Another chapter! Uuuummm . . . What to say? It's a chapter. XD And I've written up to chapter thirty-one. Yeay! I'm on a roll! –Dances-

Suzuno Oosugi- Yes, Tatara is back! –Celebrates-

Lady Rhian Knightmage- Ame-chan? Dead? Never! XD lol! O.o Wow, a 100 chapter story . . . If I make it to there, then I think I'll know what my lifelong career will be. Yeah!

taiyoukai-chan- lol, your reviews are always fun to read! I hope you enjoy this chapter as much too. Actually, for the next ten chapters or so there is going to be a lot of devlopment in the plot. XD Yeay!

Kaeru Soyokaze- I need to add more Suzuno x Tatara fluff . . . Well, it will be added! Someday, anyway. XD I love Sasuke so much, but in the latest chapters he's being sucha dork. Quote: "I am more special than you!" OMGosh, he's turning weird! –Clings to Shikamaru for the time being- XD Oh, Ragnarok? I haven't read it. How is it?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lanva fell asleep easily as soon as he his head touched the bed, and with a smile he was off into his own dreams. That travelling earlier had definitely worn him out, and he was ready for as much sleep as what was offered to him. Plus he learned many mind-jumbling things today. The main thing being how much power his fiancee had! It was amazing!

'Yes, a powerful baby-cakes,' he thought to himself, a wide lecherous smile forming on him.

He was unexpectedly stirred out of his sleep by a very loud strike on his door; it sounded almost as if someone was trying to kick it open. He sat up, his mind completely alert. Standing right in front of the door and ready in a fighting posistion, he waited patiently for his rude intruder to come in. Partly he was worried about what was going on, and the other half made him worry about Subaru and Suzuno. Were they alright?

A quick image of the girl, Seki, appeared in and out of his mind like a light bulb and a fire burned inside of him. He just knew it was her.

"I thoughtshe was cute too," he muttered to himself, swiftly jumping so far back that the back of his legs were touching the bed. The door broke open and he instantly recgonized the outfits, with all five men before him with the dragon claw armor on their shoulders. He scowled.

"Damn Kutou Soldiers," he said especially loud enough for them to hear. It immediantly threw the first one off guard and the man drew his sword, pointing it at Lanva's throat. Inwardly, the young man cheered at the thought of having such an easily flustered opponent.

"What'd you call us?!" The soldier shouted, and Lanva noticed two of the other three soldiers eyeing him like he was doing something wrong. "Listen, you! I just became a top soldier under commander Shuri, and it's about time you gave us that respect!"

"It is and honor to be trained under commander Shuri," another agreed. The third grinned.

"He's always won our battles!" he said.

Suddenly the five weren't even paying attention to him, and Lanva raised an eyebrow curiously. They were speaking so highly of their commander; so much so they were forgetting why they were trained in the first place . . . It was very amusing, and in the middle of their speaking the first Kutou Soldier unconciously put his sword in his sheath. Lanva relaxed his muscles and sighed. 'Kutou Soldiers are stupid. Our commander Hazumu could kick their ass any day.'

"Okay," Lanva said out loud, marinating his voice with sarcasm. They ignored him, and he casually turned around toward the windows. Every few steps he would whisper, "I'm going now!" or "Don't bother to follow me . . ."

It was shamefully too easy for him to open the latch to the window and hop out in the presence of the 'great Kutou soldiers', who revered their commander more than their duty. As he braced his hands on the sill, however, it made him wonder just how great this man was. His soldiers were nothing to brag about, but what if he came to handle the matter of the Priestess of Byako personally?

'We should be even more careful,' he thought seriously, pouncing outside to a chilling temperature. He crossed his arms over himself and shivered a bit, realising that bringing the girls into such weather wouldn't be a pretty sight for him to handle. But, on the other hand, getting them kidnapped by the soldiers would be worse . . .

Lanva jumped when something rubbed against him and looked down, trying to get partly into a fighting posistion again. He relaxed when he saw Aoi-Yuki looking up at him with large clear sapphire eyes, then behind him was the strange coffee-colored shoes Suzuno called 'school shoes'. Behind the Priestess was his fiancee, looking terribly flustered.

Lanva sighed with relief. "You're okay . . ."

"Did Kutou Soldiers find you?" Suzuno asked, worry in her voice. He nodded and shrugged at the same time.

"I don't know. Could've been Kutou Soldiers or a comedy troupe, I'm not sure whi- You?!"

Lanva pointed his finger past Suzuno and Subaru when he saw a familiar warrior of Byakko stepping out of the window of the girls' room. The two shared glances for a moment, then the man took his place past Subaru and next to Suzuno protectively.

"What the hell were you doing in their room?!" Lanva asked, flustered. He snorted a bit. "You're not really a pervert, are you?"

"No, stupid!" Subaru shouted, angry at his accusation. She smiled when she looked at Tatara, and he glanced down at her with a fairly curious expression. Looking completely up at him, she told him, "I don't exactly trust you yet, but thank you for warning us about the soldiers."

"Thank you, but . . . We have to go to Kutou," he told her, and a stunned expression came from everyone.

"What are you talking about?!" Subaru and Lanva said at the same time, while Suzuno whirled her face in his direction. The female warrior scoffed.

"Out of all the countries you want us to go to, you want us to go to the one that's actually willing to kill us? Are you insane?!"

He shook his head, beginning to walk while motioning for the rest to follow him, which they did to keep their distance from their enemies. While they strided, he explained, "In the Capital, I had heard a rumor of the Toroki's latest sighting, terrorizing Inmetsu of Kutou."

"So?" Lanva replied. He was the last in the line of four sneaking across the back of the Inn, Aoi-Yuki in his arms comfortably so Suzuno wouldn't have to carry him. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Even if it is another tall tale," he paused before he answered, as if thinking about it, ". . . we should most likely go see if it will lead us to the real Toroki."

Suzuno didn't understand what that meant, but everyone else had acted as if this conversationwere perfectly normal. The latest sighting? In Kutou? She wondered if whatever this thing was so important that they should go to an enemy country. Not that she knew much of this country, but judging by Suzuno and Lanva's reactions she had a vague idea of just how powerful they were.

"Is Toroki a Warrior?" Suzuno asked in a slight whisper, noticing an open window from one of the customers' rooms. It was probably best to whisper anyway, since Kutou Soldiers were probably looking for them at that instant.

"Yes," Tatara replied, and they had made it to the edge of the building. Before them was the long desert from where she and her two companions had originally entered. "It would be dangerous, but the rumor was so frequent it will more than likely true."

"So, to Kutou?" Lanva suggested, and there was an awkward silence between them. Subaru spoke up first.

"I don't think it's a good idea," she said, edging closely to Suzuno protectively. "There are too many people who would hurt Suzuno if they knew who she wa-"

"I say . . ." Suzuno spoke up, and everyone looked at her, waiting for her answer, "I think that we should go . . ."

"Yes!" Lanva shouted a little too loudly, and he covered his mouth like he had made a huge mistake. Next he conversed with a low whisper. "It sounds interesting, and the danger is part of the fun!"

Suzuno looked down on the ground, not unconfidently but like she was thinking deeply, and nodded. "But, I want us to go with Amefuri."

"Seriously?"

"Well then," Subaru said, her voice showing no objection, "Let's go to Daini Toshi, home of the Emperor!"

Amefuri quickly landed on the ledge that, luckily for him, caught him right below the window he so recklessly jumped out of. He knew that there was something underneath, or at least, he had a strong impression there would be. He looked upwards, and up at least ten feet or so was Nashie, who was stretching her body over the ledge as far as she could to look for him. When their eyes met, he smiled slyly.

"Worried?" he asked her in an amused voice, his hand grabbing hold of one of the indented blossom designs on the side of the citadel, "You shouldn't, Princess. I've climbed Mt. Taikyouku with one hand, so I'm fine."

Her face looked partly scared to death, and yet it was interesting to see how red her face was turning in anger, like she was ready to explode.

"You stupid fool!" she shouted, and Amefuri saw her brace herself to jump over, in which he raised an eyebrow in return.

"You're not planning on doing the same 'stupid' thing I just did, are you?" he mocked as he watched her put a foot over the ridge. On the outside, he seemed calm, but on the inside he was quite surprised. "You shouldn't, you know! It's too dangerous for you."

"How dare you!" she sneered. She was now sitting comfortably over the edge of the window, her legs dangling and swinging back and forth. Her arms her shaking a little as if she were nervous. "Don't say there isn't anything I can't do; I'm the future Empress of two coutries! How good would I be if I couldn't climb a simple wall?"

"Ah," he replied, nodding understandably. He was sure she was going to find some way to mess up though, so he braced himself on the bottom window ledge he was on and prepared his arms to catch a considerable amount of weight.

After a moment of preparation, Nashie pushed herself off of the ledge and fell completely down, obviously not as planned as she thought she was with her arms suddenly clamping around her shoulders and her legs balling herself up protectively. A tiny, instinctive scream came from her, but it was only a few seconds later that she felt her body being caught.

"I told you it was dangerous," Amefuri said like it was obvious, trying his best to balance correctly. Once his rather shaky legs found a way to keep himself from falling, he carefully placed her next to him. She was sitting, and once she was on the ledge herself her tense body relaxed and like she did before, she let her legs balance over the rim.

"That wasn't so bad," she said in a confident voice, though that panicky shaking continued. Amefuri laughed, taking a seat next to her, then leaning her body forward to look down.

"We'll have to do that a few more times before we reach the bottom," he told her, and was surprised when she jumped up enthusiastically at that. Straight away she jumped down over the edge again, and he saw her easily catch herself this time on the protuberance below that. She looked up at him and stuck out her tongue.

"See, I can do it," she told him in an annoyed tone. "I'm not just a weak and pampered Princess like most of you commoners think. Now, hurry up! Whatever happened isn't going to wait for you, Warrior of Byakko."

Now he saw where Nashie was getting at with the way she acted. She may have been naïve and stubborn, but that gave her drive, an interia that made her want to prove everyone wrong when put on the spot about her weaknesses. In a way, he could understand the desire to get others to see her as a person and not as a title.

Amefuri jumped down next to her, giving her a sweet smile before picking her up like the way her had caught her before. She didn't protest, but she did seem a little taken aback.

"I know a quicker way," he told her, and before she could ask he gripped her body tightly and took a leap as far away from the building as possible. An electric shock strung right through Nashie and she clung to the Warrior as much as she could, letting out a much louder and pitchy scream then she did when she first jumped.

Her eyes were clamped shut, then after what seemed like forever of having an extreme gust of wind blow through her, she felt a sharp chill course her body.Water caged itself into her mouth, and she had no air to breath. Luckily, it wasn't that long either that Amefuri had poked her head above the river and she could take a deep breath.

"You okay?" Amefuri asked, letting her go so she could swim on her own. He knew that they were lucky at least; the water, though not exactly shallow, wasn't deep either. They could have easily hit the bottom, and from such a height it would've done much worse.

"I really hate you," she shot back through coughs, trying to get all of the water that she had sucked in out of her lungs. He laughed.

"I deserve that."

"Now look around! Whatever made a girl scream could still be around."

X x x x x

OMGosh, they mentioned the possibility of a FOURTH WARRIOR. Could it be true, or am I just tricking everybody or something? Lol! More details on what Tatara was speaking of about the Toroki will become cleaerer in later chapters. Okay? Alright!

And dun worry, not all Kutou Soldiers are that . . . Ummmm . . . not smart? Yeah! Lol!

Baaaai! Adios! Ja Ne! Sayanora! Ciao! Aur revior! Or hwoever you spell that last one . . . alright!