"..."

"...same..."

"...Chisame..."

"Wake up, Chisame!"

Grumbling, Chisame pulled her blanket over her more tightly and tried to roll over, away from the annoying noise. Unfortunately, the noise just followed her—louder, if anything—and was soon joined by someone shaking her by the shoulder.

Without opening her eyes, Chisame shot up and went to smack whoever was trying to wake her up. Her hand met something solid—which didn't move at all, and which just made her hand sting.

"Well, well. Someone's feeling pretty spirited after her nap."

Accompanied by some more grumbling, Chisame fumbled around for her glasses, though by that point she was awake enough to realize who was standing over her bed.

"I told you not to wake me up," she muttered as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and put on her glasses. The room was dim, but not completely dark. With the curtains drawn, she couldn't tell exactly what time it was, but it was definitely later than she'd intended to sleep...

"And let you sleep through all the amazing plans I have for you? You left your vacation plans up to me, Chisame, you've gotta be ready to roll with the punches!"

As she sat up, Jack gave her a pat on the back, which nearly knocked the wind out of her. She glared at him.

"You shouldn't sleep in your day clothes, you know. Wears them out too fast." Jack got up from where he was crouching next to her bed and went rummaging through a bag; at first she thought it was one of her bags, and got angry, until she realized it was just some kind of shopping bag.

"You wouldn't have to worry about what I wear to bed if you didn't let yourself into my room while I'm sleeping," she said, hoping he would pick up on just how creepy that was.

Unfortunately it went in one ear and out the other, because Jack just said, "I wouldn't have to let myself into your room if you didn't take a four-hour nap."

"I wouldn't have to take a four-hour nap if you stopped dragging me out of bed at the crack of dawn."

"For a wandering maiden, you certainly don't have any adventuring spirit!"

"Will you shut up with that wandering maiden thing?!" It was like talking to a child! The worst part was that he wasn't dumb—he chose to act like such an idiot all the time!

Still... It would be a waste of time and energy to argue about it. Jack was Jack. That wasn't going to change, and she had left the vacation planning up to him. Which had gone pretty well so far, she had to admit... At least until they'd gotten to this stupid village...

"So... Where are you dragging me now?" She shoved the blankets off herself and pulled her hair back into its usual ponytail, pulling her hairband from her wrist.

"Oh ho ho. You don't think I'll just ruin the surprise just like that, do you?" He made a little triumphant noise as he pulled something out of the bag.

"What have you got there?" Her curiosity got the better of her. She really should have known better.

"A present for you!"

At first she was surprised—Jack wasn't that generous—but when he turned around to show off the present, that pleasant surprise disappeared.

He was holding up a skimpy swimsuit.

She grabbed the book she'd been reading and threw it at his head.

Unfortunately, unlike the artificial body he'd been using when he was visiting Earth, this one was totally resistant to that kind of damage. The book bounced right off his head, and Jack just laughed.

"What the Hell is that?!" She pointed accusingly at the swimsuit.

"Well, you didn't pack one, so I had to take it upon myself to pick one out for you! Really short-sighted of you, Chisame." He was chuckling and dangling it in front of him like it was supposed to be enticing.

"You didn't tell me we'd be going swimming," she said, finally getting out of bed. "And the joke's on you; I'm not wearing that."

"Aww, c'mon, Chisame. Don't be such a spoilsport!"

Jack waved the swimsuit around a little more, and Chisame took great pleasure in ignoring him as she swept past him and headed for the door to go to the bathroom. He was right about one thing (surprisingly); she had slept for long enough. She'd probably be up half the night now...

"I know you've worn skimpier outfits than this; I've seen pictures."

She stopped dead in her tracks with her hand on the doorknob.

"You... What?"

"C'mon, Chisame, all your old friends told me what you used to do! You think I didn't check out those old pictures as soon as they told me?"

Chisame had never been ashamed of being Chiu... Not really. She thought it was kind of an immature hobby nowadays, but she'd been popular and she'd had fun and she'd been a fountain of maturity compared to her classmates, so she tried to tell herself that was all that mattered.

Somehow she'd never considered people finding those old pictures, especially people like Jack Rakan.

Chisame knew she was turning bright red, and her shaking hand was making the doorknob rattle. She took a step back and took a deep breath.

"Who showed you those?" she asked in her calmest voice, trying to conceal the urge to murder. She'd been young, she'd been eager for attention—she had dressed up in a lot of ways that she wouldn't be seen dead in now, because Chiu wasn't Chisame and Chiu had her own rules.

"That's not important," Jack said, even though Chisame thought he couldn't be more wrong. "Once something's on the internet, it's on there forever, Chisame. You should know that."

And how do you know that?! she wanted to scream, but it would have been pointless. Getting a straight answer out of Jack was a hopeless task. He would probably just say he 'knew everything' and 'had no weaknesses' or something like that...

All she knew was that, as soon as she was back home with a stable internet connection, she and her sprites were going to prove him wrong.

"I was in middle school back then," she said, waving her hand, trying to look like she didn't care even though she knew she wasn't fooling anyone. "Middle school girls do all kinds of weird, dumb things for attention—and they're way too young for you to looking at pictures of them, you old pervert. Anyway, I'm too old for that now."

"Old? I'm the old man here, Chisame. You're a regular spring chicken. Women your age should be dressing up for their boyfriends, you know."

"Yeah, boyfriends, sure. Not old creeps like you." She went to open the door again, but...

"Are you worried about your weight or something? I mean, I know you've just been sitting around your apartment for a while, but you haven't gained that much weight. Men in this day and age like curvy ladies, you know."

Chisame knew he was trying to bait her. She knew exactly what he was doing and she still couldn't help but fall for it, which was the worst part.

"Give it to me."

"Hm? What was that, Chisame?"

They were standing five feet away from each other; he knew exactly what she said. He just wanted to hold it over her. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, and turned slowly towards him.

"Give. Me. The. Swim. Suit."

She stuck her hand out. Jack actually looked surprised, but still as smug as ever as he handed it over just like she'd asked.

"You're the boss," he said, and she could hear him laughing as she stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

Chisame stood and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Compared to other women her age, Chisame had never really cared about her figure. When all the other girls in 3-A had been screaming about comparing breast size or how eating too many sweets would make them fat and they'd never get a boyfriend, she'd rolled her eyes and called them idiots. What did any of that matter?

It wasn't like she'd had a bad body—not then, not now. She'd always just been... Average. She'd perhaps developed a little earlier than some of her classmates (though not as early as people like Kaede and Chizuru—they had always been freakish for middle school students), but she'd been painfully plain other than that. That was part of the reason she'd invented Chiu in the first place... After all, no matter how plain looking you were, all you needed was a good camera, some cute costumes, a computer, and the right know-how, and you could be a supermodel.

No matter how certain you were of yourself, though, it seemed like swim suits and body image problems always went hand in hand...

Chisame sighed at her reflection.

"You almost done in there or what, Chisame?" She jumped when Jack pounded on the door and called in. She was surprised his fist didn't go right through the door; either he was watching his strength or his doors were reinforced.

"I'm putting on your stupid swimsuit, the least you can do is have some patience!" she snapped.

The worst part was that the swimsuit was actually nice.

It wasn't as skimpy as she'd thought it had been when he'd been holding it; it was a two-piece suit with a lot of weird strings and straps in places there didn't need to be strings and straps, but it was actually made for swimming, not for woman to lie on the beach for men to ogle. It had decent bust support, good cup coverage, and clipped together in the back instead of being tied together so you didn't have to worry about it flying off... Or having some pervert give a quick tug and suddenly you were topless.

(Considering who she was travelling with, she was surprised.)

It was obviously expensive, too. More than she would ever be able to afford, although not on the level of that dress Princess Theodora had put her in; it seemed more like something Ayaka would wear, not a housebound recluse like her. And did they even make swimsuits like this in the Magic World? She hadn't exactly seen any stores selling sports bikinis...

Well, she would have to worry about that later. At least the swimsuit wouldn't be terrible to wear. If he'd bought her a suit, obviously they were going somewhere she would need one...

Unless Jack was just doing it to mess with her. Which was also a possibility.

Speaking of Jack, he knocked on the door again, saying something about how it would be dark before they left if she took any longer. Chisame rolled her eyes, but since she really wasn't doing anything except staring at the way her stomach bulged a little over the top of her swimsuit bottoms...

"Alright, alright..." She opened the bathroom door and stepped out. "Happy now?"

Jack wondered, idly, if he'd pushed too far this time.

Of course, pushing too far was pretty much his motto. And it wasn't his fault that Chisame was so hilarious when she was annoyed. But she'd been pretty steamed earlier, after that necklace stunt... He definitely hadn't been expecting that, but after what she'd said, he couldn't blame her. He hadn't even been thinking about the villager thing when he'd brought her here...

That necklace was interesting though. Caleb's Eyes were supposed to bring the wearer happiness, which was pretty much what he'd told her to go out and get when he'd seen her at the reunion, so that was fitting enough. He didn't put any stock into things like that having any real magic, and he was pretty sure Chisame didn't either, but hey, it was a pretty little bauble and a decent souvenir if nothing else.

Women her age, though... They usually cared more about love charms and things like that. If it had been any other woman from her old class, they definitely would have bought a rappella or something like that.

Just like Chisame to choose her own path. Heh.

"You done in there yet, Chisame?" He rapped on the bathroom door a second time, leaning against the wall next to it. "If you don't come out soon, it's gonna be dark before we even get a chance to leave!"

"Alright, alright..." He could barely hear her through the door, but a second later it opened and she stepped out. "Happy now?"

"Happy as a—"

He stopped mid-sentence, as soon as he actually saw her.

He'd seen more of her than this; she'd gotten naked right in front of him just the day before yesterday, after all. But that had been a fleeting glimpse. This... was a lot more than that.

When he'd bought the swimsuit for her, he'd just been thinking about the fact that it was her colours, and that it was the kind of cut that would look good with her body shape. He had no weaknesses, after all; not even fashion. Had he figured he would enjoy seeing her wear it? Well, of course. She was an attractive young woman in a bikini. That was a pretty dumb question.

He had not been prepared for how much he enjoyed seeing her wearing it.

For a moment he just kind of... Stared. He'd had all kinds of remarks prepared—asking her whether that had really been so hard, poking at her about her weight again, just generally giving her a hard time... All in good fun, of course! But those all disappeared the second he got a good look at her. In fact, every word in his vocabulary just disappeared.

"Wh-what's with that look?"

Chisame was blushing and crossed her arms to cover herself. Jack cleared his throat and looked away, crossing his own arms. Of course she'd be uncomfortable; here he was, an old man ogling her like a piece of meat, when he'd been the one who made her wear the suit in the first place. And she must have been really uncomfortable to get all embarrassed like that instead of just getting angry at him.

"You look... Nice." Damn, was that really all he could think to say? Well, it was better than saying something creepy, at least. "C'mon, throw your clothes on over that and let's go. We're burning daylight. I'll wait for you downstairs."

He turned on his heel and practically ran down the stairs, letting out the breath he didn't realize he was holding in only when he'd gotten to the bottom.

This was going to be more difficult than he thought.

Chisame had figured Jack would make some pervy comment; she didn't call him 'old pervert' just for laughs.

She didn't know what to do with him just... Staring at her like that.

It wasn't like the way Chiu's fans used to stare at her. In spite of how popular she'd been, how much they had all adored her, it had always been very... Shallow. And that had been fine. That was just the life of an internet idol.

Even at the height of her popularity, no one had ever looked at her the way Jack was looking at her now. And she had no idea what to think about that.

"Wh-what's with that look?" She could feel herself blushing. Again. What was with her? Especially considering who was making her blush so much...

He was slack-jawed. She was surprised that his mouth wasn't hanging open like some cartoon character, or that he hadn't started bleeding from the nose. It was like he'd never seen a woman in a bikini before. Certainly it couldn't be seeing her in one—he'd seen her naked, after all, as he never failed to remind her...

Then, Jack snapped out of whatever weird trance he was in, cleared his throat, and turned away.

"You look... Nice," he said, and Chisame just... Didn't know what to say to that. No pervy comments? No smart ass remarks?

She was almost as much at a loss as he obviously was.

"C'mon, throw your clothes on over that and let's go. We're burning daylight. I'll wait for you downstairs."

Jack didn't even give her a chance to respond before he took off downstairs, leaving her in the dust. She just stood there, blinking, wondering what that had been about.

And if she wasn't mistaken, Jack had been... Blushing?

Chisame didn't waste her own time standing around and thinking about it. First of all, she didn't even know where to begin; second of all, she wasn't even sure she wanted to.

This was Jack Rakan, after all. Who knew what went on in that man's head?

She did follow his instructions and put her clothes on over her swimsuit. He hadn't told her what to wear, so she'd jut put on the same thing she'd been wearing to bed; since she'd gone hiking in it that morning, even if they had a repeat of that, she'd be set.

She definitely didn't want to rule out the possibility. He did seem to like making her miserable.

When she came downstairs (fully dressed), he seemed to have gotten over whatever weirdness he'd been suffering from upstairs. He just grinned and gave her a thumbs up when she walked up to him.

"So," she said, trying to sound casual, like they hadn't just had that very weird encounter. If she bothered to stop and wonder about every weird thing that happened in her life, she would waste a lot of her own time... "What fresh torture do you have planned for me now, old man?"

"Tired of your vacation already, Chisame? That eager to get back to your apartment?" he teased. Well, at least they were back to that, instead of him acting like some kind of bashful schoolboy. (She'd had enough of that from Negi over the years.)

"What can I say? It's just that much fun to get dragged around by you." She shrugged and brushed past him. "Didn't you say we needed to leave before it got dark? Let's go."

"I just can't figure you out, Chisame," Jack said with a big, dramatic sigh. "Young women today... So fickle."

"Spare me the old man talk," she said as she slipped her shoes on. He chuckled somewhere behind her, and she rolled her eyes.

Back to business as usual, it seemed...

They set out back down the road they'd originally entered the village by. Jack had a bag slung over his shoulder; when Chisame asked what was in it, he just told her she didn't need to worry about it, so she stopped asking questions. (And really, she should have known better in the first place...)

For a moment Chisame thought they might be leaving the village, even though Jack had left their things back at the house. But once they were out of the village (which was either a lot quieter in the evenings or people had just decided to hide in their houses until Jack left), instead of heading back towards the forested cliffs she'd first seen it from, they took a turn down a dirt path and started following the river.

"This place is... Peaceful," Chisame said, searching for something nice to say. Honestly, if it weren't for everyone acting like she and Jack were about to pillage them and burn down their houses, she wouldn't have minded the village at all. As they walked, they only saw one person—an older woman on the other side of the river, using the water and a basin to wash some clothes. "Hard to believe someone like you could come from a place like this."

"Looks can be deceiving, Chisame!" Jack was walking ahead of her and waved off her comment; to add insult to injury, he started loudly and obnoxiously whistling.

At least he wasn't lying to her again. Sure, it was annoying not to have her questions answered, especially when it had been his idea to bring her here in the first place... But whatever. It wasn't like he owed her his life story. They weren't best friends or something.

(Although she had to admit to herself, even if she didn't want to—it stung a little bit. Sure, they had never been that close before this trip, but she liked to think they had gotten to know each other a little better...)

(Not that she wanted to get to know him better, of course. He was just one of Negi's dad's weird friends, and an old pervert to boot. Why would she want to be closer with him?)

(She didn't know why she was trying to convince herself that.)

She put all of that out of her head and just enjoyed the walk. Before this vacation, she hadn't walked nearly this much since she originally helped Negi to save the world. Between the festival and the hike it had taken to get to the village in the first place, she had been walking more in the past five days than she'd walked in an entire year... But this was a nice evening stroll by a cool river instead of a gruelling before dawn hike in the rocky woods, so she was having a pleasant enough time.

They followed the river for a while in silence, until they were far enough away from the village that the only sounds Chisame could hear were Jack's whistling and the rushing of the river, and they were almost back at the cliffs. Of course, this time they weren't at a gentle slope they could just walk down; this was a solid wall of rock, which also happened to have a waterfall cascading down it from a cave, which was probably the source of the river.

"Hope you don't mind getting your clothes wet, Chisame," Jack said, stopping suddenly when they were finally at the cliff face.

"If I did, I could just take them off and wear the swimsuit," she reminded him. Not that she wanted to be parading around in front of him half-naked any more than she needed to... Although she'd let him see her completely naked just a couple of days ago...

Of course, it took her a moment to realize what he meant. They weren't just there to stand around and look at a pretty waterfall (which was impressive but not even the nicest waterfall she'd seen); Jack was looking up at the cave the waterfall was flowing out of. And there was no way up except to climb what looked like a completely sheer cliff face.

"Jack... Have you lost your mind?" She ripped her glasses off, wiped them with her shirt, and put them back on just to make sure she wasn't seeing things. "There's no way I'm climbing that!"

Even if she wanted to—which she very much didn't—she wasn't sure it was even physically possible. She was a recluse who basically lived in a computer chair; despite having helped save the world once, she didn't have the muscle mass to accomplish something like that! She'd always left the physical stuff to Asuna, or Setsuna, or the big idiot himself...

And it wasn't like this was a gentle slope or a craggy mountain. The cliff looked like someone had just abruptly cut it with a knife. What little geology she had learned and the even less she actually remembered told her that it was probably water that had made the cliffs like that, the same way sea glass or river rocks always ended up nice and smooth; maybe the reason this place was almost shaped like a caldera was because it had been a lake or something once.

All that useless knowledge didn't change the fact that she couldn't climb a smooth cliff. She could barely climb a rocky one.

"It's easier than it looks, Chisame. Don't worry about it!" Jack gave her a slap on the back, and she responded with a much less friendly slap on his arm which didn't do anything but make her hand sting.

"How am I supposed to do anything but worry?!" She pointed dramatically at the cliff face, as if that would accomplish anything except make Jack laugh at her—which he did, and gave her what she guessed was supposed to be a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Then he stepped towards the cliff, shrugged the bag he was carrying off his shoulder, and pulled out what looked like a couple of railroad spikes—each probably about the size of Chisame's forearm, but looking much smaller in Jack's massive hands.

He turned towards her. She expected a grin and a smug remark or a smart-ass comment, but faltered at the look in his eyes. They didn't have their usual mischievous glimmer; if anything, he looked surprisingly earnest.

Or maybe she was just thinking too much like her classmates. Reading too much into things.

"Do you trust me, Chisame?" Transferring both spikes into one hand, Jack held the other one out to her.

The smart thing would have been for her to say something like, 'About as far as I can throw you', especially after that conversation on the stairs. Just like it would have been smart for her to feel that way. But she would have been lying—to him and to herself. Because despite all of the very good reasons he had given her not to, and despite every ounce of good sense she had in her, she did trust him.

She put her hand in his. She didn't miss when Jack gave her hand a squeeze.

"Don't try anything funny—" She cut herself off with a gasp when Jack gave her a quick lift and swing, settling her on his curled arm like a child. When she'd last been to the Magic World and spent most of her time there magicked to look like a grade schooler, she'd looked like a doll he'd carried around. Even as a fully grown woman she looked hilariously small next to him.

"Put your arms around my neck," he instructed, manoeuvring her to his back. Chisame clambered uneasily around and did as she was told, also locking her legs around his waist for good measure. She felt ridiculous, but it was better than having to climb that cliff herself...

Jack drove the first spike into the wall with enough force to make his entire body shake, and to startle another little yelp out of Chisame.

"This had better be good," she grumbled to hide her own embarrassment. For once, Jack didn't laugh—he seemed to be genuinely concentrating on what he was doing.

Good. The last thing she wanted was for him to screw up while they were halfway up the cliff face. A broken character like him would probably survive the fall, but a normal person like her...

Without a hammer or anything like it to drive the stakes into the cliff, Jack just kept using his hands, sticking them into the rock far enough to support his weight. She wasn't sure how he was going to get past the first two stakes, since he didn't seem to be carrying any extra ones... but as they climbed further and further up the cliff, Jack used the holes made by the stakes as footholds, even though they seemed like they would be far too small for his massive feet. Of course, she wasn't going to question him about that... She just knew she wouldn't like the answer...

As the climb went steady, Chisame made the mistake of turning around to look over her shoulder, just to see how high they had gotten. The cave hadn't looked that high up from the ground—high enough to be dangerous but not so high—but now that she was halfway up?

Well, it seemed a lot higher.

She froze up, her body suddenly tense with fear. If her grip were to falter now...

(She almost felt pathetic. After all, she'd helped destroy the Mage of Beginning, but she couldn't handle heights? But still...)

"You okay back there, Chisame?" Jack turned his head to look at her, and Chisame glared at him.

"Just fine!" she said, knowing she didn't sound convincing at all. "Just keep your eyes forward and focus on what you're doing!"

"Relax, Chisame!" Jack laughed. "I've gotcha! Don't you trust me?"

"Less and less with every passing second!"

Jack let go of one of the spikes, and Chisame screamed.

Well, she didn't quite scream. It was more of a yelp, and she clung harder to Jack, digging her heels into him and wrapping her arms around his neck so hard she probably would have been choking a normal person.

Jack let out a booming, body-shaking laugh, and Chisame could feel herself turning red from the tips of her ears downward.

"Okay, now it's official; I don't trust you at all!"

"You know I won't let you fall," Jack said, surprising her again with how sincere he sounded...

It was actually starting to weird her out.

Jack climbed with renewed vigour, until they were parallel to the cave, and then he shuffled over and swung them into the mouth. As soon as they were back on solid ground, Chisame jumped from Jack's back and sprawled on the damp floor of the cave, avoiding the rushing river that was feeding the waterfall...

"You okay over there, Chisame?" Chisame had her eyed screwed shut, so she couldn't see what Jack was doing... From the sound of it, getting back the spikes, but the sound of his approaching footsteps made her open her eyes and glare at him. "Aww, come on. You know I was just fooling around."

"You're an asshole," she grumbled, and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

The cave they were in was just one long tunnel with a river rushing through it, which turned about fifty feet away and led deeper into the cliff. It was too dark to see anything else.

"Wow. This was so worth that climb, and squeezing into this suit..." she continued to grumble as he offered his hand to help her back to her feet.

"There's a lot more where this came from, Chisame. Don't you worry," he said, and winked like there was some kind of secret she was supposed to be in on. He pulled his bag off and took out a massive flashlight—it was practically a floodlight, and she would have struggled to carry it. When he turned it on, suddenly the entire cave was as bright as daylight!

"No time for sitting around; let's get a move on!"

Chisame felt a strong urge to slap him, but knowing that wouldn't do anything but make her hand hurt and make Jack laugh at her, she somehow resisted.

Jack led her deeper into the cave, following the curve of the river; thankfully there were paths on either side that gave them plenty of room to walk without worrying about being swept away. It reminded her of the sort of caves people would go to for tours and such, although without things like guard rails, track lighting, and other things you would need to be safe...

"You know, I'm starting to wish I'd just stayed home." She was surprised to find that she didn't actually mean it... But there was still plenty of room for that to change, and besides, with Jack she had to be blunt for him to get the message.

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Chisame," Jack said, waving a finger at her over his shoulder like a disappointed mother. "Just have some patience."

Frankly, she was tired of having patience—she was tired of not ever knowing where they were going or what they were doing, but she was growing to accept that she had no one but herself to blame. She had left her vacation plans entirely in his hands...

Next time, she would know better. If there was a next time.

They walked in silence again. Jack had thankfully swapped his obnoxious whistling for actually tonal humming, bobbing the light of his flashlight back and forth. Chisame just followed behind and tried not to trip on anything.

They rounded the corner and followed the river for a while longer until they came to a massive chamber. The river continued from its source, leading off down another path, but Jack instead led her deeper into the chamber. There were small puddles and larger ponds throughout, stretching as far as she could see... But the one he led her to was up against the wall, being fed into by a trickle of water. Most of the bodies of water looked shallow enough that she could see the bottom, probably no deeper than her knees, but this one... This one was too dark to see the bottom. Which told her it was deep.

Jack set down his flashlight, pointing it towards the wall and the water to give them plenty of light. He dropped his bag to the ground and stripped his jacket off, depositing it on top; when he went for his pants, Chisame instinctively looked away. When she looked back, she wasn't that surprised to see him in a pair of swim trunks, though.

(Although she couldn't say why she had looked back when she didn't know if the coast would be clear, except that she'd lost all shame by that point... It wasn't like she hadn't seen him naked before...)

His headband and shoes were the last things to be removed. She'd actually never seen him without his headband, even when he was bathing or in the hot springs, so that surprised her more than anything...

"Hey. You actually have eyebrows."

She didn't know what compelled her to say something like that, but she was rewarded by Jack looking over at her, totally caught off guard. He just sort of... blinked at her for a moment, and he looked so genuinely befuddled—especially considering the fact that his now uncovered eyebrows had shot right up—that she couldn't help but laugh at him for a change.

"What's with that face you're making?" she asked between fits of giggles.

"What's up with my face? What's up with that stupid thing you just said?" He was grinning at her, but still look confused. Chisame wondered if maybe that was why he always wore that headband—maybe he didn't look nearly so confident and aloof when you could actually see his eyebrows. Maybe they were just too expressive. "What, did you think I just didn't have eyebrows or something?"

"I don't know! I've never seen them before, have I? How would I know?" To her embarrassment, she couldn't stop giggling—whether it was the look on his face or just because it was hard to stop once she'd started, she didn't know. "Maybe that's why you always wore that headband! Maybe you wanted to hide that you had no eyebrows!"

Chisame took some deep breaths to calm her giggling, and lifted her glasses to wipe the tears from her eyes. Had she finally succumbed to sleep deprivation? Was there some kind of weird gas filling the cave? She'd been so grumpy when she'd first gotten there, but it had just disappeared!

Jack chuckled low and put his hands on his hips. "Well, glad to see you're in a better mood, girly. Now, we're gonna have to swim to get where we're going, so..."

"Well, that explains the swimsuit." She started stripping off her clothes just like he had, without even thinking about the fact that she was literally stripping in front of Jack—of course, by the time she realized it (and became embarrassed), Jack had already stopped paying attention and was crouched over his bag to get something else out.

Standing in the middle of the cave in nothing but a bikini wasn't a very pleasant sensation, though—although Chisame was pleasantly surprised by the temperature, considering they were in the middle of a damp cave. She didn't even have any goosebumps...

"Here." Jack got back to his feet and turned around. He was holding a necklace, with some kind of oversized silver pendant and a big golden jewel in the middle. "You're gonna need this..."

He stepped forward and put the necklace on her. She lifted her hair so he could link it for her, which he did with surprising care. When he stepped back, he tapped the pendant with one finger, and it lit up—not nearly as brightly as the flashlight, but definitely bright enough.

Jack put on a nearly identical necklace, turned his own on, and climbed into the pond; he floated there, obviously not touching the bottom, and the fact that even someone as ridiculously tall as Jack Rakan couldn't reach it freaked her out a little. Of course, she could swim just fine... It was just the fact that this was a weird waterway in the middle of a cave, not an ocean or a lake or something. And in the Magic World to boot. Who knew what was in that water?

"Hope you're a good swimmer, Chisame," Jack said as she crept forward and dipped one toe in. The water was decently warm, at least.

"You probably should have asked about that first," she said as she lowered herself carefully into the deep water, prepared to let herself just tread instead of being taken by surprise by the lack of solid ground under her feet. It was still a little disorienting...

"I trust you to be a competent, capable young woman, Chisame," Jack said, which would have made Chisame blush if not for his laughter and the way he reached over to tousle her hair. That just made her smack his hand away indignantly.

Still... It had sounded sincere enough. And she continued to be a little creeped out by his new sincerity thing...

"Just follow me, keep up, and you'll be fine." His hand moved from her head to her shoulder and surprisingly? That didn't make her worry less.

Jack took a big breath and dove under the water; Chisame watched him disappear, and if he hadn't been wearing that amulet, she wouldn't have been able to see him at all.

For a moment she just sat there, treading water, considering what she was doing. She was in the middle of a pitch-black cave, floating in an improbably deep pond, following a man she spent most of her time calling 'old pervert' who refused to tell her where they were going and why.

Of course, she had come to accept that she had lost her mind somewhere around the point where she let him carry her up the side of a mountain, when she'd been worried about him dropping her while they were dancing just days before...

Chisame took the deepest breath she could, and dove into the water.