Language: English is not my first language.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroko no Basuke or any of its characters.

Chapter 23

Taiga walked in the group of his friends and Kagetora through the jungle. Soon Riko bid him farewell, as she had to fetch some leafs with her father. Kazunari told him once again, where he should go and Junpei handed the map of the cave to him, patting his shoulder as he and Teppei, who gave him a huge bag of food, also got another way to leave fails tracks. Ryouta threw an arm around his shoulder. "Kazunari and I will hunt some wild. That will make enough noise. The deers will run wild anyway and break lots of branches on their way. I think you should be pretty save." The blond grinned and waved, as the raven gave his final instructions to his best friend. "Be careful to never leave the path shown in the map. The cave is huge and I fear, once you take the wrong offshoot, you will be lost in there forever. It is really risky to do that, but we couldn't think of another plan for you and the Aomine guy to hide and move at the same time."

Kazunari then, stepped close to Taiga and hugged him tight. "I will miss you buddy. Be safe and make sure to come back one day."

The redhead was baffled, "Oi Kaz, you behave like we will never see each other again."

The raven drew back, "But it is like that, right? Our tribe's are enemies. Once both of you are gone, even more. I currently can't think of how we could deal with a furious Raion and a wild Aomine chieftain.", he said, hanging his head.

"It's alright, Kaz. You all did already so much for me." Taiga laid a hand on his friends shoulder and squeezed tight. "Thank you. And who knows? Maybe it will work out and I can come back with him."

They locked their gazes one last time, until Ryouta reminded them that time was working against them. "Be safe."

The redhead nodded. "Take care."

With those last words the friends parted, not knowing when they would see each other again.

Since everyone had witnessed the fight with his father over the marriage with Masako, they had changed the plan in the short time they had left until his departure. Now, Taiga and Daiki would go further into the cave, where none of them ever went and that only based on an old map Kazunari had found in his father's belongings. Certainly, the redhead didn't feel very comfortable with going into unknown terrain, but somehow his bigger fear was, that the bluenette wouldn't approve.

That the blue-haired male wouldn't come, was out of question for Taiga and so he strolled a bit more lighthearted, but with steady steps forward. He was currently in such a good mood, that he wanted to do somersaults, like the million butterflies in his belly.

Spurting a stupid grin on his face, he walked out of some tall bushes and right into Tatsuya, his selfmade-brother.

"Uhmpf ...", they both groaned, laying on their backs on the ground and held their heads.

"What the … Taiga!", Tatsuya had recovered first and his joyful exclamation echoed through the forest.

The redhead looked completely dumbfounded, back and forth between his brother and the woman standing close by. When the ox stamped impatient with his feet, he snapped out of it and stood up, only to be clutched tightly by lithe strong arms.

"Long time not seen. How are you? It's nice that you came to pick us up. Masako was already a little impatient here." The raven-hair man leaned back and smiled at the still silent redhead. "What's up? Have you swallowed your tongue?", he chuckled. "Or are you so captured by Masako's beauty?"

"Tatsuya!", she growled and out of nowhere pointed a long wooden stick at both men. "Only to warn you, I will use this if you sprout more nonsense."

"Haha, there she goes again.", the raven patted Taiga on his shoulder and turn on his heels to grab the rope of the ox again. "Lets hurry up! I want to reach the village before dusk."

The child on the ox's back stared at the red-haired male, as the animal passed him by.

'Tatsuya. Masako. And a kid. Oh, shit!'

"Uhm, Tatsuya. Wait a moment!" Taiga caught up to them and grabbed the other males arm. "I'm not here to fetch you. I was on my way to …", he averted his eyes and closed his mouth. He couldn't tell his "big brother", where he was going to. The muscles in his cheek corded, but he had made up his mind to meet the bluenette. He couldn't simply draw back now.

He sighed, "Can I have a word with Masako? Alone?" He nodded over to the woman with the long black hair, who looked curiously at him with her blackish eyes. "Ah! Sure, no problem. I will wait further ahead with Ako-chan." Tatsuya cracked an eyebrow at him, but didn't pry into him. He had already guessed that something was up, when the plea for his cousin's hand was delivered.

Masako looked pretty indifferent at the redhead standing before her. She had propped one of her hand to her hip, the other held loosely the long stick. "What is it, you want to tell me?" She refused to be intimidated by Taiga's size, since she already had too much experience with big, loud mouthed men.

"Uhm … you see …", on the other hand, Taiga felt intimidated by the older woman and couldn't quite grasp the phrases he wanted to tell her. "Hurry up! I'm tired and so is Ako-chan. We want to quickly reach the village."

"Ah, yes!" Out of surprise, he stood now at attention, not meeting those piercing black eyes. Instead he fixed his gaze somewhere over her head and spoke fast. "You see, I still have something to do, before our marriage. Currently, I don't know how long it will take, but I believe we can meet in a few days again." There it was out. It wasn't the truth and Taiga felt guilty about giving her false hope. But the situation had caught him off guard and therefore he couldn't think of something else without hurting her. She didn't deserve this, hence the white lie.

"Is that so? Well, if you need to do it, then go on. We will see you in a few days." That was all of her reaction and he stared disbelieving at her. Before she could go to Tatsuya, Taiga stepped closer and lean slightly down. "Could you please keep it a secret, that you two … three met me here? I would appreciate that.", he whispered beside her ear, hoping that she wouldn't ask why.

She shot him a quizzical look, but nodded in agreement. Young boys these days had their own reasons and at the moment she only wanted to sit down and eat something good, after their long journey.

The redhead looked after them and waved, as they continued to move to the village. He also noticed the questioning gaze in Tatsuya's eyes, but showed his back and got back on his own path.

What none of them had noticed thought, were the now withdrawing midnight-blue eyes, which had overlooked the whole get together.

Daiki had been in earshot, when Taiga bumped into the raven-haired male. He was following the redhead since a while, without him realizing it. The bluenette was surprised himself, at how fast he had caught up on time, after he had battled out his feelings and decided to still meet the redhead, to ask him directly what was going on. He didn't really know, why he made the choice to trail him, but now was glad that he did so.

Fury was burning in his guts and it took all his self-control, to not fly out of the bushes and break the redhead's nose. 'Doing something before the marriage' and 'Believing that he would met the woman in only a few days', set Daiki off track. Up until hearing those words, he had tried to persuade himself, that everything he had overheard from the Kagami chieftain and the men, was somehow a misunderstanding. But now hearing it from the redhead's own mouth and how he had leaned down and kissed the woman, was too much.

Taiga would learn a lesson for life. No one gave a man from the Aomine clan the run-around.

No one.

What Daiki earlier couldn't see from his observation spot, was that Taiga hadn't kissed the woman. But now that it had came to this, there was no telling how it would end.

The old woman gazed at her great grandson and smiled lightly. "Did something good happen to you, Seijuuro?" She dropped her golden eyes to the roots she was currently peeling, as always trying to maintain a normal conversation, even if she knew in advance what had taken place.

The dual-colored eyes looked at her and Seijuuro, also as always said, "Why don't you ask, what you really want to know?"

It was a normal kind of banter between them and made the old woman always smile.

"Do you like her?"

Some things were clear, others remained hidden from her knowing eyes. And she still liked, even after all the years, to go the long way when it came to matters of the heart.

"Yes, I do. But you knew that already.", Seijuuro said matter of factly and put the peeled potatoes into the hot water, which was already boiling over the fire. He stirred them a bit around and waited for the next question.

"So, when is the wedding?", his great grandmother shot him an amused look and cut the roots into small pieces.

"Didn't you skip some main parts just now?", he looked indifferently at the whirling potatoes and poured some salt over them.

"Well, no. I know most of it anyway, you know?", the roots also wandered into the pot.

"I know. And it's not so far away. Three to five weeks from now on.", the magenta-haired male began to skin the hare, he had caught earlier.

"That's fast!", the fake surprise in her voice could be clearly heard and Seijuuro's eyebrow twitched slightly.

"Our first child will be named Sentarou.", he put the cleaned viscera into the soup and took his ax from his waist belt.

"Oh, you got a problem there son. Your wife will not like that name for her first born daughter." Spices wandered into the hot broth and added to the already delicious scent.

Seijuuro bit his lower lip, while he divided the hare. He was annoyed, that he'd been wrong and his yellow eye sparkled indignantly.

"Don't mind, don't mind. You will grasp it one day." She smiled at him and put a soup filled spoon to her mouth, to taste the food.

"Oh …" Seijuuro's heterochromatic eyes looked up at her sudden quiet exclamation. His great grandmother's eyes had gone white and stared into nothing, still holding the wooden spoon to her lips.

He stood up and lead her hand slightly away, as to not let the hot soup burn her.

It took her a while to come back, from where ever she had been. "Sometimes fate plays a sinister game.", her voice was hoarse, her face grim.

"We need to move fast. Can't let this escalate." She put the spoon down and seated herself comfortably on the with moss overgrown phylum, which laid before the bonfire. "But we still have time to eat.", she sighed cozily. "Put the remainings also into the broth. We don't have time to dry the flesh."

"Isn't it your policy, to not interfere with fate?", Seijuuro mused out with arms folded over his chest.

The old woman laughed and winked at him. "Well, you know? Fate isn't the only thing I see." As no further explanation followed, the young man completed his given task and soon they could fill their stomachs with a tasty meal.

Before they started to move out, the old woman stroked over the big head of a spotted owl. "Can't forget to send him his daily prediction." She grinned toothy and bound a small piece of wood, in which she had carved symbols, to the owl's leg and let her fly.

"Masahiro, chieftain! We still have no word or trace of your son. The trackers do their best, but someone has done a great deal of work to lead us astray." The man stiffened, when he heard the ominous growl of his chieftain, "Tetsuya."

"That can only mean one thing.", Masahiro stood up and walked to the entrance of his tent, ignoring the shudder of the messenger. "Pull all men together. Fully armed. We move out at dawn. I think the Kagami tribe and my son need a lesson."

"Understood." The man hurried away and Masahiro clenched his fist. He wouldn't tolerate any more resistance to his rules. May his wife say, what she wanted, but if he let this farce go on, he would lose his face as the chieftain of the Aomine tribe and he couldn't let that happen. If he couldn't even control his own children, how could the citizens of his clan believe that he could lead them well? The Kagami tribe was anyway a thorn in his flesh, he was eager to pull. This way he could kill two birds with one stone hit and bring his confused son back to his senses.

Tetsuya on the other hand, would get his rightful punishment. Masahiro had thought of it for a long time. But even if he loved his oldest son, he saw him not fit for the chieftain position. And now with his lately wrongdoings, he had forfeited his birthright.

That was another reason, why he needed for Daiki to snap out of his insanity, in order to obtain the chieftain position in the tribe. Once his scheme would have taken place, even his wife couldn't align anything against it.

TBC