Okay, FINALLY an update. For details on why it took so long, see my rant at the bottom of the page. By the way, this'll probably be switching back and forth every chapter.

Enjoy!

Darkest Dragon: Dude! You've read those books!? AWESOME! I 3 you now! *dies* anywho, yeah, thanks for your review! I had the Cimorene books read to me when I was, like, SIX years old, so. . . Wow, That was only Seven years ago. *capitalizes Seven for no reason what-so-ever* Thanks for adding the story to your favorites! I hope the rest of the chapters don't disappoint you!

Terena: Ahh, your review made me happy. Mostly because it was the second review out of an entire two I got. *proceeds to be bitter about only getting two reviews* We must 3 teh Kiki.

Anywho, thanks both of you!

PS: This is practically another prologue. . .

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Byakko Cafe'

"Chapter One : ::: : . . . Fast Learner"

Everything was black. Very, very black. That was, of course, if some black had the ability to be more black than other blacks. So, authoress's sanity disabilities aside, the point being made was, that the entire world was black for Max Mizuhara.

It slowly faded into a dull grey, then a brown blob. Max sat up slowly, holding his suddenly throbbing head. As he sat up, the blob seemed to back up a little bit. By the time Max was in sitting positions and had looked up, the blob had reformed itself into a boy, quite a few years younger than himself.

"You're awake." The ex-blob observed, adjusting his blue-rimmed glasses. "I'm surprised, didn't think it'd take that little time." He rummaged around his clothes and produced a small bottle, offering it to the blonde with a "Drink this."

Max accepted it, nodding slowly and feeling almost surprised that he could move his hand; his body felt numb. He drank it slowly, savoring the horrible taste despite the urge to either spit it out or finish quickly. Having just woken up, his brain wasn't quite functioning, but once he finished drinking he was immediately berated with a mental what was that? Why'd you drink that? What if it was poison?

"It was a healing potion." The younger boy said, answering his mental interrogations - despite that Max had been asking himself and only mentally. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about the taste."

Max waved a dismissive hand, his body no longer numb but his head still throbbing. But it was. . . Going away?

"It doesn't heal you, sorry, but it does get rid of injury pain." he took off his glasses in an almost nervous reflex and frowned, cleaning them with his shirt cloth. "I'm not good enough with potions to do much more right now." He put his now--nearly-sparkling glasses back on. "I can do a few minor healing spells too, but you've got that magic barrier up, so I didn't even try."

"Magic barrier?"

"Yeah."

"Oh!" Max clapped his hands together in realization. "Genbu put it up for me."

"Defensive, of course. That's how Genbu works, defense."

"My mom," Max started after a pause, beginning to like the younger boy, "She works with potions, and she once told me that even that potion to make the pain stop is difficult to learn, and that most who work with potions can't use any magic."

The boy blushed. "I learn quick, I guess." He avoided the compliment by switching subjects. "I'm Kyouju."

"Max."

There was a short moment of silence as they shared a smile.

"Why were you captured? Why was I captured?" Max asked after a while, deciding that since the younger boy was so calm that was giving him the right to whine like a child.

Kyouju bit his lip. "You have Genbu, correct?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah."

"Thought so. My friend back home has Seiryuu, I'm guessing they brought me here to get him to come to them. He's good at detecting attacks and such you know, so it'd be easier for them to capture him if he came to them. Actually, I believe that. . ." Kyouju trailed off and looked at Max after realizing that he'd been rambling a bit and that he'd stopped looking at said blonde.

Muchly surprising him was the fact that Max was still staring at him, as though every word he spoke was of the utmost importance.

"You were captured by the teamwork of two boys, correct?" Kyouju asked, blushing again. Usually people got tired of listening to him after two sentences.

"Seemed to me like one of them was a girl." Max said, putting a finger to his chin. "Purple hair, shoulder-length. Green eyes. And the boy had a red bandana and dark brown hair."

"Ahh, thought so. Suzuka and Hiruta." A pause. "They're both boys, you know." Max choked for a moment before - quite suddenly, really - regaining his composure. "Anyway, they captured me too. They work for the holder of Suzaku. I think. . . If I'm right, there's no need to be scared; they can't harm us."

Max pointed to his head, which was still bleeding a small amount. Kyouju winced.

"They can't kill us. Well, you. I myself, well, I don't have a holy beast, so they're free to kill me." Kyouju laughed and for a moment looked like he was about to cry, reminding Max again that he was probably at least three years younger than him self.. "But it's not like I'm important."

Max blinked a few times as Kyouju immediately shook his head.

"Takao would get angry if he heard me say that." Kyouju declared, more to himself than to Max. "Do you know why the four spirits were given to humans?" Kyouju asked, switching topics yet again. Max shook his head. "Because they couldn't coexist with them."

"Eh? But that doesn't make sense."

"More like they couldn't exist next to the humans, so they decided that if they each chose one human that they thought trust worthy then it would solve things. It's a story I don't feel like expanding on. If you ever feel the need to learn the whole thing, here." Thump! Kyouju produced an amazingly huge book and let it drop to the ground loudly. "It's just a few light details on the legends."

"Light, eh? How can you consider this light reading?" Kyouju pouted childishly. "More importantly, where were you keeping this?"

And indeed, the book was much to large for him to have had in his pockets, or any other place for that matter. Kyouju, however, decided it best - by will of the authoress - that it was a secret.

"It was a plot-hole." Kyouju said, shrugging. *poke* Kyouju sighed. "Excuse me, it's a secret." Max nodded veeerrrry slowly before picking up the book.

"I suppose I 'ought to read this."

"It'd help."

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GAH!!!!!!!!! I had to, okay, here! *calms down*

I wrote a pretty spiffy chapter, but admittedly this one's better. Anywho, I wrote it and every time I uploaded it on document manager it showed all the codes! GAH!

So I tried copying it into a different program, retyping it in the same program, and copying into a new document of the same program, but it wouldn't work!!! (It wasn't just me or the server, 'cause all the other things I could upload were fine.)

So, after a while I went "Meh, whatever, this chapter sucks anyway." and wrote a new one. Halfway through a chapter I spent, like, weeks working on, I go "Hey! Dude! This SUCKS! And started this."

Luckily, this one practically wrote itself.

Anyone seeing the parallels between this and the actual series yet?

I'll point them out.

Kyouju was kidnapped by Hiruta and Suzuka.

Hiruta and Suzuka work for Kai.

Kyouju is there to lure Takao in.

Kai wants to talk to Takao.

Get it yet? What's funny is I barely even recognized this at first.

I was like "Huh, I think Hiruta and Suzuka are just plain awesome so I shall put them in. And I shall make them work for Kai. And I shall make them kidnap Kyouju to lure in Taka- waaaaaaaaiiiit a second. . . *realization hits* "

Yeah. Anywho, this was written while listening to HeartPlace by Ayumi Hamasaki on repeat! Woo! Go Ayumi! *3s Ayumi's work*


Please review and all that crap! XD