A/N: For this chapter, its the official start of the main-ish story line. This is set thirteen years after chapter eight, and its pretty much Ao's point of view of the anime episodes. This chapter is for episodes twelve, thirteen and fourteen, and each "episode" is separated by a line breaker.
Also, in the past week, I had a little spare time, so I experimented with an idea for a future chapter and I honestly can't wait until this story gets up to that point...
One other thing: After this story gets past the point of the anime episodes, it'll sort of be taking its own course rather than following the manga word-for-word like I'll be doing with the anime episodes. I have read the manga, and it will be loosely following the manga, but it'll also sort of be an independent-ish story line with some differences.


It was time for Ao to travel to the village again. His routine of travelling had begun to get tedious, but if it was for Seiryuu, he'd just have to grin and bear it…

He arrived on the cliffs as he always did, and looked out in front of the village. It was quite a foggy day. Leaning against a tree like usual, he closed his eyes and relaxed.

Voices from down below attracted his attention. At first, he thought it was just some villagers, but they hadn't come from the village, they were going towards it, from what he could tell…

Curiosity piqued, he leaned forward off the tree, leaning out towards the edge of the cliff. He could vaguely make out the shapes of four people. One of them was slightly taller than the others…

Although he couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, he could hear murmurs between them.
The fog started to easy up a little, showing more of the mysterious group.

At the front was a young girl with short red hair who wore a cloak, followed closely by a slightly taller man with white hair and white robes. Behind them was the tall man with black hair, who wore blue robes, and... Ao couldn't tell if the last one was a boy or girl…

The man in white stepped forward and said something. Ao looked him over. His right hand was wrapped up, as if he was trying to conceal it... But he didn't do a very good job, Ao could just see the ends of his…

…They weren't fingers…

Ao stared at the man, glad that no one in the mysterious group had noticed him yet. Even with the distance between them, Ao could see that the man's 'fingers' weren't fingers at all, and we're in fact claws. Which could only mean one thing…

He was the white dragon…

Ao looked back to the girl at the front. Red hair... Could she be the reincarnation of Hiryuu?
Ao sat back against the tree, taking it all in. If the girl was Hiryuu, and the white haired man was Hakuryuu, then were they possibly here to get Seiryuu too?

Closing his eyes, Ao sighed as the group headed into the village.


Ao's curiosity had gotten the better of him. Instead of his usual routine of walking back after a few hours, he had decided to stay and wait for the mysterious people to leave again. It was practically the most interesting thing that he had seen in almost fourteen years.

Nothing changed for a while. Maybe they had just been some people doing business? …No, it was too much of a coincidence for it to be anything normal…

About an hour after the group had entered, the earth shook. Loose rocks on the side of the mountain village tumbled down. If this was what an earthquake could do to the outside, Ao dreaded to think what had happened on the inside.

He considered going into the village. They wouldn't have made Seiryuu live outside the mountain, unlike the small hut they used to live in in the previous village. So the only other option would've been to hide him in the deepest part of the village... And the most dangerous in moments like these when the rocks fell…

'Going in there will mean I'll be sacrificing staying hidden...' Ao mused.

He eventually decided to not go in. Seiryuu had handled himself in worse situations. And who was to say there hadn't been previous earthquakes worse than the one they'd just been through? He would be fine…

Hopefully...


After the earthquake, nothing in the village moved. No noises came from it to indicate anything different to the usual. Ao wasn't sure whether to be glad it seemed that nothing happened, or worried that something did happen and it just wasn't obvious…

After another few minutes of waiting, a group of people came out from the front of the village, and went round to one of the lower areas… Including the black haired man from the mysterious group... But none of the other people were there... There was no sign of the red haired girl, Hakuryuu or the other kid…

They started attacking one of the walls, the villagers using knives and daggers, and the black haired man using what seemed to be a type of glaive.

The only possible situation Ao could think of was that one of the walls had collapsed and had trapped some of the villagers, so they had sent a group of people to try and dig them out…

It took a while, but eventually the villagers and the black haired man had managed to break through the wall. After the dust and dirt cleared, Ao could start to see inside. The black haired man was holding the red haired girl close to him.
'Ah, that explains why he was there... He was trying to get to them.' Ao thought.

The villagers started getting out through the newly formed hole, most of them holding daggers or knives too. It seemed they had been digging from the inside too.

The red haired girl and the other three people from her group got out too, going to stand somewhere off to the side.

The last person to leave was Seiryuu. Ao watched as he went to go stand as far away from everyone else as was possible. From where Ao was, the small amount of inside cave he could see showed that the room was quite empty. It was unlikely the villagers would've let Seiryuu roam freely, so he must have practically lived in that area. It was a sad thought, that the villagers were so scared of him that he wasn't even provided with a proper living space. There was a tunnel that probably lead to some other part of the village, but Ao doubted it was much better…
'He has grown up a lot since I last saw him though...' Ao thought.

The mysterious group started talking amongst themselves again, before the red haired girl walked away from them. She walked towards where Seiryuu was standing. She spoke a couple of words to him, then extended her hand towards him.
'Is she... Offering to take him with them...? Or saying thank you...?' Ao wondered.

His question was answered soon enough.

After a few moments hesitation, Seiryuu accepted her hand. The rest of her group walked over to join them.
'So they're taking him with them... That's good... He'll get a chance to see more of the world than just a rock...' Ao thought.

The red haired girl turned around to face the villagers. She yelled to them, loud enough that Ao could hear from up on the cliffs.
"Thank you for your hospitality!" She called.
'Hospitality?' Ao thought. 'I can't imagine those lot being hospitable... She's probably just being kind…'

The group started to walk towards the path away from the village. Seiryuu turned to face the villagers and bowed. Even though he hadn't been treated fairly, he'd still thanked them in his own way...
As he faced the villagers, a small squirrel, by the looks of it, had run up to sit on his shoulder.
'Good... He wasn't always alone...' Ao sighed.

As Seiryuu turned around to rejoin the group, a string broke, and the bells he had found as a child fell to the ground. He looked at them for a few seconds, before turning around to join the red haired girl and her friends, who had waited for him a few metres ahead. The group set off, heading to their next unknown destination.

The villagers exchanged a few glances and words, but soon started to head back into the village.
Ao was still in a state of surprise. Seiryuu had left his bells, the bells he had always thought was a way for Ao to find him. But it was good, in a way. He was moving on…

Realising that the area in front of the village was now empty, Ao got up from underneath the tree, quickly putting on his cloak.

One day, while he had been walking around the old village, he had come across an old cloak someone had seemingly left behind. It had been a bit big for him, but it would do…

He started heading down the cliff, where a rough path was formed. He had to circle round a bit, but eventually managed to make it to the ground.

He had put on the cloak just in case. He didn't think that he would need it, but if one of the villagers came out to pick up something they had left outside, Ao didn't want them screaming 'dead man walking'.

He got to the path where the group had left from. If any of the members of the red haired girls group had turned around after they rounded the corner, they would've noticed the man in the black cloak bending to pick up the abandoned bells…

Ao looked at the bells he now held in his hand. He put them in a pocket and sighed.

After a brief moments pause, he took a step towards the forest, where he would hide until the next day, so he could then follow the group a day behind.

It seemed like he would get to see more of Kouka in his life time...