Light was shining through the darkness when the hunters finally met back at camp.

The fire had long burned out, and was now nothing more than glowing ashes. A thin trail of smoke ascended into the sky.

"We couldn't find anything," Gateau said when he saw the other two.

"Did you two have any better luck?" Chocolate asked, afraid of what they would say.

Both Carrot and Tira shook their heads. Everything was still around them, except the sounds of life awakening once more to start their day. What could they do now? They hadn't found their missing ally, even though they had taken all night.

"I say we look some more," Carrot said suddenly. Three pairs of eyes focused on him. "We might have a better chance to find him now that the sun is rising."

"Darling, maybe we should rest for a while first."

"REST!" he practically screamed, birds taking flight from the trees. "How can I rest, knowing that my brother is out there! He could be hurt!"

"We can't exhaust ourselves, Carrot," Tira pointed out. "That wouldn't help us, or Marron."

Carrot's eyes flashed with exasperation, but he relaxed, nodding. Tira was right. They couldn't really help Marron if he was in trouble if they were too tired. "All right," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "We'll rest for a while, then look for him again."

Meanwhile, a long way away from the sorcerer hunters, a man was rolling up his sleeping bag. Strands of his brown bangs fell neatly in his brown eyes. He wiped them away, then began to put out the fire. He was a tall man, around his early twenties. Though he didn't look like it, was very strong. He wore a baggy tank top, jeans, and black boots.

Nearby, a brown horse lay waiting, until its master needed its services. Lying against the side of the horse was a young man, his pale skin tainted with dirt and blood, and his raven hair tangled. Around his head was a bandana, tied there to stop the bleeding of a rather large wound. His body was hidden under a blanket, as his chest rose and fell lightly in labored breath.

Making sure the fire was completely out, the man walked over to his horse and picked up the unconscious figure. He knew he had to return to the mansion, but this person needed to be taken care of, and he knew just where he could leave him.

Getting on the horse, he clicked his tongue three times. Automatically, the horse got to its feet, and the rider grabbed the reins with one hand, as the other held his passenger. Clicking his tongue again, the horse began at a trot, then galloped back to the village.

"Marron!" Tira called out, echoing Carrot's voice. After resting for a few hours, they were looking for their missing friend again, in the same groups as they had been before. Tira enjoyed being around Carrot, but she couldn't think about it since they needed to find the missing Glace. They had been hoping that he would have returned while they were asleep, but that wasn't their luck.

"Marron!" Carrot called out, jolting her out of her thoughts. "Dammit, where are you!"

"Marron!"

They both stopped, looking around the surrounding woods.

"I don't understand," Tira said. "Where would he go? Why would he just disappear like this?"

"He's in trouble," Carrot said. "He's hurt somewhere."

"Carrot, you don't know that. . ."

"I do. I do, I can feel it. I know there's something wrong."

There was nothing the cherry-head could say. The look on his face showed how well he knew about Marron's predicament. She couldn't argue with him. She had no idea where Marron was, but Carrot just might.

Looking around, she thought that their surroundings seemed awfully familiar. Then she thought that that would have been impossible, since this forest was new to her, and the only time she had really been around there was at night, in the dark. She must have been imagining it.

But as they continued on, they both stopped as they reached a giant channel in the ground. The same one that they had stopped in front of the night before.

As she began to walk around it, she gasped as Carrot suddenly jumped in.

"Carrot!" she called. It was no surprise that he landed on his feet. He had some coordination when he was actually paying attention to what he was doing. But what she was wondering about was WHY he had hurtled in there in the first place.

He seemed to be searching around down there, underneath the leaves and debris. When he couldn't find what he was looking for, he stood up again and jumped up, grabbing as high as he could onto the walls of the hole, and climbed up and out.

She helped him as he reached the opening of the cavity, grabbing his hand to help pull himself out. As he stood, brushing the dirt off his clothes, the younger Misu tried her best to keep her temper. Even if her temper wasn't as bad as her sister Chocolate's was, it could get pretty out of hand.

"Carrot, what do you think you were doing!" she demanded.

He paid no heed. He began to brush the dirt off his pallid pants.

"Carrot!" She was about to yell at him more, when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a white strip of paper, inscribed with Chinese-style writings.

An ofuda.

"I didn't see it there last night," Carrot said, as Tira took the ward from him, "because it was so dark. When we had come back here, however, I was able to see it, under some branches. I jumped in, just to see if Marron was there, but. . ." He let it hang there for a minute, his tongue trapping it in his mouth.

"But what?"

". . . . . I knew he wasn't going to be there. . . . ."

Around them, birds sang their songs, and flew overhead. A breeze tickled the treetops, lifting some leaves off the ground, causing the hair of the two hunters to dance on their heads. The ofuda swayed with the trees, then flew away with the leaves.

"When we were passing by, I noticed that some of the leaves and branches in the hole were tossed aside. It was that way, probably because Marron was buried under all that junk last night. That's why I wasn't able to see him when we passed by. . ." There was a bit of guilt in his voice.

"So this trap wasn't for catching animals. . ."

Carrot shook his head. "It's not that it wasn't for catching animals. . ." Tira looked up at his onyx eyes. ". . . It's just that we never thought about what kind of animal the person who made the trap was trying to catch. . . . ."

TBC