Hey!

Like, oh em gee. It's chapter 20 of When the Knight met his Squire.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed.

Well i'll cut to the chase.

Disclaimer: ...you and I both know I don't own Fruits Basket or its characters...

When the Knight met his Squire

"Tohru, can you crawl behind these bushes? We need to get away from here." Manabe whispered. Tohru turned slowly to Manabe, bit her lip,and slowly nodded.

And so they started to crawl, being extremely quiet while doing so. They avoided sticks that could crack while trying not to brush against the bushes to make them rustle.

It certainly wasn't easy for the both of them, especially when they would have to stop all movement because people and dragons were running by constantly.

"Manabe, where are we going exactly?" Tohru whispered. They had been crawling around for at least an hour.

Manabe stopped, "I don't know. Just away from the castle. By the way, I think it's safe enough for us to actually stand up."

And though a little hesitant at first, both stood up and started walking deeper into the forest.

Manabe originally planned to get him and Tohru as far away as possible without stopping for any reason. Unfortunatley he knew that Tohru wouldn't be able to travel all night, in fact, she was already dragging herself along while trying to stay awake.

"Tohru...you're falling asleep. We should find somewhere to stay..."

Of course she protested.

"N-no! I'm f-fine! I can ...keep..." She couldn't finish the sentence; she was too tired. Manabe sighed, he was obviously right, but where could they go?

He stopped and looked around (which was hard to do since it was dark out) and ironically saw a cave. The perfect spot!

"Tohru, do you mind if we stay in that cave?"

Tohru was half asleep, "Ysurrresssszzduck..."

Manabe picked Tohru up (bridal style...oh boy) and started walking to the cave. Once in there, they saw other people hiding as well! Manabe put Tohru down and of course she couldn't stop thanking him for doing something so unnecessary. Tohru's was now wide awake and hyper after she profusely thanked Manabe for carrying her. Manabe calmed her down and the two began to listen as people told their stories of what happened.

Some of the people hiding out in the cave were very strange looking; it was almost hard to believe that they were allowed anyone near the Sohma Castle. There was this one old lady with gray hair, huge warts on her nose, and rags for clothes, who was explaining how she sensed danger and had been hiding in the cave since the day before.

There was also an old man who was saying he was in the middle of having a "good time" with some maidens when suddenly he heard screaming. Unfortunately the old man got too in detail with the story,

"Yeah, so when I was running, I crapped myself! I made one of the maidens help change me!"

Manabe wanted to throw up and laugh at the same time.

So Tohru and Manabe talked with many people during there time in hiding, unfortunately some of the stories were very sad. Fathers and mothers being eaten in front of their child, people being taken away from dragons...it was all so terrible.

A group of people were huddled together and talking, Tohru and Manabe included. They were talking about things such as where they were going to live and such. This confused Tohru though; wasn't everyone going to return to the castle when it was safe?

"Excuse me but isn't everyone going back to the castle?"

Every other conversation that was going on stopped once Tohru asked this. Every single person in that cave was looking at her, though she couldn't see everyone's faces (a couple candles were lit) .

The random guy sitting across from her asked, "You mean, you don't know what happend?"

"Umm...no. What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

The random guy began to explain what had happened.

Once word got out that a dragon was in the castle people started running around in chaos. No one knew what to do exactly, especially since for some odd reason almost all of the knights were gone. And what was weirder was that almost all of the Sohmas were gone too. They left a few minutes before the dragon had appeared.

Many people did the first reasonable thing they could think of, talk to their king. I mean, they needed to know what to do! King Sohma would certainly know what to do, right?

As people came to talk to Akito their hopes of advise and help went down the drain.

"You all need to leave at once. If you haven't noticed, all of my family and all of the knights have left. Why? Because they are not going to help you, and neither am I. Now go. Leave this castle and do not come back. Oh, and be careful of the dragons that are outside too..."

It was then that the crashing noise happened and roars were heard through all the castle. People panicked and immediately left Akito's Chambers and ran for their lives.

Everyone looked down in shame. The man continued,

" I don't understand what us people did to Lord Akito to make him so angry with us and not help us...but it's our own fault. So now we must fend for ourselves and find somewhere else to live."

Tohru was shocked; she looked over to Manabe who also had his head down in shame.

"Manabe...did you..." Tohru stopped; she didn't want to finish the question. Did Manabe know this was going to happen?

Manabe didnt respond to the question.

"Say," A woman started to say. "Aren't you one of the King's Advisors? Why didn't you go like the rest of them?" Again Manabe just looked down to the ground.

"I chose to stay..." He replied, and everything grew quiet after that.

As everyone slept that night, Tohru couldn't help but sit and think. She had slept for a little bit, but couldn't stay asleep. So many things had happened so suddenly. And now she was sitting in a dark, cold, and damp cave with all these poor people who had nowhere to go! And Kyo, where was he now? Did he end up leaving to be with the rest of his family?

"He wouldn't do that...Kyo would never leave me..." Tohru said aloud, believing she was the only one up. But Manabe was up as well, "Tohru, you're up?"

"Yeah, I just can't sleep as much as I'd like to."

"Yeah, me neither."

Tohru thought this could be a good chance to talk about things.

"Manabe...did you know?"

It grew silent again until Manabe finally spoke up.

"Tohru...I'm sorry but there really was nothing I" Manabe was interrupted by the sound of stomping outside of the cave. Everyone woke up and became frightened; there was only one thing that could stomp that loud after all.

"How did one find us?!" A person asked.

"Where can we go?!" Another asked.

"Why does it hurt when I poke my belly button?!" Some idiot asked.

"Lets just run for it!" Another said.

The noise grew louder and unfortunately there was more than one pair feet stomping. As everyone started to silently panic, the noise stopped. Relief filled everyone's minds for about a second.

Something was ramming into the cave! In fact it wasn't just one thing, it was a lot of things ramming into the left no choice but for everyone to run out of the cave to avoid it crumbling on top of them.

Manabe,Tohru, and everyone else was running away; their fleeing was pointless though. Manabe and Tohru held hands as they were escaping but it didn't matter to a dragon that was chasing them.

The dragon grabbed Tohru and took off in the air while Manabe fell to the ground.

"Tohru!" He shouted and started to run after her while avoiding people and dragons alike.

"Go back to the castle Manabe! Tell Kyo! Have him help you! Please!" And as much as it hurt to hear Tohru tell him that, she was right. Manabe could not help her on his own, especially when he didn't really know how to fight. He had to go tell Kyo even if Kyo was stealing the girl he loved away from him.

Manabe ran back to the castle as fast as he could. He was going to find Kyo so that he could help Manabe save Tohru. He was going to check the last place he saw him, which was in fact a good choice. There Kyo was, watching other people put out a fire near a dead dragon.

"Did ...you ...slay the ...dragon?!" Manabe blurted out while out of breath.

'Where to start?' Kyo thought while watching the people put out the fire. Suddenly he heard someone ask if he slayed the dragon; the voice sounded familiar but once Kyo turned around he knew exactly who the guy was.

"You're the guy who ran off with Tohru! Where is she?!" Kyo yelled; he continued,"What did you do with her?"

"It is I, Manabe! Do you not remember me? I am a good friend of Tohrus' and was trying to get us both out of here safely! She...we hid but somehow dragons found us and the others who were hiding." Manabe's voice started becoming lighter and Kyo could tell that something had happened by the change in his tone of voice.

"And?" Kyo asked.

Manabe gulped and continued, "... and we were running away...i had her hand tightly in mine...but a dragon picked her up and dropped me. She told me to quickly come and get you instead of running after her because I" Manabe didn't get to finish the sentence because Kyo pushed him out of the way and started running out of the door.

"Kyo you can't go get her without help! I can help! Plus, if we could get Akito to gather some men for you, you could surely..."

"Come on." Kyo interrupted before Manabe could finish. As much as Kyo didn't want to be near this guy, Manabe was right. He wasn't going to be able to do this alone, and this guy was one of Akito's advisor things wasn't he? Kyo started running up the stairs, Manabe following along.

"What are we doing first Kyo?"

Kyo stopped, sighed heavily, and turned around to face the guy.

"I'm going to get Akito's help...or at least try to..."

Kyo turned back around and continued running up the stairs.

'Things just keep getting worse...' Kyo thought as he pushed open the door to Akito's Chambers.

Ohhh jeez.

The end of chapter 20!

I'm sorry its taken soo long!

I've been in Cape Cod for 5 days!

But I finished this as soon as I came back so...kudos to me?

Well, I hope this chapter was okay.

And, thanks everyone for the awsome reviews.

I'll update as soon as I can and keep up the awsome reviews!

Some friends we've met before will appear soon!

Wink Wink.

...I can't wink btw. I look like an idiot when I try to...

:sigh:

Until Chapter 21,

Sarah.