Tasuki barely complained for the next four hours that they walked. He took on the role as leader, and decided to shut up for once. Though every time his feet hit the ground he felt the need to whine. But now wasn't the time. Besides, he was almost twenty years old, at some point he needed to grow up. Today definitely wasn't the day, and Suzaku knows when, but at least it was progress.

As he poked at the dying fire, his eyes kept glancing back to the girl lying before him. Her breathing had been even for a while. She hadn't spoken much since the worm attack. Her mind had been drifting between this new quest, and the realization that her old one, the one to discover the fate of her brother, had ended so abruptly. Tasuki stared deep into the last dying ember in the fire, trying to figure out what was going on in her head. He couldn't understand her most of the time, she was a mystery. Then, on the other side, she was maddening and such a smartass, he had trouble not getting frustrated.

In fact, Wen wasn't sleeping. Even though her breathing was steady, tears leaked out of her tired eyes. She could feel Tasuki watching her, wondering. He was curious. And how couldn't he be? She had already blurted out too much about his past, and given away more clues about herself than she needed to. Then again, her little brother had been a Celestial Warrior chosen by a god; maybe she wasn't so strange after all.

If they were going to travel together, she thought, she would have to tell him at some point. Tell him everything that is. She just felt like a freak, and didn't want to let people into that. It was difficult, but she wasn't wallow in pity. When she was younger, she would hide away from everyone just to avoid anything. Nobody had ever been able to hold her, or touch her on the hand once without repercussions.

Once, when Chiriko had been very small, he ran up to her, excited about learning something new.

"Sister! Sister!"

"What is it-"

His arms circled around her knees, and she froze.

"What's wrong, Wen?" His giant emerald eyes bore into her navy, while she bit the inside of her lip. His short life passed before her eyes. He was so much simpler than any of the adults who had touched her before, but it still wasn't right. He was five, how was she supposed to explain this to him?

"Nothing," she laughed and pushed him away, "C'mon, let's go for a walk. The trees are really pretty this time of year."

"We've been walking forever, can't we just stop!"

Wen had had it. He had complained exactly thirteen times in the last ten minutes. "I'm done. If you want to complain, you can head back to the city, and live out the rest of your life being a bum. I don't care what kind of so-called warrior you are! We've been walking for an hour. I want to find Chir-Chichiri, and find out what the hell sort of reason I saw that hag in my damn dream!" She became so flustered she almost misspoke. Chichiri's name was similar to Chiriko, and with her little brother already on her mind she couldn't think straight.

He still looked shocked. "I'm sorry, I guess I just sort of…"

"It doesn't matter," she smiled loosely, "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just on edge. I mean, what if we run into some really bad bandits, or it starts pouring?" She was almost chuckling by the end.

"I really don't understand women." He groaned.

"And I really don't understand whiny, little boys. I guess we're incompatible."

"Incom-what? Hey, what did you say about bandits?!" He jogged up beside her.

She looked as if she was worried for his health. "I said it would be bad if we ran into some bad bandits."

"Oh, okay, bad bandits. As long as you don't think all bandits are bad."

"Uh, huh." She brushed him away, sweeping her eyes to the forested path ahead once more.

"Because they're not, you know. See I'm a bandit. Leader of Mount Reikaku Bandits in fact."

"Lovely."

"Well, we just steal from the rich, and give to the poor. That's how it is under me anyway, and I usually check in to make sure my second-in-charge is doing the same." He caught her roll her eyes out of the corner of his. "What's so wrong with that?!"

"My parents were robbed by bandits once. They were wealthy. I just don't have much respect for someone who steals from people who have worked long, and hard to get to the point that they're at. It's rude, wasteful, and just plain juvenile."

"W-well, it's not like we go around stealing from everyone! Only people who seem like real pigs. I'm sure it wasn't us who stole from your parents." He said under his breath.

"I know it wasn't. I'm just proving a point." She took a long side glance at him. "And getting you flustered in the process."

"Feh…wasn't flustered."

"You were flustered."

"Was not!"

"I'm not going to argue with you." Her tone was condescending, and almost motherly.

"Hey, if you're going to act like a brat the entire trip, I'll just throw you off on the side of the path. You can find your own way." It was a bluff. He couldn't throw Chiriko's sister, let alone someone who looked so much like him to fend for themselves. Carefully he watched the muscles in her neck tense up for a moment. He couldn't read the blank look on her face, and it was driving him insane. In a certain way he wanted to comfort her, and tell her even more wonderful things about her late brother, but couldn't quite bring himself to get those words out past the hard ball that formed in his throat whenever he tried.

"I'm sorry." She said after forever. "I'm frustrated, and I shouldn't take it out on you." Her voice faltered with every word. "I haven't had a really conversation with someone in so long. I haven't walked with another person in months. I guess it's just kind of tiring to have to talk with you so much, or just walk near you."

"So now are you gonna' tell me how you know so much about me?"

"I just got in touch with your fan club. It was easy enough." She walked ahead of him, take two long strides for every single on he took.

"It's more than that…" As he reached a hand out to turn her shoulder toward him she skipped farther away. "Listen, if we're going to find Chichiri, and the old hag, and you're supposed to save the world from darkness and whatever the hell else this damn world would like to spew out at us, you can't have secrets." He said sternly. "I don't know what your problem is, but you need to be honest. I refuse to move from this spot until you tell me." He said resolutely plopping down on the dirt. She glanced down at him, only partially annoyed with his antics.

After a minute or two she sighed, and backed up against a tree.

"Listen, you'll just think I'm a freak. It doesn't really matter that much." She whispered, brushing her wavy hair forward on one side, pulling the red hair ribbon, and twisting it around until the hair was secured with a thin bow on one side.

"I'm not moving." He challenged again. Sighing, she seemed to shrink further back into the tree.

"Well…I suppose I mu-"

She was cut off by an arm, and knife suddenly darting from behind the tree. A man roughly pulled her away from it, and held her close in front of him. He was a tall, and intimidating man, but young, and strong.

"Tasuki…?"

"Don't talk!" He barked, digging the knife deeper into her pale flesh, and hugging her closer to his chest. "I'm going to take her back to my camp, and if you don't come with everything you've got in twenty minutes some bad things'll happen to her."

His tessen was out, and in front of him in seconds.

"I think you're mistaken. You're going to give her back right now, and we're not gonna' give you anything." He couldn't fire the fan, it would burn Wen too, but there was nothing else to do now.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" The man laughed. Wen squirmed in his grasp, but her nicked her neck, and she stopped at once. She looked as if she was about to cry.

"Put that thing down, Tasuki!" She yelped. Her face was red and splotchy already. Was it…?

She had flinched away when he had touched her, and though they weren't exactly friends yet, and had barely known each other for a day or two, she had to have been more comfortable with him than this guy.

"I said shut up!" He bellowed, threatening the cut.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'll just be silent as he burns both of us to death. Imbecile." The man holding her was dumbstruck, but didn't say anymore.

"W-whatever, I'm leaving now." He had already backed up ten feet, dragging Wen across the soft dirt, and grass. "You better come get your girlfriend soon!" He called.

"I couldn't do anything." Tasuki whispered to himself. But now was not the time to get sentimental, he thought. He gathered up his tessen, and sped in the direction of the man.

"Let go of me!" Wen kicked and punched, but to no avail. She was weak, and small, and he was a giant in comparison.

"You're kind of cute for being such a bitch, you know." He laughed. "Hey boys I got one, and she's got a crazy boyfriend who'll definitely bring us what we need. You should've seen the look on his face!" She observed the ten or so other men at the camp. They were all middle-aged, and didn't look too fit.

"Nice work, boss!" One of them shouted.

"I know," he answered cockily, "She's not the prettiest one, is she? But she'll have to do!" The men set up in raucous laughter once again as the man moved into his tent, much larger than the rest, and threw her down onto the floor. He blocked the door, and tied it shut. "I'll kill you if you try to get out, blah, blah, blah…"

"Don't touch me ever again." She hissed from a corner.

"Oh," his eyes perked up, "You don't like that?" He asked greedily.

"Just as much as you like to watch your little sister die." She spat. He froze.

"How do you know about that?" He fell to his knees to be eye level with her, cornering her. "How the hell do you know about that? You don't know me!"

"You touched me." She said matter-of-factly. "And you touched me for far too long. I know everything." It was only a slight bluff, she didn't know everything. "Who's Hanako? I wonder how pleased she would be with you doing this."

"S-shut up! You're a wicked bitch!"

"I know I am. It's sort of a defense mechanism. The worse you are to me, and the worse mood I'm in, the more terrible I'll be to you."

"Why would you have any reason to be upset? All you're doing is…is torturing me! That's not how this is supposed to work!"

"I found out my baby brother is dead yesterday. And you sort of just kidnapped me. I have every right to be a terrible person to you."

"You…you don't understand…"

"I wouldn't ex-"

"REKKA SHINEN!" Bellowed a terrifying voice from just outside.

Then a shriek from the men outside.

"WHERE IS SHE?!"

The two in the ten could faintly hear a man whimper out something before there was silence again. The bandit man stayed firmly planted on top Wen, being careful not to touch her though. She kept her eyes glued on the tent door.

That didn't prove much point though. The tent was pulled from its pegs in one sweeping motion by the furious man just outside. He appeared to be engulfed in a fiery aura.

"Get off of her now." His tone was deadly. Hurriedly, like he just realized he had been near her, the man flung himself away. Wen popped up from the ground on her own. "I should tell you who I am before I kill you, I suppose. I am Genrou, rightful leader of the Mt. Reikaku bandits, or better known as Tasuki, one of the remain two Suzaku Seven. But I don't need to tell you that for you to be terrified of me."

"Tasuki, please don't kill him!" Wen spurted forward.

"No way in hell! What do you want me to do, just let him be! Let him go on doing this?!" He yelled. She flinched back from his large voice. Loudness, yelling, and true conflict were not things that she relished in.

"No, I mean, I don't really care what you do to him, but you are not killing anyone. At least not in front of me!" She answered hoarsely. He glanced from the man, cowering on the ground, and back to the girl with her hands hovering around his arm like she wanted to pull it back, but wasn't quite sure what to do next.

"Alright…" he looked back down at the coward. "You're lucky."

"Thank you! Thank you, so much! You don't know-"

"Rekka Shinen!" A blaze of fire caught the side of the man's face, and withered to the ground in agony. "Let's go." He said almost as soon as the first screams echoed into the forest. Wen, with a hand clamped firmly over her mouth sprinted as far away from the camp as possible. Tasuki lingered behind her. Maybe killing had become too easy, he thought.

"I suppose," she cleared away the small lump in her throat, "I…um, I suppose I should tell you now."

"You don't hafta' if you don't wanna'." His voice wasn't nearly as low as it been, but she still seemed a little afraid of him.

"I will though. It's kind of weird. Whenever I touch someone, or they touch me I can see them. Well…see them. I can see their past, what they're thinking, what's…what's inside of them. And when I'm around a lot of people it's worse. All I feel it gets worse. It's like I can feel everyone's pain and joy all at once, and it's brutally terrifying."

"That's…that's got to suck sometimes."

"Yeah…" she absently smiled at the dirt. They had been walking for another thirty or so minutes, but it seemed like no time had passed between bandit camp and now. "I mean, that's why Chiriko and I weren't really close. He loved to hug me, and tackle me, but I would always panic and cry or do something stupid like that whenever we were kids. I think eventually he kind of gave up, and decided that I hated him. He was always civil with me when he got older, but I could tell he was angry."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"By the time he was old enough to understand, and by the time I was ready to tell him, he was never around. I remember wanting to tell him when I was ten, but at that point he was always shut up in the library, and we…he sort of brushed me off."

"I'm sure he knows now."

"Like hell he does. Even he was a…a-a spirit or ghost or whatever, I doubt he would come back to me." She scooped up a pebble from the path, and tossed it in one hand.

"I got to see him. Only a little while ago actually."

"What?" She scoffed, pretending to only be half-interested.

"A few months ago some things were threatened in this world, and Miaka's, she's the priestess of Suzaku, and everyone came back for a little while."

"All of your old friends?"

"Yeah…all of 'em."

She watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye. After a moment she raised an arm to throw the pebble as far as she could.

"Stop being so sentimental."

He seemed to harden almost at once.

"I ain't bein' sentimental!"

"Uh, huh," she muttered. The last time they had had a miniscule scuffle she had been captured by bandits.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"What do you mean?" She sounded too guarded.

"Well you were just captured by some-"

"I'm fine. I'm just tired now." Her eyes were locked on the orange setting sun, and the periwinkle sky.

"And you said I was the whiner!" He looked triumphant.

"Well if you're not then I suppose you can build, and make the fire, and set up everything."

"I don't wanna' do all that…" He muttered.

"This seems like a good place to rest." They had walked off into an off-shoot from the path. A small clearing with soft ground, and covered in leaves. Tasuki fell to his knees, and curled up, hugging his knees to his chest.

"You can make me some food now, I'm hungry. There's some left in the bag."

"Like hell am I making you food. Make your own damn food."

"C'mon, woman, I'm bringing to Chiri, the least you can do is make me something to eat." He groaned an curled into a tighter ball. "Didn't your mother teach you how to be a good girl or housewife or," he yawned, "whatever?"

Her foot collided with his leg. "Get up you sexist cat. Help me with the fire." She had already collected a good amount of wood while they were walking, and had it set up.

"Don't you mean pig?" She gave him a long side-glance. "Sexist pig?"

"No, you looked like a cat curled up, with a stupid toothy grin, and your," she motioned at her teeth, "You're two sharper teeth showing."

"Canines?"

"Whatever. Just light up the fire."

He chuckled under his breath, and pulled out the fan. "Rekka…shinen!" He whispered as she pulled dried meat and bread from his bag.

"Here," she said softly, leaning close to the fire.

Yeah, so it's been a while, but I just finished up one fic, and decided to return to this. Sorry about that guys! Updates will hopefully be regular..I'll say about once a week it'll be updated. Anyway, review please, it really helps. Like seriously if I see a review I'll get so happy I'll just write like another chapter, and revise it all in one day. So..yeah, review because I'm needy, and I love you.