A/N: Sorry! I tried to get this chappie out before I went to GSA but that sure as hell wasn't going to happen and then stop and go writing happened and now it's finally here. I started school again too, major bummer. Onward!

Disclaimer: And Jaws is a giant goldfish and I now have my escape plan….MITSU GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE! (Mitsu of course being the butt-head he is refuses) OK back to the drawing board then…

Word Key:

Text

"Talking"

'Thoughts'

"Thoughts also when two sides of the brain are arguing"

Dream

Tape Recorder

Chapter Eighteen: A War, Fireworks, and Something More

Mahiru grabbed Mitsuru's wrist to keep him from running off. "I know what you're thinking and trust me; your jumping off this bridge won't work. For if you try, I'm coming right after you, therefore any attempts to drown yourself are sunk. No pun intended there."

"I wasn't thinking that!" He snapped. (Liar!) What Mitsuru hadn't noticed was that a lovely shade of pink had started creeping up his neck and onto his face. "But if you really did listen to- to that tape how- how far did…" he took a deep breath trying to calm himself but was failing completely.

Mahiru finished for him, "I- uh…got all the way up to the uhh the one after the one about getting married…" It was then her turn to blush though Mitsuru looked like he had the worst case of sun-burn ever to be recorded. "You-er-mean the one on the honeymoon thing one…"

"Yeah…" She tried not to think back to that but it was a little harder than she expected and soon the two looked like they were having a contest of who could blush the hardest and reddest. "That one, it just had to be that one…dear gods I wanna die." He moaned inside his head. The voice sent an image of patting Mitsuru's back in sympathy, 'Oh geeze man, I feel for you. I feel greatly for ya, how embarrassing.'

Mitsuru was so deep into his self-loathing and self-pity that he didn't realize that several minutes had passed and Mahiru was now finished being embarrassed, with her face back to its normal color. Looking over she saw Mitsuru zoned-out, red as could be; in fact, it reminded her of a strawberry. Taking a little bit of her slowly melting ice cream onto her finger she moved her hand closer until the ice cream touched his nose.

The boy vaguely felt the ice coldness and moved his eyes to look into her smiling face and then looked down at the ice cream on his face, "What the hell?"

"You're now a chocolate covered strawberry." She giggled, trying to lighten the mood and forget about that one particular dream. He merely looked at her then down at his ice cream then up at her face again; there was a bit of a glint in his eye that wasn't there before.

"Mitsuru what's on your min-," Before she could finish a chocolate ice cream was shoved into her face. "Chocolate covered peach." He smirked.

Mahiru's mouth was gapping at the shock of having ice cream flung in her face- especially the fact that it was Mitsuru- and at the fact that it was cold and going up her nose. "Oh no you…" she grabbed a handful of the chocolaty dessert, "didn't!" And threw it at him.

That was when the chocolate war began of flinging ice cream, dodging it unsuccessfully while Mahiru half shrieked from laughter and the coldness of the ice cream. Ten minutes later the two were sitting against the railing covered in sticky, melted ice cream and completely out of breath, where the cones went, one could only guess.

"Wow," The girl said regaining her breath, "That was…fun. Don't you agree?"

Mitsuru looked at her, "Yeah, it was a lot of fun actually…" The boy was vaguely aware of placing his hand on her cheek, stroking her face gently.

Mahiru asked quietly, "Mitsu, what are you-,"

"Shh…" Mitsuru cut off her question; slowly he leaned in towards her. She then realized what was about to happen and froze waiting to feel the softness of his lips against hers.

She closed her eyes; by now she could feel the warmth of his breath. This was it, it was THE moment. It was her first kiss, and not only that, but it was Mitsuru who was going to kiss her. It was a moment that she had only dreamed about and it was only centimeters away when…

BOOM! BOOM! POP! BOOM! (Muwhaha…you didn't think it was gonna come that quick! Oh you did…sorry.)

Fireworks had erupted so loudly and suddenly that Mahiru gave a small scream, jerking backwards with her heart feeling like it was going to thud right out of her chest at a million miles a minute. "Ge- Geezel Pete's…that was pretty sudden eh Mitsuru?"

"Yeah, sure was." He sighed heavily. Inside he was cursing those 'damn people who set off those damn fireworks'. He had been so close to Mahiru and they ruined it. 'Don't worry, it's like riding a bike, and falling off the bike. You were close and then you fell off so now what do you do?' "Pray that your head didn't get cracked open?" 'NO! YOU GET BACK ON THE DAMN BIKE MORON!' "Haha you essentially called yourself a moron." '…Oh you…shut up!' "Now who's cranky?" After that the voice sat in its little recliner in Mitsuru's mind and brooded. For once it seemed that Mitsuru had gotten the better of the voice.

Mitsuru had been looking down at the pavement and his shoes when he decided to look up and over at Mahiru. He stared at her profile as it changed color from the fireworks her eyes had opened wide trying to drink in the exploding fireworks all at once and her lips slightly parted with awe. He thought to himself that she actually was quite pretty. This was also when he realized that a certain sort of calm had settled over him, all his feeling of rage and anger had simply vanished. Where they had gone to he had no idea but he knew that as soon as he spoke to any of the other Bandits those emotions would come back full force. But until that time came he decided to just be content.

timeelapseTIMEELAPSEtimeelapse

After what seemed only a few short minutes but was actually more like half an hour the fireworks had ended and the teens stood up to stretch their muscles that had become stiff from sitting for so long. "So what should we do now Mitsu?"

"I dunno…You wanna ride some of the rides they have?"

"No, not really. You see ever since I was little I've always been afraid that the ride would completely collapse into a huge heap while I was on it. So I just never go on them."

"Yeah that would happen with your luck wouldn't it?" He smirked.

"Ahh! Mitsu, you're so mean!" Mahiru gasped giving him a playful punch on the shoulder. After that she started skipping towards the stairs calling out behind her, "Come on Mitsu, let's go walk on the beach!"

"Alright I'm coming!" He called back, jogging to catch up with her. Soon they were walking through the festival which had now become quite crowded since their arrival over an hour ago. And as they were walking the little voice screeched out, 'MISOKA IS HERE SOMEWHERE I CAN SENSE IT!' Mitsuru sighed inwardly. "That guy just can't let me have any peace and quiet can he?"

Now, a word from our spies…

Misoka and Akira were sitting at a table in the food area, each enjoying a snow cone when Akira asked, "Umm Misoka, why did we make them set the fireworks off so early?"

Misoka swallowed the crushed ice in his mouth before answering. "To distract the two while they were up there. I mean, come on, a bridge as their first kiss? You'd have to be out of your mind if you thought that that was romantic!"

Akira shook his head acting like he understood the fox's logic. "Okay I give up, speak without using so any words or re-wording or something."

"A bridge is a stupid place for a first kiss. They are out of their minds if they think it's a good place." The older said mechanically. Seconds later his head was cracked against something that felt as hard as lead – turns out it was Akira's head- and was seeing stars.

Between the two of them appeared Mitsuru. "I think that just about every person in the damned Lunar Race is out of their mind, especially the residents of the Moonshine," he growled.

Misoka was rendered, for the first time in his life, speechless. "How…"

"I just had this feeling that you'd stick your damn nose in my personal business. So some advice for you to keep you from immense pain and agony: Don't freaking bother us anymore! If I find either of you around here again spying on me I will kill the both of you. Now go the hell home and while you're at it go and tell the damn vampire not to come down here either or he'll meet the same fate."

Misoka shrugged his shoulders, "Nozomu's not in his right frame of mind at the current moment. We just came to get some fresh air and to be away from our poor, depressed vampire, right Akira?"

He bobbed his head up and down, "Yep, yep."

The tengu rolled his eyes, "Bullshit," he banged their heads together again. "You're here to make life a living hell as usual. How do I know this? Because fireworks don't just go off at random times like they just did ya dumbasses. So leave us alone already." He hadn't realized it, but Mitsuru's voice held bits of both weariness and pleading.

Misoka was shocked; he hadn't known that Mitsuru's voice could hold anything other than anger or stupidity. He gave a mock sigh of defeat, "Oh alright, if it'll stop you bashing our heads then we'll leave." The fox swept Mitsuru's hand aside as he stood up, "Come on Akira let's go."

"But what about-,"

"Forget it lets just go Akira." He dragged the younger boy out of his chair toward the direction of the exit.

"What's going on Misoka? I thought we were staying." Akira whispered looking behind himself to see if Mitsuru was still there.

"Oh, we are," replied the fox, "We'll just let him think that we've left…Is he gone now?"

When Akira looked back at where they had been he saw that Mitsuru had vanished, "Yep, he's gone."

Okay let's go, but try not to get caught again."

We once again bring you to the calmer half of the couple, Mahiru.

"Now where'd that darn boy get to?" She murmured to herself. They had walked into a large crowd, getting separated and now she couldn't find him. How you lost a boy his height with shocking aqua hair that stood out in a crowd, Mahiru had no idea but she just had.

As she turned around in a circle scanning the crowd she heard Mitsuru yell from behind, "I'm over here!" She swirled around to see that he was standing off to one side of a large avenue of booths.

Mahiru darted in and out of the swarm of people over to Mitsuru. She could've sworn that he wasn't there a second ago when she looked at that spot the first time. "I lost you; I had no idea where you went."

"I got here a few seconds ago…I umm…I got a bit lost," he lied.

Mahiru tucked both of the stuffed bears under one arm and taking her free hand placed it in Mitsuru's, intertwining their fingers. She smiled saying, "There, now you can't get lost anymore."

For a brief moment Mitsuru stared at her confused. He felt like he should say something but he didn't know what. He still felt as lost and confused as he was a half hour ago and her grabbing his hand and saying that wasn't much of a help to him. How could a person deal with all the shit he was giving them and still like him like she did? It made absolutely no sense to him.

As Mitsuru pondered over this and several other similar questions, he and Mahiru had once again started on their way to the beach area. His mind picked endlessly at the questions, never quite able to come up with a satisfactory answer. 'Whoa man, calm down.' The voice said, 'Philosophical questions like that are very, VERY bad for your mental status. Here's a simple answer: It's a thing called love. It's patient, kind, forgiving, and puts up with your assholishness. Don't ask why it does, it just does and you waste precious moments worrying about it so just don't worry about it. Did you understand all that?'

"Yeah…Basically, I understood the first part and the last part, and the middle just sounded like ranting." Mitsuru replied. 'Yay Mitsuru understood something! Star sticker for him!' "Oh shut the hell up already."

While the two of them were walking side by side through the street they were quiet. Mitsuru speaking internally with the voice and Mahiru freaking out on the inside. 'I can't believe I did that! I grabbed his hand. I grabbed Mitsuru's hand! And he didn't freak…he must be sick.'

"Umm, Mitsuru are you feeling alright?" she asked him.

"Oh yeah, I'm alright. I was just thinking that uhh…those bears of yours, yeah, they're probably gonna need a bag to go in." Mitsuru grabbed a plastic bag from the nearest booth and handed it to her. "After all, since we'll be going down to the beach and ya don't want to get sand on them."

Mahiru said a word of thanks, placing the bears into the bag. She decided to not mention the fact that the bag was pointless due to the fact that they had already ruined them with melted ice cream.

The two finally made it to the beach. From there they could hear some of the music that was being played at the festival. It had a fast, pulsating beat like every other song that are played to make people get up and dance.

Mitsuru sat on a large rock with the bagged teddy bears sitting next to him and Mahiru was down in the sand dancing around to the music. Every once and a while she would turn her head to look at Mitsuru just in time to see him look away from her.

'Yo, Mitsuru, it's okay to look, you're eyes won't melt from it and besides, the lady likes that you're lookin'. So look dammit.' The voice said; didn't it have anything better to do? Apparently not.

Slowly the tengu took his eyes away from a patch of grass that he had been vaguely staring at to look into Mahiru's smiling face. His face flushed red and he quickly broke eye contact, going back to the grassy area. "Okay, I looked, happy?" The voice sighed, 'I guess that'll do.'

She giggled. "Oh Mitsu - ru. Get your butt down off the rock and join me."

"No."

"Why not? Come on, it's fun."

"I – I," He turned his body so that Mahiru was able to see his entire profile. "I…can't…dance…like that."

The girl giggled again, "That's it? Well phooey on that." She skipped over to him and pulled on his wrist. "I'll show you how, it's simple."

Mitsuru had no choice but to follow as Mahiru pulled him onto the sandy beach, just a little too close to the water for his comfort. "Okay, 'How to Dance 101.' First you have to move your hips." Mahiru placed her hands on either side of his waist and moved his hips from side to side in rhythm with her own movements.

The boy had been unsure of what to do for a while until Mahiru started moving his hips. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" He exclaimed in irritation, grabbing her hands and shoving them at her own sides. He held them there for a minute, his eyes closed and his left eyebrow twitching as he counted to ten.

"Oh I'm sorry Mitsuru…I should have known better than to-,"

"It's alright Mahiru," He cut in, "it's my fault using the wrong words. I don't like to…dance like that."

Mahiru was surprised. He hadn't yelled or cursed her in that statement. Smiling warmly she asked, "Okay Mitsuru, what kind of dancing to you like?"

He opened his eyes and looked at the black ocean waves rolling in onto the darkened beach. "Er…Ya know the slow kind." Shortly after the statement was said the music changed from the fast upbeat tempo to a slower song.

Mahiru looked over at the festival area. "Wow, that's weird that it should change right after you say that."

"Yea, that is pretty frickin weird." Mitsuru had a brief feeling of being watched but when he looked around he couldn't see anybody. "Real weird," he muttered when looking behind him.

Mahiru turned back to the boy in front of her. When he had turned around he had released one of her hands. She used it to tap him on the shoulder; he turned around. "Umm…Will you d-dance with me?" She flushed slightly.

Mitsuru silently agreed with a nod, awkwardly wrapping his hands around her waist while she draped hers across his neck. They slowly danced back and forth to the music, their eyes never leaving the others. Farther into the song Mitsuru took one of his hands away from her waist up to her face, gently stroking her cheek and running it through her hair occasionally.

During one instance he brought her closer to him making the lines of their bodies touch. It was unexpected and startled Mahiru. "Mitsuru-," He shushed her placing his fingertips gently to her lips; once the girl was quiet he ran his hand through her blonde locks.

He looked at her lovingly, by now his hand was stopped at the back of her head, he leaned his head forward until their lips barely touched and he whispered softly against her lips, "Mahiru…I love you." Mitsuru then closed the gap between the two of them with a deep and passionate kiss.

When they finally broke the kiss for air Mahiru looked like she was about to cry a river. "Oh shit," Mitsuru said, "Don't cry, I didn't mean to make you cry. Please don't-," She burst out in tears and squeezed her arms around Mitsuru. "…cry…" He sighed, bringing his hand down from her head to rub up and down her back softly.

"I'm…not…upset…I'm…happy!" she cried between sobs. (Can a person do that?) "I'm…happy you…finally…said it!...You finally…said…that you…loved me!...That makes…me so happy…because Mitsuru…I…I love you too!" The girl sobbed harder. If he had not heard that statement Mitsuru would've thought somebody just died at how hard she was crying.

He made a small sound, "Oh Mahiru…you big baby, stop crying." He pulled her away so that he could see her face; gently he wiped away the tears that started running down her face. He chuckled at her appearance, she was biting her lower lip to keep from crying further and her face was red and swollen. "Come on. It's getting late we should go home now."

Mahiru nodded her head, burying it in his chest as they lifted up off the ground. While they were soaring above the city Mahiru felt a wave of drowsiness hit her from crying so hard for a short amount of time. After a while Mitsuru finally spoke, "We're here." They touched down onto the concrete outside, Mitsuru letting go of her but keeping an arm around her waist."

"The upstairs is completely black…They all must be sleeping." He said opening the door and leading Mahiru inside. 'I think there must be at least one soul still up. And it's pissed as hell.' "What the hell are you-," 'Listen and you'll hear.'

Mitsuru listened as told and heard a sound. "Do you hear that?" Mahiru listened for a sound and heard it too. It was someone wailing and occasionally screeching in agony, 'Why god? Why!'

"I think it's Nozomu…" Mahiru guessed, "I wonder what happened," she yawned, "while we were gone."

The tengu shrugged his shoulders, catching Mahiru off guard again by picking her up and carrying her up the stairs bridal style. Half way up he let out, with great feeling, "Shit."

"What's wrong?"

"We left those damn bears back at the beach."

"It's alright…we ruined them anyway with chocolate ice cream." They were now inside of the Princess' bedroom. Mitsuru placed her on the bed and gave her another kiss like the one they shared earlier.

"Good night Mahiru." He said turning and walking out the door, flicking off the light after him.

"Mitsuru!" Mahiru exclaimed. He stopped and looked back at her. "Good night, I love you." That being said she lied down on her bed to go to sleep. The demon boy gave her smirk before closing the door behind him.

TBC.

A/N: There it is, finally, the one thing you all have been waiting for for months, heck I even put in a second one at the end for making you guys wait for so long. This is my longest chapter to date. And to my friend with the mustard (she knows who she is) from the first a/n to this one it's 11 pages so like I said I would I gave you a 10 page chapter. Also you all are probably thinking 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN TBC? THIS IS TORTURE!' Yeah it is but I have to tie up the loose ends dealing with the rest of the cast. There's more too, if you want to talk with me you can reach me at DarkChrestomanci for AIM and you can PM at Gaia at this same name (trust me the more people tell me to update the faster I'll do it). Pretty sure that that's all so Review please but don't flame my mushy marshmallow fluff! Thanks.