I finally wrote this chapter! I can't believe how long it took me. 'bout seven months…o.0; anyways…this chapter, especially at the end, is darker than most of the chapters have been but it's needed. And if the last sentence doesn't make sense…I'm sorry, but it sounded good at the time…(looks sheepish)

Not gonna do a reader's response this time; sorry, but it's 1:00 in the morning and I need sleep. I have summer school tomorrow. (yawns) But it's Friday tomorrow so I'm happy about that!


The palace was in a state of utter and complete chaos as servants and officials alike ran all over, attempting to fix this little problem of theirs. There was not a single person in the palace that was sitting calmly; the officials were fretting about how they would deal with this and the servants were putting so much effort into helping fix this problem because of the fact that they had been told that their jobs would be on the line should they be found not helping. Unfortunately for the servants, working at the palace paid rather well and they were not planning to get fired anytime soon.

One of the advisors had woken up this very morning with a determination to get the emperor out of bed before nine o'clock in the morning and he was therefore thoroughly surprised when he saw that the emperor's room was empty, the bed was made as though he were in a hurry and the advisor had soon grown horrified to find a note stating that the emperor had some urgent business to attend to and he would be back when the business was done.

Which was why the entire palace was trying to arrange a search party for the missing emperor (or perhaps, the other one), which was not really effective at the moment due to the fact that everyone was in a state of panic (at least the many advisors were) at the thought of what would happen should the emperor not be back for a while.

Meanwhile, unaware of the chaos brewing back at the palace he had just left, Amiboshi hummed to himself as he rode on his horse, wearing a dark cloak, hood held up just in case he was recognized; it had not been too hard to escape from the dreaded stifling palace who had merely brushed off the reports of the renouncing of Seiryuu as something that would pass soon enough if you ignored it. Amiboshi, however, knew better than to believe that it was a coincidence that all four countries had gotten riots all on the same night; this was surely the work of something more sinister than a few protesting villagers, for why else would they have been brought back here in their prime (and in some cases, alive once more) coincidentally the same time that this was happening. No, it simply could not be a coincidence.

It was for this simple reasoning that he had agreed with Hikitsu, Chichiri and Subaru to meet at Taiitsu-kun's mountain, which was the only place that all four groups (or in his case, just himself) could get to without travelling for a few weeks.

He would probably arrive there in about three day's time if he rode quick enough and that also depended if there were any forests in his way. If it was a clear path all the way to Mt. Taikyoku, it would certainly prove to be easier for him.

As he rode along the path, his mind drifted to worries about his brother and Sai, who had yet to come back from searching for more seishi; he had to refrain from going out to search for them because he had no idea where exactly in Kutou they were and he had no clue what direction they had gone so all that he could do about his brother and friend was wait for them to come back, which would be hard enough without being nervous about the people who were renouncing the Four Gods.

Seriously though, what were those people thinking? Sure, the Gods had oftentimes failed them, but they certainly could not expect the Gods to grant every wish they ever gave did they? If so, everyone would be rich and they'd have about five hundred emperors. In other words, it would be chaos. Not that these people deserved to be granted anything, with the despicable amount of trust they held in their Gods. It was absolutely appalling, Amiboshi decided.

He was soon distracted from his thoughts when he heard a barking noise come at him from the nearby trees. Curious, he turned around, sure that dogs and wolves generally did not venture this far out of the forest. Before he could even ponder anything about it, an all too familiar member of the canine family came pelting out of the woods and stopped right where he was.

Amiboshi gazed curiously at the wolf he knew was the one that Saiyami had decided to adopt as her own and he then noticed that something was tied around its neck that looked to be a collar of some sort and something had been slipped underneath the collar. Something…

He quickly grabbed the paper that had obviously been ripped out of a notebook and unfolded it tentatively, his mind racing as he wondered what Saiyami or Shun had to say after all this time. The note seemed to alternate between two different sets of handwriting, both in English because although Saiyami could write, read and speak Chinese, English was a language nobody else here knew how to read, write or speak. Unless somehow Maeda had managed to get into the book without the book itself.

Aniki,

How are you doing? Have you gone insane from the responsibility yet? I always told you that being too responsible was bad for you

Ignore your idiot brother for a moment Amiboshi – oh, all right; Koutoku – Shunkaku here is being paranoid. Well, I suppose he has reason; you have heard about the people renouncing the Gods, right? Well, if you haven't…guess what? People are renouncing the Gods. It's happening all over the country too

Yeah, and we were right in the middle of one of these 'events'. It's horrible; you probably haven't felt it but the symbol is starting to grow weaker the more people stop supporting the Gods. It's like something's blocking their power or something. When we were in that crowd, I had to work to get my ryuuseisui to move.

We're still travelling around looking for more seishi; with most of Kutou starting to renounce or thinking about renouncing the Gods, it's hard to search for them because no way in hell are we going to spot their symbols – not while the country is in this situation. If this is the plan of whoever's doing this, it's working; we've had absolutely no luck.

You'll have to be the one to convince people to keep believing. Just make sure you have your flute with you at all times; you never know who might turn on you; there's definitely something evil at work here. It's manipulating the minds of the people and we can't do a damn thing about it!

Right there, Amiboshi could imagine his brother punching something.

Ugh…crap. Your brother just broke the inkwell so if you want to blame someone for this mess on the page, blame him.

I couldn't help it!

Yeah, yeah; well, to wrap this up, we have nothing else to report for now, but when we do, we'll send the wolf again.

Just call it 'Wolf', Aniki; the stupid thing won't answer to anything else. It doesn't go for any of the names that I've tried.

Who would want to be named Doggie?

Anyways…

-Shun and Sai

Amiboshi smiled at the familiar banter of his two friends, his worries lifted slightly; at least they were safe, he surmised, although there was still the question of where they were, and the news they had was disturbing. So the more people who believed in the Gods, the weaker they would get? Perhaps it was some sort of evil spell that had been put on the people?

He decided that these questions were best let speculated by those who knew what they were talking about…namely, Taiitsu-kun, and perhaps some of the seishi. He rode of, barely noticing Wolf, as it was called, racing off back into the forest.


Hikitsu arrived at Mt. Taikyoku last with the rest of the Genbu seishi that he had managed to find, namely, Uruki, Hatsui and Namame. It had been a tough journey to get here seeing as they had encountered an unexpected snow storm on the way and then had to figure out how to get across the body of water that had come between them and reaching Mt. Taikyoku. Eventually Namame had to make her body light enough to be able to walk on the water and then had lifted all their things across.

He found Chichiri, Amiboshi, Tatara and Taiitsu-kun deep in conversation while the others sat around and listened. He also notice the absence of Sai and Suboshi, meaning that they had yet to return to the palace, which he had to admit, worried him, especially since they did not know what Sai's role in this was.

"So, what're we doing about the…situation?" he asked as he watched his fellow seishi get acquainted with everyone else.

"We've discovered something strange…" Subaru said, sounding slightly pleased and disturbed at the same time. Her expression was one of complete confusion.

"What…?" Hikitsu wondered whether it was wise to ask or not.

Taiitsu-kun took control of the conversation, turning her aged face toward him, "Have you suffered a lack of powers recently?"

"Well…" Uruki spoke up, "It certainly takes a lot more energy than normal to use them"

"Yes, that'll do" Taiitsu-kun mused, "The strange thing is, however, that the seishi in the Byakko group have suffered no change in their powers…" she told them, "Nothing at all, which should not be happening because like the others, Byakko's influence is being blocked by the darkness that is overtaking the land"

"If all the gods' influence are being blocked, then the weaker we grow" Hikitsu said in horror, "We'd be reduced to everyday people with nothing special to help us in this endeavor"

Amiboshi winced at those words, knowing how true it was, "Shun and Sai sent me a letter earlier on" he told Hikitsu; the others had already heard this, "They were right near on of those 'events' and Shun swears he felt the power draining from him"

"So…" Hikitsu mused, "The darkness is connected to these 'events'"

"That's what we deduced" Chichiri said, "Although we're not quite sure if it is the fact that people have renounced the Gods, losing faith…or perhaps it is the people behind these events"

Hatsui winced, his brown eyes troubled. If this continued, it would mean a lot more trouble for them, especially since he himself had grown reliant on his powers and he was quite sure that everyone else had also, judging from the disturbed and uncomfortable looks on the faces of all the seishi. His own powers were of foresight and he found it absolutely terrifying at the thought of being without them; the thought of not knowing when danger was to come.

"It'll be just like that time" Tasuki said, his tone serious which indicated to those who knew him very well exactly how grave this situation could be, "When Suzaku was sealed away…" He shuddered in remembrance of that time; caught in a war without the usual reassurance of his powers nearby had left him feeling something akin to helplessness and he did not like the feeling, nordid he welcome it.

"So what can we do?" Hotohori asked, "We have gathered to figure out something have we not?"

"Taiitsu-kun?" Chichiri turned to the creator, "You would know about what to do now than we do"

Taiitsu-kun looked deep in thought for a few moments before answering, "There is a way…although I did not expect it to be this soon that the gods would need to resort to this"

"What is it?" Nuriko asked.

"Since we need the Gods, but we cannot reach them in any way, you find the next closest thing" Taiitsu-kun said simply, looking quite pleased.

"…which is…?"

"Oh. Their Heirs of course"

"What!" came a chorus of shouts after a few moments passed and the information sunk in.

"The Heirs" Taiitsu-kun said slowly, "You know, heir: a person who succeeds or is in line to succeed to a hereditary rank, title, or office – " There was definitely a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"We know what heir means!" Toroki said irritably, "What we didn't know was that the Gods had heirs"

"Heirs…" Chichiri mused, "As in children of the gods? Or perhaps just named heirs?"

"Children" Taiitsu-kun responded, "Though obviously they're not exactly the definition of children anymore"

"Alright, so we have to find these heirs….how do we find them?" Kokie asked, getting the feeling that this would be a long journey.

"Oh, it's very much like looking for seishi" Taiitsu-kun said, a evil smirk on her lips, "Follow the clues. Find the items. When you find all the items, they'll lead you to where each heir is" she snapped her fingers and four different coloured spheres appeared before them, "Use these"

Amiboshi glanced at the lightly tinged blue sphere he had just received, wondering how it worked.

Taiitsu-kun chuckled at their confusion and with a snap of her fingers, all of them disappeared from Mt. Taikyoku to the nearest town in each country.


Suboshi was silent as he crept through the trees in the forest, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention. Sai was behind him, also being as quiet as she could possibly be; she blended into the shadows quite well especially now that her hair was its natural dark colour, the dark purple dye that had once been streaked in having faded away.

A twig snapped somewhere in front of them and Suboshi tensed, ready to fight and Sai fingered the hilt of her cutlass cautiously, ready to pull it out of its sheath should she need to. A black clothed figure launched itself at them, metal glinting in the little moonlight that was not covered by clouds.

Swords made a loud clashing noise with one another before Sai and the stranger leapt away from each other while Suboshi never took his eyes off the stranger or the woods surrounding them, well aware that the stranger could have someone with him, or the noise of the swords battling each other could have alerted someone to the scene.

"Yield" he heard Sai hiss quietly in the night as the sounds of struggle died down, "Yield and you may yet live"

Without hesitating, the attacker quickly surrendered and ran off back into the forest, making so much noise as he went that instinctively, Sai and Suboshi both winced. Suboshi glanced at the companion he had been traipsing over the country with for more than a month. A month with nothing but finding that each and every town was quickly falling to the darkness and a month of paranoia that was enough to drive anyone over the edge.

"He was too easy" Sai scoffed and although her voice was quite normal, he could tell that she was very tired. As was he, for that matter, but they could not rest. Not until they reached their next destination; they had to keep moving for a lot more than their physical health was at stake here.

"You've just gotten better again" Suboshi offered as they ran quickly through the dense plot of trees.

"So have you" Sai countered, "If I remember, the last person we met, you beat him in less than a minute"

"That one was easy"

"You're insane" Sai rolled her eyes.

"That makes two of us" he shot back.

"Insanity has its uses" Sai laughed. He joined in; both of them knew that it had not been very funny at all but stuck roaming a country succumbing to the darkness for a month and every day seeing people who were basically turning against you, the unmistakable feeling of betrayal – there was really nothing else to laugh about except nothing at all…


See...even I don't think the last sentence makes much sense. So...i'm just going to say it's the result from lack of sleep; how 'bout that? Please review.