Eep! I forgot the disclaimer in the first chapter! My apologies to Namco, Monolith Soft, and Tri-Crescendo. They own Baten Kaitos, not me.

"Great," Gibari muttered to himself. "Now what are we going to eat? Thanks to Kalas, we never got to finish our food."

Xelha overheard him. "We didn't get to eat either. The restaurant Lyude wanted to go to was closed."

"Great Mizuti still be hungry!"

Gibari rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we know. Let's find someplace else, preferably one without alcohol." He glanced at Kalas, who was now dancing in the street. Apparently his nose had stopped bleeding. "Should we pretend we don't know him?"

"Let's leave him here," Savyna smirked.

"Oh, Savyna!" Xelha cried. "Don't even joke like that! Kalas needs us more than ever."

"You take care of him, then. I don't want to be responsible for anything stupid he might do."

Meanwhile, Kalas and Folon had joined together to sing the world's worst drunken duet. The words were inaudible, though, as they were drowned out by the young men's near-maniacal laughter. That was probably a good thing, since they were both horribly off-key.

"Ack! Stop it! You're hurting my ears!" Lyude complained. To his musically-trained ear, their singing was nothing short of painful.

"Well, excuse me, Mr. Music Snob," Folon slurred. "I bet you can't do any better."

Lyude crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed. "It wouldn't be hard for a dying cat to sound better than you."

"Oh yeah?" demanded Folon, balling a fist and shaking it in Lyude's face. "Let's just see about that!"

"Folon!" Ayme snapped. "That's enough!" She grabbed him by the collar, dragging him away from Kalas and friends.

"The Great Mizuti needs food now, or the Great Mizuti will become cranky," Mizuti announced.

"So where are we gonna eat?" Gibari asked again. "What about Lyude's house?"

"Oh, sure. That's a great idea," Lyude said sarcastically. "I'm sure it will be loads of fun getting shot!"

"Wow, someone's in a pissy mood today," Savyna remarked. "What happened?"

Xelha giggled. "A man we met on the street mistook Lyude for a woman. He's been grumpy ever since."

"It's not funny!" Lyude insisted. "I DO NOT look like a girl!"

"Standing around arguing isn't going to get us fed any sooner," Savyna reminded him. "Let's go."

Gibari glanced at Kalas, who was wandering aimlessly in circles."What are we gonna do about Kalas, though? Drag him?"

"Whatever it takes to get him moving, I guess," Savyna turned to look at Kalas, then shook her head. "Looks like someone is going to have to lead him by the hand. I don't think he's capable of walking in a straight line at the moment, much less finding his way around a strange city."

Xelha wasn't going to miss the opportunity to hold Kalas's hand. She took his hand and gently tugged his arm. "Come on, Kalas," she said soothingly. "Let's go. We're going to get some food. Aren't you hungry?" Kalas gave her a confused stare but started walking.

The group continued along the street, hoping to find someplace–anyplace that might serve food. The search wasn't going well, and everyone's patience was running thin. Suddenly, Kalas shouted, "Look! A fluffpup!" At first, the others ignored this as one of his idiotic drunken ramblings, until they saw that there was, in fact, a small white fluffpup sitting in a nearby alley.

"Aw, it's so cute!" Xelha cooed. "Do you think it's lost?"

Lyude looked thoughtful. "Didn't that older couple who live by the port say they lost their baby fluffpups? Maybe this is one of theirs."

"Let's take it back to them," Savyna suggested. Then, she grinned. "There could be a reward attached to this puppy's return."

"It would probably be a big reward," added Mizuti. "Those people looked loaded."

Kalas stared at her blankly. "Loaded with what?" he slurred.

"Money, you idiot," she explained. "It means they're wealthy. Rich. Loaded with cash."

"How could you even think about money?" Xelha demanded. "The important thing is getting this poor baby back home!"

Savyna replied simply, "Because we need money to buy food."

Not even Xelha could argue with this. The group turned back toward the port, with Gibari holding the wigging puppy and Xelha still dragging the drunken Kalas by the hand. When they reached the house, Kalas began banging on the door. "YEOWCH!" he cried, immediately sticking his fist in his mouth, trying to ease the throbbing. In his drunkenness, he had forgotten the houses in Mintaka were made of metal.

A well-dressed old woman answered the door. "Yes, may I help you? Unless you're selling something. If that's the case, go away!"

"Actually," Xelha began, "we were looking for a place to eat when we found this fluffpup in a deserted alley. Is it yours?" Gibari held up the dog for her to inspect.

"Why, yes, I believe this is one of our missing puppies. Thank you so much! Why don't you come inside?" She called to her husband, "Look what these nice young people found! They brought one of our fluffpups home!"

"Eh? So they did!" the old man exclaimed joyfully. "Bring them inside!"

"Did you say you were on your way to get something to eat?" the old lady asked. "Why not eat here instead?"

"Sounds good to me," Gibari nodded enthusiastically. "What about the rest of you?" Not surprisingly, nobody objected.

The old woman picked up the fluffpup and carried it into the house. "You just have a seat at the table, and I'll be right back with your food." A few minutes later, she returned with six plates full of...something. It looked like it might have been stew.

"Eat up," their hostess encouraged cheerfully. "If you're still hungry, there's plenty more."

"What is this?" Gibari wondered aloud, poking at a chunk of meat with his fork.

"I think it might be meat with gravy," Xelha answered, "but I'm not sure. We should try it, just to be polite." She didn't look ready to take her own advice, though. "It looks like Kalas is enjoying it." Kalas was shoveling the "stew" into his mouth as fast as possible and making no attempt to eat politely either. Perhaps the alcohol had impaired his ability to notice the strangeness of the dish.

Though he was hungry and would normally have been pigging out by this time, Gibari still hesitated before finally working up the courage to take his first bite. " It's...interesting," he reported. "Is this something typically served in Alfard?"

"Not that I know of," Savyna replied. "At least, I've never seen anything like it before." She eyed her plate suspiciously before spearing a hunk of meat with her fork and shoving it in her mouth before she could change her mind about it.

Lyude made a face and forced himself to swallow. "This is worse than army food!" he whispered.

"How bad be army food?" Mizuti asked him. "Can it truly be as bad as this? This stuff is awful. Horrible. Not fit for eating."

"It's pretty bad. Why do you think there aren't any fat Imperial soldiers?"

Gibari scratched his head, thinking. "Hey, wasn't there are sign in the Imperial Fortress saying the punishment for stealing food was cleaning toilets? If it's that bad, why would anyone steal it?"

"Very few soldiers have ever been caught stealing food because almost nobody likes it enough to steal it," Lyude explained. "The punishment for not finishing food is 200 push-ups, and most everyone agrees that doing push-ups is less miserable than being forced to eat army food." He glanced at his plate. "I'm beginning to think 1000 push-ups would be preferable to finishing this stuff...whatever it is."

"Give it to Kalas. He likes it." Xelha giggled. Almost in unison, the other five slowly pushed their plates toward Kalas, ready to shout at him to please take it.

Suddenly, the old woman returned from the kitchen. "I'm so sorry!" she cried. "I've made a terrible mistake."

"What mistake?" Savyna asked, pretending ignorance while at the same time knowing perfectly well the woman's cooking was a huge mistake.

"I...I accidentally gave you the wrong food. This isn't the stew I was cooking for tonight's supper."

"Then what is it?" five voices chorused together. Kalas was still stuffing his face.

"I'm sorry. The truth is, I sort of...gave you dog food instead."

"DOG FOOD?" Everyone (besides Kalas, who was still eating) instantly forgot about manners and spit the offending food back onto the plates.

"It's all right," Xelha tried to assure the old lady, but even she couldn't appear sincere. The others weren't even trying to be polite at this point. Lyude looked nauseous, Savyna was casting murderous glares around the room, Gibari had dropped his plate on the floor for the fluffpups, and Mizuti was making exaggerated gagging noises.

"This is good stuff, lady!" Kalas grinned through a mouthful of dog food. "Can I have another plate?"

"Um, I'm sorry, ma'am, but we er...have to go now," Xelha mumbled, grabbing Kalas by the arm. "Come on, Kalas." Everyone else dashed out of the house as quickly as humanly possible, hands clamped over their mouths.

Kalas just stared at them the same way he'd been staring all evening. "What's wrong? It was perfectly good stew."