Author Notes: Alright! Another chapter! I just recently came up with a new idea for this chapter but I'm not sure how to make everything flow together. Hopefully it'll just work. Ha ha. Enjoy the chapter!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chichiri glanced from Kaiya to the man in the doorway, who was apparently known as Kenji, and appears to have had a close relationship with her... Or he was a close family member... But he highly doubted that.
"Ha ha. It feels like I haven't seen you in forever, Kenji." she said happily, wiping away here tears. "How'd you get here? How'd you know where to find us? You, me, Miaka, and Taka should all hang out again. I've made new friends too. You can meet them all."
Kenji merely smiled and held his hand out.
"Yeah." he said. "Let's go somewhere to talk, huh?"
"Yeah, sure." Kaiya said and stood up.
"Kaiya, no!" Chichiri said abruptly. "I sense a dark presence from him. He's dangerous!"
Kaiya was already more than half way to the door when she stopped to face him. The smile on her face faded and was replaced with shock and fear.
"What?" she said quietly. But before he could answer her, she felt her arm being forcibly grasped and her body being pulled away.
"Kaiya!" Miaka and Chichiri shouted.
Next thing she knew, she was looking down at the small building's roof, connected to the palace, and growing smaller by the second and she was flying!
If she wasn't in shock before, boy was she in shock now. She could barely see the palace now and she was shifted in somebody's arms so that her body was hugged to theirs. She stared at the large, silver, steel-like wings that had sprouted from the back. She stared silently for a few seconds at the base of the wings, where they created two holes in the white shirt. Finally, she glanced up at the one whisking her away. He... LOOKED like Kenji, but his teeth appeared bigger, especially the canine teeth, and his hair was dishevelled. His skin had a grayish hue and his eyes were completely black. The contour lines on his face showed that he was strained.
Kaiya gasped silently and she reached a hand up slowly to touch his face.
"Kenji..." she said, almost whispering. "What happened, to you?"
Kenji bore his teeth in setting his jaw. Using one hand to carry her, he brought the other one up to hold hers in a tight grip. She could see now that his hands had also changed. His nails were longer and sharper and were also a shade darker than his skin, to match it.
"I... know I'm not good to look at..." he ground out and squeezed her hand tighter, but not enough to hurt.
Kaiya squeezed his hand back and shook her head.
"That's not what I care about." she replied, but decided to change the subject, seeing as they were getting even farther away from the others. "Kenji, what's going on? Where are you taking me? Why are we going away from the others? I want to know what this dark presence Chichiri sensed is." she said all at once. "Kenji, tell me, please."
Kenji turned his head to look at her and his brows knit together in anguish.
"I... I can't." he said. He released her hand and held her tighter to him, as if she would disappear if he didn't have his arms around her.
"Kenji... What's going on?" she whispered to herself.
Back with Chichiri...
"What the hell is going on here?" Tasuki demanded as he opened the bedroom doors to where everybody else was. He couldn't quite figure out why they were all standing, facing the same expression, and had expressions that showed that he slept through something important and woke up only to the large ruckus outside.
"Tasuki, don't come into the room!" Chichiri warned quickly as Tasuki took a step forward. "There are sharp wires all over the room and you can't see them unless they shine in the moon. Use your fan to get rid of them."
Tasuki grunted in acknowledgement and went back into the bedroom to retrieve said fan.
Taka remained at the doorway and cast a worried look at Miaka.
"Miaka, are you alright?" he asked.
"Yes... But Kaiya's gone." she replied. "Kenji... He took her."
Taka was suddenly alarmed, familiar with the name and person.
"But he's...!" he started.
Tasuki returned with the fan and quickly burned the wires away.
Everybody's positions relaxed into more comfortable stances.
"So who is this Kenji guy exactly?" Nuriko asked.
Taka came to stand behind her and put an arm around her shoulders.
"Kenji was Kaiya's boyfriend." Miaka replied, and closed her eyes. "He was in an accident and she was heart broken when he didn't make it."
Noticing something on the floor, Chichiri walked over to it and bent down to pick it up. It was some kind of feather and he held it by the stem in his thumb and forefinger. He turned it around and around, noting that it looked like an ordinary feather, but it was a solid gray color and looked like metal. He brought his other hand up to touch the feather's edge with his thumb, but found that the feather was incredibly sharp and it cut his thumb. He also noticed that the feather was giving out a bit of energy, the same as Kenji's second form.
It was very strange. Usually, people have the same kind of energies all the time, but with Kenji he had two different kinds. When he was human, his energy felt calm, but dark. His second form, however, was sort of the opposite; it felt savage and fierce. If that was the case, finding them while he was in his second form was easier. If Kenji decided to switch back to his first form, with the distance between them, it would be smaller and more difficult to locate.
"Hey, Chichiri, what'd'ya find?" Tasuki asked as he walked towards the monk.
Ignoring Tasuki, Chichiri focused his energy on finding Kaiya and Kenji. When he could feel their presences, he teleported away immediately.
"Hey, wha-!" Tasuki exclaimed.
"He's gone! Again!" Nuriko said.
"I hope Kaiya will be alright..." Miaka said worriedly.
"Kenji won't do anything to hurt her. I'm sure of it..." Taka said.
Back with Kaiya and Kenji...
"Kenji, let's go back!" Kaiya said for the fifty-billionth time.
"We can't!" he replied for the same amount of times.
"Why NOT?!"
And silence was the answer every time she asked.
"You never listen to me..." she said quietly in a bitter voice.
"Kaiya, I didn't mean- " he started, but wasn't able to finish for something large and cloth-like fell on top of him, cutting off his sight. He stopped abruptly in flight and flapped his wings madly. "What the hell!"
Kaiya became scared and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly. Unfortunately, the cloth was also interfering with his wings and he was not able to stay in the air much longer. She began to scream as the ground was fast approaching them. Before fainting, she felt somebody's hands taking her arms from around Kenji, then arms below her knees and around her shoulders.
Chichiri landed softly on the ground. He had landed on the outskirts of a forest, with a cliff jutting out in front, and the forest behind them. Shortly after him, Kenji plummeted to the ground, landing on the cliff.
Kenji struggled to get up and when he did, he pulled the cloth off his head and threw it down. He glared angrily at Chichiri and bared his teeth. He then looked at Kaiya in Chichiri's arms, and he became even angrier.
"Give her back." he growled menacingly. "She's mine!"
Chichiri gently lay her on the ground and stood up, narrowing his eye in a glare. He pulled his staff from his back and set the bottom on the ground.
"She's not an object." he said and began to walk towards Kenji. "I can't give her to you. You're too dangerous to be near her."
Kenji snarled and brought out his claws.
"I'd never hurt her!" he insisted.
Chichiri stopped about five meters away from Kenji and placed his staff in both hands and held it in front of him.
"Your wings are razor sharp. What if she had touched them? She'd have at least half her finger cut off!" Chichiri stated. "And your claws are dangerous as well. What if you had accidentally dropped her in mid-air?"
"I would never hurt her!" Kenji said more fiercely flapped his wings to lift off the ground, then charged at Chichiri with his claws in front. His claws clashed with Chichiri's staff and the force of the charge managed to push him back a little bit, but Chichiri kept his ground.
Kenji backed off and charged again, then repeated. Chichiri focused his energy and launched it when Kenji was retreating from his charge. Kenji fell to the ground, but quickly got to his feet again. He spanned his wings and launched a flurry of steel feathers at Chichiri. Chichiri charged his energy and fired energy balls at the feathers, but it was no good. The feathers cut straight through them and continued on their path. Chichiri's eye widened and he quickly teleported away, reappearing high in the sky.
"Like you said, they're razor sharp." Kenji said with a smirk. "They can cut through anything." He launched another flurry of feathers and Chichiri teleported back to the ground where Kenji charged at him again, once more clashing with his staff.
Kaiya slowly regained consciousness to the sounds of the clash of metal against metal. She pushed herself up into sitting and turned her head in the direction of the sound. She stood up quickly when she realized it was Chichiri and Kenji who were fighting.
"Stop!" she shouted.
"Kaiya!" they both said.
Noticing Chichiri's momentary distraction, Kenji quickly backed off and flew towards Kaiya. But Chichiri got to Kaiya first via teleportation and swung at him with his staff. Kenji crossed his arms in front of him, but was pushed back by Chichiri.
"Chichiri, stop!" she cried. She rushed to step in front of Chichiri before he did anything else and grabbed his arms. "Stop!"
Chichiri looked down her anguished expression and really did want to stop. But his eye widened again as he saw four feathers aiming at him.
"Look out!" he shouted. Wrapping his arms around her, he evaded the feathers and landed on the ground to their left side.
Kenji grew blood-thirsty as he witnessed the awkward position that they were in. His blood boiled as he remembered another time, just like this.
Kaiya stood up with Chichiri's help and turned to face Kenji.
"Kenji, I want you to stop!" she insisted. "Chichiri's my friend!"
"I'll kill you!" Kenji roared and charged towards Chichiri.
"Wait-!" she shouted, but Chichiri stepped in front of her with his staff in his hand.
A gust of wind blew through, causing the tree's to rustle and shake.
"Stop it, right now!" she screamed as loudly as she could. The pink character appeared on her left hand and began to glow.
Kenji was slowed to a stop in mid-air, his thirst for blood expression remaining.
Chichiri blinked and relaxed his stance. He looked around and noticed that not only had Kenji stopped moving, everything else had stopped moving as well. He could feel the warm glow of his Suzaku character on his right knee, letting him know it was activated.
'Everything's... stopped!' he thought in alarm. He then saw Kaiya walk forward, her left hand glowing pink. 'Time...' he realized. 'has stopped... She is... the Mistress of Time...'
Kaiya stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around Kenji's neck, burying her face into the juncture between his neck and shoulder. She then released her hold on time.
Kenji realized immediately that there were arms around him and stopped abruptly in the air with a powerful flap of his wings, creating gusts of wind on the ground. Notcing she was barely hanging onto him, he landed gently on the ground with her arms still wrapped around him.
"I want you to stop, okay?" she ground out as her black character began to glow on her right hand.
"You idiot..." he said and wrapped his arms around her tightly. He glared at Chichiri. "You used your powers... Didn't you? Stop protecting that guy...!"
Chichiri remained where he had before. He noticed the little black glow, the same as before, and took a step forward.
Kenji tightened his grip around her and bore his teeth at Chichiri.
"Stay away!" he shouted.
"How do you know about them...?" Kaiya asked quietly as the glow died down; only six days left.
But Kenji ignored her and continued to snarl and glare at Chichiri, who was still walking to them. His wings spread out in a warning, and it seemed to work, for Chichiri stopped in step and held his staff firmly.
"I told you to stop!" Kaiya said. Her grip around him loosened and she had to press against his arms to pull back slightly and look up at him.
Kenji merely growled and swallowed the lump in his throat.
"It's like that time, huh...? When you were with that... other guy." he said bitterly.
"What?" Kaiya said alarmed, also remembering the time he was referring to. "No! You didn't understand! I wasn't with him!"
"You're lying... I saw it! I saw him on top of you! I saw everything!" he screamed at her with wide eyes.
Kaiya stood motionless and stared at him with disbelieving eyes. She was at a loss of words.
Chichiri stood, stunned, not believing what he'd just heard. His pose had relaxed and his hands had dropped to his side. The staff he held in his hand dropped to the ground.
In one swift, powerful motion, Kenji felt the contact of a hand meet with his cheek. Shocking him so much, he'd lost his anger, returning to his original form; the human Kenji. His head was facing the side, and his blue eyes were wide with shock. After a few seconds, he turned his head to stare at her, his cheek already developing a red swell.
She was mad. Hell, mad wasn't even a good enough word to describe what she was feeling right now. Her eyes were wide with blazing anger, her lips pressed into a thin white line. Her hand had already retracted from the slap and now lay at her side. Her body was straight and stiff, filling with more and more anger.
"Listen to me, for just ONCE!" she shouted. "You never listen to me! You completely avoided and ignored me after that day! Do you know how I felt? Do you know how UPSET I was?!" she screamed and narrowed her eyes at him. "You want to know the truth?! FINE! Well here it is! I was RAPED!" she shouted and turned away from him.
Kenji felt a sword stab his chest. Not a real one, of course, but it may as well be, 'cause the pain was all the same.
Kaiya turned her head to him, glaring at him with rage.
"Are you listening to me, now?! That's the truth!" she exclaimed. "I was raped!" she stated again, just so that she made sure he heard it perfectly, damn, clear. "You avoided me! You ignored me! You left me! I tried to tell you, but NO! You didn't want to hear it! You thought I went behind your back! If you really loved me, you would have trusted me! You would never have did what you did!" she said, screaming. "Do you know how much I cried, when you..." she started and swallowed a lump in her throat, her eyes hazing over. "When you died...?! I didn't ever get a chance to tell you what happened...! And you came back...! And I thought I could have that chance... But you still didn't listen to me..." she said more quietly. "I hate you...!"
Kenji lifted his hand slightly, but laid it back down again.
"Kaiya... I... I... I didn't mean... I had no idea... I mean..." he started.
"You know..." she interrupted, turning her body so she faced him. "I don't know why I ever loved you in the first place. You ignore me, you don't listen, you try to kill my friends... You don't even tell me what's happening with you... You're different, Kenji. You've changed. I don't know who you are anymore." she said with a sad smile. Her smile faded and her anger boiled slightly. Her voice rose, "I just... I don't love you anymore. .. You're not the man I fell in love with."
Kaiya whirled around and began to run towards the forest. Chichiri caught her in his arms as she tried to move past him and struggled to get free.
"Kaiya...!" Chichiri said in a whisper.
"Chichiri, let go, please." she insisted. His arms tightened around her, and she began to struggle more, pushing against chest, trying to open his arms.
"I won't..!" he replied. His hold on her slipped, and he received a slap to the face.
Kaiya stood her ground with her hand still raised in the air. Her eyes were still hazed, her brows shaking slightly for control to unleash her anger out on him too. She lowered her hand and turned away. She continued to run to the forest, and disappeared into the trees and bushes.
Unable to stand on his wobbly knees any longer, Kenji collapsed to his knees. His posture was slacked and his head was bent down in shame as tears flowed down his face in torrents.
"She has a right to be angry with me..." he said with a shaky voice. "I'm... unforgivable..."
Recovering from the shock of the slap, Chichiri picked up his staff and sat beside Kenji, letting the staff rest on his shoulder. He tilted his head to stare at the orange sky that indicated the sun was rising and they sat in silence for a few seconds until Chichiri spoke up.
"She has quite the punch... er slap..." he murmured.
Kenji gave a cracked chuckle.
"You want to sit here with me? I just tried to kill you..." he said, turning his tear streaked face towards Chichiri.
Chichiri remained silent, but stayed where he sat.
Kenji turned his head back to stare at the ground. He shifted so he sat cross-legged, and rested his elbow on his knee and his forehead in his palm.
"Do you... Do you love her?" Kenji asked, turning his head to face Chichiri.
Chichiri quickly lowered his head to look at him.
"I-I-I... What?" Chichiri stammered, dumbfounded by the question.
Kenji wiped his tears away with the heel of his palm and he couldn't help but give a small laugh.
"Do you love her?" he repeated.
A moment of silence dropped between them as Chichiri searched for his answer.
"I... Dunno, no da." he replied finally.
Kenji gave another small laugh.
"Don't kid yourself..." he said. "Somebody asked me that question too and you look just like me." He turned his head to stare at the ground again as fresh tears started down his face. "I can't believe she even loved me. I can't believe I screwed it up!"
Chichiri now stared at the ground as well, half listening, half trying to figure out if he really did love her.
"He was the most popular guy in school... All the girls loved him... Even the girls who already had guys... But Kaiya always stayed with me. She didn't even look at him." Kenji said. He craned his neck to stare at the sky and smoothed his hair back. "Then, I saw them together... Doing things I'm not going to repeat... First thing I did was beat the shit out of the guy, course, he was bigger than me so I got the shit beat outta me too... Then you heard the rest from Kaiya..." he explained and let out a heavy sigh. "I thought maybe she pretended to like me the whole time.. I mean, he was the popular guy, and I was just some person with the most beautiful woman ever and she loved me... And I loved her... I thought I knew it was too good to be true. She'd try to make people happy a lot, cheer them up... She even apologized for a lot of things she didn't even do..."
Kenji let out another heavy sigh and lay back on the cliff, spreading his arms and legs out.
"It's my fault she got that curse..." he said.
Chichiri's attention immediately perked up.
"Curse?" he asked.
"She didn't tell you?" Kenji asked, slightly surprised, but pressed it back down as he realized something. "She always keeps things to herself... If I hadn't seen them together with my own eyes, she might not have even told me... That's just how she is..." he explained. "She cares a lot for people and she doesn't want them to worry..." he balled his hands into fists on the ground. "She has a black character on her left hand... And every night and whenever she uses her powers, she loses more and more of her life; she doesn't have much left..."
Kenji grit his teeth and raised his fists to push them lightly against his eyes.
"Tenkou plans to use her when her time is up." he growled.
Chichiri narrowed his eye.
"How do you know this?" he asked.
"He told all of us he would use her some how to conquer this world... Kanki knew too, but he was the only one who really didn't care..." Kenji explained an dropped his hands to the ground again. "I want to apologize to her... I don't expect she'll forgive me..." he said as-a-matter-of-factly. "Ha ha... I'd go to hell happiest man ever if she did though..."
Chichiri let it sink into his brain for a minute.
'Hikou knew... That's why he said that... And he knew that I was... That I'm...!' he paused his thought for a moment.
Kenji watched with slight amusement as he studied Chichiri's expressions; from calm to shocked realization to embarrassment and still.
"Let's go find her, no da." Chichiri said and stood up.
Kenji nodded in agreement and stood up. He wiped the rest of his tears away and with Chichiri, the two began their search for Kaiya in the forest. They searched a great distance in a short time thanks to Chichiri. He was using his powers to locate Kaiya's energy, and apparently she'd gone a long way. Some how, while they had been looking, the two had separated, but Chichiri knew that he had changed into his second form.
Eventually, Chichiri came across a deep, steep ditch that he nearly fell down because its edge was hidden away by bushes. He peered down the ditch's darkness and spotted Kaiya. She sat with her back against the rocky wall of the ditch and her knees up to her chin. She had her arms around her legs and her head rested on its side on her knees. Her expression told him that she was upset, and there wasn't a reason why she shouldn't be.
"Kaiya!" Chichiri called down.
Kaiya stiffened and quickly turned her head so her face was hidden in her arms.
'That's strange...' Chichiri thought, then called out to her again. "I'm coming down!"
He teleported down and bent to one knee to inspect Kaiya.
"Is everything okay?" he asked with concern. "Kenji and I have been looking for you."
Kaiya lifted her head up slightly to look at him.
"You're not... mad?" she asked hesitantly.
"Mad? Why would I be mad?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Kaiya blushed slightly and hid her face in her arms again.
"Because... um... I hit you... I'm sorry for doing that..." she said in a muffled voice. "I'm sorry you had to hear my argument with Kenji too and that you got dragged into this..."
Chichiri automatically brought a hand to rub it against his cheek at the remembrance of the slap. But despite the fact that it... kinda hurt, he had to laugh, making Kaiya become even redder behind the cover of her arms.
"It's okay. You were angry and needed to be alone for a little while but I tried to stop you.. and well..." he said and smiled in amusement.
Kaiya mewled in embarrassment and turned her head so that she faced away from him.
Chichiri's smile faded and he began to become serious.
"Are you alright now?" he asked, referring to when she was raped. "Most people... after being raped... even after a long time, are emotionally scarred and disoriented..."
Kaiya turned her head again, this time, so that she stared in front of her, but her eyes became hazed.
"Well... I guess I am... But that's probably just because everybody helped me along, you know?" she replied.
Remembering what Kenji had said about her keeping things to herself, Chichiri winced, knowing that she wasn't technically telling the truth about "everybody."
"You didn't tell everybody, did you?" he said, saying it as a statement more than as a question. "Not even Miaka and Tamahome?"
Kaiya was startled at how much he knew was to be true.
"I..." she started and tried to think of a cover-up, but telling him another lie just didn't feel right. It really wasn't right. She decided to tell him the truth. "No..." she replied. "Just my family and my doctor... My doctor..." she began slowly. "He said that because of what happened, it caused some damage, and that I wouldn't ever be able to have... any children..." She closed her eyes and turned her head away from him.
Chichiri eyed her with sadness. His fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and hold her, but he fought it back. Would it be too soon? Would she push him away?
"But..." he said. "If a man truly loved you, it wouldn't matter..."
Kaiya turned her head towards him, but stared at the ground.
"Maybe..." she nodded slowly. "But, for a man who would love me so much... I'd want to give him something." She glanced up at Chichiri and saw the sad look he gave her, along with another emotion she wasn't able to decipher. "Um... Thanks for, uh... listening to me, Chichiri." she said and bowed her head to him. "I probably shouldn't keep you here any longer. Please go back without me."
Chichiri stared at her in shock.
"What?" he exclaimed. "I'm definitely not leaving without you."
She jerked her head to look at him.
"But-" she started, but stopped when she heard the rustle of the trees and saw Kenji landing down on the ground in front of them in his second form.
Truth is, he didn't look very happy. No. Not happy at all.
"Ooooh..." she said quietly and winced. "I think he's mad at me..."
Chichiri stood up as Kenji walked towards them while slowly changing his form back to the original. Remembering her anger towards him, Kaiya knit her brows together and pouted... angrily.
Once Kenji stood in front of her, they glared at each other for a good few seconds. Then Kenji dropped to the floor, on his hands and knees and bowed his head.
"I'm so sorry!" he said.
Kaiya blinked, practically forgetting that she was angry at him.
"I'm really really sorry I never listened to you! I'm sorry for everything I did to you." he said. "If you don't forgive me, I completely understand."
Kaiya gaped at him, too startled to think of any words to say.
Chichiri smiled and teleported away, just out of hearing until they finished.
Hearing no response, Kenji lifted his head to look up at her. First, he saw her mouth was open, then her mouth closed and her hands closed over her mouth. Her body began to shake... with laughter. This time, it was his turn to gape at her.
Unable to contain it any longer, Kaiya began to laugh aloud.
"I can't believe this!" Kenji exclaimed, getting to his knees. His cheeks were pink from embarrassment as he stared at her. "I beg for your forgiveness and you're LAUGHING at me?!" He put on his best glare, but truthfully, he was glad she was laughing. At least she wasn't yelling at him.
"Well, its never happened to me before and it's kinda... surprising." she replied and wiped away the tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes.
Kenji leaned closer and grasped her hands that had fallen to her lap.
"Are you still mad at me?" he asked.
"Of course I am!" she exclaimed, giving him a skeptical look, which made him fall over. She shifted so her legs were at her sides. She leaned over slightly and put her hands on the ground to keep her balance. "But you didn't kill Chichiri or hurt him for that matter." she said and smiled. "So I forgive you."
Kenji felt the relief and happiness wash over him.
"But." she said, causing him to sit back up with dread. She sat straight again and continued. "Our relationship's not gonna be like it used to be." she said and gave him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry."
Kenji swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head.
"No. I understand." he said and stood up. "Don't worry about it. It was my fault anyway." he said. "You better go back with Chichiri to Miaka and Taka. They'll be worried."
"What're you going to do now, Kenji?" she asked.
Kenji tilted his head back to look up at the sky, seeing the morning sun high up.
"I'm going to find a way to get rid of that curse on you." he said determinedly.
"Uh-uh." Kaiya said and shook her head. "I'd rather you go up to heaven and say hi to my dad if you see him." She smiled warmly at the imaginary scene in her head where she could see Kenji saying hello to her father way up in the clouds.
Kenji raised an eyebrow and frowned at her.
"You're gonna hate me again... But this is one of those times where I'm not gonna listen to you." he said half-jokingly. He changed into his second form and began to walk off. "See ya later." he said and flashed her a grin, then flew off.
"H-Hey!" she shouted after him.
No sooner had Kenji disappeared into the sky, Chichiri reappeared in front her.
"I.. guess you're finished, huh?" he asked and bent to grasp her hands.
Kaiya winced at the pain in her right ankle as she tried to stand up.
Chichiri narrowed his eye and gently eased her down, kneeling down himself.
"You're hurt." he stated. "Was it because of-"
"N-No!" she blurted as she realized what he was about to say. "It wasn't- It wasn't him. I just kinda twisted my ankle a little when I fell from up there." she explained and pointed a finger to the edge of the ditch. "It's not that bad. Nothing that can't heal."
Chichiri gently held her ankle in a hand and examined it.
Kaiya blushed and on reflex, she tried to slip her ankle from his grasp, but winced at the movement.
"Sorry." Chichiri said.
"N-No, it was my fault." she replied. "H-Hey, Chichiri, let's go back now. Everybody's worried, right?"
Chichiri sat back on a knee and foot, resting his hands on his legs.
"I want to talk to you first." he said seriously and closed his eye to concentrate.
"A... About what?" she asked hesitantly.
"Why didn't you tell anyone about the curse?" he asked, opening his eye again.
Kaiya stiffened and swallowed, averting her gaze away from Chichiri
"It's not... Not really a big deal." she said meekly.
"It is a big deal." he said gently, trying to ease her nerves. "Kenji told me all about it. You don't have that long left..."
"But- Chichiri..." she started but left her sentence unfinished and slouched her shoulders, realizing there was no way to convince him. "I'm sorry, Chichiri. I just thought that, Miaka and Taka should be first priority. I didn't mean to make anybody worry." she admitted. "But I guess... Now that I think about it, it's probably just worse now, huh...?" she said quietly.
She turned her head and studied him silently as a hush came about them.
"Chichiri... I want to know." she started slowly, a question nagging her. "Why... Why are you so concerned for my well being? You're a warrior of Suzaku... right? Miaka's the priestess. Shouldn't Miaka be your first priority...?"
Kaiya watched as an unfamiliar emotion flickered in his eye. Her eyes widened slightly and she backed up to the wall in response as he came closer to her.
"Because..." he murmured. He had her backed against the rock wall completely now.
"Chichiri, what are you...-" she began.
"I'm in love with you." he said.
And as quickly as his words had entered her ears, his face closed in, his eye closed, and his lips met hers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author notes: Hey! Alright! Another chapter done. Hmmm. Did Chichiri come on a little strong there? Maybe. Well thing is, they're moving on even further next chapter whether they like it or not. And, probably 'cause none of you are wondering what the "unfamiliar emotion" is, if anybody wants to know, or guess, comment me and I'll comment you back a response. And the ditch that they're in I forgot what those things are called that anime characters always seem to fall down and can't climb back up. Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. Comment please, and I'll see y'all later!
