Disclaimer: Well as you all know xxxHolic belongs to clamp and not me. I just can't draw like that, LOL. Though I frequently wonder what my story would look like in Manga form.

AN: Yuuko told Kurogane and Doumeki before they left on this quest that the 'price' Lissa will someday pay along with Fai will not need to be paid for many years yet. In fact it won't actually happen during the PofB time line. Even my short story 'Mysterious Fruit' takes place prior to that event. You know Yuuko, she told both groups the story of the twins and their 'cursed race' to start them all down the journey of accepting what was to come. Kurogane and Doumeki got it right away, Watanuki figured it out later.

The Choices they make, The Prices they pay, and the love they have for each other and all their friends. It's what will make them strong enough to face the Dark and restore Balance to the worlds.

On with the story!!!

Chapter 37 – The Mountains

The trio may have seemed to be walking casually along the trail, the blonde female and the slender male chatting and teasing each other as the taller silent teen followed, leading the pack pony. But the truth was they were all very aware of their surrounds and the multitude of ayakashi trying to locate them. The very presence of the Exorcist and the Mage was keeping the small weak spirits from locating the group. The spirits 'knew' there was something really tasty out there, thanks to the delicious smell of Watanuki's blood, but they couldn't find him due to Doumeki's and Lissa-chans auras. The ever patient pony Thunder saw the spirits but honestly he just didn't care, seeing as they didn't have any carrots or sugar cubes.

Mugetsu and Mokona sat on top of the bags scanning the horizon, looking past the current portion of the trail, this part of the trip would be no problem for their charges, just a few warm up exercises if even that, so far none of the ayakashi had been able to locate them and attack. It was first mountain peak they were concerned about at the moment. Mugetsu could just barely see the rainbow colored specks dotting the sky.

"There's so many of them. I wasn't expecting that. Will you be able to handle it?" Mugetsu just stared at the Black Manjuu before curling up to take a nap, it was going to take their charges the rest of the day just to get thru this portion of the pass. They wouldn't reach the peak until sometime tomorrow morning.

-

Several hours later the teens were making camp for the night under a convenient overhanging in the side of the mountain trail. The hollow afforded them protection from behind and overhead so all they had to worry about was what might come at them head on. They decided to take turns standing watch during the night, with Watanuki taking the morning watch, that way he could also handle making breakfast, Doumeki had not surprisingly 'suggested' the spirit magnet take that particular shift.

"But I want to help out too, why can't Mokona take a watch?"

"Gee, I don't know, cause maybe you're an alcoholic mutant plush toy and none of us trust you to not to fall asleep, and let all of us get eaten by monsters."

"Waaaaa, Wata-chan is so mean to Mokona! First he doesn't bring any Sake, and now he says he doesn't 'trust' Mokona."

"Oh, like when I have ever trusted you to do anything 'except' drink all the Sake, and eat the food I make."

"But don't I do a REALLY good job at that?" Mugetsu dove into the Archer's armor as he and the Mage put their fingers in their ears as Watanuki took off after the bouncing Bun of evil.

"AAARRRUUUGGHHH, THAT'S IT, GET OVER HERE, I DON'T CARE IF WE GET STUCK HERE FOREVER, I'M GOING TO SPIT YOU AND THEN SLOW ROAST YOU OVER THE FIRE. DO YOU HEAR ME!!!! YOU FREAK OF NATURE, YOU'RE JUST AN ANIMATED APPETIZER, THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE. STAND STILL SO I CAN SKEWER YOU EASIER."

Lissa had to sit down she was laughing so hard, tears rolled down her face. Oh it wasn't that Kimihiro was chasing Mokona with a sharp pointy object with murder on his mind, that wasn't anything new. And sure it was still funny as hell, but what had Lissa convulsing in laughter was Shizuka. The stoic archer normally watched Watanuki's antics in complete silence, his usual smirk plastered on his face and his fingers plugging up his ears as he enjoyed the energetic teens fits. But today that wasn't the case, when Watanuki had launched into this latest fit the pipefox Mugetsu had taken refuge inside of Doumeki's armor, unfortunately Shizuka Doumeki was even more ticklish than a certain slender Seer and with the slim wriggling and furry pipefox moving around inside his clothing……. Well let's just say it was probably the most hysterical thing the blonde Mage had seen for some time. And poor abused Shizuka couldn't even use his normal defense when being tickled of kissing his attacker into submission, the pipefox didn't even have lips to kiss, not to mention being only the size of a cigar. And that thought just made the girl laugh even harder.

It was nearly an hour before things calmed down enough to finish setting up camp and make dinner. Doumeki glared at everyone as he ate and Lissa just couldn't help the occasional giggle that still escaped her when she looked at him. And when she did he just gave her a 'Look', the one that said, just keep it up and we'll see who ends up sleeping alone out in the cold tonight.

"Oh I wouldn't bet on that, Kimihiro is still fond of me. Aren't you Kimi-koi?"

"What? Oh, well yeah of course, Cero-chan. But don't go putting me in the middle of you two." Giving the Seer a sly Cheshire cat grin the Mage responded. She just couldn't help.

"But Kimi, I thought you LOVED it, when you were in the middle of me and Shizuka?"

"I, ah, THATS DIFFERENT! Besides we can't do 'that' out here, somebody has to keep watch." Blushing a deep dark red, Watanuki sputtered at Lissa's teasing. Laughing at the Seer's becoming blush the Mage gathered the dinner dishes preparing to washing them up.

"Too true and speaking of that, I have the first watch. You two should go get some sleep, I'll clean up here."

Several hours later, Lissa woke up the softy snoring Doumeki and took his place in the make shift bedroll, cuddling up to the sleep warmed Watanuki. It was deep night or early morning, depending on how you wanted to look at it when Doumeki woke Watanuki for his shift and snuggled up to the drowsy Mage. Gathering her close, he buried his face in her hair and placed a light kiss on her ear.

"Hmm, am I forgiven?"

"Hn." The Mage smiled as she drifted back off to sleep, snuggled up tight against the strong chest of the Warrior.

Morning was exceedingly bright and came far too soon up here, and Watanuki was way too cheerful as he beat on a pan over the heads of his sleeping spouses. It was time to get up after all, it was a beautiful day and time was a wasting.

BANG BANG BANG

"WHAT THE…!"

"Aaaaiiiyyeeee!"

Startled into wakefulness the two teenagers glared at the slender male holding the pan and wooden spoon standing over them.

"Idiot."

"Good Morning, sleepy heads. Come on I have breakfast all ready, let's get started, the sooner we get that Bow the sooner we can move on to the next world and the final item. And then we can all go home!" Rubbing her hands thru her hair, Lissa looked at her 'husband' soon to be an ex-husband if he EVER did that again.

"Oi"

"Kimi-chan, while that's an excellent attitude to have. If you EVER do 'that' again I will fry your ass with my Fire magic."

"I'll help."

"You two are just not morning people. I've been ready to go for hours. Come on, let's go, let's go, LETS GO!" Looking around Lissa realized that Watanuki had packed up the whole camp except for the breakfast food and the bedroll she and Shizuka had been sleeping in.

"AH Kimi, just how much caffeine have you had?"

"What? What are you talking about? It was just a few pots of Tea, a little chocolate and some coffee." Turns out Watanuki had drunk about 5 pots of tea, and it wasn't the herbal de-caffeinated kind either, but the strong black tea that was popular here in the land of Nihon, 2 bars of chocolate and 3 pots of coffee. Lissa was surprised the slender teenager wasn't' able to just 'fly' the rest of the way up the mountain pass, he was that juiced up. Mental note to self, get only herbal de-caffeinated teas from now on, and absolutely no Coffee. There was Watanuki and then there was Watanuki on Caffeine, and a Watanuki on caffeine was way 'too' much Watanuki. When he wasn't looking Mokona tossed all the black tea over the cliff, Mugetsu helped. It was too much for even an Evil Pork Bun to deal with ever again.

The only good thing to come out of this was that the group managed to reach the top of the pass well before mid morning. The Archer and Mage practically carrying the poor little pony trying to keep up with the over energized hyperactive Seer. The rainbow colored specks that had dotted the sky the day before weren't even out yet. Mugetsu was wondered if they'd make it thru the pass without incident when a shadow passed overhead. The little pipefox hunkered down trying to remain unseen until he was needed.

Watanuki reached the top before anyone else and had turned around to watch as the rest of his group caught up to him. Behind him was a large plateau, he didn't see the shadows that passed overhead and settled a distance behind him. The presences weren't evil ayakashi and so they hadn't triggered his usual gag reflex. The Mage and Archer reached him shortly and the group turned to move forward only to be confronted with an unexpected sight.

Dragons.

Several of them in fact, at least that's what they looked like, they were all very beautiful, their scales came in a variety of brilliant colors that flashed in the sun. It was just that well they were well small ones, if they were Dragons. Weren't Dragons supposed to be as big as houses or something like that? These appeared to be about the size of a large dog. Of course then again anything with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth and claws was nothing to dismiss just because they weren't 20 ft tall.

Doumeki grabbed his Bow as Lissa pulled her sword and Watanuki held his Staff before him, the poor little pony Thunder shivered, ghosts he could deal with, dragons however with their sharp teeth might just eat a cute little pony like himself. The Dragons stood their ground and faced the group. Suddenly Mugetsu flew from his perch on top of the bags transforming into his larger multi tailed Kitsune form as he did so. Cocking his head to the side before moving forward once again and transformed one more time, as he did so one of the Dragons moved to meet him transforming as well. Watanuki was stunned, he'd never expected 'this', Doumeki had wondered about the power of the little pipefox ever since the Soul Eater incident so he wasn't nearly as surprised as Watanuki. Lissa just shrugged and accepted the spirit Fox's revelations.

"M-Mugetsu?"

"Hello, Watanuki." Standing there now before them was the Fox Spirit in his true form, a tall delicately beautiful male, his long flowing hair was the same golden tan color as his fur had been in his animal forms. Perky fox ears sat on top of his head and he had a soft fluffy tail of the same color. Now in his true form Watanuki realized the Fox's eyes were an emerald green.

"B-but how? What? Why?..."

"I can answer your questions later, My Dearest, but first we need to deal with the Dragons of the Western Skies."

Facing the Dragon contingent Mugetsu bowed politely to their representative, she was an earth dragon by the look of her, more solid than the others, all the colors of the living earth. She had short multi-colored hair in tones of black and brown, jewel toned citrine eyes and dusty rose colored skin. She closed her eyes and bowed politely back in return, please at being properly greeted for once. It had been many centuries since the children of men had thought to bring one skilled in etiquette, perhaps they could let these children live, it might even be that they were the ones spoken of in the prophecy.

-

AN: The next Chapter is nearly complete, but I've hit a little stumbling block about half way thru, working on it though.