Language: English is not my first language.

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

Chapter 25

Heavy rainclouds chased over the dark sky. They piled up, collapse, bunched up against a high mountain peak and sloshed back to the valley. Still, it wasn't raining heavily, but what brewed together over the jungle would drive humans and animals into their homes and keep them trapped for quite a while.

Secluded from all that, Taiga and Daiki walked deeper and deeper into the convoluted cave. They were long past the third offshot and now needed to depend on the accuracy of the map. Once in a while water dripped down from the roof and made the ground quite slippery. Both walked as careful as possible in the dim light that spread from the torch.

"If this is correct, we will soon be in a small grotto. We should take a rest there." The bluenette grunted in approval, highly aware that Taiga was walking really close to him, to get more light for identifying the lines on the map. The redhead sighed and put the thin layer of bark away. Grunts and nodding was all he got from his blue-haired companion in the last hours and everytime he tried to figure out why it was like this, he got shoved against a wall and the question was kissed right out of him. Resigned, he had given up on asking. The bluenette was completely uncommunicative, very different from what he had in remembrance. But the intensity of the kisses was still the same and so he laid low for now, not wanting to get another bump on his back or head from being shoved around. Even if he felt upset and wanted to fight back. The slippery ground, narrow transitions and useless arguments could be their death down here. So for once, he used his head before breaking a stupid fight and simply shut up. He had time enough to interrogate the pighead later.

Rounding the next corner, a small grotto sprawled out before them. To the left side it had a tiny basin of water. Everything else was blank greyish-black stone. Nothing comfortable, but they had enough space to rest and Daiki confirmed that the water was drinkable. They refilled their bladderworts and sat down around the torch, which Taiga had laid upon a few small rocks to secure it from getting wet.

The redhead opened his food package and broke one of the small breads in half. "You want some? I made it myself." The midnight eyes, which had watched each of his moves, ignored the offered bread and stared unblinking at his face. "What is it? You're acting really weird. Cut it out!" Taiga had enough of Daiki's stupidity. But before he could rage on, a low growl from the blue-haired male stopped him. "Stop pretending, that you don't know why I act like that. Is it fun to play innocent? What do you get out of it, in leading me in here? Will you abandon me, once I lose my sense of direction? Did you really think I wouldn't notice, that the plan differed from the original one? Since when did you and your rotten clan plan this? What's up Taiga, no come back? Did I burst your bubble of lies?" With every question, the bluenette had inched closer and was now hovering over the redhead, who half laid on the floor with his shoulder blades and head pressed against the stone wall. Daiki was so intimidating, that Taiga automatically had crawled backwards away from him. Now he found himself in an even more vulnerable state, with his body caged between tanned arms and legs.

The ice cold wrath, which sprayed from the midnight-blue eyes of the Aomine clan's man, hit Taiga completely off guard and he could only stammer out the first question what came to his shocked mind. "W-what're y-you talking about?"

"Yeah, what I'm talking about? He trained you pretty well. All your innocent acting, stumbling accidentally into our territory and making me fall for you. How long did it take until you had it down in your flesh and bones? Is it fun to destroy families? Is that, what you learned from your bastard father? How to pry families apart and let it look like they're at fault themselves? Nee~ is it fun, Taiga?" Daiki had leaned down and hissed the last sentence into the dumbfounded redheads ear, before he bite hard down on the auricle, drawing blood.

Taiga screeched and jerked away from the bluenette's mouth. He clapped a hand over his bleeding ear and stared wide eyed at the handsome face, which was now twisted in a grimace of fury, anger and murderous intent. He didn't know what to do. Everything hit him completely unprepared. A shiver of fear ran over his back and even if he had such a strong body, at the moment he was paralyzed and could only do so much as suppress a whimper, which formed in his throat. His eyes squeezed shut, as the tanned man leaned down again. A wet tongue was pressed between his fingers, which still were over his left ear and the tip licked away the blood, which trickled out between his digits. The gesture was almost gentle and goosebumps formed all over his body.

"Did you know that pain and pleasure can go hand in hand? I can give you both. And since I already know that you like pleasure. Now I'm curious how you will like pain." The low growling voice left his ear and suddenly his body was pulled up and shoved hard forward, to the edge of the little water basin. He wanted to fight back, scream at the bluenette and get him back to his senses. But before he could even fathom out what to do first, a hard kick to his popliteal fossa, brought him down to his knees in front of the water. He groaned out in pain and stopped his fall with his hands, to not double over.

His breath stuttered, as he watched the tall man over his shoulder. "Daiki, what-?!"

"Stop pretending!", the bluenette roared and grabbed the redhead's neck with his strong hand, pressing his face down to the black water surface. "You will learn, what it means to anger me. Don't think I will have mercy with you."

Taiga fought. He propped himself against the strong pressure on his neck, grabbed one of Daiki's ankles and tried to unbalance his standing. His knees hurt, but he ignored it and tried to let himself fall to the side, to get away from the fearsome beast beside him. But nothing worked. His arm, which held the ankle, was swept away beneath him and the hand, what had held his neck in a dead grip, pulled his other arm painfully to his back. The bluenette was fast, too fast for the kneeling redhead. Now standing behind him, securing both of his arms with a leather band behind his back, Daiki snarled into his ear once more. "Prepare yourself Taiga. You won't get away from me!"

Shintarou squinted his eyes and rolled the small piece of wood once again between his long fingers, inspecting the carvings. "This makes no sin.", he mumbled again. "For the past 3 days, I had bad luck. But I always had my lucky item with me. Furthermore, those carvings … why is it the same since three days?" Something like this never happened before and he already felt upset, that the past days were full of misfortune for him.

On the first day, he had walked right into a nettle field and his skin was still itching from it. On the second day he stepped into a swamp and needed to be pulled out by Atsushi. It still popped a vein at his temple only thinking about how he had hung in the taller man's grasp, dangling in the air. But he had that goddamn hawk all the time by his side, so what exactly was wrong? Well, the carvings said hawk, eye and body. So he assumed, that he should hold a hawk without a cap close to his body. They had a few of those rare species, but still, without a cap it was very dangerous and his underarm didn't look all that good with all those bandages wrapped around it. The hawk had found his arm very delicious on the third day and hacked a few times into it, until his friends could get the animal away from him. He sighed and looked at the bird, which currently sat in his cage and plucked small meat chunks from a mouse.

"Shintarou-kun, what are you sighing for?" The greenette jolted upon hearing that light indifferent voice and hissed the guys name, after his jumping heart had calmed down. "Tetsuya." He clutched his large hand around the little wooden stick and peered up at the small man. "It's not your business."

"It is my business, if you could get further injured.", the light-blue-haired male deadpanned and squatted down beside the greenette. "Let me see that." He pointed to the closed hand and held out his own. Rolling his eyes, Shintarou obeyed and put his daily prediction stick into the small palm. "Hawk, eye, human. A quiz?" The greenette's head shoot up. "What did you just say?"

"Um ... hawk, eye, human. Why?" Winter-blue eyes observed him quizzically. "That's it … or has to be. Now I know why my lucky item doesn't work."

"I don't know what you are getting at." Tetsuya handed the wooden stick back to the tall man. "I interpreted it as body. But if it's human, it has a different meaning, nanodayo."

"Which is?" Sometimes the oldest chieftain son found it really hard to follow, what the son of their healer was trying to say.

"We need to hurry. Is there a way to move faster than your father?" The greenette stood up and grabbed the cage with his useless ex-lucky-item. "I don't think so. Maybe if we walk around them at night. I will ask Satsuki, if she certainly knows the way to the Kagami camp. If so, we can stop following my father and his men." Tetsuya walked off to find his sister, but Shintarou was already with is mind elsewhere. "Why him?"

"I see, that's what happened. Now I also understand, why he didn't accompanied us back." Tatsuya was sitting among Taiga's friends and stared into the small fire in front of them. "How is Masako doing? Isn't she upset?" Teppei plugged the cooked bread from the stick and closed his eyes in pleasure. "Rinnosuke's bread is still the best."

"Ah, no. Masako is fine with it. She said, that men have to do what they need to do, or something like that. Furthermore, she doesn't know yet, that Taiga won't be back and that their marriage is off."

"I guess Raion will tell her. After Kazunari's dad talked to him, he piped quiet down and my dad said, that he currently reflects on his actions." Riko rubbed the back of the raven-haired male beside her, who wasn't himself anymore since he had learned, what he had done with passing on of the old map. "Kazunari, it will be fine. You will see."

"Yeah, right. That idiot is too stupid to get lost in that cave." Junpei tried to encourage the broken young man, but by the angry look Riko shoot him, he guessed that it wasn't the right time to pull jokes like that.

The following silence was broken by an excited voice, "Look, look what I found! Isn't she cute?" Ryouta burst into their circle. His hair looked completely chaotic, standing in all possible and impossible directions. Scratch marks showed on one of his cheeks, but he had a goofy smile on his face, as he held out a spotted owl, whose feathers looked quite ruffled and the surrounding friends could have sworn, that the animal rolled her eyes at the blonde. She pecked at the bubbly males hand, who let her go with a wail and fluttered over to land before Kazunari's feet. Hopping forward and holding out on of her clawed feet, she laid her head to the side and watched the raven with knowing eyes.

"Hey beautiful, what do you have there?" Kazunari leaned forward. His forefinger rubbed gently over her feather soft head and fondled under the sharp beak without fear. She called out a deep tu-whit tu-whoo and waited for the silver eyed male to pull the delivery from her ankle. Once Kazunari had unbind the small bark roll, the owl rubbed her head against his seine, hopped three times, spread her swing and flew away.

"What was that?" Junpei asked flabbergasted, while the others already peered over Kazunari's shoulder to look what was engraved on the small bark roll.

Wrinkled hands smoothed out the plumage of the spotted owl. "Oh dear, don't be upset. He has a tough test before him, of which he still doesn't know. And his overgrown-puppy-behaviour ... well, he will need it to get what he wants. Forgive him." She patted the owls head and sent her away to rest.

"Chieftain, if we hold this tempo, we will arrive in two days. But when I look at the sky, I get a bad feeling. Don't you want to reconsider? An attack in the rain can go very badly for us." The oldest and best scout of the Aomine clan tried, not for the first time, to get Masahiro to rethink again.

"No! No matter what you say, we'll not turn back. I'm going to take this clan once and for all from this world." The grim expression on the Aomine chieftains face and the smoldering wrath in his eyes, let the old man grit his teeth. This whole thing was stupid. Attacking a whole clan in their own camp and this in the middle of the rainy season, where no one knew for sure, when and how much water would fall from the sky, was just insane. But he also knew, how stubborn his chieftain was. So, he saved his breath and got up to prepare for the night. They would only rest for a few hours and his old bones needed all the rest they could get.

"Quiet now." Tetsuya's voice was only a silent whisper between the bushes, as the small group consisting of him, Shintarou, Atsushi and Satsuki, crawled over the damp ground alongside the night camp of his father.

They had decided to try and move in the night. It was risky, but the only way to be faster than his dad. They needed to warn the Kagami clan and hopefully dispel all the misunderstandings their tribes had over the past years.

Once they left the camp behind, their moving was set to a hard and strenuous pace. But no one complaint, since they all knew, what would happen if they were too late.

TBC