Author's note: Thank you to reviewer Nani san for your kind words about my grandmother. Sadly…well, she was in the hospital with terminal lung cancer, and she passed away not long after. That's why I haven't been writing anything other than pure angst recently. However, your review has restored my motivation to write for this story. Thank you.

(As a side note, I wrote this before that happened. You can expect this story to take a turn for the angst as well.)

Chapter 12: Leaving

By the time Hina woke up the next morning, the camp looked completely different.

More than half of the tents were already down when she stepped, blinking, from the flap of her own. A winged purple demon and a thin, shadowy man were loading two carts with brightly colored bundles of cloth—presumably the tents—as well as other pieces of luggage. Someone she didn't know was packing indistinct objects into a box. Shizuku and Hyoujin were folding up another tent off to her right, while Juhi's huge form was kneeling by one of the flattened areas, palms on the ground. As she watched, the bent and broken grass straightened itself up like a wave of green away from his claws.

"Finally up, sleepyhead?"

Hina turned to see Shizuku practically skipping towards her, followed at a slightly more sedate pace by her earth demon companion.

"I'm sor—" began Hina, but before she could even get the word out, the fox was waving her off.

"Nonsense. You needed the rest. Besides," she said, jabbing Hyoujin in the side with her elbow, "you weren't the only one to sleep in."

Hina would have Hyoujin to be offended, or at least annoyed, at being mock-attacked like that, but he just grinned rather apologetically and shrugged.

"But you need to pack! You'll need to get your bedroll and clothes and whatever you brought with you…and I guess that's all you have, huh? Nothing that would need to go on a cart, anyway."

Shizuku kept on talking about all the things that needed doing, while Hina just nodded and felt overwhelmed. Fortunately, she was saved by Hyoujin taking over and dragging the fox back the way they'd come, saying "We've really got to finish over here—just throw your things in your bag!"

That she could do. Actually, all she had to do was roll up her bedroll and tie it on—everything else she owned in this world was already in her small pack.

So she was ready in plenty of time to help with the rest of the cleanup. With everyone helping out and Juhi raising the crushed grass, the campsite soon looked absolutely untouched.

When everyone was finally ready, they set off away from the morning sun.

Thus began Hina's first journey with Kirin's band. (It was no longer a camp, after all, and Hina had to try to adjust her mental vocabulary accordingly.)

The trip took most of a week, with everyone walking and the largest, strongest members of the band taking turns pulling the two carts.

It was a pleasant enough trip, with plenty of time for conversation as they walked.

At one point, while she was walking by Kirin in a companionable silence, she thought to ask what this group called itself.

He had laughed at that. "We never did manage to come up with a name for ourselves. We talked about it for a long time—the phoenix was the most popular theme, by the end— but no one managed to come up with something everyone liked. Eventually it kind of fell by the wayside…we never really found the need to call ourselves anything but 'us'."

Hina remained silent for some time after that, pondering again the strange closeness she was still on the outskirts of.

Their travel was mostly uneventful for three days, but on the morning of the fourth, Hina finally had a chance to see the team in action.

The morning had started the same as the others, except that they left the open plains behind them and instead entered a more wooded area. These were the first trees Hina had ever seen that weren't extremely cold-tolerant evergreens, so that alone would have been enough to make the day memorable.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only memorable thing to happen that day.

One of the members of the group—Imahara, who turned out to be the dark-haired loner with the antenna-bangs—had been in the lead for some time when he held up a hand for them to stop.

"What is it?" asked Kirin, stepping forward, one hand moving toward the hilt of his sword.

"Company," said Imahara, darkly. That in itself wasn't too worrying—'dark' seemed to be his default tone.

"How many?"

Imahara was silent for a moment, then answered, "Over a dozen. They've just noticed us…and they're acting territorial."

Kirin considered. "Can we go around them?"

Imahara just shook his head.

"Hm. Keep going, then. If they're smart they'll let us through. If not…" he shrugged, which simultaneously expressed his feeling on the matter, and also shifted his travelling cape out of the way, providing better access to the blade strapped around his waist.

Hina was straining her senses to the limit, but she still couldn't feel whatever it was that Imahara had noticed. Either he had a much wider range than she did, or else they were masking their signatures in a way she couldn't break through.

Still, it wasn't that long before the self-proclaimed rulers of the forest decided to make an appearance.

They were, appropriately enough, led by a troll.

"Hmm…visitors!" he boomed. "We should welcome them…assuming the can pay the rent."

Kirin's face twisted in disgust as he looked at him, but he smoothed it out with an effort.

"We're not in the market for your…hospitality," he said, voice carefully neutral. "We're just passing through."

"Oh, but you're already here, aren't you? So you already owe us for your accommodations." He sounded proud to be able to use such a long word, despite the fact that it wasn't strictly accurate, as they hadn't set camp in the forest.

"I have an alternate arrangement to propose," said Kirin, his clipped voice barely disguising his impatience. "Let us pass, and we won't kill you."

The troll threw back his head and laughed— a harsh, cruel sound.

One of his subordinates (mostly humanoid, but with a horn and impossibly long ears) tapped on his arm, trying to get his attention. The troll tried the brush off the smaller being, but he was insistent, and reached up to whisper something in his superior's ear.

The troll leader's change in mood was instant, and violent. He roared, and punched his follower in the chest, throwing the unfortunate bearer of bad news flying painfully into a nearby tree.

"Does anyone else want to suggest surrender?" he roared at the rest of his men.

A few flicker their eyes back and forth between their leader and their (potential) enemies, sizing them up, but most didn't even spare a glance for their injured colleague before roaring their approval back at their leader.

Said leader, flush with the power he held over his men, turned back to his challengers and crossed his arms.

"So, which will it be?"

Kirin shook his head regretfully.

"You should have listened to that one."

"And just why would I want to do that?" Arrogance was fast turning to fury.

Kirin raised an eyebrow. "He appears to be more perceptive than you are. We have no quarrel with him." He spared a glance over his shoulder, which Hina didn't understand, but apparently the others did, judging by their curt nods.

The troll roared again at the insult, but Kirin raised a hand and continued. "We are vastly more powerful than your little gang. Just let us go, and you can keep your forest—and your life."

The troll elected to abandon his extensive vocabulary in favor of the more direct approach. He swung his weapon—a giant spiked club—directly at Kirin's face.

Everything happened at once after that.

Kirin blurred with speed as he avoided the blow, while several different attacks found their way to the troll leader. Most of the troll's subordinates, other than the one he'd knocked out earlier, leapt in to defend their leader, and the fight was on.

Hina mostly found herself trying to avoid getting hit by stray attacks. Just trying to keep track of what was going on left her no attention to spare for launching a counterattack. Everyone else seemed content to focus on what was immediately in front of them, and not bother trying to take in the bigger picture.

That was probably the wiser choice for a combat situation.

Still, it proved fortunate for them that Hina was the big-picture type.

Hina dodged a rippling black attack that was aimed at an enemy, and tried to see where everyone was. Shizuku was using her clawed hands and sharp teeth to full effect, not even bothering to go for a weapon, if she even had one. Ryoko was dancing around like the fire she controlled, both hands wreathed in flame. Juhi, on the other hand, wasn't moving a muscle—but the trees around his motionless figure were more than making up for it, whipping around like they were caught in a hurricane. Imahara had leapt back into the branch of one of the trees that wasn't currently being used as a weapon, away from the center of the fray, and was shooting bolts of energy with sniperlike precision. Not far from there, Koyu was enveloped in a cloud of what looked like snow as several enemies closed in on him.

Koyu…

With a jolt, Hina realized that he was outnumbered and cut off. She didn't know much about his abilities, but whatever he was doing didn't seem to be doing much to stop them.

She ducked under another attack, this one definitely meant for her, and launched herself toward to younger ice demon.

He was directing furious blasts of crystallized winter at his opponents, but they kept coming at him, hardly slowed down at all…though even that was more than Hina would have expected from the snowy blasts.

Hina formed an ice blade like she'd practiced, and flung it at the closest of Koyu's attackers. It missed his vital points, but he fell back with a cry. That left only two, one of which whirled around at his compatriot's cry. With a snarl, this new opponent launched himself at Hina, but she twisted aside and left him a nice patch of ice to slip on. She didn't spare a glance for his fate—though her ears told her he'd slammed face first into a tree—because the final demon (a wildcat, by the look of him) was circling in on the nearly defenseless snow demon.

Hina had only an instant to glimpse Koyu's wide, terrified eyes before his attacker leapt.

Hina's body moved before her mind could process anything. She threw herself forward, calling up her ice as she went.

The cat demon's teeth sank into her shoulder.

The partially formed ice shield had protected her from the full force of his attack, but it hadn't been enough to guard her completely.

She coated her hand in the hardest ice she could muster and punched her attacker in the jaw, causing him to release her with a cry.

Koyu came up behind her, miniature blizzard at hand, and surrounded the injured feline with swirling snow. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the cat stumbled, almost drunkenly, and collapsed to his knees, his energy swirling out of him in a way that Hina abruptly realized was not under his control.

Koyu turned to Hina, breathing hard and pale.

"Thank you," he said, faintly. "There were too many…I…I couldn't get all of them…"

Hina spared a glance at the rest of the battle—and realized that there wasn't one. Everyone else seemed to have finished up their respective fights as well. The troll leader was dead, and many of his gang members appeared to have surrendered.

Satisfied that they wouldn't be unexpectedly attacked, she turned back to Koyu.

"Of course." She nodded at him. "I couldn't very well let that one get you."

"You're bleeding."

Hina glanced down. The ice she'd been trying to form had closed off her wounds, but she could still see the gashes under the clear shield. She couldn't feel them yet—adrenaline was doing its job—but she knew that would change soon.

Before she could answer, though, Shizuku noticed them and bounced over.

"What are you doing all the way over here?" she asked as soon as she was close enough. "You're way out of the way!" Her chipper attitude clashed rather alarmingly with her bloodstained hands and teeth.

But before Hina could respond to that, Koyu had launched into a description of what had just happened—one that made her out to be far more heroic than she remembered being. But when she tried to set the record straight, both of them dismissed her objections as excessive modesty.

Instinct, she mentally corrected when Koyu called her brave. Instinct, not courage. I couldn't let the young one be killed.

The group gathered back together and got ready to set off again, cleaning up and taking care of various minor injuries—including those of the one demon who hadn't wanted to fight them—and as they did, Hina realized that she wasn't the only one who was having stories told about her. Hyoujin was busy telling everyone about how he'd nearly been overpowered by a well-shielded demon, when all of a sudden, Aijou had come out of nowhere and knocked down his attacker. Aijou—who turned out to be the girl with the green braid—protested that she'd actually lost her footing and fallen onto his attacker quite by accident. A blond man with a small pair of horns (whose name she couldn't remember) gave Imahara credit for saving him from his own attacker, even though the quieter man maintained that he'd been aiming for someone else altogether.

Slowly, Hina realized that this was just something these people did—another of those solidarity-building affairs, much like Kirin had said about the dance.

Only this time, she was inside it.