Me: Hey. Just so you know, I'm sick at the moment, so I'm sorry if this chapter is crappy and/or full of mistakes. I really tried my best, I just don't feel so great.

Right, maybe you could see this as a belated RanTaku Day thing? I dunno... I found out yesterday that it was RanTaku Day yesterday and I didn't feel like writing on this story, so yeah... I did write for my other stories yesterday (pretty clever, huh? *sarcasm*).

DISCLAIMER: Ugh, I got a headache... I don't own, minna. Hope you enjoy!

Kariya tried not to look suspicious as he walked seemingly nonchalantly through the camp. Everywhere, people were busy with packing their stuff for the upcoming journey. The Leader's tent still stood in the middle of the camp, for it was a meeting place for the Army's councillors. But right now, all councillors were busy trying to lead the soldiers in the right direction, so the tent should be deserted. A small smirk crept on his face. Perfect.

He walked to the back of the tent and when he was sure that he was out of sight, he took his knife and made a smooth cut in the canvas. A second later, he was inside.

It was steaming hot in there and muggy too, so Kariya wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. He looked around the room, trying to find anything similar to a key. He looked underneath the bed and in several bags and cupboards, but there was no sign of a key whatsoever. Don't tell me that the Leader took it with him, Kariya suddenly thought and his heart skipped a beat. If that was the case, their whole plan would fail.

He shook his head to clear the thought away and continued searching. He wouldn't get any further with guesswork. He found it eventually in one of the compartments that were stitched to the inside of the canvas. However, the ring that was attached to the key was stuck to something else. It was a small figurine, approximately as big as Kariya's thumb.

He eyed it for a few seconds before he tried to detach it from the key. It was a little statue of a kneeling boy who held his head bowed down and his arms raised as if he was giving a sacrifice to some sort of God or something. Kariya wondered for a second why the Leader would have such a figurine, but his thoughts were cut short when he heard voices outside the tent.

Without second thought, he put the key and the figurine in his pocket, turned around and dashed out of the tent, using the cut in te canvas he made earlier. He walked only a tad quicker than before, in the opposite direction this time. The key and the strange little figurine burned in his pocket.

Darkness surrounded him, but Kirino didn't really notice it. He felt weak, very weak. He knew he wasn't dead, because there was still pain. Pain was always there. He couldn't remember the times where he hadn't felt pain anymore.

His world, once a complicated coherence of studies, duties, responsibilities, problems of his subjects and whatnot, was now reduced to a much simpler form. Certain signals from outside his body would tell him what would happen to him. The one he dreaded the most, was the tugging of his arms.

His arms were together in a way that he couldn't get them loose. In one of his clearer moments, he deduced that his hands had been tied together. When his cuffs were tugged, his body was raised and that meant that he would feel pain again.

Not that he didn't feel pain when his arms weren't tugged... As he said before, pain was always there. But every time his hands were pulled, a new wave of pain would follow afterwards. He remembered how he had screamed at first when that pain came. He stopped doing that a while ago, though. Now he just waited for the pain to end and to leave his body to rest.

It always ended, he knew that much. But it always returned as well.

Moments of half-consciousness were alternated by feverish dreams and strange visions. Sometimes he was at home, sometimes he was in the meeting room with the councillors, but most of the time, he was in a dark cave. He was looking up, while a human was looking down on him. The next moment, he was pressing his lips against the human's lips, gently breathing into the other's mouth.

He knew who the human was, for the boy had told Kirino his name. Shindou Takuto.

The boy Kirino had saved.

The boy who had betrayed him.

His thought got interrupted when there was yet another tug at his wrists. He knew what was coming, and in spite of his fatigue, Kirino did what he could to resist. He knew that his attempts only looked laughable to the Leader and who knows what other humans were around him, but he did it anyway. His blurry mind showed him a scene with his father, who laughed and said that Kirino just didn't knew when to give up. "Father," he murmured. He wasn't sure if he said it out loud or only in his head, but he didn't care about that either. He wouldn't give up, even if it would take his life, even if it was hopeless... He would fight on.

He felt hands on his arms, his body and his tail, carefully lifting him out of the water. His body moved automatically as it got rid of the water and switched to his lungs. He felt a strange kind of fabric around him before he drifted off to yet another feverish dream.

Shindou checked once again if all his belongings were firmly tied to his horse, especially the great hessian bag on top. He didn't like to do it this way, but it was the only way to get Kirino unseen out of this camp. When he was certain that everything was still in place, he climbed in the saddle. Kariya, Hikaru, Tenma and Shinsuke were already waiting for him and at his signal, they softly rode through the camp at a footpace. When they neared the camp's borders, one of the guards stepped up and blocked their path.

"No one is to leave tonight. We will leave tomorrow at dawn," he barked and wanted to turn away again.

"We have an order from the Leader," Shindou said with as much confidence as he could bring up.

"Leader-sama already left two days ago, if there was such an order, he would've given it sooner and would've told us about it."

Shindou put on a face as if the guard only tired and annoyed him. "I know when he left, you fool," he snapped angrily. "Who do you think you're talking to? I'm Shindou Takuto, and me and my men personally lured that mercreature to this place. I think I would be a bit closer to Leader-sama than you, wouldn't you agree? The order we got is time-based, that's why we are leaving tonight. Now step aside or I'll have you reported."

The guard seemed clueless of what to do. Of course he knew who Shindou Takuto was: there was no one in the Army that hadn't heard the story of the capture of the mercreature. And what Shindou said did make sense, but still... He had his orders and those were to let no one out of the camp tonight.

"Prove it," he said eventually, to which Shindou raised his eyebrow.

"I don't have to prove anything to a mere guard like you. Now step aside."

"Not before I've seen the proof," the guard insisted. Shindou sighed tiredly although his heart was beating fast. It was a good thing that they thought of something for this situation. He gestured to Tenma, who was on Shindou's right side.

"Fine then. Tenma, show him the documents of our official mission report, please."

"Hai, Captain." Tenma turned around in his saddle and started to rummage through his luggage. As the guard focussed on Tenma and unconsciously moved closer to the brunette, Shindou slowly removed his right foot from the stirrup.

"You understand that I will have to report this delay to the Leader when we get back, don't you?" Shindou asked threateningly as he moved his leg backwards. The guard paled a bit and moved closer to Tenma in order to help him looking for the documents.

He never reached the brunette though, for Shindou's right foot collided with his head and he dropped to the ground, unconscious. Without checking up on the guard, Shindou spurred his horse and only seconds later, he was galloping through the woods. The sounds of his juniors following him reached his ears and he bent forward to make even more speed.

The stories of his friends ran through his head again, but he shook them away. The Leader had already left the camp, so there was no way that he could suddenly teleport them back or something. Despite this, he was tensed up the entire night.

After a good twenty minutes of galloping, he beckoned the other boys to stop. It was true that he wanted to get as far away from the army as possible, as fast as was possible, but he had to think about Kirino too. He opened the hessian bag and took Kirino in his arms as they continued their ride. It surprised them how light the merman was. His worries haunted him for the entire night. Worries about Kirino, worries about the Army...

He only relaxed when he saw the silhouette of a small gristmill on the horizon. He allowed himself a tired smile as he saw how the image grew bigger and bigger. Finally, home.

It changed, Kirino just knew it. In one way or another, the world around him changed. His head was now above the water all the time, though he felt that his body was embraced by the cool liquid up to his shoulders. The pain slowly faded away too and he regained more and more of his original power. He was still too exhausted to open his eyes or talk, which meant that he was still depending on signals from outside.

The tugging off his arms was gone, he noticed with relief. The only thing he noticed were a steady breathing every once in a while and sometimes the noises of a closing door. There was also someone who fed him. That person then lifted his head up and carefully shoved some food in his mouth. He knew that this was a woman, because she sometimes said things to him. His mind was still too clouded to decipher the words, though.

When Kirino had finally gathered enough strength to open his eyes, he looked around in surprise. The room he was in had a wooden floor and stone walls. There was a steady door and sunlight came in through three little windows. Something occasionally blocked the light from one of the windows, but it passed so quickly that Kirino couldn't see what it was.

He laid in a wooden tub that was almost completely filled with water. Even before he tasted it, he knew that it wasn't salty. He felt it, that was why he was still so weak. Merfolk like him needed a lot of minerals to keep their tail the way it was. One of the elders in town once told him that when a merman was in a salty environment for too long, there would be great changes to his body. Apart from that, the minerals in the seawater also gave them strength. That was why it had taken him so long to recover from the Leader's visits. He looked at his tail and groaned. It was dull and even cracked at some points, which meant that he would probably moult in the near future. The scales of his tail would then come off all at once and a new coat of scales would be revealed.

The sound of an opening door dragged his attention and he saw how a young woman entered with a bowl in her hands. She was a human, Kirino noted. Strangely enough, he wasn't scared, despite what humans had done to him so far. It was something in the way she looked at him that told him that this girl wouldn't hurt a fly.

"You're awake." Her voice was soft, but her smile was bright. "That's great news. When my husband brought you here, I was afraid that you might not make it. I'm sorry for the little space we can offer you, but I couldn't find anything bigger."

"It's okay," Kirino said. "Thank you very much for taking care of me."

The woman handed him the bowl and Kirino started to eat. He never ate anything like this before. The woman chuckled when she saw him eating. She took the bowl back when he had finished. "I'm glad you liked it," she smiled. "There are not many people who eat oatmeal porridge that eager."

Kirino laughed a bit. "My name is Kirino Ranmaru," he introduced himself and he extended his hand. He remembered that Shindou told him that this was how humans greeted one another. The young woman smiled and shook his hand.

"I'm Shindou Akane, but please call me Akane."

Kirino stared at her in shock. "Sh-Shindou?" he uttered and Akane smiled with her violet eyes closed.

Before any of them could say another word, there was a knock on the door. It opened and revealed a person Kirino thought and hoped he would never see again.

Shindou Takuto.

Me: I'm just gonna stop it right there :p As I said, Shindou is married in this story and his wife is Yamana Akane. Also, he's about eighteen in this story (age isn't really important for the story, but I think 14 is a bit too young to marry... It's an AU-fic, so they're just young adults here ;) )

Also, dear RanTaku-fans: DON'T WORRY! AS I SAID, IT'S STILL A RANTAKU-FIC! This is just a random plot twist my crazy mind came up with... And ShindouxAkane-fans... Please don't kill me for what will happen in the next chapter(s) *hides underneath table*

Okay, as for the next chapter:

- How will Kirino respond?

- Why will ShindouxAkane-fans feel the urge to kill me? (seriously, I get the feeling I'll lose followers/favourites after next chapter /.\)

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One last thing.. The little figurine Kariya found? It'll come back later on, so don't forget about it :p

Reviews will be very much appreciated! ^^