pop out. The cover was very worn by use and time – a little over a year had passed since Mo's death, after all. After a time, he finally opened the book. There was no title page, of course. He gently flipped through the pages as if they would crumble to dust with the mere touch of his fingertips. His dark eyes caught onto one page and he stopped, gazing at the page with curiosity and wonder. He had never seen this before, not when he was in the story – not something this beautiful. He stroked the three crescent-shaped scars on the side of face thoughtfully as he took in the details of the picture with wide eyes.

On the page was a beautiful young woman, looking to be right around his age. She was a full blast of color on the yellowing pages, with fair skin and beautiful dark brown hair. She wore a nearly flawless pale blue dress, not that she didn't look flawless herself. A pair of mysterious mismatched eyes – one blue, one green – stared at him with despair, putting her hands in front of her as if she were trying to push through the page but with no success. He wished that he could pluck her right out of the book as Silvertongue had with him, Capricorn, and Basta ten years ago. He wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her that everything would be alright, that there was no evil or danger in this horrible world that he couldn't try to protect her from, that he would even give up his life for her just to see a smile on that gorgeous face. He wanted to caress her soft-looking skin, to feel the silky likeness of it --

He realized that he was so into his daydream that he was merely stroking the silky leftover tissue of his scars.

Dustfinger drew in a deep breath and exhaled with a sigh, closing the book and putting it beside him. He ran his fingers through his dirty blond hair. It wasn't shoulder length as it used to be; with time comes change. His hair grew down to his upper back, and turned darker in color, nonetheless. He peered out into the night, wishing that it would devour him once and for all like an ugly, disembodied beast. He knew that the woman in the book was not Mortimer's wife; this woman was much, much prettier. He fought back the urge to look at the page again. He folded his hands upon his lap and closed his eyes, trying to think of something more realistic, but only the image of the woman kept appearing in his thoughts.
Somehow, seeing her gave him a sense of peace, something that he hadn't felt in a very long time – something he hadn't felt since he was taken out of Inkheart.

He was in love.