Sorry it's been so long, what with one thing and another. I know people were waiting to see the resolution of a bunch of stuff this chapter. Most of it got deleted when poor Marietta died, or something, so I had to start over. (No, Marietta isn't a person. She's a PC. And she's starting to remind me of some ancient relative who's eternally on her last legs, in and out of the hospital…) So I'll dedicate this chapter to her, because I always said such mean things about her and now she's dying.

I've been doing some research lately, by the way…Edo, which became Tokyo when the Meiji government moved the emperor there, was a fishing village before Tokugawa Ieyasu settled there and made it his base. Then it turned rather rapidly into a city. So what I'm wondering is, where are all the fish? I see the rice paddies, but where are all the fish!

NefCanuck: XD Hee. I hope you continue to think so. Thanks!

medlii: Eh-heh…boo? Sorry, this was not even vaguely soon, but I hope you'll forgive me. Yay! XD Everybody likes Kileb, it's so cool! XD I have…plans for the chicken… Here's a cookie for the review!

biggest anime fan: Wait! Back up! Read chapter fourteen! XD (hugs) So nice to have you back!

"Well, you see," said Trisak, "it started with me getting away from some lunatic who wanted to duel with me, but that's not important. Important bit starts when I sat in the bushes outside your camp and happened to overhear a conversation regarding a magic bead."

"Eavesdropped, you mean," Aerie put in.

He chuckled and shrugged. "I am what I am. Anyway, I overheard –" He broke off, looking up. "What the…."

"What is it?" Sango asked.

"Someone's coming," said Inuyasha, gripping Tetsusaiga. Miroku shifted his grip on his staff to a fighting stance and irritably pushed the hair out of his eyes, trying to get it to tuck behind his ears, though there just wasn't enough of it. Shayanui's theft of his ponytail was more than just a little annoying at this point.

"Sango," said Aerie, deciding that this was the opportune moment to arm herself, "lend me your sword?" She was already whipping it stealthily from its sheath as she asked.

Sango shot her an ironic look. "But of course," she said dryly.

A tense minute later, everyone still and tight-lunged in the pre-dawn gloom, one of the elves dropped out of a tree into the camp, the one with the bow. "Marrkas!" Trisak cried reproachfully. This Marrkas straightened, stared at Trisak as if he had erupted from the ground surrounded by leaping flames, and turned and ran like a scared rabbit. "No you don't!" Trisak called out, giving chase. They vanished from hearing scant moments before Lelentaeli, the two grey shadows, and Kohaku arrived. Once again, they came from separate directions, and Sango of course spun to face Kohaku. Miroku turned with her, as did Kirara. The other four remained facing the elves. The chicken had wisely absented itself.

"Inuyasha?" said Kagome, looking to him for a plan of action.

"You two keep the ones in grey busy," said Aerie. "I need to talk to Lelentaeli." She ran forward, Sango's sword in one hand.

"Idiot girl!" Inuyasha snarled, too late. "Don't - " Then the two remaining grey-clad elves attacked him, and he had to parry their swords. He growled a curse and did so, almost not getting Tetsusaiga into position in time. "Kagome," he ordered, as they fell back for a moment, "get away. Into the trees." She did so without discussion. Her bow was of little use at close quarters, unless she meant to whack them with the bowstave, which she somehow doubted would strike fear into their hearts. Then the two elves closed in again, and Inuyasha was occupied with them. Fighting two opponents was not easy, because you had to pay attention to them both, or one could get you in the back. And they were good. He concentrated. After his recent string of indignities, it was good to be fighting again. But he had better win.

Aerie was busy with Lelentaeli. After she went charging at him, waving her purloined blade, she had come to an abrupt halt three or four yards away and started yelling. "Lelentaeli!" she shouted. "Why are you doing this?" He looked straight through her face. She clenched her fists. "Curse it, Lel', how did he get hold of you? What happened? Answer me!" She swung Sango's sword at him on the last word, and he blocked it in a flicker of movement. The clash of meeting blades was already lost amid the sounds of the tiny battle that rose around them. "Answer me!" she repeated, coming body-to-body with a shrik. (For those who don't know, this basically meant that their swords slid together until the hilts met, so their faces were close together. Good for shouting in your opponent's face, if you are so inclined. Very dramatic. Very stupid if you're the person with weaker arms.) With no change of expression, he began to bear down on her, until her arms were screaming and her back and knees were in agony. Owch, that hurt. She was going to sit down in a minute, when her knees gave out. That would be both dangerous and undignified.

She freed her sword and retreated, with difficulty, almost losing her head in the process. "Lel'?" she said, holding up her sword in between them. "Come back, you idiot! You've got to be in there somewhere!"

He struck at her. She deflected it before it found her flesh and returned it. He parried her sword with ease and then began to rain blows on her, heavy, steady, economical blows that made the muscles in her arms burn to catch. She backed up steadily, shouting, "No, Lel'! You don't want to do this! Fight it, curse you!" She tried all her tricks, but he was the one who had taught them to her in the first place. He kept beating her back, and she kept barely surviving, and she kept talking, and he kept staring through her with a face like granite. She was going to have to change her angle of retreat soon or she'd walk into the fire. "Come on, do you want me to end up like Dishinabi?" A hit! A palpable hit! This was like playing battleship, just keep targeting random vulnerable places until you got a reaction. He faltered. Aerie leaned forward, pressing her advantage. "Come on, hear me, you'll be fine, wake up…." Lelentaeli abruptly broke from the pattern of the duel and struck toward her jaw with a fist. Somehow Aerie managed to mostly dodge it while catching the matching swing of his sword on Sango's blade. Her clipped her temple and her eyes swam for a moment. Stupid ambidextrous elves, she thought. Something else occurred to her as she blinked her vision clear. "And if you really wanted to kill me, I'd be dead by now," she panted. "You trained me, Lelentaeli. I know."

His sword ducked under hers and nearly gutted her. "S-stop it," he grated. "You're not…helping."

"There, you see?" Aerie said, wondering how she was able to speak with her lungs labouring this hard just to breathe. "You talked to me. I'll just go on talking, go on fighting you, until you wake up."

"Don't…talk…to me…." he whispered. His attack suddenly redoubled, leaving Aerie with no chance to open her mouth or indeed do anything but concentrate on staying alive. And yet she could tell that he was still holding back. Either he was resisting like anything, or he had been commanded not to kill her. She found the later possibility decidedly unsettling.

While all this fascinating stuff had been going on, the following developments had occurred:

Marrkas had reappeared from the woods with Trisak no longer in tow, and he and Kagome stood on opposite sides of the clearing, firing arrows at each other. Both had yet to hit. Kagome was having trouble in the dark. She ranged from wild shots, feet off target, to one-inch misses. Marrkas had had to dodge a few times. His grey-fletched arrows formed a neat circle around the schoolgirl. If Aerie had been paying attention, this would have confirmed her suspicions.

Inuyasha was handling one-and-a-half elves at a given moment, with Miroku backing him up. He was really trying to get to Marrkas and put a stop to his shooting at Kagome, but the nameless two wouldn't let him. Every time he took a step they redoubled their assaults, and he couldn't get through. It was like fighting Hiten all over again, although at least this time Kagome wasn't actively being strangled. The elves bent and dodged around the path of his sword as if they were made of smoke, which it sometimes seemed they might be. They also seemed to have no aura, nothing for Tetsusaiga to get grip on and reflect back at them. They just kept attacking him, with nothing more mystical than really sharp swords, and for the first time Inuyasha regretted the size of the transformed Tetsusaiga. It made maneuvering to follow their flitting movements difficult, like swatting flies with a bargepole. One-handed, because his left arm was only half-healed, and his back was getting more and more sore. And they never said anything! He couldn't have a good fight without banter and insults! That was like…like having a dumpling without the stuffing!

Sango and Kirara were focussing on Kohaku. "Kohaku, please!" Sango cried, bringing her boomerang up in time to repel his bloodthirsty scythe. The loss of her sword was really telling on her now. Hiraikotsu was simply not versatile enough to replace the blade. "Kohaku, stop making me fight you!" she shouted. "I'm your sister! Remember me! I don't want to do this!" She and Aerie retreated into each other, winding up back to back.

"Naraku and Kileb are sore losers," Aerie panted, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. "You alright, Sango?"

"Fine," replied Sango laconically, biting off the word. "You?"

"Fine for now. Hang on a minute." Lelentaeli came in like a hell-kite and she and was unable to converse for almost the requested minute.

"Look at that," Sango said as they had a bit of a breather, jerking her head toward the furious Kagome in her little fence of arrows. "They're playing with us!"

Aerie glanced in the direction indicated and her eyes narrowed. "What are you playing at, Kileb?" she muttered. She leapt forward toward Lelentaeli, swinging Sango's sword in a broad arc. "Lel'!" she shouted at him. "You can't go on like this! Wake up!" The dramatic effect of all this was somewhat lessened when she tripped and plummeted face-first toward the blades of both swords, about to be impaled. Lelentaeli stepped hurriedly aside, taking his sword with him, and she twisted away from her own, rolled, and came to her feet. "Ha!" she said. "Not killing me! And why might that be?" She paused.

Lelentaeli's face was grey, his breath strained. This plainly had nothing to do with physical expenditure of energy in swordfighting, since she had about as much ability to press him hard in a duel as a herring did to defeat Hercules in a wrestling match. He stared at the ground behind a sheer curtain of blond hair. It was paler than she remembered. "Get…away…." He said. "Can't…stop…for long…."

Aerie laughed. "Oh, sure, I'll go!" she said derisively. "Of course I'm going to leave you in thrall to that evil smiling idiot, just run away and never look back!"

"You'll…get…killed."

"I'll risk it," she said briskly. "You said I'd get killed if I waited for you when the mountain fell down after Trisak pressed the big red button that said 'Do not press,' and I waited, and I'm still alive." She went up to him without being cut in half, and this emboldened her. She shifted her sword into her left hand and took hold of his right wrist. His sword hung in his other hand, point on the ground. He went very still. "Come on, Lel," Aerie told him, "come back. It's all right. No one's mad at you for what you did except you. You've got to let it go." His fingers clenched around her wrist in return, but he did not look up. "Lel'?" she said hopefully.

He raised his head, hair sliding back to show his face. It was empty. "Sorry, milady," he said. "I can't let go." His sword came up, and there was no time to do anything, get hers in the way, or dodge, and he still had hold of her wrist –

The sword went flying. The hand was gone from her arm.

"Can't take my eyes off you for ten minutes, can I, wench, before you pull a dumb stunt like that?" sniffed Inuyasha, from his crouch on Lelentaeli's chest.

Aerie flushed. "Hey, I've saved your bacon once already, dog-boy!" she snapped. Then she looked down. "Thanks for that. I would have died."

"Well, just don't read too much into it," he growled, looking away. "Kagome would fuss if I let you get sliced up."

Aerie shook her head and smiled. "Thank you, anyway," she said. Nice to know she'd made it under the umbrella of Companions Who Required Protection somehow. Then she remembered. "Lel?" she asked. He was still flat on his back under Inuyasha.

"Feh," Inuyasha said. "You're still worried about this guy, after he just almost killed you?"

"You worry about Kikyou, don't you? And she's a lot more in control of her own mind than Lel' is right now." Aerie retorted. "Now, Lel'? I know you can't be knocked out or anything. He didn't hit you hard enough." She circled around him until she was on the other side of Inuyasha and could see Lelentaeli's face. His eyes and teeth were clenched and he was in a fairly classic state of anime-style internal struggle. (One had to wonder if it was being here in a manga-land that made him look like that during an internal battle, or if the people who made it look like that actually knew what someone waging war within himself looked like somehow.) Worried as she was, Aerie smiled. "Knew he couldn't give up for long."

"Inuyasha!" Miroku cried, "Some assistance please?" He was flailing about with precision, somehow keeping both the sword-wielders at bay with his staff. For the moment.

"Coming, monk!" Inuyasha called, leaping off of Lelentaeli, which made the elf say 'oof.'

Kohaku had let his scythe fall and was staring at Sango with a frown of concentration, as if wracking his brains for something. Marrkas was fitting another arrow to the string with a distant look on his face that said to Kagome he was going to be aiming for her heart next shot. She nocked one of her own, determined that if he shot her she would at least shoot him back. Inuyasha landed behind the two elves Miroku was fighting and ran one through. Yes, it was dishonorable, but it was better than letting Miroku get gutted like a mackerel.

"Aa," said the elf, falling to her knees. Inuyasha leapt past her to help Miroku with his remaining opponent, and the dying elf snatched at his haori. He turned to look at her, ready to behead her if she tried any last-minute stabbing. She gave him a wobbly smile, a bubble of blood popping at the corner of her mouth. "Thank…you." She said, and died.

Inuyasha turned to Miroku in the state that is known as Bewilderment. "She said thank you!" he shouted. "I killed her and she said thank you!"

"It's not that surprising," Miroku replied breathlessly, catching the sweep of a sword on his staff and thrusting back toward its utterly blank-faced wielder, who showed no flicker of expression as he twisted free and moved into a new attack pattern. He did not seem to have noticed that his partner had fallen. "They are…are enslaved, you know. Could you see your…your way to helping me with this one before…my arms detach from my shoulders?"

"No," Inuyasha answered, "I have to go help Kagome." And he leapt off to do so, leaving Miroku mentally listing potential painful deaths for the hanyou, fighting for his life, and trying to flick the hair out of his eyes without the use of his hands.

Kagome and Marrkas released their arrows at the same moment. They did not, in fact, follow the same trajectory, but because Marrkas' was travelling faster this did not matter very much. Against all odds, they collided midair, and shattered.

At that moment, the sun came up.

At the same moment, Inuyasha reached Kagome's side and plucked her up, growling, "I told you to hide!"

Also at the same moment, Trisak came bursting into the clearing, having had to run back after Marrkas' archery had made a total mess of his wings.

Also at the same moment, Lelentaeli sat bolt upright and looked around for his sword, and not finding it hit Aerie very hard in the stomach. She went flying backward, the breath completely knocked out of her.

And also at the same moment, a bun-maker in a small town in Germany had a baby. This has nothing to do with our story, and will continue to have nothing to do with it, and also had no impact on history since the baby grew into a man who made buns in exactly the same way his parents had and died without doing anything more noteworthy. This happens sometimes. Some people are like that. It's not unpleasant, if you are interested in buns, which he was. That is really all that can be said about him – he was a bun-maker and a son of bun-makers. And, at this moment, he was born.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, Aerie was lying on the ground attempting to gasp, Lelentaeli was sprinting for his sword even as doubt began to twist in his face again, Inuyasha was looking for a safe place to set Kagome down, Kohaku and Sango were trying to decide whether to go on with attempting to kill each other, Miroku was cursing a blue streak under his breath and trying to survive, Shippou was debating coming out of hiding to help Miroku, and Trisak was giving Marrkas the chewing-out of his lifetime.

Abruptly, something like a foghorn sounded. The three living elves and Kohaku looked up as Kagura's feather swooped toward the ground. It carried three. Kagura, arms crossed, glared through everyone there as if to deny that she had been demoted to a taxi. Kileb lounged on one side, head propped on one hand. Naraku sat erect amid his voluminous kimono. They looked down at the scene. Everyone looked up at them.

"We are almost done playing," Naraku said, that infuriating smirk of his curving his lips.

"Yes, so keep your eyes open, you lot," put in Kileb. He winked at Inuyasha. "Back in control now, eh? Lucky dog. But don't forget – I know the inside of your head almost as well as you know it yourself." He considered this. "Probably better, actually. So watch your back, and keep those mental shields up, eh?"

Inuyasha's teeth were clenched so hard the grinding was audible. He looked ready to rend, but unfortunately he had his arms full of Kagome. Aerie and Miroku both glowered from where they were lying and gasping like fish out of water. Trisak shook his head and went to check on Aerie.

"You shut up!" Kagome yelled at Kileb.

"Oh, now that's not polite, is it? I'm injured," Kileb told her earnestly. "Really."

Naraku cleared his throat. As soon as he had done so he felt somewhat humiliated, as he could not remember ever having to clear his throat to get people's attention before. Usually he had enough of a swirling air of menace and/or a highly noticeable location or activity that made him pretty much impossible to ignore. But all of these things are difficult to maintain when you're sharing what is admittedly a flying feather with a yammering red-headed lunatic.

"Hm?" said Kileb "Oh. Right. Toodles!" And with that the feather-craft pulled up and vanished quickly, the four slave-fighters trailing rapidly away behind.

Inuyasha glared after them. "Bastard," he growled.

"Which one?" asked Kagome as he set her down.

"Both."

Sango shook herself out of some kind of reverie and went over to Miroku, who had collapsed on his face beside the dead elf. "Are you alright, houshi-sama?" she asked.

"Once…I…I've had…a…rest…" he gasped out, "…fine…"

Sango looked worried. She bent down beside him. "What happened?" she asked.

"Fighting." He said concisely, conserving breath, as Shippou scampered out shamefacedly to poke at him.

"He did good," Inuyasha said, coming over with Kagome beside him. "Beats me why he didn't use his wind tunnel, though."

"Wasn't…their…fault…." Miroku wheezed.

"Does someone have any suggestions about how to get Aerie breathing again?" Trisak demanded from the far side of the battleground.

"So Aidrow is dead," said Trisak, about twenty minutes later, gently closing her eyes so that they no longer stared up at the sky. "I am sorry. She should have had much longer." He stood with his eyes lowered for a moment, then turned away, cheerful again. That was his trick to not throwing up his hands and ceasing to care what happened at all – he didn't hang on to things. It wasn't that he had already forgotten or ceased to care about Aidrow, but if he allowed people dying to keep him down he'd have hit magma by then, he'd be so low. Occupational hazard, you might say.

"Shouldn't we bury her?" asked Sango. "Or burn her?"

Trisak shook his head. "No, we don't really hold with that. She wouldn't appreciate it. If we can't take her home, then there's nothing really to do for her."

Everyone glanced uneasily at the corpse, except for Inuyasha, who was sitting aloof with crossed arms, seeming to feel that he was being blamed for all this, when he couldn't have realistically done anything else at the time. "It seems wrong," said Kagome at last. "I mean, to just leave her here."

"I do see your side of things, but believe me, it would be just as wrong to put her in a hole," Trisak replied. "And making a big fire just to cremate her body wouldn't have made sense to her at all, even if they do seem to have a way of knowing where we are anyway." He thought about it. "I know! We can build her a cairn, how's that?"

"A cairn?" repeated Miroku

"With stones, you know?"

Kagome looked around. "What stones?"

"Well, we'd have to go find them and bring them here, of course."

"Won't that be…an awful lot of work?" Shippou asked doubtfully.

"Yes," agreed Trisak. "We don't have to, though. We prefer just to let the wind and the rain do their work. And worms. It's their work, too. And toadstools-"

"All right!" Aerie interrupted him, fully aware that he would go on to list every agent of decomposition in the natural world if allowed to. "The point is, you don't really want us to build a cairn, either, do you?"

"Not really," Trisak admitted. Everyone relaxed a little, somewhat guiltily. Spending the morning lugging rocks was not precisely appealing.

"Would you mind if I said a few words for her?" Miroku asked.

"Hm?" Trisak said. "Words?"

"I am a servant of the Buddha," Miroku explained, bowing slightly with his best saintly face on.

"Oh," said Trisak, and it was the sort of 'oh' people say when you tell them you've got dandruff and they hadn't noticed, or when you share that your hobby is exploring industrial sewage sites or collecting earwax. "You're a religious person." Then he smiled. "I'm sorry, I hadn't realized. Of course, go ahead."

Miroku's ceremony was simple, since the only person there who had known the deceased was Trisak, and there wasn't time or place for a proper funeral.

"What were you doing to Inuyasha, anyway?" Kagome asked him sharply.

"That's right," said Miroku, "you were interrupted. Please continue."

"I'll tell you as we go," Trisak replied, and everyone agreed. No one wanted to stay any longer in the company of Aidrow's body. Kagome found her backpack, which had been stepped on, and Sango put her kimono back on and swung Hiraikotsu onto her back, Aerie stuffed her blanket in her satchel, and they set off. Miroku and Inuyasha somehow got on without luggage. Miroku broke up a loaf of bread and handed it around, and they ate as they went. Everyone looked expectantly at Trisak.

"Well, I heard you talking last night," the little man began, his shredded wings flapping slowly and pointlessly as they walked. "And it was interesting. You're after a magic bead, I hear?"

"More or less," Kagome agreed.

"Well, I heard what milady here," he nodded toward Aerie, who was staring up at the sky as if expecting a dive-bombing by winged monkeys. "asked dog-lad."

"Don't call me that," Aerie told the theoretical winged monkeys, or possibly the clouds. "And his name is Inuyasha."

"Inuyasha. Right. So I heard what Aerie asked Inuyasha." He paused just long enough that Inuyasha snapped,

"And?"

Trisak laughed. "Just didn't want to be rude about saying this. Well, I thought it would be funny – no, I don't mean funny, I mean…helpful!" he amended hurriedly. "Helpful if he could get to decide what he wants to be without needing the bead."

Inuyasha attempted to breath bread and choked. "What?" he squeaked between coughs, face almost matching his haori. Everyone stopped to let him cough. Kagome seemed dumbstruck, and had opened and shut her mouth several times without saying anything. When the hanyou's lungs were clear he repeated, "What!"

"Just what I said," Trisak replied, appearing to enjoy the sensation he had created. "I mean, that bead's no end of headaches, and there doesn't seem to be much point to him fussing over what he wants to be when he can't actually do anything about it, so…."

Sango leaned down to look him in the face. "What…did…you…do…?" she asked very distinctly, as if he might be slow.

Trisak sighed. "This isn't going over well, is it? I thought people liked having wishes granted."

"So you decided to be Inuyasha's fairy godmother?" Kagome asked incredulously, finally finding her voice.

"Uhm…yes?" said Trisak uncertainly. "Except for the fairy part, and the godmother part? But you've got the general idea. I was setting it up so that next time he wished to be something it would happen. So if he said he wished he was a full-blood…." Kagome made a peculiar sound, like a dog's squeaky toy, the kind shaped like a hamburger, being stepped on.

"But I interrupted you," said Aerie.

Trisak twiddled his thumbs, grinning nervously. "Uh, well, that, yes…. I'd got the power locus defined and part of the purpose, but I hadn't set the bounds or finished the periphery, so -"

"What did you just say?" Inuyasha demanded, his voice only a little squeaky from bread-breathing.

"He had told the power he was working with to focus on you, and partially what he wanted done, but there were not any limitations laid down yet," Miroku translated. "Which is to say, Aerie interrupted at the worst possible time. Am I right?" he asked Trisak.

He nodded. "There's enough power tied to him right now to pack quite a punch," he agreed. "And it's focused on granting spoken wishes. But it's not controlled."

"And what does that mean?" Kagome asked. "Will something bad happen?"

Trisak shrugged. "Means anything could happen if he's not careful, and not just anything he wishes, although that could be bad enough. But in that case Inuyasha here could just wish for a café latte and that would be the end of it. But if he wished for a café latte he might turn into one, or turn Madam Boomerang into a fig tree, or have five hundred tons of chocolate fall on his head, or anything."

"Feh," said Inuyasha, "I wish you'd-mmph!" Five hands had flown to cover his mouth – Miroku's, Kagome's, Sango's, Aerie's, and Shippou's. His golden eyes stared irritably over the pile of fingers. "I was just saying," he grumbled, as they took them away.

"Well don't just say," Kagome told him worriedly. "Didn't you hear what could happen?"

"Yeah," said Aerie, "do you want to be a café latte?"

"Feh," said Inuyasha, and stalked off. If he'd been a cat his tail would have been pointing straight at the sky.

"Well, it seems as though we are stopping for a while," said Miroku, sitting down on a convenient stone.

"Yep," agreed Aerie. "Hey, Shippou, want to play war again?"

"Sure!" said Shippou happily.

Kagome looked up into the tree where Inuyasha was sulking. "Hey!" she called. "You going to come down?"

"Keh," said Inuyasha.

"Don't make me make you!" she threatened.

Leaves rustled and his face appeared. "Fine," he said, jumping down to land beside her. "What do you want?" Kagome shrugged. "Hmph," said the hanyou moodily, crossing his arms. There was a long silence. "Kagome," Inuyasha said after a while, "what's a café latte?"

And so that's that! Hope it was sufficient; somehow it wound up being two really long scenes with the tachi… Don't worry, though, Yanagi and Kagura are still chugging away, and the next update should be sooner since I chopped off a scene with them because this chapter was long enough. No cliffy this time, so I'll just have to hope…although that may be kind of dumb, given that the last chapter got just 2 reviews…. Review us? Pretty please?

Aerie:Yes, do, or we'll never get out of the mess she's put us in!

Inuyasha: And I'll be stuck with… counts on fingers Two wounds and three spells on me, counting that hag's rosary!

Kagome: demonstrates Osuwari!

Kileb: big shiny flight attendant smile And please remember to keep your mental shields up and your seatbelt buckled until the chapter has come to a complete stop!

Miroku: He really is daft, isn't he?

TrisakA: Yep, pretty much. Anyway, time to fly! Graaaah…I'm so tired…we didn't get back from the opera until four AM…. crashes onto keyboard