Disclaimer: …I don't own it, I never will! As I said before, if I did there would already be a fifth season! Oh, and lots of yummy yaoi… ^^;; Of course American editors will say no-no to it so it'll never appear over here…
Izumi was taking it pretty hard, but probably not quite as much as Takuya did. The boy had let go of Tomoki and sat in shock with his eyes on the ground. Izumi had her hands over her eyes and was whimpering, as Junpei attempted to soothe her with gentle words of encouragement. Tomoki looked shaken, and his face for once was unreadable, as he could not believe Sight was gone. In his naïve mind, everyone was suppose to be happy and full of life, not distressed and looking over the dead bodies of past loved ones with sorrow. I though, sat next to Sight, my eyes downcast on the wolf. His wish was to protect Izumi from the oncoming harm, and he managed to fulfil it. When younger, I had heard many stories of wolves, most of them being about how cruel they were to humans. Though one had always managed a place in my mind, it was my favorite. It was about a wolf that when separated from its beloved owner went through hell and back just to see the owner again, only to learn their owner died. The wolf, so unhappy with it's loss went to it's old home and laid upon it's former masters bed. For weeks it did not eat, drink, or even move. People could not believe the wolves love and dedication to its owner.
It had died, but returned to it's owner in the heavens above and enjoyed eternity with him. In one variation people had said the wolf belonged to the first Warrior of Light, and others said it belonged to a poor man who had nothing but gave everything to his beloved pet. Though it did not matter in what way it was told, it came down to the same thing; the wolf was dedicated to those it loved, and would do anything for them. Anything. Shaking my head, I ran my fingers over Sight's fur and sighed. In many ways, Sight was like that wolf. I stood up and looked around, this as going to be hard for us to get over. It was not but a taste of what Lord Cherubi was going to do with the world if we did not stop him. The saddest thing though, is if we're having trouble over Sight's death, what would we do if something were to happen to one of us? It would even more heart-wretching than this, more devastating.
"What are we going to do now?" Izumi asks me weakly. I don't know it's been the first time in awhile since I was at a loss such as this, besides when I had to face Kouichi. What could we do? In this state of mentality, we were an easy feat. In all honesty, Rana could probably kill us all right now. Taking a deep breath, I shrugged finally.
"I don't know… with how we are right now, we can't do much of anything." Was my reply. She looked at me sadly, and sat in silence.
"We… we still need to defeat Lord Cherubi." Tomoki says quietly. We all turn to him. "If we don't stop him now, then soon it will be too late. He will kill, and keep killing until there's nothing left. We were given the destiny to stop him, and the only way to fulfil that destiny is to keep going, even with heavy and aching hearts. No matter how bad things will get, we shall always remember what has happened, and whatever happens to those who were involved will be honored for their courage. So, we must keep going no matter what." He says, in a very speech-like manner. Although his words were a bit cheesy, he was right. Though what I find very interesting, is how much he's now growing. I take this as a good sign.
"Tomoki…" Junpei whispered. Tomoki had his held down, and he looked slowly up at us all. He had been crying, but his eyes held certain hardness held by only the greatest of rulers, the ones who knew what must be done.
"If we start now we can get something to eat faster, and learn more of how we'll defeat Lord Cherubi. Not to mention get payback for Sight on Rana!" Tomoki said, and smiled gently. "Let's go." Izumi, Junpei, and I all nodded our head in agreement. They gathered their things together, and I was about to when I noticed Takuya was still in a daze. Frowning, I walked over to him, not really caring whether or not I carried a blanket with me, either way I wasn't going to use it.
"Come on Takuya." I say gently to him. He blinked, then looked over at me, before regrettably getting up. "I know it's hard, but if we stay here something worse may happen." I add, hoping this may give him more need to leave. Receiving no response, I sigh. Now, we head out. Fun… I still want food. We need nutrition, damn you Fates!
The path to the town ahead, was pretty straight forward, which was a good thing as we were starving and not in the mood for lots of walking. Tomoki was in the lead, like a king leading his army into a war. Junpei and Izumi were walking side by side, talking about his great move on Rana. It seems Izumi was deeply impressed and Junpei was doing his hardest to not let it go straight to his head and be modest. I lagged behind, with Takuya trailing slightly. I was worried about him; he seemed to have taken Sight's death rather hard. Maybe it was because his mother died when he was younger, then had to take her place while making sure his younger brother was all right, got tore away from his familiar life on this quest of ours, then lost an old friend. I was probably going to have to end up talking with him, try and cheer him up. 'I come by to get my stuff, and your at it again! GYAHHH!' My mind screams, and you probably know the routine by now, I get another splitting headache. This happens too often… are there any herbs in that town do you think?
"Takuya…" I sigh, and walk slower so that he can end up walking next to me. "Oi, Takuya." I say, and wave my hand in front of his face. He jumps, then turns to look at me with a face of bewilderment.
"Hai?" Takuya looks expectantly at me, as if waiting for an order. You know I'm really starting to hate slavery, look at what it did to Takuya! No less mine… err, uhm to no less Takuya. Wait, gah I just confused myself.
"Daijoubu."I say and place my hand on his shoulder. He sighs and shrugs to signify he's not so sure about that one. "You know… things will get better." I promise, and he turns to look at me in the eye. I try my hardest to look back at his eyes, so he knows I mean it. The problem is I do mean it, but his eyes are just so pretty and I'm trying to prevent myself from blushing. Hah, see I am so good.
"Arigatou…" Takuya whispers. I smile and squeeze his shoulder lightly in reassurance. He smiles gently back at me and then turns away, probably from thinking he wasn't suppose to.
"You know… I know what might make you feel better." I say, without really thinking. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to look at me in the face for whatever reason. I confuse him, he confuses me, it all works out pretty good. "A story." I say, and he laughs.
"There's not many good stories left." He says quietly. I smirk.
"Oh yes there is, tons. You probably weren't looking in the right place. "I say and poke him on the nose. He wrinkles it up and looks at me. "A story it is then, and I assure you it's good." Takuya raised a brow at me, in a way as if daring me to tell him one. Perhaps, he's feeling more free and looser around us now, he's acting more how he wants to, not somebody else's wishes. And he's starting to around me! 'Okay, I'm leaving forever now!' My mind says, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm hearing things or if I'm talking to my mind. Either way it makes me crazy so I don't care. "Ever heard the one about the loyal wolf?" I ask. I mentioned it earlier.
"Yes." Takuya says, and smiles shyly trying to hide an unseen victorious smirk. Oh, so he wants to be that way does he?
"Well how about the phoenix?" I ask, and at his arched brow I take it he never even heard of it. HAH! Am I taking this too seriously? Nah.
"Is there such a thing?" He inquires me. I wink at him and he turns away again. Why does he keep doing that? Ah, well whatever I'll figure it out later.
"Yes." I say and wrap an arm over his shoulders and pull him close. He doesn't pull away, just rather looks up at me awaiting the story. Now how does it start? Oh yah… "There's tons of old sayings. There's the one 'never judge a book by its cover', 'be careful what you wish for', 'love is blind', and so forth. Though no one has ever really heard of the once old saying, 'stones are only as hard as you think they are'. It basically means things are only as bad as you make them out to be, it's kind of like the 'don't make a mountain out of a mole hill' one, except the one with stones involves it on a personal level, and you don't express your troubles with others. No one uses it anymore, they prefer the mountain one because it applies much more often." I explain.
"That the story?" Takuya asks, and I glare at him. He laughs nervously; knowing my glare wasn't a dangerous one.
"No… that's just an explanation that starts out. I know its boring, but the story is. Now, because your interrupted me I'm giving you the short version." I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughs.
"Not true, it's because we're almost there." He says with a smile.
"Yes well… back to the story." I say, ignoring the fact he was right and went back to what I was doing. "There once were two best friends, who were always there for each other. One had many friends, and the other was usually seen off by himself. But they were inseparable, no matter what. That is until the lonely ones mother decided they were getting too close, and convinced the other child's parents to send their child away to their lovesick uncles, and the mother sent her own to her anti-romantic sister. The two friends had not seen each other for the entire summer and in the different environments and people greatly changed their personalities. When they came back, the boy was much colder than he was ever before, and having his best friend a sucker for romance enraged him, and one day he lashed out at his friend. The friend was hurt, and they took off crying. The boy felt no remorse at first, but over time he felt bad. He had told his life-long friend he never wished to see the others face again." I stopped to take a quick breather, we weren't very far from the town now so I removed my arm from Takuya's shoulders and realized he had nearly fallen asleep against me. He almost fell but luckily I caught him before he hit the ground, and got him back up.
"Oh, gomen nasai." Takuya said, and scooted a bit from me.
"No problem." I assure him, and blink when seeing all the people about. This was a trading town, but it wasn't like Trader's Village luckily. Looks like the ending of my story will have to wait…
A/N: …so… corny… *Eye twitches* Very sorry for those who had to read that… by the way, the saying 'stones are only as hard as you think they are'. Whether or not that's a real saying I'm not sure… Mwahahah, I have a really bad ant infestation in my room… T_T itai… *Looks at very badly bitten feet and then her clothes that really does have a lot of ants on it* What am I going to wear for school…? Oh well, aww Kouji told Takuya a story! So very little fluff in this story… gomen nasai! (A few chapters from now there will be some though! ^^;;) Sugoi, 9 reviews? You are all sweet people (all three of you XD)! Have a good, next chapter up tomorrow!