A/N: Still dealing with the change in my own penname. It just isn't the same to me when I look at it...sort of like it's not me anymore. Well, I guess I understand ff.net's reasons for changing it, but it's still kind of weird for me. I guess I'll get used to it. Anyways, I have the next chapter here for everyone. Sorry it's taken longer than usual to get out, but it's here now, so go ahead and read. Not so much switching characters in this chapter. Hope you enjoy.

When he opened his eyes, he felt absolutely nothing besides vague disorientation, his mind still lost in the haze that hangs around for the first few minutes after waking up from a deep sleep. Iori slowly turned his head to look around him and noticed that he was alone. As he continued to lay in his surprisingly comfortable spot on the verdant ground, he began remembering the previous day: the kidnapping, the confusion as he was dragged, blindfolded, to a place he didn't recognize once he was granted proper vision once again, and how unintelligent his kidnappers had been, making it easy for him to escape during that same night. He still didn't know why he had been kidnapped, and he still didn't know where in the world he was.

He slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his dark brown hair, which was wild and unkempt from tossing and turning in his sleep on the forest floor. His sharp green eyes couldn't detect any form of life or any movement in the brush surrounding him, and so he judged the area safe, beginning to walk freely through the trees, not bothering to keep his footsteps quiet. The crackle of leaves under his feet was a welcome sound in the almost eerie silence of the forest. He couldn't even hear any signs of animal life; no birds were singing, no critters were scurrying about on the leaves, no branches and leaves were being stirred overhead. There wasn't even any wind to listen to. He began humming a song to himself to defeat the silence, but his own voice sounded unusually loud to his ears, and it was so out of place that Iori quickly shut his mouth, feeling as if he had just screamed his presence to the surrounding forest.

He sighed to himself and continued walking, already feeling bored with the lack of anything to do besides simply walk. He wished he had his kendo stick, so he could at least practice and all of this time would not be wasted on walking when he didn't even know where he was or where he was going. He debated searching for a branch or a stick on the ground to use in place of a kendo stick and practicing with that instead, but when he looked around he saw that there weren't any trees with branches anywhere near low enough for any human to grab a hold of, much less such a short boy, and these trees did not look climbable, what with their broad, flat trunks stretching up for what seemed like miles to the small boy.


However, all thought of climbing trees and finding sticks fled from Iori's mind when he saw what seemed to be a cave up ahead of him. He began walking faster, eager to move out of the forest and into a different kind of scenery. All of the green was unsettling to him somehow.

It was only after he had entered the cave and almost immediately tripped over the body lying on the floor that he realized the cave was not unoccupied.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Miya! Miya! Get over here!"

Miyako sighed when the loud voice startled the squirrel she had been carefully following, intent on killing it for a meal. She turned away from her escaped prey and called back, "What do you want?"

"I've found a river!"

Miyako began sprinting in the direction of Daisuke's voice and she found him bent over the aforementioned river, drinking from it. She walked over to get a drink for herself.

Daisuke sat up again, looking around, wiping his dripping mouth with the back of his hand. "Hey, do you think this river leads to a village or anything? It seems to get calmer up ahead."

Miyako lifted her head and swallowed the water inside of her wet mouth, squinting as she tried to locate where the river slowed down and became more steady.

"I can't see too far ahead; I have bad vision. If you do see it, though, then I guess it very well could lead to civilization of some sort."

"Great, let's follow it then!" Daisuke said excitedly, leaping to his feet and grinning at her.

She grinned back and straightened up, and they began chatting animatedly as they walked along the riverside.

Miyako and Daisuke had not become close at first, since they both had the stubbornness of a mule and Miyako had a quick temper that reminded Daisuke of Takeru, which both enlightened and disheartened him. However, after spending the first night together, they'd had a long heart-to-heart while drifting off to sleep near their warm campfire, and they'd talked about how they hoped Yamato, Takeru and Ken were okay, and Daisuke had gotten Miyako to confess that she had feelings for the blonde (though he'd had more than a hunch about it before), and Daisuke told Miyako about Takeru's confession and how confused and torn he felt between his two friends, and how he felt he was falling for the both of them a bit too fast for his liking. Miyako was understanding, and Daisuke was glad he had someone to talk to about it. The next morning, the two had woken to greet each other as old friends would, and though they jokingly argued with each other often, they felt close enough to each other to consider the other a good friend.

"Miya, I think I hear voices nearby," Daisuke whispered to her.

She nodded to him. She had heard the voices a few seconds before, having a more keen sense of hearing than the redhead, which came from being in the woods for so long and having to rely on senses other than her poor eyesight to hunt.

They hid behind the cover of a few bushes as they peered out through the leaves at the sight before them.

A blue-haired man was feeding a young woman with long, light-brown hair what looked like mush from a small cooking pot over a fire. The woman looked dazed and her eyes were unfocused as her mouth dropped open to allow the spoon access into her mouth. She closed it and the man pulled the spoon back out, wiping her mouth carefully with his fingertips.

"Good?" he asked, his voice sounding light.

The woman nodded at the floor.

"Did you swallow?"

The woman nodded again.

Miyako frowned. The girl seemed a bit too young for him, with her young, girlish face, compared with his tired-looking, older face. He looked worn-out and as if he hadn't showered in days, while her skin seemed as fresh and soft as velvety flower petals. She wondered what their relation to each other was. She contemplated interrupting this peaceful, intimate scene to ask for food, but it turned out she needn't worry about it, for just then Daisuke popped out from behind the bushes and strode forward, greeting the two confused-looking people already sitting there. She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, cursing Daisuke's sudden impulses, and figuring she had nothing better to do, stood and began walking after him.

"Hey, you don't look like you're from around here. Are you guys lost?" Daisuke asked, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire and the cooking pot.

"N-No," the man said uncomfortably, his eyes shifty and nervous. His arm tightened its hold around the woman's shoulders as she struggled to focus on Daisuke's face. Her head drooped to rest on the man's shoulder, her eyes closing.

Miyako sat beside Daisuke. "Forgive my friend. He has no manners. I am Miyako, and he is Daisuke. We are travelers, and it seems to me that you are as well. Would you mind sparing some of your food?"

"Not at all, go right ahead. I made too much, anyways, and I feared precious food was going to go to waste," Jyou replied.

Daisuke immediately reached forward and began spooning mush out with his cupped hands. Miyako gave him a disgusted look as he began eating straight out of his hands, licking at them to get every delicious morsel. She turned to regard the woman with a concerned look.

"What is wrong with the girl?"

"She's sick," the man said sadly, looking at her and reaching a hand up to gently tuck a loose strand of hair behind the young woman's ear.

"What is her name?" Miyako asked, dipping her hands into the cooking pot as soon as she realized it was rapidly disappearing into Daisuke's stomach, not wanting to go hungry again.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce us to you when you introduced yourselves," the man said, smiling apologetically and more than a little fretfully.

"It's alright," she assured him. She wondered why he seemed to be such a nervous man.

"My name is Jyou, and this is my wife, Mimi," the man said, indicating to the young woman resting against his shoulder and arm.

"Your wife? She seems a bit young," Miyako said, eyebrows raising.

"Oh, it is because she has such a girlish face and she is of such small frame. She is only one year younger than I," Jyou replied, blushing slightly at the thought of his seeming so old. "She is eighteen and I am nineteen."

At first she did not believe his claim. This haggard man could not be merely nineteen-years-old. However, as she studied him further, she realized that his apprehension made him seem many years older than he actually was. His face was lined with many years of constant worry. She guessed him to have some sort of nervous anxiety disorder.

"Bullshit," Daisuke said, his hunger seeming to be satisfied, his dirty hands resting against his knees. He was staring hard at Jyou, eyes untrusting.

Jyou looked alarmed as he peered at Daisuke's face and he quickly turned all of his attentions to Mimi, who had just moaned as if in pain. He began talking to her under his breath.

"I don't believe a word of it," Daisuke said, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.

"Daisuke!" Miyako admonished.

The redhead shook his head, pointing at Jyou. "You are a liar and a fake."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jyou said quickly, not looking up from Mimi's pale face.

"She isn't sick. She isn't your wife, either, I bet," Daisuke said, grin twisting into something almost wicked. "Though I'd believe she's eighteen. Don't know about you being nineteen, though."

Jyou did turn to look at him this time, eyes wide. "How-How did you know?"

"You're a bad liar, Jyou. If that is your name," Daisuke added as an afterthought. "Your posture and your face as you talked was just all wrong. Plus how nervous you were when we walked in on you. You were expecting someone else...someone who would come and take you away."

Miyako joined Jyou in gaping at Daisuke.

"I'm good at reading body movement," Daisuke said, grinning to himself. "I'm a thief. I guess I have to be."

"What do you mean you're a thief?" Miyako asked him. She didn't remember that being mentioned in their conversations.

"I'll tell you later," Daisuke said to Miyako. He turned to Jyou once again, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Now tell us the real story. Who is she, and why are you out here?"

"I'm a preacher, and I accidentally got this girl pregnant, so I grabbed her, drugged her, and dragged her out here, and I'm trying to get out of this stupid forest so I can find some place where I can change my name, my profession, and my life."

Daisuke nodded, eyebrows raised as he whistled to himself. "Quite a story you got there."

Miyako was gaping at Jyou much like a fish does when caught.

"But I love her," Jyou continued earnestly, once again tightening his hold on Mimi's shoulders. "I fully intend to marry her when I find a place where I safely can, and I'm going to help raise the baby. It's mine, after all."

"Good," Daisuke said, smiling to himself as if satisfied with Jyou's answer and straightening up.

"You bastard," Miyako hissed, breaking out of her shock.

The two males turned to stare at her, eyebrows raising.

"Me?" Jyou asked, unsure as to whether the insult had been directed at him or Daisuke.

"You drugged her?" Miyako asked fiercely, raising to her feet.

"Um, yes?" Jyou replied quietly, wincing at the fury in the girl's eyes.

"How dare you bring a woman to such a low level with the use of such foul weapons!" Miyako screeched at him. "Look at her! Look at what you've reduced her to! It's inhumane! You chauvinistic pig!"

"I didn't know it was-" Jyou began, but he was cut off by Daisuke.

"Lay off, Miya! He's just trying to save her. He already said he loves her," Daisuke said angrily, rising to his feet and glaring at the girl.

She turned on him, eyes flashing dangerously. Daisuke gulped despite himself.

"I can't believe you're supporting this! I thought better of you, Daisuke!" she cried.

She stormed off into the woods, mumbling angrily to herself. Daisuke began following her, sighing and calling out to her.

"Miya, don't run off, you'll get lost! Oh, come on, you're overreacting. Miya! Where did you go?"

He beat at the foliage covering his path and searched around frantically for his enraged friend. He broke out of the trees and stood staring at the back of Miyako's head.

"There you are."

He lifted his eyes to stare at what Miyako herself was scrutinizing at that moment. They stood at the mouth of a cave which didn't look as dark as it should. He guessed there were people somewhere deep inside the cave and pondered over whether or not he should run in. He heard rustling in the trees behind him and looked back to see Jyou had followed them, holding Mimi securely around her waist at his side. He stared at the mouth of the cave and then lowered his eyes to Daisuke's face.

"Should we go in?"

Jyou shrugged.

"Why not?" Miyako asked. They turned to watch as she began walking into the cave.

Jyou and Daisuke looked at each other again for a few seconds before walking in after her, Daisuke walking at Mimi's other side, offering support.

They were soon shrouded by the darkness within the cavernous cave.