Yoh ran around the streets searching for Cloud, but didn't see any hints of her. The sky was darkening and it was beginning to grow quiet. He looked at the photo he held in his hand. Cloud had dropped it when she ran past him and he picked it up because he knew it was something important to her. There was a younger version of Cloud at the center with a man and a woman standing behind her, which Yoh figured to be her parents. A boy was kneeling next to Cloud and smiling happily. He looked to be about 6 years older than her so Yoh could only figure that it was her brother. He looked up and slipped it into his pocket. It was late and Anna would be mad if he didn't go home soon. Deciding to give up, he headed back to the inn. Cloud, where did you go? Did you get caught? He wondered worried because he spent the whole day looking for her.

He sighed inwardly and trudged up to the door. "Anna, I'm ba-" After he had opened the door, a pan hit him squarely in the face and he fell backwards.

"Yoh, your late." Anna glared at him from the couch. Beside her, Manta was giving a nervous laughter as he fanned Anna with a huge leaf.

Yoh got up with one eye closed and a grin. "Sorry Anna. But… we have a problem."

She crossed her arms and closed her eyes. "Of course, we have a problem. We don't really have time for you to be out right now. They already sent us information about the Shaman tournament. So we have somewhere to be Yoh."

"What? Already?" Yoh scratched his head.

"Of course Yoh. Everyone saw the signal last night. So we are all here again to start on another ridiculous hunt for some invisible town." A familiar voice answered.

Yoh turned his head to see none other then Ren Tao with his arms crossed and watching him. "Oh hey Ren. When did you get here?"

"Seriously Yoh, I've been waiting for you to get back since this morning." He sighed.

An arm went around Ren's neck and the person laughed. "When I got here, he was already here and impatient. I thought he was going to blast the whole place apart."

"Horo Horo. You're here too!" Yoh said amazed.

"Remove your arm or I shall have to cut it off." Ren threatened.

"Ren. Be nice." A gentle but firm voice confronted Ren.

Yoh turned to see Jun. "Jun! You're here too!"

She made a face. "Yoh, do you not look around? Everyone is here." She pointed at the large group of people who were too busy with each other to notice Yoh.

Yoh laughed and scratched his head. "I knew that." He smiled at waved. "Hi guys."

"Yoh!" They all turned around and shouted. "What took you so long?"

"I had a problem… Oh yeah…" He turned to Anna. "Anna, Cloud's gone."

Her relaxed face now became serious. "What do you mean gone?"

"The cloaked people and Yashi appeared and she was chased. After I fought with some of them, I couldn't find her." Yoh informed them with an innocent look on his face.

Ren and everyone else was listening to his conversation and questions aroused. "Cloaked people?"

"Yashi?"

"Who are they?"

"What's going on?"

"What's happening?"

"Stop." Ren glared at the group then turned to Yoh. "You might as well explain everything."

Anna stood up with her arms still crossed. "Let's put it simple and a lot shorter. We ran into a girl yesterday name Cloud, apparently she is being accused of burning houses, but she states that she is innocent. However, there are some shamans after her. For what particular reasons, we don't know. Now Yoh says she is gone because they were attacked by those shamans."

Manta nodded in agreement. "Nice job Anna. That saved a lot of time."

"Yeah Anna." Yoh grinned at her.

For some particular reason, after seeing Yoh looking at her so adorably, Anna wanted to blush, but she managed to cover it up.

"So Yashi is this big guy." Yoh spread his arms wide and motioned it around to try to show the size of Yashi. "And the cloaked people look like this." He grabbed the curtain and wrapped it around himself.

"Yoh…" Anna growled and kicked him, which sent him flying to the other side of the room.

"So what do we do now? We need to start the Shaman tournament." Ren noted.

"Ren's right. We're a bit behind now." Horo Horo added.

Anna looked at all their faces. "We'll set out tomorrow morning."

Yoh appeared beside her looking concerned. "I-"

"We are going to be looking for Cloud at the same time we are looking for Summer Spring."

"Summer Spring?"

"That's the place we are looking for Yoh." Anna eyed him with a bored expression. "We have two months to find them both. I think they gave us more time because it's a new location that they had never used before so there won't be any help. No one else would know the location either. It is going to be tougher than the last one."

"What if the girl is still in this area?" Jun asked.

Anna looked over to her. "There is a large possibility, however, since there are people after her, she won't be able to stay in this city. Either they captured her, or she is still running. Let's hope that we are going to meet her along the way."

"May I ask? How does Cloud look like?" Ryu questioned. "Therefore we would know if we did see her."

"Oh." Yoh fished his pockets and found the photo. "This a picture of her when she was younger, but she is a year younger than me right now. I'm guessing she is about 10 in this picture, so 6 years ago?" He stuck the photo out to Ryu.

Ryu took the picture from Yoh's hand and examined it. "Wow! She's so cute!"

Jun's expression flicked to a sad one for a second, but it vanished quickly. In spite of this, Anna was the only one who caught it and gave an almost visible smile.

"Let me see!" Horo Horo popped up beside Ryu and took the picture from him. He blushed at the sight of her.

Chocolove took the picture from Horo Horo and smiled at it. "If that was her when she was 10, she is probably even prettier today." He placed a hand on Lyserg's shoulder. "Hey Lyserg, look at her."

Lyserg looked at it and smiled, but suddenly the picture gave him a familiarity. He gazed at it intently and raked his memories. He couldn't remember where he had seen those faces though.

Chocolove now bounded over to Ren and was shoving the picture into his face.

Ren glanced at it and nodded. But, he kept shoving the picture into his face so Ren got irritated. "I see it! So stop sticking it in my face!" He yelled as he brought out his weapon.

Chocolove jumped back frightened and scurried over to Faust. "Faust, here you go." Chocolove handed the picture to him.

"I don't need to look at it." He answered gazing lovingly at Eliza.

Horo Horo looked annoyed. "That's not the point! You need to see it so you know who she is when we look for her."

"Oh…" Faust took the photo and gazed at it then passed it over to Jun, who passed it over to Pirika, who passed it to Tamao, and finally it went back to Yoh, who slipped it back into his pocket.

Anna looked at Yoh. "I'm hungry. Where's dinner?"

"Ah…" Yoh scratched his head. "I'll go make it right now."

"Um…" Tamao reached out her hand. "eh… Y-yoh…" She stuttered and blushed when Yoh turned to look at her. "Y-you don't need to. I already did."

Yoh's smile brightened and widened. "Really? You're the best Tammy!" He was really happy that he didn't have to cook, since he wasn't that good at it.

Tamao blushed even harder. "L..lets go eat everyone…"

"Whoo food!" Horo Horo cheered happily along with Yoh.

Anna was watching Tamao and sighed inwardly and then she followed them to the kitchen, not surprised to see a large amount of dishes on the table.

"Food!" Horo Horo, Ryu, and Yoh sparkled with happiness. They dropped down to the floor and began munching on the dishes.

"This is so delicious!" Ryu praised Tamao with sparkles in his eyes.

Horo Horo nodded furiously and pointed his chopsticks at her. "You'll be a good wife one day."

"Ah…" Tamao look to the floor and blushed again.

"Horo Horo, don't say stuff like that to a girl." Pirika glared at her brother.

He had on an clueless expression and stopped to look at her with an asparagus hanging out of his mouth. "What is it Pirika?"

She sighed. "Nevermind." Pirika stood up and leaned into the table as she poured herself a bowl of soup.

Sadly Ren was sitting beside her, so as she turn, she stumbled and spilt her bowl of soup onto Ren.

"AH!" Ren cried out as the burning liquid covered him. "Hot! Hot!"

"Ah! I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry Ren!" Pirika apologized furiously and grabbed napkins to wipe off the soup while Horo Horo burst out laughing.

Ren was red from the burn and he was twitching, clearly annoyed. However, with Pirika close to his face as she hastily dabbed at his face, he couldn't help but blush. Good thing he was already red to have anyone else notice…except…Anna.

What? Why am I blushing? He shook his head and pushed Pirika away from his face. "I'm going to take a shower." He glanced elsewhere and stood up.

She grabbed his hand and bowed her head. "Gomen Ren. I'm really sorry."

He eyed her, who was looking so down, and moved his hand to lift her chin so she could look up.

Her heart suddenly beat faster. What is this feeling? Why?

"Don't look so worried. I'm alright." Ren assured and walked away towards the bathroom.

Pirika's heart was pounding as she watched his retreating back. Um, I'm confused. Isn't Ren suppose to be colder towards people? The heartless handsome cold strong Tao Ren. Handsome?… Handsome….

Everyone stared at her as she sat back down, looking dazed. She hung her head and turned to Anna. "Sorry Anna, for making a mess."

"It's fine. Only that you have to clean up after everyone has finished." Anna closed her eyes and informed.

Pirika sweat dropped and chuckled awkwardly. "Hai…"

Jun and Ryu were giggling mischievously and Horo Horo's jaw had dropped to the table. No way! No way! He sighed. My sister is starting to fall for Ren? This could cause problems…

"Wanna hear a joke? I finally got a good one!" Chocolove exclaimed excitedly.

"No!" Horo Horo cried out.

"Come on! Come on! It's a good one!" He flashed a smile and gave a thumbs-up sign.

"No!" Horo Horo shouted again.

Chocolove paused. "I'll wait until Ren comes back then."

Anna glanced at Manta. "Manta could you explain what's happening with the Shaman Tournament to Yoh? I don't feel like talking right now."

"Sure Anna." Manta looked at Yoh laughing and shoving spoonfuls of food into his mouth and sweat dropped. "Yoh… Yoh… Yoh! Could you stop for a second?"

Yoh turned to Manta with a smile. "What's wrong Manta?"

"Okay, you need to know about the Shaman Tournament…" The short little boy started. He explained to Yoh that the shamans have two months to find Summer Spring. There won't be any battles between shamans before that, but if there were any, it isn't forbidden. It would be a free for all. There are no clues to where it is located except that it isn't seen and that shamans would receive new oracle bells from owls during their search.

"Hey…" Yoh was looking at his food. "Why did people decided to eat eggs?"

Manta dropped to the ground. "Yoh! Were you listening to me?"

Yoh grinned at Manta. "Of course! Summer Spring sure sounds like a happy place though."

He sighed. What did he expect from Yoh? Yoh was too carefree and easy going. Manta doubt Yoh was going to worry about the tournament at all.

"Manta?"

He over to Yoh. "Yeah?"

"Why are they using owls?" Yoh pondered.

Manta hung his head and shrugged. "Perhaps eagles are becoming extinct and they don't want to risk people shooting them down."

"Oh, I see…" Yoh laughed. "Owls makes me think about Harry Potter. Hey do you think they are real?"

He kept his head down and sweat dropped again. "I'm sorry Yoh. I doubt it."

Ren finally returned back to the table after his shower. He was rubbing his hair with a towel and sat down beside Pirika again.

"Welcome back Ren!" Chocolove jumped up. "Now! I have a question to ask you!"

"Hm?" Ren looked over to Chocolove lazily then realized what he was going to do.

"What do you call a hot dog without the hot dog?" He paused. "A bun!" He shouted and started laughing.

Ren jumped up angrily and brought out his weapon, poking his nose which caused him to scream. "No one thinks its funny!"

Horo Horo and Lyserg were scratching their head with a smile. "Can't say he didn't expect that." Horo Horo noted.

Lyserg nodded. "I thought so too."

A couple stifled giggles was heard and Ren stopped chasing Chocolove. He looked over to Pirika and Jun, who were trying not to laugh, and sweat dropped.

"Pirika! That wasn't even a tad bit funny!" Horo Horo exclaimed and gazed over to the 'joker.'

Chocolove had his hands together and his eyes were shimmering with happiness and tears.

Ren put his hand to his head. "Oh no. This is going to go to his head."

"Thank you! Thank you! Pirika and Jun understands me most! I am touched by your laughter!" He ran around now happy and pumping his fist into the air. "I will work harder to create funnier jokes!"

Horo Horo sighed and pointed at Pirika accusingly. "Don't encourage him Pirika!"

"I thought it was kind of funny!" Pirika stood up angry. "What I can't laugh now, ONI-CHAN?"

Horo Horo was taken aback. "Eh, not what I meant Pirika… I…"

Yoh was sniggering at them, but Anna hit him in the head, like always.

She glared at her brother, turned her back on him, and stomped off.

"What? I…" Horo Horo hung his head. "The world is scaring me now."

Lyserg gave him a pat on the back. "I feel sorry for you. Now I'm glad I'm an only child."

"It's alright baka. I know how you feel." Ren nodded.

"What are you implying Ren?" Jun stood towering over her brother.

His hair stood up and he felt chills, but he replied calmly. "Nothing you should worry about my dear sister."

Manta sighed. He wondered if they could fight less and work together later on during their journey. He hoped it wasn't like the search for Dobie Village(Patch), where they didn't get there until the last day. They argued a lot during that period and counting the encounters they had with Hao, it delayed them a lot of time. Manta placed on a smile now. He was going to go along with them so it was going to be an exciting adventure. In fact he couldn't wait until tomorrow, he wondered if he could sleep at all. Of course Anna was going to be going along too, so was Tamao, Jun, and Pirika, even though they aren't participating in the tournament. Problems will eventually occur and Manta decided, with lots of enthusiasm, that he is going to solve them all. He circled his head to examine everyone. Ryu was staring at the ceiling, Jun was watching him, Lyserg was watching Chocolove, who was dancing around happily, Horo Horowas glancing over at Anna frightened, Anna was eying Yoh, who was on the floor knocked out, Tamao was also watching Yoh, Pirika was gone, and Ren had his eyes closed and legs crossed like he was meditating. Manta nodded. Yup, it is going to be interesting.