Boushin stayed in Tasuki's room that night because it was the most lavish, while Chiriko was elsewhere nursing a headache. The day had been so full the boy had difficulty settling down to sleep. "Tasuki?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

Good, it sounds like he wasn't asleep yet. "Today when you mentioned Mitsukake, why did Chiriko look troubled?"

"Troubled? Maybe surprised was more like it," he turned over to face him.

"He didn't look happy."

"I just think he was nervous. Mitsukake's prob'ly the one he wants to see most."

"Why?"

"He owes his life to him."

"Oh," he replied. "Because of his healing powers."

"Only half," Tasuki stared off. Boushin said "oh" again, unsure where else to take that. Tasuki read the air, and sat up. "Chiriko was the youngest one of us, you know. Even Miaka had a couple years on 'im. Maybe because they weren't hot-heads like some of the rest of us, he and Mitsukake got along really well. And… I don't know where I'm goin' with this."

"Just tell me what happened."

So he did. Tasuki told Boushin about the monster they encountered among the Seiryuu warriors who had possessed Chiriko's body. He was one to tell stories with great relish, which sucked Boushin in, but his voice was also audible from the hall. Chiriko, hearing them still awake, thought he would go join them, but the words became clearer once he reached the door, and he could hear Tasuki telling Boushin about how he had stabbed himself trying to save everyone.

"Mitsukake offered to heal him, but…"

"But if he had done that, he would have healed the monster, too."

"That's exactly what he said—so he wouldn't let him! He told everyone to hurry and go, but Mitsukake an' I stayed behind t' keep him company."

Chiriko grimaced and went back down the hall.

Boushin was completely absorbed in Tasuki's words—no one had ever told him so much about the Suzaku warriors and their battles, nor been so animated, as Tasuki's arms said almost as much as the words flying out his mouth. "And then when he gasped out that we should take the scroll Taiitsukun gave 'im, that's when Mitsukake got it! He told him, 'Chiriko, I'm going to heal you. And you're going to focus on sealing that monster away into your scroll,' and he pried his hands off the spindle to make him hold the scroll."

"Did it work?"

"He's here now, isn't he?" he had a wide smile, and Boushin sat back in relief. Tasuki continued, "Man, were the others surprised when he came running up the stairs with us! They were both pretty amazing. I couldn't have thought of that, and I definitely couldn't have done what Chiriko did. I just sat there and bawled!"

"And was everyone in time to stop the Priestess of Seiryuu?"

His smile faded. "No. We weren't."

"Oh."

There was an awkward pause, and Tasuki didn't feel like telling any more stories. "Well, I'm gonna go get myself somethin' strong to drink myself off to sleep. You want anything?"

"No, I shouldn't drink liquor."

"Nobody'd get ya' in trouble for it here."

"Thank you for the offer, but I think I'm sleepier now," he smiled, and Tasuki shrugged and strutted out the door, mentally going over what would be a quick concoction to throw together.

Down the hall, Chiriko waited for him with his arms folded inside his sleeves, greeting him with a glower and saying, "Good evening, Tasuki." He didn't look pleased.

The other warrior smiled sheepishily. "I wasn't supposed to say anything, was I?"

"Feel free to share my traumatic experiences with whoever you want."

Tasuki neglected to mention that the entirety of the bandits had all heard that story as well. "Geez, you're really mad, aren't you?"

"I can only be so mad," he sighed, with a hand to his forehead. "I just don't feel like it's something worth bringing up."

"But you did great, Chiriko!"

"Maybe at that moment, but Suzaku was sealed," he pulled his scroll out to look at it, rolled up in his hand. "I still have no way of knowing if he was freed. He might not be gone, Tasuki."

Tasuki put the scroll down away from his line of vision. "Even if he was, if he was gonna do something, don't you think it would'a already happened? It's over. You won. Be happy about it! Mitsukake didn't save you so that you could spend your whole life worrying about it."

"Alright," he put it away.

"Alright," Tasuki felt like he had won an argument. "And I promise not to tell any more stories that make you look good. Happy?" Chiriko smiled and shook his head at his joke. "Now why dontcha come get a nightcap with me and tell me about all these marriage proposals!"

"What? Did Boushin mention those? And no, I really don't hold alcohol well…"

"Aw, you're still the baby of the group. Come be manly with me."

Out in the desert, the night was sharp, but the air was clear. Kaika's sound could carry far out into the darkness.

"Daddy," a voice said from the window. "I wanna play the flute just as pretty as you do!"

"That will come with practice," he smiled back.

"Daddy," came another voice. "Why do you play your flute?"

"Because you like it, your brother likes it, your mother likes it, and I like it."

"And Grandpa and Grandma?"

"Yes, because they like it too."

"But you're standing outside."

"I guess I am," he patted his son's head from outside the window. "Sometimes I feel like there's someone who needs to hear it, and I'm helping them."

"Daddy, no one's out there."

"You can't always see when someone is sad," he explained. "People don't like to talk about that sometimes. That's why listening to the flute is nice, because they don't have to say anything to feel better. Would you both promise me you'll always try to make sad people feel better?"

"Alright!" they said in unison.

"Good. Now off to bed," he scooted his boys off, and then returned to playing his song. The urges to go outside and play for someone—whoever that may be—were not unusual, and he was sure it had something to do with the life he left behind.

"Go out and play," he wife would tell him when he tried to fight it, afraid of something he shouldn't remember coming back to him. They both accepted his anxious moments, and then once he finished playing, they would move on without letting it bother them. At his most anxious, he would sometimes drabble on to her about how he didn't belong in that little desert village, and how he felt he still had something important to do. "I know you're feeling that," she'd embrace him and whisper, "That character on your shoulder told me so."

Though he had no recollection, it was at least clear to him that he was a Seiryuu warrior. Though he did not know why he left, he was usually satisfied accepting that things had happened to bring him to Sairou, where he lived a simple life.

Yui was calmer. She couldn't tell what it was, but she felt like there was something helping to lull her back to sleep. I only had a dream about Miaka because it was the anniversary recently, she told herself, trying to shake free of the image of her injured friend falling further and further away.

Morning came. Boushin was excited and ready to go very early, but Chiriko, and even Tasuki, were a bit sluggish. "Did your headache ever go away?" he asked.

"It came back with reinforcements," he eyed Tasuki, who yawned.

Boushin had an inkling what that meant, and he wanted to laugh. He had never imagined the quiet counselor accepting a drink with a bandit. "So we're going to see Mitsukake now?" he asked once they had departed.

"That's right," Tasuki smiled back, feeling a bit more awake. "He doesn't know anything about being Mitsukake, though."

"Did he die in battle?"

"Sort of," he trailed off and looked to Chiriko. "I was on the battlefield, so I wasn't there when he died."

"He was injured on the battlefield," Chiriko filled in for him. "But then he wore himself out taking care of everyone else's injuries."

"Wasn't his power sealed like yours?"

"He was a skilled doctor even without his celestial abilities. His power was sealed, but that didn't stop him." As usual, he stopped before saying anything of much concreteness, leading Boushin to believe that there was more.

He turned back to Tasuki instead. "Did you ever find out what happened?"

"Yeah! He said 'to hell with this seal on Suzaku, I'm healin' these people anyway!' and bam! Light everywhere! He used his life force to heal everybody, even the soldiers on both sides who had just died!"

"Not that he worded it like that, but yes, that's what happened."

"Wow," he blinked. "Were you there, Chiriko?"

"Yes," his voice sunk as the sounds came flooding back through his mind. "Chichiri and I were at his side. Your mother was also present—she was helping tend to some of the wounded."

"I do remember her saying that!" he chirped. "She said that she stayed busy during the war doing what she could from the palace, even though the officials asked her not to, because…"

Boushin trailed off. It was only a passing story his mother had told him about the stress of the war and how she had been involved. She told Boushin that she had been afraid she miscarried a child very early on in the pregnancy—and only felt confident that she would give birth once she met a healer among the wounded.

"Boushin?" asked Chiriko. "Are you feeling alright? You look pale."

"I'm fine," he looked up with sunshine back in his voice. "Are you feeling well enough to go?"

"I'm fine."

"Then we better have another go tonight with Chichiri to fix that," Tasuki flashed his fangs and grinned.

"We'll see Chichiri tonight?" Boushin beamed.

"Or tomorrow morning."

"That's good," he sighed. "Then we weren't as lost as I thought."

"Lost?" asked Tasuki, who then glanced over to Chiriko. "Then ya didn't mean to come to Mount Reikaku?"

Chiriko pretended not to hear him. "There's the stream. Are we almost to the village you mentioned?"

Tasuki confirmed they were, and lead them to a clearing where they could leave the horses and approach on foot quietly. Boushin had to wonder why they were being so shifty. "Good, he's outside," Tasuki whispered, and then pointed out to a clearing across the stream. Boushin looked over with Chiriko and noticed a slender girl with long hair.

"That's Mitsukake?"

"No, that's Shouka, dummy-I mean, Your Highness. He should be right behind her."

Sure enough, a boy a little younger than Boushin came right behind her, carrying a basket. They sat in the grass and starting to pick through weeds, the boy asking her questions with wide eyes, and then being scolded before she'd pinch his cheek with a laugh. They weren't close enough to hear what they were saying, but they watched for what felt like a long time before Boushin looked up to Chiriko. He was completely absorbed in the scene before them.

"Well?" Tasuki finally broke their silence.

Chiriko could only manage a nod at first. "It's him."

"Ya wanna go say hello?"

"No. Let's tell the others first. We can always come back."

"Got it. Let's head back to the path then."

Boushin stole one last glance over his shoulder before following them. He wasn't sure what they saw, because they only looked like kids in a secluded little village. It was pleasant.

It was another long day of travel after they left the isolated village where Mitsukake's reincarnation lived. They decided it would be the middle of the night by the time they reach Tamahome's village, and stayed in small town barely populated enough to have an inn. Chiriko swore off any drinking plans Tasuki would have had and went to sleep early, so the bandit went by himself. Boushin had been hoping to have him tell him more stories, but it didn't look like that would happen tonight. He was left to wonder how talkative Chichiri might be.

More talkative than Chiriko? Likely. He looked at his sleeping face and felt a twinge of guilt for having pushed the Suzaku subject so far. It was probably painful for everyone to recall—and there was no hint yet of how they lost their priestess.

The room was stuffy and Boushin wasn't sleepy yet, so he opened the window and looked outside at the stars. He played a game with himself trying to see which constellations he could identify, but the ones he could see just looked like one swirling mass. At the very least, he could identify the hydra, his father's stars. Where was his father now? Reincarnated, or just gone? Maybe all along he only wanted to know more about him.

It was lonely. He'd never been able to speak firsthand about how great he was.

"Hey, Yui. It's Keisuke."

"I know. What's up?"

"Now don't take this the wrong way, but I need someone to go with me to an old friend's wedding. I don't want to look like the only one there with no lady friends. And don't worry, Tetsuya doesn't know the guy so—"

"That means you don't have any other lady friends. Don't you have someone from your university you can call up?"

"Well, they're, uh, busy."

"Or taken?"

"Yes, 'or taken'! Come on Yui, you'd really be helping me out here!"

"Take your mom. I'm busy studying."

"I'd rather go single."

"Sorry, Keisuke. Who knows, maybe you'll meet someone there. Bye."

"Yui! Argh. I had something I wanted to give you," he groaned and spun his chair around, where he noticed Mayo standing in the doorway to the teachers' room, which was otherwise full of empty desks. "Sakaki! Hi! I… I was just working late. What can I do for you?"

"Sounds like you're more in need of a favor than I would be," she said.

"Uh, that wasn't what it sounded like…"

"Was that Miss Hongo, my upperclassman?" she invited herself in.

"Yeah, we go back a long time, way before either of us ever got close to this school," he said.

"Isn't she dating someone else?"

"Yeah, my best friend."

"Ouch."

"It's not like that at all! Those two were made for each other or something, I'm the third wheel. I just needed a favor, that's all."

"You just needed a favor from a female," she finished for him. "Can I help, Coach? I'm not doing anything this weekend."

"Uh," he started. He would shout yes, please, I'll be your slave forever, help me-but reason took over. She was only in high school, after all. "I'm sure there's some rule against this somewhere, but thanks for the offer. Now what was it you needed?"

"Nothing," she snapped. She was just killing time and Keisuke had already offered to help her kill it before. "Why do you always stay so late?"

"Because it's easier to focus here than at home with my mom yapping at me."

"That makes two of us."

"How's your homework going?"

"Are you any good at geometry?"

"No, that's why I'm a gym teacher."

"Then it's nothing you can help with."

"Do you go out and do things with your friends when your homework is done?"

"Yeah, sometimes," she shrugged. "Nothing of any consequence. Just killing time. Nothing special happens to me. I just want an escape from everything sometimes."

"You know," he said, "When my little sister was stressed about high school exams, she wanted an escape too."

Mayo was quiet, as she didn't know he had a sister. "What did she do?"

"She… kind of got swept up into a bigger mess than she ever thought it'd be. She never came back."

The color drained from Mayo's face. "I'm sorry I asked."

"Just be careful, okay, Sakaki?" he gathered his things and smiled to her as he got out his keys. "Wouldn't want to lose one of my star players, after all."

"Yes, sir," she replied as he stepped out, and she noticed a book he left on the table. It didn't look like a textbook or anything having to do with his work, and curiosity got the better of her as she fingered it.

"Sakaki?" he called from the hall as she heard him backtracking a few steps. Startled, she slyly plopped the book into her bag just before he looked back in the doorway. "I need to lock up the building, so…"

"Right, I'm coming."