Author's Notes: Hey hi again. -Wow- Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm glad you liked the first chapter. Hopefully you enjoy this next chapter just as much. Please review if you have the time. Thanks again! Untilthe next chapter, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Must I say it EVERY chapter? sighs Fine. Idonotownshamanking. What! I said it didn't I?

Chapter 2: Tiger's Eye

"...Anna...Anna...Anna!"

Anna awoke to the sound of the voice calling her name and a gentle shaking.

"Morning already,"Anna asked the person who had awoken her, through shut eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's going on 7 in the morning already! Hurry up or you'll be late," came the reply.

Anna sat up and began to rub the sleep from her eyes."I feel like I just fell asleep. What's the big hurry for Tamao? The wedding doesn't start until one in the afternoon."

She heard Tamao giggle. "Well of course it's too early for that! The wedding isn't for a week still!"

"What!" Anna snapped her eyes open. "What do you mean not for another week? Tamao what--What are you wearing?"

Anna had opened her eyes to find Tamao dressed in what looked like a maids' uniform. It was a floor-length, navy blue dress with a dark-gray, knee-length apron on top. Complete with a white ruffled head piece and black ballet slipper-like shoes.

"What are you talking about Anna? This is how we always dress."

"We? Who's we!"

"Why, you, me, and all the other servants here. Of course the colors do differ slightly depending on who you serve under--"

"Servant! Since when have you or I ever been a servant," Anna cut in.

"Well, I've been a maid here for as long as I can remember, but since you arrived here justlast night, I guesss it makes sense that you're not used to the idea yet," Tamao replied. "But that doesn't mean you can sleep in. We're expected to be ready by 7am! So hurry up and get dressed. I'll meet you in our hime's quarters." With that Tamao left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Anna stared at the door through which Tamao had just exited.

'She's kidding right? This is all just a prank that they're trying to play on me. I bet anything that some idiot came up with this stupid idea. When I get my hands on him...'

Anna let out a growl of frustration. "This is not funny," she yelled at the empty room.

Anna threw off the covers and set her feet down onto the cold stone floor.

'Wait! What? Stone? All the floors in our house are wood. What the hell is going on here?' Anna took a good look around. Her eyes widened in disbelief when she realized that she wasn't in her own room.

She was standing in a six-by-ten stone room. The bed she had been sleeping in had taken up one of the walls. In front of her was the door through which Tamao had left, and to the right of it, squished right next to the wall, was a small wooden dresser. To her left was a small wooden table and stool, just big enough to hold a water pitcher, dish, and towel. To her right, on the last wall, was a window set about chin-height. Otherwise, the room was bare. It had obviously not been built for luxury.

Anna walked over to the window, mesmerized. When she looked out she recieved another shock.

She was looking out at miles and miles of forest and greenery, and more shocking still was that she was inside a tall, dark, stone castle, five stories off the ground,with a few above hers as well.

'This can't be real. This can't be happening...but...there's no way any on them could ever pull something like this off. What's going on...'

"Stop," she commanded herself. "This is not the time to start wondering. I'm going to get some answers, and to do so it looks like I'll have to play along for a bit. Although, I should probably dress in something more appropriate." She thought aloud when she glanced down at herself and discovered that she was still in her yukata.

Anna walked over to the wooden dresser and opened it up. She frowned upon seeing nothing but the same clothes Tamao had been wearing. Seeingas there wasn't any other choice, she begrudginglyslipped on the uniform.

A few moments later Anna emerged from her room irritated. 'Alright, now to find Tamao. Let's see...she said to meet her in the hime's quarters.' Anna frowned. 'Where the hell is that!'

Since there was no one else around to ask directions, Anna set off down the hall to her left in pursuit of, well, anything really.

-An Hour Later-

"Stupid castle. Why does it have to have so many damn floors, halls and stairways? When I meet the person who owns this stupid place I'll be sure to give them a piece of my mind," she fumed as she continued to walk.

All the doors she had come across had led to more halls or just empty rooms.

"Where in the world could everyone be? Don't these stupid places usually have a million people on staff," Anna muttered to herself.

She stopped at the next door on her right.

"Finally! It's been 15 minutes since that last door!"

Anna grasped the door handles tightly and opened them to reveal an extremely large room packed, ceiling to floor, with rows of books.

"Oh great. The library." She sighed. "Well maybe it will have a map or something useful in here." She slipped inside and shut the door behind her.

"Now, where to start," Anna asked herself as she set off down the row in front of her. She passed rows and rows of books until she finally came out onto the other side of the room. To her right was a good-sized open area, filled with tables and chairs, most of whichwereoccupied with books. There was even a fireplace set-up in the far right corner, although it was not lit at present, for the windows all along the wall in front of her let in plenty of sunlight.

Anna sighed once again. "This is getting ridiculous; rooms with nothing useful in them. What kind of place is this anyway? Why in the world am I here? Or Tamao for that matter? Where is everyone else?"

She walked over to one of the tables with books stacked on it and sat in a chair with a huff. Anna glanced at the books, but doubled back when one caught her eye. It looked ancient and like it had been used recently. She reached out a hand to grab it when a voice called out, "Hey! Don't touch that! It's really old and valuable!"

"Manta," Anna asked startled, she'd know the shrimp's voice anywhere. "What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you that," Manta's voice answered as he appeared from behind a bookshelf and walked over to where she was sitting. "If you must know, I work here. I am the keeper of these books and --wait-- how did you know my name? Have we met?"

"Of course I know your name baka! How could I not? You and Yoh have been friends since the moment you two met."

"What? Me? Friends with the Ojii-sama?" Manta began to laugh. "Oh! That's a good one!"

"Stop playing dumb, shorty. This joke wore off long ago, from the second I woke up and found myself in this stupid place, in fact. Now stop your laughing and tell me what's going on. Because, in case you forgot, I have a wedding with Yoh in a few hours and time is running short. As is my patience."

"I'm not sure who you're talking about, Miss, but the only Yoh I know is our Ojii-sama and he's getting married to our Ojou-sama in a week. Not you. You know, I thought they told these kinds of things to the new people here. They should considering..."

Anna felt the color drain from he face and she didn't hear the rest. Her mind was still trying to wrap itself around the words Manta had just said. '...he's getting married to our Ojou-sama in a week. Not you...' She stared at the table in disbelief. 'This isn't happening. This is just a cruel joke someone is playing on me, right? It can't be true.'

"...Miss? Miss? Are you okay? You don't look too well," Manta's voice cut through her thoughts.

She looked over at Manta with a look of irritation on her face. "Why do you keep calling me 'Miss'? Have you forgotten my name in the few short hours in which you slept?"

"I'm sorry but we've never met before and you still haven't introduced yourself, yet," came his apologetic reply.

"This isn't funny anymore!" Anna yelled.

"Look, I'm sorry if you think you know me, but I have never see you before! Alright?" he yelled back.

Anna had lifted her hand half-way up in an urge to slap some sense into him, when she got a good look into his eyes. They showed true sincerity; he wasn't lying.

Anna slowly brought her hand down. "You really don't remember me do you," she asked with astonishment.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you for the last couple of minutes!"

"Then that means that Yoh is...is really...," she trailed off as a pang of sorrow and loss hit her heart. "...No...I can't lose him again...this isn't right. This is just a nightmare! I want to wake up! I want to wake up from this stupid dream now," she began to rant as tears sprung into her eyes and she grasped her head with her hands.

"L-Look! Calm down! It's alright! Please stop! I'm sorry! Maybe we're talking about a completely different person here! I didn't mean to make you upset! Please stop crying," Manta said, panicking, in an effort to calm her down.

"I'm not crying," she hissed out between her teeth. 'What's the matter with me? I should not be about to cry. I don't cry. Never. I am Anna Kyouyama, the Itako. Not a spineless, whimpering little girl,' she scolded herself as she fought back the threatening tears, refusing to let even one fall. After a few moments she won the battle.

Manta let out a sigh of relief. "Wow. You had me scared for a minute there. I never thought I'd see you so close to tears again, Anna."

Anna's head shot-up out of her hands. "What do you mean again? And how did...you know...my...," she trailed off as her eyes fixed on a spot on Manta's chest.

It was...glowing...

"What the--What's going on!" Manta asked in alarm upon seeing the glow as well.

The little glowing light over his heart grew bigger until it was roughly the size of a fist. Then the light diminshed and left floating in it's place, a golden carmel and dark brown stone an inch long and a 1/4 inch wide, cut into the size and shape of a small pointed crystal on a thin silver chain.

Manta reached out a hand to grasp it, and as his hand closed over it and he uttered the words, "Tiger's Eye", a golden glow alighted.

At the same time a violet glow emerged from beneath Anna's dress. She grasped her own silver chain and pulled out her amethyst stone, which glowed brighter in the open room.

Anna and Manta pulled their eyes away from their stones and looked at eachothers, wonderment and confusion evident in their eyes.

---------

In a quiet corner of a room, a hand held down clothes covering a soft pink glow...

A fighter quit their training for a moment to watch a red glow peek out from underneath a discarded shirt...

And a gentle hand silently hid a pale-green glow between folds of black cloth, concealing it from watchful, viligant eyes...