A/N: Thank you for the reviews from Scarlet (yes, I'm still alive, been very busy lately. Thank you very much for your concern ) and Bottou-chan.

Corrections, Critics, complain and flames are welcomed.

Volume 20 Chapter 3: Hope

Soukakousai.

The ura uruha member dressed in black cloak with a big black cauldron on his back. He's nastier than Mokuren in many ways. Mokuren likes to hear girls scream. This one, well, likes to keep girls he like inside the cauldron in a certain amount of time or probably forever - only to hear a pathetic and forced love declaration.

Right now he's hovering on a mysterious black cauldron that might be much bigger than it seems, talking to an object that didn't give any positive reply to him.

"... what's wrong... aren't you... feeling well? Outside...... do you miss the sunny world? Do you want to go out...? If you want to come out... it... it's alright. I... just need you to say... you like me... you love me... that you want me to hug you...it... it's alright...... I love you... and you love me too.........!! Come... say it... say "I love you"! Say "I swear I will love you forever"......!!" say it!!!"

I bet anybody inside that nasty cauldron completely hated his gut that he has to lock her in there.

"Then... you'll be happy, then you'll be relieved.........!!"

And it had to stop.

"Say it!!! Ahahahahah!!!"

NOW.

"......... huh? this is... shuri... AHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Soukakousai immediately grasped his right hand, fresh blood is streaming from the wound -- made by the shuriken I've purposely aimed to his hand.

"That won't do. Are you really happy with words spoken like that? Girls are not emotionless dolls. You must treat them with good manners and moral. But you're not qualified. Jyusshinshuu Raiha. From here on, I will be your opponent."

Soukakousai jumped back immediately at my mere introduction. "GAA... R... Raiha, you said......!?"

I replied with a big grin. "Yep."

"grr..." The ura uruha member froze, he seemed to want to escape as fast as his feet would bring him. His expression was partially hidden by his black cloak, but I could feel that he's intimated by me. "wah... wahhhh!!" He threw something at me as an attempt to break out.

I slashed it and found out that it was a bag of powder, which fell all over me.

"Got you now!!" He took the cauldron from his back, and opened it, which activated the madougu – It started to suck me and everything around me to the cauldron.

I know I have to resist… kinda…

"Moron!! Anyone who's been sprayed with that powder... will be sealed inside this caldron!! Fuuko too... got sucked in like that!!"

That sounded like trouble. I glanced at Soukakousai for a second. "I see, so Fuuko is really in there?" Without another thought, I stopped resisting the madougu's power and flung myself into the cauldron. "HERE I COME!!"

"I WON!!! I defeated that Raiha!! ehehe!! Fuukooo!! Your love has made me strong!!!"

There's a momentarily lapse and the psycho's insane laughter slowly dissolves.

I closed my eyes, and tried to search the smallest hint of life in the gloomy surroundings. Fuuko's presence is vague, but she is in here. I knew I'll meet her again sooner or later, I just never expected it to be inside a cauldron. The Raijin is slowly twitching inside my ninja suit, reacting to its counterpart. It decided to speak directly to my mind.

/What are you doing, Raiha? You're rescuing an enemy when you could simply let her die and rot in here./

'This is none of your business.' I answered it silently.

/Oh, I know. You're starting to like her, aren't you?/

'What if I do?'

/Wait till she finds out that you're really a monster./

'Everybody in uruha are monsters."

/Don't let emotions hinder you from your final objective. You should know well. That girl is too weak and unrefined…/

'Let's just say this. She's my only hope of ever freeing my self from you."

/Interesting. I'd like to see her try./

'Never know until you try.'

/We'll see about that. If you want to do that, you have to return the Fuujin's main jewel to her. That means I'm finally free. How delightful./ It stated simply before returning to its silence.

I let my ninja instinct carry myself to her, and I found Fuuko, her emerald spheres are casting me an empty look.

Her lips weakly moved. "… Who's there...?"

I kneeled down and bowed at her with a smile.

"I'm your prince, here to save you."

Volume 20 Chapter 4: Shatter
 Fuuko

At first I had tried to find a way out, but it took too much out of Fuujin. The madougu was left lifeless on my right arm now, nothing more than a hand ornament. So I stood, searching over and over again on the dark walls. I did not know how I did it, everything was a blur, but I somehow got to my feet and staggered around the obscurity. My feet took me around the bend without me willing them to, wandering aimlessly in the dark. And when I could not find the strength to stand anymore I sat on the black floor, nonchalantly staring at the endless room in front of me.

The darkness rang with the madman's insane laughter.

It dissipated and left me alone again in the dark.

I swiftly lost track of time. At moments I could swear I was falling asleep, only to find myself was staring at the same old blackness. As soon as I sensed myself aware, the surrounding forced my body back into nothingness quietly. And the moment I found my mind concentrating, it went adrift to total oblivion. Only a small part of me still clung to consciousness.

It's depressing to be totally alone.

The pain... it really hurts... everyone left me... alone... I thought about death... junior high... I didn't trust anyone, and I didn't have any friends……

………I can't remember a thing…

It was emptiness, spread down on every inch of the place. There was nothing in there. My throat became sore and dry, and it seemed to be an eternity. After what was certainly forever or perhaps just a few hours –

A light.

I looked up and there's something - there's someone, walking to my direction.

Someone is approaching from the darkness. I tried to get to it, but found out my body isn't responding. But somehow, my lips are moving in their own accord, voicing my only thought of the moment. "…Who's there...?"

The familiar figure kneeled down and bowed at me with a very relieving smile.

"I'm your prince, here to save you."

........... Prince......? That...... before... before this...... there was something like that...

A Light.

The water dungeon. I was a mermaid, waking up on the lap of a-

Darkness.

No...... I can't think.........

"I'm sorry, Fuuko."

There was a sudden sting on my right cheek. Then, I'm back to the emptiness.

And extremely harassed.

Somebody… is… there's… somebody is grabbing… my… br…

B87, my breast, my breast, my breast, my breast, it's been dark recently, speaking of which, did I wear a bra today? 86, who's there? Soukakusai, right hand H

pervert,

Pervert,

PERVERT

The moment my eyes snapped open and found a man in front of me, my fist has connected to his jaw.

C R A S H

"What the hell, asshole!!! YOU ARE DEAD, MORON!!!" My head is throbbing with fury and humiliation, but the pervert can't be found. Not in front of me…

" ...... huh?"

I cautiously tiptoed to a bleeding 'corpse' and found out that the pervert was none other than--"...Raiha?" My anger melted away into downright puzzlement.

"I'm dead." He muttered.

"What the…what are you doing here?" I helped him to stand up.

"Ouch…" He shook his head and rubbed his jaw. "I thought I heard your voice, and Soukakousai said you're inside the cauldron." He stood up and brushed off the dirt from his ninja suit. "So I went in here to look for you."

My hand inattentively went to my 'harassed' breast. "…Why did you do that?"

He instantly lost the calm that was just there earlier, his face was burning, and starts to sweat. Really bad.

"I'm very very sorry…" He scratched his head. ""I-I didn't do any sexual harassment! Please don't think of me as a pervert, I did that… because I, errh, have no other, um, choices… since you didn't seem to react to violence…It was, um, a, errh, last resort. Please forgive me."

"…"

"If you want, you can punch me one more time."

"…no."

"… Or you can do anything you want with me."

I can't get married anymore…

It was as if he's reading my mind again, and he said, "I'd marry you if nobody would."

I rolled my eyes at him. He just seemed to shrink. I decided it is best not to press on him for more answers, since I'm afraid he'll get a nosebleed sooner or later. I sighed.

"How do we get out of here?" I asked, after what seemed to be without end.

He suddenly perks up. "I'll try to find the exit right away!"

I sat down the floor again as Raiha is feeling the dark walls around us. It's really weird … of all the people around here, he's the one that showed up. "It's funny how we keep bumping to each other like this, huh? What a weird coincidence." I said.

There were a couple moments of silence before he spoke. "It's not a coincidence."

I looked up at him attentively. "What?"

"Nothing, just forget it. How did you get in here?" he asked.

"He was following me… and I let him for the first few hours. But then he started taking my pictures and I felt annoyed."

"Then?"

"So I dared myself to fight him… what do I know… he has these disgusting stuffs I don't even wanna think about and do things that gives me goose bumps." I rubbed my arms irately, "thinking of that Soukakousai just makes me so… eewwww!"

Raiha decided that it's best not to comment on my angry hateful remark and gave me a simple nod.

"Then he did something that-" This time I rubbed the back of my neck irately, making sure that the madman's… anything is NOT on my skin, "Made me lost composure and sucked me into this blasted cauldron."

I looked at Raiha's back. I could feel his presence at my side, like one feels the presence of a friend in the room - unthreatening. Almost comfortable. It's hard to believe that he is Kurei's right hand man. The feel of another human being so close was like drinking a cup full of water after wandering through a desert or seeing the light after being lost in the dark.

He placed his hand on his chin. "I see. And so you ended up in here."

"Uh... I thought there'd be an exit somewhere, so I started off making a big fuss. I thought to break this dimension like the time against Magensha's majigen...... in the end, I even used up the last fuujin..."

"No good...... I'm sorry, master. Nothing I can do, I'm sorry...... there are no more small crystals anymore. Fuujin shall hibernate...... hurry...... hurry and get my body... and I......" It was Fuujin's last words.

"And so the madougu fuujin has silenced and turned into an accessory... I am only a high school sophomore girl...... even if I can get out of here... what can I do...... it's hopeless. It's so depressing to be alone. I'm always thinking about the negative stuff."

Raiha spoke up again after a silence. "That's so unlike you! Being human, anyone will think about negative stuff. And become hopeless sometimes. But, these minus thoughts will not help the result one bit. However it is better than those completely optimistic and all happy people who don't think at all. You are... you guys are always fighting... very hard- and you defeated Kurei-sama! Get up! We're going to look for the exit!"

He looked straight into my eyes. "The point is- to have the courage to stand up once again after your hopelessness!"

I don't know why, but I'm beginning to have a very strange feeling.

"......do I sound like I'm lecturing you?" Raiha asked.

I smiled. "...no, no! THANK YOU!!" I stood up, my confidence was back after a small support booster. "Let's start searching!! Harder, harder!!"

What am I doing, being so worked up by words from a friendly stranger? Where did all these mixed-up feelings come from?

----

Raiha placed a hand on a part of the wall. "This is it."

I looked around and found zip. "This place... there's nothing here!!"

"It's a kekkai (barrier) of vision. Starting from here, space continues in an endless loop." He smiled and held up his trusted katana. "Shall we go outside now?"

With a slash, a piece of spell paper with the word "seal" written on it got cut in half, and along with it, all that blackness was gone too. The surrounding made me absolutely stunned.

"Certainly...... I must say he is so foolish," Raiha stepped in to the small cauldron. The rest of the place is really only so big. About twice the size of my room... there are many corpses in there, mostly turned to bones already. But from the hair and clothing, I can still recognize that they were female. Used to be… female.

"For the purpose of fulfilling his own desires...... for that reason alone... he imprisoned so many girls with a future, took away their freedom. It must have been painful......... they must have been frightened......... don't the painful cries reach the ears of that eccentric demon."

And to think that I almost turned out like that…

"That hateful man responsible...... will die," Raiha aimed his katana on the cauldron's wall and stabs right through and into Soukakusai. The madman's screech followed suit. "AHH...... GAAAAA!!" The cauldron shattered and I found myself outside, the madman is down on the floor.

It was a look of such extreme terror, such panic, that it was almost comic; Soukakusai's face was that of someone who has just realized he has been the butt of a horrible, monstrous joke. "Forgiv... cough, cough...... AHHHHH!!" his voice gurgled through blood-painted teeth, trailing off into a silence as he convulsed horribly on the bloody ground. He is twitching on the crimson floor, the terrifyingly comic expression plastered on his face in a horrified mask, blood everywhere.

Raiha watched him in a frozen mask. There's a glint in his eye that scared me. "Please, Fuuko. Please close your eyes. I don't want you to see this..." Something made me deathly afraid; I couldn't put my finger on it, but I sensed something was not quite right. I had never seen his face like this, and I felt frightened.

I closed my eyes.

"My life....!! Please!! Please forgive me......" The demon's voice that was once filled with triumphant laughter now was choking with fear. I'm surprised he hasn't wet his pants. "AHH..."

"How did you reply to the women who said that to you?"

The instant I opened my eyes, I immediately regretted my decision. The horrible scene played out before my eyes in slow motion; I saw everything that happened clearly. As the blade came down on him, the man raised his hands feebly up and screamed. I saw the glittering katana descend on Soukakusai's neck, and sent his head flying a moment before landing on the ground with a thud.

Raiha stood there. And for one moment I thought that he was not human.

I clamped my jaw shut, squeezing my eyes tightly. The horrible image plastered in my mind, even when I had my eyes close. His touch on my shoulder stuttered me, but it was gentle, and with my eyes closed, he slowly led me out of the murder site.

"You can open your eyes now."

He has returned back to the typical Raiha, his gentle smile hung on his face, and there's no trace that he just beheaded a man with brutality.

"You saw it, didn't you?"

I was speechless.