Helloooooooo……..

Right…sorry the update took so long. There were exams, and then I couldn't come with anything to write and all that stuff and I kept trying to write all the other stories before this one. And then, of course, there were the new classes that started. ARGH….yeah…I eventually gave up on the other stories, as you see, and got to writing this one.

I'd also like to point out for no purpose at all that Chichiri, in this story, though he has his memories of his past life, has different memories in this life and therefore, is not a monk or anything like that. He also does not have a mask. He goes around with a scar. I think that's cool.

Well…anyways…

Reader's response:

Dragonelf 8: Thanks; glad you liked it.

Silent Descent: o.0; another name? I'm going to get your names mixed up again. Oh well; this name sounds very cool, just like all your other ones (actually, your other ones were just random) Yeah, Akai is Keiko's alarm; I dunno about you, but I'd like a phoenix as my alarm clock. It'd be cool. If I didn't get out, he'd have a surefire way of waking me up: burning me.

Nimue Sin: Yay! Another pink-hater! (showers you with I-hate-pink stuff) Thanks; glad you liked it. LOL; yes, padded walls are fun.

Chichiri's Wanderer: LOL; forgot that little detail didn't you? And hey, you wanted him to have a scar so he has a scar…don't worry; he's not so sad and depressed in this chapter.

Golden Dawn: Yeah, well…I HAD to do it! He needed a scar! And don't worry; read whatever you wish. It's not nosy if it's right there on the page, right? Thank you for the immense compliments (insert smiley face here) Oh…I think I read your story, and did you update any of your stories because I have no idea; like I've said before, you have to tell me when you update because I no longer daily visit the FY section and I rarely visit the Fruits Basket section.

Mtgranola: Yep. Chichiri found. And in this chapter….well, you'll have to read to find out. (pouts) WHAT? No rum? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! LOL; a bit late to be saying that, I know, but whatever. Mmm…hot chocolate….hot chocolate is good... (looks amused) Yes, yes you did.

ENJOY THE CHAPTER PEOPLE!

Fire burned brightly in front of their eyes; the dancing flames seemed to enchant them like no force on earth and they eyes followed the flames back and forth in a melodic pattern. The unearthly silence was broken, however, by of course, a complaining redheaded man, who was insisting that his own fire was much better than this. The entertainer up on the stage, wielding the flaming torch like a baton, miraculously seemed to ignore the redheaded man. The man opened his mouth to say more of his opinion but…

"OW!" he shouted loudly as someone grabbed his ear. The darkness of the night was making it hard to distinguish the characteristics of the person, but it was clearly a man who seemed to be exceptionally strong.

Eventually, the large group to which the men belonged to, scurried away so they did not interrupt the show any more than they already did. Once in the shadows of an alleyway beside the inn, Nuriko glared at Tasuki, "We can't go anywhere without you making a scene!"

"Hey, it's not always me!" Tasuki protested.

"Oh, pray tell" Naomi asked, clearly annoyed now. She had been quite enjoying that show, much better than Tasuki's usual 'Ooh; look at my shiny tessen and look at the fire that comes out and burns you to a crisp' show.

"Last time Nuriko –"

"You tried to burn him!"

"He called me a carrot-top!"

"Still!"

Chichiri came out of the inn, looking amused, "Hotohori and Keikomi, who are too busy playing a game of Blackjack at the moment to tell you themselves, told me to come down to tell you all to 'kindly shut up' and 'To shut the hell up before you end up finding yourself taking care of Akai for a whole week'. You can guess which one said which"

Naomi's face reddened a bit, "Oops…didn't realize we were so loud"

"Are you kidding? You're lucky I got here because the angry guests did"

"Angry guests?"

"Yes" Chichiri nodded, "Last I heard, they wanted to hang you upside down by your toes"

Deciding the best way to avoid the angry guests was to get to their room as quickly as possible, they did so. The room they shared was divided into two sides, for the sake of the fact that Naomi had the tendency to sleepwalk. It proved to be extremely dangerous, especially that one time when she had gotten up and went to a fully grown tiger and actually jumped on it like she would a horse. No, that was not the best decision she could have made in her sleep.

Keikomi was sitting on the floor in the middle of the guys' section of the room, scowling while Hotohori was doing some odd sort of victory dance, which involved stopping in front of the mirror every few seconds and glancing to make sure not one hair was out of place.

"Let me guess. He won one game?" Naomi asked teasingly. Hotohori stopped dancing and scowled at her, "Yeah, so what?"

"So..."

"So…"

"So…"

"So what!"

"So how many did Keikomi win?"

"From my last count" Akai swooped down from his perch, "I believe the score was 43 - 29"

"Well, I'm not used to these games of yours" Hotohori said, trying to redeem his dignity at losing quite badly, while cursing Akai for actually keeping count, "And I beat you last time" he pointed out to Naomi.

Naomi adopted a scowl, "Yeah, yeah, so what?"

"So you shouldn't talk" Keikomi said.

"I remember that game" Nuriko said, grinning, "Didn't Hotohori beat you 31-9?"

"I thought we agreed to never speak of that game again" Naomi said.

"It was more like you talking to yourself and agreeing with yourself to try to erase it from your mind completely" Keikomi said from her spot on the ground, "Very funny to watch"

"Hey, what happened to siding with your own gender?" Naomi asked, pointing an accusing finger at the green eyed girl.

"It flew out the window…strange how it always disappears at the moments when you're embarrassed, huh?"

"Strange indeed" Naomi muttered darkly.

"I have a question" Tasuki spoke up, "Why the hell are we in this stupid place?"

Keikomi gave him a look that clearly said: 'you're asking this now?'

"Well, for one, we need a place to sleep, unless you want Naomi wandering off in her sleep again"

Tasuki was about to nod but stopped when he saw the murderous look on Naomi's face, just daring him to do so.

"Of course not" he said, trying to hide the sarcasm in his voice, "I meant, are we even sure Chiriko or Mitsukake are in this town?"

"We may as well look. Besides, this festival thing is just the opening ceremonies for a week long celebration; this is the only time when all the scholars and government officials will gather in the same place and if Chiriko was as smart as you said he was, he'll probably be here" Keikomi reasoned.

"So we're here for an entire week!" Tasuki groaned.

"Hey, watch it" a man snapped at Chichiri as he tried to get through the crowds. Chichiri sighed though he did not even hear it amongst the roar of the crowd, marveling at the various kiosks and their merchandise. Quite a bit taller than the crowd, he tried to locate the rest of the group, seeing as they had all wandered off.

He looked around for a sign of Chiriko; so far, luckily – or maybe not just by luck – they had all ended up looking the same and coincidentally, all of their parents had ended up giving each of them their original names, whether by luck that they had managed to find personal information on the Suzaku seishi or prompting by the Gods.

"Hey, you, move it" a man snapped rudely as he brushed past. Chichiri resisted the urge to scowl at the man. What rudeness. Moving to the side, where a food stand was, he stood there for a while, looking for anybody that looked familiar. Oh, how he hated to be separated; it just took so much longer to find everyone again and by then, something always happened.

"Crowded, huh?" the stand owner asked, trying to make conversation.

"Yes it is"

"First time at the festival?"

"First time in years, yes" Chichiri answered.

"Ah…I see. Are you looking for someone in particular?" he asked, noticing the seishi scanning the crowd.

"Well…yes; have you seen a man with red hair holding a metal fan who has an anger management problem?" Chichiri asked, coming to the conclusion that the rest of them, no matter what caught their attention, were not dumb enough to leave Tasuki unsupervised.

"Sorry, nope" the man said, scratching the back of his head.

"How about any other strange characters? A violet haired strong man? A vain man with long dark hair? A girl with a flaming bird on her shoulder, perhaps causing trouble? An easily infuriated girl?"

"Er…nope…but speaking of strange people, I just had a kid – probably not even thirteen yet – here buying food, but the way he spoke, I thought he was some kind of scholar or something of the sort. Must be one of those prodigies; imagine that, I talked to a prodigy" the man rambled.

The kid he described, struck a chord in Chichiri's mind. It sounded like he could be Chiriko.

Could be.

Might not be.

Could be.

Oh, what the hell. Anything was better than standing around doing nothing.

Chichiri turned to the still rambling man, "Which way did he go?"

"Which way did who – oh, the kid; he went that way" the man pointed to his left, "Think he said something about going on home"

Hearing that, Chichiri quickly ran off. He did not even bother to apologize to the people he knocked over on the way to the edge of the village, where a few villagers were tending to the horses and keeping an eye on the few carriages there were. It would of course, be faster, if Tasuki were here but seeing as the redheaded man had disappeared somewhere, he had to make do.

Oh, screw it, Chichiri thought to himself, using one of the girls' favorite phrases. He wondered why exactly they had these sort of sayings in their world. He concentrated and teleported to the field where the horses and carriages were kept, startling the villagers.

"Hello" he said pleasantly to their shocked faces, "Did a young boy about thirteen or so come here?" he asked quickly.

The youngest of the villagers recovered from his shock at seeing a man appear out of thin air first. He nodded, "He and his elder brother left a while ago in a carriage; I doubt you'd catch up, even with that…skill you have. They were going really fast"

Chichiri swore to himself, and sighed, "Did they mention where they were going?"

"They told the driver…Jinan, I think" (AN: I don't know what those people who direct the carriage are called, so I'm calling them drivers. For I know, they could be drivers)

Chichiri nodded, glad to at least have something. Thanking the villagers, he went off into the crowd again to attempt to find the rest of the group.

He eventually found Nuriko in an arm wrestling contest with a huge muscled man. It was obvious that the crowd were rooting for who looked like would win; Chichiri knew better and sure enough, Nuriko slammed the other man's arm to the table so hard that the wooden table actually splintered a bit.

After Nuriko claimed his prize, he joined Chichiri, was told what happened and help to search for the other four. They found Hotohori, Naomi and Tasuki near the stand selling mirrors with Tasuki and Naomi arguing about something or another and Hotohori completely ignoring them for staring at his reflection.

"Where's Keikomi?" Nuriko asked as they strolled along a side street, having searched the main streets many times already.

"I dunno"

"She probably went and pissed someone off again, the dumb bitc –" Just as Tasuki said this, a man went flying out of an alleyway and landed on Tasuki. They stared at the scene that befell their eyes. There was the Warrior, looking amused and proud at the same time and Akai was actually cheering (squawking?) for her.

"Y'know; you shouldn't take your anger out of him just because he lost" Keikomi was saying to one of the men, who had his fist raised, "I mean, it was just luck that I won that one…and the other one…and the other one…you guys aren't very lucky are you?"

"Yeah, yeah; whatever" the man who seemed to be in charge grumbled, "Take your damn winnings"

"Thanks!" Keikomi said, grabbing the pouch. She then noticed the group at the entrance of the alleyway, "Hey" she greeted. She noticed Tasuki on the ground, muttering darkly, "What happened to him?"

Nuriko could not hold it in any longer. He burst out laughing. Tasuki glared darkly as he sat up and Keikomi began to hope that Nuriko had not gone insane while she had been gone.

"So what did you do?"

"Oh; I got bored and I kept winning all the games at the bar and these guys found me there; they promised me three daggers if I won a game of dice against each of them"

"And if you lost?"

"They'd beat me senseless. I think they were expecting to win; that's why they insisted we played out here" Keikomi said, not changing her happy tone, despite the horrified looks that were exchanged, " So, what did I miss?" she asked.

Well…there you go. Next time, they'll probably find Chiriko. Please review and give me ideas on how you want them to find Mitsukake?