Author's Note: No reviews? Aw… Anyways, this chapter has action! Hope I did it okay. Eh, hopefully people don't take to hating Leor; she's got a lot of anger in 'er. And I think this story is now officially T rated.

Chapter warnings: Swearing, mentions of child neglect.

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1,2,3,4

As Kyuubi approached his destination, the ground began to shake again. The flowers shivered as the trees swayed and creaked alarmingly. With every new thing that came in to view, the effects of the quakes became more and more apparent. First it was just some downed limbs; large branches, yes, but nothing a strong storm couldn't have done. Then he came upon entire trees toppled over with their roots ripped out of the ground and exposed; naked in death. When he was almost upon the end of his journey, the earth trembled pitifully, mere aftershocks of the massive waves that had torn apart the ground, greatly earthy cracks littering what was once uninterrupted field. Entire coppices had been destroyed, hundreds years of growth likely felled within minutes. The great trees lay scatters yards from where they had once stood, thrown by the undulating earth. The ground rippled unnaturally, bending and warping the terrain as the waves tossed and rolled the downed trees.

A straight course was no longer possible, Kyuubi realized, as he entered the war zone. Wave after wave of sonic vibrations shook the ground, following each other with little time to catch one's balance between them. As Kyuubi stumbled to the left as he attempted to walk in a straight line, he was thrown off balance and crashed in to an uprooted tree. Flinching as he fell roughly against solid timber, Kyuubi scrambled to get purchase on the bark as another wave hit, the ground cresting underneath his feet. His eyes widened as the tree he was holding on to rose with the ground, riding the wave backwards. Kyuubi quickly scrambled on top of the tree, biting his lip as he deliberated for half a second before realizing he really had no choice, and jumped off the impromptu raw-material surfboard.

He hit the ground on his side, rolling to prevent as much injury as possible. When he looked back, the tree was now three feet away from him and he had gained a total of about a foot from where he had first started. Perhaps some enthusiast, dare devil, or masochist would find this enjoyable, but Kyuubi, at least according to Leor, did not have a sense of fun. And he was in something of a hurry, so moving one foot every two and a half minutes wasn't really going to cut it. Not that he had much choice; he stood up and was promptly hit in the chest by a dislocated branch. He fell unto his back and was moved, as though a piece on a conveyor belt, back two and a half feet by another seismic wave.

He glared up at the sky, felling slightly tempted to just give up and turn around. So far he had managed to lose a foot and half and had gained – he looked down at the weight in his arms – a medium sized branch. As he clambered to his feet, he grimly reflected that this was like some sort of dangerous contact sports game. Possibly dubbed "Can You Survive An Earthquake?" It was worse than full contact rugby or "Who Wants to be an Immigrant?!"

Glaring out at the world, Kyuubi threw the tree branch off of him and charged forward. He continued his surge for a little over thirty seconds before another wave hit the earth and rose up before him. This was only a small wave, perhaps a little under a foot in height. With an athleticism he had yet to show, Kyuubi jumped the moving ridge and kept barreling forward. Four feet from him a felled tree laying parallel to the way he wanted to go: This was his goal. Another wave formed, this one a real danger. Keeping the speeding mound of earth in sharp focus, Kyuubi swerved to the right, avoiding the bulk of the wave but stumbling over part of the low edge. He tumbled forward, working the fall in to a roll. He didn't end up on his feet and running, but the crouch that he had ended in wasn't the end of his run. As seismic waves speed towards him unseen through the earth, Kyuubi pushed out of his position, running hard for the tree still two and a half feet away. Jumping over another low crest, he leapt upon the tree, panting hard as he waited. Eventually the opportunity he was waiting for would present itself, but in the meantime he needed to catch his breath. Just because he had been able to get this far didn't mean that he routinely did such exercise and was in top physical condition. In fact, both of those statements were false - Kyuubi was actually quite happy to think of himself as a paper pusher.

Rather sooner than Kyuubi would have liked, his plan was set in motion. The aftershocks had worn down but another full-fledged quake had hit. His antennae perked, picking up on the sound waves as they approached, bearing with them roiling waves of earth. He braced himself against one end of the fallen tree he had grabbed on to earlier. His muscles tensed as his sharp fingers dug in to the tree's bark. As the first of the waves hit, Kyuubi shoved the tree upwards with an impressive, if very little seen, show of power. As the downed wood was lifted in to the air, Kyuubi hauled himself on to it. He stood shakily on top of it, wobbling quite a bit as he fought to not lose his balance and consequently fall off. As the wave of dirt and grass he was on top of crested, Kyuubi pushed his weight forward, tipping the log over the point of the mound. The tree went hurtling downward, Kyuubi on top of it. Unfortunately, he didn't really have as much control over the tree as he thought he would. That and the fact that, due to it's rounded design, the tree was starting to roll over.

Teeth digging hard in to his tongue, Kyuubi managed to shuffle further up the tree's trunk until he was able to grab hold of thick, sturdy branch. Hoping he wasn't about to kill himself, Kyuubi steeled himself and wrenched the branch to the right. The branch held and the tree slid a bit more to the right, hitting a large rock and being pushed further to the right, carving sloppily around a large wave and skipping over a smaller one.

Kyuubi tensed, fingers and toes digging hard in to the tree before he leapt off as the tree began to loose momentum. His running was no longer neat and efficient, but rather like he had discovered that some part of his back was on fire. His arms wind milled as he attempted to keep his balance, body tilting forwards and backwards as he stumbled an assortment of ways.

Eyes wide open, chest heaving, and mouth agape as his tongue lolled out, Kyuubi was too winded to bother with his dignity. He had gotten through the quake zone alive. Now all that was left was to do the job assigned from him, return to Hell, and oust whoever had the gall to take his chair.

Regaining his breath and his posture, Kyuubi strode forward with confidence. That had to have been the hardest part and here he was, alive and in piece. It was therefore logical that the worst that could happen now was that he would die traversing the earthquake ridden area again on his way back to the staircase.

He was almost tempted to hum and inject a bit of a jaunty swagger I to his step, but he didn't. After all, he was quite convinced that karma hated him and therefore tried his best to be largely neutral in his actions. He would have tried to generate good energy, but didn't because of how unappreciated he knew his efforts would be; a stigma that came with being a demon.

Besides, he was were he wanted to be anyway. Before him lay the epicenter of the quakes in all its destructive glory. He was a small creature that looked almost exactly like a miniature version of Kyuubi. This male, however, had bright blue eyes and soft rolls of newborn fat. He lay on the ground, dirt clinging to his chubby body, as his pudgy hands were fists clutching at the grass. The cleanest part of the smeet was probably his face, though that had dirt smeared on it as well, where copious tears had worked their way through the grim and formed streaks of mostly clean, if damp, flesh.

This was his mission: make the smeet stop crying. And he hadn't the slightest clue how to do it. The smeet had momentarily quieted upon seeing him, but, when he simply stood there doing nothing, proceeded to begin sniffling, fresh tears beginning to well in his eyes.

"Eh, eh, um… Don't cry…?" The tears overflowed, the smeet's lower lip trembling as he continued to whimper. Why had he been sent on this mission again? Damn it, Diablo had more experience in this matter than he did. The demon lord had a daughter for crying out loud. And why wasn't Diablo than here in his place? Oh, that was right, because he was busy playing with a bunch of freaking puppets.

Maybe he should have brought one of those, he thought, as the smeet's whimper increased to a piercing whine. Kyuubi's eyes glanced back and force rapidly, widening in panic as the smeet scrunched down on himself and began to wail. "Wait, wait, no don't do that!" The smeet kept on screeching. "That's not healthy! That how you get sick! Meh, eh… Mmm…" He was coming up with blanks as to what to do. Asides from completely humiliating himself by attempting to dance, he had no ideas. Crud. Eyes lidded and face nearly the definition of defeat, Kyuubi attempted to entertain the smeet through dance.

At the very least the smeet stopped crying. On the other hand, he was looking at the older male like he'd never seen anything like him before. Kyuubi growled faintly, feeling distinctly like he was on display. The smeet burbled at him, possibly in amusement.

"Hey, shut up," Kyuubi snapped. "It's interpretive dance."

"Hee, I'm interpretin' a lot of anger, Kyuubi." Kyuubi swore, although he wasn't exactly sure what he said, as his dancing came to an abrupt halt. Apparently Leor had returned from wherever she had gone. "Oh, don't mind me, I won't tell."

"Tell what?" Kyuubi asked, attempting to deny his actions by pretending to be ignorant.

"Oh, you know, that can't dance worth crap."

"Gee, thanks," he muttered, although he wasn't really bothered by her bluntness.

"Your welcome!" came the chipper reply as Leor walked in to his field of vision, dragging… something behind her.

"What's that?" he asked her, gesturing to the thing she had brought with her. The flat look he got in return wasn't encouraging.

"Kyuubi, you're a moron and I hope you never father children."

"So do I," was the prompt response, skipping entirely over the first insult.

"Good," Leor grumbled. "This," she said as she jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, "it food. For him," she added for clarification as she gestured to the smeet on the ground. Kyuubi stared at the container.

"It doesn't look very appetizing…"

"I have a mind to slap you…" Leor growled. Kyuubi's eyes widened as his head whipped back to stare at her.

"What? Why?"

"Because that came out of my damn body, bastard!" Kyuubi took a few small, hopefully undetected, steps backwards. Leor had a slightly feral look to her and he'd rather not risk losing a limb by provoking her accidentally. That, and the container of fluid that had apparently come from her body was now disturbing him slightly. Apparently his movement weren't subtle enough, for Leor dropped her slightly manic expression for a flat deadpan one. "Kyuubi, you do realize that you know absolutely jack-shit about females, right?"

"Eheh, yeah…" Kyuubi flushed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck in slight embarrassment.

"Good, 'cause I don't want you to walk around thinking that you're sex-smart." Kyuubi's head tilted to the side, eyes wide. "And yes," she said upon seeing his expression, "I meant the multiple meanings." She turned around to grab hold of the over-sized baby bottle with both hands and shoved it at Kyuubi. He caught it with a grunt, holding it out away from his body as he eyed the container warily.

"Why do I have to do it?" he asked, admittedly rather childishly.

"Because," Leor snapped, "I saved a whole damn species from going extinct and I'm not letting anyone suckle from my breast again."

"But-"

"Don't even think about saying it," Leor growled. "I don't give a crap whether that milk's in a bottle or not 'cause I'm not having some little bastard smeet bite me." The potential innuendo completely flew over Kyuubi's head as he stared at Leor. "Now stop lookin' at me like a moron an' feed him. Hell if I know the last time he's had a good meal…"