DISCLAIMER: All CLAMP stories were created by CLAMP. Characters have been adapted without authorization or approval, and I am making no profit from their use.

"Let the Games Begin" is the seventh story in my Pirates vs. Ninjas alternate universe, "Fifteen Mokona on a Dead Man's Chest". Reading the previous stories is not required. That said, if you would like to read the stories in order to take advantage of the continuity, details are on my profile page.

WARNING: sexual situations. This chapter has been modified from its original version to meet content guidelines.

[Exactly What It Seems]

Day Two Results

Cooking Contest

Appetizer: RYANBAN BYUN HAK-DO & BYUN BAEK (Xinan) def. Sasaki Rika & Terada Yoshiyuki (Kia)
Soup: YUDAIJI IDOMU & NAGUMO SHINJI (Civic) def. Cho Lee & To Lee (Xinan)
Salad: EMPRESS KENDAPPA & SOUMA (Malvek) def. Sanada Nobushige & Sarutobi Sasuke (Fahren)
Main Course: PRESEA & SIERRA (Kia) def. Hiyokuno Takeru & Hiyokuno Yukino (Nihon)
Dessert: TAKAMOTO CHIKAHITO & TOYOTOMI HIDETSUGU (Fahren) def. Okiura Sayaka & Fujimoto Kiyokazu (Impala)

Egg Drop Contest

Gold: Kirigakure Saizou (Fahren)
Silver: Yamadachi Nanashirou (Nihon)
Bronze: Princess Aska (Fahren)

Dishwashing Contest

Gold: Maru-dashi & Moro-dashi (Hundhammeren)
Silver: Eagle Vision (Hundhammeren)
Bronze: Hiiragizawa Eriol (England)

Drinking Contest

Current Leader: Empress Kendappa (Malvek)
Second: Kurogane (Malvek)
Third: Snow Princess Shirahime (Nihon)

Ghost Story Contest

FUJIMOTO KIYOKAZU (Impala) def. Tsuyuri Kohane (Hundhammeren)

~/~

Across the low breakfast table in the Chairman's bed chambers, Nokoru pouted at his last bite of buttered baguette. "I had been sure the young lady's story would win. Such an interesting retelling! I never would have thought of exploring the kittens' point of view, even though of course they were right at the center of events."

"Unfortunately, a popular contest isn't an objective evaluation of literary merit," Suoh answered. "You know the crowds here are very particular about the 'proper' way to tell stories about your past escapades. The art gallery kitten rescue is no exception."

"I should hope our citizens would be more open minded! Suoh, where's the sign paper?" Still clad in his dressing gown, Nokoru pulled a brush and ink from the nowhere space where he always kept them. "I must declare a story remixing contest, where everyone in Kragero looks for a new perspective on an old legend!"

As the blond braced one foot on the bedframe to pose with his inked brush in the air, Suoh pulled out an inkstone to hold between the dripping ink and the sheets - at least until he could disarm the Chairman. Once he'd safely swiped the brush, he pushed Nokoru by the shoulders toward his desk (Nokoru himself being too caught up in his proclamation to notice).

"Everyone will gain a new appreciation for the blossoming variety of perspectives a single tale can offer. We'll call it the First Annual One Million Sides to Every Story Festival!"

"That sounds like an excellent plan, Chairman - for after you finish the festival we are already hosting." Suoh pulled a stack of incident reports from the inbox, where Nokoru would have ignored them forever if he could. One by one, he placed them on the desk. "Attendance logs. Stock and merchandise manifests. Petty crime reports where foreign nationals were caught red-handed. Leads on the freak wind incident during the Laundry Washing Contest. Reports from the laboratory and security details on the issue with the hard-boiled eggs. Findings on the butterscotch syrup and candies that replaced the spinach, which has not yet been recovered. Pattern analyses on the timing and locations where feathers have spontaneously fallen from the sky, as well as additional clean-up shift assignments on the assumption that the feathers will continue to fall today."

With a sigh, Nokoru lifted the corner of one page between two fingers as if it were a smelly piece of garbage. "What have we decided to do with our prodigious influx of feathers?"

"I've added a Fishing Fly Creation contest and a Pillow Stuffing contest to the schedule. That should take care of most of them. If the rate of feathers falling increases, I'll consider further event additions."

"Excellent! Now I'm sure I had some coffee somewh-"

Suoh blocked the Chairman's attempt to run for the door by pulling out a spare French press and some boiling water (since he certainly wouldn't ask Nokoru to drink coffee that wasn't fresh brewed unless a damsel in distress was offering it to him). "If you start now, you should have just enough time to finish your paperwork and get dressed before it's time for you to report to the Trivia Contest."

"Suoh..."

"Please."

They both knew this was an argument Nokoru never won (and Suoh highly doubted he wanted to win right now, because when he did want to shirk he found more effective forms of avoidance than arguing), but never in his tenure as Nokoru's right-hand man had he seen his best friend and lover do paperwork without a fight. Sometimes Suoh thought the only way to make Imonoyama Nokoru bring the focus of his tremendous intellect to bear on something as boring as official forms was brute force, and that Nokoru argued the matter with him because it was the most efficient way to get someone to force him to do his humdrum duty.

With a sigh that edged into a whimper of disgust, the blond picked up his pen. Each document got a moment's glance before he signed it, no more, which would have seemed cursory if another man had done it, but Suoh had worked with Nokoru long enough to know that a single glance from the Chairman was enough for him to not only memorize the content but to analyze it fully. His noted instructions, formulae, and questions in the margins of the lab reports was proof of that. He couldn't have read it more slowly if he'd tried, not that reading more slowly would be an effective use of his time.

The strictly bureaucratic papers finished, Nokoru retrieved the odd incident reports from the stack and laid them out in two lines. All the data tables on the feathers went in the top row, and the wind, eggs, and butterscotch went in the bottom row. The Chairman pursed his lips as he tapped his foot.

"Hmm."

"Sir?"

"Hmm," he reiterated. "Based on the epicenters of these feather incidents, when I correlate them with their subterranean counterparts..."

"You think something underground is causing this?"

"I think you should take all your personnel off of the feather problem!" Nokoru declared. While Suoh felt like melting into the floor, his blond laughed aloud with a smile bright enough to blind a lesser man. "Now, Suoh, you said yourself that it would have been impossible to store that quantity of feathers in a physical trap, so we're simply wasting our resources by trying to locate such a trap. It can't be there, therefore it isn't."

"Sir, something is causing this-"

"Whose nature will become clear in due course!" The Chairman flashed out a fan emblazoned with the motto, "Worry is pointless!"

"Chairman...!"

But before Suoh could finish his objection, Nokoru's eyes flew to the window with a look Suoh knew all too well. Half a breath later, the spot where he'd been standing held nothing but a gust of air and the Chairman's closet was open. A scarlet dressing robe fluttered to the ground (replaced, Suoh assumed, with clothes from the closet) as a blond blur dashed out the window.

Suoh sighed. They had a damsel in distress. It was a miracle Nokoru had gone this long without one. But something about the Chairman's behavior was bothering him (even more than usual). If he was right...

"...The Chairman knows why those feathers are falling, and he's hiding it."

"Really, Takamura-sempai?!" asked someone who Suoh was certain hadn't been in the room a moment before, but was nevertheless standing right at his shoulder now.

He restrained himself from jumping into a defensive stance and forced out a sigh. "Good morning, Ijyuin." It was a crime against nature that even putting a bell on their colleague didn't make him easier to detect.

"How can you be sure the Chairman knows about the feathers?"

"I said some thing had to be causing their appearance. When he replied, he said, 'whose nature will become clear'. The Chairman would never use 'whose' to apply to a thing, and would never use 'which' to apply to a person."

"But most grammar books allow some situations where-"

"But the Chairman wouldn't do it. That means he knows the cause of the feathers isn't a thing, but an individual. And if he knows that, he knows who it is."

Ijyuin clapped with a gleeful smile. "You always know him so well, Takamura-sempai!"

"Too well." Well enough to know they didn't have time to dawdle here talking while the Chairman was out of sight, finding wrongs to right. Suoh couldn't risk those wrongs taking him out of the city. "Let's catch up and find out what quest he's committed us to this week."

~/~

Watanuki wrinkled his nose as he peeked through the blinds. "Ugh! Imonoyama-san is at it again. That white knight complex of his defies reason!"

"White knight complex?" Doumeki stole a peek through the blinds himself, wiping the last spots of shaving foam from his neck. The blond Chairman of Kragero University was kneeling on the road below their window, never minding the dust he had to be getting on his fancy pants. He was holding the hand of a flustered and blushing lady from Malvek - the cute one whose nose and smile looked like Kunogi's, but who had short, fair hair instead of the barmaid's dark curls - just like in all those local Imonoyama legends Doumeki had always thought were exaggerations. The bodyguard at the lady's side looked near to dying of conniption over the sight.

"My fairest flower of an unknown land..." Imonoyama started.

"Umm... you can just call me 'Sakura'?"

"Princess-!" The guard bit his lip before he said anything the Empress Kendappa would have to formally apologize for. "That is... My Lord Imonoyama, it is my honor to present Princess Sakura, Ward of the throne in Malvek. To what do we owe the privilege of your company?"

The Chairman stood, only to bow at the waist. "The privilege and the honor are mine. If I could only ask, dear Lady Sakura, what I can do to ease the trouble in your heart?"

"Ho~eeeeeee?!"

"From my window, I heard your tender sigh of sorrow, and my heart could not help but break in sympathy. Let me lift the heavy veil from your lovely eyes." Right on cue, Imonoyama's blue-haired and black-haired accomplices appeared on either side of him, while the blond gestured as if the two other men had been there the whole time. "My comrades and I will work night and day, serving with all our power to free you from whatever troubles you may know."

Doumeki nodded as the Princess and her guard looked on with matching gap-jawed surprise. "White knight complex. So Imonoyama does this a lot?"

"He does this constantly," Watanuki whimpered, "and Lady Yuuko will want to watch."

"Then we don't have to watch now." Doumeki shut the blinds, pulling his lover toward the couch - or trying to. Each time he tugged at Watanuki's waist, the ninja planted them harder. His spine got stiffer, his arms crossed tighter, his nose tilted higher. Every once in a while Watanuki took a glance backwards, like he was checking whether the polite pussy-footing was over. If that was how it was going to be, Doumeki could be just as stubborn. He flopped down on the couch. "Suit yourself, then."

The ninja appeared in a poof with his legs straddling Doumeki's waist. "What's that supposed to mean?" he yelled, slamming Doumeki's head into the couch. "You triple dog-damned pirate of a Doumeki! If you've got something to say, just say it!" His heart wasn't in the violence, though. Doumeki could hardly feel the bump, not even hard enough to bother blocking, and sooner than usual Watanuki gave it all up. His lover had that stare where he looked like one shake would shatter him to a pile of glass and tears, but-

The kiss Watanuki pelted him with washed the thought out of his mind. The taste of his tongue was in Doumeki's mouth, fresh and rich. No tears there at all, just a moan waiting for Doumeki to unlock it. On either side of Watanuki's face, he worked his hands into unruly hair searching for a key. The touch ran like sparks up his nerves, and he couldn't have let go if he'd tried - not that he would. After a lifetime as a pirate, sometimes it still surprised him that he wanted Watanuki enough to make him feel like he'd never heard of wanting before.

He thought about coaxing his lover into taking the lead. No matter how much he felt like throwing Watanuki down on the cushions after two nights of sleeping so close but not together, he'd decided to wait until Watanuki wanted it enough to stop pretending he didn't. It didn't matter how many other people his lover lied to, as long as he stopped lying to himself. His ninja didn't need prompting to tear off Doumeki's half-fastened shirt, though. Those slim fingers were done with Doumeki's knife belt, too, in the blink of an eye.

"Just like the degenerate brute you will never convince me that you're not! Trying to seduce me before work, are you? Well, we'll see about that! Hah!"

His lips still stinging, Doumeki tried to decide if Watanuki's actual plan was to pay him back by 'seducing' him first. He wasn't going to argue. He had a policy of not arguing with cute, uptight, A-rank ninjas who wanted to settle against his hips. Mostly because this was the only one who did that. He might've argued if it was anyone else. When it was Watanuki, the only thing he wanted to do was hear a choked gasp that was about as far from a complaint as you could get.

Even if the words coming out of his mouth were, "You... depraved ... fink of a... D-Doumeki...ngh- God damn you! That's not fair!" Doumeki never thought he'd like the way that sounded so much. Or the smell of rice paper and sword oil under the air of a spice rack that followed Watanuki everywhere he went. The taste of Watanuki's shoulder was even better than the eggs florentine the ninja'd made for breakfast, and that was saying something. His assassin boyfriend wasn't in the mood for messing around today, though. The grind of his hips against Doumeki's screamed frustration louder than a North Wind gale. His kiss may not have been sweeter than wine, but Doumeki liked his wine dry anyway, and this had a hell of a lot more kick.

He tried to flip Watanuki to get a better angle. The ninja growled and rolled them both right off the sofa, laying Doumeki out flat. His back stung something awful, but he'd had worse for less enjoyable reasons. "Oh no. You don't get to set the rules this time, pirate! You've followed me into a land-locked city to intrude and impinge upon a very important business trip, and for that you'll have to pay the price!"

"If you say so," Doumeki murmured. He was tempted to tell Watanuki that if 'the price' was kisses down Doumeki's naked chest, he wasn't at all disincentivized to try this again - but if he said it, Watanuki might stop. Making time with Watanuki him at the top of the morning (well, second after breakfast) was the last thing he wanted to stop.

And he smiled around the shiver in his breath, because somehow Watanuki managed to keep up his motor-fast commentary, even when he was busy making Doumeki feel like the taut-pulled string of a bow, waiting for the right moment to fire. "Don't even know..." Doumeki heard as he let his eyes roll closed. "... How you knew you could find me here!" His pulse hit his skin faster, matching the cadence of his surly (but cute) ninja's mutterings. "Didn't... tell anyone... obviously!"

"... Didn't know you'd be here," Doumeki tossed in. "Nice surprise, though."

"But you said...!" Watanuki stopped everything, and when Doumeki looked up he found the ninja waiting for eye contact. From the look he was getting, he figured their tryst was over. Some conversations you didn't have while distracted. If Watanuki wanted to talk at last, losing one roll in the hay was a fair price. "You told me how you got here. You didn't say why you came. Are you telling me you're here doing sneaky, underhanded pirate things and just pretended you'd come all this way to see me?!"

"I wouldn't say sneaky. I was bodyguarding Lord Shirou." Who was about as far from caring to sneak as a man could get.

Watanuki crossed his arms with a sniff. "Right, that Lord Shirou you and Hikaru were-" His eyes went wide under the rumpled bed hair he hadn't combed yet (and didn't need to, if Doumeki got a vote). "Wait. Not Death Shirou?!"

"Is there another Lord Shirou?"

"You brought Death Shirou to Kragero?!"

"Well, he brought me, but-"

In a vibration of limbs so violent, Watanuki looked like he might fly apart, the ninja was on his feet screaming. "Don't you split semantic hairs with me, you... you concatenation of codswallop!" His lips were pursed the way he only did when he was truly upset. No pouts for his lover's righteous fury. "I suppose I deserve that for being foolish enough to believe you'd ever take a vacation from your base, brigandish buffoonery! Hmph!" Doumeki almost smiled. Almost. Watanuki thinking of that instead of complaining that a Pirate Lord had crashed his boss's party was so close to what Doumeki wanted to hear, it cut like a razor on his spleen.

"I'm never going to not be a pirate," he answered. And while two blue eyes narrowed at the reminder, a knock on the door told Doumeki he was getting a raincheck on the end of this conversation.

He'd wait.

"Watanuki!"

"Watanuki!" two voices chimed, similar enough to be echoes. Watanuki opened the door for the two pink and blue-haired kids (blue standing on pink's shoulders with long pigtails trailing down) to jump in and pull on his arms. "Watanuki! The Mistress has a hangover!"

"A hangover! Come quick!"

"How in heaven's name did I so offend the universe during my previous lives that I am now constantly plagued by insufferable lushes?!" He handed the girls a bottle, saying, "Maru, Moro, have her drink this. I'll be there as soon as I can stop for some fresh supplies. And you!" Watanuki yelled, turning his fury back on Doumeki, "Don't think I'm done with you yet!"

His lover left with one of his more explosive door slams. Doumeki knew without another word that he was looking forward to another day at the shooting gallery, another night on the couch, and one hell of a cold shower.

~/~

"Syaoran! Are these zucchini supposed to be super extra crispy, or just sort of medium crispy?" Golden brown was pretty subjective, she thought. Technically, the breadcrumb batter she'd dipped the slices in was already kind of golden brown, but it was always hard to be sure what shade was right. Between things that could be mostly golden but kind of brownish, like snickerdoodles, and things that were definitely brownish but still kind of gold-tinted - like Syaoran's hair - there were just so many things that could mean! It was a good thing she'd gotten better at frying things, though, since she wanted to do her best to help him in the cooking tournament. Syaoran was so great at-

Sakura paused with her spatula under a slice of zucchini. Syaoran hadn't answered her question yet! She looked up, thinking maybe he hadn't heard her before, but instead he was blinking at her with his eyebrows up in the air. "Umm, Syaoran?"

"Oh... ah, right. Um. Could you fry them until they've just stopped bending?"

"Got it!" she said with a smile. As Syaoran blushed all over (the way he always did, so it was good Tomoyo never dressed him in red or he'd look naked, and Syaoran didn't like feeling naked), he went back to whisking his eggs and cream in a blur.

Little flecks of pre-quiche mix landed on the counter and his bright green apron. She heard him murmuring over and over, "Not too tough, Hibiya-san likes eggs fluffy. Season on the spicy side... Lady Cornelia doesn't like sweet things, Eagle-san doesn't like sour..." Watching him frown at the yellow-white mess and be just as serious as could be pushed her right into her swimmy feeling. She could watch that for the rest of her life, curled up in feeling wonderful like that moment was a cozy blanket.

But she couldn't! Because the zucchini were sizzling, and she had to be vigilant!

She held her spatula at the ready, fixing a frown in place as she watched the frying edges for when the bottom matched the top. The wonderful smells coming from every table wouldn't distract her, nor would the competing calls from chefs to sous-chefs around the arena. In fact, maybe the only thing that could distract her was-

"Syaoran!" a sharp female voice called out. Meiling-chan.

Sakura hadn't been thinking of that at all. Actually, she'd been thinking about Tomoyo with her ever-present sketchbook (she could see her friend in the audience now, penciling away) asking her to pose while she did whatever she was doing, but Syaoran's cousin running over had all her attention now. That confused, where'd-the-floor-go feeling she got when she saw them together was right where she'd left it.

"Meiling? What are you doing here? You have to be cooking! You don't have time to-"

"This isn't fair, Syaoran!" the black-haired girl sobbed, burying her face in Syaoran's shoulder. "The secret ingredient! The competition! Any of it!"

Meiling-chan took a break in sobbing to glare at Sakura, as if daring her to interrupt. Sakura was pretty sure no one had any right to interrupt a private conversation between family members (fiancés! she reminded herself)), especially when one of them was distraught like that. The only polite thing to do was to turn her attention somewhere - anywhere - else.

She poked the zucchini with her spatula. Definitely crackery, not bendy. Off they went onto the paper to dry up the oil, in went the next batch to the batter, then the hissing pan. And now, she had to stop herself from listening all over again, because snooping was a professional skill it wasn't nice to use on your friends especially about things that didn't concern you.

As hard as it was not watching Syaoran, it definitely wasn't the right time.

At the station next to hers, Ogata-san (who was always nice to her, even if the mysterious Icchan-san made him dress up in costumes sillier than Tomoyo's) pouted into his mixing bowl. "How could the secret ingredient be breadcrumbs? My intel said almonds!"

She'd always thought it was a better idea to keep track of what the judges liked, the way she and Syaoran did, instead of figuring out the secret ingredient ahead of time. What if the people in charge were spreading misinformation to make the game harder? These were special ninja games, after all. If you didn't find out the ingredient until it was revealed, you couldn't be misinformed! Although after the way Imonoyama-san had dropped in on them that morning, it sounded like he was looking for things to do, not keeping busy with a full-scale misinformation campaign that could fool Ogata-san (who had to be good at being right, or he'd probably never get to spend a day without something weird up his nose).

Imonoyama-san's assistants, on the other hand, looked too busy already to worry about things like switching out almonds for breadcrumbs without getting noticed. Why, right now they were sneaking across the Coliseum wall, tailing a purple-haired young man from Civic to whom she hadn't been properly introduced! Since they already had their hands full, it was a good thing she didn't actually need any help from them. No matter what Imonoyama-san said, she didn't have a reason for her heart to be sad.

While she flipped her batch of zucchini, she stole a glance at Syaoran telling Meiling-chan that there wasn't any shame in going up against professional bakers in the dessert category. She just had to make something she could be proud of. Sakura hoped Syaoran's... fiancée... took that to heart. Between the two of them, Meiling-chan seemed like the one Imonoyama-san should've been trying to cheer up. Meiling-chan was probably a lot of fun when she was happy!

Maybe it was because she was trying not to stare, but past her friends' shoulders - past the Judges' Stand, too, where Princess Cornelia with the pretty purple hair was staring daggers at Eagle-san - outside the Coliseum door, Sakura saw a man stop suddenly. She couldn't help but notice him, really. It was the English man with the glasses - Eriol-san. The one Tomoyo had invited to dinner with them, so she and Syaoran had put off walking in gardens to another night. It looked like he was looking at her, too, so she waved. Then he waved, and smiled his quiet, smooth smile, then walked off to wherever he was going. She wasn't quite sure what to think of him. He was nice enough, she supposed?

"Okay, Meiling?"

"Okay! I can do it! Just see if I don't!" Spinning out of a fistpump, the girl zipped in front of Sakura. Meiling-chan leaned so far over the counter, Sakura wasn't sure how her feet were still on the ground. "And I won't lose to you, either!"

"I look forward to facing you in the competition! Let's both cook our best!"

Meiling-chan rolled her eyes with a growl. "You're hopeless."

Sakura blinked. The girl seemed to want something, but she wasn't sure what.

"Nevermind. See you later, Syaoran!"

"Don't run out of time, Meiling!"

"Will she be okay?" Sakura whispered to her ninja once the other ninja had found her station again.

"She'll be fine. Wei's helping her, too, so he'll keep her on schedule."

"Wei?"

"Wei... He was our..." She stared into his eyes, and he stared into hers, and the words seemed to fall off Syaoran's tongue - not that she could blame him, since she wasn't sure how to move her mouth either right now. But like always, Syaoran shook his head and started again. "Back home... I mean, at our family's home..." When their hands touched on the counter, his voice choked up, and Sakura suddenly realized how close they were standing. Somehow, her face felt hotter than when she'd been facing the stove.

The stove that was sizzling like an angry snake. And she was pretty sure the beeping going off was the oven saying it was done preheating.

"My zucchini!" she yelled, dipping her spatula into the skillet to rescue her veggies.

"My batter!" Syaoran yelled at the same time. He flailed towards his bowl to finish mixing it before they ran out of time to bake the quiches. Sticking crinkle-cut molds around the finished zucchini crisps, he poured just a bit of eggy mix in each and set them on the baking sheet.

When their eyes weren't locked, it was easier to breathe, and manage the pan, and maybe think of something to say. She was still kind of swimmy, though.

"So I was thinking-" they both started at once, and then both stopped.

"You first," Sakura offered.

Turning all red again, Syaoran said, "So I was thinking, maybe we..."

She kind of hoped he'd ask her to go out walking tonight. It was what she'd wanted to know, but then again asking after they were done might be a better idea. Thinking about gardens and moons and that sort of thing wasn't good for being vigilant over her zucchini.

Instead of asking that, Syaoran opened and closed his mouth a few times, then finished, "...Maybe we should put apple twists on top of the quiches?"

"I love apples! And I bet it'll taste good to have something light on top."

"I agree." Then he didn't say another word until after he'd put the miniature quiches in the oven and set the timer. "And... I'm glad I can be here with you, S-... Princess."

"Me too." Sakura couldn't help smiling at him.

But she did guess maybe there was one thing she was kind of sad about. Not anything that Imonoyama-san could help with, though.

~/~

Umi-chan scoffed on Hikaru's right. "Something is seriously wrong. The judge for the finals is a Malvek guy! Malvek people don't do late."

On her left, Lantis made his 'mildly concerned' scowl (which was three degrees more straight-lipped than his 'unconcerned' scowl, but not as hard as his 'big problem' scowl). The air in the opera house was all a-buzz with ninja silently using coded signals to ask their compatriots on stage whether there was any news about the missing contest judge. At least, that's what Hikaru assumed was happening. It was possible they weren't worried about the missing judge at all and were using the lull to arrange plans for dinner - she couldn't read what most of what the other people were saying because it was bad form to use friendly events like the Kragero Games to break other countries' codes.

Hikaru waved her, "Go for it, Fuu-chan!" pennant wildly overhead until she got Fuu-chan's attention, then did the chin pop for "Any news yet?"

Fuu-chan already knew everyone else's codes, so she didn't have to take the impolite step of breaking them! But her friend blinked, "No," so everyone else must've been just as much in the dark as they were.

Umi-chan was right. Something had to be super wrong if not even the Malvek people knew where their guy was. Hopefully he was all right, wherever he'd gotten off to, and he wouldn't stay disappeared for months like Alcyone had. Hikaru scanned the row of competitors to see who might be aware of a plot, starting with Clef-san from Kia. Not that he'd be plotting. Her old magic teacher was plenty sneaky, but not in the plotting way. Clef-san did a thing with his eyebrows when he was thinking about where Alcyone might be, though, and since he wasn't doing it, no one must've seen the towering black clouds that-

Well, Hikaru was pretty sure she'd feel it if those 'clouds' had shown up, and if Kamui-san was here, he'd probably be raising mile high rock spikes out of the earth while he shouted at that specter to leave before he stabbed it or something - so that was a relief. Probably no one had disappeared for mysterious, otherworldly reasons.

That left normal human reasons. On the top row of contestants, two chairs were empty. Lady Yuuko's friend Eriol-san wasn't here yet, which was nothing new since he was in all the events. He never showed up before the last minute. Imonoyama-san wasn't in his chair either, of course, because he was by the side of the stage talking to his right- and left-hand men, whispering about who they could get on short notice to judge who wasn't biased. The rest of the row was pretending to look bored while listening in on Imonoyama-san's conversation.

In fact, the only person not doing that was Yudaiji-san from Civic on the bottom row, and he was still looking at Imonoyama-san; he was just doing it with a look on his face like someone had put a tack in his shoe instead of looking bored. And Chitose-san was checking her pocketwatch, of course, so she was more impatient than anything. Not surprising, since she was supposed to judge the cooking contest soon with Eagle and Princess Cornelia (who hopefully weren't trying to kill each other yet, Civic being Autozam's enemy and all, and Princess Cornelia liking to hold grudges).

After a quick nod to Umi-chan and Fuu-chan to get them on the same page, Hikaru looked for something she could use to get everyone's attention at once. Anyone who was searching for answers - which was everyone except the culprit - would need a split second to be sure her distraction wasn't relevant. Anybody who already knew what was going on would be more interested in the event staff's decision. Finally, Hikaru settled on the dark-haired, suede-clad girl from Nihon on the top row of competitors, next to where Imonoyama-san would've been sitting. Fubuki-chan never went anywhere without her black wolf, and with Kragero's chairman not there Hikaru could make eye contact with the red-eyed fella lying at his mistress's feet. She smiled, and his ears perked up. When she waved, he barked and put his paws on the table. What a cute boy! He was even smiling, like Hikari did back at her parents' house!

"Shh, Inuki! Stay down, now" Fubuki-chan quieted her wolf, apologizing to the other competitors around her. "He's usually so good in public..." And as soon as Inuki was back on the floor, she arched an eyebrow at Hikaru as if to ask, "Did you have to do that?"

Hikaru shrugged with a smile and mouthed, "Sorry!". It'd worked, though. Umi-chan was tapping out their code on the arm of her chair. Apparently, everyone had looked at the barking wolf, and everyone had started signalling their people to ask if there was new information. None of the competitors had any idea what was going on, which meant that if someone was doing this to cheat, it had to be Eriol-san.

And speak of the devil. Everyone must've come to the same conclusion, because when Eriol-san appeared at the back of the stage with his glasses gleaming the same way Fuu-chan's did when she pretended she didn't know something, the audience went both silent and still. Chitose-san used the disturbance to signal her people with two fingers to her chin, probably thinking everyone was distracted. A platinum blonde lady with an orange Ceres armband scrunching her white fur coat walked out of the wings to take Chitose-san's seat.

Well, that was nothing then. That was Humpty-Dumpty-san, from the trivia contest semi-finals. She'd be a simple replacement to keep Ceres in the final since Chitose had to leave.

"That jerk Eriol says he's got a substitute," Umi whispered, relaying the conversation between Eriol-san and Imonoyama-san that Hikaru hadn't been paying attention to. "Apparently, he ran into the Royal Crier from Malvek having a stomach ache behind the meatball stand and got him to the medical tent, then picked up a random guy to nominate as judge since pretty much all of Kragero is disqualified because Nokoru-sama's in it, obviously."

"Announcer-san has a stomach ache?! Oh no!"

"Or Eriol poisoned him. I won't take that bet. Anyway if he's not dead yet he'll be fine."

And there was Eriol-san winking at Lady Yuuko while she rolled her eyes. Even if he had poisoned Announcer-san, though, if he'd gotten away clean nobody could disqualify him for it. At least if it was Eriol-san, it'd just be a friendly little poisoning that'd last for an hour or so, nothing more. Any ninja here could take that.

She was less sure why the second finalist from Kia, a thirty-something guy named Terada-san, was looking at the substitute judge with totally undisguised terror. Hikaru couldn't sense any abnormal levels of murderous intensity from the smiling boy on stage (which was odd, because most of the time people who smiled with their eyes closed like that were just chock full of deadliness, like Eagle, but this kid felt benign). Then, as Takamura-san brought the kid forward on the stage, Terada-san's terror turned to a pained sigh.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and honored peers, we have a nominee to replace the judge for our final round: Yamazaki Takashi of Kia. If anyone can present a reason why this person might be biased, please do so now." Takamura-san's eyes said it had better be a good reason, too, because he wanted to get this event started without any more delays.

Half of Kia's spectators looked like they weren't sure if they should laugh or cry, but no one raised their hands. No one from any other country raised their hands, either. After all, even if Eriol-san had to be plotting something (because that's what Eriol-san did) , this kid probably wasn't biased.

"Very well." Takamura-san handed over the sealed packet of trivia contest questions. "Yamazaki-san, we'll be counting on you."

"Roger!" As the competitors took their seats, he gave the audience a big smile. "So this is the trivia contest, right? Did you know the first trivia contests took place in the ancient country of Tanis? Whenever the shadows of three pyramids touched, the first person to see it had to yell out, 'Tri-vium!', which meant, 'I see the three!', and everyone who was present had to stop to answer three questions, one for each pyramid. If anybody got one wrong, the sphinx who lived in the pyramid would-"

"He's lying, right?" Hikaru whispered to Umi-chan.

"Well, I don't know much about trivia contests, but I think I'd know if sphinxes lived in pyramids. Which I don't think they ever did, because the hallways are way too small."

"Maybe baby sphinxes?"

She grinned at Umi-chan's Eye Roll of Doom, right through Umi-chan's patented Super Death Squeeze Hug, and Umi-chan groaning, "Oh, what am I going to do with you!", and by then a girl from Kia with braided pigtails (she really had to meet more people from Kia! She didn't know names for anybody who wasn't from the capital city of Cephiro) had poofed onto the stage to throttle Yamazaki-san until he stopped talking about sphinxes.

"Okay, okay," the girl told him. "Now time for the questions."

Laughing like a murder of crows, Yamazaki-san unsealed the secret envelope, cracking the wax imprint made by the head of the Ookawa clan last night before it'd gone in the safe. As soon as he took the cards out of the packet, he frowned at them, then smiled. Behind him, the girl's eyes went wide. She ran to Takamura-san as Yamazaki-san spoke again. "Because of this animal's bravery and deadly cunning in the face of danger, it has become the symbol for more noble clans - pirate and ninja alike - than any other animal!"

A whisper ran through the audience. Takamura-san zipped onto the stage. Every competitor looked on edge, because there was no way that could've been the question. No one on the staff would ever write a question Imonoyama-san would refuse to answer, and Imonoyama-san wouldn't buzz in for that in a million years! He wouldn't think it was "couth" to answer when the mascot animal in question was one his own family used. Not that anybody could ring their answer bell anyway, since Yamazaki-san was still talking.

"-particularly the way this animal would fly into the air using gasses trapped inside its cheek pouches, which caused an unprecedented number of reports that the countryside had been invaded by will-o-the-wisps when in fact people were only seeing the fish's skin. In the darkness, it took on an eerie blue glow easily mistaken for foxfire. Massive hunting parties formed, with every hunter armed with soy sauce-"

Umi-chan just about choked on her disbelief. Takamura-san looked like he wanted to do worse when he pulled the cards out of Yamazaki's hand, and all the boy from Kia did was add gestures to his explanation of how hunters had to do the "Fugu Hop" to catch up to the flying "mystery fish" without being seen. But the rules wouldn't let him interfere with how the judge chose to do his job, since he'd been voted in fairly. That counted as something Eriol had gotten away with. The other finalists had to counter on their own.

"Mihara-san, if you don't mind?" Takamura-san asked the girl from Kia. With a nod, she covered Yamazaki-san's mouth so all his words were reduced to a mumble, even though he kept right on Fugu Hopping.

Takamura-san announced, "For the final round, we are introducing a special rule. As soon as you know the answer, you are allowed to signal by ringing your bell and give your response. Your fellow finalists will decide whether or not your answer stands. The judge will then award points. Thank you."

Brilliant! Now the finalists could counter, if they could interrupt! Takamura-san was the best at loopholes, except for maybe Fuu-chan. When the two of them planned missions together, ne'er-do-wells didn't stand a chance (which was why Imonoyama-san, Takamura-san, and Akira-kun were the people she, Umi-chan, and Fuu-chan teamed up with most for big diplomatic missions, and that was always fun). The blue-haired Kragero ninja still didn't look happy as he left the stage, but he never did look happy except when he was spending off the clock time with his boyfriend. That was Takamura Suoh for you.

As Mihara-chan let Yamazaki-san go, fourteen of the sixteen finalists slammed down their hands, fourteen bells ringing out in chorus, and all of them yelled out "Pufferfish!" with one voice. Only Imonoyama-san sighing into his hand, and Eriol-san who had a Cheshire cat grin as usual, didn't bother answering.

Yamazaki-san declared with a sunny smile, "Ten points for everyone!"

Over by the exit door, Takamura-san looked like he was trying to hammer nails into the wall with his forehead. No one else seemed worried, Takamura-san being Takamura-san and the trivia contest being basically functional now (and one hell of a fun show), but Hikaru had a sense in the pit of her stomach that something was actually wrong. She pointed Umi-chan's attention toward the blue-haired superninja, and they shadow-stepped over to his side while the next question rang out.

"This sauce, a staple of Karasuk cuisine and still popular in Fahren today, is said to have been invented by the Heavenly Twins upon the discovery that onions are edible! Their pet dog, Pochi-Chinchilla, dug up-"

"Chirizu!" thundered the dark-haired Tachibana-san from Fahren (the kind Umi-chan called an NYM, for Nice Young Man, usually while saying why she wouldn't go out with him), which seemed good enough for everyone on stage. Takamura-san, of course, looked like the boisterousness of it all was going to make him sick. He pulled together when he knew someone was watching, though, because nothing ever bothered Takamura-san so much he couldn't get ahold of himself.

"Are you okay?" Hikaru asked anyway.

"I'm fine. It's order and logic I'm worried about."

On-stage, Fuu-chan rang in to say, "Ceres was named in honor of Valeria's dragon god, said to live in the caverns beneath the lost island's roots."

Umi-chan gave Takamura-san a quick once over. "You can't just be mad about a compulsive liar judging the contest. I mean, geez, you can tell everybody's having fun, right?"

"You're correct, Ryuuzaki-san. I doubt that just having a compulsive liar judging the final round of the trivia contest would matter to anyone. Nor do Hiiragizawa-san's pranks concern me in the slightest. It becomes a problem when the questions carefully curated by our expert staff, sealed with wax to show any tampering and locked in a secure vault overnight, show up at the event entirely blank." The card he showed them was, just as he'd said, pure mint green with no text whatsoever. "I take breaches of security, however simple or perfunctory the particular defense, very seriously. Between this, the egg issue of which you are no doubt aware, and the..." Fluffy white feathers falling in front of their noses stopped Takamura-san mid-sentence. "And then there's that."

Hikaru leapt to catch one of the feathers falling out of some nowhere between the ceiling and the audience's head, holding back a giggle as she saw Kragero agents crawling the ceiling, looking for a portal or a storage cache, she presumed. As if anybody could find where these feathers were coming from!

"You don't need to worry about that! The feathers are just Kamui-san!"

Takamura-san batted his big, amber eyes in a way he'd clearly picked up from Imonoyama-san. "...'Kamui-san'? Who...?"

"She means Death Shirou," Umi-chan filled in with a shake of her head.

"Death-!" He pressed fingers to both his temples in his usual headache gesture and hissed, "Are you telling me Death Shirou is on this campus, and has been since the beginning of the Festival? Death Shirou, the rear admiral of the Takifugu pirate fleet?! The same Death Shirou who jumped from the mast of the Dragon of Heaven to the deck of one of our airships this past April and destroyed the engine block with the power of his mind?!"

Hikaru caught another feather out of the air to add to the bouquet growing in her hand. "Didn't you know?"

For a moment the only sound was Yamazaki-san asking the competitors, "This modern artist rose to fame in Xinan for her renditions of smiling koalas stamped in bronze, thanks to the trail of Spanish conpeito candies discovered by two detectives-"

Imonoyama-san answered, "Sei Leeza!", then waved at Takamura-san with the brightest of smiles while his ten points went up on the board. The blue-haired man's sigh could have moved mountains (as usual).

"I believe the Chairman and I need to have a discussion about which 'special guests' are and are not suitable to register without informing his Security Department."

Gosh. Apparently he hadn't known.

~\\~

Kamui swam to the surface of the thrashing water long enough to take another breath, then launched himself and his mallet back at the fucking mechanical fish heads popping out of ninja nowhere space to smack them before they could add any more water to this hellhole vat of icy brine. The fact that his captor and tormentor Icchan had installed air pumps in the ceiling to suck up all of the feathers as they puffed into existence was just the insult on top of the shit cake. If this jerk was going to make him play evil whack-a-mole, flicker-stepping underwater to hit targets he had to see with ninja vision and then bat into ninja space, any fair universe would force that same jerk to clean up those piles of feathers with a broom like everyone else! But no. This universe remained utterly unfair.

In three flickers so fast it felt like being in three places at once, he bopped enough water-spouting lacquered carp faces that the water level fell beneath his chin. No more pausing for breaths now. And even though the water was harder to zip through than air, he had enough rage to power every step - even if he had to be in ten places at once.

He flicker-stepped mid-swing to hit seven fish heads with one blow, each one letting out a bubble of air as he thwacked it back into the nothingness it'd come from, and he didn't blink when a second mallet appeared above his off-hand with a "Ding!" He just grabbed it so he could start striking with the rat-a-tat speed of a drummer beating out a fast march. His body felt lighter, as if all he had to do was imagine it, and he'd be where he was going.

Then the fish stopped, right in the middle of his cadence like fucking Icchan had no sense of musical resolution at all. The water had drained past the floor, Kamui realized once he brought his mind back to the real world. He hadn't noticed, what with how soaked he personally was (and starting to feel the chill). But that couldn't be the end, could it?

Sure enough, one of the walls lit up with a Dodo dancing under the words, "Level Clear! Let's have a caucus-race!"

"I'll caucus your race!" Kamui growled. Oh, how he hated Icchan. Hate, hate, hate.

The wall lowered onto a tube-shaped track. Kamui could already see more whack-a-mole faces, this time a mix of mechanical rodents and birds and reptiles, and whatever the hell turtles were, all of them ready to peek out of nowhere space at any time.

He hadn't been planning to play along with Icchan's next "level", but the first rat face to pop out had the gall to spit water at his already soaking chest. With a scream, Kamui pushed off the slippery ground, mallets flying as he flashed around the circular track like up, down, and sideways had lost all meaning. He was going to hit those damn machines. He was going to hit them so hard, the tools that built them were going to break!

It helped to imagine every damn whack-a-whatever head as Icchan's smarmy face, spectacles shining with evil glee. Before long, Kamui could hear the twinkling ring of shattering glass behind him and see the fracturing cracks spreading in front of him through the circular track. In one last bound, he crashed feet-first onto a cabal of cork canaries and thwacked both mallets down. The whole structure shattered, raining around him with an ear-piercing shriek like the crystalline tears of a coral quay banshee. It didn't even bother him that some of the glass scratched his face and hands. He'd had worse.

"Is that all you got?!" he yelled at Icchan's control room, not for the first time and probably not for the last.

A porcelain mole face popped up with a, "Tee hee!" in reach for Kamui to smack to kingdom come, then a picture of a girl in an apron appeared with the words, "Congratulations! Top score!" as his name blinked to the top of an empty list. Talk about adding insult to injury. Although when he reached for the gauze he'd tucked away to wrap the scratches from the glass, he was pleasantly surprised (for once) to see he'd run enough to get dry.

Up in his box seats, Icchan opened a window and yelled, "That's it for now! You've got a three hour window while we set up the next one."

"I still need to sleep, you asshole!" Kamui shouted back, but as he expected, nobody was listening.

As he walked out the portal to the outside, the sky loomed dark above. Kamui wondered if there was even a way to know how long he'd been in that lab. One day? Two days? More, somehow not dying of starvation and thirst because of some ninja time warp magic? Life made so much more sense regulated by the rise of the sun, the flow of the tides, and the ringing of eight bells. He took a long deep breath of the night air, cool and crisp despite the scent of roasted meat and fried dough tickling his nose. And God, he could smell water. Not the awful, freezing salt water Icchan had thrown at him: fresh water, wet and sweet, like it'd been raining. Salt water was great for sailing, and he loved smelling it in the air over its proper oceans, but you couldn't drink it, and barrelled water could taste so stale, even mixed into grog. Nothing tasted better than rainwater. If he was lucky, maybe there were buckets out to catch it.

But before he could think of finding one, he caught a flicker of someone moving out of the corner of his eye. Backing into a hidden crevice, he tried to spy what it was. A purple-haired man was scaling a roof on the other side of the street in a far more suspicious manner than most people taking to the roofs in this town - like he was trying to hide, although he was doing a terrible job if Kamui had to judge from the Kragero ninja on his tail three streets down...

Kamui froze, making a conscious effort to pull his eyes back to normal vision. Both the man hiding and the patrols after him vanished from his sight, and he definitely couldn't see clearly three whole streets away. With a scowl, he checked the crevice he'd picked as his hiding spot, too: less than an inch wide, if he had to guess. Whatever Icchan was doing to him, it'd made him strong enough to do ninja tricks without even realizing he'd done them.

"Fuck him," he growled, "And fuck this whole messed up gig."

Let the feathers fall, the way they were doing now, again, too annoying to stop! Why should he stop them? It might be better if someone noticed he was here and tried to drive him out of town. Whoever'd planned this couldn't keep him secret if that happened. He'd like to see them keep him here when every ninja in Kragero knew Death Shirou was...

Probably better not to get noticed first by Hibiya Chitose, or Asou and Kizu, or any of the other ninja who had a particular reason to want him dead and the personality to try and pull it off. He jumped onto the closest roof to look around the whole damned city, pushing his eyes as far as they would go. He could see official patrols at every edge of the city, with Hikaru and her friends at the front of them.

Damn it.

The thought of Hikaru pouting with her big doe eyes if he left without talking to her made him want to say hello, but he couldn't exactly do that, now could he? She'd find some way to make him stay. It wasn't the stupidest thing she'd talked him into, which was saying something since he'd only known her about two weeks and a Pirate Lord holing up at a ninja festival was pretty damn stupid. No, he'd need to get caught by someone who wanted him gone, which ruled out Hikaru and everyone with her. Probably Doumeki's ninja, too.

His eyes fell on another figure racing over the rooftops. Syaoran, with Princess Sakura keeping pace beside him. Finally! Syaoran would want to run him out of town, no question. Might even want to kill him for that kidnapping thing, if Kamui was being honest, but if it came to that he could hold out long enough for Kurogane to show up. If Kurogane had overlooked him on the first day, he had to be gone enough on Fai to talk a town full of the ninja elite out of trying to put Death Shirou's head on a pike.

Without another thought, Kamui sprinted toward the bonfire where Syaoran and the Princess had joined the crowds. But he let out a hiss when he saw where they were: sitting next to Kurogane and Princess Tomoyo. If Kurogane had the clout to keep him from getting massacred, the ninjas' Dreaming Princess had the power to tell everyone he was her guest, which he might well be. Her people had the same red armbands as Icchan's staff. She looked like the sly type who wouldn't hesitate to bring him here, too, or to hold a knife to his back while she smiled and told everyone they were friends.

But when the feathers drifting down caught everyone's attention, it wasn't the princess who spotted him. It was Empress Kendappa who turned to look him in the eye, implying, "You'd best not make a scene, or I'll make you regret being born," without batting a lash. There was a familiar lack of any threatening air in the way she did it, too. He couldn't place where he knew it from, but she looked like she couldn't be bothered to bend the regal angles of her face into a mask of caring - only that she knew how it would end if he forced her hand - and he felt his hatred turn to dust. The Kamui who'd left Icchan's lab pissed over a little dunk in the drink seemed small. He wanted to be better than that in front of that gaze.

At least he knew who'd brought him here. For that, he stilled his heart enough to halt the fall of white feathers from the sky and blended into the clumps of people around the fire. At the edge of the throng, a man was peddling kebabs with roasted chicken and vegetables that looked like the best thing he'd seen all day. Kamui tossed him a mediumish silver coin, saying, "Whatever that'll get me."

"You bet."

The vendor produced a plate with at least twenty kebabs. That suited Kamui just fine. He meant to eat every damn one of them.

"You know where I can find fresh water?"

A full bucket that smelled perfect came out of the vendor's stash. "Water's free."

"My lucky day," Kamui muttered, and downed the bucket in one prolonged gulp. When he looked up, the man was holding out a second one. "Thanks."

"No sweat."

Probably not what your typical ninja'd say if he knew who he was talking to. For a good meal, Kamui would deal with not defending his reputation. Now to find somewhere as far from people as possible to eat that meal, which would clearly not be around a bonfire where judges were hustling a girl with long pigtails hanging from two buns onto a stage.

"Opening our Ghost Story competition tonight: Li Meiling of Xinan, with 'Cinderella'!"

On the other hand, he had always like ghost stories, and "Cinderella" was one of his favorites. He felt a deep kinship with the girl who couldn't seem to catch a break. If he settled in a dark corner where no one would look at him, he'd be safe enough - and damned if he didn't deserve a rest. Besides, the kebabs would get cold if he went anywhere, right?

"- beaten and bruised by the other children, left for dead at last, Cinderella ran to the forest to cry under her favorite tree. 'Please!' she begged, not knowing if anyone could hear, 'Please, won't someone come to save me?' Though she'd never heard an answer before, that night the figure of a woman appeared. She smiled like the savior Cinderella had always dreamed of. Reaching out, the woman said, 'It's my special gift to know the pain in others' hearts, and I have felt yours call out to me. Come with me to my castle each night. I will give you what you need.' Cinderella felt the woman must have been her fairy godmother..."

Sitting alone on a rock, eating delicious food, listening to stories around a fire, he felt like he could be home. He wanted Fuuma so badly, his fists clenched tight enough to leave prints in his palms, but he beat the feeling down. For now, he'd lose himself in Cinderella suffering under her vow to be silent and walk on glass, breaking her word with a scream as she hurled herself at her tormentors, a shard of her own glass shoe trapping her in delirium - until the prince who seemed too kind to be real cleaned her wound, stripped the spirits' control and sent her to heal... If only princes like that could be real. This world had no one like that, Kamui'd learned over and over, but today the prince's smile hovered in his mind like something precious that was just out of reach.

He was tired, damn it. Now that he'd stopped to rest, he could feel the weight of hours in his bones. No wonder his mind was playing with him.

As he turned from the stage, he saw yet another person looking at him instead of the show. The woman, Magami Tokiko, the one who looked like his mother, was staring across the bonfire. Kamui dared her with his eyes to come closer, to tell him why she acted as if she knew more about him than he knew about himself.

She stood, and smiled. Like she knew he'd never have the heart to ask his mother whether she'd been born to ninja, and if he wanted to know, he'd have to come to her.

"Cinderella heard the knock on the door that was nothing like the doctor's, and noticed that the sound of the barking dogs, the wind, and even the crickets had faded away. All she heard was her prince's voice on the other side of the door, calling her name... asking to come in. But how could she forget the inhuman corpse of her fairy godmother, or the memory of her prince's footprints within the toadstool ring that'd seemed to be a castle? Had he killed the woman whom Cinderella once thought might have made her strong? Had he done it to keep her from falling further into thrall, or because he, too, was a hungry spirit out to consume her?

"Drawing a tight breath, Cinderella looked to the door and knew... this choice could be the first and last of her life."

The whole crowd took to their feet clapping, cutting the line of sight between Kamui and the woman, and breaking his reverie along with it. Damn all that anyway. That woman was as likely to be Fai playing with him by sending a pirate to infiltrate the festival as she was to be any kind of meaningful thing. For now, he remembered seeing blankets and bags of feathers in the clocktower. Maybe he could sneak a few hours of sleep before the next round of torments started up. He wouldn't want to sleep in a bed Icchan had offered him anyway.