Recap of Chapter Four: Waka and Amaterasu are badly injured while fighting a whole army of monster thingies in Agata Forest. They are fighting a losing battle for their lives. As the sun goes down, Amaterasu creates a bomb just as lightning strikes a tree, causing a forest fire. Once Ammy's bomb goes off, the fire just gets even larger. Waka gets to safety, leaving his wolf companion out in the forest. Then, he decides to go back for her, thus leaving the safety of the cave.

LAST TIME:::

Suddenly, Amaterasu, using the Cherry Bomb brush technique, created a round, orange bomb and materialized it in the middle of a crowd of creatures, whose numbers had gone up from 2 to 20 to over 220 in a matter of 30 minutes.

Waka, knowing that such a bomb would explode soon, did the wise thing and stumbled away a bit from what would soon be Ground Zero. Ammy did the same.

Just then, a huge flash of lightning hit a nearby tree, catching it on fire and sending it crashing down, lighting a nearby one ablaze, too. The hail turned into rain again.

That's when the bomb exploded.

When the bomb exploded, it set the forest blazing with what looked to be a scarlet, scorching firestorm.

Waka heard Issun scream and Ammy howl at the time of the blast, but Waka was too concerned with saving himself to bother himself with the wolfy Goddess.

When he managed to limp to safety, he waited for five minutes before he decided to go and find Amaterasu when his moral got the best of him…and…and…another, strange felling deep within his heart that he did not yet want to put words to.

He limped out of his small cave and into the wildfire.

Chapter Five: A Strange New Land

Waka entered the searing flames, leaving the safety of the cave. The extent of his injuries was great, but he could handle anything.

As he limped around the burning forest, branches were coming crashing down, and every step he took brought a new wave of pain and heat.

"Amaterasu!" Waka called before coughing from the smoke.

He heard a soft whimper, but he could not tell the direction from which it came. Waka started to cough even more until he passed out from his injuries and too much smoke inhalation.

Amaterasu stumbled around almost blindly through the burning forest. She winced as she felt a heat wave hit her. White ashes floated all around. Her front leg, which had a large gash in it, was really bothering her and all of her paw-pads were torn and bleeding.

She had heard Waka call for her.

Where was he now?

She sniffed the air in an attempt to catch the prophet's scent, but the only thing she could smell was burning wood from the fiery forest around her.

She looked up. The flames shot up so high that it looked like they would go into the heavens. Suddenly, she saw Waka either unconscious or dead on the forest floor. She hesitated to approach him.

Issun started bouncing on her bloodstained nose.

"Let's leave him here, Ammy!" he suggested, a panicked tone in his voice. "If we don't get out now, we're going to be burned alive!"

Thanks for stating the obvious, Issun, Amaterasu thought to herself. But, that is a tempting idea.

But Waka had the faint scent of shelter; a mossy rock smell.

She inferred that he had gone to safety, but had then left it to go and look for her and Issun. Well, probably minus the Issun part, but his intentions had most likely been good.

Unless of course there had been a bear or mountain lion or something in the cave that had caused him to leave, but it was doubtful.

Now, one question remained: Was he still alive?

Amaterasu bit his arm to find out. Waka winced. So he was alive.

Okay, so now it would be sort of worth the effort of dragging him off to safety with her, at least.

With the last bit of energy she had, and with a disappointed sigh from Issun when he realized that Waka wouldn't be left to die, Ammy took Waka's arm in her jaws and, following the trail of blood that had obviously led to the place where Waka had found shelter, dragged herself and the unconscious tribesman to the cave, which was just a little less than a quarter of a mile away.

Once inside the shelter, the adrenalin quickly left her and she fainted.

When Waka regained consciousness, his whole body ached. He rolled over with a quiet groan.

How did I get here, he wondered, and I do not recall rescuing Amaterasu. Did she take me here? Oh well, I'll worry about that later.

He lay there for fifteen minutes before deciding to try to get to his feet. Suddenly Issun bounced up to him, looking very uninjured. Waka sighed and sat down.

"Hello, my bouncing little friend," he greeted.

Issun got straight to the point. "Hey, we just saved your hide!" he exclaimed. "You'd better show your thanks! You can do that by doing everything I tell you to do! Mwahahahaha!!! You can start by, say, jumping off a cliff!"

Waka stared at Issun with a blank expression.

"What?!" cried Issun, as if his request had been perfectly normal and reasonable. Suddenly, Ammy twitched and whined a bit. The sun shone into the cave.

She sat up and yawned. Waka was surprised that they hadn't both bled to death. He crawled to the opening of the den. The forest was devastating to look at.

Black, burnt, dead trees were everywhere, except some of the trees had just turned into ashes. No birds were singing, and not a thing stirred anywhere, it seemed.

Waka still sensed danger in the area, however, and Amaterasu did too. "We should leave now," Waka suggested. "Or, at least, we could wait till tomorrow morning to give our wounds more of a chance to heal," he corrected quickly, eyeing all his cuts and Amaterasu's front leg.

Amaterasu gave a nod. Waka tore off a piece of cloth from the bottom of his shirt and used it as a bandage for some of the many cuts on his body.

Out of niceness, he ripped some off for Ammy and wrapped it around her front leg. The next day, they were ready to go (well, sort of).

While they walked through the remains of the forest, Waka stated, "Sure is depressing out here, huh, Ma Cherie?"

In response, Amaterasu used the Bloom Celestial Brush technique. Suddenly, practically the whole forest burst out in pink blossoms as the dead trees suddenly came back to life.

As well as she could, Ammy joyfully frolicked through the forest that she just revived. Waka followed her. They walked along a log that led across a river.

They soon found themselves in a place with a giant sign saying, "Taka Pass." They were greeted with…guess what! A cursed zone!

"Ugh…" moaned Issun, "not here too!"

"This is quite unfortunate," Waka had to admit. "We will have to go find the Guardian Sapling and bring it back to life, as it is obviously dead."

You mean I will bring it back to life, Amaterasu retorted, sending the thought to Waka.

"Well…yes," Waka laughed nervously.

Amaterasu walked around, trying to find the way to get to the sapling. Once she found the way, she began to head toward it. She, followed by Waka, leapt up onto a ledge. She collapsed on the ledge.

"What is it?" asked Waka.

My front leg…it's not very strong right now because of the injury…it hurts a lot, replied Amaterasu.

"Ammy, what's wrong?" asked a concerned Issun.

"Can you walk?" wondered Waka pretty much indifferently.

Not sure yet…It's worse than it was earlier.

"Well, my knee has been killing me this whole trip, so I can't carry you," warned Waka.

Now Amaterasu was immobilized and they were all surrounded by a Cursed Zone. This was just great. Why were they always so lucky?

To be continued…

Well, I hope you liked it! Well, I decided to go with Keroanne1 's idea for Taka Pass. Don't worry; I will include the tigers.