Weellll sorry for the slightly late chapter, but on the bright side... there's... a new chapter... yay...?

You know I said there was something interesting about Kaz? Well now you can find out mk.

Also, Merry Christmas! 8D

There was a surprising lack of guards around the palace prisons. They must be confident that none of the prisoners would escape and that they wouldn't need to keep too much of an eye on them. Well, they'd obviously gone wrong there.

Although, to be honest, the guards probably wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway.

Waka had nothing to go on but the fading candlelight as he led the way through the halls of the palace. It was a good thing he'd worked under the rulers of the city for so long; he generally knew his way around the building, although his sense of direction was slightly lessened by the darkness.

"Ow!"

"You might want to watch out for that pillar," Waka said casually, not even bothering to look back because he knew he wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.

"Oh, thanks for the warning," Kazuki tutted, the sarcasm heavy in his voice. "Do you even know where we're going?"

"More or less," he shrugged. "There's a room near here where the guards keep their weapons, and if memory serves that's where they put confiscated weapons too."

"Okay I'm not even gonna bother asking how you know all this."

"Good, because it would take too much time to explain."

Kazuki let out a long sigh. "I don't even know why I'm following you; I should just escape on my own."

"You don't know the way out."

"Oh shut up!"

Waka just smiled. It was always fun winding people up…

Eventually he spotted a dim light up ahead. Listening briefly for any voices, or other signs of there being anyone here, he soon decided that the place seemed empty enough. Walking over to the door the light was coming from, he cautiously glanced inside.

There was nobody there, but a candle burned in the centre of the room. The walls were lined with shelves of weapons, everything from swords and knives to arrows and shuriken.

"We'll have to be quick," Waka warned, stepping into the room and trying to work out where the guards would have put his swords. "The light is still on so the guards probably come in here often."

"Whoa!" Kazuki gasped when he saw the room. He glanced around, eyes wide. "This looks… dangerous…"

"They're just weapons," Waka rolled his eyes. "They won't harm you unless someone's using them."

Now that they were in some light, Waka could finally see Kazuki. He looked to be in his early twenties, with shoulder-length black hair tied back, a pale blue kimono, navy hakama, boots, and a white scarf around his neck.

"Well, you know… still dangerous," Kazuki shrugged.

Deciding to just ignore him, Waka cast a quick glance around the room. Aha. There was a shelf in the corner that had all sorts of weapons on it. Not wasting any time, Waka walked over and retrieved his katana and flute. He was surprised that the guards had even put the flute here. To them it wouldn't have looked like a weapon at all… they must have been very wary guards.

"Trés bien. Let's go," Waka declared, sliding the katana back into its sheath.

"A flute?" Kazuki blinked.

With a shrug, Waka unsheathed the glowing green blade of Pillow Talk.

"… Point taken. Literally."

"You might want to grab a weapon," Waka muttered. "If you don't have one of your own then just take one of the guards'."

Kazuki cast a glance at the lines of weapons on the walls. "Eh… I'm not much of a fighter…"

"It's better to at least have a weapon. The chances are we'll run into some more guards on the way out of here and you don't want to face them unarmed."

"Well fine, but I'm not going to be any good at using a sword."

"Take a bow and arrow then"

"Um… nah, I can't use a bow."

"You don't need to have a good aim to shoot someone who's right in front of you, even the guards know that."

"No, really. I can't use a bow."

"Quoi? Why not?"

Kazuki shrugged. "Because you need two hands to use one."

Huh…?

Until now, Waka hadn't been paying enough attention to notice how the right sleeve of Kazuki's kimono swayed limply back and forth at his side. Now it made sense. Yet Waka couldn't help but feel somewhat shocked.

He only has one arm…

The moon was low in the sky by the time Amaterasu emerged from the ruins. Just from walking through the tunnels she had pieces of grit in her fur and she had to give herself a brisk shake to get them out.

When her fur was clean again, she looked up at the sky. She had to try and decide what to do next.

If Waka had somehow managed to escape from the prison then he'd probably be fine. She wouldn't be able to find him easily so her best bet would be to just wait for him to randomly turn up like he always did.

For now, she needed to try and figure out how to defeat DD. She couldn't fight him since he was just a floating cloud of mist. Was there another way to get rid of him?

Well, she'd think of something. There was always some way of defeating a demon, she just had to work out what it was this time.

This would have been a lot easier if Issun was here…

Perhaps she should go and look for him. It had been a few hours since she'd last seen him and maybe he'd have got over the demon's manipulation by now. Not only that, but she could find out how far DD was using his powers as well if she travelled back across Nippon.

Lifting her head higher, the goddess glanced at the sky. Light was just starting to appear over the horizon. Ah well, she wouldn't disturb the natural order too much.

She flicked her tail in a circle, ink splashing onto the earth. The sun appeared abruptly in the sky, flooding the coast with light.

Amaterasu raced away up the slope towards the gate. She had a poncle to find.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Ah…" Waka snapped back to reality as Kazuki spoke. He glanced away hurriedly. "Nothing."

"In that case," Kazuki tutted, wandering further into the room and carefully picking up one of the guards' swords as if he expected it to attack him, "can we get out of here already?"

"Oui… let's go," Waka nodded, brusquely walking out through the door and back into the pitch black corridor.

"Hey, wait up!"

The prophet slowed his pace slightly but didn't pay much attention to the fellow escapee. He was trying to get over the fact of how uneasy he felt now. In all the centuries he'd lived for, he'd never come across somebody who was missing an arm before. He couldn't even imagine what that would be like…

His thoughts were interrupted as suddenly light poured in through the small windows of the room.

"What the heck!?" Kazuki cried, glancing around warily. "What's going on?"

Waka breathed a small sigh of relief. "Don't worry about it." He knew what this meant; the sun had just appeared in the sky.

Ma chérie… she's okay…

Although now that it isn't dark anymore we may have a lot more trouble getting out of here without being noticed.

"If… you say so…" Kazuki muttered. He didn't sound entirely convinced, but that was probably to be expected.

"Halt!"

Waka glanced around at last to see a couple of guards at the far end of the corridor. Wow. He'd thought they might get discovered quickly now that the place was light but he hadn't thought the guards would find them quite that quickly…

"Uhh, what now?" Kazuki asked, looking somewhat worried.

"Isn't it obvious?" Waka shrugged.

"No?"

"We run."

Amaterasu cast one look back at Ryoshima Coast as she neared the corner at the path that would take her to the big drawbridge. She'd spent a while looking for Issun but finding him was proving to be harder than she'd first thought. Every so often she'd catch a faint scent but a moment later it was gone again. This was one of those times when the fact that he was so small and never stayed in one place for very long was rather irritating…

Ah well. She'd be coming back here soon. Hopefully he'd find her when she returned.

Leaving the coast behind, the wolf padded across the grassy path and headed across the drawbridge. She hesitated for a moment as she realised there was a guard standing at the far end but soon realised that, as per usual, he was fast asleep. Whether DD's powers worked on people while they were sleeping she didn't know, but at least since the guard wasn't awake he couldn't attack her or try and stop her from going past.

Taka Pass looked just the same as it always had. There was a lingering smell of imp which proved that there were still a few of them around, but Amaterasu hadn't seen any demons other than DD since all of these problems started. At least that was one less thing to worry about. If it wasn't for the knowledge of what was going on in the city, Nippon would seem perfectly normal from here…

As she neared the fork in the path, Ammy glanced up the slope leading into the mountain. Kusa Village was the nearest settlement to the city, however it was in a very remote area out here; perhaps DD's power wouldn't have spread this far?

There was only one way to find out.

The wolf sped up the path, flowers and grass sprouting behind her as she ran. She was nearly at the village when she heard some fierce growling coming from up ahead.

Amaterasu skidded to a halt, ears pricked and head tipped to one side. What was going on?

A loud snarl. Behind her.

She swiftly jumped around as a snarling dog jumped towards her with a flurry of claws. Easily dodging, she hopped backwards, giving a warning growl.

Then she stopped and lifted her head. It was just Tei. She let out a bark.

Surprisingly, even though he'd have had plenty of time to recognise her by now, Tei was still snarling. A moment later, Shin appeared from behind one of the rocks, padding over to stand next to him. There was more growling from somewhere behind her and the wolf glanced around to see Rei, Ko and Chi blocking the path to the village.

She was trapped.

But why?

"Oh! Tei, it's just Amaterasu," Chi spoke up at last. "We can trust the sun goddess."

"No!" Tei snapped.

"Huh?" Ko blinked.

"We mustn't let the intruder get into the village," Shin growled.

Amaterasu tipped her head to one side. What was going on here?

"Well done, Amaterasu," Rei snarled. "You really had us fooled."

"No, seriously… huh?" Ko repeated. "What are you three going on about?"

"We all thought she was the sun goddess," Tei's unscarred eye narrowed. "When she was really a demon all along."

"What!?" Chi cried. "Guys, Amaterasu is the sun goddess. You know that."

"No she isn't! She's a demon!" Shin persisted.

Ko and Chi exchanged a glance.

"Do you think they ate some bad meat or something?" Ko said plainly.

"This wolf is a demon," Tei said firmly, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. "And demons must be killed!"