The Gun & The Sword

Chapter XI: New Year, New Friends.

Keiranto sat up and immediately groaned with the pain. His head felt like there were two sumo wrestlers stamping on it and his mouth felt like sandpaper. Kitsune had pushed so much sake down his throat at last nights New Year celebrations that he had a hangover the size of Jupiter. He pulled himself up and went to go have a shower.

Twenty minutes later, and feeling suitably refreshed, he walked down to the dining room for his breakfast. Motoko was the only one there. "I think we were the least drunk last night," she said. "Shinobu and Su aren't used to the alcohol, Naru and Keitaro got the cola and the sake mixed up, and Kitsune, Haruka and Seta all had a massive drinking contest and passed out."

"I suppose we had better go wake them if we are going to get to the temple sometime today," he said begrudgingly, "you up for a challenge?"

------------------------------------------------2 hours later-----------------------------------------------

The small group of people struggled to make headway in the throng of people surrounding the fortunes drawing place. They all looked at each other and some kind of connection clicked into place. They charged into the crowd and, a couple of minutes later got to their destination, albeit a little bit battered. They all drew their fortunes and looked at them. Keiranto looked at his:

Best Luck

Your life seems to be going pretty well at the moment, and it looks like getting better. You will travel on a journey through many challenges and destinations. There may be troubled times on your journey, but you and your chosen one will get through them side by side, hand in hand. You will undertake this journey with you destined soul mate, whose identity will probably be obvious already but will become certain soon. There is one fortune exactly like this one, find the person holding that and you will find you destined partner.

Keiranto and Motoko spoke in unison, "A journey? Soul mate? Who has the other fortune?" They looked at each other. "Let me see your fortune; is it the same as mine?" True enough, the fortunes were exactly the same.

Keiranto's attention was distracted by a yell, "hey, Keiranto! Over here!" The crowds had started to disperse and he looked over to see three familiar faces running towards him. He grinned and embraced the leader; "Tei, its been what, 3 years? Didn't you get into Tokyo U?"

"Well, yeah, only the other day, you did too, didn't you?"

"Yeah, well, I'd better introduce you three to these guys. This is Tei, Ben and Taiki. They are my friends from before I moved to Hinata. Tei is one of the only people who can match me in shooting and he can beat me hands down in hand to hand. I can still beat him at swordplay though! Ben is a foreign exchange student from Canada who decided to move here and Taiki is just Taiki!" He pulled the girls aside, "Taiki has a… disorder… he will act totally normal but if you say something wrong or he sees you as a threat, he will go ape. He will be Ok as long as you treat him right. Ok then, the other way round, these are the residents at the girl's dorm I am the manager of. This is Kitsune, Naru and Keitaro, Su, Shinobu and Motoko, my fiancé..." Tei cut him off. "Hang on a moment, did you just say FIANCE?" Keiranto and Motoko nodded. "You sly old devil, you managed to not only become the manager of an all girls dorm, but also to hook up with one of the residents. And, to top it all, you manage to get her to agree to marry you! Christ, you have come a long way since the sorry, stupid, geeky…"

"Ok, Tei, you can stop there."

"…annoying, piss-poor little nerd I used to know."

"Thank you for that, Tei, it was very useful. Now, do you guys want to come over for the day?"

"Sure!"

-----------------------------------------------Later that evening------------------------------------------

Keiranto looked over at everyone. He was surprised at how the residents had reacted to his friends. Kitsune had immediately taken Taiki under her wing, and now blushed furiously whenever anyone mentioned him. He was surprised at Taiki's reaction to her as well. Normally it took him weeks to get to know others well enough to talk to them but here he had just finished making a incredibly detailed sketch of Kitsune with a pair of beautiful golden angel wings on her back. He presented it to Kitsune who again blushed and smiled at him. He then did something even more surprising, lifting his hand, ruffling her hair and murmuring, "pretty Kitsune, angel." Keiranto smiled, that looked like a match that would go a long way.

Over in the corner, Tei and Su were crouched over some contraption, tinkering way. Those two had also immediately hit it off as soon as Tei had seen one of Su's inventions and proved he could handle a screwdriver and welding torch. Shinobu also seemed to be quite taken with Ben, hanging on to every word he said and smiling at his Canadian accent as he chatted with her, Naru and Keitaro. Keiranto smiled, he could see three new partnerships alike to his and Motoko's emerging some time soon.