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Running Away

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-Chapter 1-

Chichiri grimaced as he heard Tasuki yell once again at the group of men he was sitting with. He picked up the glass of water that had just been set in front of him at the bar and took a sip, listening to the heated conversation continue.

"I won it fair and square, now hand it over!!"

He heard a loud clunk on the table that could be no one else besides Tasuki slamming his fist down on it. Chichiri sighed, things had been this way for a while now.

A clattering of money being poured on the table then commenced, and Tasuki squealed happily. "Yay!!"

Chichiri had to admit that they were running dangerously low on money, but this was definitely not the right way to handle it. Besides, Tasuki usually ended up getting them into worse trouble than they already were.

"Chi-san, Chi-san!!" There was a rush of footsteps as Tasuki came running over to him. "Look at all the money I made us!"

Chichiri watched as Tasuki poured all the money down on the counter, being careful not to let any of the coins fall off.

"See, see! I almost tripled everything we had!"

Chichiri looked wearily down at the pile of coins. "Good job, Tasuki-kun, no da."

Tasuki noticed the look on Chichiri's face. "What is it, Chi-san? Somethin' troublin' ya'?"

Chichiri looked up hurridly, not knowing it had been that obvious what he was feeling. "No. nothing is, no da. It's just." Chichiri picked up one of the coins and began fingering it in his hands. "I-!"

"Nani?"

"Tasuki-kun." Chichiri looked closely at the coin that he held in his hand. There was something. not right about it. "Tasuki-kun, these coins are fake, no da!"

Tasuki face-vaulted. "Let me see!" He grabbed the coin out of Chichiri's hands and held it up close to his eyes. "Hmm. it doesn't look wrong to me."

Tasuki opened his mouth and bit down hard on the coin. He was very surprised when it broke, one half falling to the ground and the other half inside of his mouth.

"Yah!" he spit the coin out. "What the hell izzat?"

"A fake coin, na no da."

Tasuki turned beet red. He slowly turned around, facing the men that had given them the coins. The men finally noticed that the man they had given the money to had figured out it wasn't real.

"Eh, boss?"

"What the hell'd want?"

"Turn around."

The boss turned around, coming face to face with a large tessen right in his face. "What the-!"

"You gonna' give me my money back or what?" Tasuki growled.

All the men stood up, ready to face this new threat. "You're gonna' hafta take it from us." They took out clubs and swords from under the table where they had kept them, holding them up in a way that could frighten even a grown man.

Tasuki didn't give them time to attack first. "Rekka shinen!!" A bright burst of flames erupted from him tessen and engulfed the group of men. Unfortunately, this particular inn happened to be made of wood, and wood, well, burns.

"Ahhhh!!" Tasuki screamed as the flame began to spread across the floor. The bar-tender started running around, trying to put out the fire with bottles of alcohol from behind the bar.

Chichiri watched all this with a slight grin on his face. Yeah, he should have told Tasuki not to use that, but.

"What is going on here?" The inn-keeper tromped into the room. He was a big man, a large black beard grew on his face. He wore a large cloak that did not suit an inn-keeper.

The bar-tender timidly pointed into the raging flames at the man who's hair matched the flames themselves. "It was him, it was him!"

The inn-keeper stepped forward, brushing off the flames as if they were nothing more than leaves on a bush.

Chichiri decided that it was time he stepped in. He jumped through the flames, grabbing hold of Tasuki's shoulder. "It think it's time we get going, no da."

There was a bright flash of light and then the two men were gone. The inn- keeper looked around, trying to find where they had disappeared to, but it was no use. They were just. gone!

Chichiri peered out from among the leaves, looking into the window to see if the flames had died down yet. They seemed to be getting them under control, though, so it wasn't a problem.

"That wasn't a very good idea, Tasuki-kun, no da."

"Yeah, well, what was I supposed to do? There were tons of them, you saw!"

"Maybe if you had told someone about it, they would have done something, no da."

"What's the fun in that?"

Chichiri looked around at their surroundings. They were in the forest just outside the inn. It wasn't too cold outside, but there was a bit of a chilly wind that wound through the trees.

"We might as well sleep out here, no da. Now that we don't have a room anymore."

"Out here! Let's just find another inn!!"

"Tasuki!"

Tasuki was pouting. He turned his lower lip up in a pout that he hoped would soften the older man.

"No."

"Come on!!"

"Go get some wood so we can make a fire, no da."

Tasuki grumbled something out, but reluctantly headed out deeper into the forest to get some wood. Chichiri started to make a little clearing so that they would have a place to sleep.

He took the bag off his back and started rummaging through the contents. Sighing, he held up the single blanket that they always kept. They didn't sleep outside a lot, so they rarely needed it.

Luckily, they had some food, so they wouldn't have to worry about getting stuff in the morning.

He heard a rustle behind him and Tasuki wobbled in, carrying a huge stack of sticks with him.

"Where. where do you want me to put them?"

Chichiri gestured with his finger to a point in the middle of the clearing he had made. "Asoko, no da."

He heard a huge thump as Tasuki dropped the sticks, and then the usual "rekka shinen" as he lighted them on fire. Soon, they had a good sized fire going.

The two of them huddled around the fire, relishing in the little warmth that it was putting off. The flames danced in front of them, putting off little shadows on the trees around them.

"We should probably get some sleep, no da."

".yeah." Tasuki was certainly not enjoying the chill of the night air. He looked over at Chichiri and wondered how he could stand it all the time.

Chichiri spread out the blanket he had unpacked as close to the fire as he could without any risk of it catching. He patted the section nearest the fire. "You can sleep next to the fire, no da."

Tasuki smiled. "Thanks, Chi-san." He picked up the blanket, sliding under it. It didn't provide much warmth, but it was better than nothing.

Chichiri slid in next to him, wrapping the blanket around himself. He looked up through the trees so that he could see the stars, the constellations. He found his own. and then found Tasuki's. Then he went through, thinking about each of the others' in turn.

He felt a slight shiver beside him, and looked over to see how Tasuki was doing. He must have been freezing, and he was shivering on and off.

"You cold, Tasuki-kun, no da?"

"H..hai."

Chichiri snuggled up closer to the younger man, wrapping his arm around him, trying to hold the warmth in. He felt Tasuki grasp his hand in his own.

"Arigato, Chi-san."

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