Summary: By the time Chichiri realizes the trap has been sprung, it's already too late.

Rating: PG-13.

Author's Notes: Direct references to past TasukixNuriko. Focuses on Tasuki and Chichiri's relationship, which can be read as platonic or pre-slash depending on your interpretation.

Warnings: Yaoi, references to character death, salty language. Spoilers for episode 33.

Chichiri had not dreamed of Hikou in months. Perhaps Nuriko's death - perhaps this entire quest with the Suzaku warriors - had affected him more deeply than he had reckoned on, stirring up feelings and memories he thought he had long ago set at peace.

Whatever the reason, that night Chichiri found himself walking through his home village. A sunny dreamscape, where his dear childhood friend still walked happy and healthy. In his dream Chichiri walked with him, and Kouran was still alive, and there was peace.

But Chichiri had had this dream many times before in his life, and he knew well what was coming next. The floodwaters rose once again, impossibly fast and angry, to devour his village. Again Chichiri found solid ground washing away beneath him, and again he found himself clutching desperately at Hikou's arm, and again his best friend's eyes widened with the realization that death was upon him.

No, Chichiri begged, as he always did, NO!

But again the waters carried debris towards him at ferocious speed, and again Chichiri lost half his vision in a white explosion of pain. Again something hot and sticky erupted out of his shattered eye socket, something he would only later realize was blood.

But for the first time in his life, Chichiri dreamed he did not let go of Hikou.

Though his injured face screamed with pain, and the flood surged all around them, it was as if their arms had melded together. Instead Hikou pulled Chichiri down with him, and together they were both swept into the raging waters.

Now the river swallowed Chichiri whole, angry crosscurrents tossing and jerking his body like a rag doll. He could not fight back, not even as a powerful undertow dragged him down beneath the water's surface. No matter how he kicked and thrashed, he could not get back to the surface. Air - AIR! Chichiri thought, an animalistic panic overwhelming him. He could not breathe! Every time he tried to spit the water out, more rushed in, filling his nose and throat. His lungs grew tighter and tighter, ready to burst with the pressure of suffocation-

Chichiri awoke with a mighty gasp, panic still shaking him.

What in Suzaku's name was that? he wondered, his breath still loud and ragged.

Not even at the depths of his guilt over Hikou had he experienced a dream so frighteningly physical. This one had left his throat raw, his guts still shaking and his muscles still desperate for air. And behind it lurked the same cold, despairing pain that had shot through his body shortly before Nuriko's death.

"That wasn't a dream at all," Chichiri murmured to himself in slow realization. Then what was it? Why would I feel so powerfully as if I were drowning?

Chichiri's eye widened as a terrible suspicion overtook him.

He threw off his blankets and raced out of his tent, footsteps crunching rapidly through the snow. Reaching Tasuki's tent, he flung open the flap to find it empty.

He needs me to come find him...

"Oh Houjun - you fool!" Chichiri shouted, having rarely been angrier with himself than in that moment. "He tried to tell you..."

Tasuki had said it himself: My mind ain't good enough to imagine all that by itself. Now Chichiri realized how unwittingly accurate those words had been. Tasuki hadn't just been imagining things; he really had seen Nuriko in some form or another. But if the drowning sensation were any clue, it could not have been the real Nuriko's spirit, because the real Nuriko would sooner walk through all nine hells than lead his beloved into danger.

And that, Chichiri deduced, left only one possibility: that whatever Tasuki had been seeing was a trick. Some kind of magical deception - perhaps a trap set by one of their enemies, designed to prey upon a grieving mind. Or perhaps some ancient enchantment they had accidentally awakened in this mysterious land of Hokkan.

All the clues had been there, Chichiri realized. But all I could do was dwell on the past, letting my own feelings about Hikou and Kouran cloud everything else. Have seven years of meditation left me still so self-centered?

"No," Chichiri answered himself out loud. No, his training had taught him to focus, not compound his folly by indulging in regret. He closed his eyes, focused on the breath coming into his nose and going out of his mouth, and stilled his mind. Only then could he concentrate, drawing on their connection as Suzaku warriors to locate Tasuki's spirit. If it still exists -

"There!" Chichiri cried softly.

He could feel it - thready, weakening - but not gone yet. And he broke into a mad sprint back to his tent. There he fetched his cloak and staff, cast a quick spell on his hat, and leapt.