" Cougar! Wha...?" Kazuma started, but didn't finish.

Cougar stumbled into the door of the home he was currently sharing with Kazuma, Ryuhou, Mimori, and Kanami. They all stared at him in shock as he carried in a naked, sun-bronzed and burned woman with blue hair. Nobody seemed to recognize her at first until Mimori screamed out her name.

" Scherise!" Cougar just hitched her up in his arms a little better and walked towards his room to lay her in the bed. He avoided looking at her nudity, but still noticed how she felt like all warm curves.

Kanami ran in with Mimori and began to attempt to put some clothing on her while Mimori kept on yelling " No! No! She needs to have her wounds checked."

Then it was pandemonium. Kanami ran away to grab some clothing and blankets, while Ryuhou was being held back by Kazuma, and Mimori was trying to order them about and looking for her first-aid kit. In other words, nobody was really helping, but they were making a hell of a lot of was pushed further and further away until he was forced out of the door. A loud scrash was heard behind him and he turned around, still dazed over what had just happened.

Kazuma was currently straddling a struggling Ryuhou's back, while attempting to force him to calm down. His methods were obviously not working since Ryuhou was threatening Kazuma with all sorts of horrendous deaths.

Finally Ryuhou broke free and ran into Cougars bedroom, only to be shoved out by Mimori, who called him a "pig" and locked the door. He looked stunned at such treatment, as if he had never been pushed out of any bedroom by any woman, then grew angry.

" Damn it woman!" He yelled at the door. " She's my friend! I thought she was dead! Let me in there to see her! I need to know if she's all right!"

" She's nude, and her injuries need to be checked!" Mimori yelled back through the closed door. " I'm not letting you in here so you can gawk at her naked body!"

" Would I honestly do something like that! I'm not some sort of..."

" Pervert? Don't get me started about that time when I was taking a shower!"

" That was an accident!"

" Yeah right! You stood there for like...twenty minutes, staring at my naked back and not even letting me know you were there!"

" Did not!"

" Did too!"

Cougar started laughing. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the stress of the moment and the ridiculous argument that Ryuhou and Mimori were having. Or maybe it was just such a relief to know that Scherise was alive, that he couldn't help but laugh to make it seem less of a shock. Either way, he didn't care. It was amusing to see Ryuhou helpless. He couldn't use his alter power because Zetsuai would destroy the house, and he couldn't break down the door because Mimori would castrate him.

Once Cougar started laughing, Kazuma did too. Ryuhou turned around and glared icicles at them, before stomping over to a chair and sitting in it.

" Damn women..." He muttered.

Cougar and Kazuma just laughed harder.

oooooooooo

oooooooooo

oooooooooo

Five days later Scherise ahd still not woken. Ryuhou was looking worn out and tired, and Kazuma had dissapeared alltogether, claiming the atmosphere was too tense for him. Cougar had been forced to some of the work around the house. Kanami was helping him learn how to cook, but it was obvious that he lacked certain skills required in the culinary arts, like the ability to boil water, or chop vegetables without attempting to sever one's finger.

Mimori was keeping watch like a mother hen, refusing to et Scherise out of her sight, except to relieve herself or eat. Any time she slept, it was always in the same room as Scherise, on the floor. It was obvious she was exausted, but when asked to take a break she always shook hr head and replied that she was fine.

Cougar was stunned by her dedicated attitude. He had not known that the two women were close, but seeing as they both loved Ryuhou, how could they not be close? The only other option was to become bitter enemies, but neither woman had enough malice in her soul to even try to hate the other.

By the morning of the sixth day, Cougar's nerves were raw.

Ryuhou had managed to make his normally cold and standoffish into one of dispair and misery.

Kanami was no longer smiling as much as she used to, and Kazuma had finally returned, only to ask for a meal, then bunk out in Kanami's small bed.

Then Scherise woke up.

When she did, nobody was in the room with her, seeing as Ryuhou had carried Mimori to a bed to sleep on, and Kanami was outside talking to her precious "Kazu-kun."

Cougar was the only one in the house at the time, and when Scherise came stumbling out of his room, wrapped only in a blanket and looking feverish, he reacted as any stressed human would react. By burning his finger on the stove, then cursing, then nearly fainting at the sight of her standing, when before she had been bed-ridden, and even before that, presumed dead.

She blinked wearily at him, then in a voice rusty from disuse asked him.

" Who are you?"