Hey people! I finally have chapter 11 done! Sorry it took so long, but I've been busy. I'm absolutely horrible at Math, and yet, I was forced by my parents to take the grade 12 academic math class, which is one of the hardest math classes in the school, so I've been working my ass off trying to even pass the class. And plus all the other crap I'm supposed to get done for my other classes, I just haven't had time to even look at this story.

And when I finally got the whole thing written, and looked over it so that I could post it, for some GODDAMN reason, the site kept saying something went wrong when I tried to upload the document. That got me so pissed off! But anyways, it's working again, and here's a chapter that's four months overdue...

Keikomi landed in a heap in the middle of what looked to be a rather dense forest, judging from the number of trees, obscuring her path every way she turned. She got up, rubbing her back, due to the fact that she had the misfortune to land on a couple of rocks. Cursing loudly, assuming that nobody could possibly be around to reprimand her for her language, she glared at the forest surrounding her. Trust Taiitsu-kun to send her here of all places, she raged in her mind.

" – supposed to fucking get out of this god forsaken forest?!" she finished her rant. Wondering if the Kutou counterpart of Akai would come if she stayed still long enough, she sat down on one of the rocks that was not covered with moss and waited for a few moments, thinking up ways that she could get out of the forest without getting lost as she did so.

Finding none and receiving no indication that the animal lord would be arriving anytime soon, she stood up, clutching her glaive in her hand, just in case a wild animal appeared to attack her. While she did like most animals in general, she did not want to have to face a bear or something of the sort, unprepared. That would most assuredly get her either killed or severely injured.

"You should calm down before you destroy something " a smooth voice said from somewhere nearby. Keikomi whirled around quickly, glaive pointed out, "Show yourself"

"Well…at least you're straight to the point" to her surprise, a black coloured reptile came out of the trees. It had dark green hair all along its back and two slightly curved horns at the top of its head. Its underbelly was a silver-gray and looked deceivingly like metal.

(AN: If anyone's ever looked at pictures of Chinese dragons, or watched Spirited Away, or even looked closely at a picture of Seiryuu in his dragon form, you'll notice that the dragons all have some kind of hair all along its back, but I don't know what exactly it is but it didn't make sense for me for them to have fur …so I'm calling it hair)

At first impression, she thought it was a snake of some sort, before she noticed the qualities that made it look different from a snake. First of all, there was the way its face looked: it had a ferocious appearance, with a jaw lined meticulously with sharp (and no doubt dangerous and deadly) teeth, as well as the fact that it had a snout, which snakes did not have. Second were the four limbs that the creature had. Third were the wings coming out of the creature's back.

"Er…hi?" Keikomi asked, unsure of what to make of this creature.

"Very eloquent" the creature said sarcastically.

Keikomi raised an eyebrow. Well, there was no doubt in her mind that this was the creature that Seiryuu had sent her, since it talked. There was just the question of what it was. It looked like one of those dragons that were depicted in Chinese drawings: all serpentine and snake like, but she had never seen one where the dragon had wings. That trait tended to belong to the dragons of Western mythology.

"You're a dragon, right?" she asked.

"Good one genius. I'm Ryuujin, and you are?"

"Keikomi"

"Well. I suppose it's nice to meet you" Ryuujin said, with an air of self-importance. Keikomi briefly wondered if all of the creatures were like that, "I hope that insufferable bird has not tainted your attitude too much"

"You mean Akai?" Keikomi made a face at the mention of the bird that seemed to make it his life's mission to argue with her.

"Yes…him" Ryuujin said with distaste.

Keikomi smiled suddenly. She had a feeling she would like this creature. She silently thanked Seiryuu in her mind, knowing that he could have been like Suzaku and given her a creature similar to Akai. Sure, Akai had gotten slightly less annoying with time, but he still annoyed the hell out of her every so often.

"Yes, Akai is annoying isn't he?" she smirked.

Ryuujin looked up, and smirked back. Or what Keikomi presumed was a smirk since Ryuujin was a dragon. Having not met many dragons in her young and short life, she simply had to assume that that particular way of baring his teeth was a version of a smirk.

"So, anyways, do you know the way out of this forest?" Keikomi asked the dragon, "Or are you as lost as I am?"

"Excuse me? I do not get lost! Dragons have a great sense of directions and as such – "

He faltered at the knowing smirk on Keikomi's face and sighed, "Fine! I get lost in forests, alright? I do fine when I'm not surrounded by useless trees though" he added.

Keikomi groaned, "So how're we gonna get out of here?"

"Well, I only got lost because I was told to stay to the ground until I found you" Ryuujin reasoned. He concentrated for a moment and grew in size. Grew a lot in size. Keikomi's eyes widened as she backed away into the forest as the dragon continued to grow, destroying quite a few trees as he did so. She breathed a sigh of relief when he finally stopped growing, and cautiously approached the now rather large dragon.

"Get on" Ryuujin said in a deep, rumbling voice.

"O…kay?" Keikomi, eyes wide, leapt onto Ryuujin's back, somewhere near the middle.

"Not there; closer to my head" Ryuujin instructed, "Or you might fall off"

Once Keikomi was in a suitable place, he took off to the air, spreading his black wings and flapping them every so often. Keikomi, although shocked at first, was soon laughing as she flew through the air, holding gently but securely onto a section of Ryuujin's pelt. They flew over the dark and dense forest, and Keikomi realized exactly how much she would have needed to walk to get out of the forest on foot.

"This is great!" she called out to the dragon, laughing as the wind whipped through her hair.

Ryuujin did not answer, although Keikomi saw a faint baring of his teeth and knew he was doing the dragon version of the grin. They landed in a secluded field just a bit away from the forest, and Keikomi got off, watching as Ryuujin changed back to his former size.

"That was amazing!" Keikomi grinned happily, loving the feeling of flying, "So you can choose what size you want to be?"

"Yes, it's a gift Seiryuu gave me when I was hatched" the dragon answered, as he coiled himself around her like a snake, "It has come in useful, especially now"

"I'll say. I don't think the general population would think it normal to see a girl walking next to a large dragon"

"I agree"

"So where should I be heading now?" Keikomi asked, "You probably know more about this country than I do"

"That way" Ryuujin raised a claw and pointed at an angle to their left, "That will lead you to the nearest town"

"I wish I had a bike, or a car" Keikomi mused as she trudged her poor, overworked feet, in the direction that Ryuujin had indicated. She began to plot ways to convince Taiitsu-kun that yes, bringing a motorized vehicle into this world, was a good thing.

Keikomi sighed, looking at the small group in front of her, wondering if this would happen every time she came upon a city in a new country, alone and without a seishi. A group of men, not that different in their stance from the ones she had encountered in Eiyou, stood in front of her, looking at her as if expecting her to run away screaming or something of the sort.

She raised an eyebrow slowly and stared back.

"You're weird" Ryuujin commented, still coiled around her like a protective shield and Keikomi had no doubt that he was itching to use those fangs of his.

One of the men jumped when he saw Ryuujin raise his head and the dragon flashed its eyes dangerously at the group.

"Is that a snake?" the man asked.

"Does it look like a snake?" another one countered.

"But I swear it hissed!"

"I see the Gods' spells are working" Ryuujin said smugly to Keikomi.

"Spells?" Keikomi asked under her breath so only the dragon could hear her.

"Yes. When I, Akai, and the rest of the animal lords were chosen to aid you, the Gods placed a spell on each of us, enabling it so that while we could converse with you, mere mortals would only hear sounds of the animal we were closest to being. Since they have never met dragons, my words come out like a serpent's" Ryuujin explained, still eyeing the group of men.

"Well, I doubt they're gonna let us pass, so what d'you say to a bit of exercise?"

Ryuujin simply adopted a feral look.

Not too long later, Keikomi hummed to herself as she dug through the pockets of the men, taking a third of the money in the money bags, and leaving the rest for the unconscious men.

"Isn't this sort of…stealing?" Ryuujin asked.

"Call it a prize for winning" Keikomi countered, not even batting an eyelash at the accusation.

"Alright" Ryuujin agreed after some thought.

"Hey, they had water!" Keikomi shouted gleefully, pouring what was left in the canteen over her head, enjoying the cold comfort that the liquid provided. Walking in the sun for that long was tedious work after all. Once Keikomi had taken all that she wanted, she continued in the direction she had been going and not much later, had arrived in the town.

"This is Wengqian" Ryuujin told her, "It's…well…"

"I get the picture clearly" she said dryly. The town did not exactly make a good first impression on her. For one thing, there were drunken men passed out in the middle of the streets and it was not even sunset yet. Broken bottles littered the ground, as well as what looked like stains of blood on the buildings. The women here were different from the ones in Eiyou, and Konan; for one, they had a permanently disheveled look about them. Keikomi had a sneaking suspicion that their occupations (if they had one) were less than respectable.

"You think they have an inn in this town? I'm really tired…" she yawned, her eyes drooping, threatening to close on her.

"I wouldn't trust it even if they did" Ryuujin said thoughtfully, "But I suppose there's nowhere else to go. You look ready to collapse right here"

"I spent all day walking, so shut up. So…inn?" she asked, not bothering to form another complete sentence.

"Yes. And get there fast before you do collapse" Ryuujin eyed her warily, "Why are you so tired anyways?"

"I was the one walking for an entire day in the searing hot sun" Keikomi retorted.

The inn looked just as desolate and unkempt as the rest of the town. It looked like nobody had bothered trying to fix it up or clean it for years. In fact, a few shingles fell from the roof as the two approached. The dragon and the Warrior glanced at each other dubiously.

"…Somehow, the streets seem more reassuring" Keikomi said aloud, "Half of the roof is missing…"

"Yeah…" Ryuujin said in barely disguised horrified amazement.

"Should we go in?" the Warrior asked in trepidation. Before Ryuujin could answer, a shadow fell over them and Keikomi twisted around, a freshly stolen dagger quickly pulled out of her jacket. Ryuujin narrowed his eyes suspiciously; her movements were rather slow compared to before. Was she that exhausted?

"Quick reflexes" a man sneered. Keikomi could only gape at the size of the man, for he was quite tall, towering over her respectable height of 5'10. In fact, if she had to guess his height, she would say that he was about 6'5 or taller. She could not help, however, but feel slightly sick when she saw the abundance of muscles on the man, which made him look quite disgusting indeed.

"What the hell do you want?" she snapped, trying not to feel revolted at how close he was standing to her.

"You, miss, have caught our interest"

"Our? I only see one of you" Keikomi snarled defensively. Ryuujin made a sound that sounded like the furious hissing noises that snakes often made when angry.

A large hand grabbed Keikomi's arm from behind and Keikomi whirled around – or at least tried to – shooting daggers out of her eyes at whoever had just touched her, "Let go off me!" she snarled to the second person, only temporarily stupefied at how much the two men had in common in terms of size.

"Perhaps you should count properly then" Man number two said, leering at her.

"I told you to let go of me" Keikomi said in a deathly calm voice.

"You're coming with us" the first man grunted out, grabbing her other arm.

"Let go of me!" Keikomi yelled, using her still free legs to kick wildly at them. Catching one right in the crotch, a satisfied smile crossed her face briefly as she tried to get out of the grip of the other one while the one she had kicked was temporarily doubled over in pain.

Ryuujin hissed his approval as he bit the arm of the one still holding her arm tightly. It would have been a good move on his part, if not for the fact that instead of letting go, the man tightened his hold and twisted around to try to grab the reptile. Keikomi's face went a few shades paler as pain circulated quickly through her arm.

"FUCK! That hurt you damn bastard!" she cried out, attempting to yank her injured arm out of his grasp. He had her in a death grip, however, and her arm's injured state would not be able to put up with breaking free of the grip without damaging the arm further. The fact that she had completely no energy from walking in the sun all day might have something to do with that also.

"You're coming with us"

The second man had recovered, it seemed, and took a hold of her other arm again. Keikomi growled in anger, her metallic green eyes flashing with fury, "Let me go!" she yelled, lifting her leg to kick the man right in the ribs. A clang was heard and Keikomi snarled with frustration when she realized that the man was wearing armor under his clothes.

Suddenly, she felt something grab her leg as she was attempting to kick the other man and she looked on in horrified realization when the man who had injured her arm before, twisted it roughly at an impossible angle. She clenched her teeth in pain as she was dragged off by the two unknown men. As she twisted around again, ignoring the pain resonating from her arm and her leg, one of the man suddenly grabbed a hold of her chin and she spluttered as some sort of liquid was shoved down her throat.

She snarled angrily at them, trying to hit them again. She wanted to wipe those goddamn arrogant smirks off their faces, to beat the shit out of them for even touching her. She...

Why was everything spinning?

Well, there you go. Chapter 11. It's actually kinda short compared to the last chapter, but whatever. It gets interesting in Kutou so I'll probably be able to write more anyways. Please review.