Disclaimer: I used to own Tsubasa, but lost it to CLAMP in a poker game ;)

-

The travelers exchanged nervous glances, trying to remember when they had last seen their rotund companion. They half-hoped that he would leap from some hiding place with an energetic greeting, but no such luck. It seemed Mokona really was missing.

Well, that explained the unnatural silence, anyway.

The way her question hung in the air made Sakura feel sick - no answer was definitely a bad answer. She drew her hands back to her sides and clenched them into fists without realizing it. She suddenly had to move, to try to dispel her worry. Standing and walking back to the spot they had been ambushed, she called "Moko-chan! Moko-chan, where are you?"

Syaoran jumped when Sakura was out of sight. There was no way he was going to let her get lost in the forest, too, so he ran to catch up to her. "Sakura-hime!" he called.

"Hm?" she looked over her shoulder with her distracted green eyes.

Staring at her, the boy found himself temporarily at a loss for words. Still, this was important, so he dragged himself out of daydreams and scolded her gently. "Don't go off by yourself, Sakura-hime, it's too dangerous here. Wait for me, please."

She looked at the ground and said quietly, "Okay, Syaoran-kun. I won't leave you again." Well, that hadn't come out the way she meant it too. Determined to hide the blush that accompanied her ill-chosen words, she turned around and resumed walking and calling for Mokona, this time with her protector one step behind her.

Fai pressed one hand to his side and attempted to pull himself up with the other. He succeeded, leaning against a tree, and snuck a glance at Kurogane. Was that concern in the ninja's face? That wouldn't do. In his lightest, most mischievous voice, he asked "You didn't kill Mokona, did you Kuro-myuu?"

This caught him by surprise, and he yelled, "Don't be stupid!"

Fai's smile – which was really more of a smirk – just pissed him off more, but after a moment of fuming he let it go. There were, at the moment, more important things than his desire to throttle the mage. He sighed "Come on. We have to find that damn manjuu."

Fai nodded, letting no sign of doubt show on his face. He waited until Kurogane had started after the kids before experimenting. If he let go of the tree, could he still stand? It turned out he could, and this gave him the confidence to try walking. He stumbled a few times and found it wasn't that bad if he looked down carefully and used trees to support himself when possible.

Walking slowly, the blond finally caught up with the others. They had stopped in the clearing Kurogane had made when he blasted the trees. Sakura was pacing the edge of clearing, calling for Mokona, while Syaoran hovered protectively nearby. Kurogane just glared at the world in general, then turned and directed his glare at Fai. Sakura also turned her attention toward the magician, but in a less hostile manner. "Fai-san, are you really okay?"

He lied with his most charming smile. "I'm fine, don't worry about me. Mokona's really more important now."

Sakura nodded and frowned, biting her thumb nail. "But ... He's not here. I thought maybe ... when the fight started, he hid. But apparently he didn't, or at least not here."

"We know he's not too far away," Syaoran said, "because we can still understand each other."

The princess cheered up slightly. She was still afraid, true, but she was also stubbornly determined not to give into that fear. "Well then," she continued brightly, "How do we find him?"

Fai laughed internally. "Oh, that shouldn't be too hard. We just have to figure out where Mokona went."

Kurogane's glare intensified. "And how do we do that, idiot?"

Fai silently thanked Kurogane for playing along. "You just have to think like Mokona, which should be easy for you, since you two are so much alike. If you were Mokona, Kuro-pyon, where would you – " He dodged the ninja's attack with little trouble but was laughing too hard to continue.

"Fai-san has a point," Syaoran said.

"Huh?" That was news to Kurogane, who thought Fai had just been messing with him, and to Fai, who thought he had just been messing with Kurogane. "What do you mean, Syaoran-kun?" the magician asked.

"Well, Mokona's too smart to have just wandered off - "

"Since when?" Kurogane muttered, earning him a smack from Fai. "What the hell was that for?"

"Insulting you friends is bad, and bad puppies need to be disciplined!"

Syaoran didn't give Kurogane a chance to respond – which is just as well, given what the response would have been. He just continued, "So Mokona must have gone somewhere for a reason, and all we have to do is figure out where he would have gone, then we can find him." The boy gulped nervously, too afraid to mention the possibility his plan wouldn't help them with – if Mokona had not gone somewhere on his own free will but had been taken.

From the expression on Sakura and Kurogane's faces, they had thought the same thing and decided not to mention it. There wasn't really much they could do if Mokona had been captured, so they focused on the prospect they could do something about.

"Well..." Sakura began, blushing as her friends' eyes turned toward her expectantly. "Kage-san told us to follow the river, so if Mokona got separated from us, he might have assumed we'd head for the river and gone there to meet us."

The boys mulled over this theory and decided it was sound. "So! To the river it is," Fai sang. It was his responsibility to add some levity to the situation – everyone knows that too much stress is a very dangerous thing. He thought about dancing about but decided that, in his condition, this would be a very poor choice, so he settled for speaking cheerfully.

The travelers walked quickly, hoping to get out of the forest as soon as possible, as Fai found himself struggling to keep up. He was tired, but he sure as hell wasn't going to ask for them to stop. If they delayed...something could happen to the kids...or Mokona...no, something had already happened to Mokona, right? The blond cursed himself and tried to think more clearly. If only he weren't so tired. He just wanted to lie down for a minute...

NO. He had to focus, had to be strong.

Fai was so concentrated on walking quickly and not letting his mind cloud over that he shut out everything else lost track of his surroundings. He only returned to the present when Kurogane stopped suddenly and he walked into him.

"Watch it," the ninja snapped.

"Ah! Sorry Kuro-pii," Fai waved his hands dismissively. "Why are we stopping, anyway?"

Kurogane gave the mage his customary "what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-anyway?" glance and gestured to the trail ahead of them.

Their current trail crossed a much larger path. The teens were standing on the new trail – it was more of a road, really – trying not to look nervous.

"Now what?" Fai asked.

Syaoran looked down the road one way and then the next. He could have saved himself the trouble and just looked one way; the views were identical. The road was wide but overgrown and gave no clue as to which way their friend might have gone, if he had even taken the road and not simply continued down the original path. Assuming he had even come this way, and that they hadn't been walking further and further – better not to think like that, Syaoran reminded himself hurriedly. We can all still understand each other, so there's no need to be negatively.

Sakura went through an almost identical thought process but came to a different conclusion. She hesitated, not wanting to share her idea, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't seem to come up with an alternative. Speaking very quietly, she suggested, "Maybe we should split up?"

"No!" Syaoran answered forcefully, then blushed and continued more calmly. "It's too dangerous, Sakura-hime. We can't risk losing each other, too."

"But it wouldn't have to be for very long. If two of us go that way, and the other two go that way –" She pointed in the respective directions – "We would just have to walk until one group couldn't communicate anymore. Then they'd know they were going the wrong way, and they could catch up with the others."

"But we'd be in trouble if we got attacked, or if the road split again. Forget it princess, the kid's right." Syaoran silently thanked Kurogane for his support.

"It isn't necessary, anyway," Fai said soothingly, as though apologizing to Sakura for disagreeing with her.

Kurogane had temporarily forgotten about the mage (an indication of just how much the forest was getting on his nerves. It wasn't everyday that he found something more irritating than the wizard, thank God.) He turned to see Fai perched in a tree with arms hanging down by his sides and his eyes closed. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. "Can't you make sense for once?"

"I could, if I wanted too," Fai replied without opening his eyes. "But that's just so boring. And I'm too busy listening to try to make sense, anyway."

"You're what?"

"Listening. I can teach you how to do it, Ku –"

"I know how to listen! You're the one who nerve shuts his damn mouth!"

Fai tsked. "Really, Kuro-daddy, you set such a bad example for the children. Now hush."

Reason was clearly useless. Kurogane listened attentively for a moment, and just when he was sure Fai was pulling his leg, he heard it – a faint and distant rumbling like thunder. He tilted his head to the side and decided it was coming from the left.

"Oooo!" Sakura exclaimed. "That's the river, isn't it?"

"Sounds like it," Fai replied smugly.

"Let's follow it, then," Syaoran said, easing on down the road with Sakura following close behind. She made him nervous ever under the best of circumstances, but now he was going insane. His normal fear of having her close by was combined with the fear that she would disappear.

The princess stared at the archaeologist's back. He walks so quickly, she thought. I know he's just trying to find Moko-chan before something happens, but sometimes it feels like he's running away. Why do I have to chase him?

She glanced down. Syaoran had one hand on Hien's hilt, ready to fight should the need arise. Still, safety didn't require solitude. She breathed deeply and skipped forward a bit to catch up with him; then, before she had a chance to rethink things, she took his free hand lightly in hers. He looked at her, shocked, and she blushed and looked away.

This is much too close, he thought, images of the castle and an enraged king flittering through his mind, but he didn't let go.

-

Kurogane waited while Syaoran walked away and Sakura followed. The teens were soon out of earshot, and Kurogane continued to wait. Although Fai and Mokona's teasing indicated the opposite, Kurogane could be very patient. A man does not sit on rooftops all night waiting for assassins without learning a thing or two about patience. If they weren't in hostile territory and he didn't have to worry about the kids, he would have no problem standing there for hours, just to prove he could outlast Fai in whatever ridiculous game the mage was playing now.

There were in hostile territory, though, and they had to follow the kids. Since Fai seemed content to rest in his tree all day, Kurogane made the first move. "Are you coming or not?"

"I haven't decided," Fai answered, opening his eyes like someone waking up from a dream and staring into the expanse of leaves over his head. "I like it here. This is such a friendly tree."

"Too bad. Say goodbye and then let's go."

Fai tapped the side of his face with one finger while Kurogane marveled slightly that he didn't lose balance. "You go on ahead and I'll catch up." The ninja raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry and Fai laughed, looking down at him then back up at the small patches of sky that could be seen through the trees. "I think I'll become a bird and fly to you."

He's in one of his moods, Kurogane thought resignedly. Of course, he's always in a mood. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say he's in this mood. Recognizing the futility of interrupting, the ninja simply let him continue his musings.

"Didn't you ever want to fly, Kuro-tan? No, you're probably too practical. You don't have that kind of romantic imagination. You've probably never looked at the sky and dreamed of going there, where everything else is so small and insignificant and far away..."

Fai raised a hand to his forehead and snapped out of it. He felt dizzy and not quite in control of himself, as though he were awakening from under some kind of enchantment. He was much more tired than he knew. "Oh dear, the children are getting away," he said in his "I'm-a-fussy-busybody-mother" voice. "Guess we'd better go after them, Kuro-rin."

"You have to come down first."

The mage considered the truth in this statement. He quite obviously could not follow the kids and stay in the tree. But it wouldn't be any fun to just climb down now and start walking.

"I can't," he said as pathetically as he could. "I'm like a little cat that climbs up but can't climb back down. You have to rescue me."

"What the hell? You got up there, you get yourself back down."

"But I can't," Fai whined. Kurogane was unaffected by this, so he decided to switch tactics. "If I jump, will you catch me?"

"No way, you – " But Kurogane didn't have time to finish his objection. He had to dive to catch the blonde a few feet from the ground. "Idiot," he growled. "Don't just jump, you could have hurt yourself."

"No I wouldn't have. I knew you'd catch me," Fai replied.

Kurogane rolled his eyes but wasn't crazy enough to try and continue this discussion. He turned and followed Syaoran and Sakura without another word. They were quite far away, but he didn't rush to catch up. The road was straight, so he wouldn't lose sight of them. For now, he thought he'd give them some time alone. It looked liked they were "having a moment." Not that he cared what they got up to. It was simply that he sure as hell didn't want to be near those sappy love-struck teens holding hands and avoiding eye contact. It was always like that with those two, anyway, secret glances when the other isn't looking, thinly veiled concern, the slight disappointment that followed each "-kun" and "-hime"... It was enough to make a man sick, really.

Fai squirmed and drew his attention back to the present. "Um, Kuro-rinta, are you going to let me down anytime soon?"

Kurogane almost smirked when he heard Fai's confusion. Usually Fai baffled him, and it was nice to switch the situation for once. "No," he answered, "because this way you can't go running off or cause any trouble, and I don't have to wait for you while you walk slowly."

Of course he noticed you were having trouble walking, Fai chided himself. You should know by now that you can't hide anything from Kuro-pon.

Attacked on both sides by Kurogane and himself, Fai did what he always did when on defense – he smiled.

"Awwww, Kuro-wanwan is worried about me!" he said and threw his arms around the ninja's neck. "How sweet!"

"Knock if off, stupid mage!" Kurogane yelled, his concern apparently vanished.

Fai chuckled but drew his arms away from Kurogane. He wanted to tease the ninja some more, but the time for fun and games was over. He'd run out of strength long ago and could no longer even keep his eyes open. He wasn't fooling anyone anyway, so he might as well stop trying.

Kurogane glanced down in surprise. Was this another trick? He listened to the mage's breathing for a moment and decided it wasn't. Fai really had fallen asleep.

Just how much blood has he lost, anyway? The wizard was wrapped up in his extravagantly fluffy coat, so Kurogane couldn't see his wound. There wasn't time to stop and examine it now, since the kids were still way ahead of him. It would have to wait until they got to the river.

At least that wouldn't be much farther. He decided to just focus on getting there and worry about anything else later.

-

Syaoran felt rather sheepish about his worrying when the rest of the journey passed without incident. It was fairly simple; all they had to do was follow the sound of running water as it reached a crescendo. Syaoran was rather surprised at how loud it got, though. He was beginning to wonder if it was the river after all when he pushed aside a bit of shrubbery and nearly fell into a pool at the base of a waterfall.

Oh. That explained the volume, anyway. He knew the noise had been too loud to have come just from a river.

His father had once taken him to a giant waterfall that was hundreds of feet tall (apparently, tourists came in droves to ride down it in barrels; Syaoran reflected that there are all kinds of people in the world). This wasn't much by comparison; any tourist that came here for a ride would be severely disappointed. It wasn't very large, and it didn't plunge straight down, either, but cascaded down a series of rock steps. Still, it was a welcome sight after the monotony of the forest flora.

He sensed rather than heard Sakura's gasp. She stood amazed by the sight in front of her, less prepared for it than Syaoran was; having lived in a desert for most of her life, she maintained a very understandable fascination with water. She had never seen a waterfall before. One maddeningly hot Clow afternoon, Syaoran had told her about the waterfalls, oceans, and glaciers he had seen on his travels or read about, but as far as Sakura was concerned this conversation had never happened at all.

So she simply gazed at it with wonder and delight, a wide smile spread across her face. Syaoran's more jaded eyes were drawn from the waterfall to the princess – only one of them had the power to take his breath away.

-

Kurogane saw the kids' reactions and would have buried his face in his hands, if he hadn't been using them for something else. So it's a bunch of vertical water. So what? The important thing was to find the manjuu bun. Presumably he wasn't far away and Kurogane started to scan the surrounding area.

They were in a large clearing with the river running down the middle. The near end was occupied by the waterfall, and on the other...

The ninja's first impulse was to grab his sword, but he resisted. The small wood building could be something perfectly innocent, like...well, he couldn't think of anything innocent it could be. Kurogane prided himself on being a suspicious ninja. The ninja who wasn't suspicious didn't get much of a chance to learn the error of his ways.

"Hey, kid," Kurogane growled. Don't know why I bothered, he thought with an inward sigh. From the way the kid's staring at the princess, he wouldn't have heard me even if there weren't so much noise.

The man walked closer to Syaoran and nudged him with an elbow. The boy jumped a little and turned to face his mentor, trying to hide his embarrassment. The man ignored his blush and simply nodded in the direction of the building.

Syaoran blinked. Had he really missed that? What was it, anyway? The door had some sort of symbol carved on it, but he couldn't tell what it was and he automatically took a few steps closer.

Kurogane rolled his eyes. The kid really was clueless. He elbowed him again, a little more forcefully, and when Syaoran looked over his shoulder he shouted "YOUR SWORD!"

The teenager might not have heard the actual words, but he realized the meaning after a moment's contemplation. He nodded and continued toward the small building, one hand on Hien's hilt.

Sakura, concerned, started to follow him but caught Kurogane's eye. She stopped obediently but felt uneasy and tried to deal with this by fussing over Fai.

Syaoran reached the building. The symbol on the door meant nothing to him, but it looked like some sort of writing. He walked cautiously around to the side and stared for a minute then, as Kurogane and Sakura held their breaths, he walked back around to the front and pulled the door open. He walked through it and disappeared for a very tense moment before sticking his head out and waving them to come.

They proceeded cautiously, just in case, but there was no need; the building was empty. Kurogane was expecting traps, soldiers, some threat, but instead he found a rather empty one room cabin with large windows in the side walls. The view out them wasn't much; that is to say, it was the same view, more or less, that they had seen for hours. The light over the scene was quiet though, and Kurogane knew that sunset wouldn't be far off.

With his first glance at the room, he took note of the murals, a large statue opposite the door, and a low table in the middle of the room. That was really all there was to see, but it was enough. The table had two lit candles and others sat innocently, wicks untouched by flame. There was a small stick of incense burning as well, but far more interesting to Kurogane was the food that took up the rest of the table. There were plates of bread, cheese, fruits, and some cold meats.

It was all much too convenient. They were lost in a treacherous forest, hungry and tired, and it would be night soon, meaning (if he remembered what the shadow person had said correctly) more snake-lizard-wolf things were likely to attack. If the forest dwellers didn't beat them to it. And yet they happened to find this place.

Someone knew they would be here.

"What is this place?" the princess asked in a hushed voice. This far from the waterfall, the roaring had subsided to a whisper, and they could once again communicate.

Kurogane was inclined to shrug off the obvious question with the obvious answer of "How the hell would I know?," but Syaoran answered first.

"I think it's some sort of temple." He pointed to the statue in the corner. It was a large panther that had, between her front paws, a small group of people. "If you look around at the walls," he said, "The panther appears multiple times. Here she's sheltering three children, here she's attacking a castle, although she's as large as it is. Of course in the statue she's much larger than the people below her...She might be a local goddess here, and these murals are illustrations of myths about here." Something caught his eye; the people by the statue of the panther were in a nest, of all things! He examined the paintings closer to try and discover if birds had any role in this dimension's lore.

"Wonderful," Kurogane muttered. "This would be the perfect place if I felt the urge to pray." The reasonable part of his brain told him this was not the time for bad-tempered sarcasm. The less reasonable part replied that there was always time for sarcasm, but shut up anyway.

Someone had provided marginal shelter from the wilderness. He didn't know why, but he was going to take advantage of the relative safety. He placed Fai carefully on the floor and removed his coat. "Kid. If you're done playing detective, it's time to play doctor," he said as he removed Fai's fluffy white coat. His voice was neutral even as he saw how much blood had stained it and the clothing underneath.

Sakura squared her shoulders and breathed deeply. She wasn't going to be freaked out by the blood, or the thought of Fai suffering quietly. "What can I do to help?" she asked, her voice as steady as Kurogane's.

The ninja only half heard her because his mind was busy thinking of a thousand insults for mages who were too stupid to let anyone know how badly injured they were or even get decent bandages, carefully monitoring his emotions (he didn't want to let the kid's know he was worried), and carefully trying to remember something useful. Warriors learn a lot about treating injuries; surviving the battle did not guarantee one would leave the battlefield alive. Unfortunately, he'd always been more interested in inflicting injuries than treating them.

"Anything here for carrying water?" he asked, not expecting much. The building was pretty empty, if you didn't count artwork, which was just a lot of pretty nonsense.

"There's a pot outside," Syaoran volunteered. The ninja turned his ferociously concentrated gaze at the boy, so he volunteered some more. "It looks like someone had a campfire behind the cabin and was cooking over it."

More convenient good news, Kurogane thought bitterly. "Get some water and start a fire," he said aloud. The teens scrambled outside, Sakura taking one of the lit candles with her.

Kurogane observed his patient. Fai's breathing and pulse were faint, but not alarmingly so. It didn't seem that the arrow had hit anything too important, but he would have to look closer once the area was cleaned. He took the fluffy coat – who wore white when there was such a high probability of being attacked? The stain of blood was never going to go away – and wadded it up over the wound, carefully applying pressure. With luck, all Fai would need was a bandage, some stitches, and some time to recover.

Well, all he needs for his wound, Kurogane amended his previous thought quickly. He needs other things, too, like a ton of common sense and a mute button.

The door opened with a small creak and the noise from the waterfall grew slightly louder until it shut.

"Here, kid, do you have the water?" he asked without looking up.

There was a short but significant silence before he heard the hiss of a sword being drawn from its sheath.

"I'm sorry, I think you have us confused with someone else," said an unfamiliar voice.

-

Mokona's Note: HIII, everyone! Mokona was very depressed about not being in this chapter, so Shine said Mokona could do the author's note! She asked me to tell you that she is very sorry that this chapter is so late; she says that she had a lot of end-of-the-school-year-homework followed by a lot of job related stress, neither of which was conducive to dealing with the two bouts of writer's block this chapter gave her. Still, she hopes that you forgive her and like this chapter! She worries that it doesn't flow well, so feedback and advice would be appreciated. Also, it is her birthday tomorrow...today...July 4th, so if you want to give her a reviews wrapped up in a bow, that would be most welcome!

In the near future: new characters!!! Kuro-pon makes people angry!!! Some familiar faces, maybe? And will yours truly return? You'll see in chapter four!